Soviet Domination - A Red Dawn story

[hussar01]

Great update. Just one nit pick. The terrain to get to Ljubljana is quite easy to defend. The Soviets might make it to Maribor and as far as Celje, but that is it. Very difficultfor them to reach that. I might see from Varazdin to Maribor falling along with Graz, but can not reach the Adriatic. Zagreb would be a tough nut to crack and maybe to Karlovac, but then the mountain begin and it makes defenses easy. Just my two cents. Outstanding story.

[James G]

Dec 18, 2018 4:48:50 GMT lordroel said:

Dec 17, 2018 20:22:22 GMT James G said:

Malta tomorrow. Then back to West Germany and the fighting across mainland Europe.

Keep it up James G .

More incoming!

[lordroel]

Dec 18, 2018 19:50:38 GMT James G said:

Dec 18, 2018 4:48:50 GMT lordroel said:

Keep it up James G .

More incoming!

Keep it coming, you might get post 49,000 with it.

[James G]

Dec 18, 2018 18:41:43 GMT hussar01 said:

Great update. Just one nit pick. The terrain to get to Ljubljana is quite easy to defend. The Soviets might make it to Maribor and as far as Celje, but that is it. Very difficultfor them to reach that. I might see from Varazdin to Maribor falling along with Graz, but can not reach the Adriatic. Zagreb would be a tough nut to crack and maybe to Karlovac, but then the mountain begin and it makes defenses easy. Just my two cents. Outstanding story.

Thank you.
I only had a glance at the map the other day and had the WW2 things of 'Ljubljana Gap' in my mind. I am in no way familiar with the terrain!
I've just looked again. Celje is halfway to Ljubljana and, if we take that as as far as they would get, that is an even worse disaster.
I'll make some changes to the update. I realise too that I had only the barestmost mention of the JNA and they will do the majority of the fighting there. Edits coming soon.
Thank you for your keen interest and keeping me honest: much appreciated.

[James G]

Dec 18, 2018 19:53:43 GMT lordroel said:

Dec 18, 2018 19:50:38 GMT James G said:

More incoming!

Keep it coming, you might get post 49,000 with it.

I just did.

[lordroel]

Dec 18, 2018 19:54:41 GMT James G said:

Dec 18, 2018 19:53:43 GMT lordroel said:

Keep it coming, you might get post 49,000 with it.

I just did.

Well next target is to get this thread to 200 pages.

[James G]

(316)

Mid-March 1985: The Mediterranean

The joint French-Italian invasion of Malta had been delayed for several days due to a combination of factors. Soviet and Libyan air interference ahead of the landing had been stronger than expected, there had been last minute concerns over the defensive measures enacted on the ground and there had too be a successful Soviet submarine attack upon one of the Italian Navy’s biggest ships. With the latter, the helicopter cruiser Vittorio Vento – the Italian’s flagship – had to be taken under tow back to Sicily. If she’d been sunk, the invasion still would have gone ahead yet the attack upon it delayed things regardless of her managing to stay afloat or not. Helicopters flying from there had to move to other ships and fleet dispositions changed. Regardless, once that was done and overflights confirmed what exactly were enemy positions, plus some extra fighter sweeps too, the EDA launched their assault upon the island. They went in the very morning that Soviet forces crossed the Iron Curtain but that was only a coincidence.

Super Étendards from the aircraft carrier Clemenceau and Tornados from mainland Italy appeared above Malta. The French Navy jets attacked Soviet and Libyan ships in Maltese waters – some of those wounded from earlier attacks and taking shelter – while the Italian Air Force bombed the airport used by military aircraft. That airport was once RAF Luqa and the sight of the Italians bombing it would have brought back many memories for others. There was no time for historical remembrances now though. There was only the business of evicting the unwanted foreign occupiers. The Super Étendard attack-fighters flying close-in used rockets and bombs to attack ships yet out at sea, during a later strike against a flotilla of incoming Libyan warships racing towards Malta, there as the firing of missiles. These were air-launched versions of the Exocet. Very similar to the ship- & submarine-launched version, the air-launched Exocet had a better range though and was far more deadly in how it could be used when fired from fast aircraft on the attack. The Libyan Navy had a bad morning: six ships were blown apart in one volley. The French Navy was waiting for what was left of the Soviet’s Mediterranean Fleet to make an appearance but there was no sign of those big ships. They did send fighters though. Flying from Libya and over the water, these attempted to come to the rescue of the embattled air defenders of Malta. Two thirds of the fighters which had been on the island when the first EDA air attacks began back at the end of February were already destroyed and the rest were in trouble. Italian fighters joined in the air battles around the island. What the EDA was waiting for were Soviet missile-bombers to show up and interfere. They had many ships here with the amphibious fleet and also a battle fleet away to the southwest. The Soviets were expected to come at one and then the other. Fears of Backfires and what they could do were very real. The French knew exactly what such aircraft had done to US Navy carriers and didn’t want to see the Clemenceau suffer the same fate. To stop the Soviets, the French Air Force had recently dispatched a squadron of Mirage-2000 fighters – they didn’t have many of those to spare either – to Tunisia in the past week. Like Morocco had done first, then Algeria following them, Tunisia had joined the war on the EDA side. The trio of North African nations couldn’t provide that much to the war effort overall but basing rights was something important. While the wait was for those enemy aircraft, the fighting on the ground was underway.

