The Second Battle of Britain - a Soviet Sealion

140 – Curfew


As the evening arrived and darkness approached, in occupied areas of Norfolk a curfew was in-place for civilian inhabitants of the parts of the county under control of Soviet forces. There were pre-printed leaflets distributed and then loudspeakers were used to play recordings in populated areas. People were to stay indoors from dusk until dawn. There would be no exceptions to this and those who refused to obey these instructions would be punished. Written down in the planning documents ahead of Operation Red Eagle occurring, this came across as something effective and legitimate even. Keeping people indoors early in the occupation was to be done to ensure the safety of the soldiers on the ground, it was said, and would supposedly keep those civilians safe too. In reality, this was all about control of those civilians though. As to how it played out on that first night, it wouldn’t take too much of a stretch of the imagination to imagine how it went. People weren’t aware of the curfew or had heard about and chose to ignore it. The punishment promised was enforced for the most minor violations – there were even people who didn’t leave their homes and who suffered – and it was also one where extreme violence was used.

In terms of scale, Norwich was where the worst of the effects of the sudden curfew were seen. Happening elsewhere through towns and villages that curfew was enforced with brutality but in the small Norfolk city, things got out of hand. The Soviets didn’t have the manpower nor the inclination to properly occupy Norwich. They’d taken the airport upon arrival on British soil before then making use of the main roads around the city. Yet, in the city, the central police station, the train station, power & telecommunications links and also the local council building had seen their presence with the KGB leading things supported by VDV riflemen. There were no occupying soldiers on every street corner nor invading people’s houses though. Such a thing wasn’t a priority. The KGB were already making noises about going looking for people whom seized records confirmed an interest, but that would be in the coming days once the 76th Guards Airborne Division could provide more riflemen to support them. In Norwich there was already trouble ahead of the curfew. There had been looting throughout the day by civilians and acts of arson. Norwich hadn’t been hit by civil disturbance like other British cities had during the war but that was before today. The city was in now chaos. Local youths as well as professional criminals were making the lives of their fellow citizens hell. Many of those teenagers were still on the streets come dusk. There were Soviet soldiers in sight, on the city’s edges in the main, but also those which had come into the heart of the city to take control of public buildings to get at what information was held in them. There were shouts made by translators over loudspeakers – in not very good English it must be said – for the people to return to their homes. Bricks and glass bottles came as a response. These were soldiers, not peacekeepers. The Soviet Airborne was famous throughout their nation’s armed forces for their professionalism and discipline but also their ferocity too. When their own officers, pushed on by their KGB political officers, ordered them to open fire on the mobs of hooligans, that was done. Civilians were shot down. When the mob broke and run, riflemen chased after them. Some VDV men came unstuck and were hurt, even killed, and avenging them was the excuse made to then push further onwards. Other civilians who hadn’t been throwing projectiles nor ambushing lonesome riflemen with bats & knives were shot dead. Hundreds would be killed before morning. Petrol bombs came one way and bullets went in the other direction. The Soviets weren’t going to accept what they faced and answered the challenge they met with overwhelming force. The divisional commander, with already plenty on his plate, personally intervened to bring some order to his deployed men but his own superior overruled him. The soldiers in Norwich were directed in what they did by the KGB and the VDV senior officers just had to suck it up.


Rather than being engaged in any real fighting with the British at this time, Soviet forces away from Norwich were busy with other tasks. They were expecting to go into combat soon with big engagements than they’d already had. Before then, there remained much work to be done in the occupied areas. A big part of this was dealing with prisoners taken so far. There had been military personnel captured from the forces of Britain and American as well as a token number from other NATO allies of those two nations. There were soldiers and airmen from regular and reserve units. In addition, the invading paratroopers had taken in custody many volunteers whom they regarded as paramilitaries due to their uniform: policemen and those from the Royal Observatory Corps were considered to be such. Those taken as POWs had had different experiences with their actual capture and how they were treated once held but they all had been roughly treated upon first meeting the enemy. A fist or a kick, robbery of personal possessions and witnessing the shooting of injured personnel alongside them were stories that they could all tell each other. That killing of those hurt had come alongside other war crimes witnessed by these prisoners: in particular the shooting too of any civilians suspected of being a threat to the Soviets. Taken from the frontlines into the rear, captivity remained a brutal affair. The prisoners weren’t being shot or needlessly tortured – the worst things with prisoners usually happened on the frontlines and this was the case with all armies – but they remained mistreated. Their conduct didn’t follow the laws of war too.

