The Second Battle of Britain - a Soviet Sealion

[James G]

Jan 13, 2020 21:50:32 GMT forcon said:

Looking at the map (I will read the latest update in a moment), NATO would do well to just abandon Germany all together and hold out along the French border. Keeping CENTAG where it is just asking for them to be cut off.

The Alliance probably wouldn't survive politically, but the only way to win militarily is to save France and then go on the offensive after a long build-up of new forces. Problem with that is that the 80s is the 1940s and new tanks and fighters can't roll off of the production lines like they used to.

In military terms: perfect sense. Politically: unacceptable.
The Americans have a lot of men, and also much replaceable gear & supplies, all ready to come over the ocean. It'll take time though. Yep, aircraft & tanks & everything else takes far longer to roll off the production lines. Otherwise, NATO could hold.

Jan 14, 2020 10:15:19 GMT stevep said:

 

  On that last point I thought I noticed one in #172 but when it came to writing my reply I couldn't find the damned thing.  Memory is definitely not what it was.

There will be more than one. I do a spell check but miss so many things!

Jan 14, 2020 10:36:26 GMT stevep said:

  That's my fear as well.  Possibly doing it in stages however as I can see the generals fears that if they try pulling back to the French borders the two US forces furthest east are going to have great problems getting away without heavy losses.  However think ultimately that they will have problems staying in Germany given the current border.

  The other problem is a withdrawal out of Germany and probably virtually all Belgium would give the Soviets their apparent desires and there might be pressure for a ceasefire which could quickly lead to a freezing of the current positions.  Or if the allies continue fighting the Soviets threaten to use nuclear weapons against any NATO counter-attack, which would mean nukes on occupied NATO territory and unless the allies are prepared to retaliate against the USSR itself that's pretty much a win-win for the Soviets.  [They probably destroy any such counter attackers and cause serious division among both fighting and occupied allied nations].

  I could see the allies winning in a long conventional war if things didn't go nuclear but it would be a very long and costly task and between Soviet occupation policies and the fighting the costs for the suppressed  NATO populations would be horrendous.

  In terms of #173 the isolated forces may survive for a while simply because there's no great need for the Soviets to destroy them but I can't really see the allies, with much greater problems elsewhere, being able to commit the air and naval forces to try and rescue them.  The Soviets might even welcome such an action as it would tie up NATO forces on a non critical area and also possibly enable them to put such rescuing forces through a mincer as they try to get the forces out.

Its a no-win situation for NATO in anything they try... which will see the atom-splitting soon enough.
Moscow wanted a quick war. They don't want a drawn out one. If that happened though, they'd change tack and strip Germany/Low Countries of everything and install "people's governments". Your scenario is likely on that note too.
I've left other NATO forces cut off before but with these ones on the coast of Zealand, so close to safety, I've done a rescue in the update below. It does cost NATO much but not as much as it might have if done elsewhere. A gamble is taken due to politics where before common sense has said there is no hope.

[James G]

174 – The Miracle of Flushing


The North Sea had been a battlefield since the beginning of the war. This stretch of water lay between Britain and the Continent of Western Europe though there were the shores of Denmark and Norway to the north as well. In terms of scale, this battlefield was a big as the one on land. It was open too with no cover to hide within on the surface. Below the waves there was some and up in the air should there be clouds where some cover was offered, yes, yet that wasn’t the same as forests, mountains and urban terrain. If the forces of one side saw the other on or over the North Sea, then there was sure to be combat between them without one being able to escape attention. It was still summer. There was good weather and the daylight hours were long. These factors made the North Sea even more of a battlefield than it would have been at another time of year. It was in many ways a NATO lake for their military forces. All shores were controlled by NATO nations at the start of the conflict with access to it coming through either narrow straits of channels wide enough to be effectively patrolled. On the water’s surface, the navies of the West were unchallenged. Soviet and Warsaw Pact naval forces had been busy in the Baltic but they hadn’t opened up access to get their combined fleet out. There were a few Soviet submarines which made their presence felt yet they were hunted extensively and had little opportunity to achieve much. Only in the air could NATO be challenged when it came to the North Sea. Aircraft made this a battlefield and the scale of the early fighting in the skies increased dramatically when the coastal portions of West Germany and then the Netherlands fell into Soviet hands. In addition, where the Soviets had established themselves across on British shores in Norfolk, this caused NATO further problems. The North Sea became a contested battlefield not with ships as had been seen in historical conflicts but due to aircraft in this very modern war.

The Soviet Air Force (VVS) were undertaking combat missions which included going across the North Sea. They were joined in the same skies by aircraft on dedicated naval air tasks. These came from elements of the AV-MF – Soviet Naval Aviation – which deployed aircraft from their training units based inside the Western USSR instead of those assigned to one of its fleets (for example either the Baltic or Northern Fleets). These were tactical strike aircraft and missile-bombers: Sukhoi-17s and Tupolev-16s. Deployed to captured NATO airbases, their overall mission was to close the North Sea to NATO use. The VVS was to worry about supporting those in Norfolk while the AV-MF went after shipping plus also land-based naval infrastructure. The naval-rolled aircraft were quickly busy. Neither the Fitters nor Badgers were the most-modern aircraft but there was much that they could do. Attacks were made on NATO warships at sea. Those attacks were made close-in at low-level by the attack-fighters or at distance when the missile-bombers launched from far away. Warships were the primary targets when it came to shipping but everything else was fair game. Hitting airbases, naval bases and ports was also done with the same approaches made in how those different aircraft were used. The AV-MF came under attack itself. In the air and on the ground, NATO went after these naval aircraft causing the trouble which they were. The Fitters but especially the Badgers went high up the target list of desired kills to achieve. When hitting the missile-bombers when they were airborne, a couple of NATO pilots would claim ace status. There were tail guns for those aircraft but nothing else: caught by a NATO fighter, even an old one, they were dead meat. The airbases which the AV-MF were making use of on captured soil were hit hard too.

This evening, there were Badgers in the sky over the North Sea. They came further westwards than the usually would, increasing the chance of being taken out, but there was prize which they sought. The Royal Navy had their aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal active off the eastern shores of Britain where her Sea Harriers were attacking targets on land. The AV-MF sought to hit that carrier not to help out their comrades with other services but for the glory. Laden with a pair of cruise missiles each, the nearly twenty bombers were waiting to launch them. They needed a target reference though. Other aircraft were out seeking to get a fix on the Ark Royal. Without that, the Soviet missiles would be wasted if blind fired. The carrier was moving about all over the place though and it wasn’t a helpless target. Its aircraft were busy making ground attack flights while the RAF was in the sky and there were warships down below from several navies including those of both the West Germans and the Dutch. Each of those had lost their home bases but fled to those of their allies. Reconnaissance aircraft were hit by SAMs from warships or chased off by near-misses as well as having to dodge the attentions of land-based NATO fighters. The Royal Navy became aware of the attack late and quickly reacted. Away to the north the Ark Royal steamed and unnoticed by those who had come so close to finding her. The many Badgers were still flying about though. NATO air power was focused on Belgium today but there were still fighters available even if not as many as usual. RAF Phantoms and Dutch NF-5s (the latter flying from RAF Manston in Kent) got at many of those helpless targets. The Soviets scattered as missiles chased after them. Nine were downed within a few minutes. A couple of others would limp ‘home’ with damage and not fly again.

The Dutch would claim five of those nine kills and three damages – a good showing for the trio of aircraft involved – and then return to their task of flying English Channel defence missions. Manston was far from home but at least they were still in service unlike may other Dutch aircraft. Those Phantoms involved in that engagement against the Badgers returned afterwards to what they had been doing before: joining other RAF aircraft as well as the Americans in attacking the air corridors over the North Sea that the VVS was making use of. The routes for transport aircraft flying from the Netherlands into East Anglia were short. It was just a hop over the water for those involved. The cost of making those flights had been shockingly high though. Dozens upon dozens of aircraft had been lost ranging from the big strategic air-freighters to short-range tactical transports. Fighters had gone down alongside the transports. Then there were the helicopters sent to Norfolk as well. Many NATO pilots, flying low and slow, had racked up some impressive kill claims against those who were more helpless than even the AV-MF Badgers. Throughout this evening, there were many engagements in relation to the air bridge which the Soviets had above the North Sea. Taking place close-in and at distance, aircraft shot at each other. Down to make a splash on the surface many would go while others would explode in mid-air. There were some from each side which would manage to crash-land when damaged as well. NATO was claiming victory here but they were taking losses of their own in doing what they were.

