People's War

Thirty-two – Second strike


Once again, following a night of air strikes, the East Germans waited until the next morning before they made a retaliation. The second strike using ballistic missiles was different from the first one the day beforehand though. There were fewer distant targets, less missiles and change in tactics too. In addition, rather than at twilight, the strike came once the sun was up and was also less confined within a short time period. To open the attack, the longer-range and more accurate Spiders were used. Just four of them flew. One each went after RAF Bruggen and Spangdahlem AB again, main operating bases within West Germany for the British and American air activity respectively. Patriots fired by the US Army failed to stop Spangdahlem being hit with the missile landing within the base perimeter; no defensive missiles came out of Bruggen to defeat the almost-perfect hit there too. Damage was done and there were a few casualties but, once more, air operations would soon be able to continue following a clean-up and sweep of the runways from blast fragments. Volkel AB in the Netherlands was another target with both the Dutch and the Americans using that facility. Dutch Patriots were fired, aiming to repeat the (ultimately bittersweet) success of the night beforehand yet they failed to hit the inbound missile. The Spider missed its target though and blew up close by within the small town of Uden: two civilians were killed. The US European Command HQ at Patch Barracks was struck by the fourth missile. The previous strike had missed it, and Stuttgart entirely, but that Spider on the morning of July 4th was spot on. It demolished the targeted building and killed nine US service-personnel. Others sheltering belowground were left shaken but unharmed. Sembach AB, a US Air Force base in the Rhineland which hadn’t been targeted the last time around, got hit by two Scuds. One detonated above the (empty) base housing while the second crashed just off the flight-line where there was no detonation of its warhead. Missile fuel went up leading to a big fire there. Two helicopters were destroyed in that when it spread rapidly in the face of all efforts to control it and the flames also engulfed a hanger in which sat a damaged DC-130A. That was drone control aircraft which had been busy firing off Frisbee missile lures into East Germany during the night seeking to expose the positions of SAMs for attacks by Wild Weasel aircraft. It had returned to Sembach and made a hard landing – pilot error was to blame – before being pulled into a hangar. The fire destroyed it entirely.

Lone Scuds as well as short-range Scarabs not going far out of the borders of the DDR completed the second strike. They didn’t fly very far and went after a wholly different target set. Those were garrisons for American and British soldiers within West Germany. Bergen, Celle, Gutersloh, Hohne, and Osnabrück (again) were struck with barracks facilities within each town taken under attack. There were eight civilian deaths in Celle and another single fatality of an innocent in Osnabrück: thirteen British soldiers also died. The US Army in the central & southern portions of West Germany got it harder than that. Ansbach, Bamberg, Darmstadt, Giessen, Hanau (struck like the night before), Vilseck and Wiesbaden all came under ballistic missile attack. Hanau and Wiesbaden were defended by Patriot coverage with one Scud taken out despite much effort to eliminate more of them. An off-course Scarab aimed at Pendelton Barracks in Giessen exploded above a street outside the small city’s hospital. Twenty deaths were caused among patients and also civilians rushing to a nearby air raid shelter. It was a massacre, one alongside nine more losses to innocent life in Bamberg, Darmstadt and Vilseck combined too. Forty-three American soldiers were also killed that morning. It was Independence Day back home, a public holiday for celebrations, yet for US Army service-personnel in West Germany the day was one of horror. West German, and later foreign, media teams were all over Giessen with images flashed around the world of a hospital which had met the full face of war. East Germany was directly responsible for what happened there, yet the Coalition and the West German government both would be subject to furious anger by those who blamed them for ‘allowing’ for such a thing to happen. Chancellor Schäuble would be back on the phone to his erstwhile allies imploring them to cease their air campaign. Sympathies were expressed for the loss of civilian life with medical assistance offered but Coalition leaders affirmed their intentions to continue. President Cuomo, briefed on the deaths of all of those soldiers, told Schäuble that full blame lay at the feet of Margot Honecker; replies from Fabius and Heseltine in Paris and London were similar though spoken more softly than what was heard from Washington.


In the aftermath of the missile attacks, Coalition and East German military activity continued throughout the daylight hours of July 4th.