Landing around Marsaxlokk, to the south of Valetta and its famous Grand Harbour, came Italian marines with their San Marco Battalion. They made a hard landing, an opposed assault where they came under fire. French and Italian naval commandos on the ground had done much to weaken the defences ahead of them but there were a lot of Libyans on Malta and they were heavily-armed. Thankfully, many of them couldn’t straight shoot though. The Italians were lucky. Their own naval gunfire support wasn’t the most-accurate either and left several defensive positions meant to be destroyed in fact unmolested. Italian landing craft emerged on the shoreline and deposited marines while firing their own weapons. Two companies of marines fought their way inland while the landing craft went back and got a third plus many vehicles to join them. Malta was full of Libyans, most of them Gaddafi loyalists. Gaddafi was dead but that wasn’t something known to the majority of them. Back in Tripoli, Haftar had transferred certain men there and moved others out. That was all supposedly administrative, nothing more… The followers of a dead man, led by some officers who knew the truth but kept that to themselves, didn’t do a very good job when it came to defending Malta. There was a brigade of them and they had a defended position which they should have held. The Italians were joined on the main island by the rest of their battalion and then French troops as well: the latter being men coming all the way from Reunion in the Indian Ocean via North Africa and then Sicily. While strong, the EDA here was outnumbered in terms of men. They also had fewer tanks – the Libyans had fifty T-62s; the Italians brought half as many M-60s – than their opponents who should have used their armour better. Yet the Libyans had dug their tanks into defensive positions to act as pillbox defences. EDA helicopters didn’t just deliver attacking infantry but also acted as gunships too, focusing upon those T-62s especially once they were met in contact. From first offshore – there were the ships Andrea Doria, Jeanne d’Arc and Orage with all of them capable of operating several helicopters – but then from soon enough on the ground, these were influential in the fighting. The Libyans fought as dismounted infantry against their opponents. They were overcome in four days of fighting, pushed back to the sea at the northern end of the island before a last-minute surrender. An attempt to make a siege of Valetta failed when not enough Libyans could get there ahead of those Italian tanks and infantry carriers (the latter whose machine guns joined the tanks in firing on infantry) who arrived first to bar the way. The French took up the fight pushing the Libyans until there was nowhere else to retreat to but the sea while the Italians entered Valetta.

The main island of Malta was now fully in EDA hands. What few Soviet aircraft were left on the ground were captured along with ground personnel – those directly tied to the aircraft operations yet also others in supporting roles – making a change from the many Libyans taken prisoner. More Italian troops from Sicily came across when light transport aircraft with rough-field capabilities made use of the beat-up airport and these lower-grade Italian reserves were soon busy with all of those POWs. They had been first planned to be sent here to fight what was expected to be gruelling fight for Valetta itself but now they had that far easier mission. There was still gunfire in Valetta though. Italian marines engaged select Libyan hold-outs and also some locals. There were Maltese who had actively cooperated with the Libyan occupation and been the face of the ‘fraternal assistance’ from Tripoli which had come last September. Libyan prisoners were taken alive in the capital; very few Maltese ended up joining them. In the meantime, on other incoming flights to the airport – which engineers were all over, trying to repair all that recent damage – there came a new government. Maltese nationals abroad at the time when the island fell into Libyan hands had formed an unofficial government-in-exile during the time of Western European neutrality. Now that was long over with, the Maltese were official. There was the legal necessity done to have them invite the EDA in. They established themselves in Valetta and now Malta joined the EDA directly rather than as a wartime partner like those in North Africa had done.


Neither the amphibious fleet nor the battle fleet of EDA ships near Malta ended up facing those Backfires or other long-range bombers such as Badgers or Blinders. Some were flying from Libya and the ships were in-range yet the aircraft were busy with another task. They were engaged in a stand-by mission ready to strike at the carrier Foch when it opened attacks on Crete and the Soviet presence there on that Greek island.

But the French Navy wasn’t approaching Crete with their other carrier.

The Foch was in the Ionian Sea – covering the air routes between Greece and Italy – along with the cruiser Colbert and other escorts on a defensive mission. They were waiting in ambush because the EDA believed that the Soviets would soon either strike hard at the southern parts of Italy or move forces up into the Adriatic. Why were the Soviets convinced that the Foch was near to Crete and soon to attack? Part of that was that they had convinced themselves that the French would do that (as the French believed that the Soviets would be active in the Ionian Sea; each side getting the other’s intentions wrong), though also there was a deception effort underway. West of Crete, the French had a civilian cargo ship used as a decoy carrier. It had a skeleton crew and was emitting low-level electronic signals marking it out as the Foch. Kill me, was the message: kill me, if you can catch me. That ship was doing a dance across the sea while emitting false radar returns making it out to be escorted as a carrier would be. For over a week, Bears and submarines hunted for this elusive carrier. They ran themselves in circles, chasing it as far south as Egypt and all the way east to off Cyprus. Finally, the deception was uncovered by a visual sighting made and this was confirmed that this was the ship which had given them the run-around. The cargo ship was torpedoed with haste. There was more than that which came in response though. Several admirals were removed from command and another shot. The stupidity of falling for this trick was a humiliation for the Soviets.

All of that effort spent chasing after a fool’s errand cost them dear. The EDA naval forces in the Central Med. were joined by Allied ships – Spaniards mainly but also a couple of Royal Navy warships – who came across to join them. The Soviets still had to worry about Crete and they too had to keep an eye on the situation with Libya. With the latter, it wasn’t the issue with their enemies making a move that way but what Haftar was up to. Libya was doing what other Arab allies of Moscow were doing in turning their backs on the war… and also the Soviet Union too. The Soviet Navy and Air Force were being ordered to prepare for offensive action against such nations should they act direct rather than doing what they were in the shadows. Whether they could any longer do anything like what was being drawn up, and whether they could do that if the EDA & the Allies moved to intervene, was open to interpretation. Being unable to though would mean further ‘captures’ by the Soviet Union’s enemies and a collapse of its whole Middle East position.

[lordroel]

Dec 18, 2018 19:59:11 GMT James G said:

(316)

Mid-March 1985: The Mediterranean

The joint French-Italian invasion of Malta had been delayed for several days due to a combination of factors. Soviet and Libyan air interference ahead of the landing had been stronger than expected, there had been last minute concerns over the defensive measures enacted on the ground and there had too be a successful Soviet submarine attack upon one of the Italian Navy’s biggest ships. With the latter, the helicopter cruiser Vittorio Vento – the Italian’s flagship – had to be taken under tow back to Sicily. If she’d been sunk, the invasion still would have gone ahead yet the attack upon it delayed things regardless of her managing to stay afloat or not. Helicopters flying from there had to move to other ships and fleet dispositions changed. Regardless, once that was done and overflights confirmed what exactly were enemy positions, plus some extra fighter sweeps too, the EDA launched their assault upon the island. They went in the very morning that Soviet forces crossed the Iron Curtain but that was only a coincidence.