Before the majority of the Netherlands fell, especially when Rotterdam was so suddenly overrun, there had been much sea traffic going across the North Sea. Civilian shipping pressed into war service by NATO had been transporting men, equipment & supplies to aid the fighting on the Continent. However, as it was now, the Soviets were in control of the shores from the Hook of Holland to Hamburg. There was no longer any shipping going across the North Sea; the English Channel was seeing the redirection of what there had once been. There were still vessels out on the water though with a few sailings were made across it, around the northern edges to Norway and Denmark. That should have been all that there was. However, vessels were coming out of Continental ports heading west or north. Small civilian were seen by those above. Some had refugees who’d managed the seemingly impossible and found a method of escape while there were also Soviet commandos on the move pretending to be the former. The North Sea was closed. Aircraft attacked ships from above unless it could be positively identified that there were only civilians aboard. Such vessels who were allowed to get through were the lucky few. The policy wasn’t without its critics but it was being enforced. Chasing down such vessels with boarding parties and then risking the lives of those among them should they come up against Spetsnaz was too much to allow. Many innocents were dying out in the North Sea when they were seeking safety. Soviet aircraft were attacking such vessels themselves though. They saw all of that enemy naval power there and attacked sighted ships. NATO commando teams were feared when it came to smaller non-warships but they also struck what they did with larger ones in cases of mistaken identity. There wasn’t much time to tell the difference between a boat with civilians or commandos when they were fighting for their lives themselves.

Ten NATO navies had warships in the North Sea. The Danes and Norwegians had some to the north and the northeast. The French and Spanish had sent a few ships past the English Channel. American and Canadian warships had come across the North Atlantic. Plenty of Dutch vessels were absent from Den Helder before that naval base was overrun and many West German ships had made a mad dash escape before Wilhelmshaven was lost. Ostend and Zeebrugge were yet to be taken by Soviet tanks but the Belgians had all but abandoned them already with their navy fully at sea. Then, finally, there was the Royal Navy too. It was British pressure upon their allies which had brought about the free-fire rules for NATO aircraft over the North Sea. They had Soviet paratroopers on their soil and saw how many civilian ships – of every single type of vessel imaginable – were in enemy-held ports on the other side of that stretch of water. An amphibious Sealion operation to join with the airborne Sealion that Britain had already faced looked impossible, especially without escorting warships… but only a week ago the idea of Soviet paratroopers in Norfolk would have been dismissed as the height of stupidity. A rush of troops aboard ships which could beach themselves on the British coast, rather than a traditional amphibious landing, wasn’t so outlandish in British eyes. The RAF had been tasked to use one of their squadrons of Buccaneer light bombers to hit several ‘dangerous’ ships in ports now held by the Soviets while the RAF had a submarine in the German Bight laying mines there so no use could be made of many vessels in Bremerhaven & Wilhelmshaven. The paranoia here on this issue was actually the inspiration behind which became the Miracle of Flushing.


A fleet of five vehicle- & passenger-carrying hovercraft operated the commercial Ramsgate-Calais route in peacetime. These had been put to use in wartime with one of them hit in an air attack when one of those AV-MF Fitters caught it yesterday in Ostend evacuating casualties: it wasn’t marked as a hospital ship and was thus a legitimate target. Another one of the hovercraft was taking part in supply missions running trucks & trailers between Portsmouth and Cherbourg: the final trio were at Folkestone and had been on runs back-&-forth to Calais. SR-N4 hovercraft didn’t need a port to operate from. Those were handy but not necessary. Each high-speed vessel was much like an aircraft… maybe a helicopter might be a better description for how they operated. With a top speed of sixty knots, an aircraft could get at them but only with a lot of luck. The trio of civilian hovercraft at Folkestone were sent tonight to Flushing. The British War Cabinet, fresh from hearing about the finale in London, including the destruction of the Houses of Parliament, had been paying attention to the situation with the 5th Airborne Brigade caught in Zealand. There were so many British troops already lost in this war and plenty surrounded in Limburg & the Ruhr but right there on the coast were others in desperate need. A hasty plan was put together to save them. There were many voices of disapproval to this. It was pretty crazy! The preparation was minimal – almost non-existent – and there were other important things that those capable hovercraft could be doing. The Americans said it was insane and doomed to failure. The politicians wanted those who’d fled to Flushing to be rescued though. A propaganda blow was also sought.

In the darkness, the hovercraft went. It was an hour’s journey to the Beveland Peninsula. The SR-N4s didn’t go to Flushing itself but rather beaches and small harbours nearby. Aboard them went French and British soldiers. Dutch and West German civilians were officially supposed to be left behind but many of them did get aboard too. The stated maximum capacity in terms of number of passengers was far exceeded. Soldiers – and those few civilians – were crammed aboard. The vehicle decks had people sitting in them and so did the walkways through the passenger cabins. There was no room to spare aboard. One of the trio would make just two trips but the other pair made three runs each. It wasn’t to Ramsgate or anywhere else in Britain that the hovercraft went to as they dropped off their human cargoes. Instead, they went to Calais and Dunkirk. Thirty-three hundred were saved. Another five hundred lives were lost though. The six-hour operation was done in darkness with all sorts of risks taken and those caught up with it. MiG-23 attack-fighters assigned to the mission earlier in the day to stop that withdrawal towards Flushing were still flying. A pair of them caught something very unexpected on their infrared displays when making a night-time attack towards that Dutch port: the heat signature of a large vessel backing away from a beach. Salvos of rockets slammed into the Sir Christopher and she burnt quickly. Twenty, maybe thirty people got off. Hundreds more died aboard. The squeezing of so many aboard made sure that they couldn’t get away. This was one of the biggest fears of those who opposed the operation. There should have been better air cover and more planning. No more runs would be made by the other two hovercraft – Princess Margaret and Swift – afterwards. Fourteen hundred soldiers were still there in Flushing with no way out for them as daylight approached and the danger of another air attack increased dramatically.

When the majority of the men with the British 5th Brigade, along with those French reservists from their brigade, were saved, they left behind everything. Vehicles, heavy guns, all sorts of other equipment, ammunition & further supplies wasn’t taken off. The wounded were pulled out and that was a miracle indeed but only people were put onto the hovercraft through the huge bow & stern doors. However, with everything apart from packs on men’s back and rifles in their hands, what these NATO troops needed to fight with was all abandoned. Those who were left behind would be able to use some of it as they stayed and met their eventual fate but that wasn’t much of a consolation. One of the British Army’s few remaining large combat formations was no longer a fighting force. There were now just many riflemen. Paras and Gurkhas were joined with gunners, signallers, engineers, mechanics and so on with little to fight with. Saved they had been but they wouldn’t be of much use until they could be re-equipped. Moreover, what good was a part brigade like this? The men hadn’t gone onto the hovercraft in organised units. There had been chaotic loading going on. The Miracle of Flushing would remain something to be celebrated but it wasn’t going to be a victory to change the course of this war.

[James G]

Those hovercraft: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR.N4
I went on one as a kid.

[stevep]

Jan 14, 2020 21:12:27 GMT James G said:

Those hovercraft: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR.N4
I went on one as a kid.

James G,

  Good one.  I had forgotten about the hovercraft which were still very active at that time.  Very good use of them to get a number of the troops away and their speed and flexibility makes such a move a lot more practical.  The troops might not have any real equipment but in the longer term their a lot more important and also its a useful morale boost to the allies.  Pity about the Sir Christopher and the people it would have saved if it had gotten away and made a successful 3rd trip.

  Steve

[lordroel]

Jan 14, 2020 21:11:46 GMT James G said:

174 – The Miracle of Flushing


The North Sea had been a battlefield since the beginning of the war. This stretch of water lay between Britain and the Continent of Western Europe though there were the shores of Denmark and Norway to the north as well. In terms of scale, this battlefield was a big as the one on land. It was open too with no cover to hide within on the surface. Below the waves there was some and up in the air should there be clouds where some cover was offered, yes, yet that wasn’t the same as forests, mountains and urban terrain. If the forces of one side saw the other on or over the North Sea, then there was sure to be combat between them without one being able to escape attention. It was still summer. There was good weather and the daylight hours were long. These factors made the North Sea even more of a battlefield than it would have been at another time of year. It was in many ways a NATO lake for their military forces. All shores were controlled by NATO nations at the start of the conflict with access to it coming through either narrow straits of channels wide enough to be effectively patrolled. On the water’s surface, the navies of the West were unchallenged. Soviet and Warsaw Pact naval forces had been busy in the Baltic but they hadn’t opened up access to get their combined fleet out. There were a few Soviet submarines which made their presence felt yet they were hunted extensively and had little opportunity to achieve much. Only in the air could NATO be challenged when it came to the North Sea. Aircraft made this a battlefield and the scale of the early fighting in the skies increased dramatically when the coastal portions of West Germany and then the Netherlands fell into Soviet hands. In addition, where the Soviets had established themselves across on British shores in Norfolk, this caused NATO further problems. The North Sea became a contested battlefield not with ships as had been seen in historical conflicts but due to aircraft in this very modern war.

