Red Dawn 20+ AH.com archive

From page 1

Matt Wiser

(OOC: this is a spinoff of the Red Dawn Resistance Day thread)

With Resistance Day having come and gone, just what did all of you out there do during the war, for those of you who were around from 1985-89?

I was a brand-new USAF F-4E pilot, just happy to have made 1st Lt. Our squadron (335th TFS) had gone from Seymour-Johnson AFB in North Carolina to Nellis AFB for a Red Flag, and we hadn't been there more than two days when the balloon went up! We flew out of Nellis down to Williams AFB in Arizona, (east of Phoenix), and flew nonstop combat for the next six months, though I missed the last three, as I was shot down in Southern Colorado at the beginning of December '85, and spent five months on the ground with a few other downed pilots and aircrew who were being helped by a Resistance group. We had to go on some raids and ambushes with them, and the three Marines in the bunch had to help us AF and Navy types with the basics of infantry combat. When May came around, and the snow in the high country melted, the guerillas sent us across the Rockies with a few members as guides, until we got to Sallida, where the Army's 7th Infantry Division was HQ'd. One of the Marines stayed behind to advise the group, but the rest of us got back to our squadrons. Some refresher training at Nellis and I was soon back in the air-as a Captain. Did mostly air-to-ground stuff, but didn't mind lopping off the occasional MiG, Sukhoi, or helicopter that came my way (ended the war with 12 kills). When the war ended in 1989, I was a Major and in command of the squadron, still flying F-4s. Whenever I fly over that part of Colorado, I think of the folks, guerillas and civilians, who risked their lives to help us get back to friendly lines and then back in the air. Some of them made it to the end. Unfortunately, a lot of 'em didn't: either KIA, captured and murdered by the Soviets and their Cuban lackeys, or civilians, victims of those murderous reprisals Ivan's and Fidel's people were so fond of. And I found out that a farm family that had helped me and my backseater get to the resistance was executed for helping us. And people in France and Germany wonder why there's still a lot of bad blood postwar, even today?

Sachyriel

I remember my birthday one year into the war. I was stuck in the ruins of Vancouver, drinking a bit of salvaged rum from a store. I had barely wet my tongue when the soviets attacked the department store we were holding. As a Medic I dropped the bottle in my bag after closing it and ran to help some of my mates who were hit by a hand grenade. but the artillery had weakened the roof so much that it fell onto my helmet and knocked me out. There was so much blood on me I guess all the Soviets thought I was dead. I woke up to the Canadians retaking the building a day later.

Blue Max

(Would have been killed in the Soviet Nuclear Onslaught)

Ward

Well when the balloon went up I was in the 1St Cav Div Running a tank repear shop with in 2 mo's I was wearing Warrent 1 bars and By the end of the War I was wearing W-4 .


Matt Wiser

Just how nasty was Vancouver? I've read that when Ivan couldn't get into Montana and the Dakotas when they were stopped at the border, the Russians tried a push down into B.C. and ultimately planned to go down the West Coast. That was a meat grinder for both sides, I heard; a Stalingrad in the Pacific Northwest. A friend of mine flew F-15s out of McChord in those days; he said that there were days when you couldn't see anything of the city due to all the smoke from fires, air and artillery strikes, etc.

Blue Max

Map, from the Wiki Page:
Given the date of this attack (1984), I wouldn't have been killed, I'd have been prevented from ever being born.


Sachyriel

Blue Max said: (Would have been killed in the Soviet Nuclear Onslaught)

OOC: Who me? Never

Matt Wiser said: Just how nasty was Vancouver? I've read that when Ivan couldn't get into Montana and the Dakotas when they were stopped at the border, the Russians tried a push down into B.C. and ultimately planned to go down the West Coast. That was a meat grinder for both sides, I heard; a Stalingrad in the Pacific Northwest. A friend of mine flew F-15s out of McChord in those days; he said that there were days when you couldn't see anything of the city due to all the smoke from fires, air and artillery strikes, etc.

Well, if before Vancouver was called a Jewel of the West Coast, then afterwards it was the Broken Mirror of Canada. Everything we had worked so hard for in the past, our dedication to international peace keeping, gone. Vancouver wasn't the worst in the province though, the Russians secured the Naval Base at Esquimalt and killed all the Canadian Forces personnel they took prisoner.

Dave

Not much to say. My dad was KIA two months before I was born.

The Red

I was a member of the militant tendency protest movement to try and get Britain out of the War.Thatcher wanted us all shot as traitors but I managed to get political refuge in the Soviet Union after the war.

Dave Howery

I was caught in my home town in Montana at the time; there was a very deep fear of being stomped in the invasion, since my home town sat right on the Interstate. However, the Reds never made it into MT at all. In spite of the fact that I was at the prime age of 25 on the day of the invasion, I never was commandeered into the army. Basically, the army cleaned out the MT NG base of all vehicles and equipment, went on to the war, and never really came back. Guess my home town was just too small for either side to bother with...

Kevin Renner

spent most of the war years churning out military equipment 12 to 16 hours a day 7 days a week for months on end. I figure some of the MLRS rockets I helped build did their job of sending the Second Guards Shock Army to hell in the Battle of Taos

oudi14

For those of us baby boomers growing up in America during the Cold War years, you have no idea how unbelievable those summer days in 1984 seemed, when the invasion first happened. It was like a bad movie gone terribly wrong. I was born in 1955, a little too young for Vietnam. I knew a lot of guys a few years older than me who had been over there, and they mostly came back with serious drinking or drug problems. When the shit did hit the fan, I was luckier than some, because I grew up in a hunting/outdoor culture, and I was not prepared to just roll over and give up. I was able to grab weapons and vital supplies and head west, out of the small Kansas town where I had grown up, and retreat all the way into the mountains of Colorado, where, one day, I ran into a resistance group who called themselves the Wolverines. We didn't have anything more than small arms for defense [hell, in truth, in those early days, we had to rely mostly on shotguns and bows], but we were so incensed that anybody would DARE attack the good old US of A, that our righteous indignation kept us going when, by all rights, we should have given it up as a lost cause. We lost a lot of good people, women as well as men, but we stuck it out,and when the forces of good finally prevailed, the Wolverines were still in one piece.

Bavarian Raven

i was near vancouver when it happened. spent most of the war in the mtns to the north running a small resistance force... lost most of my friends during our revenge campaign. in the end only 3 out of the orrigonal twenty of us survived...

hsthompson

The Red said: I was a member of the militant tendency protest movement to try and get Britain out of the War.Thatcher wanted us all shot as traitors but I managed to get political refuge in the Soviet Union after the war.
It is a small world...

I was with the Friends of St. George volunteers from Spain. Getting to Britain was difficult enough: the government denied us permission to leave and cancelled our passports as we were officially neutral in that conflict. I never understood it: we were signing for mine, bomb and explosive disposal, on an unarmed capacity.

In the end, it didn't matter a bit that we had no permission and no documentation: the Border police in the Basque country let us through with a knowing smile when we said we were going on a fishing trip with our grandads.

The grandads were all retired teachers from the Police and Military academies who came with us to try and teach us as much about bomb disposal as they could while we crossed France.

And it took us a while to do it: we had to use our own bus and go through secondary roads to get to the docks to Britain. We were illegals and illegals with bombs, and with train stations being patrolled by the Army and Police... in the end it turned out most Gendarmes were not looking for us but out for us: every time we got stopped we got refuelled, a good meal and a set of new devices to set our wits against.

It was the best training for it ever: if you can defuse an explosive device on a bus on a second class road in France while being on your hundredth cup of espresso and two days being awake, you can do it anywhere, any time.

We managed to get into the last ferry to Holyhead from Cherbourg, where we were solemnly deported to Britain.

And then we all know: the second Battle for Britain, the raids in Sunderland and Hartlepool and the first aborted invasion in Great Yarmouth got many of us killed.

Out of five hundred volunteers, just 36 of us made it through, which was the start of the Anglers Society. We were granted Fort Roughs from the Navy, which we managed to expand and refurbish, and renamed Landsea. Unlike the previous occupants, who claimed to be a sovereign nation and were recognized by noone, we got quietly recognized by nearly everyone. Maybe it is because we do not seek to make money but instead to act as negotiators and mediators on behalf of peace and understanding.

Spain is the only country that hasn't recognized us as a sovereign country, but that's understandable, and no one there has ever impeded us in any way. We only have to show our passport and our fishing rod (the last parting gift from the Gendarmerie Francaise as we were seen off Cherbourg)

But I digress. Now to the reason why I said this is a small world...

After you were declared a traitor, your house was reposessed and it got eventually granted to us as living space for the staff of the school of International Relations we're funding in Hamilton.

So while being in charge of setting the school up, I've been your unpaying tenant... It won't be for long now, though. Your neighbours are trying to get the conviction overturned and the case is heard in two weeks.

So I might see you around in person soon. In which case I'll be moving to the pub down the road. I kind of like your town.

Matt Wiser

Oudi, did you see any F-4s come over your part of Colorado? Dark green ones with shark's mouths painted on the nose? If you did, that was my squadron. Small world and small war. I know you guys helped downed pilots, and thanks for getting two of my squadron mates across the Rockies and back to the squadron.

mattep74

hsthompson said:It is a small world...

I was with the Friends of St. George volunteers from Spain. Getting to Britain was difficult enough: the government denied us permission to leave and cancelled our passports as we were officially neutral in that conflict. I never understood it: we were signing for mine, bomb and explosive disposal, on an unarmed capacity.
ooc:Did you watch the movie? There werent any fighting in Europe.

Ic: I was in school the entire time and we were afraid of russian attacks on Sweden at anytime

trekchu

OOC: We don't know what happened between the scene where they reach the edge of the plains and the last scene. For the sake of my countries honour, I will assume what is posted below.

IC: Well, I was too small of course, being born 1985 and all, but my older brothers were drafted when we re-joined NATO and invaded east Germany. One of them died during the liberation of West Berlin.

hsthompson

mattep74 said: ooc:Did you watch the movie? There werent any fighting in Europe.

Ic: I was in school the entire time and we were afraid of russian attacks on Sweden at anytime
ooc: Did you? Check the campfire scene (someone uploaded it to Google Video and it wasn't me) About minute 56-57:

- What about Europe?
- I guess they figured twice in one century was enough. They're sitting this one out. All except England. They won't last very long. Russians need to take us in one piece [...]

Which is why I kind of figured out Britain would actually last a while before getting a negotiated armistice of some kind. My guess is that the Russians in this scenario would not be willing to mount a full scale invasion of the UK, but that their strategy would be to try and contain them and foment dissent.

Without occupying West Germany or Denmark they cannot launch an effective invasion.

- all their troop carriers would go through the same choke point in the Skagerrak Straits which means a turkey shoot for the RAF and Navy (or what, past the Norwegian coast into Scotland? Now that would be a Sealion!)

- In order to be able to do more, they have to try to get relative air superiority (hence the second battle of Britain, which could end on stalemate at most, radar and rockets make it easier for the defender)

And in all, if the main objective is to get to the cornfields of Canada and the US -and to get some Chinese out of the way, less people, more food for your guys to find- most material would be tied there. Makes sense to limit yourself to military targets, scare people and get them to bail out if possible.

stalkere

mattep74 said: ↑ooc:Did you watch the movie? There werent any fighting in Europe.

Ic: I was in school the entire time and we were afraid of russian attacks on Sweden at anytime

Did you pay attention to the movie? Check the info dump that the Colonel gives the Wolverines the night they find him.

Grin - semantic issue - no fighting in Europe. What is England? Europe, or an island in the Atlantic? The Brits were fighting, according to the Colonel, but getting ready to go down, just like 400 Million Chinese.

I gotta admit, I've seen the movie a bunch of times - I teach JROTC, and it's a good vehicle for teaching The Laws of War. Strictly speaking, the Wolverines violate the Hague Conventions all the time, especially in the beginning. The Pact Forces are actually not as bad as they might have been in real life.

The big thing is, your visceral reaction is that the Wolverines are the good guys, but the reality is that the Pact is, aside from the two reprisal massacres, pretty much the same as Coalition Forces in OTL.

And me - I say that as a guy who actually spent a lot of time over there, so you better show me your ribbon bar before you start sputtering. I was in Afghanistan in Nov 2001, I was in Baghdad in April 2003, so before you start telling me I don't know what I'm talking about, insurgent warfare is something I know from both sides of that line - as the insurgent trainer and the occupation force officer.

So, getting back to the original post, in the RD timeline, at the time I was flying on Medevac Missions out of Niagara Falls ARB, so if I didn't get hit in the initial attacks, I probably died in the first month. My career field had a 40% mortality in Viet Nam, I doubt if things would be any better in this TL.

MarkWhittington

I spent most of the war setting off car bombs and doing other things I still don't like to talk about in occupied Houston.

From page 3

Matt Wiser

The drive down from Alaska through Canada got stopped at the U.S.-Canadian border-at the MT and ND state lines.

Gtrof said the all-female AH-1 outfit that VII Corps had was part of 4th Squadron, 2nd ACR. Those gals not only pulled our XO's back-seater out, but did a lot of other stuff. Ivan didn't like them at all.

The AF took over your squadron? Most USMC squadrons stayed Marines.

I do remember those European "Volunteers". Their governments were neutral after NATO fell apart, but they looked the other way when the invasion bogged down and let whole squadrons come over for combat tours. Even some Israelis came over on an individual basis, IIRC. It almost took a coup in West Germany before that Green-dominated goverment let Luftwaffe squadrons come over. And when the Russians and their lackeys got kicked out, that government fell when some of their ministers were found to be on the KGB's payroll.

Panzerfaust 150

Well,
My war was a whole lot of talking to tired, scared Cuban POWs. See, I had just been put out of ROTC for medical reasons when the Soviets decided to invade. I didn't live too far out of DC then, and yeah, it was close enough to see the flash and the mushroom cloud (thank god I lived in the basement!). Well, somehow, I linked up with a NG MI Battalion on the Maryland side that was deploying west, all the BC cared about was that I spoke Spanish and knew what SPORTS and MOUT meant. So, I was sworn in as an E-4 and given a short OJT course on interrogating and processing Cuban, and eventually Russian POWs (learned it faster than I thought I could).

God, did you wind up feeling sorry for the poor fucks. They had expected some horrific scene out of a Dickens novel when they landed here...and what they found? Every damn one of them asked me if they'd get their "mementos" back! I tried not to think about what they might have done to the former owners of that stuff...

The one moment that stands out for me is when 8th Guards Army surrendered in the Brownsville pocket. One of the Soviet officers I did the inital interrogation on asked me if "this was how Von Paulus felt?" I said I didn't know...and offered him a snort of Vodka (yeah, not by the book, but you'd be surprised what Ivan would do for Vodka...and we'd captured so damn much of it....anyhow, it worked and got them talking.)

As for now, I am happy, finishing my Masters in History and starting a High School teaching job in Charlottesville this fall. I count myself lucky for the most part. My family survived, except for my Grandfather, who was in NYC that day. But, my hat is off to you guys on the line..you bled in spades...and to the resistance fighters. The info you got us was priceless. Trust me on that.

Matt Wiser

Man, talk about irony: the 8th Guards Army was originally the 62nd Army at Stalingrad, and they bled Paulus' Army white until the Germans were surrounded and then crushed. They were redesignated 8th Guards and ended WW II in Berlin. Brownsville was one of the last battles of the war (on U.S. soil, anyway), and two Soviet Armies were trapped and forced to surrender when their food, fuel, and ammo gave out (thanks to us Blue-Suiters and the Squids in the Navy). After wrapping up things in Texas and New Mexico, they sent us north to give the Canadians a hand. The 335th never did rejoin the 4th TFW until after the war.

You're not kidding about how those Russians and Cubans felt: the stuff their Political Officers told them was way off the mark. And they wondered why the "oppressed masses" in the U.S. resisted them when their Party hacks told them the opposite. I remember one MiG driver who got nailed by a 335th Phantom near the Arizona-New Mexico line, and they brought him to Williams AFB for interrogation. He was surprised to see Black and Hispanic AF and Marines working with us Anglos, the American Indians in uniform, and women, too. He asked to see the pilot who shot him down,
and guess who walked in? Capt. Tom Hayes from L.A.-South Central L.A.: he went thru AF ROTC in High School, then to the AF Academy, and to the 335th. And this Russian acted like he'd just had a coronary. That MiG driver just couldn't understand why Tom was flying.

Did you come down into Texas from Louisiana? Or down via Arkansas or Oklahoma to D/FW? If you did the latter, you might've seen our F-4s: we were the only Phantoms with shark's mouth artwork.

gtrof

trof said the all-female AH-1 outfit that VII Corps had was part of 4th Squadron, 2nd ACR. Those gals not only pulled our XO's back-seater out, but did a lot of other stuff. Ivan didn't like them at all.

One of my most memorable experiences of with them was during the big Russian counterattack at Witcha. 20th Guards Tank Div hit our lead squadron west of the city. This was before they had real supply problems, so they threw everything at us, 152mm, MLRS, Hinds, Frogfoots (although we called them Flying F**Ks), and the kitchen sink. Anyway my squadron needed time to dig in and hold them off. Those girls went straight in against their lead regiment. They must of shot off the entire ACR's supply of TOWs and did plenty of rocket and gun runs in front of us. They took losses, six or seven Cobra's I think. We prayed none were captured by Ivan :mad: They bought us the time to dig in and smash those bastards against us.

The drive down from Alaska through Canada got stopped at the U.S.-Canadian border-at the MT and ND state lines.

Anybody on the board in the Canadian Army at the time? I've been looking for a good book on the northern war. Especially if its about the Canadian Leopard brigade originally intended for NATO. IIRC they ran a whole series of hit and runs against Ivan as he went south. Then made the stand with the V Corps at the border.

TheMann

Matt Wiser said: The drive down from Alaska through Canada got stopped at the U.S.-Canadian border-at the MT and ND state lines.

Gtrof said the all-female AH-1 outfit that VII Corps had was part of 4th Squadron, 2nd ACR. Those gals not only pulled our XO's back-seater out, but did a lot of other stuff. Ivan didn't like them at all.

It was them! I though that the 2nd ACR whose AH-1s called for help. We're always glad to help out our fellow soldiers, and yeah, I remember all the shit that Ivan was saying about them, boy. I hope none of them ever got captured. if they had been, I'd have wanted to know where to go to help her out. The Reds were a bunch of f**king barbarians even at the best of times.

Matt Wiser said: The AF took over your squadron? Most USMC squadrons stayed Marines.
After a couple Marine squadrons from Pendleton turned up at Tyndall AB, the Air Force asked for a USMC squadron to move over to help in the Midwest, and the Corps selected my squadron. They called, we went.

Matt Wiser said: I do remember those European "Volunteers". Their governments were neutral after NATO fell apart, but they looked the other way when the invasion bogged down and let whole squadrons come over for combat tours. Even some Israelis came over on an individual basis, IIRC. It almost took a coup in West Germany before that Green-dominated goverment let Luftwaffe squadrons come over. And when the Russians and their lackeys got kicked out, that government fell when some of their ministers were found to be on the KGB's payroll.
I won't say some of what the Luftwaffe boys had to say about the Greenies in Bonn. It wasn't nice, as you can probably guess. After NATO went to hell the alliances airplanes came over here too. That was adding eight Sentrys, which we really liked having.

gtrof said:One of my most memorable experiences of with them was during the big Russian counterattack at Witcha. 20th Guards Tank Div hit our lead squadron west of the city. This was before they had real supply problems, so they threw everything at us, 152mm, MLRS, Hinds, Frogfoots (although we called them Flying F**Ks), and the kitchen sink. Anyway my squadron needed time to dig in and hold them off. Those girls went straight in against their lead regiment. They must of shot off the entire ACR's supply of TOWs and did plenty of rocket and gun runs in front of us. They took losses, six or seven Cobra's I think. We prayed none were captured by Ivan :mad: They bought us the time to dig in and smash those bastards against us.

Hey, don't forget about us wing-wipers, man. The fucking Russkies sent a bunch of air power your way too. That's the battle I lost my lucky Hornet in, from a Russian flak gun, but not after two Badgers, a Fulcrum and a Frogfoot. I got another fighter after that, and kept on fighting.

Matt Wiser

Generally, if a Cobra got hit by anything bigger than 23-mm, it was a question of how many pieces there were afterwards. Wichita, you say? We were busy in Eastern New Mexico and the Texas Panhandle then. 1st Cav was pretty busy along with 3rd ACR. You're quite right about being captured: the POWs who did come back had many a frightful story to tell.