Super Étendards from the aircraft carrier Clemenceau and Tornados from mainland Italy appeared above Malta. The French Navy jets attacked Soviet and Libyan ships in Maltese waters – some of those wounded from earlier attacks and taking shelter – while the Italian Air Force bombed the airport used by military aircraft. That airport was once RAF Luqa and the sight of the Italians bombing it would have brought back many memories for others. There was no time for historical remembrances now though. There was only the business of evicting the unwanted foreign occupiers. The Super Étendard attack-fighters flying close-in used rockets and bombs to attack ships yet out at sea, during a later strike against a flotilla of incoming Libyan warships racing towards Malta, there as the firing of missiles. These were air-launched versions of the Exocet. Very similar to the ship- & submarine-launched version, the air-launched Exocet had a better range though and was far more deadly in how it could be used when fired from fast aircraft on the attack. The Libyan Navy had a bad morning: six ships were blown apart in one volley. The French Navy was waiting for what was left of the Soviet’s Mediterranean Fleet to make an appearance but there was no sign of those big ships. They did send fighters though. Flying from Libya and over the water, these attempted to come to the rescue of the embattled air defenders of Malta. Two thirds of the fighters which had been on the island when the first EDA air attacks began back at the end of February were already destroyed and the rest were in trouble. Italian fighters joined in the air battles around the island. What the EDA was waiting for were Soviet missile-bombers to show up and interfere. They had many ships here with the amphibious fleet and also a battle fleet away to the southwest. The Soviets were expected to come at one and then the other. Fears of Backfires and what they could do were very real. The French knew exactly what such aircraft had done to US Navy carriers and didn’t want to see the Clemenceau suffer the same fate. To stop the Soviets, the French Air Force had recently dispatched a squadron of Mirage-2000 fighters – they didn’t have many of those to spare either – to Tunisia in the past week. Like Morocco had done first, then Algeria following them, Tunisia had joined the war on the EDA side. The trio of North African nations couldn’t provide that much to the war effort overall but basing rights was something important. While the wait was for those enemy aircraft, the fighting on the ground was underway.

Landing around Marsaxlokk, to the south of Valetta and its famous Grand Harbour, came Italian marines with their San Marco Battalion. They made a hard landing, an opposed assault where they came under fire. French and Italian naval commandos on the ground had done much to weaken the defences ahead of them but there were a lot of Libyans on Malta and they were heavily-armed. Thankfully, many of them couldn’t straight shoot though. The Italians were lucky. Their own naval gunfire support wasn’t the most-accurate either and left several defensive positions meant to be destroyed in fact unmolested. Italian landing craft emerged on the shoreline and deposited marines while firing their own weapons. Two companies of marines fought their way inland while the landing craft went back and got a third plus many vehicles to join them. Malta was full of Libyans, most of them Gaddafi loyalists. Gaddafi was dead but that wasn’t something known to the majority of them. Back in Tripoli, Haftar had transferred certain men there and moved others out. That was all supposedly administrative, nothing more… The followers of a dead man, led by some officers who knew the truth but kept that to themselves, didn’t do a very good job when it came to defending Malta. There was a brigade of them and they had a defended position which they should have held. The Italians were joined on the main island by the rest of their battalion and then French troops as well: the latter being men coming all the way from Reunion in the Indian Ocean via North Africa and then Sicily. While strong, the EDA here was outnumbered in terms of men. They also had fewer tanks – the Libyans had fifty T-62s; the Italians brought half as many M-60s – than their opponents who should have used their armour better. Yet the Libyans had dug their tanks into defensive positions to act as pillbox defences. EDA helicopters didn’t just deliver attacking infantry but also acted as gunships too, focusing upon those T-62s especially once they were met in contact. From first offshore – there were the ships Andrea Doria, Jeanne d’Arc and Orage with all of them capable of operating several helicopters – but then from soon enough on the ground, these were influential in the fighting. The Libyans fought as dismounted infantry against their opponents. They were overcome in four days of fighting, pushed back to the sea at the northern end of the island before a last-minute surrender. An attempt to make a siege of Valetta failed when not enough Libyans could get there ahead of those Italian tanks and infantry carriers (the latter whose machine guns joined the tanks in firing on infantry) who arrived first to bar the way. The French took up the fight pushing the Libyans until there was nowhere else to retreat to but the sea while the Italians entered Valetta.

The main island of Malta was now fully in EDA hands. What few Soviet aircraft were left on the ground were captured along with ground personnel – those directly tied to the aircraft operations yet also others in supporting roles – making a change from the many Libyans taken prisoner. More Italian troops from Sicily came across when light transport aircraft with rough-field capabilities made use of the beat-up airport and these lower-grade Italian reserves were soon busy with all of those POWs. They had been first planned to be sent here to fight what was expected to be gruelling fight for Valetta itself but now they had that far easier mission. There was still gunfire in Valetta though. Italian marines engaged select Libyan hold-outs and also some locals. There were Maltese who had actively cooperated with the Libyan occupation and been the face of the ‘fraternal assistance’ from Tripoli which had come last September. Libyan prisoners were taken alive in the capital; very few Maltese ended up joining them. In the meantime, on other incoming flights to the airport – which engineers were all over, trying to repair all that recent damage – there came a new government. Maltese nationals abroad at the time when the island fell into Libyan hands had formed an unofficial government-in-exile during the time of Western European neutrality. Now that was long over with, the Maltese were official. There was the legal necessity done to have them invite the EDA in. They established themselves in Valetta and now Malta joined the EDA directly rather than as a wartime partner like those in North Africa had done.