The Soviet Air Force (VVS) were undertaking combat missions which included going across the North Sea. They were joined in the same skies by aircraft on dedicated naval air tasks. These came from elements of the AV-MF – Soviet Naval Aviation – which deployed aircraft from their training units based inside the Western USSR instead of those assigned to one of its fleets (for example either the Baltic or Northern Fleets). These were tactical strike aircraft and missile-bombers: Sukhoi-17s and Tupolev-16s. Deployed to captured NATO airbases, their overall mission was to close the North Sea to NATO use. The VVS was to worry about supporting those in Norfolk while the AV-MF went after shipping plus also land-based naval infrastructure. The naval-rolled aircraft were quickly busy. Neither the Fitters nor Badgers were the most-modern aircraft but there was much that they could do. Attacks were made on NATO warships at sea. Those attacks were made close-in at low-level by the attack-fighters or at distance when the missile-bombers launched from far away. Warships were the primary targets when it came to shipping but everything else was fair game. Hitting airbases, naval bases and ports was also done with the same approaches made in how those different aircraft were used. The AV-MF came under attack itself. In the air and on the ground, NATO went after these naval aircraft causing the trouble which they were. The Fitters but especially the Badgers went high up the target list of desired kills to achieve. When hitting the missile-bombers when they were airborne, a couple of NATO pilots would claim ace status. There were tail guns for those aircraft but nothing else: caught by a NATO fighter, even an old one, they were dead meat. The airbases which the AV-MF were making use of on captured soil were hit hard too.

This evening, there were Badgers in the sky over the North Sea. They came further westwards than the usually would, increasing the chance of being taken out, but there was prize which they sought. The Royal Navy had their aircraft carrier HMS Invincible active off the eastern shores of Britain where her Sea Harriers were attacking targets on land. The AV-MF sought to hit that carrier not to help out their comrades with other services but for the glory. Laden with a pair of cruise missiles each, the nearly twenty bombers were waiting to launch them. They needed a target reference though. Other aircraft were out seeking to get a fix on the Invincible. Without that, the Soviet missiles would be wasted if blind fired. The carrier was moving about all over the place though and it wasn’t a helpless target. Its aircraft were busy making ground attack flights while the RAF was in the sky and there were warships down below from several navies including those of both the West Germans and the Dutch. Each of those had lost their home bases but fled to those of their allies. Reconnaissance aircraft were hit by SAMs from warships or chased off by near-misses as well as having to dodge the attentions of land-based NATO fighters. The Royal Navy became aware of the attack late and quickly reacted. Away to the north the Invincible steamed and unnoticed by those who had come so close to finding her. The many Badgers were still flying about though. NATO air power was focused on Belgium today but there were still fighters available even if not as many as usual. RAF Phantoms and Dutch NF-5s (the latter flying from RAF Manston in Kent) got at many of those helpless targets. The Soviets scattered as missiles chased after them. Nine were downed within a few minutes. A couple of others would limp ‘home’ with damage and not fly again.

The Dutch would claim five of those nine kills and three damages – a good showing for the trio of aircraft involved – and then return to their task of flying English Channel defence missions. Manston was far from home but at least they were still in service unlike may other Dutch aircraft. Those Phantoms involved in that engagement against the Badgers returned afterwards to what they had been doing before: joining other RAF aircraft as well as the Americans in attacking the air corridors over the North Sea that the VVS was making use of. The routes for transport aircraft flying from the Netherlands into East Anglia were short. It was just a hop over the water for those involved. The cost of making those flights had been shockingly high though. Dozens upon dozens of aircraft had been lost ranging from the big strategic air-freighters to short-range tactical transports. Fighters had gone down alongside the transports. Then there were the helicopters sent to Norfolk as well. Many NATO pilots, flying low and slow, had racked up some impressive kill claims against those who were more helpless than even the AV-MF Badgers. Throughout this evening, there were many engagements in relation to the air bridge which the Soviets had above the North Sea. Taking place close-in and at distance, aircraft shot at each other. Down to make a splash on the surface many would go while others would explode in mid-air. There were some from each side which would manage to crash-land when damaged as well. NATO was claiming victory here but they were taking losses of their own in doing what they were.

Before the majority of the Netherlands fell, especially when Rotterdam was so suddenly overrun, there had been much sea traffic going across the North Sea. Civilian shipping pressed into war service by NATO had been transporting men, equipment & supplies to aid the fighting on the Continent. However, as it was now, the Soviets were in control of the shores from the Hook of Holland to Hamburg. There was no longer any shipping going across the North Sea; the English Channel was seeing the redirection of what there had once been. There were still vessels out on the water though with a few sailings were made across it, around the northern edges to Norway and Denmark. That should have been all that there was. However, vessels were coming out of Continental ports heading west or north. Small civilian were seen by those above. Some had refugees who’d managed the seemingly impossible and found a method of escape while there were also Soviet commandos on the move pretending to be the former. The North Sea was closed. Aircraft attacked ships from above unless it could be positively identified that there were only civilians aboard. Such vessels who were allowed to get through were the lucky few. The policy wasn’t without its critics but it was being enforced. Chasing down such vessels with boarding parties and then risking the lives of those among them should they come up against Spetsnaz was too much to allow. Many innocents were dying out in the North Sea when they were seeking safety. Soviet aircraft were attacking such vessels themselves though. They saw all of that enemy naval power there and attacked sighted ships. NATO commando teams were feared when it came to smaller non-warships but they also struck what they did with larger ones in cases of mistaken identity. There wasn’t much time to tell the difference between a boat with civilians or commandos when they were fighting for their lives themselves.

Ten NATO navies had warships in the North Sea. The Danes and Norwegians had some to the north and the northeast. The French and Spanish had sent a few ships past the English Channel. American and Canadian warships had come across the North Atlantic. Plenty of Dutch vessels were absent from Den Helder before that naval base was overrun and many West German ships had made a mad dash escape before Wilhelmshaven was lost. Ostend and Zeebrugge were yet to be taken by Soviet tanks but the Belgians had all but abandoned them already with their navy fully at sea. Then, finally, there was the Royal Navy too. It was British pressure upon their allies which had brought about the free-fire rules for NATO aircraft over the North Sea. They had Soviet paratroopers on their soil and saw how many civilian ships – of every single type of vessel imaginable – were in enemy-held ports on the other side of that stretch of water. An amphibious Sealion operation to join with the airborne Sealion that Britain had already faced looked impossible, especially without escorting warships… but only a week ago the idea of Soviet paratroopers in Norfolk would have been dismissed as the height of stupidity. A rush of troops aboard ships which could beach themselves on the British coast, rather than a traditional amphibious landing, wasn’t so outlandish in British eyes. The RAF had been tasked to use one of their squadrons of Buccaneer light bombers to hit several ‘dangerous’ ships in ports now held by the Soviets while the RAF had a submarine in the German Bight laying mines there so no use could be made of many vessels in Bremerhaven & Wilhelmshaven. The paranoia here on this issue was actually the inspiration behind which became the Miracle of Flushing.


A fleet of five vehicle- & passenger-carrying hovercraft operated the commercial Ramsgate-Calais route in peacetime. These had been put to use in wartime with one of them hit in an air attack when one of those AV-MF Fitters caught it yesterday in Ostend evacuating casualties: it wasn’t marked as a hospital ship and was thus a legitimate target. Another one of the hovercraft was taking part in supply missions running trucks & trailers between Portsmouth and Cherbourg: the final trio were at Folkestone and had been on runs back-&-forth to Calais. SR-N4 hovercraft didn’t need a port to operate from. Those were handy but not necessary. Each high-speed vessel was much like an aircraft… maybe a helicopter might be a better description for how they operated. With a top speed of sixty knots, an aircraft could get at them but only with a lot of luck. The trio of civilian hovercraft at Folkestone were sent tonight to Flushing. The British War Cabinet, fresh from hearing about the finale in London, including the destruction of the Houses of Parliament, had been paying attention to the situation with the 5th Airborne Brigade caught in Zealand. There were so many British troops already lost in this war and plenty surrounded in Limburg & the Ruhr but right there on the coast were others in desperate need. A hasty plan was put together to save them. There were many voices of disapproval to this. It was pretty crazy! The preparation was minimal – almost non-existent – and there were other important things that those capable hovercraft could be doing. The Americans said it was insane and doomed to failure. The politicians wanted those who’d fled to Flushing to be rescued though. A propaganda blow was also sought.