Weren't there some "tank girls" as well? IIRC when 3rd ACR was reformed at Fort Irwin, my back-seater and I got sent down to talk with the AF FACs assigned, and they told us that there were quite a few girls driving tanks and APCs. Didn't believe it myself until I heard them on the radio when that OPFOR regiment slammed into them. One of their troop COs was a girl from West Point (or Hudson High as we call it in the AF), and last I heard, she wound up commanding 3rd Squadron at Santa Rosa and Tucumcari, NM, and into Texas. (Flew CAS for 'em many times) Don't know how they got the M-1s and Bradleys for the new regiment to California, unless it was via the Dakotas and Montana, and then down to Utah and SoCal, but they did. Maybe by sea around Cape Horn....the Navy had a lot of work getting stuff we needed from overseas past Soviet subs. Anyone here on the board from the Navy? Need to hear from you folks. At least they got their AH-64s fresh from the Hughes Factory in Mesa...

I'll echo that request for guys and gals from the northern war: Alaska-Canada-U.S/Canadian border. Need to hear more from you people.

trekchu

TheMann said: I won't say some of what the Luftwaffe boys had to say about the Greenies in Bonn. It wasn't nice, as you can probably guess. After NATO went to hell the alliances airplanes came over here too. That was adding eight Sentrys, which we really liked having.
OOC: To save what little honour our politicians have: The Greens could NEVER actually win a full majority in Germany. Not even today. It's still just a fringe party, and all the majors were comitted to NATO.

Sachyriel

gtrof said: Anybody on the board in the Canadian Army at the time? I've been looking for a good book on the northern war. Especially if its about the Canadian Leopard brigade originally intended for NATO. IIRC they ran a whole series of hit and runs against Ivan as he went south. Then made the stand with the V Corps at the border.

I was, I was a medic fighting in the Vancouver area on Victoria Island. Our stand at the border is famous but it was the siege of Vancouver that most Canadians remember with bitterness. Recall Stalingrad? It can be called Vancouvergrad by some veterans.

Oh man, I remember coming from the East on trains was a bad idea. Half the time the tracks were bombed out, but the Army Engineers and Air Force really kept them steady enough for my train to get across. Couldn't say that about at least six other transports though, saw them lying on the sides of the tracks, turned over and blown to bits in some areas.

trekchu

mmmeee0 said: I was, I was a medic fighting in the Vancouver area on Victoria Island. Our stand at the border is famous but it was the siege of Vancouver that most Canadians remember with bitterness. Recall Stalingrad? It can be called Vancouvergrad by some veterans.

Oh man, I remember coming from the East on trains was a bad idea. Half the time the tracks were bombed out, but the Army Engineers and Air Force really kept them steady enough for my train to get across. Couldn't say that about at least six other transports though, saw them lying on the sides of the tracks, turned over and blown to bits in some areas.
Yes, but you were truely fighting for freedom. I am still ashamed to be a German and that we sat it out for as long as we did. Btw, how was news of the 86 election in Germany greeted over there?

Sachyriel

trekchu said: Yes, but you were truly fighting for freedom. I am still ashamed to be a German and that we sat it out for as long as we did. Btw, how was news of the 86 election in Germany greeted over there?

Most of us thought it was Soviet propaganda, or at least socialist propaganda. Elections in Europe? Ha. Most of us who thought about it just assured it was a play to keep your people oppressed since you didn't bother to fight totalitarianism anymore.

trekchu

mmmeee0 said: Most of us thought it was Soviet propaganda, or at least socialist propaganda. Elections in Europe? Ha. Most of us who thought about it just assured it was a play to keep your people oppressed since you didn't bother to fight totalitarianism anymore.

I guess when we did join the war in early 89 it was sort of a surprise, eh? I mean, with the Conservatives back in the saddle it was only a matter of time until we tried to reunite the country, given that 90 % of the Red Army was fighting you, especially after the French allied themselves with us.

Sachyriel

trekchu said: I guess when we did join the war in early 89 it was sort of a surprise, eh? I mean, with the Conservatives back in the saddle it was only a matter of time until we tried to reunite the country, given that 90 % of the Red Army was fighting you, especially after the French allied themselves with us.
Yeah it's not like we had sent electoral observers to Europe to make sure that the elections were fair. Kinda...busy

trekchu

mmmeee0 said: Yeah it's not like we had sent electoral observers to Europe to make sure that the elections were fair. Kinda...busy
True. Still, the biggest thing was and is Operation "Unnamable Sea Manmal".....

Watching the World

UK Invasion!

Please the Soviet invasion of the UK was a joke! but it did take troops away from other places.

No wonder the re-occupation of East Germany in 1989 was relatively easy!

After the capitulation the Soviets and Thatcher vanished insisted on a new government so we got a totally useless "Labour" government. They could not contain the population even if the forces (Armed Forces, Police) wanted to.

The invasion consisted of 15 year old Pioneers and even some Little Octobrists with their "grandfathers" who fought in WW2 as this was all the manpower that was available plus some Warsaw Pact troops for appearance.

When they came I was a terrified 16 year old do-gooder who saw decent people killed for disagreeing with the new Secret Police. So my first "Terrorist" was sticking mud up exhausts of all their vehicles and sitting back to watch the fun while trying to chat up a very pretty girl.

Unfortunately was disappointing as I'd expected the engines to blow up as I'd seen in Hollywood films but nothing that exciting. However the sound caused enough distraction for the SAS Auxiliaries to get close enough to release nearly half of the detainees who hid in the crowd that had appeared to see what was going on.

I did not know until much later that when things got bad in late 1983 Thatcher had dug out Winston Churchill's plans for a UK resistance movement of WW2 and created a new version.

Apparently one of the detainees was someone they needed to protect and were planning an attack on the convoy but when they saw my stupid stunt decided to use that as a distraction instead.

They therefore escaped without a single shot being fired and after everything settled down I went home and was visited by the very pretty girl. She was part of the start of the British Resistance in Manchester, England and she recruited me.

It was explained to me that any resistance can never win a war the invading nation must lose the will to fight. So the aim was to send home thousands of injured and frightened Soviets.

It worked which is why they sent over the East German troops in late 1988 who were a very different matter. The troops from Dresden were the worst as they had grown up being told how horrible the fire-bombing was in 1945. So history repeats itself!

4 kids and 20 years later we are still annoying each other. Happy at what we did but sorry for the friends we lost in those terrible years.

P.S. Certain people collaborated to help ALL the people of UK to survive but some people did it as they wanted to inflict pain onto others. After all this time most of us are willing to accept that countries must get on better as wars are horrible.

HOWEVER, Quislings deserve everything that is coming to them!

trekchu

Watching the World said: *snip*
What terrified me the most in this war was that when the 7th Panzerdivision rolled onto Potzdammer Platz in Berlin, the civies there honestly thought that our Leos were there to roll over them instead of protecting Division CP. Didn't see that myself, but my best mate served there. It seems that when things got desperate for the Ossies, they told their people about a second facist war of extermination in the east.... :eek: Also if most of their troops were in the UK it explains why the initial offensives were relatively easy.

lonewulf44

I was young when the news came of the Soviet onslaught. For weeks my parents had been glued to the news and we seemed to be storing a lot more food than was the norm. Dad would take my brothers and I out hunting and shooting a lot more than we use to do as well. He kept emphasizing a lot of stuff we already knew, almost like he was worried we would forget it when we needed it. When the word came through of the Soviet invasion we spent the first few days just listening to the radio and wondering what would come next. After some weeks as the Soviets pushed further North, the call came out for additional volunteers and there was a local gathering of men and women who were going to join up together. Some type of regiment with the name Hoosier in it somewhere. My dad and older brother were going to go down with the unit. I was told that I would have to remain with my mother and family due to age. Upon seeing the unit loading up to leave, I snuck aboard one of the trucks and managed to keep myself hidden until we were already in Missouri! My father obviously furious but for some reason seemed to be hiding a smile soon after. By that time we were close enough to the fighting that we could watch the fights in the air and hear the shelling growing louder and more frequent. The caravan moved on though now mainly on foot as the military 'borrowed' the trucks we were using and came down in. I found out that along the way we had 'merged' with some 'official' military units. The months ahead are remembered mostly of running ammunition to points of need, delivering communications to different people and just trying my best to seem older than I was. Crawling around so much, I soon became known simply as 'the Mole'. Send 'the Mole'! became something I heard a lot the next few years. just a few of the days that stick out are the day I traded my hunting rifle for a M16, shaking the hand of General Davout, watching the sky burn one night during the 3rd and last battle of the Clouds, and reaching the Texas-Mexican border.

Hope the script is going to be well made for the remake. Still not sure about them trading Russians for Chinese but hopefully they write a good story. I'm going to see it no matter what anyways I guess.

Panzerfaust 150

Matt Wiser said: Man, talk about irony: the 8th Guards Army was originally the 62nd Army at Stalingrad, and they bled Paulus' Army white until the Germans were surrounded and then crushed. They were redesignated 8th Guards and ended WW II in Berlin. Brownsville was one of the last battles of the war (on U.S. soil, anyway), and two Soviet Armies were trapped and forced to surrender when their food, fuel, and ammo gave out (thanks to us Blue-Suiters and the Squids in the Navy). After wrapping up things in Texas and New Mexico, they sent us north to give the Canadians a hand. The 335th never did rejoin the 4th TFW until after the war.
Irony wasn't the half of it..we had a Kraut liason officer at battalion who had been at Irwin when the balloon went up who kept asking Corps if the Army colors had been captured..I guess old grudges die hard. I believe the Ivans burned them before they threw in the towel.

Matt Wiser said: You're not kidding about how those Russians and Cubans felt: the stuff their Political Officers told them was way off the mark. And they wondered why the "oppressed masses" in the U.S. resisted them when their Party hacks told them the opposite. I remember one MiG driver who got nailed by a 335th Phantom near the Arizona-New Mexico line, and they brought him to Williams AFB for interrogation. He was surprised to see Black and Hispanic AF and Marines working with us Anglos, the American Indians in uniform, and women, too. He asked to see the pilot who shot him down,and guess who walked in? Capt. Tom Hayes from L.A.-South Central L.A.: he went thru AF ROTC in High School, then to the AF Academy, and to the 335th. And this Russian acted like he'd just had a coronary. That MiG driver just couldn't understand why Tom was flying.
Ivan never understood how we could train our minorities to handle complicated equipment, when they put theirs in construction battalions and low skill jobs in the Motor Rifle units. Sad really, the Central Asian guys got it the worst. But I will never forget this one story....

We get a call from the BC to head out to this small town in SE Texas just north of Victoria about, oh 5-10 klicks from the FLOT. Seems a Mi-24 auto rotated in after it took a bit of a "joy ride" and shot up traffic up and down 59. So, we show up..and the gunner died on impact, looks like a AIM-9 took the tail off, we heard later a TX AFNG F-16 got the kill. The locals have got the wounded pilot treed up a telephone poll, with pitchforks and shotguns, and the pilot's holding on with his good hand for dear life and blood coming from a dozen cuts and bruises. Well, we show up, me, my assistant, Purvis, some medic from a CASH we grabbed, and about a dozen MPs to help the local Sherriff hold off the lynching...

As we get the poor guy into the HMMWV, I noticed something...he was wearing a tallis under his flight suit. For those that don't know, it's the Hebrew prayer shawl. So, being a decent Jew myself..I speak a few words of Hebrew..tell him we're US Army, and we're gonna take care of him and give his gunner a proper burial. His face had a lot of color come back when we told him that...and as we spoke..I asked him about the new multi-spec flares that Ivan was using to give STINGER-POST and the new Chapparal seeker heads a hard time...and mentioned there might be a trip to Israel in it for him. Well, he didn't just tell me...he damn well showed me! We got 10 intact flares out of that as well as a look at the new FLIR system that was making the Mi-24 death on legs to a lot of the resistance guys.

I am happy to say he got the trip to Israel..he's now, get this...an AH-64 driver for the IDF..He sends me friggin postcards every Pasach!

Matt Wiser said: Did you come down into Texas from Louisiana? Or down via Arkansas or Oklahoma to D/FW? If you did the latter, you might've seen our F-4s: we were the only Phantoms with shark's mouth artwork.
I came in through Louisana...yep, our convoy rode right down "Fencer Alley" and me and my MOPP suit got real acquainted then..be surprised how short 9 seconds can be...

trekchu

Panzerfaust 150 said: Irony wasn't the half of it..we had a Kraut liason officer at battalion who had been at Irwin when the balloon went up who kept asking Corps if the Army colors had been captured..I guess old grudges die hard. I believe the Ivans burned them before they threw in the towel.
Do you happen to recall his name? A Cousin of mine was posted in the States back then.

The Red

Watching the World said:Please the Soviet invasion of the UK was a joke! but it did take troops away from other places.

No wonder the re-occupation of East Germany in 1989 was relatively easy!

After the capitulation the Soviets and Thatcher vanished insisted on a new government so we got a totally useless "Labour" government. They could not contain the population even if the forces (Armed Forces, Police) wanted to.

The invasion consisted of 15 year old Pioneers and even some Little Octobrists with their "grandfathers" who fought in WW2 as this was all the manpower that was available plus some Warsaw Pact troops for appearance.

When they came I was a terrified 16 year old do-gooder who saw decent people killed for disagreeing with the new Secret Police. So my first "Terrorist" was sticking mud up exhausts of all their vehicles and sitting back to watch the fun while trying to chat up a very pretty girl.

Unfortunately was disappointing as I'd expected the engines to blow up as I'd seen in Hollywood films but nothing that exciting. However the sound caused enough distraction for the SAS Auxiliaries to get close enough to release nearly half of the detainees who hid in the crowd that had appeared to see what was going on.

I did not know until much later that when things got bad in late 1983 Thatcher had dug out Winston Churchill's plans for a UK resistance movement of WW2 and created a new version.

Apparently one of the detainees was someone they needed to protect and were planning an attack on the convoy but when they saw my stupid stunt decided to use that as a distraction instead.

They therefore escaped without a single shot being fired and after everything settled down I went home and was visited by the very pretty girl. She was part of the start of the British Resistance in Manchester, England and she recruited me.

It was explained to me that any resistance can never win a war the invading nation must lose the will to fight. So the aim was to send home thousands of injured and frightened Soviets.

It worked which is why they sent over the East German troops in late 1988 who were a very different matter. The troops from Dresden were the worst as they had grown up being told how horrible the fire-bombing was in 1945. So history repeats itself!

4 kids and 20 years later we are still annoying each other. Happy at what we did but sorry for the friends we lost in those terrible years.

P.S. Certain people collaborated to help ALL the people of UK to survive but some people did it as they wanted to inflict pain onto others. After all this time most of us are willing to accept that countries must get on better as wars are horrible.

HOWEVER, Quislings deserve everything that is coming to them!
Do not call us collaborators we were fighting for our lives the same as you!

I would take the Soviets over Thatcher and we did.Why do you think Scotland declared independence after our 'liberation'.

From page 5

The Red

trekchu said: Allrighty. The treatment of PoWs is spot on then. As a German I am probably biased, but of the whole 6th Army that surrendered at stalingrad about around 5000 made it back.

ooc:Yes although im guessing American prisoners would be different to German ones who have raped murdered and enslaved to a degree that the Soviets look like angels.

Of course I was always one to agree with a united Germany but at what cost?That countryman would be put against countryman in service of the two superpowers.No wonder Germany has such an isolationist stance today.

trekchu

The Red said: ooc:Yes although im guessing American prisoners would be different to German ones who have raped murdered and enslaved to a degree that the Soviets look like angels.

Of course I was always one to agree with a united Germany but at what cost?That countryman would be put against countryman in service of the two superpowers.No wonder Germany has such an isolationist stance today.

Isolationist as in we don't fight proxy wars all over the world like the superpowers did. In that respect everyone has that stance today. It surprised me how little friction there was between the two parts. Not to get this into ASB, but methinks the Dresden riots could have been averted had the reunification been peaceful.

Panzerfaust 150

Me, I look at Ivan this way..and it's my opinion based on interrogating over 500 EPWs. I felt sorry for the average line doggies we caught. Most of them knew little or nothing of what it was all about, and just wanted to survive and go home. Some of them, yeah, were sadists and they got sorted out later in the Tier 2 trials in Bakersfield. The real problem kids were the Nicaraguans, they were to a man, pretty hard core and didn't flinch when it came to atrocities either. I only interrogated one of them, and I am proud to say it was the only time I thought I was ever going to work over an EPW. The VDV and Naval Infantry types played "I'm hard, I am", till I produced the vodka and promise of warm borcht and a shower...then they usually spilled their guts...Never dealt with Spetsnaz, that was the Corps CI guys. I did deal with some KGB and DGI fellas..now those folks were very tight lipped and didn't say much, most times, it was an effort just to get name, rank and service number. Most of them were later involved in the Tier 2 trials anyhow.

As for the officers...they came in three types..First was the old Russian military families. They were of the old European "Well, good show, you've caught me, now let's be civilized about this.", and they were great about saying a lot without meaning very much, took some work to get the wheat from the chaff...then there were the newly commissioned Junior Lieutenants straight from their universities..they were scared, and often suffering survivor's guilt..which I shamelessly used to get information. But when I got the KGB/DGI/"New Soviet Man" types...well, then we had to get creative...we did scare the piss out of one KGB Captain using a phone book and a burlap sack...He later got death by hanging in the Tier 2 trials. Oh, and as for the "auxiliaries" as Red refers to them (me and my buddies refer to them as friggin traitors for the willing, and poor slobs for the unwilling), most of them spilled their guts within minutes of sitting down with them, just being thankful for getting off a modern battlefield alive. Considering the Soviets barely gave them a helmet, rifle, 3 clips of ammo and a uniform that could be charitably described as a burlap sack and then were "corseted" by "reliable" troops, I'd say the lucky one were the EPWs. Most of them were college radicals who didn't have the stones when it came time to die for their beliefs. Funny how that worked out. Most of those units did do one thing very well, opress Americans caught behind Soviet lines.

After the war, I had to stay another year...I got assigned to the prosecution side doing witness prep for the Tier 1 trials in Reno. Yeah, I guess nobody thinks of it as "divorce city" anymore. I think they did a fair job of assessing blame there..though I think that slob Colonel General Delgado got off light for the stuff he let his men do in Casper..that one still keeps me awake sometimes.

The Red

trekchu said: Isolationist as in we don't fight proxy wars all over the world like the superpowers did. In that respect everyone has that stance today. It surprised me how little friction there was between the two parts. Not to get this into ASB, but methinks the Dresden riots could have been averted had the reunification been peaceful.

Im not attacking there argumentive stance im agreeing with it.The War was down to the Soviets for the 9th May 1945 and everyone with half a brain could see that.I tried to get Britain out of it and nearly got shot for being a traitor.

Europes islationism allowed them to become the Third superpower during and immediately after the war and with the Soviets and Americans pretty much done for the next couple of decades the world can expect EU socialism to spread after its economic boom.

At the moment im applying for a visa in Germany,I'm still on 'the list' in Britain and works drying up in the Soviet Union,the center of EU dominance promises to be a frewsh start...

trekchu

You are probably on the list here too. In case nobody told you, there is no European Socialism. In fact the CDU has been reigning for the last eight years.

The Red

trekchu said: You are probably on the list here too. In case nobody told you, there is no European Socialism. In fact the CDU has been reigning for the last eight years.
Well I spoke with the German embassy and they said it might be possible due to my history as a field med.The fact that I was a medic for the Soviets raised a few eye brows but I managed to convince them that I had campaigned for peace and had only fought with the Soviets as a medic and rarely used fire arms.

Of course they need every medic they can after Hamburg so who knows.

trekchu

The Red said: Well I spoke with the German embassy and they said it might be possible due to my history as a field med.The fact that I was a medic for the Soviets raised a few eye brows but I managed to convince them that I had campaigned for peace and had only fought with the Soviets as a medic and rarely used fire arms.

Of course they need every medic they can after Hamburg so who knows.

OOC: I am playing this as if it is 2009 in TTL.

IC: True. If it weren't so sad, it would be kinda amusing how fast the Russians denied all involvment in it.

The Red

trekchu said: OOC: I am playing this as if it is 2009 in TTL.

IC: True. If it weren't so sad, it would be kinda amusing how fast the Russians denied all involvment in it.

Im divided on the issue but personally I agree that its weird to believe the Soviets would give Honecker access codes.

trekchu

The Red said: Im divided on the issue but personally I agree that its weird to believe the Soviets would give Honecker access codes.

True. Besides, by then the war was officially over anyway. My money's on a renegade diehard Soviet General.

The Red

trekchu said: True. Besides, by then the war was officially over anyway. My money's on a renegade diehard Soviet General.

Well there was an Admiral in Kiel who apparently had a signed portrait of Stalin on his desk...

Id go for him any day.

trekchu

The Red said: Well there was an Admiral in Kiel who apparently had a signed portrait of Stalin on his desk...

Id go for him any day.

For real? Wow...

