The Second Battle of Britain - a Soviet Sealion

Coevorden was the III US Corps main ammunition supply point with prestocks is for all III US Corps POMCUS sets plus 2AD FWD. Thats a thirty day supply of ammunition lost. No real way to make that up short of sealift.

I wonder what’s happening in the US Army/USAF nuclear custody units? Most of the North German garrison locations for lance/luftwaffe Pershing/artillery shells/adm have been overrun, and it looks like the pace of advance may have captured field sites as well. I don’t recall if Buchel has been overrun, but Volkel is definitely threatened. I’m assuming the USAF is evacuating their munitions from their own bases, my question is for the dual key munitions.

Also, with Heilbronn/Swabisch Gmünd overrun, the US Pershing’s have lost their garrison area and the Wuscheim GLCMs have the enemy close as well- they can shift dispersal areas west, but risk loss of the base infrastructure.

At what point will NATO (not France) decide they are at the point of “use or lose” with their theatre deterrent?

We did not do it with the Germans came visiting in 1940, but so far i do not know of any Dutch plans to breach the Dykes if the Soviets come rolling in.

Well i am trying to find out more information, might takes some time, but as far as i know, there where no plans to blow up the dykes as that would effect hundreds of thousands of people.

131 – Bridges over the Rhine


NATO had taken its eye of the ball when it came to the threat to a sudden Soviet descent into the Netherlands. There would be many who afterwards would say ‘I told you so’… though few could remember them saying that at the time. The country wasn’t lost though and those that had taken large parts of it were at the end of a long supply line. The fight for the territory of that NATO member was far from over, especially as water barriers gave NATO a temporary reprieve when it came to the Third Shock Army stalling at them. Not enough attention had been on the threatening situation there because it was regarded as a hypothetical. That morning, after permission for the use of nuclear weapons had been denied, where everyone’s eyes were focused upon was the Rhineland. The Soviets had come across overnight and in the early hours, establishing themselves multiple bridgeheads and continuing their attacks. Bonn had fallen and there were Soviet tank divisions pushing up against the Eifel region (with Belgium and also the Dutch Limburg on the other side) as well as making attacks northwards in the direction of Cologne while simultaneously driving south towards Koblenz. The First Guards Tank Army hadn’t been allowed to pause after achieving such a feat as getting over the Rhine: make three attacks in different directions, the commander was told. NATO gave them no let up as they tried to drive them back over the river. Elements of four NATO corps commands were active in the area. The French I Corps – near beaten – was here and they were joined by the French III Corps (which came into the Rhineland from Belgium & Luxembourg), the Belgian I Corps (moving out of their own country) and the US III Corps (arriving by air to link up with pre-positioned equipment). Further Soviet forces arrived too with the fourth formation of the First Guards Tank Army showing up – the 20th Tank Division had come from Poland – and the Poles too had sent paratroopers from their 6th Airborne Brigade. There were a lot of opposing troops, plus a lot of armour, active in a small area. The fighting which they undertook through the day saw civilians once again caught up in a war zone.