Air operations by Coalition aircraft took place across the DDR and down into the Czech Republic as well. Not as heavy as those in night-time, there were air strikes which still took place. East German Army units dispersed away from garrisons were targeted. So too were suspected air facilities where the LSK had hidden away its aircraft ready to use at will. None of them came up during the day, giving Coalition free reign to fly over East Germany unchallenged by interceptors. There were a lot of fighters flying about ready for that to happen though. The night-time ambush near to Potsdam had been costly but had been where the LSK had dared to expose itself so brazenly. Many Coalition fighter pilots went looking for a fight with the MiG-29s yet to no avail. East German SAMs and anti-aircraft fire challenged the mass violation of air sovereignty. They took their toll too where they were emerging as victors from the cat-and-mouse games with Wild Weasels and HARM-shooters. Four Coalition aircraft – two American F-16s, an RAF Harrier and a French Mirage F-1 – were brought down with a handful of further aircraft damaged. To add to the Coalition’s woes when it came to enemy SAMs, a pair of unseen SA-10 batteries, operating only within a few miles of the Inner-German Border despite all efforts to defeat such an attempt, fired off missiles into West German airspace. They managed to hit and bring down a Nimrod R1 signals intelligence aircraft and also cause major damage to a US Air Force E-8 JSTARS: the aircraft put down hard at Rhein-Main and would never fly again. Those high-profile targets had been far from where the action was supposed to be and undertaking important work to aid the air campaign. A combined British and Dutch air effort in the Harz Mountains would fail to locate that SA-10 system which had fired on the Nimrod but the Americans got the other launcher down in the Thuringwald. A-10 attack-fighters, flying low and slow inside East German airspace, dodging man-portable SAMs as well as anti-aircraft guns, caught sight of the guilty SA-10 battery on the move. Maverick missiles followed by short bursts of fire from their 30mm cannons blew the battery to tiny pieces… and those too who operated it. A loss like that, as well as the damage done to a SA-15 battery by Danish F-16s firing HARMs before dropping bombs in the follow-up, were losses that hurt the East German air defence network as much as their hits of aircraft did to the Coalition.

As to those A-10s which made that attack in the Thuringwald, the chain of mountainous forests which ran through the middle of Thuringia, they were flying out of Sembach where there was a big presence of them: US Air Force and Air Reserve aircraft were there with a squadron of Air National Guard A-10s due to join them. Their mission was to go into East German airspace but not operate too deep as other Coalition aircraft were doing. Moreover, their flights were part of a joint USAF / US Army operation in the Inner-German Border area. The latter fielded Task Force Phoenix, which consisted of various helicopter detachments from the US V Corps. There were Apaches, Cobras, Kiowas, Black Hawks and Hueys spread out across the West German countryside with the headquarters at the twice-targeted Hanau AAF. Among the US Army Europe, at US EUCOM and back in the Pentagon too, the matter of TF Phoenix was controversial. It was mandated upon high that US Army aviation assets would work with the US Air Force to take part in Operation Allied Sword. The cooperation was meant to be larger than what had seen against the Iraqis four years beforehand and was part of the ‘modern’ US Armed Forces for the 1990s. Hunting missiles – ballistic and SAMs – was the remit for combined ops as well as helping to go after downed aircrew. Helicopters flew into East German airspace on attack missions with a real effort made come the second day of air activity. A flight of Apaches located and destroyed a short-range SAM battery while another hit a suspected Scud battery. East German border guards were engaged too. Escorted by Black Hawks fitted with the Quick Fix electronic warfare system for strike escort, more Apache gunships went as far forward as to the town of Suhl right up in the Thuringwald before F-15Es made a low-level daylight attack against a hidden airstrip nearby. TF Phoenix shot-up air defences ahead of the F-15Es making their bomb run with excellent cooperation seen. One of the Black Hawks was hit by sustained anti-aircraft fire on the way out though and crashed in flames killing everyone aboard. TF Phoenix itself came under attack. Two of their own dispersed airstrips where the helicopters were flying from, near to Fulda, were fired upon by Scarabs that the East Germans used in an evening attack. Another site near to Hof, where Bavaria met Saxony with the Inner-German Border in between, faced a different ballistic attack. The DDR fired FROG-7 guided rockets right before night fell. Those were East German Army weapons – other ballistic missiles ultimately belonged to the LSK – which slammed into the TF Phoenix field base. One missed though, going wide and hitting the edge of Hof itself where five civilians died as their house collapsed atop of them. F-16s would later get the launch battery, smashing it apart before it could reach its hiding position, but that was little consolation for the American soldiers and the West German family who’d died ahead of that.


The conflict between East Germany and the coalition had other theatres of war too. West Berlin faced long-range mortar and then artillery fire on the second day. Enemy guns shot off shells from far outside of the Berlin Wall – to the north and south – which crashed into military positions within the city. The shelling was accurate and timely. Spotters, spies within the confines of the city, were rightly suspected as having called in the shelling which killed American and French soldiers and also a handful of civilians too. Apart from that, there was no further activity. Troops on duty in West Berlin (British ones as well) waited for the inevitable invasion just like the mass of civilians trapped there with them. When it would come, no one knew, yet it was considered certain by those on the ground. Coalition political leaders still regarded that as unlikely though less the DDR wish to thoroughly expand the conflict to one where a seized West Berlin would have to be liberated. In Washington, London & Paris, they were certain that Honecker wouldn’t want to see that just as much as they didn’t either.