Matt Wiser

You're not the only one with harsh feelings towards the "auxiliaries". When the front moved down into Eastern New Mexico and the Texas Panhandle, our squadron set up at Cannon AFB (had to get Army Engineers to shove the wrecked MiG-21s and -23s off the ramp), and they had a compound for EPWs there as well. Some of those "auxiliaries" were there, and they got separated as soon as they were ID'd from the rest, and got put to work. The Army had them digging up bodies from mass graves-victims of Soviet or Cuban reprisals-clearing the local KGB and DGI office, you name it-all the dirty jobs. My crew chief told me that it'd be worth wrecking a perfectly good J-79 engine if he could toss one of those scumbags down the intake. Most folks won't give anyone who was in one of those "auxiliary" units the time of day, and if one of them gets hit by a truck while crossing the street, I still think he gets off too easy. Interesting how Ivan borrowed from the German playbook in recruiting those units. And how unreliable some turned out to be when facing the regular Army or USMC.

One thing to keep in mind is that while the Russians are still pretty defensive about the war, the other ex-Soviet nationalities are very remorseful. I had a former SAF Colonel from Lvov come over a few years back, looking for his son, who was still MIA. The son was a Su-25 driver, and the AF Historical Center referred the father to me, because the date and locale of his son's loss corresponded with one of my kills. I was stationed at Mountain Home AFB at the time, but he came and spent a few days. The fact that he was Ukrainian meant a lot. We went down to New Mexico, and I showed him where his son was shot down-in some hilly terrain near Las Vegas (OOC: where Red Dawn was filmed!)-and found the wreckage of the aircraft. The site was inaccessable except by helicopter, but at least the father now knew where his son died. When we were in New Mexico, it's hard to miss the war memorials and cemeteries, and we stopped south of Santa Fe at one, and the man was very remorseful. He told me "The Russians may not want to, but the non-Russians do have remorse and regret." He didn't blame me for his son's death, but had a lot of fury at "those pigs in the Kremlin" who started the whole thing.

Wasn't that business up in Casper when Ivan tried the first (and last) time to break through and cut the country in half? They came close to cutting the I-90, but never got within artillery range, IIRC. And the Soviets were very vengeful about losing, and took it out on the locals.

Panzerfaust 150

Matt Wiser said: You're not the only one with harsh feelings towards the "auxiliaries". When the front moved down into Eastern New Mexico and the Texas Panhandle, our squadron set up at Cannon AFB (had to get Army Engineers to shove the wrecked MiG-21s and -23s off the ramp), and they had a compound for EPWs there as well. Some of those "auxiliaries" were there, and they got separated as soon as they were ID'd from the rest, and got put to work. The Army had them digging up bodies from mass graves-victims of Soviet or Cuban reprisals-clearing the local KGB and DGI office, you name it-all the dirty jobs. My crew chief told me that it'd be worth wrecking a perfectly good J-79 engine if he could toss one of those scumbags down the intake. Most folks won't give anyone who was in one of those "auxiliary" units the time of day, and if one of them gets hit by a truck while crossing the street, I still think he gets off too easy. Interesting how Ivan borrowed from the German playbook in recruiting those units. And how unreliable some turned out to be when facing the regular Army or USMC.

We noticed that too..especially when Ivan began to use them in the lead echelon of counterattacks...their desertion rates skyrocketed then...the ones that survived that was...

Matt Wiser said: One thing to keep in mind is that while the Russians are still pretty defensive about the war, the other ex-Soviet nationalities are very remorseful. I had a former SAF Colonel from Lvov come over a few years back, looking for his son, who was still MIA. The son was a Su-25 driver, and the AF Historical Center referred the father to me, because the date and locale of his son's loss corresponded with one of my kills. I was stationed at Mountain Home AFB at the time, but he came and spent a few days. The fact that he was Ukrainian meant a lot. We went down to New Mexico, and I showed him where his son was shot down-in some hilly terrain near Las Vegas (OOC: where Red Dawn was filmed!)-and found the wreckage of the aircraft. The site was inaccessable except by helicopter, but at least the father now knew where his son died. When we were in New Mexico, it's hard to miss the war memorials and cemeteries, and we stopped south of Santa Fe at one, and the man was very remorseful. He told me "The Russians may not want to, but the non-Russians do have remorse and regret." He didn't blame me for his son's death, but had a lot of fury at "those pigs in the Kremlin" who started the whole thing.

Yeah, I hear a lot of that from the chopper jock I helped get to Israel..I can understand it. My anger is mainly aimed at the Russian leadership...who not only won't help families like your SAF Colonel find his kid, but practically ignore their dead and missing. Criminal really.

Matt Wiser said: Wasn't that business up in Casper when Ivan tried the first (and last) time to break through and cut the country in half? They came close to cutting the I-90, but never got within artillery range, IIRC. And the Soviets were very vengeful about losing, and took it out on the locals.

Delgado was the division commander for a Cuban Motor Rifle division that was a polygot of Cuban reservists and some Nicaraguans. Well, they got their asses kicked by 1st ID when we turned and counterattacked...and the division fell back into Casper, and proceeded to rape, pillage and burn down one side and up the other. Well, Delgado didn't punish a soul for the entire matter..hell, he shot the mayor and city manager for "inciting" his troops to riot and desert. The court found that while he was negligent in asserting control over his division in accordance with the laws of war, it was difficult under the circumstances to assess blame. So, the chief figure in the "Rape of Casper" got 10 years and a plane ticket back to Cuba, oh, about 8 years ago.

I do approve of the fact Bratchenko got hanged...VX doesn't a counter-insurgency tool make. I am sure the survivors of some of the small towns in Western Louisiana he gassed the hell out of have some small comfort in that..and it also explains why the Cajun guerrillas never took any prisoners...even when we asked them to.

Matt Wiser

Bratchenko: that name rings a bell. When I was on the ground doing my E&E, the resistance people I was with called some general by that name The Terror of Trinidad, because he was pretty ruthless in that part of Colorado. I was at the Army's 7th ID in Sallida getting my first real meal after getting over the Rockies when a Cuban Army Colonel walked in-he'd defected and gotten over the mountains. He said that some general by that name got killed in some town south of Colorado Springs-Gen. Vassily Bratchenko-when some resistance people shot up the town he was HQ'd in at the time. He might have had a brother, though-if you're referring to Gennady? That one I do remember being executed-some talking heads on CNN after the trial were saying that it was a pity he could only be executed once, because he was accused of a lot more than that atrocity.

Someone mentioned the Battle of Seattle? That was the only time Ivan tried an amphibious end-run in the lower 48. Really big mistake: You don't do amphibious landings with fishing boats, freighters, and commanderred ferries. The ones who survived had a beachhead for all of a day before they got ground to pieces. The Russians didn't even bother securing the San Juan Islands-they just tried bullying their way down to the Seattle area-and paid the price. Anything that flew and carried bombs or could strafe went that way, I hear. Navy A-6s from Whidbey Island, F-15s from McChord, even an Air Force Reserve unit that was originally from Hill AFB in Utah-they were getting Japanese-made F-4s when the call came-and their old F-105s had one last hurrah. Hell of a way to lose an elite Naval Infantry Brigade.....

Not too many resistance people bothered with taking prisoners. Given how Ivan and Fidel's people behaved behind the lines, it doesn't take long to return the favor. The people I was with on the E&E took only one prisoner the five months I was with them-and he was killed shortly afterwards. One thing I noticed: the girls in the group I was with summarily shot any Russian or Cuban who tried to surrender-period. Given what happened to those girls before they hooked up with the guerillas, I don't blame 'em a bit. I don't condone it, but I do understand why.

Panzerfaust 150

Matt Wiser said: Bratchenko: that name rings a bell. When I was on the ground doing my E&E, the resistance people I was with called some general by that name The Terror of Trinidad, because he was pretty ruthless in that part of Colorado. I was at the Army's 7th ID in Sallida getting my first real meal after getting over the Rockies when a Cuban Army Colonel walked in-he'd defected and gotten over the mountains. He said that some general by that name got killed in some town south of Colorado Springs-Gen. Vassily Bratchenko-when some resistance people shot up the town he was HQ'd in at the time. He might have had a brother, though-if you're referring to Gennady? That one I do remember being executed-some talking heads on CNN after the trial were saying that it was a pity he could only be executed once, because he was accused of a lot more than that atrocity.

Yeah, it was Gennady..he was a real piece of work...I remember he did everything to disrupt the proceedings at the Tier 1 trials...real scumbag.

Matt Wiser said: Not too many resistance people bothered with taking prisoners. Given how Ivan and Fidel's people behaved behind the lines, it doesn't take long to return the favor. The people I was with on the E&E took only one prisoner the five months I was with them-and he was killed shortly afterwards. One thing I noticed: the girls in the group I was with summarily shot any Russian or Cuban who tried to surrender-period. Given what happened to those girls before they hooked up with the guerrillas, I don't blame 'em a bit. I don't condone it, but I do understand why.

Not a surprise. We heard a lot of that sort of thing...it's just the Resistance guys, once we made formal contact with them as our lines advanced couldn't be made to see the value of taking prisoners for intel purposes. Not surprised at all, really.

Matt Wiser

I do remember Gennady's trial: I was still at Mountain Home AFB when the trial was going, and there were a lot of guys and gals in the O Club watching as much as they could. Some of 'em were from Lousiana and Arkansas, and they cheered the loudest when the verdict came down: Guilty on all counts. Their only regret was that the hanging wasn't televised.

Didn't Ivan and Fidel have big problems down there? IIRC all the I-10 and U.S. 90 bridges were blown, and none of the ComBloc engineers wanted to go anywhere near a swamp. So the Russians and Cubans never got to Baton Rouge and New Orleans. They only had one bridgehead on the east side of the Mississippi at Vicksburg (I-20), and that got eliminated before it could be consolidated. The other three squadrons in the 4th TFW (333rd, 334th, and 336th) flew a lot of sorties in that area in those days. They were glad, too, about New Orleans-the Big Easy was one of their favorite R&R spots-like Vegas was for us in the 335th-if there were two cities in America where things were essentially prewar, those two were the ones.

Anyone here from Southern New Mexico and West Texas or the Panhandle? We need some stories from that part of the war.

trekchu

Not myself, but my firm was part of the reconstruction aid we sent over in the 90s, and I saw what Ivan did at Los Alamos... :eek:

Panzerfaust 150

Matt Wiser said: I do remember Gennady's trial: I was still at Mountain Home AFB when the trial was going, and there were a lot of guys and gals in the O Club watching as much as they could. Some of 'em were from Lousiana and Arkansas, and they cheered the loudest when the verdict came down: Guilty on all counts. Their only regret was that the hanging wasn't televised.

Shame that...though I heard though channels they practically had to drag ol' Gennady to the gallows.

Matt Wiser said: Didn't Ivan and Fidel have big problems down there? IIRC all the I-10 and U.S. 90 bridges were blown, and none of the ComBloc engineers wanted to go anywhere near a swamp. So the Russians and Cubans never got to Baton Rouge and New Orleans. They only had one bridgehead on the east side of the Mississippi at Vicksburg (I-20), and that got eliminated before it could be consolidated. The other three squadrons in the 4th TFW (333rd, 334th, and 336th) flew a lot of sorties in that area in those days. They were glad, too, about New Orleans-the Big Easy was one of their favorite R&R spots-like Vegas was for us in the 335th-if there were two cities in America where things were essentially prewar, those two were the ones.

Yeah, they had some lead elements in Western Louisiana...a bit before we got there and they were not there long. I remember seeing a lot of half sunken Combloc wrecks in the swamps along the side of the road. From what the locals told me...it seems between the LANG's Combat Engineers and the locals (who it turns out had more dynamite than some pre-war construction firms on average) the communists never took a single bridge in Western Louisana intact. Not to mention...and I thought this was hilarious...It seems our local cajuns knew ways to bait the local wildlife into attacking the engineers attempting to put up pontoon bridges at the sites of said downed spans. Some of the locals said the 'gators acted like it was buffet night at the local diner.

trekchu

Yeah. Over here Scuttlebut has it that the locals smeared some of the bridge wreckage with swine blood or something.

From page 7

BlackWave

gtrof said: OCC: Okay here's the start of the map. I've got the farther advance of ComBloc forces and the nuclear strikes. If you guys like it I'll start adding the battle locations. It might be helpful to come up with some Soviet victories for early in the war to add to the map.

OOC:Very nice. Though I think you should just cover the eastern seaboard in nuke marks, or at least the big cities. IIRC, that was in the film too anyway.

IC: Anyway, I'm looking for people who served at the battles of El Paso and Phoenix--actually, considering how badly the Sovs fucked up both cities and everything in them, I'd be hard pressed. Also, do we have anyway eyewitnesses for the amphibious invasion of Miami?

Emperor Norton I

BlackWave said: OOC:Very nice. Though I think you should just cover the eastern seaboard in nuke marks. IIRC, that was in the film too anyway.

OOC: No, there weren't any nukes used in the film universe in any way. The Russians "wanted to take [America] in one piece".

BlackWave

Emperor Norton I said: OOC: No, there weren't any nukes used in the film universe in any way. The Russians "wanted to take [America] in one piece".

OOC:Wikipedia says otherwise. Under 'Backstory'. But I saw it ages ago, so hey.

trekchu

Emperor Norton I said: OOC: No, there weren't any nukes used in the film universe in any way. The Russians "wanted to take [America] in one piece".

OOC: It's been some years, but I can remember that Officer saying that select nuclear strikes were carried out to hamper US communications and the likes.

Matt Wiser

(OOC: remember the AF Colonel in the movie? He told the Wolverines that "We held 'em at the Rockies and at the Mississippi." In New Mexico and the Southwest, that'd include the Rio Grande, which bisects New Mexico. And there would be nothing much in Arizona or California. And he never did mention any other East Coast nuclear targets-I have the most recent DVD release)

That attempt to come up I-19 was a laugher: by the time the 335th got to Williams AFB to start flying combat, it was all but over. The A-10 wing at Davis-Monthan ripped those Cubans and Mexicans to shreds. First time an armored brigade got wiped out entirely by air, too. We got there in time to shoot up the survivors fleeing back south. Got my first MiG (a Cuban MiG-21) on one of those strikes, though, when the A-10s asked us for top cover. And Yuma didn't do much: The Marine A-4s there did the same to some Mexicans (with Cuban "advisors) who thought they could just roll up U.S. 95 and waltz into the city. Wrong. Marines from Yuma MCAS went into town to back up the locals (everyone with a weapon was on the barricades), and the Skyhawks wrought havoc. When a column from 1st Marine Division arrived a few hours later, all the 1st MarDiv boys found were wrecked armored cars, a few tanks, APCs, Mexican and Cuban bodies, and a couple hundred EPWs sitting in a makeshift compound near the Marine base. And who on the other side thought a similar ride across the California border at Mexicali would do the same: they didn't reckon on Marines from MCAS El Toro with their F-4s and A-6s ripping them apart. Then 1st Marine Division came in and cleaned out the survivors. After those three battles, the SoCal and Arizona borders were secure for the rest of the war. SOF sneaking across was a problem, though....and getting local American Indians as trackers was a great idea.

El Paso was nasty from what I heard-no quarter given or asked on both sides. Did some flying there in the first week, and that's where the 3rd ACR and Fort Bliss ADA outfits made their stand and later breakout: took six months to reconstitute 3rd ACR at Fort Irwin, IIRC. Phoenix was a laugher: the Cubans tried their only brigade-sized airborne drop of the war there, and those An-12s were like clay pigeons for the F-15s at Luke AFB. Took a while to mop up survivors, though. 1st Marine Division took a couple of weeks to root them all out.

Panzerfaust 150

trekchu said: OOC: It's been some years, but I can remember that Officer saying that select nuclear strikes were carried out to hamper US communications and the likes.
OOC:

From Wikipedia's Red Dawn entry:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dawn

from Wikipedia said:The Soviets utilize a three-phase attack. In the first phase, they use strategic nuclear strikes to destroy key points of communication including several major U.S. cities (Omaha, Kansas City and Washington, D.C. are specifically cited). Strategic nuclear weapons are also used to destroy ICBM bases in Montana and the Dakotas. In addition, Tanner says that Cuban infiltrators disguised as illegal immigrants aided in confusing U.S. forces by raiding Strategic Air Command bases throughout the Midwest and Texas. Coupled with these nuclear attacks, Soviet transport aircraft containing elite Soviet VDV and Cuban paratroopers slipped through the U.S. radar disguised as commercial airliners.

TheMann

I don't know what happened to Missouri, but I know Wisconsin was defending in the Gulf. She sunk the LPH I smoked with Mk 84s. Those goddamned things were easy to make useless but bloody hard to sink. Wisconsin hit it twice with Harpoons and then hit it again with the big guns, which took three salvos to sink it. A Russian sub hit her with a torpedo and she got hit twice with AShMs, which did little more than wreck some of topside stuff and scratch the paint.

I also know that the Russkies were mad they forgot about Alabama, docked in Mobile. She simply sailed out of port and make vulture bait out of whatever hit the beaches. Oops. I think that's why the Navy salvaged Missouri from the Pacific off Los Angeles, they wanted the battleship guns but couldn't stomach the costs of building a new Iowa.

Matt Wiser

Anyone have a similar experience to this? I was working with 3rd ACR for a couple weeks as an AF liasion on TDY, and the Regimental S-2 was telling me this: "If you want a World War II analogy, the Soviets and Cubans fight like Germans, as do the Nicaraguans and East Germans. The Mexicans and Libyans are the Italians-some are good, some are poor, and still others are worse than useless. The Czechs and Poles would rather be fighting the Russians, but they don't have a choice-like some of the smaller Axis countries in Europe. Hopefully, there's no analogy to the Japanese, but you never know about the North Koreans." Did anyone here face the NKs? They were really mean, and not just in combat, but atrocity wise.

One thing about Poles and Czechs: if they were captured, they gladly did whatever we asked them, and more. So much so that when they went out of camp to work, and there was a big EPW compound near Cannon AFB, there were only four or five guards for every hundred or so prisoners. They worked the odd jobs on the base, and some were so trustworthy that some Czech AF prisoners scrubbed down every AF and Marine plane and chopper on the base-they did such a good job you'd think the planes had just rolled off the assembly line. Even the Army Medevac choppers looked brand new: not only were they scrubbed down, top to bottom, but the medics were pleased that the interiors had been cleaned out, too. Lotta happy aircrew and crew chiefs there. Nor was anyone surprised, when the war ended, that a lot of those Czechs and Poles refused repatriation and stayed here. Even Asian-nationalities Soviets had a high number of EPWs who refused to return home. One other thing they all had in common: they despised Russians, Cubans, and captured "auxiliaries" to a man.

The other thing about blocking that drive up I-19 from Nogales to Tuscon: it meant that AMARC stayed in friendly hands. A lot of planes got returned to service from there as attrition replacements and to form new squadrons, and lots of parts came from birds that couldn't fly. I shudder to think about what we'd have done if the bad guys had gotten hold of it.

BlackWave

I did hear that the NKs managed to smash Guam with equipment loaned from the Soviets; I also met a few Poles and Czechoslovakians at a camp after the war. Most of them really couldn't care less about idealogy and just wanted to settle down. The East Germans and the Ukranians were probably the most dogged; I remember one EG sniper who hid in the hills near Sacramento picking off patrol groups and hiding from helicopter packs we sent after him for weeks. Then he finally ran out of ammo and gave himself in sobbing. If there's one thing you can say for the loyal Warsaw Pact soldiers, it's that they're persistent as hell.

I think I may have faced some Koreans, but a friend of me says that they played a big part in that massive Soviet victory down in Louisiana or wherever it was, where they totally curbstomped one of the biggest US taskforces in the southern states with seized US equipment. Following that, they burned part of New Orleans down--at least, I think it was New Orleans. I do remember a picture of burning towers.

Speaking of which, who was at another big Soviet victory--Boise. Man, by all accounts the US was humiliated there. Come to think of it, did the Soviets even leave any survivors? Actually, I know that quite a few Warsaw Pact soldiers settled in what's left of the States, so do we have any here?

TRoehl

All of the big Soviet Victories came in the first three months of the war: The Battle of the Rio Grande (first week of the war) followed a week later by the defeat of the I-10 line from Houston to El Paso (the Western end actually did okay, but east of Sonora, TX it was a disaster). From there, the Sovs swept through all the way North to the Red River and only stopped because they outran their supply lines. After two weeks of consolidation, they resumed their push North and West, but the pause allowed us to move units off the I-4 defensive line and out of the Central Valley of CA and slow down the Soviet advance. Basically, the next four months in the east were a fighting withdrawal towards the Mississippi, with the Sovs quickly getting bogged down in the Bayous of Western Louisana and the Ozarks in Arkansas.

What was left of the western half of the I-10 line retreated up I-27 and reformed around Amarillo, which essentially became a giant version of the Alamo for the Allied units. They were crushed, but took out 7 Soviets for each captured or killed Allied soldier. If they'd have been able to hold out another four days, the prevailing school of thought is that the Soviet VDV and Cuban Airborne units would have been crushed and Colorado wouldn't have fallen. The arrival of a whole Soviet Guards Army backed up by six Nicaraguan and Cuban elite divisions ended that hope. From there, they linked up with the airborne corps that had landed in the Rockies and encircled Denver.

