The Second Battle of Britain - a Soviet Sealion

[James G]

203 – Counter maskirovka


In the early hours of September 2nd, first one and then a second regiment of Tu-16 missile-bombers lifted off from naval airbases in the Kola Peninsula. The Badgers climbed into the sky heading north first before they would swing west once out over the Barents Sea. Two more regiments of newer Tu-22M Backfires followed them some time later. Soviet Naval Aviation had over ninety strike aircraft in the sky. This was the first time in the war they had done this and it was no easy task to get so many aircraft up in a short period of time and then keep them under control as they headed towards combat. The timing wasn’t great and the information on their targets still not as firm as would have been liked. However, if what intelligence there was proved correct, the air armada heading first over the Barents Sea and then across the Norwegian Sea were going to strike gold: two US Navy aircraft carriers with their escorting battle groups. A fantastic opportunity was here. This wasn’t one to be passed up!

The bombers, all of them each carrying two anti-ship cruise missiles, lost a few of their number when those turned back for home due to engine trouble and other malfunctions. There would be hell to pay for those on the ground because these aircraft were meant to have been kept in perfect condition for the moment when the call came to fly. The rest carried on though, arranged into squadron formations now. Further away from home they went, out over the lonely dark seas on the edges of the Arctic. Greenland and Iceland were ahead but the bombers weren’t heading to either of them. Those carriers which they came out to kill wouldn’t be close to land but rather out to sea. Ready and equipped to kill them, the Badgers and Backfires needed someone else to find them first.

Individual Tu-95 Bears on reconnaissance tasks were out ahead, guiding the incoming bombers towards those targets. These huge aircraft with quite the endurance were flying around in hostile skies seemingly begging to be shot down by a NATO fighter pilot aiming to increase his wartime kill total. They had no defences nor the ability to successfully evade any attack. They were not out here to fight though. Four of them were flying tonight and two of them had a certain fix upon the American’s capital ships. This information had been checked and checked again, all at great risk, with no sign of enemy deception. The US Navy appeared to not have seen them and had left a gap in their defences. The bombers from Kola had been brought out to take advantage of what had been found. Closer and closer the bombers came, splitting up as they closed the distance towards where the Americans were in the central portion of the Norwegian Sea. The attack was being commanded by the senior on-scene officer aboard one of the Bears. Everything his radar screens and electronic detection systems were showing him told him where to find those American carriers. He brought the bombers towards them. The attack he plotted was certain to be a brilliant one. From multiple directions, they would all come in at once and fire their weapons beyond the range of the immediate defences. The US Navy would have to cover many different approaches all while caught napping. They’d get some of the cruise missiles – none of the bombers which would depart afterwards should be caught – but nowhere near enough. Originally planned as a nuclear strike, those carriers would be killed with conventional warheads tonight. There’d be more than a hundred and eighty cruise missiles in the sky. Could the US Navy deal with a strike like that, even with one of its new AEGIS missile-cruisers reported as being present? No, not a chance. Once this was all done, should he and this aircraft manage to survive the Americans lashing out once they realised what had happened, he was hoping for a medal and promotion. He would claim full credit for the success sure to come.

Towards the plotted carrier groups the bombers came…

…and into an ambush.

There were no carriers where Soviet Naval Aviation thought there would be. They’d been faked out, the victims of a counter maskirovka. The US Navy was getting its revenge for all that had been done to it during the war and that revenge was a dish best served cold. Ice cold. The deception was achieved by ‘unguarded’ radio signals and ‘accidental’ radar emissions. A couple of warships mounting radar reflectors were down below with those aboard having no choice but to take their chances while being the sacrificial lambs for this mission yet that was judged worth it. Years of studying the Soviets in peacetime and during the last week & a half of warfare, the US Navy had correctly predicted what their opponents would do. They had to dangle the bait – not too much but not too little either – and have the courage to wait it out. Rushing and making a panicky move would mean they would only get themselves a couple of Bears, not multiple regiments of Badgers and Backfires.

At the very last minute, that mission commander, who’d been daydreaming of his new rank and the power that would come with that, saw it. There was just something not right. Soon, his crew were shouting warnings with some of them cursing loudly as they realised that they were doomed. He broadcast an alert, over an open radio link and in the clear, but it was far too late. His radar screen was suddenly filled with enemy fighters streaming towards the bombers. One was coming toward his aircraft too with a missile already on the way. Closing his eyes, he waited for the inevitable…

There were F-14 Tomcats from the carriers USS John F. Kennedy as well as some of the USS Coral Sea’s F/A-18 Hornets. Coming from out of Iceland and Norway, the US Air Force joined this ambush using F-15 Eagles. It was a US Navy led mission but the presence of the F-15s was vital. A lot of interceptors, long-range ones too, were needed. The USAF had helped out with specialist electronic warfare tasks as well. USN airborne control aircraft, their E-2 Hawkeyes acting as AWACS platforms when flying from the two carriers, brought it all together. On command, into the bomber streams went air-to-air missiles from the American fighters. Those shot all across the sky. Kills were made quickly and wreckage fell to the ocean below. Other bombers managed to survive the opening barrages and evaded. They were big targets but they were fast aircraft, the Backfires especially. Payloads were jettisoned and they tried to run while activating jammers. The Soviet weren’t as fast as the missiles coming at them and some of those had been fired in the home-on-jam mode too. More targets went down, all without being able to shoot back.

In the end, when it was all over, the Americans had taken down sixty-eight bombers along with three of those reconnaissance Bears. They’d gotten almost all of the Badgers and more than half of the Backfires. Scattering like they had, the Soviets had managed to save more than two dozen aircraft because their opponents had focused on the ones right in front of them and couldn’t chase them all home. However, this was little consolation. Soviet Naval Aviation had had its bomber fleet massacred. They been lured into a trap and achieved absolutely nothing in return. The loss of those bombers (plus their cruise missiles which they dropped over the sea to lose weight) would hurt. There would be high-fives for the Americans to give each other. They’d done well and this was a victory to celebrate.


A couple of hundred miles away from where that ambush took place, there was a US Navy submarine on the far side of the Barents Sea. USS Boston was close to Novaya Zemlya, that lonely and barren island on which the other side lay the Kara Sea. The Boston was here seeking submarines making their way into the Kara Sea. The Soviets had established a bastion in there for their strategic missile submarines. Defended on all side by aircraft, helicopters, warships, submarines & mines, it was a fortress. The Boston wouldn’t be going in there! Standing orders were for this submarine to attack submarines heading that way. Those orders were over nineteen hours old – the last time contact had been made between the Boston and SUBLANT – and included permission to use nuclear weapons while doing so. Since then, messages had been sent to the Boston countermanding the nuclear permission while leaving others standing. No reply back to SUBLANT had come though. The submarine had taken battle damage yesterday. She couldn’t receive nor reply to communications. This was a bad state of affairs but there had been no question of the mission being called off. The Boston was at war and while the communications loss wasn’t good, there was still a fight on.

Both the DIA and the NSA said that the Boston had been sunk: they had independently gained tactical intelligence that said she was a total loss. The British had told SUBLANT that they too believed the Boston destroyed in battle. Still, those messages were sent out informing the submarine that no further nuclear attacks were to be made. None of those reports of loss could confirm beyond doubt the Boston was no more. No response could have just meant that she couldn’t broadcast but could still receive. At SUBLANT, they kept their fingers crossed on this. Perhaps they should have kept their toes crossed too? Either way, with no new orders were received and the Boston a submarine at war in a high threat environment, she carried out her standing orders to make war on the Soviet Navy.

Coming from the Kola naval base of Gremikha was an enemy vessel. It was a Delta-class strategic missile submarine. A new mod. 4 version of the class (the Soviets called it a Project 667), there were sixteen intercontinental ballistic missiles aboard with each one capable of carrying up to ten warheads that could be individually targeted. Potentially, there were one hundred and sixty American cities that this submarine could wipe from the face of the earth. The Boston manoeuvred slowly into position for a kill shot. Patience was needed in this and so it took time. The intention on the part of the Boston’s captain was to use non-nuclear torpedoes close-in for this. However, into the immediate area came a surface contact up above. There was a destroyer now present, one certain to be carrying a sub-hunting helicopter that the Americans could not yet see. It didn’t appear to be providing direct escort for that Delta but it was here. Already battle-damaged, the Boston was at serious risk when faced with that destroyer and especially its helicopter. Backing away, the submarine’s captain put some distance between him and his target while preparing for a long-range attack. The Delta was still being tracked while ears were listening for any sign of that helicopter. More patience was needed all while the Boston’s target got closer to the outer defences of the Kara Sea bastion.