In the darkness, the hovercraft went. It was an hour’s journey to the Beveland Peninsula. The SR-N4s didn’t go to Flushing itself but rather beaches and small harbours nearby. Aboard them went French and British soldiers. Dutch and West German civilians were officially supposed to be left behind but many of them did get aboard too. The stated maximum capacity in terms of number of passengers was far exceeded. Soldiers – and those few civilians – were crammed aboard. The vehicle decks had people sitting in them and so did the walkways through the passenger cabins. There was no room to spare aboard. One of the trio would make just two trips but the other pair made three runs each. It wasn’t to Ramsgate or anywhere else in Britain that the hovercraft went to as they dropped off their human cargoes. Instead, they went to Calais and Dunkirk. Thirty-three hundred were saved. Another five hundred lives were lost though. The six-hour operation was done in darkness with all sorts of risks taken and those caught up with it. MiG-23 attack-fighters assigned to the mission earlier in the day to stop that withdrawal towards Flushing were still flying. A pair of them caught something very unexpected on their infrared displays when making a night-time attack towards that Dutch port: the heat signature of a large vessel backing away from a beach. Salvos of rockets slammed into the Sir Christopher and she burnt quickly. Twenty, maybe thirty people got off. Hundreds more died aboard. The squeezing of so many aboard made sure that they couldn’t get away. This was one of the biggest fears of those who opposed the operation. There should have been better air cover and more planning. No more runs would be made by the other two hovercraft – Princess Margaret and Swift – afterwards. Fourteen hundred soldiers were still there in Flushing with no way out for them as daylight approached and the danger of another air attack increased dramatically.

When the majority of the men with the British 5th Brigade, along with those French reservists from their brigade, were saved, they left behind everything. Vehicles, heavy guns, all sorts of other equipment, ammunition & further supplies wasn’t taken off. The wounded were pulled out and that was a miracle indeed but only people were put onto the hovercraft through the huge bow & stern doors. However, with everything apart from packs on men’s back and rifles in their hands, what these NATO troops needed to fight with was all abandoned. Those who were left behind would be able to use some of it as they stayed and met their eventual fate but that wasn’t much of a consolation. One of the British Army’s few remaining large combat formations was no longer a fighting force. There were now just many riflemen. Paras and Gurkhas were joined with gunners, signallers, engineers, mechanics and so on with little to fight with. Saved they had been but they wouldn’t be of much use until they could be re-equipped. Moreover, what good was a part brigade like this? The men hadn’t gone onto the hovercraft in organised units. There had been chaotic loading going on. The Miracle of Flushing would remain something to be celebrated but it wasn’t going to be a victory to change the course of this war.

So Flushing in World War III became what Dunkirk was in World War II.

[stevep]

Jan 15, 2020 15:57:15 GMT lordroel said:

Jan 14, 2020 21:11:46 GMT James G said:

174 – The Miracle of Flushing


The North Sea had been a battlefield since the beginning of the war. This stretch of water lay between Britain and the Continent of Western Europe though there were the shores of Denmark and Norway to the north as well. In terms of scale, this battlefield was a big as the one on land. It was open too with no cover to hide within on the surface. Below the waves there was some and up in the air should there be clouds where some cover was offered, yes, yet that wasn’t the same as forests, mountains and urban terrain. If the forces of one side saw the other on or over the North Sea, then there was sure to be combat between them without one being able to escape attention. It was still summer. There was good weather and the daylight hours were long. These factors made the North Sea even more of a battlefield than it would have been at another time of year. It was in many ways a NATO lake for their military forces. All shores were controlled by NATO nations at the start of the conflict with access to it coming through either narrow straits of channels wide enough to be effectively patrolled. On the water’s surface, the navies of the West were unchallenged. Soviet and Warsaw Pact naval forces had been busy in the Baltic but they hadn’t opened up access to get their combined fleet out. There were a few Soviet submarines which made their presence felt yet they were hunted extensively and had little opportunity to achieve much. Only in the air could NATO be challenged when it came to the North Sea. Aircraft made this a battlefield and the scale of the early fighting in the skies increased dramatically when the coastal portions of West Germany and then the Netherlands fell into Soviet hands. In addition, where the Soviets had established themselves across on British shores in Norfolk, this caused NATO further problems. The North Sea became a contested battlefield not with ships as had been seen in historical conflicts but due to aircraft in this very modern war.

The Soviet Air Force (VVS) were undertaking combat missions which included going across the North Sea. They were joined in the same skies by aircraft on dedicated naval air tasks. These came from elements of the AV-MF – Soviet Naval Aviation – which deployed aircraft from their training units based inside the Western USSR instead of those assigned to one of its fleets (for example either the Baltic or Northern Fleets). These were tactical strike aircraft and missile-bombers: Sukhoi-17s and Tupolev-16s. Deployed to captured NATO airbases, their overall mission was to close the North Sea to NATO use. The VVS was to worry about supporting those in Norfolk while the AV-MF went after shipping plus also land-based naval infrastructure. The naval-rolled aircraft were quickly busy. Neither the Fitters nor Badgers were the most-modern aircraft but there was much that they could do. Attacks were made on NATO warships at sea. Those attacks were made close-in at low-level by the attack-fighters or at distance when the missile-bombers launched from far away. Warships were the primary targets when it came to shipping but everything else was fair game. Hitting airbases, naval bases and ports was also done with the same approaches made in how those different aircraft were used. The AV-MF came under attack itself. In the air and on the ground, NATO went after these naval aircraft causing the trouble which they were. The Fitters but especially the Badgers went high up the target list of desired kills to achieve. When hitting the missile-bombers when they were airborne, a couple of NATO pilots would claim ace status. There were tail guns for those aircraft but nothing else: caught by a NATO fighter, even an old one, they were dead meat. The airbases which the AV-MF were making use of on captured soil were hit hard too.

This evening, there were Badgers in the sky over the North Sea. They came further westwards than the usually would, increasing the chance of being taken out, but there was prize which they sought. The Royal Navy had their aircraft carrier HMS Invincible active off the eastern shores of Britain where her Sea Harriers were attacking targets on land. The AV-MF sought to hit that carrier not to help out their comrades with other services but for the glory. Laden with a pair of cruise missiles each, the nearly twenty bombers were waiting to launch them. They needed a target reference though. Other aircraft were out seeking to get a fix on the Invincible. Without that, the Soviet missiles would be wasted if blind fired. The carrier was moving about all over the place though and it wasn’t a helpless target. Its aircraft were busy making ground attack flights while the RAF was in the sky and there were warships down below from several navies including those of both the West Germans and the Dutch. Each of those had lost their home bases but fled to those of their allies. Reconnaissance aircraft were hit by SAMs from warships or chased off by near-misses as well as having to dodge the attentions of land-based NATO fighters. The Royal Navy became aware of the attack late and quickly reacted. Away to the north the Invincible steamed and unnoticed by those who had come so close to finding her. The many Badgers were still flying about though. NATO air power was focused on Belgium today but there were still fighters available even if not as many as usual. RAF Phantoms and Dutch NF-5s (the latter flying from RAF Manston in Kent) got at many of those helpless targets. The Soviets scattered as missiles chased after them. Nine were downed within a few minutes. A couple of others would limp ‘home’ with damage and not fly again.

The Dutch would claim five of those nine kills and three damages – a good showing for the trio of aircraft involved – and then return to their task of flying English Channel defence missions. Manston was far from home but at least they were still in service unlike may other Dutch aircraft. Those Phantoms involved in that engagement against the Badgers returned afterwards to what they had been doing before: joining other RAF aircraft as well as the Americans in attacking the air corridors over the North Sea that the VVS was making use of. The routes for transport aircraft flying from the Netherlands into East Anglia were short. It was just a hop over the water for those involved. The cost of making those flights had been shockingly high though. Dozens upon dozens of aircraft had been lost ranging from the big strategic air-freighters to short-range tactical transports. Fighters had gone down alongside the transports. Then there were the helicopters sent to Norfolk as well. Many NATO pilots, flying low and slow, had racked up some impressive kill claims against those who were more helpless than even the AV-MF Badgers. Throughout this evening, there were many engagements in relation to the air bridge which the Soviets had above the North Sea. Taking place close-in and at distance, aircraft shot at each other. Down to make a splash on the surface many would go while others would explode in mid-air. There were some from each side which would manage to crash-land when damaged as well. NATO was claiming victory here but they were taking losses of their own in doing what they were.

Before the majority of the Netherlands fell, especially when Rotterdam was so suddenly overrun, there had been much sea traffic going across the North Sea. Civilian shipping pressed into war service by NATO had been transporting men, equipment & supplies to aid the fighting on the Continent. However, as it was now, the Soviets were in control of the shores from the Hook of Holland to Hamburg. There was no longer any shipping going across the North Sea; the English Channel was seeing the redirection of what there had once been. There were still vessels out on the water though with a few sailings were made across it, around the northern edges to Norway and Denmark. That should have been all that there was. However, vessels were coming out of Continental ports heading west or north. Small civilian were seen by those above. Some had refugees who’d managed the seemingly impossible and found a method of escape while there were also Soviet commandos on the move pretending to be the former. The North Sea was closed. Aircraft attacked ships from above unless it could be positively identified that there were only civilians aboard. Such vessels who were allowed to get through were the lucky few. The policy wasn’t without its critics but it was being enforced. Chasing down such vessels with boarding parties and then risking the lives of those among them should they come up against Spetsnaz was too much to allow. Many innocents were dying out in the North Sea when they were seeking safety. Soviet aircraft were attacking such vessels themselves though. They saw all of that enemy naval power there and attacked sighted ships. NATO commando teams were feared when it came to smaller non-warships but they also struck what they did with larger ones in cases of mistaken identity. There wasn’t much time to tell the difference between a boat with civilians or commandos when they were fighting for their lives themselves.