The biggest problem for us was that we spread our forces too thin and relied too much on fixed lines of defense initially-the line of thinking had been that it would be a three pronged attack-Cuban and Soviet naval infantry into South Florida and up I-95, Mexican and Soviet Guards Divisions up I-5, and the Nicaraguan Army and Soviet divisions through Texas. What they did (wisely, based on the subsequent performance of their Naval Infantry units) was a giant armored fist through Texas with feints in California and Arizona. The destruction of the 8th Air Force on the ground in Texas left those fixed defenses with little air support, and they were rolled up pretty quickly. By the time we figured this out, they were already in Oklahoma practically.

So, in essence their big wins were: Rio Grande, I-10, and Amarillo. There was also the disastrous counter attack of two divisions at Salina, KS to buy time to orgainze the I-80 defensive front, but the North Central Front was designed to have them stretch their lines as far as possible which allowed for the successful counterattack starting at Lincoln.

airtechie

My war was totally different

I spent most of the war in black ops. I was assigned to one of the special task forces composed of Military, CIA, FBI, and NSA guys. Normally that sort of thing would have been a total CF with different agencies jockeying for control, but the nuke strike on DC took care of that problem for us. Most of the pencil pushers were nothing more than "permanent shadows" on a wall somewhere and the survivors were to busy pissing themselves to say so much as boo when the President issued the order that made us an more or less autonomous force under military (read NCA) authority.

Our job was to ID, hunt down and liquidate enemy spies, saboteurs, collaborators, fifth columnists and other assorted fellow travelers. So yeah I spent most of the early part of the war in and around college's, coastal cities and the temporary capital but it was still a nasty bit a business let me tell you. You guys would not have believed the amount of infiltration and subversion the KGB had pulled off before the war.

Most of our records are still sealed for the next 120 years and some of what we did will never be known but I took part in operations Veratas, rat catcher, prairie rain, and long arm.

So yeah I was a "dirty warrior" and we broke every rule imaginable, but we saved millions of lives in the process and probably kept the country from being destroyed from with in during those first 6 months of the war.

Matt Wiser

I had a college friend who was in 24th ID: we get together every so often, and he was a tank platoon leader at the time. He wondered why we were overreacting to an amphibous raid: the Miami op was more a raid than a serious invasion, knowing full well that the Navy's SSNs would be like sharks on a feeding frenzy (and they were then and later at New Orleans) on the amphibious ships. His brigade spent two weeks on the I-4 line waiting, and when they finally did move south to the Miami area, all they found were terrorized civilians from Fort Lauderdale south to Key Biscayne, three major airports heaps of rubble (Fort Lauderdale and Miami IAPs, and Homestead AFB), and the Port of Miami nothing but junk and sunken ships. He's a Brig. Gen. now, assistant Division CO of 3rd ID.

After the I-10 and U.S. 90 bridges were blown, the only way to New Orleans for Ivan and Fidel was by ship. The only ComBloc soldiers who got to New Orleans were the survivors of the amphib landing-as EPWs. 2nd Marine Division and a Marine reserve regiment from 4th Marine Division saw to that.

Anyone here fight in El Paso? Especially 3rd ACR, the ADA brigades from Fort Bliss, or the TX NG from El Paso? Not too many of you guys made it across the Rio Grande at Socorro....being encircled twice, breaking out twice, and being able to get across the Rio Grande and I-25. Any F-4s you guys saw were 335th and USMC, and we helped you guys out the best we could. Too bad it wasn't enough.

I remember you guys: the word definitely got around about you types and what you fellas did. Not that we cared a bit about what happened to traitors....If we heard "OGA" on the radio, we knew it was some kind of black ops people: those black-painted Hueys and Blackhawks could be seen on occasion, complete with "Get out of Jail Free" cards handed to base ops to get their birds refueled and serviced, along with meals for the crews and any passengers. (OGA stands for "Other Government Agencies.")

airtechie

Black Choppers

Black Choppers, sounds like operation Prairie Rain or Long Arm, that is were we were trying to roll up the "underground network" as opponents called it. It mostly consisted of cell run by snot nosed college kids and there shit bag radical profs. They gathered information, undermined moral, generally spread confusion. They also ran a pipeline that smuggled hostilities back and forth across the lines, example the Spetznats team that assassinated the commander of III Corps was smuggled in by some little bastards in Iowa.

The worst one was the one they talk about in the history books, where some of the cells in Chicago, Ana Arbor, and Columbia tried to smuggle in VX gas to use on civilian targets and war production centers. We stopped them and went after those little bastards with a vengeance.

What floored me about those little creeps was their attitude. Most were rich little trust fund brats who were trying to "bring down the system", most had never worked a day in their lives or been held accountable for their actions. When caught they acted like it was no big deal, after all mommy and daddy would get lawyers to bale them out. When I explained to them that habeas corpus had been suspended and they were not going to get lawyers or jury trials you should have seen the look of utter astonishment on their faces. Some sobbed like babies, some begged, more than a few actually said to me "how dare you do you know who I am/ my father is/ etc." In the end it all came out the same, I had no sympathy for them I lost my whole family to radiation poisoning when the nuke that was meant for Wright Pat went wet fire cracker in a small Ohio town. The DGI team carrying that nuke had been sheltered by the cells in U Cinnci and Miami of Ohio.

Of course there were also some media types and folks in and around the government at all levels who were working for the other-side; mostly civil service types and congressional aids but there were even a few elected members of congress who were dirty, and not just the ones who high tailed it to Ivan in the initial chaos to take up posts in the new "revolutionary government". There were quite a few who stayed behind to do as much damage as they could from the inside.

If they were on the payroll they were easy to catch, well at least relatively, some it turned out only took cash, others were doing it for sex or drugs. The "true believers" were a different matter, the trail was often less clear with them, I mean when a Senator blabs about defensive preparations in area that Ivan is rolling on to a "journalist" who then runs the story and gets thousands killed are they traitors or just F###ing idiots? Sometimes it was a judgment call, I won't give you details of how made what decision but I will say that to "create and open seat" in congress took very high level approval and then had to be done in a way as to not cause anymore panic among the civilian population. There were about 12 or so dirty senators and maybe 40 some reps who did not run to join Ivan down at Houston. I wont name names but lets just say they all took the same flight one day, a flight that developed engine trouble.

We did a lot of those. I mean what do you do if you catch a movie star giving shelter to Cuban Spec Ops team on a bunch of MeChA terrorists. Out them a let them do a rope dance at 29 Palms to make an example, make them disappear and hope no one cares, (that happened a few times, you would be surprised how expendable the average entertainer is to their fans) or arrange for a convenient accident / overdose.

That was my war at least the first 18 months of it, after that we went on the offensive. ;-)

TRoehl

A quick question for any of the jet jockeys out there; did any of you have any experiences with the famous 999th Special Duties Squadron or their Eastern counterpart the 888th, better known as America's MiG squadrons? Who, along with their SpecOps counterparts, were the greatest psych ops of the war since the Reds could never be sure who was who.....

Gosh, those guys pulled some ballsy jobs off; biggest among them being how they shut down every single Red Air Force Squadron in Colorado for 24 hours with Durandel's, paving the way for the Air Force and Marine boys to plow I-25 from Cheyenne to Denver and relieve the besieged city. Then there was the time when they bombed the KGB/DGI HQ building in Las Colinas, which was made into the government center for the Gus Hall "regime". The kicker was, if you remember, they did it during the Quisling's Televised May Day parade in the first year of the occupation. People in the DFW Metroplex still talk about that one.

I guess you have to tip your hats off to the Egyptians for "donating" two whole squadrons of MiG-21s plus a few MiG-23s, Su-7s, and even a pair of Badger bombers plus a squadron of Mi-8 Hips that our Special Ops guys had a LOT of fun with.

The Israeli's were also amazing at "borrowing" whatever East Bloc equipment we needed; take the instance where the commander of the 999th once mused that he'd love to have a pair of Frogfoots for a certain raid-six days later a pair of crated examples showed up on an unmarked 747 from Tel Aviv, complete with three sets of reloads of the AS-12 missile system.

On another occasion, the special ops boys wanted one of those huge Mi-26s for the legendary raid on the headquarters of Army Group New Mexico (the one where they bagged 5 General Level Officers including a Colonel General and 12 Colonels in one fell swoop). Took the Israelis a whole three days to pull that one off.

PW-did you interrogate any of those high ranking guys? IIRC, one or two of those guys had high family connections to the Kremlin leadership clique running things in Moscow, and there are a half dozen varying accounts as to their logic as to why they started that insane war.

TheMann

TRoehl said: A quick question for any of the jet jockeys out there; did any of you have any experiences with the famous 999th Special Duties Squadron or their Eastern counterpart the 888th, better known as America's MiG squadrons? Who, along with their SpecOps counterparts, were the greatest psych ops of the war since the Reds could never be sure who was who.....

Oh yes. I had to tell my guys about the 999th and 888th Squadrons, to not shoot at them - we didn't know who was who for a while too, you understand. They did help themselves by carrying both Soviet and American IFF units, so we'd know who was who. If it was a MiG and had a friendly IFF, our AWACS would contact him on the radio. If he answered, he was one of ours. If he didn't, we shot him down. Those motherf***ers must have had nuts the size of basketballs, some of the stunts they pulled.

TRoehl said: Then there was the time when they bombed the KGB/DGI HQ building in Las Colinas, which was made into the government center for the Gus Hall "regime". The kicker was, if you remember, they did it during the Quisling's Televised May Day parade in the first year of the occupation. People in the DFW Metroplex still talk about that one.

I remember that one well because their two squadrons have about a hundred Russian and SovBloc fighters after them after that stunt, and they needed us to cover their butts on the way out. Which we did, of course. I bought a couple RAF guy good bottles of scotch after that, too, as their two Tornado ADVs saved my bacon on the way out, covering for the 888th.

TRoehl said: I guess you have to tip your hats off to the Egyptians for "donating" two whole squadrons of MiG-21s plus a few MiG-23s, Su-7s, and even a pair of Badger bombers plus a squadron of Mi-8 Hips that our Special Ops guys had a LOT of fun with.

The Israeli's were also amazing at "borrowing" whatever East Bloc equipment we needed; take the instance where the commander of the 999th once mused that he'd love to have a pair of Frogfoots for a certain raid-six days later a pair of crated examples showed up on an unmarked 747 from Tel Aviv, complete with three sets of reloads of the AS-12 missile system.

On another occasion, the special ops boys wanted one of those huge Mi-26s for the legendary raid on the headquarters of Army Group New Mexico (the one where they bagged 5 General Level Officers including a Colonel General and 12 Colonels in one fell swoop). Took the Israelis a whole three days to pull that one off.

Us flyboys came to fear the Israelis after some of the stuff they tried. When the war was raging across Kansas, a forward base at Lawrence was supplying the Russian 5th and 7th MRDs and we needed it taken out. The problem was the Russians knew we'd hit it, and as such had set up an air-defense network that even Moscow didn't have - SA-12s, SA-8s, SA-6s and tons of radar-directed S-60s and ZSU-23-4s. The Israeli 27th Squadron stepped right up to lead the strike, and their A-4s came in so low that one of them had to break off after he hit a big weathervane on a barn and knocked his jamming pod off. :eek: But that did the job, and they hit so many of the Russian SAMs that we came in right after them and leveled everything else, before the BUFFs, with a bunch of RAF Vulcans with HARMs covering their backs, leveled the base to the ground.

I should mention how much those BUFFs were useful. We didn't call 'em BUFFs after Lawrence and I-27, because we couldn't call em BUFFs anymore. We called 'em the Bringers of Death, because very time they got called in with a pile of JDAMs, they leveled bases in one go. After the raid on Lawrence, the IV Corps' engineer units had to spend three weeks fixing the damage they'd done, and a week of that was spent clearing debris. Nothin' left but fuckin cement dust, scrap metal and chunks of burned flesh.

Now, I don't know where the Israelis got that Mi-26 from, but I do know that said Mi-26 was not as it rolled out of thew Russian factory. It's jamming system was so good we couldn't get an AMRAAM to lock on, forget a Sparrow. We were mightly glad the Mossad got that, and nobody asked questions how. Nobody really gave a shit, either, because we figured they'd have had to do some wild stuff to get THIS Mi-26.

airtechie

I was not there when they interrogated the captured Russian brass but one of our assets was. She told me that the Sov's knew they were facing total economic collapse. They were already having a hard time feeding the population and were facing increasingly open discontent especially in E. Europe and among the non Russian population. They had a choice of either reforming their system and risk loosing power or going to war to seize resources.

They figured if they could capture us more or less intact then they could loot us for enough economic resources to shore themselves up for at least a while. Sort of like the looting job they did in Europe after WW2.

Their window of opportunity was, in their estimation, 6 months of all out offensive out put followed by 12 months of mopping up operations. If they could not secure our economic base in that period of time they were in serious trouble.

As it turns out they missed that window and were royally screwed. East Europe rose in rebellion or was liberated by the West Europeans. The own country came apart at the seems as the people starved. Their logistical sys

trekchu

OOC: Changing Characters

IC: I heard that too. I was a tank jock for most of the war, but my pre-war psychology education earned me an low tier interrogator job in the last two years. I still have trouble sleeping someday. This theory was one that floated around the ranks of the ComBlocks quite a while.

Kevin in Indy

The Tale of Ivan Gregorivich Fomenko

I feel compelled to tell you this Memorial Day weekend the story of a forgotten man from the war. I know we also have Patriot Day in the fall and Resistance Day in the winter, but I always thought Memorial Day was best to remember a soldier. Ivan Gregorivich Fomenko was not an American soldier, not even a true member of the American Foreign Legion, but he gave his life to ensure that justice was done, and he deserves mention here.

After my combat injury, I was returned to Indianapolis and the Western Electric plant, where I spent my time ensuring the quality of our communications gear – mostly radio sets but also some field telephones. I was still doing rehab in an effort to increase the use of my right arm, and trying to learn to drive with only one good arm. Fomenko and another officer, Sergei Ivanovich Kuznetsov, came to us from the front one spring day the third year of the war, prisoners from some Ukrainian brigade command post. They were presented to us as comm officers who were willing to work with us, so we took them in. I can’t say we were too worried about their learning much from us – the gear we were producing was pretty standard stuff. They stayed in a compound for somewhat-trusted prisoners which had been built at Fort Benjamin Harrison, and came to us daily under guard.

The processes of tearing down gear for inspection, and the process of testing gear in a lab, were pretty straightforward. We found that our testing labs had a lot in common, and that we could spend a lot of our time shooting bulls as we tested. Of course, Fomenko and Kuznetsov had to learn to be comfortable with an armed MP standing behind them at all times, but they behaved well. We found ourselves communicating better in German than in either of our native tongues; Fomenko knew very little English, and I knew almost no Russian. Kuznetsov was passable in both German and English.

So we talked a lot, and I managed to improve my German (I had had two years in high school, and that was just enough to convince me that high school language classes, if not followed up on, were useless). They told us something of their own stories.

Kuznetsov was ethnic Russian, but his family had been in the Ukraine for a generation and he had been attached to one of their divisions. He was very glad to be with us; he had at one point been ordered onto an execution detail. He said he had been hazed pretty badly by some KGB types when he fainted at the prospect of delivering mercy shots to several civilians, one a thirteen-year old boy. He said he had been roughed up a by his folks and by ours, and tended to keep to himself.

Fomenko, on the other hand, was a True Believer. His parents had died of disease when he was young, and he didn’t have much of a life outside the Red Army. He and I argued a lot over the merits of the Communist system versus those of capitalism. Many of these arguments carried into lunch breaks, during which we would work in a game or two of chess. Fomenko played well the part of the New Communist Man over the board; he had to give me rook and move just to keep it even. (I was better matched against Kuznetsov.) He was proud to be a part of the Soviet Union, and while he acknowledged it was not perfect, he was as adamant as I that our respective systems were the best.

The two Ukrainians were together all the time, and I came up with a way to relieve a little of their boredom. The second weekend we had them I invited them to come watch, and maybe take part in, my church softball game. It got them out of their compound, even though they still had the MP, and they got to see a little more of America. I had convinced my doctor that trying to play softball would give me more chances to work on the arm. My church fielded a team which played in a “D” level recreational league at a local park (we only played “D” level because that was the lowest they had), and had I been uninjured I would probably been an occasional player in right field. As it was, with so many men gone for the war, I was a regular at the position. My wife would come along, cheer the team, pass a beer into the dugout for me every few innings, and drive me home – she had no interest in being driven home by a drunken man with one working arm! I used my at-bats to determine whether I was better off using my good left arm as “backhand” or “forehand,” with my feeble right arm steadying the bat.

Our Ukrainian guests were a welcome addition to the team that day – we could always use more players. They each struck out spectacularly their first time at-bat, but Fomenko caught on and bounced one over the fence his second time up. We only had one consistent batter on the whole team – my sister-in-law’s boyfriend, who was a firefighter (they didn’t take all the public safety types for the Army), so we figured we might have a chance in this game after all.

Fomenko came up again in the sixth inning; I was coaching first base, and Kuznetsov had signaled to the MP for a trip to the rest room. Fomenko put a solid hit into left field, and pulled up at first. I moved in to remind him of the base running rules for the league, when he gave me a “dead serious” look and said only, “Auf Deutsch.” I was puzzled, but at least he gave me a second to tune in my German language ear.

“Kuznetsov,” he began. “Er ist verbrecher. Er ist Vlad der Impaler.” I wasn’t quite sure what a verbrecher was, but I distantly remembered a Soviet officer with the nickname Vlad the Impaler. Fomenko, however, was back to his usual confident self, watching the pitcher prepare for the next batter.

I called around that evening, and managed to find a security officer at the base to whom I could relate Fomenko’s information. From the tone of his voice, Vlad was a big deal. An entire squad headed over to the compound to pick him up. “Kuznetsov” tried to fight his way out to the truck – wasn’t happening. I think his jaw was working again by the time his Tier 2 trial started. I guess Vlad the Impaler was the type who scared even his KGB comrades. Fomenko, sadly, was dead from an improvised knife. I don’t know what happened – whether I did something to tip Vlad off, whether Fomenko did something suspicious, whether Vlad was just trying to clean up loose ends prior to a prison break – and I never will know.

The “friend of a friend” network that includes all of the noncoms in the United States Army managed to get a few things done for me. They used some contacts in the personnel center on the base to enroll Fomenko in the AFL, effective the day before he showed up in our lab. Technically, that was before the thirty days from capture period was up, but hey, there was a war on. Second, they arranged for him to be buried in a small cemetery set aside for foreign dead (not too many this far back from the lines) on the edge of the base.

Which is where I will spend some time in the morning. I have made it my habit to go there for a few hours each Memorial Day, and place in the holder on Fomenko’s grave marker an honest-to-God hammer-and-sickle flag of the USSR. The folks at Fort Ben understand. Maybe next year, our youngest child will ask the question about, and hear the story behind, the worn chess set in a glass case near our front door, with one black rook missing.

Matt Wiser

Those of us in the 335th knew the 999th, or as we called them, The Triple-Nines, very well. Covert ops, pathfinder, SOF insertion, flying strikes in "acquired" MiGs or Sukhois, you name it, they did it. Sometimes their activities were unannounced to the point that in the air, we had to verify IFF and do a visual ID at times before shooting. A blue-on-blue with them was something you didn't want if at all possible, but unfortunately, it did happen a couple of times. And where'd they find the guys (and a few girls, too) to drive those "acquired" helicopters? I swear, there were a couple of Hind-D models, plus at least a dozen Hips-you couldn't miss them on the ramp at Davis-Monthan whenever we flew over.

We never had any Israelis as a unit in the Southwest, but there were several individuals doing exchange duty with various AF F-4, F-15, and F-16 squadrons. One guy who flew with us-a 7-kill ace in 1973-did things with an F-4 I'll never forget. Low-level ingress at 30 feet AGL, and he had to have a sixth sense regarding altitude, as trees, hills or mountains, power lines, etc. could've easily killed him as enemy fire. And almost every time, his F-4 had to be checked as he'd tripped his G-meter and overstressed the airplane. The ground crew never found anything wrong with the plane: McAir built 'em tough. Sadly, this Israeli lived thru the war, but was killed in a training crash back home in the early '90s, just before retirement.

Airtechie: NOW we know who gave the base security guys some of their intelligence! Thanks, man. Several times the South Africans and their Apache trackers wondered who knew the bad guys would be at such-and-such a point at any one time. Now we know who to thank. Wherever we were, either Williams, Kirtland, Cannon, Amarillo IAP, Sheppard, D/FW, Bergstrom, or Kelly, we never had a mortar or rocket attack, though there were attempts at getting onto whatever base to cause random mayhem. The Combat Security Police, South Africans, and those Apache trackers, all made sure nobody succeeded. The only thing that usually happened was being awakened by the small-arms fire when the bad guys were discovered. Once the shootin' stopped, you just rolled over and went back to sleep. You guys made sure, at least at our bases, we didn't have to worry about a ground attack.