Neither the amphibious fleet nor the battle fleet of EDA ships near Malta ended up facing those Backfires or other long-range bombers such as Badgers or Blinders. Some were flying from Libya and the ships were in-range yet the aircraft were busy with another task. They were engaged in a stand-by mission ready to strike at the carrier Foch when it opened attacks on Crete and the Soviet presence there on that Greek island.

But the French Navy wasn’t approaching Crete with their other carrier.

The Foch was in the Ionian Sea – covering the air routes between Greece and Italy – along with the cruiser Colbert and other escorts on a defensive mission. They were waiting in ambush because the EDA believed that the Soviets would soon either strike hard at the southern parts of Italy or move forces up into the Adriatic. Why were the Soviets convinced that the Foch was near to Crete and soon to attack? Part of that was that they had convinced themselves that the French would do that (as the French believed that the Soviets would be active in the Ionian Sea; each side getting the other’s intentions wrong), though also there was a deception effort underway. West of Crete, the French had a civilian cargo ship used as a decoy carrier. It had a skeleton crew and was emitting low-level electronic signals marking it out as the Foch. Kill me, was the message: kill me, if you can catch me. That ship was doing a dance across the sea while emitting false radar returns making it out to be escorted as a carrier would be. For over a week, Bears and submarines hunted for this elusive carrier. They ran themselves in circles, chasing it as far south as Egypt and all the way east to off Cyprus. Finally, the deception was uncovered by a visual sighting made and this was confirmed that this was the ship which had given them the run-around. The cargo ship was torpedoed with haste. There was more than that which came in response though. Several admirals were removed from command and another shot. The stupidity of falling for this trick was a humiliation for the Soviets.

All of that effort spent chasing after a fool’s errand cost them dear. The EDA naval forces in the Central Med. were joined by Allied ships – Spaniards mainly but also a couple of Royal Navy warships – who came across to join them. The Soviets still had to worry about Crete and they too had to keep an eye on the situation with Libya. With the latter, it wasn’t the issue with their enemies making a move that way but what Haftar was up to. Libya was doing what other Arab allies of Moscow were doing in turning their backs on the war… and also the Soviet Union too. The Soviet Navy and Air Force were being ordered to prepare for offensive action against such nations should they act direct rather than doing what they were in the shadows. Whether they could any longer do anything like what was being drawn up, and whether they could do that if the EDA & the Allies moved to intervene, was open to interpretation. Being unable to though would mean further ‘captures’ by the Soviet Union’s enemies and a collapse of its whole Middle East position.

Another good update James G

[James G]

Dec 19, 2018 4:50:13 GMT lordroel said:

Dec 18, 2018 19:59:11 GMT James G said:

(316)

Mid-March 1985: The Mediterranean

The joint French-Italian invasion of Malta had been delayed for several days due to a combination of factors. Soviet and Libyan air interference ahead of the landing had been stronger than expected, there had been last minute concerns over the defensive measures enacted on the ground and there had too be a successful Soviet submarine attack upon one of the Italian Navy’s biggest ships. With the latter, the helicopter cruiser Vittorio Vento – the Italian’s flagship – had to be taken under tow back to Sicily. If she’d been sunk, the invasion still would have gone ahead yet the attack upon it delayed things regardless of her managing to stay afloat or not. Helicopters flying from there had to move to other ships and fleet dispositions changed. Regardless, once that was done and overflights confirmed what exactly were enemy positions, plus some extra fighter sweeps too, the EDA launched their assault upon the island. They went in the very morning that Soviet forces crossed the Iron Curtain but that was only a coincidence.

Super Étendards from the aircraft carrier Clemenceau and Tornados from mainland Italy appeared above Malta. The French Navy jets attacked Soviet and Libyan ships in Maltese waters – some of those wounded from earlier attacks and taking shelter – while the Italian Air Force bombed the airport used by military aircraft. That airport was once RAF Luqa and the sight of the Italians bombing it would have brought back many memories for others. There was no time for historical remembrances now though. There was only the business of evicting the unwanted foreign occupiers. The Super Étendard attack-fighters flying close-in used rockets and bombs to attack ships yet out at sea, during a later strike against a flotilla of incoming Libyan warships racing towards Malta, there as the firing of missiles. These were air-launched versions of the Exocet. Very similar to the ship- & submarine-launched version, the air-launched Exocet had a better range though and was far more deadly in how it could be used when fired from fast aircraft on the attack. The Libyan Navy had a bad morning: six ships were blown apart in one volley. The French Navy was waiting for what was left of the Soviet’s Mediterranean Fleet to make an appearance but there was no sign of those big ships. They did send fighters though. Flying from Libya and over the water, these attempted to come to the rescue of the embattled air defenders of Malta. Two thirds of the fighters which had been on the island when the first EDA air attacks began back at the end of February were already destroyed and the rest were in trouble. Italian fighters joined in the air battles around the island. What the EDA was waiting for were Soviet missile-bombers to show up and interfere. They had many ships here with the amphibious fleet and also a battle fleet away to the southwest. The Soviets were expected to come at one and then the other. Fears of Backfires and what they could do were very real. The French knew exactly what such aircraft had done to US Navy carriers and didn’t want to see the Clemenceau suffer the same fate. To stop the Soviets, the French Air Force had recently dispatched a squadron of Mirage-2000 fighters – they didn’t have many of those to spare either – to Tunisia in the past week. Like Morocco had done first, then Algeria following them, Tunisia had joined the war on the EDA side. The trio of North African nations couldn’t provide that much to the war effort overall but basing rights was something important. While the wait was for those enemy aircraft, the fighting on the ground was underway.

