Soviet Domination - A Red Dawn story

[raunchel]

Dec 6, 2018 19:53:37 GMT James G said:

I have no update tonight. I had one.
MS Word deleted it again, like it did with another one last month. What happened to the automatic saves it is meant to do? Thank you, oh so much Microsoft. I'm too enraged and frustrated to start again tonight. I'll write something tomorrow.

That's really awful. I've also had it a couple of times in the past, but fortunately, it works better on my new computer, so I know how it feels.

[lordroel]

Dec 6, 2018 19:53:37 GMT James G said:

I have no update tonight. I had one.
MS Word deleted it again, like it did with another one last month. What happened to the automatic saves it is meant to do? Thank you, oh so much Microsoft. I'm too enraged and frustrated to start again tonight. I'll write something tomorrow.

Sorry to hear that James G that Microsoft eat your World War III update.

[forcon]

Likewise, sorry to hear that - I've done the same thing myself a couple of times.

[James G]

Okay, guys and girl. I wrote it again and inadvertently changed much but hopefully for the better.

[James G]

(304)

March 1985: New Mexico

Answering to Rockies Command, the First US Army had its combat forces spread from Colorado down into the north-western part of Texas called the High Plains. The Area of Operations (AO) covered New Mexico too. Not part of the AO was West Texas. To those viewing the fighting across the western side of Texas from the outside, this might not have meant anything. However, in military affairs the boundaries of AOs were rather important. It stopped friendly fire incidents and made sure that focus could be maintained on the mission instead of getting side-tracked. The First Army had had its AO changed before and this wasn’t really anything difficult to do. However, it was unchanged from February into March. Two-thirds of the First Army was fighting in Colorado – the US XI Corps and the I Canadian Corps – and other third, the US XVIII Corps, was fighting in the High Plains and had been advancing southwards towards West Texas. This meant that the XVIII Corps was liberating occupied territory, yes, but also moving away from the main fight that the rest of the First Army was. They’d reached the edge of the AO after taking Lubbock. Air support from the Seventeenth US Air Force (under the Rockies Command too) was stretched to support them and so were the long supply links. The already long flank of the XVIII Corps facing New Mexico was getting even longer the further south that they went; it was the same on the other flank and made the forward movement all neck and no shoulders with the resulting strong possibility of them soon being cut off and lost. More than any of that, as the XVIII Corps drove on towards West Texas, they had no influence over the fight that everyone else with the First Army was fighting. The rest of Texas was in the AO of Texas Command – with its own two armies and two numbered air forces – and the First Army wanted to move the fight into New Mexico. It was there that the XI Corps and the Canadians were wanted to advance into from the north once they were done in Colorado. To do that effectively, the XVIII Corps needed to head west.

Roswell was where the XVIII Corps moved towards at the beginning of March. This took the enemy by the surprise. Soviet light forces stretched south of Lubbock were anticipating a head-on attack against them and had established fortified positions. The Texan national guardsmen with the 56th Cavalry Brigade stayed behind to keep them fixed in-place while everyone else entered New Mexico starting with an assault against that famous New Mexico town. The international airport to the south of there, once an airbase belonged to Strategic Air Command before being closed in the late Sixties, was the entry point. Back last October, Nicaraguan forces had taken it from the XVIII Corps when they had first been in New Mexico. Those Nicaraguans were all gone. Soviet aircraft (reconnaissance and electronic warfare jets) flew from there and there was a garrison of Revolutionary Mexico troops. A combat jump was made into Roswell and this was undertaken by the newly-arrived reinforcements added to the XVIII Corps in the form of the 11th ‘Angels’ Airborne Division. This was an Army of the United States formation, full of wartime recruits and conscripts as well as veteran personnel transferred from elsewhere to make the division not so green. The 11th Airborne consisted of four combat brigades, each based around a historic regiment, and incorporated forces which should have been with the 17th Air Assault Infantry Division. Fully-forming that latter division alongside the former had been too much for the Americans to achieve in the short time period available and so they had been merged into one (a large one at that) before deploying to combat zones. This was the 11th Airborne’s first taste of war.

Paratroopers jumped from aircraft shouting ‘Currahee!’ as they went into battle: the re-established 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment went into battle. Roswell was a tough fight for a green unit but it was one that they won. Another brigade, this one with men from the 511th Regiment (also with World War Two heritage), joined them on the ground after being airlifted rather than jumping as trained into the captured airport and fighting with them. The rest of the XVIII Corps was behind them but those veteran units were the follow-up force rather than sent in ahead. Once the airhead was taken, everyone else moved forward. There was the rest of the 11th Airborne which came via trucks, the 101st Air Assault Infantry Division (the Screaming Eagles) which also moved by road, a brigade of the 1st Infantry Division with armour and all of the corps assets. Better progress was made with the 101st Air Assault who fought at Hobbs and then Carlsbad – where they’d retreated from last year with their tail between their legs – on the left flank than the fight on the right flank. Around Cannon AFB, from where Cuban aircraft had already departed in haste, Nicaraguan defenders halted the American attack for some time. The 1st Infantry’s first brigade required a lot of fire support to pin them down and move around them to engulf these men. The delay allowed the mass destruction of facilities at Cannon… a place which had seen so much deliberate American destruction when they first abandoned the facility. However, once Cannon was taken and the Nicaraguans beaten with an advance following, the whole of the XVIII Corps was deep inside New Mexico and along both banks of the Pecos River thus denying it as a defensive position for the enemy. The rest of the 1st Infantry (another pre-war brigade plus a new one transferred from an aborted ARUS division) joined up with its semi-detached brigade after leaving Amarillo too.