Ten NATO navies had warships in the North Sea. The Danes and Norwegians had some to the north and the northeast. The French and Spanish had sent a few ships past the English Channel. American and Canadian warships had come across the North Atlantic. Plenty of Dutch vessels were absent from Den Helder before that naval base was overrun and many West German ships had made a mad dash escape before Wilhelmshaven was lost. Ostend and Zeebrugge were yet to be taken by Soviet tanks but the Belgians had all but abandoned them already with their navy fully at sea. Then, finally, there was the Royal Navy too. It was British pressure upon their allies which had brought about the free-fire rules for NATO aircraft over the North Sea. They had Soviet paratroopers on their soil and saw how many civilian ships – of every single type of vessel imaginable – were in enemy-held ports on the other side of that stretch of water. An amphibious Sealion operation to join with the airborne Sealion that Britain had already faced looked impossible, especially without escorting warships… but only a week ago the idea of Soviet paratroopers in Norfolk would have been dismissed as the height of stupidity. A rush of troops aboard ships which could beach themselves on the British coast, rather than a traditional amphibious landing, wasn’t so outlandish in British eyes. The RAF had been tasked to use one of their squadrons of Buccaneer light bombers to hit several ‘dangerous’ ships in ports now held by the Soviets while the RAF had a submarine in the German Bight laying mines there so no use could be made of many vessels in Bremerhaven & Wilhelmshaven. The paranoia here on this issue was actually the inspiration behind which became the Miracle of Flushing.


A fleet of five vehicle- & passenger-carrying hovercraft operated the commercial Ramsgate-Calais route in peacetime. These had been put to use in wartime with one of them hit in an air attack when one of those AV-MF Fitters caught it yesterday in Ostend evacuating casualties: it wasn’t marked as a hospital ship and was thus a legitimate target. Another one of the hovercraft was taking part in supply missions running trucks & trailers between Portsmouth and Cherbourg: the final trio were at Folkestone and had been on runs back-&-forth to Calais. SR-N4 hovercraft didn’t need a port to operate from. Those were handy but not necessary. Each high-speed vessel was much like an aircraft… maybe a helicopter might be a better description for how they operated. With a top speed of sixty knots, an aircraft could get at them but only with a lot of luck. The trio of civilian hovercraft at Folkestone were sent tonight to Flushing. The British War Cabinet, fresh from hearing about the finale in London, including the destruction of the Houses of Parliament, had been paying attention to the situation with the 5th Airborne Brigade caught in Zealand. There were so many British troops already lost in this war and plenty surrounded in Limburg & the Ruhr but right there on the coast were others in desperate need. A hasty plan was put together to save them. There were many voices of disapproval to this. It was pretty crazy! The preparation was minimal – almost non-existent – and there were other important things that those capable hovercraft could be doing. The Americans said it was insane and doomed to failure. The politicians wanted those who’d fled to Flushing to be rescued though. A propaganda blow was also sought.

In the darkness, the hovercraft went. It was an hour’s journey to the Beveland Peninsula. The SR-N4s didn’t go to Flushing itself but rather beaches and small harbours nearby. Aboard them went French and British soldiers. Dutch and West German civilians were officially supposed to be left behind but many of them did get aboard too. The stated maximum capacity in terms of number of passengers was far exceeded. Soldiers – and those few civilians – were crammed aboard. The vehicle decks had people sitting in them and so did the walkways through the passenger cabins. There was no room to spare aboard. One of the trio would make just two trips but the other pair made three runs each. It wasn’t to Ramsgate or anywhere else in Britain that the hovercraft went to as they dropped off their human cargoes. Instead, they went to Calais and Dunkirk. Thirty-three hundred were saved. Another five hundred lives were lost though. The six-hour operation was done in darkness with all sorts of risks taken and those caught up with it. MiG-23 attack-fighters assigned to the mission earlier in the day to stop that withdrawal towards Flushing were still flying. A pair of them caught something very unexpected on their infrared displays when making a night-time attack towards that Dutch port: the heat signature of a large vessel backing away from a beach. Salvos of rockets slammed into the Sir Christopher and she burnt quickly. Twenty, maybe thirty people got off. Hundreds more died aboard. The squeezing of so many aboard made sure that they couldn’t get away. This was one of the biggest fears of those who opposed the operation. There should have been better air cover and more planning. No more runs would be made by the other two hovercraft – Princess Margaret and Swift – afterwards. Fourteen hundred soldiers were still there in Flushing with no way out for them as daylight approached and the danger of another air attack increased dramatically.

When the majority of the men with the British 5th Brigade, along with those French reservists from their brigade, were saved, they left behind everything. Vehicles, heavy guns, all sorts of other equipment, ammunition & further supplies wasn’t taken off. The wounded were pulled out and that was a miracle indeed but only people were put onto the hovercraft through the huge bow & stern doors. However, with everything apart from packs on men’s back and rifles in their hands, what these NATO troops needed to fight with was all abandoned. Those who were left behind would be able to use some of it as they stayed and met their eventual fate but that wasn’t much of a consolation. One of the British Army’s few remaining large combat formations was no longer a fighting force. There were now just many riflemen. Paras and Gurkhas were joined with gunners, signallers, engineers, mechanics and so on with little to fight with. Saved they had been but they wouldn’t be of much use until they could be re-equipped. Moreover, what good was a part brigade like this? The men hadn’t gone onto the hovercraft in organised units. There had been chaotic loading going on. The Miracle of Flushing would remain something to be celebrated but it wasn’t going to be a victory to change the course of this war.

So Flushing in World War III became what Dunkirk was in World War II.

  Well the numbers are far less and its going to play a smaller part in the war by the sound of it but similar.  Possibly a better comparison, rather than Dunkirk would be the later withdraw of the 2nd BEF units from Brittany a couple of weeks later in the French campaign in 1940.

[redrobin65]

It seems to me that NATO is doing relatively well on the flanks/secondary fronts, but can't hold back the main Soviet attack in the Low Countries and Germany.

[James G]

Jan 15, 2020 15:49:58 GMT stevep said:

Jan 14, 2020 21:12:27 GMT James G said:

Those hovercraft: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR.N4
I went on one as a kid.

James G ,

  Good one.  I had forgotten about the hovercraft which were still very active at that time.  Very good use of them to get a number of the troops away and their speed and flexibility makes such a move a lot more practical.  The troops might not have any real equipment but in the longer term their a lot more important and also its a useful morale boost to the allies.  Pity about the Sir Christopher and the people it would have saved if it had gotten away and made a successful 3rd trip.

  Steve

I've been meaning to use them for ages and it seemed possible. 'Flights' from Flushing to Calais would be forty minutes so multiple lifts seemed workable.
My thinking was that the hovercraft were rammed full and once a fire started, those aboard were doomed. This was the worry among all those who spoke up against it though before then thousands were rescued.
These are light units and can be useful but they will miss what little heavy equipment they had to leave behind.

Jan 15, 2020 15:57:15 GMT lordroel said:

So Flushing in World War III became what Dunkirk was in World War II.

In some ways yes. NATO will play it up as another Dunkirk despite only the UK being the ones who wanted to do it.
Taking out Frenchmen as well as British soldiers will make it a bit more comparable to Dunkirk too

Jan 15, 2020 16:45:28 GMT stevep said:

  Well the numbers are far less and its going to play a smaller part in the war by the sound of it but similar.  Possibly a better comparison, rather than Dunkirk would be the later withdraw of the 2nd BEF units from Brittany a couple of weeks later in the French campaign in 1940.

IIRC, 300k went out from Dunkirk and this is about 3k.

Jan 15, 2020 17:39:52 GMT redrobin65 said:

It seems to me that NATO is doing relatively well on the flanks/secondary fronts, but can't hold back the main Soviet attack in the Low Countries and Germany.

Very well almost everywhere else.
The Western Front is what matters though.

