The Second Battle of Britain - a Soviet Sealion
Dec 10, 2019 20:17:23 GMT
lordroel, stevep, and 3 more like this
Post by James G on Dec 10, 2019 20:17:23 GMT
146 – London’s burning
An RAF Canberra overflew Central London. This was a photo-reconnaissance version of an aircraft which was once a bomber and undertook its mission unarmed. A pass east-to-west was made at medium altitude before a sweep going from the southwest back to the east was then done a little higher. Doing this at the very break of dawn, there was little reaction below. A shoulder-mounted SAM was fired during the first pass but it didn’t have the range to get at the Canberra. Once done, the aircraft flew to RAF Manston down in Kent where there were those waiting for the camera film. It was quickly developed and handed to photo interpreters. The flight plan had been stuck to and the areas which there was detailed images required to be taken from were provided along with the wide-angle shots as well. Intelligence staffs hovered around those studying the photographs and waited on the results of analysis. There were things that they wanted to know. There was already much information gleamed from ground-level reconnaissance over the Soviet area of occupation in the middle of Britain’s capital and there had too been helicopter flights. What the Canberra flight this morning provided was added to what was seen during an overnight flight as well using an infrared camera. There were better pictures taken in daylight but that didn’t diminish the value of what had come from the night-time mission too. Reports were soon compiled and superiors briefed. There were some surprises in what was found though, admittedly, a lot of what was seen was already either confirmed known or strongly suspected. Where those paratroopers were set up behind their forward positions was now properly identified. It was the locations of their heavy guns, their stores and their headquarters that the British now knew for sure. Information was sent onwards to those who required it with some of that to be exploited at once and other bits later on.
There were bodies in the streets of London. Corpses of the dead rotted where they were in places. Many caused by the fighting the day before had been removed but others had been left where they were for a variety of reasons. Some were in areas of no-man’s land while others were ignored. Flies gathered around them and there were cases of rats being seen bothering a few as well. The health risk was something that couldn’t be ignored for much longer. This morning, near to Grosvenor Square, a British junior officer came forward unarmed and waving a white handkerchief. Dozens of rifles were pointed at him but the Soviet Airborne riflemen held their fire. A second Briton appeared behind the first and he brought a stretcher with him. The two of them loaded a body of a fallen comrade onto the stretcher and carried it away. There was no communication between each side, just visual signals. A similar thing was attempted near to Charing Cross on the Embankment. Another body in the street was about to be taken away when a lone shot rang out. One of the Britons there fell down dead while his colleague dropped to the ground and stayed still. There was shouting among the Soviet positions and no more bullets. The surviving officer got up, lifted the body he’d come here to retrieve and carried it in a fireman’s lift back to friendly lines. He returned a second time, this time removing that of his fellow unarmed soldier who’d been shot down for no discernible reason. A Soviet effort to go and retrieve a body of one of their own men – something not authorised from on-high but done by a senior sergeant to try to maintain morale – was attempted on Horseferry Road. Gunfire met efforts to go forward when that VDV man made his move. He was unarmed and killed barely a yard from where he’d emerged from cover. Those Britons who fired on him told their own sergeant and an enquiring officer that they’d seen no white flag waved.
Parts of Central London were on fire. There were growing conflagrations in Knightsbridge, Mayfair and Whitehall. No firefighters were tackling the ongoing blazes. The causes of these big ones, along with the many smaller ones, had been various though were all linked back to the fighting nearby. Incendiary warheads from RPGs made the Knightsbridge Fire worse. These were fired by Soviet troops fighting men with the Scots Guards were such weapons were used to burn the Britons out of improvised defensive positions. Harrods had been burnt down yesterday and now there was a lot more destruction being caused. The fire, and the smoke too, was soon used by each side as they carried on fighting each other and making use of these conditions. In Mayfair, it was commercial premises alight while across in Whitehall the Treasury was up in flames. None of this had been started on purpose but there was no way to stop the fires. London’s firefighters couldn’t come near a war zone and soldiers on each side were either too busy engaging the enemy or when instructed to try and stop the flames, unable to do much of any good. There was a further major fire which would begin that afternoon and would for a while remain unrealised for its size. At St. James’ Park tube station, located just south of that open space after which it was named, there was a fire which started below ground. Smoke emerged from many places with the source and seriousness not understood. The underground railway network had seen fighting take place down in stations and tunnels but nothing major. This was caused by an accident though when no one was down there. After a while, flames emerged from the station entrance out onto Petty France before there were more of them coming out of the access onto Broadway. No one could do anything about this but it couldn’t go on untouched for too long.