Three divisions, all on the back of victories won, moved forward through mid-March. Their orders were to reach the next major river, the Rio Grande, as it cut through the middle of New Mexico. Interstate-25 ran from El Paso north into Colorado alongside that waterway. Enemy forces in Colorado would thus be completely cut off by reaching the river. Naturally, the First US Army expected the Soviet Twenty–Second Guards Army to respond once they realised what was going on. The Americans believed they were ready to counter that response.


The Soviet trans-Atlantic convoys which had crossed the North Atlantic at the end of last year had brought over two complete field armies to be built on American soil for offensive operations in March. Naval losses meant that only one was fully formed, and sent to the fight in Texas to get into Oklahoma and the Great Plains, while the other had what pieces were available broken away and dispatched as reinforcements to many battlefields. The Twenty–Second Army received a Soviet motor rifle division – which the Americans aimed to trap in Colorado – and also an East German brigade. The latter was dispatched to North America as a full division but what equipment was issued in-theatre was only enough to form an ad hoc brigade… part of what was missing was on the bottom of the ocean, part was taken by the Soviets. Those East Germans were sent to El Paso after the Soviets had already moved long ahead. American reconnaissance missed them here. Texas Command should have spotted them in the eyes of Rockies Command and informed them because it was in the former’s AO. Rockies Command should have been responsible, Texas Command would later say, because that enemy unit was assigned to those who they were fighting. This screw-up would lead to later recriminations with court martials aplenty. Before then, those East Germans marched away from El Paso. A Seventeenth Air Force reconnaissance flight spotted them once they were in New Mexico. The tanks, armoured vehicles and artillery along with the infantry were quickly at Alamogordo. This position in the White Sands put them ahead of where the 101st Air Assault Infantry was due to go. It was a problem, but one which the First Army headquarters told the XVIII Corps was manageable.

‘Manageable’ was quite the turn of phrase.

The Screaming Eagles did what they had done back late last year and held onto the Sacramento Mountains where the Lincoln National Forest and the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation was located. This time they wouldn’t be driven out by either frontal attacks now or flank actions as was the case in late 1984. They did their job and managed. It was up to the 1st Infantry Division to do theirs. They came at the East Germans from the north, entering the White Sands well-supported from above. Crashing into the first East German positions, the commander of the lead brigade reported to his divisional commander that they’d gone through them like a ‘knife through hot butter’. The second brigade was called upon though to overcome the enemy completely. It wasn’t the regular, veteran soldiers brought forward but instead those new soldiers; the veterans were kept ready to exploit the expected victory afterwards. The East Germans recovered well… so well that it was fast apparent that they weren’t recovering but in fact only getting started. These were good soldiers. They were up against bad odds yet if this was to be their end, then the end it would be. They wouldn’t be managed. American intelligence summaries comfortably assumed that these East Germans would not fight well so far from home for a cause which they had no part of. That was a foolish error. East Germany and its armed forces there in Europe, with all that was going across the other side of the ocean, was something different from its troops which had been in North America waiting to go into battle for some months now. These men were cut off from contact with home due to Soviet ‘security’ over communications. Their morale was fine and they knew nothing of what else was going on.

The ARUS brigade was led by officers contemptuously deemed ‘ninety-day wonders’ by other regular US Army officers who’d been through West Point, The Citadel, Virginia Military Institute and other such elite training facilities. These civilians fast turned into officers leading new soldiers were said to be not up to the job. At Roswell, the ninety-day wonders with the 11th Airborne had done good. Around the crossroads town of Tularosa – north of the bigger Alamogordo – the East Germans took on the inexperienced officers and men with the 1st Infantry. It wasn’t pretty. No big, dramatic flanking manoeuvres or modern cavalry charges across open terrain with a stunning victory. Instead, it was a horrible fight where men fought up close and personal. The East Germans took everything thrown at them and gave it all back. Very soon it became apparent that the brigade of Americans should have been pulled out. There was the belief that this was going to soon be over though… any moment now. Immense casualties were taken on both sides as they fought a static battle with no one looking likely to emerge victorious anytime soon without many more deaths and injuries. The Americans blinked. A withdrawal was ordered as the gutted brigade was pulled out. The East Germans refused to relent even then. They could have taken the opportunity to withdraw, to flee southwards. They did no such thing and instead pursued the retreating Americans. The whole of the 1st Infantry, both further combat brigades joining in, eventually had to be brought into the fight to counterattack and then surround the enemy. Tremendous fire support was then used against the now trapped East Germans who’d lost their chance to get away. They were blasted apart and finally there came a surrender arranged. It was a different affair than where other foreign troops on American soil had surrendered to the US Army. The East Germans, despite being communist forces, were allowed to keep some – maybe a little – honour in surrender. Rockies Command dispatched a media team with personnel not from the civilian field but psychology warfare troops. They made a recording of the event and conducted interviews with some of the POWs. This didn’t eventually end up on American television screens. The video tapes were requested by the British Government to be used elsewhere… complete with selected editing too, naturally.