Finally, hearing it using its dipping sonar, the position of the helicopter was plotted. There was a gap between where it was, the destroyer was and where the Delta was. A pair of UUM-44 were shot off. The Boston launched rocket-powered capsules from her torpedo tubes. Those raced to the surface and then sped away above the sea. Over where the target was, depth bombs fell away from them. These were nuclear armed. Two huge underwater explosions occurred when the warheads went off. The Delta and her fearful payload was no more.

Unknowingly, the Boston had just broken the US-Soviet agreed nuclear truce a few hours after it had come into force. It was a legitimate attack for the Boston to make. The Soviet Navy had done what the US Navy had done and told their political masters that there might be accidents such as this with submarines & other assets in combat who were out of communication. These warnings had been made by those in uniform to the politicians several times in the most serious manner. Yet… when news came from the Barents Sea that one of their missile submarines had just been eliminated in a nuclear attack (that destroyer got off an urgent radio message after being torpedoed by the Boston in a conventional attack), those on the Soviet Defence Council weren’t going to be so understanding. They counted off the incidents like this.

One: the Americans had attacked them in the Middle East several times in quick succession with conventional strikes back in mid-August.

Two: in late August, while fighting a conventional war, the Americans had used nuclear weapons first and without warning against them.

Three: now in September, just after saying they would stop using nuclear weapons, the Americans had made another nuclear attack where they took out such a boat as that Delta was (another one had been sunk before too).

Were they supposed to do nothing in response? Were they supposed to listen to and believe whatever lies Reagan told them this time? No, they wouldn’t. They had been deceived with American trickery, strategic maskirovka it seemed, but were no longer going to stand for it. A response was proposed though first there came more troubling news from out of the Middle East which the Soviet leadership would regard as forcing their hand.

[James G]

Iran will be the focus of tomorrow's update.
How do you say 'jeez, that's a nice looking set of mushroom clouds' in Persian?

[stevep]

Feb 18, 2020 20:09:54 GMT James G said:

Feb 18, 2020 12:39:00 GMT stevep said:

   James G ,

   Well that's a relief in terms of Germany although the appeasers will gain more support when it leaks that France stopped a collection of Germany politicians surrendering albeit that they were using decided unconstitutional means.  Also good that the mole was caught, both before he could leak out what happened and to stop him doing more.

  Pity about Turkey but probably only to be expected.  Its a lot easier to jump ship in a democratic alliance than in a totalitarian empire.  One question is will Turkey allow free use of the straits for Soviet forces?  If so I can see the US especially being unhappy.

  The question is now Turkey has acted will any others seek to follow?

  Steve

Yep, France was not going to stand for that being done on its territory. It had been coming for a while and they were aware.
Turkey will not be opening up the Straits. Much of the Soviet's Black Sea Fleet, the big ships, were already out though after leaving in peacetime.
Whether others will follow will be seen in the war's next few hours (the next few days updates in real time) as things get really bad really fast.

  Ugh!

[stevep]

Feb 18, 2020 20:15:55 GMT James G said:

203 – Counter maskirovka


In the early hours of September 2nd, first one and then a second regiment of Tu-16 missile-bombers lifted off from naval airbases in the Kola Peninsula. The Badgers climbed into the sky heading north first before they would swing west once out over the Barents Sea. Two more regiments of newer Tu-22M Backfires followed them some time later. Soviet Naval Aviation had over ninety strike aircraft in the sky. This was the first time in the war they had done this and it was no easy task to get so many aircraft up in a short period of time and then keep them under control as they headed towards combat. The timing wasn’t great and the information on their targets still not as firm as would have been liked. However, if what intelligence there was proved correct, the air armada heading first over the Barents Sea and then across the Norwegian Sea were going to strike gold: to US Navy aircraft carriers with their escorting battle groups. A fantastic opportunity was here. This wasn’t one to be passed up!

The bombers, all of them each carrying two anti-ship cruise missiles, lost a few of their number when those turned back for home due to engine trouble and other malfunctions. There would be hell to pay for those on the ground because these aircraft were meant to have been kept in perfect condition for the moment when the call came to fly. The rest carried on though, arranged into squadron formations now. Further away from home they went, out over the lonely dark seas on the edges of the Arctic. Greenland and Iceland were ahead but the bombers weren’t heading to either of them. Those carriers which they came out to kill wouldn’t be close to land but rather out to sea. Ready and equipped to kill them, the Badgers and Backfires needed someone else to find them first.

Individual Tu-95 Bears on reconnaissance tasks were out ahead, guiding the incoming bombers towards those targets. These huge aircraft with quite the endurance were flying around in hostile skies seemingly begging to be shot down by a NATO fighter pilot aiming to increase his wartime kill total. They had no defences nor the ability to successfully evade any attack. They were not out here to fight though. Four of them were flying tonight and two of them had a certain fix upon the American’s capital ships. This information had been checked and checked again, all at great risk, with no sign of enemy deception. The US Navy appeared to not have seen them and had left a gap in their defences. The bombers from Kola had been brought out to take advantage of what had been found. Closer and closer the bombers came, splitting up as they closed the distance towards where the Americans were in the central portion of the Norwegian Sea. The attack was being commanded by the senior on-scene officer aboard one of the Bears. Everything his radar screens and electronic detection systems were showing him told him where to find those American carriers. He brought the bombers towards them. The attack he plotted was certain to be a brilliant one. From multiple directions, they would all come in at once and fire their weapons beyond the range of the immediate defences. The US Navy would have to cover many different approaches all while caught napping. They’d get some of the cruise missiles – none of the bombers which would depart afterwards should be caught – but nowhere near enough. Originally planned as a nuclear strike, those carriers would be killed with conventional warheads tonight. There’d be more than a hundred and eighty cruise missiles in the sky. Could the US Navy deal with a strike like that, even with one of its new AEGIS missile-cruisers reported as being present? No, not a chance. Once this was all done, should he and this aircraft manage to survive the Americans lashing out once they realised what had happened, he was hoping for a medal and promotion. He would claim full credit for the success sure to come.

Towards the plotted carrier groups the bombers came…

…and into an ambush.

There were no carriers where Soviet Naval Aviation thought there would be. They’d been faked out, the victims of a counter maskirovka. The US Navy was getting its revenge for all that had been done to it during the war and that revenge was a dish best served cold. Ice cold. The deception was achieved by ‘unguarded’ radio signals and ‘accidental’ radar emissions. A couple of warships mounting radar reflectors were down below with those aboard having no choice but to take their chances while being the sacrificial lambs for this mission yet that was judged worth it. Years of studying the Soviets in peacetime and during the last week & a half of warfare, the US Navy had correctly predicted what their opponents would do. They had to dangle the bait – not too much but not too little either – and have the courage to wait it out. Rushing and making a panicky move would mean they would only get themselves a couple of Bears, not multiple regiments of Badgers and Backfires.

At the very last minute, that mission commander, who’d been daydreaming of his new rank and the power that would come with that, saw it. There was just something not right. Soon, his crew were shouting warnings with some of them cursing loudly as they realised that they were doomed. He broadcast an alert, over an open radio link and in the clear, but it was far too late. His radar screen was suddenly filled with enemy fighters streaming towards the bombers. One was coming toward his aircraft too with a missile already on the way. Closing his eyes, he waited for the inevitable…

There were F-14 Tomcats from the carriers USS John F. Kennedy as well as some of the USS Coral Sea’s F/A-18 Hornets. Coming from out of Iceland and Norway, the US Air Force joined this ambush using F-15 Eagles. It was a US Navy led mission but the presence of the F-15s was vital. A lot of interceptors, long-range ones too, were needed. The USAF had helped out with specialist electronic warfare tasks as well. USN airborne control aircraft, their E-2 Hawkeyes acting as AWACS platforms when flying from the two carriers, brought it all together. On command, into the bomber streams went air-to-air missiles from the American fighters. Those shot all across the sky. Kills were made quickly and wreckage fell to the ocean below. Other bombers managed to survive the opening barrages and evaded. They were big targets but they were fast aircraft, the Backfires especially. Payloads were jettisoned and they tried to run while activating jammers. The Soviet weren’t as fast as the missiles coming at them and some of those had been fired in the home-on-jam mode too. More targets went down, all without being able to shoot back.

In the end, when it was all over, the Americans had taken down sixty-eight bombers along with three of those reconnaissance Bears. They’d gotten almost all of the Badgers and more than half of the Backfires. Scattering like they had, the Soviets had managed to save more than two dozen aircraft because their opponents had focused on the ones right in front of them and couldn’t chase them all home. However, this was little consolation. Soviet Naval Aviation had had its bomber fleet massacred. They been lured into a trap and achieved absolutely nothing in return. The loss of those bombers (plus their cruise missiles which they dropped over the sea to lose weight) would hurt. There would be high-fives for the Americans to give each other. They’d done well and this was a victory to celebrate.


