The Second Battle of Britain - a Soviet Sealion

If the attack had gone off as planned, it would have fallen in 15 to 30 minutes. Completely destroying it is a bit of overkill but as the time went on and no attack came, they really went for it.
There were six airheads plotted for the attack though three of them - two airbases/airports and the heliport - were needed as the minimum. There were jets in the sky circling with paratroopers and RAF & NATO fighters. It was decided to call it off because those on the ground were showing no sign of contact and a hot reception party thus was expected. They still could have dropped but the plan built in the flexibility to abandon a dangerous landing if others were working. It probably would have been the best idea to go ahead regardless though. Those giving the higher orders in Moscow would have ordered the assault but tactical control was with the divisional commander who gives more of a damn about his people than the old men in Moscow do. You're right in what you say, but I went with a 'wave off' for that drop considering how other landings were meeting success.
Ah, fixed that mistake. Thanks.

138 – Link-ups


It wouldn’t be until much later in the day until Soviet troops moved against RAF Marham. There needed to a gathering of strength beforehand, the commander of the 76th Guards Airborne Division decided, because all indications showed that a strong defence was going to be mounted there. Forming that strong force to make a move in that direction, one away from the airheads being used, took time. There were issues throughout the day with bringing in his division to Britain. Enemy interference in the air and on the ground played a factor. There was a different kind of interference as well. This came from the arrival into Norfolk of a significant KGB presence who were able to exert more influence here in Britain upon the VDV than they did upon the Soviet Army over on the Continent.

Completing a link-up between the spread-out units of the invading forces was an urgent priority. The various sites were spread across the eastern and western sides of Norfolk. Incoming British countermoves were expected soon and the only way to stop them was by concentration of forces. Pre-invasion planning had identified how this was to be done though this had to be adapted post-landing due to how things had so far gone. To move about troops, equipment and stores was done through various means. The 76th Guards Division had yet to bring in much of its own transport though there was use made of what they captured. Military and civilian vehicles, plus also a few helicopters and light aircraft, were thus put to use. While in the process of making the link-ups, the enemy was encountered. None of the resistance was significant. However, it was there at a time when the Soviets could still be considered especially exposed. They fought with scattered British ground forces and had a few engagements with armed civilians too who chose to oppose them. Overwhelming force was used in response: this was no time for messing around. In the eastern half of the county, the airheads at RAF Coltishall and Norwich Airport were located near to each other north of the small city which was Norwich. North Denes Heliport was down the main road from Norwich, sitting next to the coast. The routes between all three were soon secured. On the ground and in the air, Soviet paratroopers moved about as they secured their positions. Their enemy were men from the Territorial Army and Home Service Force. These were reservists though well-motivated as they fought for their home country. What those Britons didn’t have were heavy weapons. They were also still on the back foot too because they weren’t able to concentrate in numbers. Away to the west, the two captured airbases at RAF Sculthorpe and RAF West Raynham were also close to one another. The connection between the two had been secured early on though there remained a wide distance between where the VDV were here and those to the east. That gap was a patch of countryside. There was a road link though things were easier by air. The Soviets were quick to make use of what helicopters they had. There were those big ones that had come across the North Sea – firstly Mi-6s though also a couple of the Mi-26s – but also some civilian ones taken from North Denes. Their own small- & medium-sized helicopters were ones which were being air-delivered by heavy-lift transport aircraft. During this link up between the eastern and western airheads, a detachment of men in one of those captured helicopters landed at RAF Swanton Morley. This facility came with a trio of grass runways – in very good condition though use subject to weather conditions – and facilities including a tower, hangars, accommodation blocks and fuel tanks. The RAF used the place for gliding operations for trainee pilots and Swanton Morley had also seen air shows take place here in recent years. No defenders were encountered by the men who came out of a Bristow Helicopters AS-332 Super Puma. The airfield was in Soviet hands properly once a convoy of captured trucks turned up bringing in more riflemen. This now secure location right in the middle of the county was in the hands of the 76th Guards Division by midday. From here, the link-up was completed.