Down in the Czech Republic, East German military activity had come to a standstill due to their homeland under severe attack. The front-lines of the civil war had stalled once the Poles had filled a small portion of the remaining part of the country under Czech government control with their own soldiers. Without DDR support to push them out, the Czech rebels wouldn’t finish the job. Air attacks by American and French aircraft (the French were concentrating solely on the Czech Republic) had done immense damage and continued to do that against the desires of East Germany’s Candidate X up in Prague to fully ‘liberate’ his country. Two nights of heavy bomb attacks, followed by a second day of less intensive action, hurt his military forces significantly. News came that the Poles were reinforcing too now that DDR air activity against them had ceased. They were moving in another division. More than that, Polish Army elements were redeploying away from garrisons on home soil as well. They were building up forces in both Pomerania and Silesia. East German military intelligence had eyes upon that with many worrying possible scenarios plotted out as to what the end result of that might be. The Volksarmee was following political direction that said that Operation Allied Sword was the air prelude to a ground invasion no matter what Coalition political leaders said. Full mobilisation for a people’s war to defend every metre of the country’s soil was still underway though the Polish movements complicated matters significantly. In Warsaw, a HVA spy there reported back to East Berlin that the American-led Coalition military liaison team to Poland had a fixed base of operations. Stasi chief Schwanitz went to the Prenden bunker where Honecker was. He strongly recommended a missile strike upon Warsaw to hit that Coalition staff as well as ‘regime targets’ too. Honecker refused: the time wasn’t ripe for that, the diplomatic outcome wouldn’t be favourable either. It wasn’t a definite ‘no’ for not striking at any point but Schwanitz left Prenden angry at such a refusal because he saw no better time than then.

At the southern end of the Oresund, between Zealand and the lowest reaches of Sweden, Coalition warships had run a naval barricade to bar the way for hostile vessels seeking to cross that waterway. The Swedes, the Finns, the Baltic States and the Russians had all made strong complaints about that as well as international shipping countries. The Danish Straits were guaranteed to be open to all under long-standing international law. They weren’t closed though, so said Copenhagen and Washington, just well monitored. Warships, aircraft and submarines there were in-place to stop East German warships as well as disguised blockade runners. The disruption from the armed presence, where commercial shipping was subject to being stopped for inspections, was significant. In addition, insurers had already quadrupled prices fearing that the Baltic Exits would be a war-zone. Swedish naval vessels were out while communications between Stockholm and Copenhagen got rather heated. Late on July 4th, a Swedish armed corvette escorted two Swedish-flagged merchant ships towards the Oresund. Those vessels wouldn’t be stopped for inspections nor waylaid at all following the latest round of Danish-Swedish talks. The merchants ships were intending to go their own way once out of the Oresund with distant destinations. The largest one of the pair was heading towards Baltimore on the US East Coast. Unbeknown to the crew aboard, or those on the corvette, into the slipstream of that vessel went another. Just below the surface, trailing a much larger vessel dangerously close was the Oder. East Germany’s lone submarine tried to slip through the defences placed in its way and get out into open waters on the other side of Denmark. It was a daring attempt, especially for an inexperienced crew aboard that Kilo. It didn’t work though.

The Kilo was a quiet submarine but not silent enough. A sudden, rough move was made by the merchantman up above and – to save his sub – the East German captain had to respond. The Royal Navy was all over him pretty damn fast. It was mostly Danish naval forces active in the Oresund area but the Americans, the Norwegians and the British too were there. Flying from off HMS Campbeltown, a Royal Navy multi-role frigate, were two Lynx HMA8 helicopters. One of them got a whiff of the Oder and dropped sonobuoys while also calling in further support. Those were heard hitting the water and the East German sub captain did what he had to and evaded a certain incoming attack where those would be followed by torpedoes. He launched noise-makers and dove while breaking fast for wider waters than the upcoming tight Oresund. There would be all sorts of activity up above – angry Swedes among them – but the Coalition wouldn’t get a line upon the Oder.

I'm seven chapters behind. I'm gonna need to binge read these.

Lots of reasons. Their allies have sh*t all over them, they don't believe the cause is right, they are suffering directly. They want it to stop.
The sub escaped but is still very exposed there.


There's a lot to get through. It'll be another long story, at least through the rest of this year.




Ideas, ideas, ideas!
The anti-war opposition in West Germany is strong though, I agree, that there will be some split there. Those against it are the loudest though. those who regretfully support it as necessary will get shouted down and blamed for the deaths of kids that the East German missiles cause. 

So while the West German government was to keep the peace, what does the West German people think, are they happy that East Germany is a aggressor while their own government is trying to avoid getting involved.

I am amazed they have not tried to close the West German airspace for allied planes, but if that helps is a diffrent question.

And a result is the US Military Police breaking them up, if they are allowed to do that without permission of the West German police.

James G , you got a online reviuew of this TL.

Review: People’s War