The USAF formed a couple of foreign wings, similar to the RAF squadrons made up of Free French, Belgians, Czechs, Dutch, Poles, etc. in WW II.
357th TFW on the West Coast had a squadron made up with Australians and Kiwis, another with South Koreans, and a third with Taiwanese. The 358th on the East Coast had the Europeans and Israelis, IIRC. The 357th flew out of McChord in the Pacific Northwest Campaigns. Anyone fly with the 358th on the East Coast? All flew F-4Ds, as the regular AF needed as many E models as we could get. There were even some ex-Imperial Iranian AF guys who'd fled the mullahs in '79, and settled in SoCal: they offered their services after the invasion and formed their own squadron with F-4Ds. Several former IIAF F-14 guys even joined the Navy and got back into F-14 cockpits with the Navy, IIRC. They did great work.

From page 9

Matt Wiser

That was in January, right? I wasn't there, but my squadron probably was: if you saw F-4Es with shark's mouths painted on the nose, that was the 335th. I was still down in Southern Colorado, with a dozen other downed pilots, waiting on the spring thaw before getting across the Rockies. Only the most foolish or desperate would try getting over the mountains in the middle of winter. We were patient. And all the SOF or other helos that could've gotten us out were, shall we say, otherwise engaged. Not to mention that it was a nasty winter, and good flying weather for the rotorheads was few and far between. If I remember Erica's book, that was when they did get close to some friendlies, but they never did, and one of the kids, and the AF colonel who was with them, were KIA.

trekchu

Yup, it was the 335th then, and these kids probably ran into part of 14th AD. I can remember shooting it out with a few Ivan tanks with a some sort of ravine inbetween. Some of those F-4s shattered them with all sorts of sh*t, it allowed us to pull up reinforcements and hold the line.

OOC: As said, it's been a long tims since I watched Red Dawn.

Oh and if you can tell me the name of said F-4 Drivers, our Division still ows them several brewerys worth of German Beer.

BlackWave

Speaking of fighters, what was that squadron that held off Soviet air forces to cover evacuating forces before being shot, at the ruins of Philadelphia? They really had some guts, considering how outmatched they were. And that single Soviet Sukhoi that sank the USS Abraham Lincoln--anyone know the pilot who did that? Also, do any of our flyboys here have any comments on the 'super MIG' rumor I mentioned before?

trekchu

BlackWave said: Speaking of fighters, what was that squadron that held off Soviet air forces to cover evacuating forces before being shot, at the ruins of Philadelphia? They really had some guts, considering how outmatched they were. And that single Soviet Sukhoi that sank the USS Abraham Lincoln--anyone know the pilot who did that? Also, do any of our flyboys here have any comments on the 'super MIG' rumor I mentioned before?

My Father in Law was AF-Reserve back then, and flew F-4s somewhere over that area. He heard that too, but doesn't really know anything concrete.

Panzerfaust 150

Matt, something that's been bothering me...It's a guy I owe a beer...It was somewhere near Port Victoria and the HMMWV we had (and not so lovingly called "Ball-Busting B***h") threw a damn piston rod. So, there we were, me, a couple of Privates we had as casuals (I was a Sergeant by then) and Dave, and wouldn't you know it, but we had taken a wrong damn turn and instead of rejoining the battalion column...we had taken the road to the FLOT! So, while we're waiting for the wrecker and wondering why the fuck it's so damn quiet...we start getting shot at...and it's a BTR-70 and about a half-dozen Sov Motor Riflemen..so, we use what cover we can...(and considering it was a scrape by the side of the road and the HMMWV engine block, it wasn't much), and we had barely 4 magazines and a pair of grenades per man.

After what seemed like an eternity, we're all ready to meet our maker...and one of my privates is screaming for help on the PRC-70 when we get a call "Rodeo 11, this is Bearkiller 33, I am coming north to south, put out your air rec tarp and we'll bomb anything that moves around you."

So, we did and wouldn't you know it but a pair of F-4's show up..with shark mouths and drop a shitton of ordnance. They made a second pass with guns..but we didn't see a soul move after the first pass. We got picked up about 3 minutes later by a Huey which brought us back to battalion., but not before we thermited the HMMWV..Seems the old biddy had gotten the better of us after all.

We all wanted to buy the fighter jocks who did it a drink...but the fact was, we were always following the FLOT, and about a week later, the battalion got plastered in a Sov fire strike and Dave got killed and both privates were invalided home. I have a sneaking suspicion, Matt, that you might know who our guardian angels that day might have been? If, I still owe them a beer.

Matt Wiser

Trekchu: That was our then-CO and his wingie, and a couple of others. Three of those four crews were KIA or MIA later on, though. Of the surviving crew, the pilot went to F-16s, and he got killed in a postwar midair with a KC-10; the back-seater left the AF-don't know where he is, and he doesn't show up at squadron reunions. Did anyone request napalm? That wasn't the load if you were going after armor, but if the ordies had napalm ready and CAS was needed...

Panzerfaust 150: Glad to be of service. That was us, when we were flying out of Bergstrom AFB after Austin was retaken and III Corps was gearing up for San Antonio. Those days, we were flying five, six times a day. Myself and No. 3 had a dozen Rockeye CBUs loaded, while my wingie and No. 4 had a dozen Mark-82 Snakeye 500-pounders each, and everyone packed a full load of 20-mm. Hope you didn't mind having No. 3 and its all-girl crew come to the party-there were a few clods on our side who still didn't like the idea of women in combat, even after three years of war. I had mixed feelings on the idea before, but after three years of war, and seeing not just the guerilla girls, but the ones the AF let into the cockpit, I got to despise anyone still feeling that way. You can bet Ivan and Fidel were laughing at the idea-after the girls went into combat, they weren't anymore. Even the 335th's CSPs had a girl sniper-she was from Alabama, and was a crack shot. She didn't use a military rifle, but stuck to a .375 mag rifle her dad gave her before the balloon went up. Even on base security duty, she got 65 kills....drove our supply officer nuts when she ordered ammo from gun shops in SoCal, Vegas, and Phoenix. But the CO told the man to let her get the ammo, and I let things continue when I got the squadron. 10th Air Force wound up setting up a separate supply chain for the CSPs: a lot of those units had "exotic" rifles for their snipers, with unusual calibers, and they needed a reliable source of ammo.

The ultimate counter-sniper weapon we used was a Phantom! I had to abort from Cannon one day (weather in the target area) and the tower called and said "Orbit, we're taking sniper fire southwest of the field." The four of us airborne had a mixed load of CBUs and 500-pounders, so one of the CSPs asks for us to give a hand. No. 3 did a low-level and spooked the sniper, so me and No. 2 came down with the CBUs. (We don't get paid for bringing ordnance back..) The South Africans went out and found that the Sniper Team had been eliminated..."A little bit of overkill, but killed just the same."

trekchu

Matt Wiser said: Trekchu: That was our then-CO and his wingie, and a couple of others. Three of those four crews were KIA or MIA later on, though. Of the surviving crew, the pilot went to F-16s, and he got killed in a postwar midair with a KC-10; the back-seater left the AF-don't know where he is, and he doesn't show up at squadron reunions. Did anyone request napalm? That wasn't the load if you were going after armor, but if the ordies had napalm ready and CAS was needed...

Drad. Oh well, I guess my company just volunteered to pay the expenses for your reunions from now on. I made quite a fortune with my dad's construction firm after the war. As for the Napalm, yes I did request it, because there was some Infantry that bothered us. Fried them nice and well.

Anyway, anymore Colorado Counterattack vets here? I want to know how you guys did during the battle to relief Denver.

BlackWave

trekchu said: Drad. Oh well, I guess my company just volunteered to pay the expenses for your reunions from now on. I made quite a fortune with my dad's construction firm after the war. As for the Napalm, yes I did request it, because there was some Infantry that bothered us. Fried them nice and well.

Anyway, anymore Colorado Counterattack vets here? I want to know how you guys did during the battle to relief Denver.

I've read the biography of one vet, who fought in the early stages of the battle--reportedly, it was a disaster, or the early parts were anyway. Air support was limited, so his division was chewed up by a Hind wing. He spent 48 hours hiding from Spetnatz troops before he could escape by commandeering a van. Following that, the Sovs peppered the area with bio-tipped Scuds.

Incidentally, following on from the Super MiG rumor I mentioned, who else knows any other ghost stories produced during the war? I heard of one phantom Spetnatz soldier who took down entire Ranger squads and blew up an airbase in Kentucky. On the American side, there was supposedly the ghost of a famous colonel who covered evacuating soldiers during the retreat from the ruins of Philadelphia. Anyone got any other weird stories from the war?

Panzerfaust 150

Matt Wiser said: Panzerfaust 150: Glad to be of service. That was us, when we were flying out of Bergstrom AFB after Austin was retaken and III Corps was gearing up for San Antonio. Those days, we were flying five, six times a day. Myself and No. 3 had a dozen Rockeye CBUs loaded, while my wingie and No. 4 had a dozen Mark-82 Snakeye 500-pounders each, and everyone packed a full load of 20-mm. Hope you didn't mind having No. 3 and its all-girl crew come to the party-there were a few clods on our side who still didn't like the idea of women in combat, even after three years of war. I had mixed feelings on the idea before, but after three years of war, and seeing not just the guerilla girls, but the ones the AF let into the cockpit, I got to despise anyone still feeling that way. You can bet Ivan and Fidel were laughing at the idea-after the girls went into combat, they weren't anymore.

Good god no, Me and the two other guys still breathing from that little fracas wouldn't have cared if it was Martians flying the F-4s! But we only saw the two ship. Where were your other two? As it is, we're having a battalion reunion next year in Annapolis, so if you can manage to be out this way...and ask the young ladies of No 3 to be out there as well, we can settle that debt.
And as for the that HMMWV...don't feel bad...it allowed us to draw a new one that was a lot less trouble!

As for women...well, we saw plenty of young women do a lot on the battlefield and off. We had a young SP4 Hispanic interrogator..name of Jimenez..her family was in Kansas City when Ivan glassed it (How she wound up in a Maryland National Guard unit is anyone's guess!). She never did find out for sure what happened to her family..She was damn good with languages, if somebody spoke it, she'd pick it up fast. But she was damn vicious with the EPWs. Auxiliaries especially. After the Houston breakout, she got orders for what we called "over the fence", which meant behind the lines stuff with folks airtechie might know. We never saw her again. I hope she made out alright...but from what I hear....I dunno.

gtrof

I haven't read Erica's book, what's the title?

Books on the war I've read include, Brave Rifles: The 3rd ACR at War, AFVs of World War III, The Eagle and the Bear: A History of the Third World War, and currently reading Johnine Red: Carrier Operation in the Pacific. Any other suggestions

BlackWave

gtrof said: I haven't read Erica's book, what's the title?

Books on the war I've read include, Brave Rifles: The 3rd ACR at War, AFVs of World War III, The Eagle and the Bear: A History of the Third World War, and currently reading Johnine Red: Carrier Operation in the Pacific. Any other suggestions?

Service of the Motherland, Polyushka Pole and Operation Firefox: Red Air Force triumphs are books by and about Soviet vets of the war. Guerilla: Fighting a Losing War is quite good. The biography I mentioned before--Red Storm--is also worth looking at, although it's very bleak.

Panzerfaust 150

gtrof said: I haven't read Erica's book, what's the title?

Books on the war I've read include, Brave Rifles: The 3rd ACR at War, AFVs of World War III, The Eagle and the Bear: A History of the Third World War, and currently reading Johnine Red: Carrier Operation in the Pacific. Any other suggestions?

It's called Red Storm: A Young Guerrilla's View of the Third World War. I haven't had cause to speak to Senator Hansen, but she wrote the book well, it's a shame she blames herself for Jed and Matt in the book, course, she wrote it 2 years after the war. Methinks she has made peace with it by now.

Most of the guerrillas we dealt with was when they'd hand us prisoners they'd managed to exfil, which wasn't very often, or when we'd ask them trafficability/enemy ORBAT information. Never forget when as proof a KGB MRR was operating near Midland, a guerrilla presented me a pair of blood encrusted KGB Major's shoulder boards..kid doing it said they'd taken them from the owner...after she killed him, I suspect it wasn't quick or easy from the look in the kid's eye...she couldn't have been older than 17. I wonder how many of those kids made out after it was all over? Something tells me not well. Thank god Congress grew a brain and made it possible for Partisan vets to get VA bennies...they earned it.

Another book I recommend is by a guy named Bowden, he embedded with 7th Light when they set out to relieve Denver...it's called Mile High MOUT and it's the best stuff about the war I ever read. The only reporter I ever saw was a guy from the Dallas Morning-Herald..but he couldn't write a thing about us, we were MI and thus..not able to say much about a thing we did.

trekchu

Panzerfaust 150 said: Another book I recommend is by a guy named Bowden, he embedded with 7th Light when they set out to relieve Denver...it's called Mile High MOUT and it's the best stuff about the war I ever read. The only reporter I ever saw was a guy from the Dallas Morning-Herald..but he couldn't write a thing about us, we were MI and thus..not able to say much about a thing we did.

I met that guy, because his part of the 7th Light fought along side my own outfit of the 14th AD for a while during that battle. I made Lieutenant the oldfashioned way back then....

Panzerfaust 150

trekchu said: I met that guy, because his part of the 7th Light fought along side my own outfit of the 14th AD for a while during that battle. I made Lieutenant the oldfashioned way back then....

Jesus..don't tell me you were there clearing out the Pet Food Factory in Elyria-Swansea? Christ..Bowden makes it sound nightmarish. Close quarters against dug in Sov VDV with nothing to lose.

OOC: There's a Purina plant in North Denver...I thought I'd incorporate it!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elyria-Swansea,_Denver

trekchu

Panzerfaust 150 said: Jesus..don't tell me you were there clearing out the Pet Food Factory in Elyria-Swansea? Christ..Bowden makes it sound nightmarish. Close quarters against dug in Sov VDV with nothing to lose.

OOC: There's a Purina plant in North Denver...I thought I'd incorporate it!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elyria-Swansea,_Denver

I was there. In my opinion Bowden made it sound worse than it was, but not by much. The LT bought it when we gave close fire support with HE. These VDV guys fought dearly... In the end we had to call in five Airstrikes before they gave up.

airtechie

Panzerfaust 150 said: BTW, airtechie...we might have met...did you meet a bespectacled Army Staff Sergeant with MI branch insignia in Reno post war who helped pencilwhip that Fidel Paratroop Colonel's 1190 form through to get him his Green Card and WPP placement? I remember a very large guy in civies and a beat up pair of aviator glasses who had a .45 on his hip who was in the office with said Colonel, He didn't say a word but cleaned his nails with a K-Bar while I did the inital work on the form for the Colonel. The K-Bar bit was a bit much though, he was gonna get approved, it was just a case of making sure all the i's were dotted and t's were crossed.

If so, you picked a good guy. I can't say what happened to him..Cuban DGI still wants him dead. Amazing even after what happened, Castro's still running things down there. But suffice to say, he's safe, happy and loves it where he is.

No that was not me. I do think I know who it was. Sounds like it was one of our old shooters. He had been FBI hostage rescue befoe eh war and was always a bit much to deal with but was a good man with an MP5.

I spent several years after the war tying up loose ends, mostly in various third world shit holes.

As to Col. Bella we even got his family out of Cuba after the war, traded some medication with some diplomat from a neutral country acting as a go between.

I can give you some more details on the Irregular motorized Cav but that will have to bee the next post.

Matt Wiser

Panzerfaust: hope you guys don't mind hosting two active-duty Bird Colonels, an AF Reserve Bird Colonel, and two active Light Colonels. (the crew of No. 4 was KIA in the Battle of San Antonio, sadly) No. 3 was flown by then-1st Lt. Kara Sackhoff, call sign Starbuck. She's now in command of the 35th TFW at George AFB in Victorville, CA, on F-15Es. Her back-seater now flies C-130s for the WV ANG: he was injured in a postwar F-15E crash and told that he never could fly an ejection-seat equipped plane again-so he went to C-130s in his home state-he's a Lt. Col. now. My then-backseater is now Wing CO with the 366th TFW at Mountain Home AFB, and the AF reserve set up a Reserve F-15E wing at Hill AFB in Utah: guess who's now the CO? Btw, Kara and her wingie were called in first, then an OA-10 acting as an airborne FAC called me and my wingie and asked if we wanted in. He'd spotted reinforcements headed your way: T-72s and BMP-2s, and those CBUs came in handy. There was a pair of Shilkas and a pair of SA-9 vehicles with 'em, so one pass only.

I've read Erica's book: got my copy before she got elected to the State Senate. When you read about what she went thru before going into the hills....now you know why she was so vicious in combat. I guess you could say that she had survivor's guilt about leaving the two brothers. Airtechie: did your Cuban Colonel say what happened to the brothers, or did the movie get that wrong, as Hollyweird so often does?

If you guys want more info on the F-4: look for Phantoms Versus Red Star: the F-4 in World War III, by Jeffrey Ethell and Alfred Price. (it was Ethell's last book he wrote before being killed in a P-38 crash in Oregon for a VJ-Day anniversary air show). They treat the AF, Navy (two Navy Reserve fighter squadrons flew the F-4S), USMC, AF Reserve and ANG, and the foreign squadrons, both USAF volunteers and the exchange squadrons from the RAF, Turkish AF, Greek AF (had to keep those two separate: the Greeks flew in Mississippi, while the Turks were at Chanute AFB in Illinois), Luftwaffe, Egyptians, Israelis, and ROKs. Anyone interested in the F-4 should pick up a copy: it's still in print.

You guys from Denver should thank the C-130 folks who flew supplies into Stapleton IAP and Lowry AFB during the siege: without them, Ivan would've taken the city, with the usual consequences for the civilians. The C-130 guys and gals flew supplies in, and evac'd as many wounded and non-essential civilians as they could, often at night and under fire. Fighter and attack pilots get the credit and headlines, but the C-130 crews made sure the city held out. And they paid a price: some Herky-bird outfits took 50% casualties.

From page 11

TheMann

Matt Wiser said: Wasn't that last airdrop when they tried that Midland-Odessa offensive? The ground portion was bad enough: 3rd Shock Army from GSFG, 5th Guards Tank and 7th Guards Tank Armies from Beylorussia, and 7th Guards Army from the Transcaucus MD. All those SA-6s and SA-11s....not something any pilot or WSO wants to hear in the pre-mission brief...III Corps' offensive out of New Mexico must've scared Ivan enough to try it, given how the Nicaraguans, Cat III Cubans, and Libyan "African Legion" fared. IIRC a captured MiG-27 driver was brought to Cannon for our Intel officer to have a chat with, and he called the Libyans "worse than useless."

My nephew was VII Corps, which got tasked to hit those fuckers coming out of Abilene. They didn't have time to get all them M-1s, so they went at it with some guys in M60A3s with Caterpillar engines. They got those Libyan T-62s though, and the old Pattons still did those just fine. The Libyans tried retaliating with Sagger teams in BTRs, but that lasted all of about 30 seconds before a brigade with some Rooikat AFVs (I know the VII Corps loved those things at the end of the war - couldn't take a tank, but against anything else it could do fine, and those things could do 75 miles an hour if you needed them to), which sent the Sagger teams running like hell. The Libyans not only had no fight, according to the brother they couldn't shoot for shit, either.

Matt Wiser said: But yeah, that airdrop was a turkey shoot. 335 never got in on it, but the F-15s and land-based Navy F-14s feasted on An-12s and Il-76s big time. One Aussie reporter who was embedded with III Corps said this drop "Made Arnhem look like a successful operation." He was with the Sydney Morning Herald, IIRC. The guy came to Cannon a few times while we were there, pretty decent fella, too. The drop we broke up was Phoenix on D+1...the GRU or DGI must've screwed up big time: I mean, dropping right near Luke AFB: home of the 58th Tactical Training Wing (F-15A/C training-redesignated the 58th TFW after D-Day), and 335 and two Marine F-4S outfits had just arrived at Williams AFB east of Phoenix. Like I said: that was Cuban Airborne's first (and last) major drop at brigade level. 1st Marine Division and the AZ NG took two weeks, though, to mop up the survivors. Then we smashed up that Nicaraguan brigade moving up I-19 from Nogales towards Tuscon. The A-10s feasted on T-62s and BTRs....I remember that one because I got my first MiG (Cuban MiG-21) that day.

My brother was a rookie pilot at the time, and was with VF-124, the legendary Gunslingers, at the time, deployed to Luke while Kitty Hawk (CV-63) was in for repairs with his F-14C. He got two IL-76s, an An-22 and two An-12s. Now, the flyers didn't consider transports to be enemy kills, but the little bro got himself an Su-24 that was sent in to try and help the Cubans with 20mm ammo. He used to laugh at me about having a "real fighter", flying the Tomcat when I had the F-4 in Florida. When I got my F/A-18 it was a different story, though.