A couple of hundred miles away from where that ambush took place, there was a US Navy submarine on the far side of the Barents Sea. USS Boston was close to Novaya Zemlya, that lonely and barren island on which the other side lay the Kara Sea. The Boston was here seeking submarines making their way into the Kara Sea. The Soviets had established a bastion in there for their strategic missile submarines. Defended on all side by aircraft, helicopters, warships, submarines & mines, it was a fortress. The Boston wouldn’t be going in there! Standing orders were for this submarine to attack submarines heading that way. Those orders were over nineteen hours old – the last time contact had been made between the Boston and SUBLANT – and included permission to use nuclear weapons while doing so. Since then, messages had been sent to the Boston countermanding the nuclear permission while leaving others standing. No reply back to SUBLANT had come though. The submarine had taken battle damage yesterday. She couldn’t receive nor reply to communications. This was a bad state of affairs but there had been no question of the mission being called off. The Boston was at war and while the communications loss wasn’t good, there was still a fight on.

Both the DIA and the NSA said that the Boston had been sunk: they had independently gained tactical intelligence that said she was a total loss. The British had told SUBLANT that they too believed the Boston destroyed in battle. Still, those messages were sent out informing the submarine that no further nuclear attacks were to be made. None of those reports of loss could confirm beyond doubt the Boston was no more. No response could have just meant that she couldn’t broadcast but could still receive. At SUBLANT, they kept their fingers crossed on this. Perhaps they should have kept their toes crossed too? Either way, with no new orders were received and the Boston a submarine at war in a high threat environment, she carried out her standing orders to make war on the Soviet Navy.

Coming from the Kola naval base of Gremikha was an enemy vessel. It was a Delta-class strategic missile submarine. A new mod. 4 version of the class (the Soviets called it a Project 667), there were sixteen intercontinental ballistic missiles aboard with each one capable of carrying up to ten warheads that could be individually targeted. Potentially, there were one hundred and sixty American cities that this submarine could wipe from the face of the earth. The Boston manoeuvred slowly into position for a kill shot. Patience was needed in this and so it took time. The intention on the part of the Boston’s captain was to use non-nuclear torpedoes close-in for this. However, into the immediate area came a surface contact up above. There was a destroyer now present, one certain to be carrying a sub-hunting helicopter that the Americans could not yet see. It didn’t appear to be providing direct escort for that Delta but it was here. Already battle-damaged, the Boston was at serious risk when faced with that destroyer and especially its helicopter. Backing away, the submarine’s captain put some distance between him and his target while preparing for a long-range attack. The Delta was still being tracked while ears were listening for any sign of that helicopter. More patience was needed all while the Boston’s target got closer to the outer defences of the Kara Sea bastion.

Finally, hearing it using its dipping sonar, the position of the helicopter was plotted. There was a gap between where it was, the destroyer was and where the Delta was. A pair of UUM-44 were shot off. The Boston launched rocket-powered capsules from her torpedo tubes. Those raced to the surface and then sped away above the sea. Over where the target was, depth bombs fell away from them. These were nuclear armed. Two huge underwater explosions occurred when the warheads went off. The Delta and her fearful payload was no more.

Unknowingly, the Boston had just broken the US-Soviet agreed nuclear truce a few hours after it had come into force. It was a legitimate attack for the Boston to make. The Soviet Navy had done what the US Navy had done and told their political masters that there might be accidents such as this with submarines & other assets in combat who were out of communication. These warnings had been made by those in uniform to the politicians several times in the most serious manner. Yet… when news came from the Barents Sea that one of their missile submarines had just been eliminated in a nuclear attack (that destroyer got off an urgent radio message after being torpedoed by the Boston in a conventional attack), those on the Soviet Defence Council weren’t going to be so understanding. They counted off the incidents like this.

One: the Americans had attacked them in the Middle East several times in quick succession with conventional strikes back in mid-August.

Two: in late August, while fighting a conventional war, the Americans had used nuclear weapons first and without warning against them.

Three: now in September, just after saying they would stop using nuclear weapons, the Americans had made another nuclear attack where they took out such a boat as that Delta was (another one had been sunk before too).

Were they supposed to do nothing in response? Were they supposed to listen to and believe whatever lies Reagan told them this time? No, they wouldn’t. They had been deceived with American trickery, strategic maskirovka it seemed, but were no longer going to stand for it. A response was proposed though first there came more troubling news from out of the Middle East which the Soviet leadership would regard as forcing their hand.

  James G,

  Well good to see the Soviets get a kicking for once.  Would have been very useful in a longer war getting rid of all those bombers, albeit too late.

  Pity about the Boston attack but as you point out the politicians in Moscow are doing what they want to do and regardless of the facts.  They were warned accidents might happen and I would expect that once the nuclear explosions are sighted by satellite Washington will give a full explanation.  However the Soviet leaders are too used to their own pathological lying and stung by the ambush which coupled with Reagan's rejection of their 'surrender' demands means that not everything has gone the way they desire so their going to do something stupid again.  The question is are they going to escalate further by attacking land targets? It sounds like they will find an excuse in Iran.

  One small typo in the 1st paragraph.  You have to rather than two US Carriers.

  Steve

  Steve

[stevep]

Feb 18, 2020 20:19:23 GMT James G said:

Iran will be the focus of tomorrow's update.
How do you say 'jeez, that's a nice looking set of mushroom clouds' in Persian?

  I don't think you do, as I assume those clouds will be over Iran, or at least Iranian military concentrations so the Iranians won't find them nice at all.  Guessing that a local commander, because of the desperate situation on the ground, uses some without higher authorisation, rather than Reagan taking the decision.

  Of course once the Soviets start hitting land targets, which sounds like their going to do, all bets are off and things gets very nasty for everybody.  Which anyone with half a brain could have warned them about before they started this entire mess.

[James G]

Feb 19, 2020 13:02:16 GMT stevep said:

Feb 18, 2020 20:15:55 GMT James G said:

203 – Counter maskirovka


In the early hours of September 2nd, first one and then a second regiment of Tu-16 missile-bombers lifted off from naval airbases in the Kola Peninsula. The Badgers climbed into the sky heading north first before they would swing west once out over the Barents Sea. Two more regiments of newer Tu-22M Backfires followed them some time later. Soviet Naval Aviation had over ninety strike aircraft in the sky. This was the first time in the war they had done this and it was no easy task to get so many aircraft up in a short period of time and then keep them under control as they headed towards combat. The timing wasn’t great and the information on their targets still not as firm as would have been liked. However, if what intelligence there was proved correct, the air armada heading first over the Barents Sea and then across the Norwegian Sea were going to strike gold: to US Navy aircraft carriers with their escorting battle groups. A fantastic opportunity was here. This wasn’t one to be passed up!

The bombers, all of them each carrying two anti-ship cruise missiles, lost a few of their number when those turned back for home due to engine trouble and other malfunctions. There would be hell to pay for those on the ground because these aircraft were meant to have been kept in perfect condition for the moment when the call came to fly. The rest carried on though, arranged into squadron formations now. Further away from home they went, out over the lonely dark seas on the edges of the Arctic. Greenland and Iceland were ahead but the bombers weren’t heading to either of them. Those carriers which they came out to kill wouldn’t be close to land but rather out to sea. Ready and equipped to kill them, the Badgers and Backfires needed someone else to find them first.

Individual Tu-95 Bears on reconnaissance tasks were out ahead, guiding the incoming bombers towards those targets. These huge aircraft with quite the endurance were flying around in hostile skies seemingly begging to be shot down by a NATO fighter pilot aiming to increase his wartime kill total. They had no defences nor the ability to successfully evade any attack. They were not out here to fight though. Four of them were flying tonight and two of them had a certain fix upon the American’s capital ships. This information had been checked and checked again, all at great risk, with no sign of enemy deception. The US Navy appeared to not have seen them and had left a gap in their defences. The bombers from Kola had been brought out to take advantage of what had been found. Closer and closer the bombers came, splitting up as they closed the distance towards where the Americans were in the central portion of the Norwegian Sea. The attack was being commanded by the senior on-scene officer aboard one of the Bears. Everything his radar screens and electronic detection systems were showing him told him where to find those American carriers. He brought the bombers towards them. The attack he plotted was certain to be a brilliant one. From multiple directions, they would all come in at once and fire their weapons beyond the range of the immediate defences. The US Navy would have to cover many different approaches all while caught napping. They’d get some of the cruise missiles – none of the bombers which would depart afterwards should be caught – but nowhere near enough. Originally planned as a nuclear strike, those carriers would be killed with conventional warheads tonight. There’d be more than a hundred and eighty cruise missiles in the sky. Could the US Navy deal with a strike like that, even with one of its new AEGIS missile-cruisers reported as being present? No, not a chance. Once this was all done, should he and this aircraft manage to survive the Americans lashing out once they realised what had happened, he was hoping for a medal and promotion. He would claim full credit for the success sure to come.