Down the course of the Rhine linking the two sides of the river which the First Guards Tank Army controlled, their engineers had thrown over it dozens upon dozens of temporary bridges. As they put them into operation, NATO was soon to knock them out of action. Sending reinforcements over the river was only one element of the huge undertaking to allow crossings over the Rhine: the Soviets needed to supply their troops on the other side. NATO used aircraft, distant artillery firing at range and also tactical ballistic missiles: Lances were fired by the armies of several countries. The use of such weapons here on their own soil (all conventionally armed but capable of fielding a nuclear one) showed the desperation of NATO to knock out those bridges over the Rhine. Those Lances were fired from over in Belgium, arching through the sky to slam home. Soviet SAMs engaged attacking aircraft and their counter-battery fire went after NATO heavy guns. Stopping the missile strikes proved almost impossible though. They were facing the same issue as NATO was when in defence facing such weapons: there was little they could do to stop them. As the bridges were up, to be then put down, the war raged on the western side of the river. The French I Corps held the approaches to Koblenz and entering the fight on their flank was now their fellow Frenchman with the III Corps. The 2nd Armored & 8th Infantry Divisions rushed forwards, reaching the Rhine soon enough. They moved along the course of the river though slower now that they were in battle and face-to-face with Soviet tankers who gave them quite the fight. The Belgians came through the Eifel. Their I Corps had their 1st Infantry Division as well as an extra combat brigade (it was in peacetime assigned to the 16th Armored Division, which was fighting far away to the east) and they fought another one of those Soviet tank divisions. The Belgians couldn’t get down to the Rhine like the French did but achieved a lot up in the high ground nearby. Around Monchengladbach, POMCUS sites here had seen the first American troops flown out on REFORGER missions arrive. The 2nd Armored Division had lost its forward-deployed brigade out on the North German Plain but what formed up here in the Rhineland was still a strong two-brigade force. They were joined too by those national guardsmen from Tennessee’s 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment (who took the stored equipment for the 3rd Cav’). Each unit faced chemical attacks as they got ready but carried on outfitting for war here in West Germany. They were supposed to be the lead unit of the US III Corps with the 1st Cavalry Division and the 49th Armored Division joining them afterwards. The Americans had believed that their first fight would be in Westphalia, not here in the Rhineland. They saw action near Cologne and then the crossroads town of Kurpen too when the Soviet tank division they faced tried to get around their flank. The 278th Cav’ did exceptionally well in combat. They’d spent months training in California at Fort Irwin and put all that they’d learnt to the test. The 25th Tank Division was destroyed by the Americans. Polish paratroopers were met afterwards on the outskirts of Bonn. The intention was to retake it but then there came the issue of what was happening behind them.

The Third Shock Army assigned division, the 47th Guards Tank, which didn’t go into the Netherlands but instead crossed the Rhine at Rees & Wesel, was suddenly threatening not just the Southern Netherlands but the US III Corps rear. Fighting on the Maas with the British and the Dutch was the Soviet’s main priority but they were engaging West German reservists rather close to the Kevelaer ammunition depot that was an outlying part of the Monchengladbach POMCUS set-up. The 2nd Armored Division’s 1st Brigade was redirected there with haste, turning about on its heels and passing north-south through the horde of civilian refugees moving east-west from out of the Ruhr. Kevelaer had been emptied of some of its many stored munitions but much of that was still there. If it had been lost, the III Corps wouldn’t have been able to fight for any longer than today because it had ammunition for the corps’ artillery as well as the Tennessee cavalry unit too. American tanks and mechanised infantry got there in time and fought the Soviets elsewhere in that very northern part of the Rhineland near to the Netherlands. There was contact made with the French 10th Armored Division (temporary detached from its parent corps) to join with the NATO fight on the Maas north of Venlo as a full link up with allies was achieved. Things were looking up. In the late evening, the US Army took the Wesel crossing site that the Soviets had made. The bridges here were rode across by American scouts who didn’t stray too far back over the eastern side but did what damage they could when encountering the enemy. Celebrations about the success achieved here was soon spoilt by the terrible news for the III Corps which came out of the Northern Netherlands. The 49th Armored Division wouldn’t be fighting with them because it had been lost before it could form up. For the Soviets, as the day ended, the First Guards Tank Army was in a lot of trouble. They received their reinforcements but it wasn’t going to be enough. More men and tanks were needed here or NATO was going to liberate at that had been taken on the western side of the Rhine.


Away to the east, the British had been holding the Upper Weser since the war’s first day. The 3rd Armoured Division, joined by a West German panzergrenadier brigade, had stopped Soviet and East German troops with the Twentieth Guards Army and then held them in-place. The immediate flanks hadn’t been turned for those on the Weser here deep in the German countryside. They had a forward position which could be used as a bridgehead for NATO counteroffensives to the north of the south. It had been to join the British on their left flank that the Dutch I Corps had been heading before it was lost while there were those forward Belgians to the right. Disaster struck the Dutch just after the British faced a three-division attack with another one going after the Belgians too. Ogarkov had had his First Western Front commander relieve the general in-charge of the Twentieth Guards Army and put someone in command who wouldn’t make a mess of things as the marshal believed that general had. Eager to impress, the new army commander threw a massed offensive forward using Twentieth Guards Army who hadn’t yet to see combat. Bridges were thrown over the Weser. The British sought to contain them but the Soviets kept on coming. Tearing into the Belgians was the 90th Guards Tank Division too. With what happened in the Netherlands too, this whole forward position became untenable: no one could be sure that the First Guards Tank Army would be pushed back as far it was too. A withdrawal was ordered. It would be a fighting withdrawal, but NATO forces here would still fall back. The British, Belgians and West Germans all started to pull back in the direction of the Ruhr. The intention was to make the Soviets pay for every inch of ground that they took. It was a big boast to make and impossible to achieve yet it was still tried as the withdrawal got going.