[James G]

175 – Arc Light


B-52s were bombing Belgium again tonight. The huge American bombers with bellyfuls of high explosives were attacking forward Soviet troop positions through Flanders and across Brabant too. This was close air support for those friendly forces on the ground below. Far up in the skies above, aircraft lined up and made their attacks without seeing anyone on the ground. Forward air controllers had the task of making sure that the incoming bombs didn’t fall upon their own troops. The accuracy mattered a great deal: what good could come from bombing your own men? Inevitably, there were some mistakes made, often with misjudgement of the wind the closer to the North Sea the strikes were. However, most bombs fell upon their targets. Those who were underneath them took one hell of a punishment. Massive quantities of ordnance were being dropped. There was quite the logistics tail for the B-52s assigned to support NATO operations in Europe. It was worth it though. The devastating firepower that the four aircraft ‘cells’ would unleash when targeted perfectly was almost unimaginable. The bombs themselves did much but more than this were the concussion effects. Bombing like this had been well practised in peace and war. There was a science to it so that every weapons effect possible could be brought into play. The detonation of each bomb added to the strength of another rather than being individual. And there were a lot of bombs too. Soviet Eleventh Guards Army units were hit by these Arc Light strikes (the term when back to the Vietnam War). These were the most forward units of that field army that was fighting in the west and southern parts of Belgium. They had most anti-air platforms with them but were far beyond the edges of the real air defence network established on occupied soil. It couldn’t be said that the B-52s were able to act with impunity, but they were able to put on a good show used where they were. Had they gone deeper, to hit supply convoys or columns of tanks moving into battle, the effects would have been important but the loss rate would have been high. Protected in their mission here they had other US Air Force assigned to allow for the Arc Light strikes to take place. F-15 fighters were flying up high working with an E-3 AWACS aircraft to eliminate as best as possible enemy aircraft. Far below – keeping out of the way of those falling bombs! – were special-rolled F-4s flying Wild Weasel and Iron Hand missions. They were hitting what air defences there were with anti-radar missiles and bombs of their own. It was these F-4s which had the most dangerous tasking of all of those involved. Hunting air defences had a high casualty count for aircraft and aircrew involved.

Two of the B-52s would be hit tonight. One was taken out by a MiG which evaded the F-15s long enough to get at a departing bomber (it had already dropped its bombs) while another was struck by a SAM fired from a mobile launcher some distance away firing at long-range. Strategic Air Command would be furious. SAC had lost B-52s in various theatres of this raging war when they were preforming missions like this. The B-52s were released for non-nuclear strikes when SAC wanted to keep them all for what they saw as the inevitable nuclear exchanges. In all honestly, the loss of just two aircraft was worth it though. The B-52s put a serious hurting on the enemy. They killed riflemen and knocked out tanks & armoured vehicles. Artillery batteries had been hit with ammunition trucks exploding while heavy guns were wiped out. Engineering and communications personnel close to the frontlines were massacred as well. Physical destruction was done aplenty. Furthermore, there were civilians killed as well. None of them should have been where they were but they were… and lost their lives. The bombers flew away afterwards. Some of them went back to Britain where they had their base at RAF Fairford in Western England; others went further, all the way to Lajes Field Airbase in the Portuguese-owned Azores. At each of these facilities, there were those stocks of bombs there. Those forward operating locations were optimised for the flying of B-52 missions from them. Two squadrons of B-52s were Fairford-based while there was a third one in the Azores. They’d flown various missions throughout the war so far with each of them being similar to this. Forward Soviet units had been hit in West Germany and then Belgium. Those who’d deployed to Britain had even put bombs into overrun NATO airbases in Norfolk as well. Each time, they had come up against limited air defences. Air freighters kept on flying in new stocks of bombs to Fairford and Lajes Field yet there were already munitions on hand near to each beforehand. The resupply was needed though because these aircraft were going back-&-forth on their strike missions. They had another task though. SAC kept part-control of their operations because they were nuclear strike aircraft too. There were stand-off missiles and nuclear bombs ready to be used by the B-52s. An order to fly those missions, instead of the Arc Light ones, could come at any time.


NATO had been trying to kill Marshal Ogarkov since the war started. Soviet commandos had come very close to assassinating SACEUR with General Rogers just managing to escape a Spetsnaz ambush, but regardless of that, the Soviet theatre commander was atop the target list for a kill mission. This wasn’t about a tit-for-tat. Many lives had already been lost trying to take his. There had been NATO special forces sent out to track him down and also aircraft had made bomb runs as well. Fixed command centres such as Legnica in Poland and Zossen-Wünsdorf in East Germany had been blown to pieces but NATO was certain that Ogarkov was on the move and not hiding in a bunker somewhere. There was all sorts of intelligence information on him and his movements. The sources of that came from national intelligence agencies – CIA, NSA, MI-6, DGSE etc. – in addition to defectors to military forces plus their own intelligence gathering means in the form of signal interceptions. A worry, one which unfortunately turned out to be correct, was that false intelligence had been spread about where to find him. The Soviets had laid deceptive breadcrumbs as landmines for NATO forces to step on causing casualties in addition to pumping out lies to get NATO assets to waste their time. Their enemies could have been doing something else, the Soviet reasoning went, and so it was worth it to have them so distracted. The targeting of Ogarkov for assassination came from his position as head of the Western-TVD. This was the overall command for all Soviet and Warsaw Pact military operations in Western Europe. Rogers had a bigger role as SACEUR with his brief being European-wide (from the Arctic to the Med.) but Ogarkov was the man controlling the armies which had marched over the Rhine and were heading towards the English Channel. There was a great deal of centralised control that Ogarkov was involved in. Kill him, it was decided, and watch panic set in for some time. Of course, he would be replaced by someone else. Was there anyone quite as capable as Ogarkov though that could slot into his role? It wasn’t just his command abilities that made him who he was but how me managed the relationship while in the field with pressures coming from the KGB and Stavka. NATO decision makers didn’t think that he could be replaced with anyone who could do as he did.

Ogarkov moved around. His command post changed location every twelve hours. A new spot was chosen, one hidden with radio transmitters nowhere nearby, and to there he went. His staff on the move as their commander did was a small one. There were no flunkies in what NATO called the ‘travelling circus’. Ogarkov was protected too. Intelligence had correctly pointed to a military formation known as the 43rd Independent Regiment for Protection and Guarantee assigned: quite a mouthful and called the 43rd Security Regiment by NATO in shorthand. That unit contained over a thousand men with tanks and other combat armoured vehicles including several anti-air platforms for direct protection. The regiment’s personnel manned the command vehicles and transport too. The whole of the 43rd Regiment didn’t move around close-in with Ogarkov. It was instead broken up into company-sized task groups with bits sent to different locations. From observation, the would-be killers of Ogarkov understood that those involved in this security effort weren’t aware of their chief charge’s movements until the last minute. He and his closest staff would travel to one of the detachments seemingly at random while others waited upon his arrival which didn’t come. There were thus multiple command posts waiting ready for him at dispersed sites where Ogarkov might be… or might not. Killing Ogarkov on the move was something that was tried. He would use a light helicopter or a handful of fast vehicles to reach one of the sites where the command set-up was waiting for him. But this was far from easy to do! Several commando teams sent forward deep into the rear into areas where Ogarkov was thought to be went missing while fighters sent forward at high speed to shoot down a helicopter never reached there when penetrating deep-level air defences. At one point, Rogers considered ordering a cancellation of these operations. He saw it as wasteful, especially after Ogarkov was known to be now present in West Germany rather than in East Germany: there were more places for him to be hiding. The Joint Chiefs wouldn’t accept that though. This became an American obsession – NATO allies would like to see it done but had other concerns – and that went all the way to the top. President Reagan himself was brought into this: take out this marshal, he ordered.

The Americans got Ogarkov tonight. They killed the senior Soviet commander for combat operations in Europe. Operation Monk Arrow was a success.

A Green Beret team found his command post in the hilly Ith region of West Germany near to Hameln. Signals intelligence coming from a satellite source confirmed what those on the ground were seeing. The special forces A Team were watching a 43rd Security Regiment detachment when the NSA told that Joint Chiefs that this was Ogarkov’s command post. The mission was time sensitive yet it was one which had political involvement. Reagan was informed when it was underway. In theory, he could have called it off. He sent his best wishes to those involved instead: he wasn’t going to interfere at a time like this. His defence secretary had some wish to have his input in this but, as was the case with the president, the strike was already underway. Those on the ground, very far behind enemy lines, used their laser-designators to highlight two of the tracked command vehicles. Ogarkov was believed to be in one of them. There was a short wait for what came next: that wait seemed extraordinary long for those on the ground even though it wasn’t. Then, there were a pair of huge explosions. Neither the Green Berets nor the air defence team below saw the lone F-117 which dropped two 2000lb GBU-10 Paveway bombs. That stealth aircraft was already heading back to its base in South Wales when the detonations occurred. Secretary of Defence Weinberger would have liked to have those special forces men go in afterwards and physically confirm that Ogarkov was dead but those Green Berets were on the move straight away as per their mission orders. Hanging around after this was far from a good idea. They had a long journey westward ahead of them with much enemy-held terrain to cross. Walking into the hornet’s nest where what remained of Ogarkov’s security team where wasn’t something that they would stand any chance of walking away from.