Landing around Marsaxlokk, to the south of Valetta and its famous Grand Harbour, came Italian marines with their San Marco Battalion. They made a hard landing, an opposed assault where they came under fire. French and Italian naval commandos on the ground had done much to weaken the defences ahead of them but there were a lot of Libyans on Malta and they were heavily-armed. Thankfully, many of them couldn’t straight shoot though. The Italians were lucky. Their own naval gunfire support wasn’t the most-accurate either and left several defensive positions meant to be destroyed in fact unmolested. Italian landing craft emerged on the shoreline and deposited marines while firing their own weapons. Two companies of marines fought their way inland while the landing craft went back and got a third plus many vehicles to join them. Malta was full of Libyans, most of them Gaddafi loyalists. Gaddafi was dead but that wasn’t something known to the majority of them. Back in Tripoli, Haftar had transferred certain men there and moved others out. That was all supposedly administrative, nothing more… The followers of a dead man, led by some officers who knew the truth but kept that to themselves, didn’t do a very good job when it came to defending Malta. There was a brigade of them and they had a defended position which they should have held. The Italians were joined on the main island by the rest of their battalion and then French troops as well: the latter being men coming all the way from Reunion in the Indian Ocean via North Africa and then Sicily. While strong, the EDA here was outnumbered in terms of men. They also had fewer tanks – the Libyans had fifty T-62s; the Italians brought half as many M-60s – than their opponents who should have used their armour better. Yet the Libyans had dug their tanks into defensive positions to act as pillbox defences. EDA helicopters didn’t just deliver attacking infantry but also acted as gunships too, focusing upon those T-62s especially once they were met in contact. From first offshore – there were the ships Andrea Doria, Jeanne d’Arc and Orage with all of them capable of operating several helicopters – but then from soon enough on the ground, these were influential in the fighting. The Libyans fought as dismounted infantry against their opponents. They were overcome in four days of fighting, pushed back to the sea at the northern end of the island before a last-minute surrender. An attempt to make a siege of Valetta failed when not enough Libyans could get there ahead of those Italian tanks and infantry carriers (the latter whose machine guns joined the tanks in firing on infantry) who arrived first to bar the way. The French took up the fight pushing the Libyans until there was nowhere else to retreat to but the sea while the Italians entered Valetta.

The main island of Malta was now fully in EDA hands. What few Soviet aircraft were left on the ground were captured along with ground personnel – those directly tied to the aircraft operations yet also others in supporting roles – making a change from the many Libyans taken prisoner. More Italian troops from Sicily came across when light transport aircraft with rough-field capabilities made use of the beat-up airport and these lower-grade Italian reserves were soon busy with all of those POWs. They had been first planned to be sent here to fight what was expected to be gruelling fight for Valetta itself but now they had that far easier mission. There was still gunfire in Valetta though. Italian marines engaged select Libyan hold-outs and also some locals. There were Maltese who had actively cooperated with the Libyan occupation and been the face of the ‘fraternal assistance’ from Tripoli which had come last September. Libyan prisoners were taken alive in the capital; very few Maltese ended up joining them. In the meantime, on other incoming flights to the airport – which engineers were all over, trying to repair all that recent damage – there came a new government. Maltese nationals abroad at the time when the island fell into Libyan hands had formed an unofficial government-in-exile during the time of Western European neutrality. Now that was long over with, the Maltese were official. There was the legal necessity done to have them invite the EDA in. They established themselves in Valetta and now Malta joined the EDA directly rather than as a wartime partner like those in North Africa had done.


Neither the amphibious fleet nor the battle fleet of EDA ships near Malta ended up facing those Backfires or other long-range bombers such as Badgers or Blinders. Some were flying from Libya and the ships were in-range yet the aircraft were busy with another task. They were engaged in a stand-by mission ready to strike at the carrier Foch when it opened attacks on Crete and the Soviet presence there on that Greek island.

But the French Navy wasn’t approaching Crete with their other carrier.

The Foch was in the Ionian Sea – covering the air routes between Greece and Italy – along with the cruiser Colbert and other escorts on a defensive mission. They were waiting in ambush because the EDA believed that the Soviets would soon either strike hard at the southern parts of Italy or move forces up into the Adriatic. Why were the Soviets convinced that the Foch was near to Crete and soon to attack? Part of that was that they had convinced themselves that the French would do that (as the French believed that the Soviets would be active in the Ionian Sea; each side getting the other’s intentions wrong), though also there was a deception effort underway. West of Crete, the French had a civilian cargo ship used as a decoy carrier. It had a skeleton crew and was emitting low-level electronic signals marking it out as the Foch. Kill me, was the message: kill me, if you can catch me. That ship was doing a dance across the sea while emitting false radar returns making it out to be escorted as a carrier would be. For over a week, Bears and submarines hunted for this elusive carrier. They ran themselves in circles, chasing it as far south as Egypt and all the way east to off Cyprus. Finally, the deception was uncovered by a visual sighting made and this was confirmed that this was the ship which had given them the run-around. The cargo ship was torpedoed with haste. There was more than that which came in response though. Several admirals were removed from command and another shot. The stupidity of falling for this trick was a humiliation for the Soviets.

All of that effort spent chasing after a fool’s errand cost them dear. The EDA naval forces in the Central Med. were joined by Allied ships – Spaniards mainly but also a couple of Royal Navy warships – who came across to join them. The Soviets still had to worry about Crete and they too had to keep an eye on the situation with Libya. With the latter, it wasn’t the issue with their enemies making a move that way but what Haftar was up to. Libya was doing what other Arab allies of Moscow were doing in turning their backs on the war… and also the Soviet Union too. The Soviet Navy and Air Force were being ordered to prepare for offensive action against such nations should they act direct rather than doing what they were in the shadows. Whether they could any longer do anything like what was being drawn up, and whether they could do that if the EDA & the Allies moved to intervene, was open to interpretation. Being unable to though would mean further ‘captures’ by the Soviet Union’s enemies and a collapse of its whole Middle East position.

Another good update James G

Thank you. More tonight.

[lordroel]

So who is in command of EDA naval operations in the Mediterranean Sea, the French ore the Italians.

[James G]

Dec 19, 2018 15:53:24 GMT lordroel said:

So who is in command of EDA naval operations in the Mediterranean Sea, the French ore the Italians.