Towards the plotted carrier groups the bombers came…

…and into an ambush.

There were no carriers where Soviet Naval Aviation thought there would be. They’d been faked out, the victims of a counter maskirovka. The US Navy was getting its revenge for all that had been done to it during the war and that revenge was a dish best served cold. Ice cold. The deception was achieved by ‘unguarded’ radio signals and ‘accidental’ radar emissions. A couple of warships mounting radar reflectors were down below with those aboard having no choice but to take their chances while being the sacrificial lambs for this mission yet that was judged worth it. Years of studying the Soviets in peacetime and during the last week & a half of warfare, the US Navy had correctly predicted what their opponents would do. They had to dangle the bait – not too much but not too little either – and have the courage to wait it out. Rushing and making a panicky move would mean they would only get themselves a couple of Bears, not multiple regiments of Badgers and Backfires.

At the very last minute, that mission commander, who’d been daydreaming of his new rank and the power that would come with that, saw it. There was just something not right. Soon, his crew were shouting warnings with some of them cursing loudly as they realised that they were doomed. He broadcast an alert, over an open radio link and in the clear, but it was far too late. His radar screen was suddenly filled with enemy fighters streaming towards the bombers. One was coming toward his aircraft too with a missile already on the way. Closing his eyes, he waited for the inevitable…

There were F-14 Tomcats from the carriers USS John F. Kennedy as well as some of the USS Coral Sea’s F/A-18 Hornets. Coming from out of Iceland and Norway, the US Air Force joined this ambush using F-15 Eagles. It was a US Navy led mission but the presence of the F-15s was vital. A lot of interceptors, long-range ones too, were needed. The USAF had helped out with specialist electronic warfare tasks as well. USN airborne control aircraft, their E-2 Hawkeyes acting as AWACS platforms when flying from the two carriers, brought it all together. On command, into the bomber streams went air-to-air missiles from the American fighters. Those shot all across the sky. Kills were made quickly and wreckage fell to the ocean below. Other bombers managed to survive the opening barrages and evaded. They were big targets but they were fast aircraft, the Backfires especially. Payloads were jettisoned and they tried to run while activating jammers. The Soviet weren’t as fast as the missiles coming at them and some of those had been fired in the home-on-jam mode too. More targets went down, all without being able to shoot back.

In the end, when it was all over, the Americans had taken down sixty-eight bombers along with three of those reconnaissance Bears. They’d gotten almost all of the Badgers and more than half of the Backfires. Scattering like they had, the Soviets had managed to save more than two dozen aircraft because their opponents had focused on the ones right in front of them and couldn’t chase them all home. However, this was little consolation. Soviet Naval Aviation had had its bomber fleet massacred. They been lured into a trap and achieved absolutely nothing in return. The loss of those bombers (plus their cruise missiles which they dropped over the sea to lose weight) would hurt. There would be high-fives for the Americans to give each other. They’d done well and this was a victory to celebrate.


A couple of hundred miles away from where that ambush took place, there was a US Navy submarine on the far side of the Barents Sea. USS Boston was close to Novaya Zemlya, that lonely and barren island on which the other side lay the Kara Sea. The Boston was here seeking submarines making their way into the Kara Sea. The Soviets had established a bastion in there for their strategic missile submarines. Defended on all side by aircraft, helicopters, warships, submarines & mines, it was a fortress. The Boston wouldn’t be going in there! Standing orders were for this submarine to attack submarines heading that way. Those orders were over nineteen hours old – the last time contact had been made between the Boston and SUBLANT – and included permission to use nuclear weapons while doing so. Since then, messages had been sent to the Boston countermanding the nuclear permission while leaving others standing. No reply back to SUBLANT had come though. The submarine had taken battle damage yesterday. She couldn’t receive nor reply to communications. This was a bad state of affairs but there had been no question of the mission being called off. The Boston was at war and while the communications loss wasn’t good, there was still a fight on.

Both the DIA and the NSA said that the Boston had been sunk: they had independently gained tactical intelligence that said she was a total loss. The British had told SUBLANT that they too believed the Boston destroyed in battle. Still, those messages were sent out informing the submarine that no further nuclear attacks were to be made. None of those reports of loss could confirm beyond doubt the Boston was no more. No response could have just meant that she couldn’t broadcast but could still receive. At SUBLANT, they kept their fingers crossed on this. Perhaps they should have kept their toes crossed too? Either way, with no new orders were received and the Boston a submarine at war in a high threat environment, she carried out her standing orders to make war on the Soviet Navy.

Coming from the Kola naval base of Gremikha was an enemy vessel. It was a Delta-class strategic missile submarine. A new mod. 4 version of the class (the Soviets called it a Project 667), there were sixteen intercontinental ballistic missiles aboard with each one capable of carrying up to ten warheads that could be individually targeted. Potentially, there were one hundred and sixty American cities that this submarine could wipe from the face of the earth. The Boston manoeuvred slowly into position for a kill shot. Patience was needed in this and so it took time. The intention on the part of the Boston’s captain was to use non-nuclear torpedoes close-in for this. However, into the immediate area came a surface contact up above. There was a destroyer now present, one certain to be carrying a sub-hunting helicopter that the Americans could not yet see. It didn’t appear to be providing direct escort for that Delta but it was here. Already battle-damaged, the Boston was at serious risk when faced with that destroyer and especially its helicopter. Backing away, the submarine’s captain put some distance between him and his target while preparing for a long-range attack. The Delta was still being tracked while ears were listening for any sign of that helicopter. More patience was needed all while the Boston’s target got closer to the outer defences of the Kara Sea bastion.

Finally, hearing it using its dipping sonar, the position of the helicopter was plotted. There was a gap between where it was, the destroyer was and where the Delta was. A pair of UUM-44 were shot off. The Boston launched rocket-powered capsules from her torpedo tubes. Those raced to the surface and then sped away above the sea. Over where the target was, depth bombs fell away from them. These were nuclear armed. Two huge underwater explosions occurred when the warheads went off. The Delta and her fearful payload was no more.

Unknowingly, the Boston had just broken the US-Soviet agreed nuclear truce a few hours after it had come into force. It was a legitimate attack for the Boston to make. The Soviet Navy had done what the US Navy had done and told their political masters that there might be accidents such as this with submarines & other assets in combat who were out of communication. These warnings had been made by those in uniform to the politicians several times in the most serious manner. Yet… when news came from the Barents Sea that one of their missile submarines had just been eliminated in a nuclear attack (that destroyer got off an urgent radio message after being torpedoed by the Boston in a conventional attack), those on the Soviet Defence Council weren’t going to be so understanding. They counted off the incidents like this.

One: the Americans had attacked them in the Middle East several times in quick succession with conventional strikes back in mid-August.

Two: in late August, while fighting a conventional war, the Americans had used nuclear weapons first and without warning against them.

Three: now in September, just after saying they would stop using nuclear weapons, the Americans had made another nuclear attack where they took out such a boat as that Delta was (another one had been sunk before too).

Were they supposed to do nothing in response? Were they supposed to listen to and believe whatever lies Reagan told them this time? No, they wouldn’t. They had been deceived with American trickery, strategic maskirovka it seemed, but were no longer going to stand for it. A response was proposed though first there came more troubling news from out of the Middle East which the Soviet leadership would regard as forcing their hand.

  James G ,

  Well good to see the Soviets get a kicking for once.  Would have been very useful in a longer war getting rid of all those bombers, albeit too late.

  Pity about the Boston attack but as you point out the politicians in Moscow are doing what they want to do and regardless of the facts.  They were warned accidents might happen and I would expect that once the nuclear explosions are sighted by satellite Washington will give a full explanation.  However the Soviet leaders are too used to their own pathological lying and stung by the ambush which coupled with Reagan's rejection of their 'surrender' demands means that not everything has gone the way they desire so their going to do something stupid again.  The question is are they going to escalate further by attacking land targets? It sounds like they will find an excuse in Iran.

  One small typo in the 1st paragraph.  You have to rather than two US Carriers.

  Steve

  Steve

Well... they are nuclear capable and dual-rolled if necessary for a land strike so it is a bonus. Still, far too late to make much of a difference. The US Navy spent the war not in a position to send a carrier or two towards Kola while the Soviets were waiting with their bombers. Now most of the bombers are gone, the carriers can go, but, alas, too late in the war now. Things are getting 'hot'.
The risk was there for both sides with units having nuclear orders cancelled but not getting through. The Americans find out and respond with a Hotline message but, again, too late.
The leadership think Reagan is the crazy one though and keep finding 'evidence' of that.