I must admit that at the end of the war, I got to fly with the Bro a few times when my unit and his flew together as the Russians ran like hell out of Texas after we'd opened up every can of whupass they didn't want to imagine existing. One of those times, my wingman got a shot of my Hornet and my little brother's Tomcat side-by-side blasting southwards towards Brownsville. A print of that shot hangs on my dad's mantle at his place in Seattle, has for years now. He's getting on in years, but he still has a big grin on his face talking about his "flyboys".

Matt Wiser said: Never had any of the UCLA lefties bother me when I was on campus, but then again, it wasn't a good idea to come out as a leftie on any college campus in the early '90s. It still isn't.

One punk back in Sea-Town learned the hard way from me one time. He had a Soviet flag sticker in the back window of his car, which I stopped to ask him about. This kid tried to tell me that the Soviets were just trying to help poor Americans left behind by Reagan and his, quote, "corporate fascists." I explained to the kid that I was a Marine and Air Force pilot who made ace flying the F-4 and F/A-18, with a brother who also made ace in his F-14, a cousin who fought with VII Corps, a stepsister who stormed the beaches in Havana with the 8th Marines and a best friend put in a wheelchair when his Corsair was shot down over Western Canada. That stupid kid said, quoting again, that I was "a typical military thug" and a "jock itch who was ignorant of reality", just "spewing military-industrial complex talking points." He tried to shove me out of his way after that, which is when smashed him in the back of the head and broke his jaw with my knee. I didn't even get charged - you see, one of my fellow pilots was the deputy chief of the Seattle Police Department then, and the chief had served on USS Oriskany. Hopefully that kid did some homework and wised up.

Matt Wiser said:Remember that UC Boulder prof who hid the fact that he was in an "auxiliary" unit during the war, until it caught up with him thanks to some blogger? There was a real firestorm, and I remember because I was lecturing at the AF Academy, and the consensus among the cadets was basically "if they want to lynch him, go ahead." The school wound up firing him for lying about it, and folks there made it clear that he was unwelcome anywhere in Colorado. And any college that tries to hire him isn't going to be thought of in a good light...

I remember that story too. I also remember he left the United States a few months afterwards, because he couldn't get a job here and was getting worried about being charged. God bless that blogger.

Matt Wiser said: Btw, the AF Academy campus has been completely restored, and apart from a dorm building kept intact as a war memorial and museum, you'd hardly know the campus had been fought over. The AF evac'd the cadets and school records, library, everything, and they got over the Rockies only a few hours ahead of a Soviet VDV regiment tasked with seizing the Academy. They set up shop at Beale AFB in California for the duration, but didn't move back to Colorado Springs until 1994, on the 10th anniversary of the war.

I was there when they re-opened the Academy in September 1994. It was a great day, I can tell you that much. I can still hear the crowd at the ceremony singing the national anthem so loudly it was almost drowning out the F-15Es and B-52s flying overhead. The place looks great now, too.

Matt Wiser said: If you guys in Denver thought fighting in a Purina plant was nasty, try the Clovis, NM Stockyards. The 28th Marines had a really nasty (and smelly) one there. The place changed hands four times before the 28th took it for good. No quarter given or asked at that one. The 5th Marine Division considers Clovis on a par with Iwo Jima for how bitter it was, even if they had a lot fewer casualties in New Mexico than on that island. Even the Marine airdales wish they could've done more there.

I heard about that one. Man, fighting in a bloody stockyard must have been the nastiest stuff. I wished my unit was still USMC when we heard about the brawl at the stockyards. I'd have loved to blast my F-4 in there and plant a few well-placed Mk-84s.....

trekchu

TheMann said: One punk back in Sea-Town learned the hard way from me one time. He had a Soviet flag sticker in the back window of his car, which I stopped to ask him about. This kid tried to tell me that the Soviets were just trying to help poor Americans left behind by Reagan and his, quote, "corporate fascists." I explained to the kid that I was a Marine and Air Force pilot who made ace flying the F-4 and F/A-18, with a brother who also made ace in his F-14, a cousin who fought with VII Corps, a stepsister who stormed the beaches in Havana with the 8th Marines and a best friend put in a wheelchair when his Corsair was shot down over Western Canada. That stupid kid said, quoting again, that I was "a typical military thug" and a "jock itch who was ignorant of reality", just "spewing military-industrial complex talking points." He tried to shove me out of his way after that, which is when smashed him in the back of the head and broke his jaw with my knee. I didn't even get charged - you see, one of my fellow pilots was the deputy chief of the Seattle Police Department then, and the chief had served on USS Oriskany. Hopefully that kid did some homework and wised up.

What annoys me the most about that sort is that most of them weren't even born until after the war was over. Most of them only saw the admittedly bad things that happened in the aftermath when people tried to scam vets out of their benefits or when Vets weren't recognized as such because of missing paperwork, and not to forget the Jamestown Scandal, but we fought as much for their freedom as for our own.

Panzerfaust 150

Matt Wiser said: Didn't they have to move the collection again when Ivan crossed the Red River into Oklahoma? I remember a story in Air Force Times, where a bunch of C-130s flew the collection from Fort Sill to Georgia, and Warner Robins AFB took care of the collection. As for NASA, wasn't one of the Tier I war criminals "The Butcher of Clear Lake City?" That was the Houston suburb where a lot of NASA employees lived, and the Russians were not pleased that NASA had flown the coop, and they took their anger out on the town.

Yep, Colonel Sergei Khvostov, KGB and not a nice guy at all. NASA was pretty insistent when we got a hold of him after Brownsville. I can't discuss how we got him, as it was another one of those secret squirrel jobs. His favorite technique was boiling someone in battery acid by degrees. Not to get them to talk mind you. He just liked hearing the screams. I even heard he did it to a Cuban officer he'd had arrested for stealing a "mistress" of his. Not that the mistress was a willing one.

As for the collection, yep they did move it again, I had forgotten. But then again. Ivan held Ft. Sill for what? A month before III Corps came back hard on their heels?

Matt Wiser said: The AF wanted combat veterans to teach AF ROTC after the war, and they sent me to UCLA for two years to do that (I got F-15Es afterwards, thank you) after my time at the Air War College. For a non-flying job, it was great, and even there there were still a few (very few) campus lefties bemoaning the ComBloc defeat. Even a couple of professors were still trying to carry on with that nonsense. Protesting on Resistance Day, Victory Day, that sort of thing. Panzerfaust, ever run into that when you went to school on the GI Bill? Or anyone else for that matter?

I kinda made the point of making sure people knew I was a vet by subtly wearing the "FIGMO" ballcaps we all got with our units on them when I got out. There was this one idjit prof I had who insisted that most of the war crimes that the Soviets and their allies committed were simple "excesses of war". That one set me off. Considering I had just done witness prep work and information analysis work in support of the Tier 1 trials at that point, and that I was occasionally flying back as a part-time civvy contractor for some of the Tier 2 doing the same thing...I knew how much BS that was.

So, I let him have it...but moron stuck to his guns...and I was getting a bit pissed...till a young man stood up...and told us how he'd survived being a partisan for three years in New Mexico and how his whole town had been napalmed and doused with GB because of it's support of him and his friends.

He called the professor a traitor (which had a lot of weight post war) and stormed out..I went after the kid. Found him sobbing on the quad under a tree. He told me after III Corps came through, he got himself attached to 3rd ACR because he had nothing to go home to. He was on his own at 15 and the only survivor of his family, and his partisan band. He was suffering really, and was seeing the VA for acute PTSD. The other students didn't know what to make of him, or some of us other vets. But we stuck together. We all took this kid under our wing. I am happy to say now that of all things, he became a prominent actor (at the time, he was working on a teaching degree like me, but soon realized he had a phobia of children related to his wartime experiences). You may know him from the characters he plays and the fact he's pretty outspoken about issues for WWIII vets.

Pyro

TheMann said: One punk back in Sea-Town learned the hard way from me one time. He had a Soviet flag sticker in the back window of his car, which I stopped to ask him about. This kid tried to tell me that the Soviets were just trying to help poor Americans left behind by Reagan and his, quote, "corporate fascists." I explained to the kid that I was a Marine and Air Force pilot who made ace flying the F-4 and F/A-18, with a brother who also made ace in his F-14, a cousin who fought with VII Corps, a stepsister who stormed the beaches in Havana with the 8th Marines and a best friend put in a wheelchair when his Corsair was shot down over Western Canada. That stupid kid said, quoting again, that I was "a typical military thug" and a "jock itch who was ignorant of reality", just "spewing military-industrial complex talking points." He tried to shove me out of his way after that, which is when smashed him in the back of the head and broke his jaw with my knee. I didn't even get charged - you see, one of my fellow pilots was the deputy chief of the Seattle Police Department then, and the chief had served on USS Oriskany. Hopefully that kid did some homework and wised up.

Had I been there I'd try to get in a punch in as well considering how Ivan "liberated" the people of Western Canada by blowing to them to pieces, or putting a bullet in the back of their head for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Oh well, I did bloody a few noses at university where there were enough young punks with their heads stuck up their rectums. I remember a gang of them harassed a group of student vets and the altercation turned into a brawl, needless to say whose side I joined. It's fortunate that the dean served in "Vancouvergrad" so he was sympathetic to our side and none of us were expelled, I wore those bruises as a badge of honor and made a couple of friends that day.

Matt Wiser

There was III Corps' first counterattack, remember, but when Ivan turned their flank out of Colorado and New Mexico...they had that delaying action all the way to the I-70 line in Kansas. Heard about it on the radio when I was doing my E&E. I talked to my CO after I got back, and he said that when we pulled out of Wichita,, what Boeing and Cessna couldn't take from their factories, they liberally sprinkled thermite and high explosives in their factory buildings. Ivan got nothing out of 'em. He was upset because we couldn't do a thing about it: 8th Guards Army and 6th Guards Tank Army were just too much at the time. Btw, the Warner Robins AFB Museum (which I've visited, btw-it's excellent) sends artifacts to the Nimitz Museum to display, and the Nimitz Museum sends some to Georgia to repay the favor given during the war.

I do remember NASA wanting that guy: one Astronaut (who shall remain nameless) wanted that KGB..animal strapped to the external tank on his shuttle flight as his punishment. One Husband-and-wife astronaut team wanted to take Khvostov up on a flight and shove him out the airlock once the payload bay doors were opened. They had to settle for a hangin' instead. The NASA community lost a lot of friends who couldn't get out, thanks to that animal. He liquidated anyone he could find who had any NASA connection, IIRC, even shot a real estate agent who sold houses to Astronauts and NASA employees, I heard. But you do have to admire NASA's spirit: it's said that when the KGB arrived with their "exploitation" team, all they found was a note pinned to the visitor's center with a NASA letterhead, saying "Catch us if you can." By that time, the ground convoys were across the Mississippi, and the C-5s and C-141s had already unloaded their cargoes at the Huntsville (AL) airport (which serves Marshall Space Center).

That botched airborne drop at Midland-Odessa was a real feeding frenzy. We were flying CAS for 1st Cav, and you couldn't miss the An-12s and Il-76s falling all over the place. III Corps later caught 3rd Shock Army in the flank, and things started going our way on the ground again. Took a few days to mop up those scattered groups of VDV all over the Texas prarie, though. 5th Marine Division and the South Africans were busy for a week or so.

One thing about those remaining campus lefties: a lot of 'em were 4-F during the war, or were overseas at the time and didn't come back until it was all over but counting the cost. I remember one at UCLA who called Victory Day "the day the fascists won." In class, no less! He got skewered by the campus newspaper, was burned in effigy by some vets going to school on the GI Bill, somebody slashed his car tires, and so on. It got to Sacramento, and there were calls from the Governor, state legislature, etc. to fire him. He should've been publicly tarred and feathered.

trekchu

That 4-F, was he by chance one of those guys that went as "reconstruction volunteers" to Cuba and whats left of Nicaragua? My daughter once dated one of them, and he dumped her as soon as he heard what I did during the war...

Pyro

Sometimes I don't get why they have that attitude, but let me tell you all a little story. Remember how I said I was only a few months old when Ivan reached Southern Alberta? My dad was among the first to be killed when the Soviet artillery came down on Lethbridge, my mom tried to flee but the streets were so backed up, it was faster to run on your own two legs than by car. A shell hit the somewhere close to her as she carried me in her arms. From what my surviving family, and other witnesses, say, she took a lot of shrapnel to the back protecting me. Thankfully a soldier saw her go down and she begged him to take me to safety before succumbing to her injuries. Thanks to him, and his unit, several hundred refugees (mostly pregnant women and children) managed to escape to the Coutts/Sweetgrass border cross where the Americans took us in.

If it weren't for that soldier, I wouldn't be alive rest now to tell the story. I have to ask those leftie scumbags, how is invading ours homes and murdering our children considered "liberation"? My family suffered a great deal under Ivan's thumb. My parents were killed, as were my grandparents because the Soviet occupiers hoarded all the food, and while my uncle and aunt survived Vancouver, both of them continue to grapple with PSD thanks to the horrors those butchers inflicted on the civilian population. Couple that with the atrocities commited by that KGB animal in Houston, tell me how that's merel "excesses" of war.

If I ever meet the soldier who saved my life, I'd like to shake his hand and thank him as I thank Americans for bringing me into their home. I'm always humbled by the hospitality and kindness they shown to us. If anything good came out of the death and destruction of my home, I would say it brought the United States and Canada closer. Like two brothers fighting side by side. I wonder if twenty-five is too old to enlist...

BlackWave

I think it's time we discussed the darker side of what the US did during the war. Do we have anyone who was involved in the napalming of Charlotte, which turned out to contain minimal Sov forces? Or the cluster bombing of the Columbia ruins. Also, in the aftermath of the war some soldiers chose to form mercenary factions that basically rampaged across what was left of the east coast until something resembling a government could be reformed--anyone know much about those? We all know the reds did plenty terrible atrocities, but so did we. It's war, yes, but still. Anyone else got any stories others would rather forget?

Also, I'd just like to point out that most liberals have the same feelings of the whole thing as everyone else, as surveys will show. It's just the really extreme, delusional ones who act like others have said.
Sucking the USA into a black hole? Mutated German tanks? All in a day's work here...

trekchu

BlackWave said: Also, I'd just like to point out that most liberals have the same feelings of the whole thing as everyone else, as surveys will show. It's just the really extreme, delusional ones who act like others have said.

Hey, I am voting Democrat since I am old enough.

BlackWave said: I think it's time we discussed the darker side of what the US did during the war. Do we have anyone who was involved in the napalming of Charlotte, which turned out to contain minimal Sov forces? Or the cluster bombing of the Columbia ruins. Also, in the aftermath of the war some soldiers chose to form mercenary factions that basically rampaged across what was left of the east coast until something resembling a government could be reformed--anyone know much about those? We all know the reds did plenty terrible atrocities, but so did we. It's war, yes, but still. Anyone else got any stories others would rather forget?

Yeah, before 14th AD was deactivated we took part in destroying the Mercs that had seized what was left of Charleston...Hard...

Panzerfaust 150

Matt Wiser said: There was III Corps' first counterattack, remember, but when Ivan turned their flank out of Colorado and New Mexico...they had that delaying action all the way to the I-70 line in Kansas. Heard about it on the radio when I was doing my E&E. I talked to my CO after I got back, and he said that when we pulled out of Wichita,, what Boeing and Cessna couldn't take from their factories, they liberally sprinkled thermite and high explosives in their factory buildings. Ivan got nothing out of 'em. He was upset because we couldn't do a thing about it: 8th Guards Army and 6th Guards Tank Army were just too much at the time. Btw, the Warner Robins AFB Museum (which I've visited, btw-it's excellent) sends artifacts to the Nimitz Museum to display, and the Nimitz Museum sends some to Georgia to repay the favor given during the war.

Nice to see favors get remembered..I heard Boeing and Cessna rebuilt those plants fast post-war. I know they make 777s there now.

Matt Wiser said: I do remember NASA wanting that guy: one Astronaut (who shall remain nameless) wanted that KGB..animal strapped to the external tank on his shuttle flight as his punishment. One Husband-and-wife astronaut team wanted to take Khvostov up on a flight and shove him out the airlock once the payload bay doors were opened. They had to settle for a hangin' instead. The NASA community lost a lot of friends who couldn't get out, thanks to that animal. He liquidated anyone he could find who had any NASA connection, IIRC, even shot a real estate agent who sold houses to Astronauts and NASA employees, I heard. But you do have to admire NASA's spirit: it's said that when the KGB arrived with their "exploitation" team, all they found was a note pinned to the visitor's center with a NASA letterhead, saying "Catch us if you can." By that time, the ground convoys were across the Mississippi, and the C-5s and C-141s had already unloaded their cargoes at the Huntsville (AL) airport (which serves Marshall Space Center).

Well, Matt, I can tell you this much, Khvostov was a guy that the other Sovs I spoke to after Brownsville didn't like much..even other KGB officers. As I said, can't get into how we caught him, but when we did...I got a good look at him and I supported the guy who interrogated him, a SFC by the name of Harry Woo, who was a fucking artist at ego down technique and just good old plain mind fucks...but then being a pre-war MD State Police homicide cop probably had something to do with it. Khvostov was 1 part fanatic, 1 part sadist and 2 parts animal. He was Siberian and thought everything he did he had a right to because he was the "victor". Real old time barbarian type. And the real scary part, he called the screams from his victims his "music". Said he used to tape it to play back to himself. He had 40-45 tapes with him of his "greatest hits". That part got to me.

Matt Wiser said: That botched airborne drop at Midland-Odessa was a real feeding frenzy. We were flying CAS for 1st Cav, and you couldn't miss the An-12s and Il-76s falling all over the place. III Corps later caught 3rd Shock Army in the flank, and things started going our way on the ground again. Took a few days to mop up those scattered groups of VDV all over the Texas prarie, though. 5th Marine Division and the South Africans were busy for a week or so.

I remember us helping out with the prisoner cage admin on that, I remember the remains of a VDV company that had surrendered en masse. It was the size of a platoon, and not a man wasn't injured..their CO was a real hard type..Afghansi I found out later..but he loved his guys. But he would take NO shit. He had his men march into the enclosure, singing some song about the glory of the Soviet Airborne..and they drilled twice a day. They weren't going to be derelicts like most of the guys we grabbed.

Matt Wiser said: One thing about those remaining campus lefties: a lot of 'em were 4-F during the war, or were overseas at the time and didn't come back until it was all over but counting the cost. I remember one at UCLA who called Victory Day "the day the fascists won." In class, no less! He got skewered by the campus newspaper, was burned in effigy by some vets going to school on the GI Bill, somebody slashed his car tires, and so on. It got to Sacramento, and there were calls from the Governor, state legislature, etc. to fire him. He should've been publicly tarred and feathered.

My prof idjit quit not long after that kid ran out of class. I can neither confirm nor deny several vets had gone to his house to calmly work out their differences over beers and some evidence that miraculously appeared proving his service as an Auxillary in Colorado...

Matt Wiser

Yeah, they rebuilt pretty fast, didn't they? One thing Boeing did in their Seattle and Renton Plants was refurbish B-52s that had been in AMARC but not yet broken up. They did a great job with the 80 or so B-52Ds that had been retired only a couple years before the war, and some thought they could reopen B-52 production (all the tooling, jigs, etc. was still there at Renton), but by the time the first new B-52H came off the line at Renton, it was just about over. Boeing still built 150 brand-new H model Buffs, because there were so many attrition losses to replace, and it kept the Boeing workers busy postwar. Rockwell's B-1 plant went into overdrive, and they delivered their first B-1Bs a year ahead of the prewar schedule.

Didn't some of that animal's own minions testify against him-and did so gladly? He must've been pissed that everyone and everything he wanted was well across the Mississippi, which probably set him off. Where'd they hang him? I know he was executed, and a bunch of NASA folks (mission operations people, Astronauts, family members, etc.) got selected as witnesses. IIRC one of the Air Force Astronauts was one who wanted him hung outside JSC before the rebuilding started. Wasn't Khvostov also the KGB chief in Houston, and he had two death sentences, one for the NASA business, and the other for his other atrocities?

That UCLA prof who got run out of town wasn't an auxiliary; but he was a visiting professor in New Zealand when the balloon went up, and his "visit" was for the whole war. He campaigned against the Aussies and Kiwis helping us out (sending volunteers, helping with grain shipments to the West Coast, intelligence sharing, arms shipments, etc), was a frequent apologist for the ComBloc while Down Under, and IIRC the Aussies banned him from entering the country at one point. He might have been on the KGB payroll, but nobody ever proved it. The L.A. Times piece which ran after he left had him mentioning that he was going somewhere "where my progressive views are more welcome." The prevailing wisdom in SoCal was "Goodbye and Good Riddance."