Good question. I'm going with the Italians. The French have the carriers yet the Italians have more ships plus will be closer to the action.
Giving the Italians command there will be a political choice too.

[James G]

(317)

Late March 1985: Europe

Soviet forces on the ground in Sweden remained remarkably small. There were less than eighteen thousand men all told with a third of those being non-combat troops. If they hadn’t held onto such a small area of land with water on two sides, the Swedes would have long pushed them out into the Baltic. Fully mobilised, the Swedish Army was huge. The position which Sweden was in though had helped the Soviet’s survival by keeping many of those assigned to other tasks. There were many Swedish forces in the north of the country, waiting for the Soviets to push their armies through Finland and onwards; the Swedes intended to fight them – and any Finns who wanted to join in – over on Finnish soil. Other large Swedish forces were tied up on coastal defence missions ready to stop another invasion coming by sea and air. The wider Stockholm area, the long Baltic coastline stretching south from there and islands such as Gotland & Oland were full of more Swedish troops. However, no further invasion was looking likely. With the fight that their EDA partners were in down in West Germany with the Soviets, plus all their wars abroad too, there were no more troops to conduct a further invasion. The Swedes had the same intelligence on Soviet forces in North America and China like the EDA had and the Allies (who maintained independent contacts with Sweden through Norway) had told them the same. Still, the Swedes kept many troops back. They’d been invaded with a bolt from the red strike before and weren’t willing to see that happen again. However, some of their internal reserves kept back to push another landing back out were released from that mission. These were those in the south of the country and they converged upon the Soviets already in their nation. Joining with their French and West German allies – both who wanted to soon enough send their troops down to West Germany once this was all done with – a big, hopefully final attack was made.

The French and West Germans fought at the northern end of the Soviet lodgement, near to Helsingborg; the Swedes struck near to Malmo and Ystad. Everything was thrown at the fight. There were civilians in the way and this was taken into consideration during the air strikes and artillery barrages made but it was understood that there would still be many casualties incurred among them. There was nothing that could be done to avoid that though. The actual cities of Helsingborg and Malmo weren’t directly hit by the mass of firepower. The Swedes were still hoping for a magic solution with both in the end. Return fire came to oppose the ground assaults which followed that mass use of fire support. The West Germans had a particularly tough time around Angelholm where the Soviets fought like crazed devils against them. There was the suspicion on the part of them that because they were ‘German’, their opponents did that. However, while there was some of that, the strong resistance met was down to local factors on the ground with a fearsome KGB officer on the back of the local commander of the Soviet troops there. The Swedes had a fierce fight with Soviet Naval Infantry when moving towards the port of Ystad and again this was down to who was in-charge. Later, it was discovered that several Soviet tactical commanders had been influenced by messages from home where they were told that reinforcements were imminent through Angelholm (there was an airbase there) and Ystad. Those were lies. There were no reinforcements coming. There was no resupply of ammunition either for the Soviets. The men who fought gave all that they had in terms of return fire because there was meant to be more coming. However, EDA air and naval forces had shut off all routes in. The West Germans had several potent submarines off Ystad and the port of Trelleborg too. They’d already sunk several ships and no more were coming into each. In the skies, EDA fighters had won local control of the air. Faced with Soviet fighters, they were challenged in that yet they made absolutely certain that no transports laden with men nor air-freighters with cargoes inbound could make it through.

The Soviets were soon down to emergency stocks of ammunition: enough to make a last stand. Urgent requests were made for support from home. This time they were told the truth. No more lies came, just honesty: you are on your own. The Swedes found that soon enough the commander of the Naval Infantry brigade (who too led a tank regiment from the Soviet Army in support of them) sent men forward to negotiate a ceasefire. Soviet terms offered weren’t acceptable and were refused at the first attempt. A second offer was made after another day of fighting, one where the Swedes had taken Ystad and were halfway to Malmo. Those offered terms had changed yet still the Swedes rejected them on the basis that they would only accept a surrender. This counteroffer was then accepted. Things came to an end with the fighting soon enough after that due to worries over a violent reaction from the KGB behind the lines if more time was wasted. Sweden got its miracle and Malmo wasn’t going to be fought over. There was no miracle for Helsingborg. Some Swedish troops from the south came north to aid the French-led EDA effort to fight for the territory held inland from there and this did much good. However, the Soviets fell back into the city. They were airmobile and motor rifle troops who were mainly on foot. What ammunition was left for that last stand was made. Propaganda efforts were made to get the Soviets to give in. One French officer who went forward to talk to the Soviets was shot down; a Swedish officer was left seriously wounded trying to do so too. All that came out of Helsingborg was gunfire. The Soviets had surrounded themselves by civilians and were holding out. There was a KGB colonel in-charge – a political officer who’d personally executed half a dozen senior Soviet Army men and promised that the families of other men who might want to step in would suffer should they – and he wasn’t giving in. A fanatic, a fool… call him what you might. He led the last resistance to a restoration of Swedish control over the last occupied parts of their country. In the final battle which came, half of the French troops and the West Germans both stayed out of it. The French 9th Division went into Helsingborg alongside the Swedes. March 29th saw the last of the Soviets overcome with a destroyed city and thousands of casualties – soldiers of both sides and many civilians – taken. The 9th Division was in no shape afterwards to leave Sweden to go straight into another fight. The paratroopers with the French 11th Division – plus that mixed brigade of West Germans – weren’t at full-strength, but they left nonetheless and transited through Denmark to enter West Germany afterwards. The Kattegat which they crossed plus the Oresund and increasingly the very western edges of the Baltic Sea proper were waters by now relatively secure for the EDA. Danish, Dutch and West German warships & submarines, supported by land-based air power, had cleared the last of the Soviets out. They were still active off the coasts of East Germany and Poland yet that was it. Months ago the big ships of the Soviet Baltic Fleet had got out and into the open ocean (other ships going down in the attempt) and what was left had been no match for these EDA naval forces when combined. They took losses and spent every moment worrying about further underwater – or even above-water – nuclear use, but the Soviets were beaten back. Once Helsingborg was finished with, eyes turned to Bornholm and the Danes’ wish for that island to be liberated some time soon.