Typo fixed, thank you.

Feb 19, 2020 13:06:38 GMT stevep said:

  I don't think you do, as I assume those clouds will be over Iran, or at least Iranian military concentrations so the Iranians won't find them nice at all.  Guessing that a local commander, because of the desperate situation on the ground, uses some without higher authorisation, rather than Reagan taking the decision.

  Of course once the Soviets start hitting land targets, which sounds like their going to do, all bets are off and things gets very nasty for everybody.  Which anyone with half a brain could have warned them about before they started this entire mess.

CENTCOM had asked a few updates ago and so the attack will be authorised.
Change 'the Soviets' to 'the Americans' there and you are spot on.

[James G]

204 – Glow in the dark


CENTCOM’s commander General Crist had requested authorisation to use nuclear weapons to stop the Iranian offensive in its tracks. It wasn’t so much those who had already come forward through the shattered Saudi positions into Southern Iraq, but what was coming behind them. Heavier units of the Iranian Army, still inside their own country, were tearing towards the battlefield. Stripped of conventional firepower due to the war in Europe, CENTCOM couldn’t stop them. They’d probably run out of stream in good time but only – in Crist’s staff’s opinion – after taking most of Kuwait and approaching the Saudi frontier. USS Missouri was closing-in upon the Al-Faw area where her guns could fire deep into Iraq near to the Kuwaiti frontier and there was still American air power in the region but it wasn’t enough in conventional terms. Neither was the stripped-down US XVIII Airborne Corps. There were a lot of Iranians already in battle with all those dismounted infantry units. They’d made human wave attacks and tore through the Saudis. Surprising everyone, when with reflection it shouldn’t have, the Iranians showed they had a bit of common sense after overrunning the Saudis. They found themselves with a lot of captured Saudi vehicles in their hands: they were making use of them to get closer to Kuwait. Behind them were coming all of those tanks and other armoured vehicles to finish what this suddenly mobile force at the frontlines were starting. There were US Marines, British troops and soldiers of the Gulf Arab Monarchies inside Kuwait, on the seaward flank of the XVIII Corps, but they were going to have a difficult job in blunting this initial attack. To have to then deal with heavier Iranian forces looked like an impossible task for them. Only nukes could save the day.

The request from CENTCOM came with strike recommendations. Crist had put together a plan of attack for where he wanted nukes to be used and in what strength & combination. He wanted the attacks to be made inside Iran and against the Iranian armour while it was still bunched up. There would be attacks made against them when they were outside urban areas and before they came close to the frontlines. It was designed as an attractive package with CENTCOM aware that Reagan and those at the top would be loath to strike civilian targets and would want to see immediate effect from any attacks. Crist didn’t have dummies on his planning staff who wouldn’t be aware of the political dimension.

Reagan was of mind to turn it down when first presented to him. He had only just ordered the cessation of nuclear use against Soviet forces at sea elsewhere in the world. Now he was being asked to authorise nuclear attacks on land, albeit against a non-ally of Soviets rather than them or one of their Warsaw Pact partners. That Iranian move where they started making use of captured Saudi armoured vehicles to get further forward began the process of changing his mind. When reports came that columns had gotten into Kuwait – a process meant to take some time but which clearly hadn’t – Weinberger and Joint Chiefs pushed harder for the attack. Bush was likewise in agreement that this needed to be done, even arguing that there needed to be a modification to include attacks inside Iraq now to stop a follow-up to those fast-moving raiding columns. On a secure link up calling from overseas came King Fahd. Speaking not just for himself but for his regional allies, he urged for a nuclear attack. The Saudi king wasn’t aware that one was already planned and waiting approval: he just wanted one done. Reagan still didn’t want to do it though, fearing escalation beyond this. Concerns coming from his chief-of-staff and national security advisor were that there might be Soviet forces caught up in this attack should they be among the Iranians. A dispute arose between those two and the Pentagon establishment (they were at Raven Rock though) over to whom the president should listen to on this. Neither CENTCOM nor any of the myriad of independent services within the US Intelligence Community could identify any Soviets there. The CIA and NSA had for a long time been warning of a Soviet hand in everything that Iran did but their position on that had taken a sudden about-turn.

The time approached where there was a point that should the planned attack not place before then, it wouldn’t catch the Iranians where they were most exposed and also away from civilian areas. There was the large city of Ahvaz to factor in plus the border towns of Abadan and Khorramshahr. Those incoming Iranian forces would be close to each should the time pass and civilian casualties were likely to be massive if nuclear weapons were used near them. Beyond, the Iranians would spread out too and any later attack would need to be several orders of magnitude larger. It was almost as if the president was being forced into making his mind up with haste… New intelligence arrived. There had been an urgent U-2 overflight ordered after the Iranian offensive began. The images which came from the reconnaissance aircraft showed much of the composition of the incoming Iranian force. The mass of tanks, personnel carriers and self-propelled artillery was laid bare. There were an awful lot of mobile air defence assets present as well. The fear was that once all this came into play on the battlefield, the Iranians would be able to bag themselves a massive victory. Kuwait looked certain to be overrun for the second time in a couple of months and there were sure to be major American & Coalition casualties.

Bush and Weinberger implored Reagan to strike and strike now, before it was all too late.


While waiting for permission, CENTCOM had sent out readiness orders to their widely spread nuclear-capable units. American military units from many different services deployed across the Middle East were under CENTCOM command while they were here. The on-hold plan called for tactical strikes to be made in number but in a very short time period. This meant a lot of assets would be needed to make it all work. Both the US Air Force and the US Navy would be involved. A lot of preparation was done ahead of time. There was intelligence information and reconnaissance pictures to be studied. Weapons checks were done several times, by different personnel too, so as to make sure that should the order come, the bombs would go bang. Many involved thought that that permission wouldn’t come. But then it did. Operation Thunderstreak was a go!

Missouri had Tomahawk cruise missiles aboard. Several of these were nuclear-armed and they were fired northwards into Iran just before the battleship was in position to use her massive main guns against Iranian troops inside Iraq. Other warships with her battle group did likewise while there were more Tomahawk launches from US Navy submarines in the Gulf and out in the further out in the Gulf of Oman too. Flying from Cairo West, a military airbase near to Egypt’s capital city, B-52G bombers were quickly in the air upon receipt of that go order. They overflew Saudi Arabia and entered Iraqi airspace before firing their own cruise missiles – ALCMs – without coming close to any danger themselves. The flight back to Egypt was uneventful and the aircrews would go back into standby for any further nuclear strikes either within the region for CENTCOM or under direct SAC command for hypothetical strikes against the Soviet Union.

Thunderstreak saw dozens of those cruise missiles enter the southwestern corner of Iran, throughout the Khuzestan region. Their warheads went off. The pre-dawn skies were suddenly lit up with many fresh, artificial suns. There were ground burst and low air bursts. Iran’s army was in the way of these. The scenes which erupted when those warheads went off were like the doors of hell being opened. Targeted not to cause unnecessary civilian casualties, that didn’t mean that there weren’t any. ‘Low levels’ of collateral damage had been promised: try telling that to all of the thousands of innocents killed. As to Iran’s heavy forces, they took terrible damage. They weren’t completely destroyed but they were shot-up extensively. There would be no more forward movement of them as the way ahead, portions of Iran, were going to (metaphorically) glow in the dark from now on. Despite Reagan’s vice president wanting to see further attacks made across the border inside Iraq where other Iranian troops were, there were none made here. Those already over the Shatt al-Arab, just inside Kuwait too, were well aware of what happened behind them though. The massive nuclear attack was unmistakable. Forward advances came to a halt as men sought whatever shelter they could find from the expected incoming fallout. In Ahvaz, Abadan and Khorramshahr, while neither of those urban areas had been targeted, there was still damage done and plenty of civilian panic over whether they were next and worries about fallout too. Over in Iranian-held Basra, the same fears were there too among the Iraqi civilians and the Iranian garrison. Death from a foe which there was no way to fight back against was feared certain to come very soon.

Iran no longer posed the military threat that it did. The Holy War launched by Khomeini was one which he would aim to continue but the blow taken – which could have been the first of many nuclear ones; Iran didn’t know if Thunderstreak was a one-off – was accurate and potent.


Despite all care taken not to do so, and the assurances that it wouldn’t, the American nuclear strike killed Soviet military personnel. They had detachments with those Iranians who were on the receiving end of the nuclear cruise missiles.