Finally, after a significant delay, the XVIII Corps moved onwards. The 1st Infantry needed to recover – ‘ninety-day wonders sitting on their backsides’ came the remarks despite the whole division being fought out – but the two other divisions were still more than combat-capable. The Screaming Eagles took the lead this time with the Angels following them. Helicopters assigned to the 101st Air Assault Infantry brought US Army soldiers to the Rio Grande. The landing was made around Truth or Consequences, a town with an unusual name. Nearby was Elephant Butte Reservoir and the radar station which had been one of the very first places hit by Soviet Spetsnaz to open the war: the missile radars there had been facing south and were knocked out to limit detection of those SS-20s which hit the North Dakota ICBM fields. Of importance now was a Soviet built airstrip at Truth or Consequences that was used as refuelling & transit point. A Red Horse airfield combat engineer team sent by the Seventeenth Air Force was all over this very fast to clear and improve it for American use.

When the 11th Airborne arrived, its two untested brigades – built around the 509th & 517th Regiments – were sent into battle. These were more airmobile troops and flown in on flight after flight of C-130 transports which made rapid turnarounds at Truth or Consequences. They were sent northwards, past the reservoir’s dam which the Screaming Eagles held securely against any attack, and along the course of Interstate-25 which in this part of New Mexico ran along the western side of the Rio Grande. More ninety-day wonders and the green troops they commanded got their first taste of battle. They fought small, sporadic engagements against Soviet, Cuban and Nicaraguan light units through the last week of March. This blooded them. It gave them their first experience of fighting and they were lucky that their opposition was scattered enemy from transport, engineering, and communications units. After Truth or Consequences had been taken, the American presence there cut a hole in the links going north. All of these soldiers involved in keeping the fight going in Colorado were told that while they were in New Mexico, they were still soldiers. They had to fight until others – real soldiers – turned up. They had guns and training but weren’t organised to mount any real resistance to American soldiers learning their trade. American numbers, training and organisation won out.

The XVIII Corps’ position on the Rio Grande deep in New Mexico put them atop the main supply route for the Soviets. Smaller links had already been lost when they moved into New Mexico from Texas. The Twenty–Second Army was cut off. In addition, it was also engaged in a major fight itself up in Colorado. Regardless of what was going on up there, the Soviets would have to move against the Truth or Consequences position and the pair of American divisions there fast despite the distance or otherwise die in-place. Come next month, those soldiers with the 11th Airborne who lost their greenness recently would value the combat lesson they learnt.

[raunchel]

Ouch, a whole East German brigade being brought in. That revelation could cause some issues at home, and might also hurt the whole fake-neutrality. It's also saying something that the Soviets are sending troops like that across the ocean, and it isn't much good for the USSR.

I presume that the fresh American forces are suffering some pretty serious casualties due to the lack of training.

[Dan]

Yay Microsoft, don't ever change...

[Dan]

I agree with Raunchel here, this is going to knock another chunk of Soviet propaganda into space.

[lordroel]

Dec 6, 2018 23:18:44 GMT James G said:

(304)

March 1985: New Mexico

Answering to Rockies Command, the First US Army had its combat forces spread from Colorado down into the north-western part of Texas called the High Plains. The Area of Operations (AO) covered New Mexico too. Not part of the AO was West Texas. To those viewing the fighting across the western side of Texas from the outside, this might not have meant anything. However, in military affairs the boundaries of AOs were rather important. It stopped friendly fire incidents and made sure that focus could be maintained on the mission instead of getting side-tracked. The First Army had had its AO changed before and this wasn’t really anything difficult to do. However, it was unchanged from February into March. Two-thirds of the First Army was fighting in Colorado – the US XI Corps and the I Canadian Corps – and other third, the US XVIII Corps, was fighting in the High Plains and had been advancing southwards towards West Texas. This meant that the XVIII Corps was liberating occupied territory, yes, but also moving away from the main fight that the rest of the First Army was. They’d reached the edge of the AO after taking Lubbock. Air support from the Seventeenth US Air Force (under the Rockies Command too) was stretched to support them and so were the long supply links. The already long flank of the XVIII Corps facing New Mexico was getting even longer the further south that they went; it was the same on the other flank and made the forward movement all neck and no shoulders with the resulting strong possibility of them soon being cut off and lost. More than any of that, as the XVIII Corps drove on towards West Texas, they had no influence over the fight that everyone else with the First Army was fighting. The rest of Texas was in the AO of Texas Command – with its own two armies and two numbered air forces – and the First Army wanted to move the fight into New Mexico. It was there that the XI Corps and the Canadians were wanted to advance into from the north once they were done in Colorado. To do that effectively, the XVIII Corps needed to head west.

Roswell was where the XVIII Corps moved towards at the beginning of March. This took the enemy by the surprise. Soviet light forces stretched south of Lubbock were anticipating a head-on attack against them and had established fortified positions. The Texan national guardsmen with the 56th Cavalry Brigade stayed behind to keep them fixed in-place while everyone else entered New Mexico starting with an assault against that famous New Mexico town. The international airport to the south of there, once an airbase belonged to Strategic Air Command before being closed in the late Sixties, was the entry point. Back last October, Nicaraguan forces had taken it from the XVIII Corps when they had first been in New Mexico. Those Nicaraguans were all gone. Soviet aircraft (reconnaissance and electronic warfare jets) flew from there and there was a garrison of Revolutionary Mexico troops. A combat jump was made into Roswell and this was undertaken by the newly-arrived reinforcements added to the XVIII Corps in the form of the 11th ‘Angels’ Airborne Division. This was an Army of the United States formation, full of wartime recruits and conscripts as well as veteran personnel transferred from elsewhere to make the division not so green. The 11th Airborne consisted of four combat brigades, each based around a historic regiment, and incorporated forces which should have been with the 17th Air Assault Infantry Division. Fully-forming that latter division alongside the former had been too much for the Americans to achieve in the short time period available and so they had been merged into one (a large one at that) before deploying to combat zones. This was the 11th Airborne’s first taste of war.