GRU and KGB personnel combed through the POWs. They were looking for certain people based upon names in a few cases (pre-mission intelligence being used here) but generally upon branch of service and rank. A rifleman with the Territorial Army didn’t hold any interest for his captors; an officer with an RAF air targeting staff was a different case entirely. These people were separated from others. A few cases of mistaken identity occurred in the middle of this too. When selected, these POWs would achieve a ‘special’ status and that wasn’t about favouritism. Information would be gleamed from them no matter how much they tried to resist and what the laws of war said. However, these were exceptional cases. The majority of taken prisoners weren’t of great interest. Riflemen were assigned to guard them in secured areas. Some of them would be put to work. They would receive food and water along with the very basic medical care. Mistreatment and death for the unfortunate would still be there but the Soviets weren’t about to start massacring them for no purpose at all. Among the POWs, thoughts of escape ran high. It was something that was going to keep morale up despite all of the horrors they had seen and their fears that they too would suffer what they’d seen others forced to endure.


The 76th Guards Division sent an armoured column to RAF Marham. They came in strength as a full battalion complete with armoured vehicles. Air reports by helicopters had seen no sign of the enemy though a trap was expected. Caution was employed and this meant a barrage of shells. Some of those had chemical warheads too. In combat here in Norfolk, gas had yet to be employed as it had been in certain strategic missile attacks against British military bases elsewhere in the course of the war. Chemicals were used against Marham on this first occasion to root out hidden defenders though. The intention was that it would be employed again in further fights. The airbase was discovered to be a complete ruin. It was quite a shock for the men on the ground to witness. They couldn’t believe that everything here had been as wrecked as it was. The destruction seemed spiteful in places too. As to an enemy, there was no sign of any. The paratroopers weren’t exactly itching for a fight but they were hyped up and ready for one. Orders came afterwards for them to halt rather than keep going onwards. The battalion commander questioned that. He made a request to the regimental colonel that he push on to locate the Britons that had escaped from Marham. That was one which was refused. He wasn’t told why that was the case. The major had no idea of what was happening back behind from where he’d come.

Those paratroopers had come from RAF West Raynham. The airbase there had just been bombed by the West Germans – those on the ground believed it was the British though – and that came at a time when there were many exposed riflemen there along with their equipment. Falling bombs had killed many and caused much destruction. It would be hours before things could return to normal… and before then, the Americans would pay a visit with their own aircraft too. West Raynham was temporarily shut to incoming flights after that bombing run made by those Tornados. A couple of aircraft had been hit while out on the flight ramp and there were all of those unexploded submunitions everywhere. Engineers were fast at work with specialists for post-attack recovery already on the ground after being sent in early on as part of the airlift into Britain. Such strikes had been expected but it wasn’t thought that as many aircraft as there were would hit the facility like they did. There were dead and wounded everywhere. Corpses were left where they were for now while the injured were taken to the field hospital. Conditions there were horrible. The blood, the bodily fluids and the screams of the hurt were enough to turn the stomach of anyone. VDV paratroopers and Soviet Air Force personnel sent far from home died the most terrible deaths here.


At RAF Coltishall, there had been British-crewed Tornados above which had made what they considered a perfect attack against that captured airbase. They, and their Italian allies, had suffered a few losses on the way out from the Coltishall mission but believed that they’d shut down enemy operations at this captured airbase for a long time. That was far too optimistic. There were aircraft incoming from the Continent which had to turn back because landing at Coltishall until the worst of the affects of the attack were overcome – it was submunitions from anti-runway bombs again –, but some others air-dropped cargoes nearby in already prepared areas. The pre-invasion planning had foreseen that air attacks would come and put a temporary halt to things. Loads being sent to Norfolk were rolled out of the back of transport aircraft when they came in low and slow where men on the ground met them. Air-dropping cargo such as a Mil-24 attack helicopter was impossible but a pallet of ammunition was something that could be & was done. Some cargo went astray when errors were made but the majority came down where it was supposed to. ‘Adapt and overcome’ could have been a motto for the logistics personnel assigned to Coltishall. That approach could be said to the engineers sent to clear the runways & taxiways too where they did everything that they could to get them open as fast as possible. Those here on the ground didn’t know it, but Norwich Airport and RAF Sculthorpe had been hit really hard by the air attacks and it was therefore down to those here at Coltishall (plus at West Raynham) to reopen the air-link where the damage done to both of these sites was judged ‘survivable’.