Aircraft were still coming across from the Continent into the held airheads. There were large jet transports, medium-sized propeller-driven transports and also many light aircraft. Those aircraft came across with more and more of the division. It was an airlift which was opposed. The British and their allies may not be flying combat aircraft of their own from Norfolk anymore but they had airbases elsewhere near and far. Incoming aircraft were being shot down before they could deliver their cargoes while others were being hit on the way back out: while empty, they were unable to make a return. Soviet fighters were yet to be based on British soil. There was an intention to do so and preparations were underway to make that happen. However, before that could be done, what friendly fighter cover that there was had to come from held airbases over in the Netherlands. Flight time over Britain was restricted due to fuel concerns. The running tally of transports lost had long gone past the point where the total was alarming. Some especially valuable aircraft were lost as well. These were the big An-22s and Il-76s which were lost: these huge aircraft were irreplaceable. The Soviet Air Force had a few extra large air-freighters sitting across on the Continent at airbases back on the other side of the Iron Curtain. In East Germany and even Poland, there were almost a dozen An-124s waiting for orders to fly. These were supposed to bring outsized cargoes into Britain with strategic SAM systems being the first cargoes. These jets had yet to make the flight though. They wouldn’t come until the enemy air threat had been significantly lowered. Those air defences would be missed come later in the day. The VDV had its own SAMs but nothing with the same capability as the weapons which were held up in this delay.

The other aircraft which were getting through quickly delivered the majority of the personnel being sent on the war’s first day. The movement of men was relatively easy, especially when it came to the loading and unloading of them. Equipment and stores were a different issue. This was where things took time. Organisation issues with the logistics of the movement of all of this air freight cropped up when they weren’t supposed to. Each loss of cargo in-flight was a blow too. The equipment that was arriving was coming here to support the paratroopers in action. The 76th Guards Division was a fully mechanised unit like the rest of the VDV’s combat formations were. This meant that they had hundreds of tracked armoured vehicles. The BMD-1 infantry combat vehicles and BTR-D armoured personnel carriers all came by airlift. Over Central London, they had been parachuted in but that wasn’t the case here in Norfolk. Other armoured vehicles such as self-propelled mortars and rocket launchers – 2S9s and BM-21Vs – arrived to give fire support to the paratroopers. A battalion of Soviet Army tanks, T-62s from an airmobile unit, were assigned to support the Norfolk mission. These took up much room on cramped transports and there were important weight considerations with such loads as a couple of dozen main battle tanks. There was heavy artillery too: D-20 howitzers. Trucks to act as prime movers for those towed guns were flown in. There were other towed heavy weapons – anti-tank guns, anti-aircraft guns – which needed vehicles to support them. Furthermore, there were many more light vehicles for a whole host of roles which came in too for used by the VDV as well as the Soviet Air Force too when they got operational on occupied soil. Helicopters came over with Mi-24 attack helicopters forming air cargoes as well as the ones for transport. Man-portable weapons were flown in with machine guns, mortars, rocket-launchers and missile-launchers. For all of the weaponry, ammunition was needed. Over the North Sea that all came… and there was a lot of it. Fuel was transported in deployable bladders. Food, medical supplies, radios etc came into Britain as well. There were stocks of barbed wire, mines and engineering tools. Mobile radars and radio antenna were sent. The undertaking was huge. Military exercises had practised all of this, but this was ‘live’ event and one which was opposed. On it went despite the opposition. This airlift had to continue otherwise the mission would be quickly over for those already here.