Paratroopers jumped from aircraft shouting ‘Currahee!’ as they went into battle: the re-established 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment went into battle. Roswell was a tough fight for a green unit but it was one that they won. Another brigade, this one with men from the 511th Regiment (also with World War Two heritage), joined them on the ground after being airlifted rather than jumping as trained into the captured airport and fighting with them. The rest of the XVIII Corps was behind them but those veteran units were the follow-up force rather than sent in ahead. Once the airhead was taken, everyone else moved forward. There was the rest of the 11th Airborne which came via trucks, the 101st Air Assault Infantry Division (the Screaming Eagles) which also moved by road, a brigade of the 1st Infantry Division with armour and all of the corps assets. Better progress was made with the 101st Air Assault who fought at Hobbs and then Carlsbad – where they’d retreated from last year with their tail between their legs – on the left flank than the fight on the right flank. Around Cannon AFB, from where Cuban aircraft had already departed in haste, Nicaraguan defenders halted the American attack for some time. The 1st Infantry’s first brigade required a lot of fire support to pin them down and move around them to engulf these men. The delay allowed the mass destruction of facilities at Cannon… a place which had seen so much deliberate American destruction when they first abandoned the facility. However, once Cannon was taken and the Nicaraguans beaten with an advance following, the whole of the XVIII Corps was deep inside New Mexico and along both banks of the Pecos River thus denying it as a defensive position for the enemy. The rest of the 1st Infantry (another pre-war brigade plus a new one transferred from an aborted ARUS division) joined up with its semi-detached brigade after leaving Amarillo too.

Three divisions, all on the back of victories won, moved forward through mid-March. Their orders were to reach the next major river, the Rio Grande, as it cut through the middle of New Mexico. Interstate-25 ran from El Paso north into Colorado alongside that waterway. Enemy forces in Colorado would thus be completely cut off by reaching the river. Naturally, the First US Army expected the Soviet Twenty–Second Guards Army to respond once they realised what was going on. The Americans believed they were ready to counter that response.


The Soviet trans-Atlantic convoys which had crossed the North Atlantic at the end of last year had brought over two complete field armies to be built on American soil for offensive operations in March. Naval losses meant that only one was fully formed, and sent to the fight in Texas to get into Oklahoma and the Great Plains, while the other had what pieces were available broken away and dispatched as reinforcements to many battlefields. The Twenty–Second Army received a Soviet motor rifle division – which the Americans aimed to trap in Colorado – and also an East German brigade. The latter was dispatched to North America as a full division but what equipment was issued in-theatre was only enough to form an ad hoc brigade… part of what was missing was on the bottom of the ocean, part was taken by the Soviets. Those East Germans were sent to El Paso after the Soviets had already moved long ahead. American reconnaissance missed them here. Texas Command should have spotted them in the eyes of Rockies Command and informed them because it was in the former’s AO. Rockies Command should have been responsible, Texas Command would later say, because that enemy unit was assigned to those who they were fighting. This screw-up would lead to later recriminations with court martials aplenty. Before then, those East Germans marched away from El Paso. A Seventeenth Air Force reconnaissance flight spotted them once they were in New Mexico. The tanks, armoured vehicles and artillery along with the infantry were quickly at Alamogordo. This position in the White Sands put them ahead of where the 101st Air Assault Infantry was due to go. It was a problem, but one which the First Army headquarters told the XVIII Corps was manageable.

‘Manageable’ was quite the turn of phrase.

The Screaming Eagles did what they had done back late last year and held onto the Sacramento Mountains where the Lincoln National Forest and the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation was located. This time they wouldn’t be driven out by either frontal attacks now or flank actions as was the case in late 1984. They did their job and managed. It was up to the 1st Infantry Division to do theirs. They came at the East Germans from the north, entering the White Sands well-supported from above. Crashing into the first East German positions, the commander of the lead brigade reported to his divisional commander that they’d gone through them like a ‘knife through hot butter’. The second brigade was called upon though to overcome the enemy completely. It wasn’t the regular, veteran soldiers brought forward but instead those new soldiers; the veterans were kept ready to exploit the expected victory afterwards. The East Germans recovered well… so well that it was fast apparent that they weren’t recovering but in fact only getting started. These were good soldiers. They were up against bad odds yet if this was to be their end, then the end it would be. They wouldn’t be managed. American intelligence summaries comfortably assumed that these East Germans would not fight well so far from home for a cause which they had no part of. That was a foolish error. East Germany and its armed forces there in Europe, with all that was going across the other side of the ocean, was something different from its troops which had been in North America waiting to go into battle for some months now. These men were cut off from contact with home due to Soviet ‘security’ over communications. Their morale was fine and they knew nothing of what else was going on.