When Coltishall had been captured first thing this morning, the British had done some damage before they were defeated. They set off explosives to blow up some of the ammunition and fuel. Hand grenades were thrown into open cockpits of the RAF Jaguar attack-fighters which couldn’t get off the ground too. Doing what was done at Marham to Coltishall was impossible though. Much of the airbase had gone into Soviet hands relatively intact especially since the paratroopers who’d marched from their drop zones nearby had only been allowed to use light weapons. No damage had been done to the hardened aircraft shelters, especially nothing like what was seen at Marham where the doors to many had been partially opened before explosive charges were set off. The intact ones at Coltishall were fantastic. Only the direct hit of a heavy bomb atop of one could see them eliminated in an air strike. When the RAF had sent their aircraft on their attack run, they hadn’t managed to achieve a kill hit. Several shelters had close calls and damage was done yet none were knocked out. Only 2000lb weapons, preferably laser guided Paveway ‘smart bombs’, would have done the job. When the air attack on Coltishall had come, the British had done that as early as they had because they wanted to strike before the Soviet Air Force could get fighters in. That had been witnessed with captured airbases across the North Sea over in first West Germany and then the Netherlands. Therefore, the bombing had been done with haste to if not put a stop to what was anticipated with arriving fighters then to delay that. Coltishall had been bombed after fighters had arrived though… and those MiG-23s were inside the shelters that the British had left for them when the bombs came. There weren’t many of them and they weren’t ready for proper operations by the time evening came around. The intention was for them to fly fighter missions come tonight though. The runways still needed clearing and other work needed doing. However, Coltishall was to become a Soviet fighter base as soon as possible.

Oh, God, the London battle will be bloody...

The British will have to blast the Soviets out of where they are if they can't force a surrender.
It will be bloody indeed.



Both will be in the areas which have seen fighting!

The Soviets are using lots of Chemical attacks, how will the Allies respond?

An item unconsidered is the role of the USAF Special Operations Aircraft.  RAF Woodbridge hosted an HC-130 and MH-53 squadron forming part of a wing based at Rhein-Main who would have dispersed on hostilities (being in TBM range of East Germany).  USAF or USAFR AC-130 would also deploy to Europe for Air Base Ground Defense (ABGD), high value asset protection, counter-SOF, and SF support from CONUS.  I’d bet the USAF would introduce Spectre (if available) to strike the VDV and protect their airbases.  The RAF Regiment also exercised with Spectre, both in ABGD roles and in their role defending GLCM and shared weapons.  Unfortunately history has shown Spectre to be a horrendously vulnerable platform when operating against medium AAA or MANPADS, so there’s fodder for a successful defense there as well.

The US Army maintained stockpiled chemical munitions at Clausen, Germany until 1990, including binary VX 155mm rounds, cluster munitions generating GB or VX intermixed with BZ, and 155mm/8in unitary VX rounds. The USAF maintained a capability to deliver agents with cluster munitions or filled bombs. The USN still had some Weteye bombs available in storage in Utah. The initial retrograde of weapons following the 1986 Reagan/Kohl agreement focused on the unitary munitions and the generating cluster munitions. The binary rounds remained until 1990 and the US/USSR talks.

Binary munitions were the way of the future due to their safety, stability, and ease of handling. The common 155mm caliber could be issued to NATO forces for use spreading the retaliatory potential across the alliance if needed.

NATO as a whole eschewed CW in favor of nuclear weapons for a few simple reasons. VX is a great munition to strike an area target like a depot, railyard, or airfield to disrupt support operations or to deny freedom of movement through an area you have no intention of using. However, the delivery systems required could gave more effect with conventional or nuclear ordnance without the weather and delivery system constraints CW and be more responsive against a moving target as well.  Finally, even though CW effects against the Warsaw Pact would be substantial, the lack of precision and enduring lethality made them less politically palatable than nuclear weapons with regard to civilian casualty risk.

It seems counterintuitive, but a 155mm VX laydown on Norwich airport would cause more civilian casualties over a longer than the air burst of a 155mm W48 nuclear round while achieving more destructive effect.