The Soviet’s 345th Regiment and the 56th Brigade of the British Army were both not commands which had a huge numbers of men. Neither side had enough manpower to run a line of riflemen all around the perimeter of where the two sides faced off against each other. In places there were some strongly manned frontlines but elsewhere there was no-man’s land in the urban terrain with strongpoints set up while men assigned as watchers kept their eyes & ears open. Gunfire erupted here and there though each side was making only limited attacks against each other. The Soviets couldn’t expand their occupation area any more than it was and the British were unable to push them back any more than they already had. Localised fights took place. Buildings and small open spaces were fought over. Inside many of the buildings, soldiers knocked holes through walls where they needed to in efforts to either establish lines of communication, seek escape routes or surprise the enemy with an attack. Heavy weapons remained in action yet in a limited fashion with howitzers and mortars used. VDV air-dropped armoured vehicles were still being used as direct fire support weapons with their cannons and machine guns: they weren’t being driven forward laden with assault riflemen on the attack. Snipers were everywhere. In such terrain as this, where there were an almost uncountable number of buildings, let alone windows, it was seemingly a paradise for them. Spotters would cue them in on a target and a shot would ring out to kill an unsuspecting opponent. Like yesterday, many of those killed by snipers were shot near to the Thames. From each side of the river, shots rang out and men were killed at distance. There were other places though where sniping was done, especially in the built-up areas around Piccadilly and South Kensington. Snipers were targeted by other snipers. There was also the use of heavy weapons against them too with recoilless rifles and man-portable rocket launchers fired: these ensured a kill better than a well-placed bullet.
As the day went on, the second one where the middle of London remained a war zone, the effects of those fires were being felt more. The smoke was one thing but the spread of the flames was even more serious. It was negatively affecting both sides. Fewer and fewer tactical advantages were gained as parts of the city burnt. Senior personnel on each side were left scratching their heads as to what to do about it though. They couldn’t address the issue while there was still fighting going on. Some areas alight were in the middle of where there were exchanges of gunfire but the VDV had fires in their rear areas too: at least on the British side, where there was fire, they could leave it to others to tackle. Inside St. James (the fashionable area, not near to that burning tube station) another blaze erupted. British artillery fired on Lancaster House when there was now enough intelligence to point to the KGB being based in that building. The incoming shells hit that structure though some fell short and struck Clarence House too, a royal building next to Lancaster House. The explosions brought about flames. Nearby trees lining The Mall soon fed the fire when the flames spread to them. A penal unit, men who it was planned to send into a fight raging between Haymarket and Leicester Square, were directed to fill buckets from the water in St. James’ Park Lake. Their efforts were never going to do much. Still, they were forced to keep on trying with a KGB officer then shooting one of them for what he perceived as laziness. This inflamed the other prisoners. VDV soldiers were guarding their former comrades whom the KGB had taken command of. Those riflemen chose to look the other way when that Chekist was then beaten to death before the majority of the men in the penal unit then made a run for it… where they were going was anyone’s guess. Meanwhile, that fire, which the buckets of water had done nothing to impede, grew at an alarming rate.
British reinforcements were arriving. Lead elements of the 143rd Brigade entered London as they came in from the west and south. These were additions to that TA command which travelled from locations closer to London than the distant West Midlands where most of the brigade started out. There were British regulars and then also those men sent by NATO allies: the Canadians and the Portuguese. It wouldn’t be until midnight when there was a projected official start to the 143rd Brigade conducting combat operations alongside the 56th Brigade. However, some of the early arriving men were quick to see action. The Scots Guards’ second battalion had come from Pirbright in Surrey and linked up with their regiment’s first battalion; those London-based soldiers, worn down after much heavy fighting, would be shortening their lines as they moved sideways. Those new arrivals clashed with Soviet riflemen near to the Royal Albert Hall. A couple of platoons of Guardsmen rushed forward and up Queen’s Gate right to the very edge of Hyde Park. Machine guns and mortars stopped them from getting in but they held off a counterattack made against them and took out a trio of enemy armoured vehicles while doing so. Reservists from Canada fought alongside Portuguese paratroopers near to Kensington Palace on the western side of Hyde Park. The Portuguese came unstuck when Household Cavalry soldiers didn’t correctly explain where the Soviets had laid anti-personnel mines, but the two lead companies of Canadian soldiers – men from the Lorne Scots and the Royal Winnipeg Rifles – got past all opposition and moved a good distance forward. The Soviet machine gun pits and improvised trenches were overrun. It was bloody experience for these men though as they took significant losses in their victory. More and more reinforcements would arrive as the day ended. The 56th Brigade would soon be able to concentrate its men better while more of the 143rd Brigade saw action. Everyone on the British side was here to retake London and overcome those who were occupying it. They would have the numbers to do it and their cut-off, pinned-down opponent was increasingly being weakened. How long would this take though? Could Central London be liberated before it was all burnt down?