The ARUS brigade was led by officers contemptuously deemed ‘ninety-day wonders’ by other regular US Army officers who’d been through West Point, The Citadel, Virginia Military Institute and other such elite training facilities. These civilians fast turned into officers leading new soldiers were said to be not up to the job. At Roswell, the ninety-day wonders with the 11th Airborne had done good. Around the crossroads town of Tularosa – north of the bigger Alamogordo – the East Germans took on the inexperienced officers and men with the 1st Infantry. It wasn’t pretty. No big, dramatic flanking manoeuvres or modern cavalry charges across open terrain with a stunning victory. Instead, it was a horrible fight where men fought up close and personal. The East Germans took everything thrown at them and gave it all back. Very soon it became apparent that the brigade of Americans should have been pulled out. There was the belief that this was going to soon be over though… any moment now. Immense casualties were taken on both sides as they fought a static battle with no one looking likely to emerge victorious anytime soon without many more deaths and injuries. The Americans blinked. A withdrawal was ordered as the gutted brigade was pulled out. The East Germans refused to relent even then. They could have taken the opportunity to withdraw, to flee southwards. They did no such thing and instead pursued the retreating Americans. The whole of the 1st Infantry, both further combat brigades joining in, eventually had to be brought into the fight to counterattack and then surround the enemy. Tremendous fire support was then used against the now trapped East Germans who’d lost their chance to get away. They were blasted apart and finally there came a surrender arranged. It was a different affair than where other foreign troops on American soil had surrendered to the US Army. The East Germans, despite being communist forces, were allowed to keep some – maybe a little – honour in surrender. Rockies Command dispatched a media team with personnel not from the civilian field but psychology warfare troops. They made a recording of the event and conducted interviews with some of the POWs. This didn’t eventually end up on American television screens. The video tapes were requested by the British Government to be used elsewhere… complete with selected editing too, naturally.


Finally, after a significant delay, the XVIII Corps moved onwards. The 1st Infantry needed to recover – ‘ninety-day wonders sitting on their backsides’ came the remarks despite the whole division being fought out – but the two other divisions were still more than combat-capable. The Screaming Eagles took the lead this time with the Angels following them. Helicopters assigned to the 101st Air Assault Infantry brought US Army soldiers to the Rio Grande. The landing was made around Truth or Consequences, a town with an unusual name. Nearby was Elephant Butte Reservoir and the radar station which had been one of the very first places hit by Soviet Spetsnaz to open the war: the missile radars there had been facing south and were knocked out to limit detection of those SS-20s which hit the North Dakota ICBM fields. Of importance now was a Soviet built airstrip at Truth or Consequences that was used as refuelling & transit point. A Red Horse airfield combat engineer team sent by the Seventeenth Air Force was all over this very fast to clear and improve it for American use.

When the 11th Airborne arrived, its two untested brigades – built around the 509th & 517th Regiments – were sent into battle. These were more airmobile troops and flown in on flight after flight of C-130 transports which made rapid turnarounds at Truth or Consequences. They were sent northwards, past the reservoir’s dam which the Screaming Eagles held securely against any attack, and along the course of Interstate-25 which in this part of New Mexico ran along the western side of the Rio Grande. More ninety-day wonders and the green troops they commanded got their first taste of battle. They fought small, sporadic engagements against Soviet, Cuban and Nicaraguan light units through the last week of March. This blooded them. It gave them their first experience of fighting and they were lucky that their opposition was scattered enemy from transport, engineering, and communications units. After Truth or Consequences had been taken, the American presence there cut a hole in the links going north. All of these soldiers involved in keeping the fight going in Colorado were told that while they were in New Mexico, they were still soldiers. They had to fight until others – real soldiers – turned up. They had guns and training but weren’t organised to mount any real resistance to American soldiers learning their trade. American numbers, training and organisation won out.

The XVIII Corps’ position on the Rio Grande deep in New Mexico put them atop the main supply route for the Soviets. Smaller links had already been lost when they moved into New Mexico from Texas. The Twenty–Second Army was cut off. In addition, it was also engaged in a major fight itself up in Colorado. Regardless of what was going on up there, the Soviets would have to move against the Truth or Consequences position and the pair of American divisions there fast despite the distance or otherwise die in-place. Come next month, those soldiers with the 11th Airborne who lost their greenness recently would value the combat lesson they learnt.

Great update again James G .

[lukedalton]

Dec 7, 2018 1:02:06 GMT raunchel said:

Ouch, a whole East German brigade being brought in. That revelation could cause some issues at home, and might also hurt the whole fake-neutrality. It's also saying something that the Soviets are sending troops like that across the ocean, and it isn't much good for the USSR.

I presume that the fresh American forces are suffering some pretty serious casualties due to the lack of training.

A brigade is what they had the capacity of supply, the east germans had sent in North America an entire division and yes this doesn't make the situation look good for the URSS; the other 'problem' for them is that while is understable sending the East German there, as the National People Army was considered top nocht in the Pact, composed by at least half professional soldiers, well at his peak in OTL 1987 numbered 175.000 soldiers and sending a division (and their equipment) on the other side of the ocean while not crippling will cause consequence in the general war effort of the German communist.

One must also consider the fact that for all the pratical effect they had lost the Polish Army due to the internal situation in Poland (reliability issues, the need to keep the population in check), the last issue can also create problem in the logistic line between URSS and the forces in East Germany.