It wasn't all like that after that botched airdrop. 5th Marine Division and the South Africans had some nasty little fights with scattered VDV for a few days. And many of the fights were to the last round and to the death. 5th MarDiv was the 26th, 27th, and 28th Marines, 15th Marines (artillery) 5th and 9th Tank battalions, a recon battalion with LAV-25s, and the usual support elements. They also had a special tracker company with some Mescalaro Apaches from Arizona. And yes, the USMC reestablished the Navajo Code Talkers during the war.

TheMann

Matt Wiser said: Yeah, they rebuilt pretty fast, didn't they? One thing Boeing did in their Seattle and Renton Plants was refurbish B-52s that had been in AMARC but not yet broken up. They did a great job with the 80 or so B-52Ds that had been retired only a couple years before the war, and some thought they could reopen B-52 production (all the tooling, jigs, etc. was still there at Renton), but by the time the first new B-52H came off the line at Renton, it was just about over. Boeing still built 150 brand-new H model Buffs, because there were so many attrition losses to replace, and it kept the Boeing workers busy postwar. Rockwell's B-1 plant went into overdrive, and they delivered their first B-1Bs a year ahead of the prewar schedule.

My dad was one of those machinists cranking out the rebuilt B-52s. When they got short of manpower to fly them, he got the co-pilot seat on one of the delivery flights, too, even though the biggest thing dad had ever flown before was a Cessna 208. He called that one of the greatest experiences of his life, roaring off the Renton runway in a rebuilt B-52, which in that case he says had a bunch of ALCM's on its wings.

I knew the B-1s got out fast, too. I know the IV Corps in Louisiana got to see what those things could first hand, because a pair of loaded-to-the-gunwales B-1Bs roared over the battlefield at about a thousand feet and dropped several dozen 1000-pound bombs on the Soviet 15th MRD. I wonder if the IV Corps ears have stopped ringing yet - a B-1 is kinda loud.

Matt Wiser said: Didn't some of that animal's own minions testify against him-and did so gladly? He must've been pissed that everyone and everything he wanted was well across the Mississippi, which probably set him off. Where'd they hang him? I know he was executed, and a bunch of NASA folks (mission operations people, Astronauts, family members, etc.) got selected as witnesses. IIRC one of the Air Force Astronauts was one who wanted him hung outside JSC before the rebuilding started. Wasn't Khvostov also the KGB chief in Houston, and he had two death sentences, one for the NASA business, and the other for his other atrocities?

You got it all right. I wish I'd have been able to watch that f***er hang. I'd have tossed that shithead down the engine intake of a B-52 or one of the airlifters. That man was far beyond evil, and he's obviously rotting in the fires of hell right now, and rightly so.

Matt Wiser said: That UCLA prof who got run out of town wasn't an auxiliary; but he was a visiting professor in New Zealand when the balloon went up, and his "visit" was for the whole war. He campaigned against the Aussies and Kiwis helping us out (sending volunteers, helping with grain shipments to the West Coast, intelligence sharing, arms shipments, etc), was a frequent apologist for the ComBloc while Down Under, and IIRC the Aussies banned him from entering the country at one point. He might have been on the KGB payroll, but nobody ever proved it. The L.A. Times piece which ran after he left had him mentioning that he was going somewhere "where my progressive views are more welcome." The prevailing wisdom in SoCal was "Goodbye and Good Riddance."

Dumb douchebag ought to have just stayed in New Zealand. The Australian Volunteer Brigades were tough customers. They were among the Tracker Brigades in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado - with the Native Americans, South Africans and the AFL. The Commies wanted to meet us rather than meet them, especially since while their chances of hiding from us were slim, against the Trackers their chances were non-existent.

Matt Wiser said: It wasn't all like that after that botched airdrop. 5th Marine Division and the South Africans had some nasty little fights with scattered VDV for a few days. And many of the fights were to the last round and to the death. 5th MarDiv was the 26th, 27th, and 28th Marines, 15th Marines (artillery) 5th and 9th Tank battalions, a recon battalion with LAV-25s, and the usual support elements. They also had a special tracker company with some Mescalaro Apaches from Arizona. And yes, the USMC reestablished the Navajo Code Talkers during the war.

The South African 18th Transvaal Rifles and their hunter-killer 30 Battalion were the guys with the 5th Marines, if I remember right. The 18th Rifles had that guy Renaldo van der Hausen running them. That big Afrikaner is the only guy to ever outdrink me, before or after the war. I know a lot of people were not impressed with the South Africans at first, but I know by the end of the war them and us were like homeboys.

I have to also say this. That big war did something I never figured would happen, it made bias disappear entirely. We needed ererybody we could, and everyone answered the call. Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, Arab, Native Americans. Male and Female. My RIO over Florida, 1st Lieutanent Ryan "Drive-by" Mantis, was a black kid from Detroit paired with a white guy from Seattle. That might have been concerning at first. It didn't stay that way long. By the time we switched to the F/A-18s, Ryan was ready to be a pilot in his own right. He ended the war in the 337th TFW, a Captain in an F-16.

At the end of the war, the 317 Squadron was 25 pilots - six white men, five black men, two white women, four hispanic men, three hispanic women, a black woman, an asian woman and three ssian men. A real diverse group, we were. But any of us would have stuck our nuts out to help any of the others, and we did on a bunch of occasions. I wound up dating Allison "Templar" Nakamura, one of the other pilots from the 317th.

I did have losses, of course. My best friend in the unit was KIA over Kansas thanks to a AA-11 from a MiG-29 and my childhood best buddy is in a wheelchair after his A-7D went down from a SA-8 in Alberta. But we buried our dead and began the task of rebuilding, which was needed since damn near all of Texas, Louisiana, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado and Wyoming was a mess, and Western Canada and Alaska were similarly screwed up. But we also came out hating communism and anybody trying to slim down civil rights, but with a much greater respect for our fellow people. And that was all a good thing.

My buddy in the wheelchair today is in a program to make a system to allow people with spinal injuries to walk again, and in the meantime he's a technician at Todd Pacific Shipyards. He's enjoying life, wheelchair be damned.

I'm close to retirement now, but I'm still 317th Squadron. We have F-22s now, too. I have Colonel's stripes now, and most of my unit during the war isn't Air Force any more.

On Paper, I am Colonel Adrian Faulker, USAF. To my fellow pilots when we're up in the air, I'm still "Superbird", my old callsign since the Marine days.

Panzerfaust 150

Matt Wiser said: Yeah, they rebuilt pretty fast, didn't they? One thing Boeing did in their Seattle and Renton Plants was refurbish B-52s that had been in AMARC but not yet broken up. They did a great job with the 80 or so B-52Ds that had been retired only a couple years before the war, and some thought they could reopen B-52 production (all the tooling, jigs, etc. was still there at Renton), but by the time the first new B-52H came off the line at Renton, it was just about over. Boeing still built 150 brand-new H model Buffs, because there were so many attrition losses to replace, and it kept the Boeing workers busy postwar. Rockwell's B-1 plant went into overdrive, and they delivered their first B-1Bs a year ahead of the prewar schedule.

Yeah, my half-brother works as a junior engineer on the B-52J project in Sea-Tac..He won't tell me much..but knowing him...he's having way too much fun.

Matt Wiser said: Didn't some of that animal's own minions testify against him-and did so gladly? He must've been pissed that everyone and everything he wanted was well across the Mississippi, which probably set him off. Where'd they hang him? I know he was executed, and a bunch of NASA folks (mission operations people, Astronauts, family members, etc.) got selected as witnesses. IIRC one of the Air Force Astronauts was one who wanted him hung outside JSC before the rebuilding started. Wasn't Khvostov also the KGB chief in Houston, and he had two death sentences, one for the NASA business, and the other for his other atrocities?

They hung him like the others, in the yard of the Nevada State Prison in Ely. I was at the hanging...and you know what he was most mad about? He'd heard about Chapman..and he wanted to die in front of a firing squad...but they had to explain to the nutbar that that was Utah. As for witnesses...he was one guy that even the other Tier 1 guys on trial didn't want a thing to do with. That Captain I mentioned? He was not prosecuted for theft of private and public property because he turned some fairly damning evidence at Khvostov's trial. I think he creeped everyone out when he said he wanted to make the whole world sing...Let's just say I can't listen to Barry Manilow any more.:eek:

To clarify...he wasn't part of the KGB command structure in Houston. His unit was "special" and he had special SATCOM access to Moscow. We knew this because that Captain handed us the message logs..he was Khvostov's commo officer. His special unit, "Vostok" was made up of a mix of KGB, GRU, some SRF and some folks from their space program..sad story there..one of the space program guys lost his life getting some of his opposite numbers from NASA out of dodge when Khvostov went ape. But as I mentioned before, he wasn't the first or last "own goal", he scored. Even the KGB General, Mishkin, who was the commander for their Plains TVD pacification effort, wanted Khvostov dead, we know, we captured Mishkin's diary, right next to his body. Or, at least that's what the Marines who gave it to me in Reno told me. The KGB were the worst of his bunch...including some Kaskad and Alpha Group vets. They didn't flinch when Khvostov gave the orders. The other death sentence wasn't from a US court..when the Russian Republic formed, it tried him and several other of the worst Tier 1 guys in absentia..and found them all guilty and sentenced them to death. That's why there was a uniformed Russian at all the executions...they wanted to make sure these arseholes weren't coming back.

Matt Wiser said: It wasn't all like that after that botched airdrop. 5th Marine Division and the South Africans had some nasty little fights with scattered VDV for a few days. And many of the fights were to the last round and to the death. 5th MarDiv was the 26th, 27th, and 28th Marines, 15th Marines (artillery) 5th and 9th Tank battalions, a recon battalion with LAV-25s, and the usual support elements. They also had a special tracker company with some Mescalaro Apaches from Arizona. And yes, the USMC reestablished the Navajo Code Talkers during the war.

We met those Mescaleros, scary folks, glad as hell they were on our side...and they fought a very personal war with the Soviet and Cuban LRP guys...though the Mescaleros more than held their own. The Mescaleros kept score in body parts, and usually didn't bother killing the former owner first. One of their favorite activities was to sneak up on a ComBloc OP, kill two of the three guys there in as gruesome a manner as possible and make the third one watch, then bring him back to us as a prisoner..we'd have to get the guy to slow down long enough to get anything USEFUL out of him. They sadly didn't discriminate however..We saw what the Mescalereos did to a Nicaraguan Field Hospital near Gonzales during the pursuit from Houston. Not a happy memory...but then again...we didn't start it, did we?

Matt Wiser

Did he work on the Ds as well as the Hs? The H models weren't the same Buffs that came off the line in '62. Digital avionics, glass cockpits, advanced ECM, improved engines, the works.

This one's for gtrof: The Battle of Stillwater is the first time I remember about the "Cobra Chicks" getting in on the action. Did they show up earlier? Because there's a book coming out next year called Chopper Girls: Female Helicopter Pilots in the Third World War and I got a call from the author, Bowden again, asking if I'd worked with them in Oklahoma and Texas. At least he's telling the story right, whenever he puts a book out. I still want to punch out that reporter who called U.S. 177 south of Stillwater "The Highway of Death" because we'd napalmed and CBU'd the Soviet and Cuban REMFs who were retreating down that road. I'd sure like to know where that schmuck was on Invasion Day.

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of those lefties on the East and West Coasts did go to Cuba as "reconstruction volunteers." Some of 'em stayed there, IIRC, because they got out one step ahead of the FBI....And given what the Navy's Atlantic Fleet carriers did to Cuba before the Cease-Fire....well, they were busy for a long time, I'd bet.

Yeah, we didn't start it or want it, but at least we finished it on our terms. Not theirs.

I think the NASA guys your space program fella got out might have been retirees: everyone who worked at JSC, from Astronauts to engineers, geologists working with moon rocks, spacesuit techs, everyone (and their families) was evac'd to Marshall in Alabama. They flew the coop by a couple of days, as I understand, and the convoys with all the equipment, museum exhibits, moon rocks, etc. that couldn't be flown out on the air bridge to Huntsville had already crossed the Mississippi. Was it the fact that his prizes had all gotten away that set him off? Finding empty JSC buildings and empty houses of NASA employees might have been it.

First time I've heard of the Russian Republic at any of the trials. Were they helpful with documents, etc.?

Panzerfaust 150

Matt Wiser said: Did he work on the Ds as well as the Hs? The H models weren't the same Buffs that came off the line in '62. Digital avionics, glass cockpits, advanced ECM, improved engines, the works.

He just graduated MIT last year and Boeing made him a damn good offer. He's a good kid, if a little goofy. I had to have a LONG talk with him about joining the military. I told him "It's an option, but there's been enough men in this family doing their bit. And right now, we need builders."

Matt Wiser said: I think the NASA guys your space program fella got out might have been retirees: everyone who worked at JSC, from Astronauts to engineers, geologists working with moon rocks, spacesuit techs, everyone (and their families) was evac'd to Marshall in Alabama. They flew the coop by a couple of days, as I understand, and the convoys with all the equipment, museum exhibits, moon rocks, etc. that couldn't be flown out on the air bridge to Huntsville had already crossed the Mississippi. Was it the fact that his prizes had all gotten away that set him off? Finding empty JSC buildings and empty houses of NASA employees might have been it.

That's what I understood it to be, I think he was a guy who did a few spaceflights, including Apollo-Soyuz in '75, and didn't want anything to do with this. At least, that's what the witness said when I interviewed her post-war.

Matt Wiser said: First time I've heard of the Russian Republic at any of the trials. Were they helpful with documents, etc.?

Very cooperative, in so much that they could be. The area that still calls itself the Soviet Union controls Moscow right now, and so, the Republic government has to operate from St. Petersburg. Not to mention both nations control some portion of the former Soviet nuclear arsenal. They provided as many witnesses and documents as they could, and the officer they sent as part of the new embassy in St. Louis, he was a pretty angry guy..cold, but angry. Not at us, but the Tier 1 guys who were on trial. Kept muttering something about "the damned stukachi (snitches) that had gotten us into this." I found out later he'd been one of the 5% who'd managed to get out of the Soviet Far East when it was overrun by the PLA following the Soviet collapse post-war. He was pretty scarred up, and was missing three fingers on the left hand. But if I asked him for something..he got it for me in a week's time, max. Hell, they did better sometimes then our own government. Strange guy for a Russian officer, though, insisted I call him "Leonid" and smiled with the eyes. Russians as a rule don't do that. But he was angry at the men on trial, and at the ones still clinging for power in the Kremlin.

gtrof

Matt Wiser said: This one's for gtrof: The Battle of Stillwater is the first time I remember about the "Cobra Chicks" getting in on the action. Did they show up earlier? Because there's a book coming out next year called Chopper Girls: Female Helicopter Pilots in the Third World War and I got a call from the author, Bowden again, asking if I'd worked with them in Oklahoma and Texas. At least he's telling the story right, whenever he puts a book out. I still want to punch out that reporter who called U.S. 177 south of Stillwater "The Highway of Death" because we'd napalmed and CBU'd the Soviet and Cuban REMFs who were retreating down that road. I'd sure like to know where that schmuck was on Invasion Day.

Matt did some checking with a buddy of mine, he was a Spec-4 in the 4th Squadron. The Cobra Girls first showed up at the battle of Lincoln, Nebraska. This was an attempt by ComBloc to break through the I-80 line and send their armor and OMGs east and north. I wasn't in the regiment yet for this but my first TC was. It was a big maneuver battle after Ivan and Fidel pushed through the first line of defense. The 2nd ACR was only two ground squadrons at this point but went into the fight anyway.

2nd ACR did a series of hit and run attacks. Ivan was too slow to react quickly and each time they smacked into the Cav, they were delayed. The Cobra Girls went into action during the second hit and run battle. My Spec-4 buddy said they were used mostly in back stop role at first, not really given a chance to show off. However as losses mounted in the deeper attack missions, they were sent in. Event though their was little cover or terrain to work with, those gals made the most of it. One Soviet major captured by 1st Armored during their big push called the Cav Choppers 'Jack in the Boxes', he was pretty shocked to learn girls were piloting those AH-1s.

They also participated in the Maywood Massacre. 2nd ACR acted as the lead unit for 1st Armored counterattack, advancing fast down US 83. Eagle Troop lead by a senior lieutenant, Mac Master something I think, encountered a dug in Guards Tank Regiment. Somehow air recon missed them along with our own Kiowa scouts. Anyway Eagle Troop went right into it. Destroying ten T-80 tanks. McMaster called for CAS but for whatever reason the Air Force didn't show up, the Cobra Girls did instead. Together they worked with E-Troop and knocked out another fifteen tanks and dozens of PCs and trucks.

Hope that helps Matt.

Matt Wiser

The only thing that'll replace the B-52 is another B-52, just like the C-130. Boeing always hires top talent, so I'm sure he's having a ball. Just remind him that it might be his kids who climb into a Buff cockpit one day. Join the Air Force and fly the plane your dad built.

With that bastard Khvostov, even the State of Texas wanted a piece of him. On the off chance (slim and none, really) he got off the Tier I case, the State was prepared to charge him with mass murder, arson, looting, and other offenses in State Court. I was down at Ellington Field (where NASA has facilities) for an air show, and there were T-Shirts being hawked that had a picture of Texas' Old Sparky, and saying Khvostov: Regular or Extra Crispy? But man, even with rebuilding, finding where the KGB had their mass graves, getting people working again, everyone was glad to forget for a few hours and take in the Thunderbirds. That show was special: former POWs being guests of honor, a gathering of Aces from all branches of the service, NASA thanking the C-5 and C-141 guys and gals who flew the evac shuttle, you name it. There was a captured MiG-23 for a special appearance: for $3.00 you could take as many swings at it with a sledgehammer as you could in three minutes. By noon, it was in pieces. (I preferred AIM-9s for doing that, personally) The "Cobra Chicks" were there, too; a lot of news media attention on them (and on my back-seater): it was kinda hard to enjoy the show when there's a reporter and camera crew always hanging around your plane.

I think airtechie's guys were on the ball: a lot of the lefties who fled after the war, even recent ones, had good reason to get out: Cuban defectors, files from the Russian Republic (and other former Soviet Republics), etc., all naming names. The ones who went to Nicaragua had to get out a couple years later, when the coup got rid of the Sandinistas-permanently-and their foreign friends had to get out or "pose for rifle fire." That UCLA guy I mentioned wound up teaching in Havana-where he's out of reach. As long as Fidel and Raoul are still around, he and the other traitors are safe. For the time being, anyway....we got unfinished business with that island.

Thanks, gtrof, for that info. Next time Bowden calls, I'll have info for him. Were you one of the guys who was in the pursuit down U.S. 177 after Stillwater? I remember getting there near dusk, final hop of the day, and there were M-1s and Bradleys all over that highway, going around, on top, whatever, of the vehicles we'd hit earlier that day. Wound up being a "no drop" because with it getting dark, we couldn't ID the target the FAC was trying to direct us in on. Or was that the Big Red One?

trekchu

I have a mate who served at an embassy in Europe and he said that even over there they were weeding out the ultra-lefties.

Talking Air Shows, has anyone been to the great Victory Air Show at Mountain Home last year? They had this awesome display of airworthy Mig 29s, one from the Soviet Air Force, one from Cuba, one from Lybia, one from Nicaragua and even one from East Germany.

Matt Wiser
Hey, My wife's wing, the 366th, hosts that show every year. She didn't ask for the MiGs, but the Fighter Weapons School at Nellis sent them anyway. At least folks got to see DACT between the F-15E and MiG-29.

gtrof

Matt Wiser said: Thanks, gtrof, for that info. Next time Bowden calls, I'll have info for him. Were you one of the guys who was in the pursuit down U.S. 177 after Stillwater? I remember getting there near dusk, final hop of the day, and there were M-1s and Bradleys all over that highway, going around, on top, whatever, of the vehicles we'd hit earlier that day. Wound up being a "no drop" because with it getting dark, we couldn't ID the target the FAC was trying to direct us in on. Or was that the Big Red One?

After Stillwater we pulled into a Assembly Area a few kilometers west. We Had 24 hours to rest, rearm, and regroup. That armor you saw Matt probably was 1st ID as they pushed south. We hit the country roads west of 177 and then advanced into OKC on the 270.

Matt Wiser said: At least folks got to see DACT between the F-15E and MiG-29.

What's DACT Matt?

From page 13

Mako_Leader

trekchu said: Don't get me started on reporters. I once had one trying to have me busted back down to Sergeant. ( It was after I made Lieutenant ) He was annoyed that I refused to let him accompany my troop on a mission. He tried to sneak forward with us anyway, and made bad press about my unit when we shoved him into a Humvee that went back to Division CP. We met again, and I may have accidentally run over his camera with my tank.

I knew a guy who was a firefighter at an airforce base in California. He told me an F-4 had an "engine surge" once during takeoff. Had to jettison his load of naplam before the engine quit, 'cause you don't want that during takeoff. Apparently it accidentally landed on a TV truck that was broadcasting live.......