Later confirmatory intelligence would see Reagan would make public the killing the next day. Monk Arrow was something to be celebrated and a piece of propaganda to make much use of. As to the predicted effects upon the war, those would be correct… and wrong too. This was going to change a lot of things. Some effects would be felt quickly while others would come into play in time. What they would be remained to be seen.

[James G]

Whacking the Soviet theatre C-in-C: good idea, bad idea?

[stevep]

Jan 15, 2020 19:39:30 GMT James G said:

Jan 15, 2020 15:57:15 GMT lordroel said:

So Flushing in World War III became what Dunkirk was in World War II.

In some ways yes. NATO will play it up as another Dunkirk despite only the UK being the ones who wanted to do it.
Taking out Frenchmen as well as British soldiers will make it a bit more comparable to Dunkirk too

Jan 15, 2020 16:45:28 GMT stevep said:

  Well the numbers are far less and its going to play a smaller part in the war by the sound of it but similar.  Possibly a better comparison, rather than Dunkirk would be the later withdraw of the 2nd BEF units from Brittany a couple of weeks later in the French campaign in 1940.

IIRC, 300k went out from Dunkirk and this is about 3k.

   Gods that is smaller than I was thinking.  I was referring to Operation_Aerial, which says:

From the end of Operation Dynamo at Dunkirk, Operation Cycle from Le Havre, elsewhere along the Channel coast and the termination of Operation Aerial, another 191,870 troops were rescued

  Didn't realise so many troops were involved in France after Dynamo finished!

[stevep]

Jan 16, 2020 9:36:53 GMT James G said:

Whacking the Soviet theatre C-in-C: good idea, bad idea?

  Could go either way, depending on relations inside the Soviet system and who replaces him.  One problem is that if the Soviet leadership think the west are using their methods they could fear assassination themselves, which might make them even rasher.  Another is that the new commander might be more unpredictable.  Your made clear that nukes will be coming and the reactions of a new Soviet front commander could be a factor in this.  Plus as you say valuable resources have been put into this that could have been more effective elsewhere.  Relatively small forces possibly - other than in intelligence - but specialised ones.

  Good hits by the B-52's.  Hopefully the 11GA will be at least stalled for a while, probably influenced by Ogarkov's death.  As well as weakened somewhat.  However it looks like it needs a hell of a lot more to stem the Soviet advance.  Given B2 losses are lower and what we know about integral supply meaning attacks on supply lines would be relatively ineffective it does seem a better use than attempting deeper attacks.

  One small typo in the chapter.

The Green Berets nor the air defence team below saw the lone F-117 which dropped two 2000lb GBU-10 Paveway bombs

  Assuming there should be a Neither at the start of the sentence?

[James G]

Jan 16, 2020 11:54:42 GMT stevep said:

Jan 16, 2020 9:36:53 GMT James G said:

Whacking the Soviet theatre C-in-C: good idea, bad idea?

  Could go either way, depending on relations inside the Soviet system and who replaces him.  One problem is that if the Soviet leadership think the west are using their methods they could fear assassination themselves, which might make them even rasher.  Another is that the new commander might be more unpredictable.  Your made clear that nukes will be coming and the reactions of a new Soviet front commander could be a factor in this.  Plus as you say valuable resources have been put into this that could have been more effective elsewhere.  Relatively small forces possibly - other than in intelligence - but specialised ones.

  Good hits by the B-52's.  Hopefully the 11GA will be at least stalled for a while, probably influenced by Ogarkov's death.  As well as weakened somewhat.  However it looks like it needs a hell of a lot more to stem the Soviet advance.  Given B2 losses are lower and what we know about integral supply meaning attacks on supply lines would be relatively ineffective it does seem a better use than attempting deeper attacks.

  One small typo in the chapter.

The Green Berets nor the air defence team below saw the lone F-117 which dropped two 2000lb GBU-10 Paveway bombs

  Assuming there should be a Neither at the start of the sentence?

I asked because I decided to do it in a rash, abandoning my draft plan for what would occur and had doubts afterwards. With reflection, I think it was a good move story-wise.
They will be worried about that threat in Moscow indeed!
Ah, as to those on the receiving end of the bombs in Belgium, that is going to cause an unexpected reaction.
It was wise to use those bombers on the edge of the battlefield. They'd be massacred in deep strikes for no good reason.
Fixed the typo, thank you.

[James G]

176 – Let bygones be bygones


Algeria was a former colony of France and relations between the two nations in 1987 weren’t at their best. A lot of that was due to historical animosity but French influence through North Africa among neighbours of Algeria had led to recent tensions. Algeria was maintaining its neutrality during the Third World War with no interest in getting involved. Its economy was under threat due it being a hydrocarbon exporting nation to Western Europe – France and Italy being chief customers – but the war hadn’t come to the nation. In Algiers, the French had an embassy there (along with consulates elsewhere) and there had been wartime diplomatic activity around it. The Algerians had seen how things had been going with other embassies in neutral countries and made sure that those on their soil respected their neutrality. The compounds of Soviet and Warsaw Pact nations likewise received the same message that the French and NATO ones did: no funny business or you will all be thrown out of here. There had been gunfire and bombings in other neutral capitals but not in Algiers. A message had come to the French Embassy today from the Soviet Embassy. This was done in a peaceful manner under the watchful of the Algerians. Contact was being made through this diplomatic link between Ligachev’s regime and that of President Mitterrand. An offer was made to France.

Mitterrand was quickly briefed upon that. The head of the DGSE, General René Imbot, came to him with news of the contents of that hand-delivered message for the president’s attention delivered through the embassy in Algiers. The Soviet Union was offering a cessation of conflict between the two countries. It wasn’t phrased as a demand or showed any sign of Soviet weakness either. Instead, it was in the words of Imbot, as if Ligachev was saying to Mitterrand let bygones be bygones on the matter of the ongoing war between our two countries. The offer for an end to the fighting made mention of certain particulars. French POWs would be returned within seven days. There would be no border crossing into French territory. At the end of the conflict which Soviet forces were having with other countries, Soviet forces would withdraw from Belgium and the French zones of occupation in West Germany bordering France which were a hold-over from the last world war. Ligachev’s message said that the Soviet Union had already signalled its intent to end fighting with France due to the recent halting of attacks against France itself. He spoke too of how where the Rhine ran along the border with West Germany, France hadn’t been entered there and there was a ‘buffer zone’ which Soviet forces inside Belgium hadn’t moved into so they weren’t directly on France’s frontiers there as well. Soviet forces had no intention of taking the war into the French Republic, the message went on. It urged for Mitterrand to consider the defeat staring France in the face when continuing to fight alongside the Americans and the British. No longer fight with them and restore French sovereignty, Ligachev concluded, to allow for peace to come between our two great nations.

Imbot pointed out the many things that the message didn’t mention. There was nothing about West Berlin and also Soviet captives in French custody. The future of West Germany wasn’t mentioned nor what would occur with Belgium when the Soviets apparently pulled out of there. Talk of future Franco-Soviet relations wasn’t brought up either. There was nothing in the message too about any other areas of the world where French and Soviet interests – such as the Middle East – clashed through their allies. Imbot pointed out that there was nothing in this all about what the Soviets intended to do while they were still at war with other countries near to France as well. Oh… and nowhere in the offer – a ‘generous offer’, Ligachev had said – were nuclear weapons brought up either. Offering a professional opinion, France’s top spymaster conceded that this was overall a generous offer. It was giving France a way out of the war and seemingly giving France an excuse to do that. However, in Imbot’s opinion, it would be something to consider if France was on its knees. France wasn’t though. More than that, it wasn’t something that could be trusted. How could Ligachev be trusted to keep his word. Hadn’t be only a few days ago sent his assassins to try to kill Mitterrand? There were so many other outrages that the Soviets had undertaken too. The list was extensive but Imbot highlighted how only yesterday, Shultz and Genscher had appeared on Soviet television ‘confessing’ NATO’s attack that started this war. The US Secretary of State and West German Foreign Minister had been kidnapped in Vienna at the start of the war when duped by Soviet pretence of crisis talks: now the KGB was having them tell the biggest of all lies. France and its people had been gravely hurt by Soviet actions on home soil as well as abroad. Neighbouring countries were being occupied with brutality involved against helpless civilians. Soldiers in the uniform of France were being mistreated.