THere is the strong probability that the warfare in central Europe is basically an high tech version of the WWI trench warfare, with neither side having the capacity/will to launch a serious offensive towards enemy territory and letting the air forces to the bulk of the work

[raunchel]

Dec 7, 2018 10:30:04 GMT lukedalton said:

Dec 7, 2018 1:02:06 GMT raunchel said:

Ouch, a whole East German brigade being brought in. That revelation could cause some issues at home, and might also hurt the whole fake-neutrality. It's also saying something that the Soviets are sending troops like that across the ocean, and it isn't much good for the USSR.

I presume that the fresh American forces are suffering some pretty serious casualties due to the lack of training.

A brigade is what they had the capacity of supply, the east germans had sent in North America an entire division and yes this doesn't make the situation look good for the URSS; the other 'problem' for them is that while is understable sending the East German there, as the National People Army was considered top nocht in the Pact, composed by at least half professional soldiers, well at his peak in OTL 1987 numbered 175.000 soldiers and sending a division (and their equipment) on the other side of the ocean while not crippling will cause consequence in the general war effort of the German communist.

One must also consider the fact that for all the pratical effect they had lost the Polish Army due to the internal situation in Poland (reliability issues, the need to keep the population in check), the last issue can also create problem in the logistic line between URSS and the forces in East Germany.

THere is the strong probability that the warfare in central Europe is basically an high tech version of the WWI trench warfare, with neither side having the capacity/will to launch a serious offensive towards enemy territory and letting the air forces to the bulk of the work

That makes sense yes. And if I'm not too badly mistaken, there also were East German troops in Poland to keep that contained, so that's a further drain on the already limited reliable manpower. Because, in the end, that's what matters the most. The East Germans (and Czechs) really need everything they have at home to secure the border (and to prevent things from blowing up at home, but you can't ever say that). 

[archangel]

The best plan to secure the US southern border is to create a safe and prosperous Mexico.

[lordroel]

Dec 7, 2018 20:27:00 GMT archangel said:

The best plan to secure the US southern border is to create a safe and prosperous Mexico.

I agree, wonder if the United States will create a security buffer zone in Mexico.

[James G]

Dec 7, 2018 1:02:06 GMT raunchel said:

Ouch, a whole East German brigade being brought in. That revelation could cause some issues at home, and might also hurt the whole fake-neutrality. It's also saying something that the Soviets are sending troops like that across the ocean, and it isn't much good for the USSR.

I presume that the fresh American forces are suffering some pretty serious casualties due to the lack of training.

East Germany neutrality is a load of rubbish. It was a division plus supporting troops, say 18k men (including political officers, naturally) who had much of their gear sunk or taken by the Soviets. This will be bad for their nation's regime. The Eastern Euros have been sent mainly for politics to be honest. The Soviets have the men but an 'international' effort works for them propaganda-wise.
The new US troops had less than six months. That isn't enough really but it isn't the end of the world. They will learn fast or die trying: cold-hearted, but honest.

Dec 7, 2018 7:34:09 GMT Dan said:

I agree with Raunchel here, this is going to knock another chunk of Soviet propaganda into space.

Atop a Soyuz rocket and out past the Asteroid Belt!

Dec 7, 2018 9:03:24 GMT lordroel said:

Great update again James G .

Thank you!

Dec 7, 2018 10:30:04 GMT lukedalton said:

A brigade is what they had the capacity of supply, the east germans had sent in North America an entire division and yes this doesn't make the situation look good for the URSS; the other 'problem' for them is that while is understable sending the East German there, as the National People Army was considered top nocht in the Pact, composed by at least half professional soldiers, well at his peak in OTL 1987 numbered 175.000 soldiers and sending a division (and their equipment) on the other side of the ocean while not crippling will cause consequence in the general war effort of the German communist.

One must also consider the fact that for all the pratical effect they had lost the Polish Army due to the internal situation in Poland (reliability issues, the need to keep the population in check), the last issue can also create problem in the logistic line between URSS and the forces in East Germany.

THere is the strong probability that the warfare in central Europe is basically an high tech version of the WWI trench warfare, with neither side having the capacity/will to launch a serious offensive towards enemy territory and letting the air forces to the bulk of the work

The Soviets took them across the ocean for that reason, yes. They thought they would do well and make a difference.
You're correct: the Polish Army is no more and the country is garrisoned by WarPac troops.
That will effect the Euro-Soviet War immensely and we'll see that soon (about a week in real time).

Dec 7, 2018 10:51:07 GMT raunchel said:

That makes sense yes. And if I'm not too badly mistaken, there also were East German troops in Poland to keep that contained, so that's a further drain on the already limited reliable manpower. Because, in the end, that's what matters the most. The East Germans (and Czechs) really need everything they have at home to secure the border (and to prevent things from blowing up at home, but you can't ever say that). 

Two more divisions in Poland. That is half of East Germany's regular army 'aboard'.
The Czechoslovaks also sent a division to North America and have two in Poland as well. More units (the Czechoslovaks were okay-ish) off the table.

Dec 7, 2018 20:27:00 GMT archangel said:

The best plan to secure the US southern border is to create a safe and prosperous Mexico.

You are absolutely correct. Congress in the TL doesn't agree at all and will see that doesn't happen.

Dec 7, 2018 20:31:29 GMT lordroel said:

I agree, wonder if the United States will create a security buffer zone in Mexico.

However it turns out on the ground in Mexico, it'll be one full of radioactive holes.