Down near Frankfurt, the Americans had no intention of pulling back. The US V Corps undertook an offensive today instead off withdrawing like their allies were elsewhere. The 8th Infantry Division had another go at the Soviet’s 20th Guards Motor Rifle Division on the north-facing left while the 57th Guards Motor Rifle Division was attacked by the US Army’s 3rd Armored Division to the east. The Blackhorse Cav’ – beaten up but still capable – was in the thick of each fight. Out of all of NATO’s pre-war deployed forces, the V Corps was still in the best shape. They’d only withdrawn previously when they had to and wouldn’t do so any longer. The Eighth Guards Army had what was left of the rest of its remaining strength elsewhere and these units of theirs here were on their own. The 20th Guards Division had a bad morning; the 57th Guards Division had an even worse afternoon. The Americans ripped apart anyone they could get at and got into rear areas. They ran into a mass of fire from anti-tank guns (deployed for the blocking roles) and also drew a lot of air attention but they won the fights they took part in. However, it was all for nothing in a strategic sense. Events elsewhere in West Germany demanded that reinforcements and external support was directed elsewhere. Those two Soviet divisions were already effectively written off by higher command as offensive forces and, while expected to do better in defence than they did, weren’t completely wiped out. The V Corps REFORGER-assigned reinforcements deploying from the United States were the 4th Infantry Division plus two independent brigades (the 194th Armored & 197th Infantry). POMCUS sites for all of them were across in the southern part of the Rhineland, near to the Saar: many US Air Force bases were over there too. The 197th Infantry Brigade was in the Gulf, leading to the 30th Infantry Brigade of national guardsmen from North Carolina taking over their mission, but none of the brigades nor that division was yet to fully form up. Others, assigned elsewhere, had been given higher priority in trans-Atlantic flights. There were soldiers breaking out the gear but the Pirmasens area was another big chemical target for the Soviets just like the airbases (Hahn, Ramstein, Sembach, Spangdahlem and Zweibrucken) nearby were too. In a couple more days, the V Corps reinforcements would be ready to start seeing action: just not yet.

There were POMCUS sites around Mannheim as well. These were for the 1st Infantry Division. Their forward brigade was Bavaria-based but the rest of the division flew from Kansas with high priority aboard aircraft. It was today when the 1st Infantry Division was supposed to be ready to start seeing action, fighting with the US VII Corps. However, the VII Corps was in many ways no more. The 1st Armored & 3rd Infantry Divisions had been lost in (respectively) Bavaria and then Baden–Wurttemberg. That pre-war deployed brigade of the 1st Infantry was still active, down in southern Bavaria with the Canadians and the West Germans, but everyone else was gone: the destruction went beyond combat troops with much of the corps supporting assets lost too. Soviet forces were now advancing on Mannheim. They were heading for this city beside the Rhine by way of Heidelberg. Fearing the worst, the divisional commander didn’t want to be under VII Corps command in such a situation where almost everyone else had been beaten when they had been beforehand. The morale collapse and casualty count was horrendous. There was no choice in this for him though. The Soviet’s newly arriving Eighth Tank Army had taken over from their worn-down Thirty–Eighth Army. Down the course of the Neckar River valley they sent one regiment of their 254th Motor Rifle Division but the majority of that Hungary-based division followed the nearby autobahn. Outnumbered, the 1st Infantry Division might have been but they had air support and there were plenty of West German Territorials still around to impede the Soviet twin attack. The 254th Division came off badly from the engagements and couldn’t even get to Heidelberg, let alone the objective of Mannheim. That American divisional commander found himself pleased to be proven wrong in his fears of impending doom. The rest of the Eighth Tank Army was elsewhere and fighting the French II Corps. Stuttgart was behind them (not directly occupied but penetrated by motor rifle columns) and they went towards the Rhine through the Karlsruhe–Pforzheim–Baden-Baden area. Their 93rd Guards Motor Rifle Division led the 19th Guards Tank Division to reach the Rhine before nightfall. Many French troops fell back in reasonable order over the Rhine into France itself. Others didn’t though. French paratroopers – their 11th Parachute Division – were still fighting in West Germany alongside their own armour and some tanks from beaten II Corps units. Stretching in a line from Baden-Baden to Calw, entrance for the Soviets into the Black Forest region on the eastern side of the Rhine was delayed. The 13th Guards Tank Division was an opponent which should have overcome the French here but NATO air strikes didn’t allow any more than two regiments from that formation to get anywhere near the frontlines. The French pulled back slowly, counterattacking soon enough too to retake ground lost. It couldn’t go on forever yet it would through tonight. They weren’t just protecting the French border from being reached – Strasbourg was in the middle there! – but providing an avenue of escape for NATO forces over in southern Bavaria.