Matt Wiser

Yeah, those ASAT missiles (the early ones, anyway) didn't do so well as they thought: IIRC they hadn't even had a live target test before the balloon went up. They did get the bugs worked out (eventually) but the early shots cost a couple of F-15s and pilots; instead of igniting the rocket motor upon release, it'd blow up instead. The CO of the 318th FIS at McChord AFB got himself killed that way. While satellite recon was essential for looking at the Soviet Union, most recon over here was done by the SR-71, U-2 and the tac recon folks in RF-4s (AF and Marine), TARPS pod-equipped F-14s, and even a Navy Reserve RF-8G squadron. The SR-71, of course, was the best of them all: none got touched by anything during the war. Eventually, though, the shuttle flights put up enough satellites to last us thru to the end. Still, it'd be nice to have a look at the wartime imagery of the Soviet Union and see what was going on over there. Hell, you can buy commercial imagery at greater resolution that the wartime stuff, or so Google Earth says.

So an F-4 napalmed a news truck? Guess the unit (whoever it was) didn't like the news coverage. Only AF Phantoms in California were the 35th TFW (Wild Weasels) at George AFB (F-4Gs and Es in hunter-killer teams), and the CA ANG's 163rd TFW at March with F-4Ds. The 144th FIW at Fresno was supposed to get F-4s to replace their F-106s, but wound up getting F-20s instead from the production line in Taiwan. I could see the Marines at El Toro deciding that they didn't like what was on the news and bar-b-que a news truck.... Of course, it was "accidental."

Just how much intramural bloodletting was there between the GRU and the KGB during the war? I've read some accounts where the GRU got disgusted with some of the KGB's tactics, feeling that the KGB was inciting more underground activity than it managed to squash, and the KGB was upset that the GRU was more concerned with what was going on at the front lines, rather than behind it. Wasn't there some incidents where there were fire-fights between the KGB and the Regular Army, and not just near the end,

Mako_Leader

Matt Wiser said: So an F-4 napalmed a news truck? Guess the unit (whoever it was) didn't like the news coverage.

Yeah, something to do with closeups of tail/unit ID's, along with times locations, configurations and headdings being "freedom of the press", and "the public has a right to know", and " Mr newsman, the end of the runway's a rather dangerous place to stand", and "F you soldier I'm just doing my job", followed by "would you like fries with that?"

Apparently it was the base commander's fiirst ride in the front of an F-4 for quite a while, and when the "indication of potential for the risk of a possible future issue" light came on he decided he'd better err of the side of caution. That and the previous day he'd lost four crews when a milk run was fully prepared for them.

Panzerfaust 150

Matt Wiser said: Just how much intramural bloodletting was there between the GRU and the KGB during the war? I've read some accounts where the GRU got disgusted with some of the KGB's tactics, feeling that the KGB was inciting more underground activity than it managed to squash, and the KGB was upset that the GRU was more concerned with what was going on at the front lines, rather than behind it. Wasn't there some incidents where there were fire-fights between the KGB and the Regular Army, and not just near the end, but in the early days, as well?

KGB and DGI were the two worst offenders, I don't know about firefights and the like, but I do know we had to keep the KGB and MVD types (we caught a few of them at Houston and later at Brownsville) apart in the EPW cages..the regulars would pretty much kill them any way they could. When we asked why, it was usually that they figured it was time for the Stukachi to get theirs.

Now the research I did post-war suggested most of the trouble was low level and there were as many internal as there was intermural tensions. Airtechie mentions a few cases where the snake eaters took advantage, but the Soviet and allied militaries worked on the divide and rule concept. Every service branch was at odds with each other to some extent, especially Ground Forces and VDV (though that was mainly of an interservice rivalry type), and everybody despised the KGB (stukachi) and the MVD, who recruited a lot from Central Asia..you can imagine what they were like in occupied America. The book I am working on about Igor Kantarev (based on my doctorate work) is basically asserting that in some ways, Kantarev was indirectly created by the Soviet policy on counter-insurgency in the US and Canada. Kantarev noticed that and knew that the KGB was setting up shop in the EPW camps..they got some information out, but what was more important was the fact they were acting the the role of their interpretation of the Soviet state, often with lethal results. There are 145 unsolved homicides of EPWs in the prison camp system during the war. All are suspected to be folks who ran afoul of this shadow version of the KGB. This was in spite of the fact that the KGB guys were in their own camps. We never found all the unit informers or the war criminals who had their own reasons to cooperate. Kantarev and people like him knew where to look, and were tired of constantly looking over their shoulder. So, they started to pass us information, and FBI and the various CI units of the Armed Forces began to take the networks down.

Matt Wiser

Was it Marines or USAF who did the deed? I'm sure that 10th Air Force (TAC Command for the Western U.S.) had a few words to say to the newsies after this incident. After all the confusion of the early days, the military clamped down on the press, putting WW II style rules for reporters. (being careful with live shots, paying attention to unit IDs and other security measures, etc.)

One of the F-111D guys who got run out of Cannon AFB (27th TFW) and fell back to Davis-Monthan, had an issue with a Tuscon TV station's aggressive reporting: he did a low-altitude flyby of the station, dumped some fuel, and lit his afterburner! The crew got grounded for a week, but their point was made, and the station backed off.

Mako_Leader

Yes, TAC did have a few words to say. Seemed quite irritated at the use of 10 valuable napalm bombs when in his estimation two would have sufficed. Also questioned the use of USAF fire fighters on what is clearly civilian land. The boss had to politely point out that the smoke was interfeering with visibility, especially as he'd made the fire crews wait half an hour till the rest of the stike was safely away.

I wasn't stationed with him at the time, but had been his back seater in his last squadron. Never did get to sit behind the boss in the air again. A few weeks latter he had a mishap while cleaning his sidearm.

Matt Wiser

DGI....talk about unfinished business with Cuba, but some of those bastards on the Most Wanted lists got away from both El Paso and Brownsville across the Rio Grande, and then back to Cuba. They know that if they step on foot off that island, either the FBI or CIA will be after them, and the words on the list "Dead or Alive" show up on the internet version of the list. I'll bet airtechie's contemparies are still busy chasing down those scum-suckers, and the collaborators who did get away. The latter know that if they leave Cuba, it's open season on them, too. Didn't the Cubans refuse to live up to the cease-fire in one aspect, that of a speedy and prompt POW exchange? IIRC it took a naval blockade by Atlantic Fleet's attack subs to convince them otherwise. When you hear the stories the POWs from Guantanamo Bay and the shot-down aircrew went thru...at least if you were captured here and escaped, you had people willing to hide you and get you back to friendly lines. Not so there.
Some of Fidel's POW handlers are also on the list, ISTR. When you hear Fidel and Raoul do the talk and walk the walk, you'd never know they were on the losing side. Someday, Fidel....

So makoleader was at George AFB or with the Guard at March, then..What were you on? Weasels, plain E models, or Ds? Chances are, we flew at the same locales and didn't know it. If you saw shark-mouthed E models with the SJ tailcode, that was us in the 335th TFS. In the Wing History, 4th TFW's historian calls us "The lost sheep of the 4th."

ISTR the KGB recruited regular military as informers; could those unsolved EPW murders be the result of these guys? IIRC a lot of Soviet EPWs refused repatriation after the war; guess they felt they'd be better off here instead of back home after the USSR collapsed.

TheMann

I figured it was the old KGB loonies killing the EPWs. The KGB guys were fanatical to a fare-thee-well, and they never did get the idea of trying to be kind to a population to get them to not resist the occupiers. Their attitude seemed to be "Why be reasonable when you kill some Americans to make a point?" I know that drove a lot of my guys - they wanted to get the Soviets the hell out of the US as fast as possible to stop more people from dying. And while some of those pigs died by American bombs and bullets, others got away. One day, I KNOW we will fix that. Most of them are holed up on Cuba, which is conveniantly located close to Florida......

We got stupid shit from dumb reporters too. I know one group we had decided to break into the base CO's office to try and get plans of where the actions were gonna be. One of the F-111 jockeys at the base caught him in the act of trying to get into the office. "Right to know" meant shit to us of course, because we damn sure did not want Ivan knowing what we had in store for him. We tried our best to make life hell for him afterwards. Eventually he did one day manage to find enough to get a story on what we were doing, after this reporter scumbag got one of my female pilots drunk enough to sleep with him. That mission turned out be a disaster, and when I found out why I told him to get off the base, or I'd chuck him down the intake of one of the engines of my F/A-18. He refused, and only the base commander and one of my wingmen stopped me from breaking him in half. A week later, he was accidentally hit and killed by an AH-1W taking off for a mission when he ran out and tried to photograph it flying over his head. I always did wonder whether that was on purpose, but I figure don't ask, don't tell was the better part of valor in this instance.

trekchu

Well, it seems that on the whole my unit had mostly luck with reporters, because after that first one we only had pros. One of them even was an apprentice of sorts of Edward R. Murrow.

Panzerfaust 150

Matt Wiser said: Didn't the Cubans refuse to live up to the cease-fire in one aspect, that of a speedy and prompt POW exchange? IIRC it took a naval blockade by Atlantic Fleet's attack subs to convince them otherwise.

ISTR the KGB recruited regular military as informers; could those unsolved EPW murders be the result of these guys? IIRC a lot of Soviet EPWs refused repatriation after the war; guess they felt they'd be better off here instead of back home after the USSR collapsed.

Yep, going thinking is, is that it was the informer network, along with some folks wanted for war crimes who as I said, had their own reasons to cooperate. We never proved it of course, but many of those informers never saw trial, or anything else.

As for the Cuban ceasefire violation, well, that had to do with the fact that 1) they wanted their Tier 1 and 2 people back, and 2) They felt we were holding prisoners against their will when over 65% of their eligible EPWs refused repatriation. Even behind barbed wire, they thought an American POW camp was better than going home...tells you something. Though, I think the master stroke was giving the EPWs access to US cable, and not just for the Playboy channel. It seems (again, post war research) that CNN was the most popular amongst them. That and C-Span. Yep, I had a prison guard tell me that they'd watch C-Span in those day rooms like you or I would watch a ball game. Says something, doesn't it? We did more to sell ourselves to those EPWs that way than any other way I can think of. So, the Cubans got mad and ended the POW repatriation. Well, you remember the President then, I loved his speech "Fidel, end this, or we end you!" We thought he was gonna nuke Habana. He wasn't of course. But his solution was pretty interesting. It of course, led to the Collective Will incident, but somebody should have told those Eurolefties to stay home..Mk-48s hurt.

trekchu

Panzerfaust 150 said: But his solution was pretty interesting. It of course, led to the Collective Will incident, but somebody should have told those Eurolefties to stay home..Mk-48s hurt.

Good Riddance I say. Conincidentally, so thought most of the Europeans I have talked with since, because it rid them from most of their domestic terrorists.

Matt Wiser

As for the Collective Will incident...well, tough luck, but it proved that Eurolefties make good shark bait. There were a few other sinkings of ships trying to run the blockade, but the Navy does like to point out that the blockade worked without more sinkings because maritime insurance for ships headed to Cuba went through the roof, and it was impossible to get coverage. And anything flying a Cuban flag...the sub guys had open season on 'em. Lot of newly created artifical reefs off Cuba....

That incident with the Tuscon TV station wasn't the only time the F-111 crowd did the fuel dump and burner trick. I know the 27th TFW did it a few times in New Mexico; especially against Nicaraguans, who were terrified of anything resembling napalm. And then we'd come in and lay down said napalm. Not on the unit the F-111s buzzed, but the folks next to them, well, too bad.

Just how many of the Russians and other Combloc EPWs refused to go home? I read somewhere that the East Germans were practically the only ones who did want to return home, though some did stay here. A lot of the non-Russian nationalities went home when their republics became independent, but for a lot of 'em, life in a POW compound was a lot better than returning home to a republic or a 'stan, where there was still plenty of trouble (famine, civil war, etc).

trekchu

Matt Wiser said: Just how many of the Russians and other Combloc EPWs refused to go home? I read somewhere that the East Germans were practically the only ones who did want to return home, though some did stay here. A lot of the non-Russian nationalities went home when their republics became independent, but for a lot of 'em, life in a POW compound was a lot better than returning home to a republic or a 'stan, where there was still plenty of trouble (famine, civil war, etc).

I've read an unofficial study done by Harvard a couple of years ago. It said that 30ish % stayed. The East Germans went home because their home had had a sudden improvement in living quality, as it was/is a part of what was West Germany.

Panzerfaust 150

Matt Wiser said: As for the Collective Will incident...well, tough luck, but it proved that Eurolefties make good shark bait. There were a few other sinkings of ships trying to run the blockade, but the Navy does like to point out that the blockade worked without more sinkings because maritime insurance for ships headed to Cuba went through the roof, and it was impossible to get coverage. And anything flying a Cuban flag...the sub guys had open season on 'em. Lot of newly created artifical reefs off Cuba....

Moral of that story: Eurolefties with Soviet Army surplus should not think they can get into firefights with Coast Guard VBSS teams and not expect that the Navy will not sink you...

Matt Wiser said: ↑Just how many of the Russians and other Combloc EPWs refused to go home? I read somewhere that the East Germans were practically the only ones who did want to return home, though some did stay here. A lot of the non-Russian nationalities went home when their republics became independent, but for a lot of 'em, life in a POW compound was a lot better than returning home to a republic or a 'stan, where there was still plenty of trouble (famine, civil war, etc).
trekchu said:

I've read an unofficial study done by Harvard a couple of years ago. It said that 30ish % stayed. The East Germans went home because their home had had a sudden improvement in living quality, as it was/is a part of what was West Germany.
The Harvard study mentioned was a bit "biased", it didn't count EPWs that were eligible for 1140 status and nor (when it was conducted) did it count those EPWs who had gone through the non-1140 naturalization status to get their citizenship..it only counted non-citizens. The figure was closer to 43-48% according to both the Army and the ICRC. But, as you both mentioned, the breakdown depended on nationality...a majority of the Eastern Europeans went home, the Poles being the singular exception. Hell, an former Polish EPW is the Deputy Mayor of Chicago!

As for the Soviets, a lot of the non-Russians stayed, the Russians, Ukranians, Balts and White Russians went home. The Cubans and Mexicans for the most part stayed, but the Nicaraguans mostly opted to be returned home. Most of the African and the few Asian EPWs mostly stayed, all of the above resettled along the coasts, they're still not popular in the mid-west.

As I said, it was a interesting time working with the Finns, Swedes and Indians to get the Brownsville EPWs processed for the trip home. They weren't sent to EPW camps for the most part, we processed them, sent the black category prisoners along for investigation and holding in an EPW camp and put the rest on a UN transpo headed home, or if they opted to stay, on a bus for a 1140 processing site and transit camp. It was chaotic..but we ended up putting their own officers and NCOs (once they learned HOW to be NCOs) in charge of a lot of the grunt work, we handled the paperwork and initial 1140 interviews.

gtrof

trekchu said: ↑I've read an unofficial study done by Harvard a couple of years ago. It said that 30ish % stayed. The East Germans went home because their home had had a sudden improvement in living quality, as it was/is a part of what was West Germany.
We actually have one of those guys here. A Russian moved into the neighborhood a few years back. There was a lot of hostility at first from my neighbors including me. However most of us have gotten to know him now I'm showing Peter how to play golf.

Hell of a world huh?

TheMann

Panzerfaust 150 said: Moral of that story: Eurolefties with Soviet Army surplus should not think they can get into firefights with Coast Guard VBSS teams and not expect that the Navy will not sink you...

Or that the Air Force won't blow you up. I find it hard to believe just how dumb some of those clowns were. Did they really think that they could run a blockade with that many US Navy vessels around? I know that at least one of those "mercy ships" ate shells from Massachusetts. If there was any survivors, I'll bet that's the only time they EVER tried that. The Eurolefties in those cases were usually being paid by somebody who we'd prefer not be paying them. Big surprise that is. :rolleyes:

TheMann

gtrof said: we actually have one of those guys here. A Russian moved into the neighborhood a few years back. There was a lot of hostility at first from my neighbors including me. However most of us have gotten to know him now I'm showing Peter how to play golf. Hell of a world huh?

Indeed on the hell of a world bit.

My Niece is engaged to the son of one of the EPWs who stayed, a guy from Latvia who was a Mi-24 driver. He's said to me he never wanted to fight in the first place, but had to go. When his unit got captured, he says, they got treated better as POWs by the Americans than they did as soldiers by the Russians. I told him that didn't really surprise me much, because I had heard all of the stories of the monsters. He told me that those guys were mostly KGB. Most of the armies had been told stories for decades about how savage and dumb Americans were, and that most of them were surprised how different the truth was.

I should point out this guy is a fanatical baseball player now and is almost done building a goregeous '66 Pontiac GTO, and he built a rather nice '71 Plymouth Duster for his son. Drinks Budweiser like its bottled water, too - I've never met anybody who

Matt Wiser

There was what, a couple dozen sinkings, of ships headed to or from Cuba before Fidel gave the rest of the POWs in Cuba back? When you hear the stories the ones who survived tell (I believe the Gitmo POWs had about 20% die in captivity)....makes me glad my E&E was successful. At least if you were shot down over occupied territory, you could count on people who could (and did) risk their lives to get you back to friendly territory and then back in the air. I do recall one successful POW escape from Cuba, though: two female Navy officers captured at Gitmo managed to escape off a work detail (they'd been POWs for about 14 months) and they managed to live off the land for a while, before they built a homemande raft, and made it to the Keys. No way to know if any others tried and died out in the ocean...RIP. There was a movie about those two a while back; Catherine Bell played one of them, and if anyone remembers the title, let me know.

We've got some former EPWs living in Idaho and in Utah: two states that saw very little of the war. One former Soviet EPW (he was a Volga German if I'm not mistaken) got the white-water rafting bug, and now runs a tour company specializing in rafting some of Idaho's rivers. Another one, an Armenian and former SAF pilot, has an air charter company in Idaho Falls; he was in An-26s during the war, and now flies charters all over the Intermountain West, to Vegas and to California. And at the last parents' day at Hill AFB, one of the pilots in the 419th-Capt. Marina Kelly-introduced me to her dad: he's now a "retired" Soviet Naval Aviation Yak-38 pilot who decided to refuse repatriation. He got the winter sports bug when he was resettled in Utah, and now helps run the ski resort at Park City.

Gtrof: I heard from Bowden over the weekend, and he was grateful for the info on the Cobra Chicks. Did 2nd ACR take the I-45 down to Houston for that campaign, or did you go down to Bryan and College Station? Those two were pretty wild...first time I flew against some of the KGB Motor-Rifle boys (transfers from their Border Guards IIRC), and they didn't flinch no matter what we threw at 'em. Even when their armor and APCs were blasted, they stood their ground, fought, and died in place. Just glad there weren't that many of them.

gtrof

Matt Wiser said: I do recall one successful POW escape from Cuba, though: two female Navy officers captured at Gitmo managed to escape off a work detail (they'd been POWs for about 14 months) and they managed to live off the land for a while, before they built a homemande raft, and made it to the Keys. No way to know if any others tried and died out in the ocean...RIP. There was a movie about those two a while back; Catherine Bell played one of them, and if anyone remembers the title, let me know.

Matt I think it was Open Water. My wife rented it once IIRC.

Gtrof: I heard from Bowden over the weekend, and he was grateful for the info on the Cobra Chicks. Did 2nd ACR take the I-45 down to Houston for that campaign, or did you go down to Bryan and College Station? Those two were pretty wild...first time I flew against some of the KGB Motor-Rifle boys (transfers from their Border Guards IIRC), and they didn't flinch no matter what we threw at 'em. Even when their armor and APCs were blasted, they stood their ground, fought, and died in place. Just glad there weren't that many of them.

Matt after D/FW we moved south down I-45 as the advance force for VII Corps. The Soviets were falling back faster than we could advance at first, looking for a good spot to dig in. They decided to stand and fight at Huntsville. When the Marines began their landings we assaulted the road junction and town. We broke through the Russian troops and ran like hell east on 190. Corps continued the attack down I-45. We really had a great Cav mission there. Behind the enemy's lines shooting up his CINC sites, supply routes, chasing the retreating troops. One of my gunner buddies from the south said we were "Keeping up the Skeer".

Our wild run helped speard a lot of panic in those REMF in the ComBloc. Imagine your a plush supply officer nice little war so far, sure air attacks are more common but your deep behind your lines, its safe here right? Now you have stampeding M-1 Abrams with crazy ass drivers coming at you. Blowing away your trucks and APCs Those guys ran from us only to smash themselves into the corps.

Anyway when we hit US 59 then we began our turn south again. The idea was to outflank the Russian defenses and link up with the Marines. Things slowed down here as Ivan figured out what we were up too. However he couldn't deal with a massive multi-corps attack to his front with a full naval invasion to his rear. Mainly we ran into Tank, Motor rifle, or even leg infantry hastily thrown together to try and stop us. Linked up with the Marines at Channelview after a Thunder Run through the suburbs.