[James G]

(305)

March 1985: Colorado

Army of the United States troops were fighting in Colorado through March too. The 37th Infantry Division had been dispatched to fight with the US XI Corps south of recently-freed Denver. The Canadians had brought down a newly-raised division for their corps as well. In addition, the reinforcing fighting men were joined by many supporting forces. The First United States Army had a third of its strength down in New Mexico but the rest were tasked through the month to advance through Colorado. The fight was over a far smaller area than what was seen down in New Mexico. The Americans and Canadians (the latter with that smaller British contingent) moved to engage the Soviet Twenty–Second Guards Army in central Colorado. Castle Rock at the top, Colorado Springs in the middle and Pueblo at the bottom lay along the Interstate-25 corridor. Immediately away to the west lay the Front Range of the Rockies, which the Soviets were now only just holding onto rather than pushing past there as before. They were in trouble before the March attack. Earlier defeats and a shrinking area of control hadn’t been offset by what was sent to apparently improve their tactical situation this far inside the United States. A reinforcing division of troops, Soviets not those from unreliable allies, had arrived and so too had stocks of supplies. The latter though were what was left from convoys which had made it through air strikes, guerrilla attacks and pilferage on their way. It would be argued that the reinforcements of men and thus the need to keep them supplied in the fight, made the situation worse rather than better too. American communications intercepts had caught a ‘no withdrawal’ order which had come to them with an ultimate origin point as being Moscow. The Soviet leadership was watching the fight in Colorado with keen interest. The Allies gave them something more to maintain their interest.

The XI Corps began their march southwards starting at Castle Rock. Soviet forces here were those who had escaped destruction when the Denver Siege was lifted – unlike those Nicaraguans which they left behind – had established good positions though they were never going to be that effective. Military doctrine for all Soviet military forces prioritised offensive action over defensive. Any defence was only ever meant to be temporary, never long-term. A lot had been learnt by the Soviet Army when in North America yet truly fighting a defensive battle wasn’t on that list. Every time, in every region of fighting, when they had been forced back on the defensive, they had often fought well yet soon enough went right over on the counterattack at the earliest available opportunity. Sometimes that had done them well, other times no good at all. With Castle Rock, it was to be a case of the latter. Riding out the first American assault by the 4th Infantry Division, the Soviets went on the counterattack. The 120th Guards Motorised Rifle Division was a shadow of its former self but was ordered forwards once it was decided that the Americans had been ‘stopped’. That they hadn’t though. Soviet tanks and armoured infantry rushed forwards and did a lot of damage. The 4th Infantry was taken aback at the ferociously of the assault and reeled from it. They shouldn’t have: they’d fought the 120th Guards on and off for several months now. Sloppiness kicked in at the wrong time when the belief was that the Soviets would withdraw rather than hold let alone counterattack. However, the Soviets threw everything that they had at the 4th Infantry far too fast and shot forward too far. The Americans closed in around them on the counter. The 120th Guards was spaced far apart and couldn’t hold the ground it had taken. Orders for tactical withdrawals were made, back to the start-lines. The Americans followed them. This first fight outside Castle Rock had seen the frontlines return to where they were before it started. All that had been achieved by both sides was to see many of their men left dead and injured along with massive disruption caused to their combat units. Each had also shot through a tremendous amount of ammunition. It couldn’t be said that the Americans had that to spare, but it didn’t put them in the terrible state afterwards the Soviets found themselves in due to their equal high expenditure. The Americans had more available than their opponents.

When the Americans came at Castle Rock again, the Soviets were forced to limit their rate of fire when on the defensive. The 174th Infantry Brigade – the former Berlin Brigade which had achieved so much here in Colorado – was another long-term opponent of the 120th Guards. They made the next attack and broke through. It took a lot of artillery fire, massed rocket attacks and air strikes to do this and these were met with limited counter-battery and anti-aircraft fire. Before the Americans realised, the Soviets were starting to move backwards and that began with their fire support and air-defence assets. So much for the ‘no withdrawal’ order from Moscow. Pursuing was difficult but not impossible. The 4th Infantry returned to the fight and the larger numbers of Americans were all over the 120th Guards. They took bites out of it during the retreat which lasted several days as the Soviets fell back down the course of the interstate up which they had long ago come. The XI Corps followed them. If they could have got behind them then they would have but there was a Soviet brigade on the flank which shielded early approaches by the ARUS unit, the 37th Infantry, to the east.

Stopping the Americans from taking Colorado Springs was a mission assigned to the 59th Guards. This motorised rifle division had arrived last month and this was its first taste of battle. The 120th Guards passed through their positions and left the fight to this newly-arrived unit. They got a baptism of fire just as the 37th Infantry did. The fight was north of the occupied city, around Monument and the site of the USAF Academy. Green troops on either side engaged the other. The Americans fast got the upper hand. While the 59th Guards was a pre-war standing unit, it hadn’t seen any action before and so its ‘experience’ meant for little. The Americans were able to call on more fire support, with the ammunition for that too. In the middle of this fight, right at the wrong time for the Soviets, the expected chop from Moscow came in regard to the field army commander. He had explicitly disobeyed orders. He was removed from command, arrested and taken away. His fate would be no surprise: a firing squad. The deputy took over, a man determined not to follow the fate of the man he replaced. A counterattack was at once ordered. The Twenty–Second Army would march on Denver once again.