The airheads used at first for the arrival of transport aircraft were Coltishall and West Raynham. Norwich Airport was somewhere that there was a delay in using due to the burning fuel there causing so much smoke. At Sculthorpe, there had been an early attack made on the very first arriving transport with mortars. Ground operations had to secure the area first. Norwich Airport eventually came on-line though there remained problems with enemy opposition around Sculthorpe. Pre-invasion plans had called for a securing of a wide perimeter around each airhead to counter attacks on aircraft when they were flying low – in or out – and also when they were on the ground. Paratroopers in the immediate area searched for British forces and there was also to be patrols flown by light helicopters with spotters. A gunfight in the early afternoon between the VDV riflemen there and the enemy drew prisoners which were taken back to Sculthorpe. Those POWs were Americans, not Britons. A squadron of US Air Force Security Police had arrived at the airbase when the F-111s had and they had brought with them some M-29 mortars: they’d taken these out of the airbase when they’d been forced to withdraw this morning. A Spetsnaz officer took charge of the interrogation of the prisoners: the Soviet Airborne men let their comrade do his worst. Some information was yielded from the prisoners and off the riflemen went to act on it. They came across the Americans again and overcame them. Sculthorpe was declared open to incoming flights again. The first transport, an An-12, arrived safely and so did an An-26 behind it. These were medium transports. The third incoming arrival was a larger Il-76. One of these had been blown up earlier by mortars when carrying ammunition. This one had armoured personnel carriers aboard. No one shot as it when it came down nor when it was on the runway. Yet, once on the taxiway, there was the crump crump crump of incoming mortars though. Those were walked into the jet – it was a repeat of earlier – with the last of the trio making a hit on the cockpit. Sculthorpe was at once re-closed to incoming transports. There’d be hell to pay for those involved in giving the all-clear but also the captured prisoners as well. Not long afterwards, West Raynham also came very close to being closed as well. Coming into land was an Il-62, an airliner in Interflug colours but being used by the Soviet Air Force to bring in one hundred and fifty plus personnel to support ongoing ground operations at West Raynham. No one shot at the jet but it suffered a tyre burst upon landing. Only the actions of a calm, experienced pilot stopped a crash once on the ground. If he hadn’t kept control, and the worst had happened with a smash and a fire, the main runway could easily have been shut for some time. There was a smaller secondary runway yet the loss of the primary one would have really caused problems to air operations.

Away from the activity at the airheads and the link-ups taking place between them, the 76th Guards Division was also sending riflemen outwards through Norfolk too. Platoons, even squads, of paratroopers moved to support specialists from both VDV and Soviet Air Force detachments. They went to locations identified pre-invasion through either intelligence gathering or observations made from maps. Stocks of vehicle fuel were sought (they had their own but more was always better) and so too were telecommunications facilities. High ground was reached so that radio antenna and radars could be set up. These were being isolated outposts from the time being and were generally away to the north and east of the landing sites rather than to the south and west. The divisional commander was still weary of British activity and was taking care to expose forward units yet in areas where he thought that they would face stronger opposition. That wasn’t to say that his men didn’t find any of the enemy in what was regarded to be their own rear areas between their airheads and the sea though. There were still some British reservists about. These men were in small groups and cut off. Exchanges of gunfight with paratroopers took place when the two sites met each other. However, some of the Britons were already thinking of going to ground. They wanted to hit the Soviets from the rear when possible, once the invaders got comfortable. There were places where they could hide when using the local geography. The high ground of the Cromer Ridge and even the low-lying Norfolk Broads were where small numbers of men headed towards. How long they could successfully hide in such places and fight without external support didn’t appear to be that long, but there was a lot of determination to give it a go. While these soldiers were thinking of staying here and facing the enemy, many civilians were leaving. Until the Soviets got full control of Norfolk, they could do nothing to stop this. The flood of British civilians about to make themselves internal refugees would only benefit them at this point too. Thousands upon thousands of Britons were on the move. Norwich was the county’s biggest population centre though King’s Lynn and Great Yarmouth were home to many people who decided to flee the warzone as well. There were likewise many towns and villagers from where people started leaving. They went in all directions, in every mode of transport available or even on foot. Few of them had seen the invaders nor even the ongoing fighting directly, but away from it all they went. The upcoming problems that this would bring were going to be something significant soon enough for Britain to suffer with.