143 – Approaching Suffolk


The British and their allies underestimated how much damage that their air strikes yesterday evening and then overnight had done to the Soviets in Norfolk. They had closed many of the airheads and thus put a temporary stop to the incoming airlift. However, when the US Air Force focused upon destroying much of the 76th Guards Airborne Division before it could move away from those airheads, there was too much optimism in what had been achieved. The Soviets had taken staggering losses but they weren’t knocked out of action. It would take a lot more air power to do that than what was used. In addition, if the Americans, or the British themselves, really wanted to make sure that the VDV forces on the ground went no further, they would have to loosen up their self-imposed restrictions on causing collateral damage in civilian areas. The political will wasn’t there to do that here on British soil like it hadn’t been over on the Continent in West Germany and then the Netherlands. Killing friendly innocents en masse, using overwhelming air strikes almost in carpet bombing fashion, just wasn’t what these governments were willing to see done. That wasn’t to say that it hadn’t already occurred though. Civilians had lost their lives… yet more would have to be done if the Soviet advances were going to be stopped. On the Continent, Warsaw Pact strategy had been to make use of the fear of collateral damage and mass civilian casualties that they knew that NATO would go out of their way to avoid. The tactic was being repeated this side of the North Sea.

Emerging battered and bruised, with losses taken under the falling bombs, the 76th Guards Division started advancing on the morning of the war’s second day. They went off into what was sure to be large-scale fighting against strong opponents more numerous than they’d encountered the day before. Their supply stocks, their fire support and air cover were all weak but they were ordered forward. Ahead were objectives to be reached. Excuses for failures wouldn’t be accepted. The VDV paratroopers began approaching Suffolk.


Of the two major fights that the 76th Guards Division had that day, the second one was around the small town of Loddon. This was along the course of the main road linking Norwich to Lowestoft. The River Waveney formed the barrier between the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, past where Loddon was. It was there that significant numbers of British troops were expected to be met, not on the Norfolk side of the river. The plan was to avoid the Norfolk Broads and sweep towards the port town of Lowestoft from behind. Air reconnaissance was supported to confirm this but the inability to make use of the few numbers of helicopters that the Soviets had with them meant that it wasn’t done. Those, along with a handful of attack-fighters with rough field capabilities (making use of the grass airstrip at the un-bombed RAF Watton), were in the main sent to take part in that other, larger fight elsewhere on the southwestern side of Norfolk. Those here on the southeastern side were the denied proper air support for a mission like this.

From out of Norwich, a battalion and a half of men from the 104th Regiment advanced. They followed two roads while travelling in their light armoured vehicles instead of all being bunched up along just the one. The main column went down the A146 with the B1332 used as well. These were roads which went across flat and generally open countryside and only a few miles apart as each headed for the Waveney. Speed was of essence for the advance and good men were sent up to the front of each column to lead the navigation effort. In theory, they just had to stick to the roads and reach the river but this was unfamiliar territory and the regimental commander – who only had half of his assigned men – didn’t have that air cover to aid him in getting where he needed to be. There were sub-units who got lost in making it to the start-lines outside of Norwich and that didn’t bode well for the advance! Once underway, the progress was good though. Each column stayed on course. Riflemen rode inside the cramped confines of the BMD-1s and the little more (only a bit though) spacious BTR-Ds. Half a dozen captured trucks belonging to the Territorial Army were put to use to load men into them; there’d been others found but someone had very professionally sabotaged them. Frightened civilians fleeing from Norwich were driven past when going down the A146 while on the B1332 there were a trio of separate incidents where random shots were taken at the armoured vehicles moving across the countryside there. Shotguns were used, only scratching the paintwork of the tracked vehicles, but gunfire was poured back in the general direction from where those shots came with the inevitable civilian casualties. A fourth incident occurred where this time armed men were spotted first. There were five men together carrying weapons. Shots were made before questions were asked. These men were Soviet paratroopers dropped the day before when their transport aircraft was taken under fire. They saw friendly approaching and made themselves known… to be killed despite being in VDV uniform with Soviet rifles carried. Blue-on-blue it wasn’t: this was red-on-red.

At Loddon, the A146 bypassed the ancient settlement and there was the River Chet too. The latter was no more than a stream on the Soviet maps. If the little bridge over the water was somehow blocked, there was another one in the town or, failing that, the amphibious capabilities of the armoured vehicles would be put to use… though those trucks would have to be left behind. Felled trees were met before the small road-bridge and there were civilian vehicles left sideways in the road too. The forward scouts reported this to the regimental commander and the colonel had his mortar carriers launch a barrage of 120mm rounds. Trouble had cropped up and this was answered with firepower. The 2S9s launched their shells and the scouts edged forward. Riflemen left the insides of their vehicles yet stayed near to them as the BMD-1s were present for fire support. Detachments of paratroopers closed in all around Loddon as they sought out the enemy which was suspected to be here. That colonel had his political officer, a KGB cretin, urging him on and saying that it was only civilians here – maybe ones with former military service behind them – making trouble. Blast your way through, he said, and reach the Suffolk county line! The colonel wouldn’t do that. He feared an ambush. He contacted his second column and told them to take extra care too while making sure that his subordinate battalion commander leading the slow approach into Loddon was being careful.