An RAF Canberra overflew Central London. This was a photo-reconnaissance version of an aircraft which was once a bomber and undertook its mission unarmed. A pass east-to-west was made at medium altitude before a sweep going from the southwest back to the east was then done a little higher. Doing this at the very break of dawn, there was little reaction below. A shoulder-mounted SAM was fired during the first pass but it didn’t have the range to get at the Canberra. Once done, the aircraft flew to RAF Manston down in Kent where there were those waiting for the camera film. It was quickly developed and handed to photo interpreters. The flight plan had been stuck to and the areas which there was detailed images required to be taken from were provided along with the wide-angle shots as well. Intelligence staffs hovered around those studying the photographs and waited on the results of analysis. There were things that they wanted to know. There was already much information gleamed from ground-level reconnaissance over the Soviet area of occupation in the middle of Britain’s capital and there had too been helicopter flights. What the Canberra flight this morning provided was added to what was seen during an overnight flight as well using an infrared camera. There were better pictures taken in daylight but that didn’t diminish the value of what had come from the night-time mission too. Reports were soon compiled and superiors briefed. There were some surprises in what was found though, admittedly, a lot of what was seen was already either confirmed known or strongly suspected. Where those paratroopers were set up behind their forward positions was now properly identified. It was the locations of their heavy guns, their stores and their headquarters that the British now knew for sure. Information was sent onwards to those who required it with some of that to be exploited at once and other bits later on.
There were bodies in the streets of London. Corpses of the dead rotted where they were in places. Many caused by the fighting the day before had been removed but others had been left where they were for a variety of reasons. Some were in areas of no-man’s land while others were ignored. Flies gathered around them and there were cases of rats being seen bothering a few as well. The health risk was something that couldn’t be ignored for much longer. This morning, near to Grosvenor Square, a British junior officer came forward unarmed and waving a white handkerchief. Dozens of rifles were pointed at him but the Soviet Airborne riflemen held their fire. A second Briton appeared behind the first and he brought a stretcher with him. The two of them loaded a body of a fallen comrade onto the stretcher and carried it away. There was no communication between each side, just visual signals. A similar thing was attempted near to Charing Cross on the Embankment. Another body in the street was about to be taken away when a lone shot rang out. One of the Britons there fell down dead while his colleague dropped to the ground and stayed still. There was shouting among the Soviet positions and no more bullets. The surviving officer got up, lifted the body he’d come here to retrieve and carried it in a fireman’s lift back to friendly lines. He returned a second time, this time removing that of his fellow unarmed soldier who’d been shot down for no discernible reason. A Soviet effort to go and retrieve a body of one of their own men – something not authorised from on-high but done by a senior sergeant to try to maintain morale – was attempted on Horseferry Road. Gunfire met efforts to go forward when that VDV man made his move. He was unarmed and killed barely a yard from where he’d emerged from cover. Those Britons who fired on him told their own sergeant and an enquiring officer that they’d seen no white flag waved.
Parts of Central London were on fire. There were growing conflagrations in Knightsbridge, Mayfair and Whitehall. No firefighters were tackling the ongoing blazes. The causes of these big ones, along with the many smaller ones, had been various though were all linked back to the fighting nearby. Incendiary warheads from RPGs made the Knightsbridge Fire worse. These were fired by Soviet troops fighting men with the Scots Guards were such weapons were used to burn the Britons out of improvised defensive positions. Harrods had been burnt down yesterday and now there was a lot more destruction being caused. The fire, and the smoke too, was soon used by each side as they carried on fighting each other and making use of these conditions. In Mayfair, it was commercial premises alight while across in Whitehall the Treasury was up in flames. None of this had been started on purpose but there was no way to stop the fires. London’s firefighters couldn’t come near a war zone and soldiers on each side were either too busy engaging the enemy or when instructed to try and stop the flames, unable to do much of any good. There was a further major fire which would begin that afternoon and would for a while remain unrealised for its size. At St. James’ Park tube station, located just south of that open space after which it was named, there was a fire which started below ground. Smoke emerged from many places with the source and seriousness not understood. The underground railway network had seen fighting take place down in stations and tunnels but nothing major. This was caused by an accident though when no one was down there. After a while, flames emerged from the station entrance out onto Petty France before there were more of them coming out of the access onto Broadway. No one could do anything about this but it couldn’t go on untouched for too long.