Marshal Ogarkov, commanding the war still raging in Western Europe, had no direct control over what was happening with the Red Eagle landings in Britain. It was something out of his hands. Over on the Continent, Ogarkov had managed to keep a tight rein on KGB activities which he regarded as detrimental to the war effort. It was a battle from which he had taken a few losses but in the main met success. When it came to the 15th Guards Airborne Corps’ commander, the KGB managed to outmanoeuvre him on the political playing field and arm-twist him into doing pretty much what they wanted. The KGB had political officers with the 76th Guards Division and there was also a separate detachment in theory reporting directly to the corps headquarters but were in fact wholly independent of any military control and who reported to Chairman Chebrikov himself. A full general of the KGB arrived early in the landings with dedicated subordinates. They were here to conduct ‘political warfare’… which would in the main mean the liquidation of anyone deemed to be an enemy. However, one of the first major operations when in Britain ordered by that general was a propaganda task. At Coltishall, he had the VDV assign him a platoon of riflemen and then charge was taken of several light aircraft. The pair of An-14s as well as a lone An-28 (the latter a newer version of the first: each one a small transport) weren’t flying back across to the Netherlands but instead took those riflemen and the general himself westwards across to the other side of Norfolk. The flight was conducted at low level over unfamiliar terrain. Much could have gone wrong from enemy action to a crash because of a navigation error. Nothing like that occurred though. Paratroopers were instructed to jump from the An-28 when over the target before that empty aircraft and then the troop-laden two others landed on a flat, open stretch of grass. That landing took place in the grounds of Sandringham House. This was more than ten miles from the nearest friendly troops at West Raynham. The paratroopers fought off a detachment of a handful of TA soldiers and when the general’s plane touched down, he arrived like an all-conquering hero. There was a camera crew complete with equipment to broadcast the images out. What was Sandringham House? It was one of the homes of Britain’s head of state. Did it have any military value? No, it didn’t: this was all about the propaganda that those back in Moscow wanted to beam around the world. Sandringham was in Soviet hands. After this mission, the general would be sending his personnel – always surrounded by paratroopers following KGB orders – elsewhere. There were some other large country houses which he would see taken (nothing on the scale of this one though) to be used for other purposes rather than showing the world the might of the Soviet Union. Norfolk had many historic buildings set in their own estates out in the countryside. The KGB didn’t want to loot them nor send pictures of them out but instead use them as holding sites for prisoners involved their political warfare mission. Holding sites would be one term: torture and murder sites was what they were really going to be.

Thank you.
I should have mentioned this but the plan is to stay focused on the fight in the UK for the first three days of the war there, then swing back to Europe and elsewhere for the simultaneous three days.
Then we will begin the countdown to that insta-sun combining everything.

Thank you.
The 2nd Infantry Division is first on the way. They only have two brigades - the regular third one was the 24th which went to the Gulf - but they do have some artillery and armoured vehicles. I've found them some tanks... or should I say 'Panzers'?
Other TA troops will be needed too though. There are also still regulars in the country who hadn't left yet because they weren't ready or Soviet general attacks had the unintended consequences of keeping them in Britain. Britain also asked for help from allies with there countries answering the call for troops. Not many overall, and there are far more Britons to fight, but the extra men will be helpful. I'll be moving to who those area and where they will go within the following days!

That particular unit: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tri-National_Tornado_Training_Establishment
Its effectively four squadrons of Tornados (regular RAF squadrons had only twelve) and is sure to be used in wartime.

This early on, air defences will still be patchy. There will be transports still coming in as well as men and gear out in the open around the airheads: perfect targets for low-level Tornado bomb runs. The British also know that soon the Soviets will start basing MiGs in Britain rather than having them make runs from across the North Sea. Going in now hard is the desire.
Ah, we shall have to see what will happen but it will be coming soon.

I'm thinking that many OCUs would have formed mini-squadrons for deployments. I think they would have been sent to the Continent ahead of the Red Eagle drops.
There are some Sea Harriers aboard the Ark Royal though and she's inbound for the Norfolk coast.