Communications, electronic reconnaissance and intelligence personnel, plus specialist air defence units, were with the Iranian heavy forces rolling down through Khuzestan. The numbers weren’t large. Khomeini remained fighting his own war against the Americans and their allies, one which he considered separate from the Soviet’s conflict with the West. The restrictions on the use of Iranian territory which the Soviets could make were severe. Khomeini had no intention of giving Moscow any more than an inch, one dammed in on all sides, for fear that they would take more than a mile. Several combined arms armies – multi-division formations – sat in the Caucasus and the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic ready to roll down through Iran and across the Arabian Peninsula. Their passage had been denied despite repeated requests for access which came with promises of military aid. Tehran had to approve every single overflight of Soviet military aircraft before they occurred or the Soviets ran the risk of seeing their aircraft engaged. Before the Americans had solved the issue by making repeated (conventional) attacks on Iranian ports, each docking of a Soviet vessel had needed approval before that occurred too. Some in Moscow had wondered whether it might be easier to just fight the Iranians to they could get at the Americans rather than to have to negotiate with them each and every single damn time!

The presence of those selective Soviet detachments in Khuzestan had come as part of those painstaking, frustrating negotiations. Iran wanted something for all that it gave the Soviets and it was specialist support like this that they wanted. Not a backwards country in terms of military capability, the aftereffects of the 1979 Revolution were still there and Iran was lacking in areas where it had the technical knowhow but not the political will nor financing to field such forces as these that the Soviets could provide. Their armies had already been whipped when facing the Americans in Southern Iraq back in mid-August and a lot of the reason for that – apart from the Americans having immense quantities of quality air power, of course – was their inability to fight in these fields of warfare. They’d been overawed in the electronic battlefield as well as having faced murderous air attacks. Because Khomeini was Khomeini, he dressed up the need for this Soviet support for his army as being an opportunity for the Soviets themselves rather than them covering Iran’s behind. Moscow got more air access in exchange and the deployment was seen as a stepping-stone too: once the Iranians got used to this support, threatening to withdraw it unless they comprised on other matters would have them in a bind. Such ideas were all suddenly ended when Thunderstreak occurred. Hundreds of Soviet deaths occurred like the tens of thousands of Iranian ones did.

They were livid up in Moscow when they found out. That American submarine had just broken the nuclear truce up in the Barents Sea and now their men in Iran had been killed in a nuclear attack there. This broke all the rules. Even for Reagan, whom Ligachev and the Soviet leadership were now considering to be almost psychotic in his behaviour, this was unexpected. It had happened though. Despite what he said about not intending to, the American president was making nuclear attacks against them. He was doing it on the side-lines, almost on the sly too. Reagan was daring them to respond, or back down and do nothing. They chose the former option. Chebrikov’s stalled plan, the one which the KGB Chairman hadn’t previously gained the confidence of his comrades in going ahead with, was back on the table. The Defence Council went with this fearing the worst should they do nothing.

Some other places in the world, away from southwestern Iran, were now going to glow in the dark.

[gillan1220]

I'll read this timeline when I have time. This seems promising.

[stevep]

   James G ,

   Well Soviet denial reaches its height. Their itching to use nukes to 'end' the war their messed up and their making up an excuse to do so.  It may trick the deluded and misinformed but that's the basic case.

  If they were actually thinking logically they would realise the risk of starting a nuclear war with the western powers and and that this blow to Iran gives them a better chance to gain influence there but their blinded by their own delusions.  Hopefully once their dead themselves the madness their started has a chance to come to an end.

  I would assume that the US had made statements, to Tehran, Moscow and probably public about this round of attacks and why.  As your said Moscow will ignore any such statements as their already made up their mind as to what they want to do but it would be the logical thing and would give all sides a chance to pause and think, as well as persuade neutrals as to why such a strike was made.

  Not sure who the Soviets will attack, as not much left of NATO Europe in the central region other than the nuclear powers of France and Britain but the idiots may even consider that.  Suspect their not going to strike directly as the US but wouldn't put it beyond them by this stage.

  Steve

[ricobirch]

I don't think the Soviets are in denial about this, they received assurances nuclear warfare would stop and it continued.

Even if they accept the explanation about the sub not being able to receive orders the Iranian strikes were deliberate.

I wouldn't want to be on Iceland or Guam right now.

[James G]

Feb 20, 2020 9:50:44 GMT gillan1220 said:

I'll read this timeline when I have time. This seems promising.

Thank you. Alas, it is almost at the end. I will do a story-only thread once it is finished. Have a look in the Finished Timelines & Scenarios section: there are other stories there including a modern-ish (2010) US-vs.-Russia fight that Forcon and I jointly wrote.

Feb 20, 2020 10:28:37 GMT stevep said:

   James G ,

   Well Soviet denial reaches its height. Their itching to use nukes to 'end' the war their messed up and their making up an excuse to do so.  It may trick the deluded and misinformed but that's the basic case.

  If they were actually thinking logically they would realise the risk of starting a nuclear war with the western powers and and that this blow to Iran gives them a better chance to gain influence there but their blinded by their own delusions.  Hopefully once their dead themselves the madness their started has a chance to come to an end.

  I would assume that the US had made statements, to Tehran, Moscow and probably public about this round of attacks and why.  As your said Moscow will ignore any such statements as their already made up their mind as to what they want to do but it would be the logical thing and would give all sides a chance to pause and think, as well as persuade neutrals as to why such a strike was made.

  Not sure who the Soviets will attack, as not much left of NATO Europe in the central region other than the nuclear powers of France and Britain but the idiots may even consider that.  Suspect their not going to strike directly as the US but wouldn't put it beyond them by this stage.

  Steve

They do want to use nukes, yes. It was always an option. They are the ultimate weapons. They know the risks though and intend to 'be clever'... which is kind of impossible with nukes.
Things are happening fast. A Hotline message for Moscow about Iran was something due to be sent but other things happened first.
There is a strike coming and yes, not in the central part of Western Europe, but nearby. We are not yet at the homeland attack stage, something which everyone is keen to avoid but running the risk of seeing happen.

Feb 20, 2020 13:35:35 GMT ricobirch said:

I don't think the Soviets are in denial about this, they received assurances nuclear warfare would stop and it continued.

Even if they accept the explanation about the sub not being able to receive orders the Iranian strikes were deliberate.

I wouldn't want to be on Iceland or Guam right now.

They did but they were told by their own military that there could be an accident with their own forces too. The situation has been like that since before the war started: they had forces purposefully in the way of a US-vs.-Iraq, the US-vs.-Iran fight, got them shot up and screamed bloody murder about being attacked... while responding way over the top, as they will do now.
You are correct, should they, and they won't in time be told why the USS Boston did as it did, they still had forces nukes in Iran when the US disregarded/ played that down: it is in their eyes something the US knew would happen and did regardless.
Talking of Iceland... see below!

[James G]

205 – Six for six


Ballistic missiles had been used throughout the war. The Soviets and their allies, including both the Iraqis & the Iranians before World War Three broke out ‘properly’, had fired many of the infamous Scuds while there had also been the use of newer missiles too. The Saudis had used ballistic missiles against Iraq and then once the fighting started with the Soviets, the Americans had employed some of their Lance missiles as well. All of these instances had involved the employment of either conventional or chemical warheads with them. Nuclear-armed ballistic missiles hadn’t been used. However, when launches were made throughout the many different theatres of warfare raging it was often not known until warhead detonation that the missile wasn’t armed with a nuke. So many missiles were dual-capable and could have been carrying a nuclear warhead. If the Americans and Soviets had been launching ICBMs from silos or SLBMs out of strategic missile submarines, or certain missiles with a shorter range but known to only have nukes as their armament, then there would have been no doubt that a nuke was being employed: with the others it was impossible until impact was made. On countless occasions, all across the globe, there was absolute terror while missiles were in the air because no one could know for sure that this wasn’t a nuclear attack disguised as a conventional one. No matter how many times non-nuclear launches were made, the fear didn’t go away.

Today, when selective Soviet launches came within a short period of time from multiple locations with ballistic missiles going in different directions, it wasn’t known whether this was an attack with nukes or not. It didn’t look like such a thing but at the same time, it could just well have been. Both EUCOM and CENTCOM reporting stations broadcast ‘Pink Panther’ alerts. The name changed daily and it was a warning that ballistic missiles were in the air over Europe and the Middle East. There weren’t that many of them and none were going intercontinental but the urgent flash notice went out and over-rid other communications. On radar screens, operators and analysists tried to tell what type of missiles they were. Early indication was sought to discover whether this was a conventional attack or whether a different broadcast from Pink Panther needed to be sent out. The missiles climbed away from previously unknown launch sites – these were mobile launchers who would at once redeploy – and there were second-stage separations of missile bodies. All attention was on them. The flight time was going to be short but every second counted.