The Soviet’s 345th Regiment and the 56th Brigade of the British Army were both not commands which had a huge numbers of men. Neither side had enough manpower to run a line of riflemen all around the perimeter of where the two sides faced off against each other. In places there were some strongly manned frontlines but elsewhere there was no-man’s land in the urban terrain with strongpoints set up while men assigned as watchers kept their eyes & ears open. Gunfire erupted here and there though each side was making only limited attacks against each other. The Soviets couldn’t expand their occupation area any more than it was and the British were unable to push them back any more than they already had. Localised fights took place. Buildings and small open spaces were fought over. Inside many of the buildings, soldiers knocked holes through walls where they needed to in efforts to either establish lines of communication, seek escape routes or surprise the enemy with an attack. Heavy weapons remained in action yet in a limited fashion with howitzers and mortars used. VDV air-dropped armoured vehicles were still being used as direct fire support weapons with their cannons and machine guns: they weren’t being driven forward laden with assault riflemen on the attack. Snipers were everywhere. In such terrain as this, where there were an almost uncountable number of buildings, let alone windows, it was seemingly a paradise for them. Spotters would cue them in on a target and a shot would ring out to kill an unsuspecting opponent. Like yesterday, many of those killed by snipers were shot near to the Thames. From each side of the river, shots rang out and men were killed at distance. There were other places though where sniping was done, especially in the built-up areas around Piccadilly and South Kensington. Snipers were targeted by other snipers. There was also the use of heavy weapons against them too with recoilless rifles and man-portable rocket launchers fired: these ensured a kill better than a well-placed bullet.
As the day went on, the second one where the middle of London remained a war zone, the effects of those fires were being felt more. The smoke was one thing but the spread of the flames was even more serious. It was negatively affecting both sides. Fewer and fewer tactical advantages were gained as parts of the city burnt. Senior personnel on each side were left scratching their heads as to what to do about it though. They couldn’t address the issue while there was still fighting going on. Some areas alight were in the middle of where there were exchanges of gunfire but the VDV had fires in their rear areas too: at least on the British side, where there was fire, they could leave it to others to tackle. Inside St. James (the fashionable area, not near to that burning tube station) another blaze erupted. British artillery fired on Lancaster House when there was now enough intelligence to point to the KGB being based in that building. The incoming shells hit that structure though some fell short and struck Clarence House too, a royal building next to Lancaster House. The explosions brought about flames. Nearby trees lining The Mall soon fed the fire when the flames spread to them. A penal unit, men who it was planned to send into a fight raging between Haymarket and Leicester Square, were directed to fill buckets from the water in St. James’ Park Lake. Their efforts were never going to do much. Still, they were forced to keep on trying with a KGB officer then shooting one of them for what he perceived as laziness. This inflamed the other prisoners. VDV soldiers were guarding their former comrades whom the KGB had taken command of. Those riflemen chose to look the other way when that Chekist was then beaten to death before the majority of the men in the penal unit then made a run for it… where they were going was anyone’s guess. Meanwhile, that fire, which the buckets of water had done nothing to impede, grew at an alarming rate.
British reinforcements were arriving. Lead elements of the 143rd Brigade entered London as they came in from the west and south. These were additions to that TA command which travelled from locations closer to London than the distant West Midlands where most of the brigade started out. There were British regulars and then also those men sent by NATO allies: the Canadians and the Portuguese. It wouldn’t be until midnight when there was a projected official start to the 143rd Brigade conducting combat operations alongside the 56th Brigade. However, some of the early arriving men were quick to see action. The Scots Guards’ second battalion had come from Pirbright in Surrey and linked up with their regiment’s first battalion; those London-based soldiers, worn down after much heavy fighting, would be shortening their lines as they moved sideways. Those new arrivals clashed with Soviet riflemen near to the Royal Albert Hall. A couple of platoons of Guardsmen rushed forward and up Queen’s Gate right to the very edge of Hyde Park. Machine guns and mortars stopped them from getting in but they held off a counterattack made against them and took out a trio of enemy armoured vehicles while doing so. Reservists from Canada fought alongside Portuguese paratroopers near to Kensington Palace on the western side of Hyde Park. The Portuguese came unstuck when Household Cavalry soldiers didn’t correctly explain where the Soviets had laid anti-personnel mines, but the two lead companies of Canadian soldiers – men from the Lorne Scots and the Royal Winnipeg Rifles – got past all opposition and moved a good distance forward. The Soviet machine gun pits and improvised trenches were overrun. It was bloody experience for these men though as they took significant losses in their victory. More and more reinforcements would arrive as the day ended. The 56th Brigade would soon be able to concentrate its men better while more of the 143rd Brigade saw action. Everyone on the British side was here to retake London and overcome those who were occupying it. They would have the numbers to do it and their cut-off, pinned-down opponent was increasingly being weakened. How long would this take though? Could Central London be liberated before it was all burnt down?