Mitterrand knew all of this. There hadn’t been a moment that he had considered doing this. Imbot was only reminding him how foolish it would be to do such a thing. France had long-standing issues with its own sovereignty within NATO but those were disagreements among firm allies. Turning his back on countries who’d had so many soldiers die alongside French ones, throwing away the geo-political security of being a NATO member, trusting Soviet assurances over France’s neighbours… that was madness! Ligachev couldn’t be trusted. His word meant nothing to Mitterrand due to all that had happened in the previous six days, even beyond that too due to pre-war events. That included the attempt on Mitterrand’s life in the war’s opening minutes! The Soviet leader was also trying to play him for a fool too. Look at what was happening tonight inside France’s borders that the Soviet Army was apparently wasn’t going to approach, let alone cross. Ligachev had his tanks on French soil already!


Late that evening, about an hour before Mitterrand received that message via Algiers, the French town of Maubeuge was entered by tanks coming down from Belgium. Maubeuge was located only a few miles south of the frontier and alongside the Sambre River. A regiment of tanks and infantry carriers – T-72s and BMP-1s – rolled around the flank of French troops fighting over to the north and met resistance here. They responded with everything they had and blasted Maubeuge’s defenders, smashing up large parts of the town at the same time. Afterwards, they went eastwards and looped back into Belgium again. The French reservists manning blocking positions had been overcome in short order. There were unknown but certainly high numbers of civilian casualties. The Sambre hadn’t been crossed due to the attacking Soviets turning away at the last minute but that river was open to them if they had chosen to do so: there was no French force of any note nearby. This attack happened while French troops were fighting in the wider Charleroi area and were being torn apart there. The 27th Alpine Division, joined by the 127th Reserve Brigade as well as bits and pieces of many light reserve units, were losing a night-time fight against two Soviet tank divisions. The swing through the Maubeuge area had turned their flank. The French High Command believed that by dawn tomorrow, there would be no effective fighting force there of Frenchmen. Instead, the Soviets would have those two Eleventh Guards Army divisions there with another three tank divisions coming down from the Netherlands with the Third Shock Army about to reinforce them. A five division force would be a couple of hours away from Paris with no one in their way.

This was how Mitterrand, Imbot and General Saulnier (France’s military head) understood what had happened at Maubeuge. They got the news of that just ahead of Ligachev’s offer to let bygones be bygones. It looked connected, an intimidation measure. It wasn’t the case though. What happened with that little French town was all a series of unfortunate, interlinked events. The Soviet’s 1st Tank Division had received firm orders in the preceding hours not to go within fifteen kilometres of France. They were attacking French forward defensive positions between Brussels and Charleroi: Charleroi was just inside the exclusion zone which the headquarters of the Eleventh Guards Army, the Third Western Front and the Western-TVD all said wasn’t to be entered. The SHAPE complex – abandoned by NATO – was on the edge of that though, just inside free roaming areas. To there had gone the 117th Tank Regiment with a KGB detachment on an intelligence tasking. Fighting against French and sometimes Belgian infantry, the 117th Regiment had got there with ease. Into the skies above them came those American B-52s on their Arc Light strikes. At the urging of the senior KGB man, who was exerting much pressure on the regimental commander than he should have been allowed to, the regiment went on the move to get away from them. They were supposed to have gone east. They went south. Navigation problems in the dark was a major issue especially for units seeing combat deep in hostile territory for the first time like the 117th Regiment was. Still… couldn’t they read a compass? Apparently not. They went past Mons – going into there would have shown the regimental colonel straight away what had gone wrong – and southwards over into France. Fire from old anti-tank guns and lots of rifles met them near to a town which misidentified as Nivelles. That was Belgian town which was one nothing like Maubeuge. Only when one of the battalion commanding majors saw a road sign and also had a captive interrogated was the mistake understood. Now, after this, the 117th Regiment suddenly learnt how a compass and map can be handy for navigation. An eastwards turn was finally made, going into Belgium towards Charleroi from behind but that city was avoided as the Soviet vehicles got further and further way from where they had been by going north now. The commanding colonel was of mind to keep his mouth shut. Perhaps no one would notice his error? That KGB man was already on the radio though and the divisional commander was informed when Chekists were overheard talking to each other at his command post. What the 117th Regiment had done was realised. He reported up the command chain to his army headquarters who then in turn spoke to the front commander. Marshal Ogarkov was being informed of what exactly had happened at the very moment that the Americans dropped those laser-guided bombs on his command vehicle in far off West Germany.

It was all a cock-up. Idiots had done something stupid in the heat of the moment when they were under attack. It was something bound to happen though. Before he was assassinated in such a fashion as he was, joining Admiral Yamamoto in sharing a similar fate, Ogarkov had mentioned the chance of something like this occurring when talking with Stavka about their restrictions on how close his tanks could come to the Franco-Belgian border. The High Command hadn’t agreed. With tight operational control, such incidents wouldn’t happen. Well, that was shown to be a false hope. Ogarkov had been correct. If Operation Monk Arrow had failed, it wouldn’t have mattered because this was already done. At least he wasn’t around to see the fallout which would come.


The contents of Ligachev’s message, plus the details of the particulars of how the communication was made, were shared by Mitterrand among his allies. He told the Americans and the British first before afterwards seeing that the West Germans and the rest of NATO knew what had happened. Imbot wasn’t so sure if France should be revealing all of this, at least beyond the Americans and British, but his president disagreed. In talking with Prime Minister Whitelaw, Mitterrand congratulated the British forces on their London victory and sent his best wishes to the success of the UK mission, as well as France’s gratitude, to save as many British & French troops from Flushing as possible. He told Thatcher’s successor – while thinking how different this war would have been for Anglo-French relations if she was still alive – that France wasn’t going to be backing out of this war. Whitelaw would take him at his word: unlike Ligachev, Whitelaw could trust the word of the French president. Britain’s wartime leader sent warm words in return but also asked for something personally which was being held up in diplomatic channels. France was asked to officially warn neutral nations such as Argentina and Guatemala not to attack British territory & interests (the Falklands and Belize) while the UK was at war… the same was something that Britain wanted France to do with regard to Gibraltar and the Spanish. At American prodding, Britain was moving uncommitted forces from distant places back towards Europe. Whitelaw’s War Cabinet feared territorial aggression. A Guatemalan action was more likely than another Argentinian attack in the South Atlantic. Mitterrand expressed willingness to do as the Americans had done and make those regimes aware of how Britain and France were fighting shoulder to shoulder so any attack would be a very bad idea but the Gibraltar issue was something that Mitterrand tried to convince Whitelaw that shouldn’t be done. Spain was an ally! They were sending men to fight in France to follow aircraft and warships already in action as part of NATO. They wouldn’t attack Gibraltar if British troops there pulled out to man the frontlines against the Soviets and Mitterrand wouldn’t himself, nor did he really think Whitelaw should do anything like that, in telling the Spanish not to dare launch a land grab. It would cause much offense and inter-allied problems at such a time as this. Whitelaw made reasonable noises but didn’t say the UK itself wouldn’t do that. Mitterrand stressed once more that that was something he didn’t think should be done at all.

Vice President Bush took Mitterrand’s call due to Reagan being ‘indisposed’: he was in the middle of something else of great importance which Bush couldn’t let on about at this time. However, he spoke for his president when he assured France’s leader that America stood alongside France in rebuffing this Soviet offer to drive a wedge between key allies. Bush thanked Mitterrand for the candid attitude shown in the intelligence sharing here and reminded him that a huge army was in the final stages of getting ready to step across the ocean to fight alongside France. National Guard forces in number were almost ready to set sail: they would be in Europe soon and ready to take the fight to the Soviets like everyone else already in Europe was. As to Soviet promises, Bush spoke of how they couldn’t be trusted. He brought up the Shultz issue too. American intelligence agencies had confirmed that that was him in that footage being shown to the Soviet people. He had to have had a gun to his head or was drugged, Bush speculated. Mitterrand added to this that he expected to see other high-profile captives of a political nature – many prominent West Germans were missing – soon start to make appearances too. The call ended with Bush promising that Reagan would soon be in touch himself yet France could be certain that the alliance between the two countries was firm. Mitterrand had some of his ministers and officials contact other government heads though he spoke himself to Manfred Wörner. The West German Chancellor was still on his country’s own soil – in Saarbrücken, right on the French border though – whereas the governments of Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands had already set themselves up in exile in France. Wörner was given Mitterrand’s word that France wasn’t backing out of this war and leaving West Germans to their doom. This was welcomed but Wörner expressed concern. France’s border had been crossed, West Germany’s wartime emergency leader said, and its forces in Belgium beaten. Please don’t make my country a nuclear battlefield in response!

Mitterrand told him what his response was going to be to Ligachev’s offer and the border crossing. It was one which he had informed Whitelaw and Bush about too. Their responses were the same as Wörner’s was but Mitterrand wouldn’t be dissuaded. France had to act.


End of Part Five

[James G]

There will be another Interlude up next: three or four updates on a particular focus.
Then back to the main story as and end approaches (still some time off in real time though).