Suddenly, the alert broadcasts changed: ‘Amber Moon’!

Those were SS-20 Sabres in the sky.

Nuclear detonations occurred in Europe and the Middle East. Keflavik Airbase on Iceland was hit. So too was Karup Airbase in Denmark. The NATO command centre at Kolsås leir on the edges of the Norwegian capital Oslo was another target. In Egypt, the airbase at Cairo West was struck. The naval base at Souda Bay in Crete was attacked. Finally, last on the list of successful impact zones, was the naval airbase at Sigonella in Sicily. There were crashes of missile fragments in Iraq from a weapon which failed to make proper orbit. In Hungary, a massive but non-nuclear explosion blew up a launch site where a missile went off there rather than far off in a distant target.

The SS-20s used either carried a trio of medium-sized thermonuclear warheads or a single large one. Much of Oslo was destroyed by a one megaton blast which missed the buried command centre at Kolsås leir (which itself survived) while a big chunk of the coastline on the Greek island of Crete was wiped from the face of the earth when another huge warhead was deployed there. On Iceland, only one of the three aimed at Keflavik made a direct hit while the two others landed nearby, both exploding in the populated southwestern corner of that island nation. All three warheads aimed at Karup struck there and inflicted immense damage in the middle of Jutland. Two of the three warheads reached Sigonella with only one of the going off; nearly the same situation occurred with Cairo West though the single blast was off-target and did little direct damage to the airbase while instead blowing up a large patch of desert. The USS Missouri had evaded her planned demise when in the Persian Gulf: hitting a fast-moving ship with a ballistic missile fired from so far away was a big ask and the missile didn’t even leave Iraqi airspace before it broke up. As to that on-the-ground explosion at the launch site in Hungary, it was of a missile aimed at the military base of Caserma Ederle (a second target in Italy, the only country to be targeted twice, but foreign military forces there).

The Amber Moon alert reached some of those in the firing line as well as many others not targeted by the SS-20s. There was very little time to react. The time to do so was less than a minute once it was realised that these were nuclear missiles – the SS-20 couldn’t carry conventional ones – and not much could be done apart from those in the way to seek shelter. In military terms, the loss was greatest at Karup, Keflavik and Sigonella. Those places were full of NATO aircraft. Cairo West also had many aircraft present but the near-miss saw the majority of them unhindered from flight operations. Souda Bay had much shipping there and the loss of plenty of them was significant yet not something that was going to change the war. Allied Forces Northern Europe continued to operate inside the buried Kolsås leir while outside their bunker the city of Oslo was literally gone. The missiles came with a message from the Soviet leadership which went out over the Hotline to the Americans.


Reagan was on the NECAP aircraft over Ohio at the time; Bush was at Mount Weather in Virginia while SecDef Weinberger was underneath Pennsylvania at Raven Rock. This communication came just after a flurry of other important incoming messages. First there had been the reports of successful detonations of the American nuclear strike against the Iranian Army – they’d wanted initial information; not eager to wait it out – before both NORAD & SUBLANT were in contact concerning nuclear blasts of unknown origin which had occurred sometime before up in the Barents Sea. There was now clarification of what had happened there whereas before (ahead of Operation Thunderstreak against Iran) there had only been confusion. It was being considered almost a certainty that a missing / presumed sunk US Navy submarine had followed standing orders ahead of the nuclear truce with the Soviets and made an attack there. It had engaged an unidentified subsurface target with what appeared to be nuclear depth charges. This issue with the USS Boston, it being uncontactable and possibly capable of further attacks, was what the United States’ leadership was focused upon when the Pink Panther alert turned to an Amber Moon alert. Next up, the Hotline message came. Everything happened so fast. Information was fed to them because they needed to know. It also overwhelmed them.

Reports were coming in of what exactly had happened with those SS-20 strikes but ahead of the details, the Soviets were supplying their own on that. Their message told Reagan that Soviet nuclear attacks had been made in a deliberate fashion. This was no accident. It was done because the United States had broken the agreed-upon nuclear truce between the two of them, answering Soviet offers of an honest ceasefire and end to the conventional war in such a manner as they had. The message, signed off by Ligachev, stated that there had been a nuclear attack against a submarine in the Barents Sea and then Soviet personnel in number had been killed down in Iran by further nuclear usage. The Soviet Union would not stand for the Americans doing this. They were retaliating accordingly while desiring a situation where contact between the two superpowers returned to the subject of a global end to the fighting.

After the Hotline message, as discussions were about to begin as to how to respond, there was contact sought with Reagan, Bush and Weinberger from others. The (new) British Prime Minister, the French President and leaders of Canada, Israel & others all placed urgent calls. Generals Rogers and Crist bypassed the Joint Chiefs to contact Weinberger directly as was the chain-of-command in such a situation. SACEUR and CENTCOM’s commander had each seen forces under their command hit with nukes and were expecting more to occur. The maddening situation was only exasperated by the urgency coming from foreign leaders and American military commanders; Rogers and Crist were followed by the commanders of SAC and PACOM too.

No immediate response was sent to the Soviets. Hurd and Mitterrand, plus Israeli MP Shamir, were spoken too and so were the military commanders. Other high-ranking officials (from the US Intelligence Community as well as the National Security Council) were brought in on the teleconference as well. Input came from everyone, some of it unwelcome. Everyone could agree that something had to be done though no one could agree as to what that was. Rogers and Crist were insistent that a nuclear response must be made. They called for a return strike, using many more weapons than the Soviets: Weinberger agreed with them where he called a proposed attack ‘disproportionate’ but ‘not enough to cause a full weapons release’ from the Soviets in reply. Others agreed that the United States had to return fire though there was disagreement on how and on what scale. The two leaders of Europe’s nuclear powers ended up arguing with each other too.

It took an hour. Reagan finally made a decision. It would be one that would please none. Six for six it was: six nuclear attacks to match the six ones which the Soviets had successfully managed to get through. Targets were selected from a planning list and missile launches were made. ‘Pale Horse’ was broadcast as a warning to friendly forces.


In East Germany, the Soviet command centre at Zossen–Wünsdorf was targeted; the big airbase at Sperenberg (not a combat base but much used by transports and support aircraft) was also attacked. Across in Poland, another headquarters complex, this one at Legnica which the Soviet commander General Postnikov had only just been evacuated from was struck. The combined headquarters set-up & airbase at Milovice in Czechoslovakia made the target list and so too did the Gorna Malina command base in Bulgaria. Finally, outside of Eastern Europe, Shayrat Airbase in Syria, being used by Soviet aircraft, also drew nuclear fire directed at it. This American nuclear strike did as the Soviet one did: it avoided Western Europe. It had long been believed that in any superpower-to-superpower nuclear exchange, those would occur first in West Germany. The ironic joke was that the distance between towns in that country could only be measured in kilotons. The two targets in East Germany and the one in Czechoslovakia were all far back away from West Germany. Whether this situation would last was a different matter but for now, nuclear war seemed to have skipped this country when common wisdom had always been that it would first start there.

Into Eastern Europe, the Americans launched Pershing-2 ballistic missiles and GLCM cruise missiles from mobile launchers at military sites in them. Zossen–Wünsdorf was wiped from the face of the earth while Sperenberg took a near-miss. Legnica was soon no more and neither was Milovice. A Soviet SAM unit in Bulgaria shot down the pair of GLCMs coming towards Gorna Malina to avert that particular nuclear strike. Down in the Middle East, the battleship USS Iowa joined one of her escorting missile-cruisers in firing nuclear-armed Tomahawks against Shayrat with complete destruction to there coming. No longer would MiGs & Sukhois from there be bombing US Marines fighting in Lebanon. Those launches against European targets came from American missile units currently operating from sites in Britain, France and Italy. The Pershing-2s had been based pre-war in West Germany but were now in France; the GLCMs were UK-& Italy-based ones that had been hiding in the English countryside and that of Sicily too since the war begun. Neither European leader was best pleased at this, France’s president especially, though the Italian PM was also dealing with the knowledge that his country had suffered a nuclear strike on his soil whereas the other two had not. The Americans had told them first, so there was that, but the notice was short and the launches were also being made no matter what. The situation was urgent and the Americans were going to launch those missiles from where they were based.

It had been five for six instead of six for six. Like with the Soviet attack, the Americans used several missiles (each with just the one warhead) to attack their targets yet had seen the Bulgarian attack averted by a good defence. It could be argued that they should have made eight attacks because that was what Ligachev had done yet the failure of two of the Soviet ones meant that Reagan made just the six. He did this to answer the nuclear attack with one made in return to match it. The aim was to show the Soviets that while they could strike at will, so would the United States. The limited nature of the reply, against military advice, was done not to escalate further too. Reagan wanted to end this. A return message over the Hotline was sent to this effect.