As expected, this was a disaster. Thankfully for the Soviets, it went so wrong so fast that it didn’t see the immediate destruction of the whole army come. Much of the 59th Guards was lost – what a short and ‘exciting’ time in the war they had had – and there was too a mass of casualties inflicted. The 37th Infantry had a bad time of it though emerged the victor. They had halted the Soviets in their tracks. The whole of the Colorado Springs area, around which the Soviets had been busy with major engineering tasks for wartime uses, was in range of heavy artillery units and on the edge of enemy air defences. The Seventeenth Air Force had been playing an active role since Castle Rock but now sent in even more aircraft. Target after target was hit with bombs and short-range missiles by aircraft which could dash in and out of Colorado Springs on the attack. They took some losses, though not on the scale they should have done had the Soviets had the ammunition to engage them properly. This couldn’t go on. The Soviets couldn’t stay here and take this for as long as the Americans wanted to do it. Options were becoming very limited though. While Colorado Springs was being fought over, the Canadians and British marched up through the valley of the Arkansas River and on Pueblo. There were three complete divisions with the I Canadian Corps and while not ‘heavy’, neither could they be considered ‘light’. Soviet light forces were sent up against them though: just an airmobile brigade who were rapidly chewed up. Should the Canadians get to Pueblo, which it looked very likely that they would, the rest of the Twenty–Second Army was cut off. Worse – if there could be anything worse – was what happened in New Mexico when the Americans put troops on the Rio Grande.

Moscow discussed reversing its orders on ‘no withdrawal’ without willing to admit they had erred in killing that general who had kept them an army to consider pulling back. The Defence Council met with several marshals and senior generals as they discussed the many options that they considered there were available. Only one option was presented to them, even from the worst of the boot-lickers who would usually try their best to give the politicians what the wanted. A withdrawal was all that could be done. With the greatest of haste, the Twenty–Second Army needed to retreat from Colorado and fall back into New Mexico. Part of the field army, along with what few Nicaraguan and Revolutionary Mexico troops there were at El Paso, needed to launch a two-prong assault towards Truth or Consequences at the same time. During the pull-out from Colorado, Soviet units would have to be sacrificed as rear-guard elements. The Defence Council had yet to take that final decision when the Mexico Massacre occurred… they were also heavily side-tracked by the ongoing battles in Oklahoma (the fight in North America which they saw the most important one) in addition to the Euro-Soviet War as well. Those events and the fallout from them distracted them. In the meantime, the 37th Infantry and the 174th Brigade attacked again outside Colorado Springs. Afraid to withdraw his men, the acting army commander did nothing while the rest of the 59th Guards was wiped out. Instructions from Moscow came afterwards and these included what role the 59th Guards were to fulfil: the return message that they were already destroyed didn’t please them. Not was Moscow impressed when they learnt that the Canadians had gotten their lead units to the very edges of Pueblo already. A second general would be shot, this man who’d followed his orders precisely without deviating from them at all. Talk about unfair…

As March came to an end, the Twenty–Second Army withdrew from Colorado. They made a run for it but did manage to get away with some semblance of order. A lot of what should have been done during the withdrawal didn’t happen though and so the Americans would overrun facilities which weren’t destroyed and capture war-stocks in many places. The 82nd Airborne Division, the defenders of Denver, arrived in helicopters at Petersen AFB, Fort Carson and the smoke-filled NORAD headquarters inside Cheyenne Mountain. They had their blaze of glory in taking such places and fighting the few men left behind with general ease. What the First Army failed to do was to surround and finish off a far smaller opponent when they should have. For the Soviets to pull out so fast was a surprise yet the Americans didn’t take enough advantage. The Canadians complained that they weren’t given enough support in taking Pueblo to cut off the Soviets but the First Army’s response was to ask what more they needed than a trio of divisions to do that: wasn’t their only opposition just a light brigade? It wasn't the fairest of criticisms. The Canadians hadn’t rammed home their numerical advantage because they hadn't been keen to take huge unnecessary losses in a foolish head-on assault when a careful approach would get a better – if slower – result overall. Yet, at the same time, there were specifics reasons than that why. During the last fighting around Pueblo, the Soviets had thrown in a regiment of their paratroopers armed with a lot of man-portable weapons, supported by a regiment of Sukhoi-25 attack-fighters as well: all at the crucial time to hold the Canadians back. Moreover, last month’s massive thermobaric air strike on the Canadians might not have killed thousands of them but they had taken hundreds of casualties still and had much of their supporting infrastructure blown apart. The effects were still being felt from that. The internal squabble went on while from above the First Army leadership came under fire from their own higher headquarters. Rockies Command had expected to eliminate the Soviets or if not completely destroy them, then shut the door behind them to do that next month. But the Soviets fled ahead of that.

The missed opportunity was significant and would have its affects. However, it wasn’t a disaster. The Americans had done immense damage to their opponents and what escaped wasn’t likely to be making any sort of return northwards. The Soviets were beaten. There remained that cut in their line of retreat much further south too, down in New Mexico. The troubles with the Canadians, which occurred where relations were excellent beforehand, were an unpleasant surprise though. The two allies had failed to cooperate correctly at the right moment – the 82nd Airborne could have been sent to Pueblo the Canadian commander believed – and this mattered. It would be something that needed urgent attention to correct for future operations. Those further operations would take place when the First Army followed the Soviets down into New Mexico.