Without nuclear attacks being made to halt the Soviets (France’s chief of the defence staff had wanted to target the Eighth Tank Army), the whole NATO forward position in Bavaria stretching all the way to the Danube was untenable. This had been territory proudly held onto by the West German II Corps – they had taken the brigades of Americans and Canadians who’d withdrawn towards them under command – but they couldn’t keep it anymore if they wanted to survive. The Eighth Tank Army was closing in upon the French border. At any moment Thirty–Eighth Army units could strike southwards to get in behind the II Corps to stop an escape. All the Soviets had to do was reach the frontiers of either Austria or Switzerland and the supply link, and way out, would be lost. Then there was too the Czechoslovak Army. It had mobilised slowly but was now crossing into Bavaria. When they reached the frontlines, a frontal attack by them would surely see NATO lose all its troops that had held on here if that rear-area cut off wasn’t made first. The decision should have been a military one but it became a political issue. Munich was inside that area of southern Bavaria held and would have to be abandoned. Wörner had earlier talked his allies out of making his nation a nuclear battlefield. He had argued that when NATO got its full armies in the field, territory could be retaken. That argument was used against him when it came to Bavaria. How could NATO keep fighting if troops were cut off when they could join others arriving to later regain what was lost? He was loath to do it but he caved in. Many Territorial troops would stay behind as rear-guards but everyone else was given the order to cut and run. There was to no retreat back over the Rhine bridges into France though. The II Corps would continue to fight on West German soil, now in Baden–Wurttemberg. France was forming another corps command from reserve armoured divisions and Foreign Legion troops to link up with their paratroopers in the Black Forest. The goal would be to hold there, on the eastern side of the Rhine. Easy it wasn’t going to be to do but it was thought possible.

The Big Red One (1st ID(M)) commanding general at this time was MG Leonard Wishart III.  He doesn’t get much press, but as a LTC he led a battalion of the 1st Cavalry in 1971, recovering from an ambush to lead a three day fight against an entrenched NVA regiment (-) in a bunker complex, holding the field, extricating a trapped company, and recovering all casualties to include one MIA.  

By then, the Vietnam war didn’t get much good press, and the fight happened without any reporters present even though it was close to Saigon near Xuan Loc.  Accounts of the fight mention that the weather precluded much effective CAS (due to low ceiling) and the enemy AAA prevented direct reinforcement or CASEVAC.  In addition artillery was also periodically diverted to counter-battery NVA fires on Bien Hoa AB. So, mostly a one on one infantry fight.

Just the kind of experience to incline you to lead your division INTO the attacking enemy and seize a victory!

That does sound like just the right type of general to do that. That Soviet division out of Hungary got a taste of the Big Red One that didn't go down well. It meant that Frankfurt and its wider area remain in NATO hands as a big forward position that it will be hard to finish off unless much of the Rhineland is taken.




I'm not dismissing it out of hand... it just seems unlikely. The Dutch government will be surely opposed too!



Yep, things are still far from over. NATO is counterattacking and having success but there is a lot going on: overall the Soviets keep moving forward and the need is there to keep withdrawing so as to not get encircled.
Those British troops falling back to the Ruhr are the last of the pre-war deployed BAOR too: so many were lost early on. The news won't have been told to the public back home either.
It will take a lot to finish off France especially as the French have a big reserve pool and the Americans will flood more reinforcements through France. The war is creeping towards France though and there will be renewed pressure to go nuclear with that.


As said, my info was limited but I'm glad it was correct. Corrections are always welcome though!