British military lore would for many long years afterwards celebrate the famous ‘left hook’ manoeuvre made in late March through northern West Germany. It was argued that this won the Battle for West Germany. The British Second Army did all that they did, beat who they beat and advanced as far as they did all in a very short space of time. That was true. Their actions did force a strategic defeat of a major portion of Soviet forces on West German soil. However, the attack was made after the EDA had fought the Soviets and East Germans to the bloodiest standstill imaginable. Casualties across West Germany among military personnel from several countries and local civilians were immense. The physical destruction in some places was unimaginable where intense battles had taken place. The land was poisoned in other areas and there was general war damage in many more sites away from the parts of the country fought over. The armies of Western Europe had faced down the Soviet’s attack and stopped it. British entry into the fight had cut off the most dangerous penetration – that was certainly true – yet others were stopped by EDA forces and those were away from the north of the country where the British Second Army went on its destructive rampage. The EDA was in no position to counterattack after the Soviets had come to a stop. They had used reserves all over the place to plug holes. The British came in at the right moment for them to do so. That arrival into battle and the British intentions were a cause of contention between the UK and the EDA too. Back in London, the War Cabinet had approved a projected operation which wouldn’t have seen that ‘left hook’ as it occurred on the map take place. The clockwise sweep east then south which occurred wasn’t what was initially foreseen. London had wanted to see the British Second Army drive across the top of Luneburg Heath, cross the Elbe on the other side and drive along the East German coast as far as possible. This would put them deep into East Germany in an undefended area where there were military bases aplenty and civilian infrastructure useful for military purposes. From there, Berlin could be threatened from behind and there were plans to base Tornado strike-bombers on East German soil which put Poland – even the Soviet homeland – in range of RAF bombs. The British Second Army was moving while disputes over this took place. In Paris, urging was made for instead a fight to be made to liberate West German soil instead. The same aim was sought by certain members of the War Cabinet and a change of mind at the top came in the face of this pressure. This was in the end about military matters rather than politics (Britain’s generals wanted the left hook) despite the later arguments over the sudden change in direction. New orders were sent to the fighting men in the field. London’s about-turn angered many in uniform at the front yet politicians and the political generals at home, plus those on both sides of the Channel, were eventually satisfied with what came. More than satisfied: elated in fact.

Using the Dutch (now under operational command of the British Second Army; no longer assigned to the EDA’s West German Northern Army) to cover their inner & left flank, the British I Corps raced in the direction of Hamburg and first engaged the fighting units of the Soviet Second Guards Tank Army. The Dutch had already softened them up and the rate of advance – under strong RAF air cover – was fantastic. The Elbe was reached between Winsen and Lauenburg. The very top of the Elbe-Lateral Canal was crossed over during this with the British now far inside Soviet occupied areas. Here the I Corps turned south (the left hook) while the Spanish I Corps moved into Holstein with the eventual goal being the Baltic Sea but just the West German shore instead of anywhere in East Germany. Once going south, the four British armoured divisions tore forward. They operated both sides of the canal as they went across the Luneburg Heath and even further inside the Soviet’s rear. Where the Inner-German Border jutted forward in the Altmark region, that too was crossed. There were voices in London, Paris, Bonn and Rome about the dangers of doing so, but it was a line on a map and right in the way of the advance. That territory was too full of enemy forces. It was those that the British were here to fight. They avoided the frontline combat units that the EDA had brought to a standstill and instead engaged rear-area forces. There were supply dumps, SAM sites, POW holding points, signals stations, helicopter parks, field hospitals, KGB temporary facilities and administrative sites. The Second Guards Tank Army and the Twentieth Guards Army next in-line had these established behind the lines on West German soil. What ‘fun’ the British had going through them! They shot up everything in-sight. Any enemy soldier who stood in their way was run down in a furry of violence. Soviet anti-tank units and security troops, KGB blocking units, and East German border guards all witnessed Chieftain & Challenger tanks come crashing towards them as well as FV432 & Saxon armoured vehicles who brought with them plenty of infantry. The British didn’t have it all their own way. They did run into trouble. Sometimes this was down to their own hurry to keep going, other times they were just plain unlucky. Soviet gas attacks came and they tried to bring aircraft too in effectively to stop the terribly destructive advance. Those failed to have any effect upon the advance yet the gas did cause many casualties among British TA and Irish soldiers with the British Second Army’s III Corps as they held onto the rear areas and were positioned facing inwards towards East Germany behind the forward advance. More British III Corps elements – the 6th Airborne Division – went into action at a late stage. They landed near Grifhorn, a West German town on the Aller River in Soviet hands. This opened the way for the I Corps to bounce over that river and then slide between the urban areas of Wolfsburg and Braunschweig without stopping. There were East Germans tasked to fight against the defenders of each and they had the British flowing all around them and taking pot-shots at them from behind. Many East German units were ripped to shreds; others surrendered rather than face that.

Past Braunschweig (historically known as Brunswick) the advance slowed. The West German I & French III Corps had the majority of the Soviets stuck at the frontlines but there were some heavy units in the rear who had been ordered to reverse course. East of Salzgitter – where under NATO the British I Corps would have fought – there were some significant engagements with Soviet Third Shock Army units turned back around. Both the 3rd & 4th Armoured Divisions broke off their cavalry charges forward to deal with this, yet the 1st & 7th Armoured Divisions carried on despite opposition and challenging terrain. They started turning southwest and began linking up with Belgian units in the following days: first contact was made with their paratroopers before the Belgians’ 1st Infantry Division and West German Fallschirmjager alongside them was firmly established. The trap was closed on March 26th, eleven days after the British starting moving. One Soviet field army had been blown through – the Dutch had given everything in support of tying down the rest of the Second Guards Tank Army – while two more were trapped. The Soviets had their Twentieth Guards & Third Shock Armies now caught in a trap. EDA forces were at their front, still fighting to keep them between Wolfsburg-Braunschweig and Hannover while behind them the British held their ground while edging forward inwards now.