Contact with the enemy was made. Automatic rifle fire, machine guns and light mortars opened up on the Soviets. They were taken under fire from several locations around Loddon. That fire was returned. The VDV here were positioned to fight off an ambush and they went at the British out ahead of them. It was a fearsome engagement. The 104th Regiment had the fire power to outgun their opponents but they held their positions. It was clear that they hadn’t just arrived here. No, they’d been here for some time, waiting to do this. Contact with the enemy allowed the colonel to finally be able to get some air support. Two Mil-24s were sent towards him. While waiting on the Hinds to arrive he had his mortars blanket fire the town. Shells exploded in the sky rather than when meeting the ground. The shrapnel would keep heads down to make sure no one shot at his helicopters. As to his vehicle’s cannons and some of the medium-weight fire support weapons brought by others, they were all brought into action. Ordnance aplenty was slammed into Loddon. Good coordination between riflemen and their fire support was done to avoid friendly fire. The enemy was rooted out of its positions where the main road was and there was an effort underway to pin others in the town. The air liaison officer reported the Hinds nearly here. Red smoke rounds were fired to mark the strongest enemy positions. Shells and rockets slammed into the enemy. No missiles were launched at the helicopters though one of them was taken under fire with a machine gun: it was well armoured though and came off unscathed. That air support made the difference. The helicopters pulled out of the firing line went done and within seconds a full ground attack was made. BMD-1s were right in there with the dismounted riflemen. The colonel used the helicopters to go around to the east and south to see if they could see and attack anyone running while the work was done in Loddon to win the fight here. The final move was made by the paratroopers who fought through several buildings against dug-in defenders. It went hand-to-hand at many times but explosives were preferred by the attackers.

Prisoners were taken among the defeated Britons. They came from two units. There were reservists from C Company of the 6th Battalion, Royal Anglian Regiment and also (what his political officer deemed) mercenaries too: Gurkhas. There was a company of them from somewhere called the Brecon Beacons, apparently a training site where Gurkhas were stationed as a demonstration unit. These small men from the South Asian continent apparently had a fearful reputation. The colonel silently had to admit that they’d lived up to that, he had plenty of dead & wounded, but he’d beaten them. The KGB wasn’t prepared to treat them as POWs like the British TA soldiers and the colonel was unable to argue with that. Quoting official rules for military conduct, the political officer had those mercenaries shot. More than thirty injured & uninjured survivors were lined up against the riverbank and machine gunned into it. The River Chet ran red. The British prisoners were rather unhappy and many tried to restart the fight after previously surrendering. They’d been disarmed and their resistance didn’t last long. Many of them were killed in that but shooting the survivors, again as the political officer wanted to do as collective punishment, was something that the colonel stood his ground on. He feared later repercussions though believed that whatever the KGB man said wouldn’t hold any water when he himself won glory in battle. So, he had to win the next fight. The main column moved out of Loddon. There had been delay and losses, but on they went. The second, smaller column had already reached the Waveney upstream before the main force arrived at that river just after midday. Suffolk had been reached. The approach to it had been opposed but not by enough to make a difference.


That fight at Loddon would be a footnote in history. The Battle of Mundford was a bigger battle. Much of the Soviet Airborne’s 237th Regiment fought there in a longer lasting fight where they engaged British Army regulars. A full mechanised infantry battalion stood their ground at a crossroads on the approaches to Suffolk. It took a lot of effort and the employment of gas as well to break them but the British were overcome in the end yet after inflicting big losses to VDV forces. The fighting was now on the edges of Norfolk. What was across in Suffolk that would make the Soviets winning control of it so important? More airbases to seize. They’d take these away from their opponents, causing chaos as they did so to NATO air operations near & far, and also give themselves new ways of bringing in more men & gear into the UK.

The Second Battle of Britain was something that Soviet forces were currently winning. To carry on with that winning streak though as they continued to meet stronger opposition each time… that was a big ask.