The trap was shut and those caught inside were to be squeezed. Tens of Soviet soldiers were either going to die or surrender as the British and the EDA finished off Moscow’s soldiers in the north of West Germany. Orders came from Moscow for the encircled men to fight their way out… they weren’t going to be able to do that.


Through Hessen and down across Bavaria, the last weeks of March saw far less fighting than earlier in the month. Both sides were unable to give anything more than holding their ground and making localised counterattacks. Each had no reserves left to enter the fight. The EDA continued to worry about a Soviet third wave despite intelligence reports which said there wasn’t one coming. The Soviets were distracted by the fighting to the north and also what was happening down in Austria and Yugoslavia: air support was shifted away to both fights and this stripped their armies elsewhere in West German soil of the last of any real offensive capability.

While the frontlines might not have moved much, there was tremendous ongoing fighting around them. Parts of West Germany were starting to resemble the Western Front battlefields of World War One. There was more mobility available on paper for both sides, much more, but neither could use it properly. Their opponents dug-in and held. Men were ordered to attack into those defences. This they did and died in the effort. Frankfurt remained threatened by the Soviets and the EDA wanted them removed from Hanau and driven back away. The Czechoslovaks were static on their border where they had been pushed back to and concerned themselves over a French attack on Prague. Along the Danube downstream from Regensburg and all the way to the Austrian frontier, the West Germans fought here against what was an overall weak Soviet effort to get over that river and deeper into Bavaria. Thousands died every day. Thousands more were wounded. West German civilians still streamed westwards after all the conventional fighting and the use of gas. There was a fear of both, plus the use of nuclear weapons too. No matter how far they went – into France or the Low Countries – if the war went nuclear, those running would still be in the firing line of a fight which both sides were prepared for. The French nuclear forces were miniscule in comparison to what the Soviets had but there were there and waiting. No nuclear attacks came though: just a whole lot of conventional fighting with all of those casualties and destruction caused. West Germany’s Landwehr bore much of the cost of that fighting, especially the close-in combat around towns and cities which they defended. When the war was over, so many of them would be going home only in body-bags.


In Austria, the government was established in Innsbruck. Much of their country was under occupation, other bits were being fought over. The government was pretty far back in the rear and protected by French troops though still felt under great danger. There were many of them who had only just escaped with their lives when Austria was attacked and invaded; others hadn’t been so fortunate. Unoccupied Austria was under martial law like Innsbruck was. From that city, Austria made a formal petition to join the European Defence Alliance (plus the EEC as they were considering the post-war world) but only after fulfilling French demands to rid their administration of many untrusted people. The Austrians didn’t bend easily on this but agreed in the end: they would later allow for a transfer of custody of several of these people to French control as well, something only possible politically due to the situation of the war they were in. Austrian troops were fighting alongside French, Italian and West German forces against the Soviets and their Warsaw Pact allies. Vienna was deep in the occupied zone. That fighting took place down the middle of Austria, before it narrowed to the west. The biggest of those was now outside the Drava Valley. The Italians pushed forward from their initial blocking positions, doing what they can to get the Soviet Thirty–Eighth Army as far away from Italy as possible. The Italians did well yet they could have done more than they did. It was just a matter of not having enough men. Their 3rd Corps was fighting here and this included reserve units. However, other Italian troops were back at home – in the south of their country – or over in Yugoslavia.

It was the Italian 5th Corps which was fighting in the latter. Alongside the Yugoslavs, they were fighting in Slovenia. Italy had many troops here including a lot of their armoured units. The Yugoslavs continued to fight well and the overall situation remained good when it kept to keeping the Soviets as close to Hungary as possible. Still, in Rome and Belgrade, there was a wish to push the invaders back even further. A joint offensive was made in Slovenia alongside a Yugoslav-only effort in Croatia. Progress was made yet it wasn’t fantastic. More time was needed to wear the Soviets down here. The advance petered out in the end and there was liberated territory alongside a beaten-back opponent yet it wasn’t like they had forced all the way back to the border. Italian and Yugoslavian aircraft were busy and so too were Yugoslav militia. There was a lot of fighting throughout the occupied parts of the country. In many places it was quite brutal. The Yugoslavs had a history of fighting guerrilla warfare and the Soviets had a history of combatting such actions in their own way. This worked together to make what was seen come so soon – very quickly – on Yugoslavian soil. Down in Belgrade, there was still smouldering remains of damage done after the Soviets had struck heavily at the city a few days into the war though that attack hadn’t been followed up. The government remained there. Bulgarian troops were on Yugoslav soil to the southeast but that invasion was nothing more than a border incursion. The Yugoslavs felt confident that they would win this war. It may take some time, but in the end, victory would come for them. The nation was united pretty well in the face of what had come and Yugoslavia wasn’t alone. Belgrade agreed to enter the EDA – that enemy ‘capture’ feared by Moscow pre-war was now complete – and also opened talks about possible later membership of the EEC, though with many reservations about that. Yugoslavia was broke and would need a lot of economic help once the war was won. Entry to the EEC would be on Yugoslavian terms though… Brussels would have something to say about that. Until then, there was still a war to fight.

[crackpot]

The loses are bad enough, but now “Fraternal Socialist Allies” fighting side by side with the capitalists... oh how I’d love to see what’s happening in Moscow.

[sandyman]

Wow what a great update looks like the English are on the ball

[lukedalton]

Dec 20, 2018 18:00:19 GMT crackpot said:

The loses are bad enough, but now “Fraternal Socialist Allies” fighting side by side with the capitalists... oh how I’d love to see what’s happening in Moscow.

Well, historical relations between Jugoslavia and the rest of the communist world...were complicated, many up and down and frankly Moscow consider them like the 'eccentric' cousin with the strange lifestyle that you invite at the family reunion because you must