Across the world, the leaderships of many nations not already in secure and safe locations went to them now. Military forces of the warring powers were joined by those of the neutral ones, especially those nuclear armed ones, in going to the highest possible alert status. Everyone was waiting for what was going to happen next. Fingers were on triggers as prayers were said. No one wanted to see apocalypse follow this but the fear was there that it was just a moment or two away. It just wasn’t conceivable that nuclear use would stop after these exchanges.

[lordroel]

Feb 20, 2020 20:36:45 GMT James G said:

205 – Six for six


Ballistic missiles had been used throughout the war. The Soviets and their allies, including both the Iraqis & the Iranians before World War Three broke out ‘properly’, had fired many of the infamous Scuds while there had also been the use of newer missiles too. The Saudis had used ballistic missiles against Iraq and then once the fighting started with the Soviets, the Americans had employed some of their Lance missiles as well. All of these instances had involved the employment of either conventional or chemical warheads with them. Nuclear-armed ballistic missiles hadn’t been used. However, when launches were made throughout the many different theatres of warfare raging it was often not known until warhead detonation that the missile wasn’t armed with a nuke. So many missiles were dual-capable and could have been carrying a nuclear warhead. If the Americans and Soviets had been launching ICBMs from silos or SLBMs out of strategic missile submarines, or certain missiles with a shorter range but known to only have nukes as their armament, then there would have been no doubt that a nuke was being employed: with the others it was impossible until impact was made. On countless occasions, all across the globe, there was absolute terror while missiles were in the air because no one could know for sure that this wasn’t a nuclear attack disguised as a conventional one. No matter how many times non-nuclear launches were made, the fear didn’t go away.

Today, when selective Soviet launches came within a short period of time from multiple locations with ballistic missiles going in different directions, it wasn’t known whether this was an attack with nukes or not. It didn’t look like such a thing but at the same time, it could just well have been. Both EUCOM and CENTCOM reporting stations broadcast ‘Pink Panther’ alerts. The name changed daily and it was a warning that ballistic missiles were in the air over Europe and the Middle East. There weren’t that many of them and none were going intercontinental but the urgent flash notice went out and over-rid other communications. On radar screens, operators and analysists tried to tell what type of missiles they were. Early indication was sought to discover whether this was a conventional attack or whether a different broadcast from Pink Panther needed to be sent out. The missiles climbed away from previously unknown launch sites – these were mobile launchers who would at once redeploy – and there were second-stage separations of missile bodies. All attention was on them. The flight time was going to be short but every second counted.

Suddenly, the alert broadcasts changed: ‘Amber Moon’!

Those were SS-20 Sabres in the sky.

Nuclear detonations occurred in Europe and the Middle East. Keflavik Airbase on Iceland was hit. So too was Karup Airbase in Denmark. The NATO command centre at Kolsås leir on the edges of the Norwegian capital Oslo was another target. In Egypt, the airbase at Cairo West was struck. The naval base at Souda Bay in Crete was attacked. Finally, last on the list of successful impact zones, was the naval airbase at Sigonella in Sicily. There were crashes of missile fragments in Iraq from a weapon which failed to make proper orbit. In Hungary, a massive but non-nuclear explosion blew up a launch site where a missile went off there rather than far off in a distant target.

The SS-20s used either carried a trio of medium-sized thermonuclear warheads or a single large one. Much of Oslo was destroyed by a one megaton blast which missed the buried command centre at Kolsås leir (which itself survived) while a big chunk of the coastline on the Greek island of Crete was wiped from the face of the earth when another huge warhead was deployed there. On Iceland, only one of the three aimed at Keflavik made a direct hit while the two others landed nearby, both exploding in the populated southwestern corner of that island nation. All three warheads aimed at Karup struck there and inflicted immense damage in the middle of Jutland. Two of the three warheads reached Sigonella with only one of the going off; nearly the same situation occurred with Cairo West though the single blast was off-target and did little direct damage to the airbase while instead blowing up a large patch of desert. The USS Missouri had evaded her planned demise when in the Persian Gulf: hitting a fast-moving ship with a ballistic missile fired from so far away was a big ask and the missile didn’t even leave Iraqi airspace before it broke up. As to that on-the-ground explosion at the launch site in Hungary, it was of a missile aimed at the military base of Caserma Ederle (a second target in Italy, the only country to be targeted twice, but foreign military forces there).

The Amber Moon alert reached some of those in the firing line as well as many others not targeted by the SS-20s. There was very little time to react. The time to do so was less than a minute once it was realised that these were nuclear missiles – the SS-20 couldn’t carry conventional ones – and not much could be done apart from those in the way to seek shelter. In military terms, the loss was greatest at Karup, Keflavik and Sigonella. Those places were full of NATO aircraft. Cairo West also had many aircraft present but the near-miss saw the majority of them unhindered from flight operations. Souda Bay had much shipping there and the loss of plenty of them was significant yet not something that was going to change the war. Allied Forces Northern Europe continued to operate inside the buried Kolsås leir while outside their bunker the city of Oslo was literally gone. The missiles came with a message from the Soviet leadership which went out over the Hotline to the Americans.


Reagan was on the NECAP aircraft over Ohio at the time; Bush was at Mount Weather in Virginia while SecDef Weinberger was underneath Pennsylvania at Raven Rock. This communication came just after a flurry of other important incoming messages. First there had been the reports of successful detonations of the American nuclear strike against the Iranian Army – they’d wanted initial information; not eager to wait it out – before both NORAD & SUBLANT were in contact concerning nuclear blasts of unknown origin which had occurred sometime before up in the Barents Sea. There was now clarification of what had happened there whereas before (ahead of Operation Thunderstreak against Iran) there had only been confusion. It was being considered almost a certainty that a missing / presumed sunk US Navy submarine had followed standing orders ahead of the nuclear truce with the Soviets and made an attack there. It had engaged an unidentified subsurface target with what appeared to be nuclear depth charges. This issue with the USS Boston, it being uncontactable and possibly capable of further attacks, was what the United States’ leadership was focused upon when the Pink Panther alert turned to an Amber Moon alert. Next up, the Hotline message came. Everything happened so fast. Information was fed to them because they needed to know. It also overwhelmed them.

Reports were coming in of what exactly had happened with those SS-20 strikes but ahead of the details, the Soviets were supplying their own on that. Their message told Reagan that Soviet nuclear attacks had been made in a deliberate fashion. This was no accident. It was done because the United States had broken the agreed-upon nuclear truce between the two of them, answering Soviet offers of an honest ceasefire and end to the conventional war in such a manner as they had. The message, signed off by Ligachev, stated that there had been a nuclear attack against a submarine in the Barents Sea and then Soviet personnel in number had been killed down in Iran by further nuclear usage. The Soviet Union would not stand for the Americans doing this. They were retaliating accordingly while desiring a situation where contact between the two superpowers returned to the subject of a global end to the fighting.

After the Hotline message, as discussions were about to begin as to how to respond, there was contact sought with Reagan, Bush and Weinberger from others. The (new) British Prime Minister, the French President and leaders of Canada, Israel & others all placed urgent calls. Generals Rogers and Crist bypassed the Joint Chiefs to contact Weinberger directly as was the chain-of-command in such a situation. SACEUR and CENTCOM’s commander had each seen forces under their command hit with nukes and were expecting more to occur. The maddening situation was only exasperated by the urgency coming from foreign leaders and American military commanders; Rogers and Crist were followed by the commanders of SAC and PACOM too.

No immediate response was sent to the Soviets. Hurd and Mitterrand, plus Israeli MP Shamir, were spoken too and so were the military commanders. Other high-ranking officials (from the US Intelligence Community as well as the National Security Council) were brought in on the teleconference as well. Input came from everyone, some of it unwelcome. Everyone could agree that something had to be done though no one could agree as to what that was. Rogers and Crist were insistent that a nuclear response must be made. They called for a return strike, using many more weapons than the Soviets: Weinberger agreed with them where he called a proposed attack ‘disproportionate’ but ‘not enough to cause a full weapons release’ from the Soviets in reply. Others agreed that the United States had to return fire though there was disagreement on how and on what scale. The two leaders of Europe’s nuclear powers ended up arguing with each other too.

It took an hour. Reagan finally made a decision. It would be one that would please none. Six for six it was: six nuclear attacks to match the six ones which the Soviets had successfully managed to get through. Targets were selected from a planning list and missile launches were made. ‘Pale Horse’ was broadcast as a warning to friendly forces.


In East Germany, the Soviet command centre at Zossen–Wünsdorf was targeted; the big airbase at Sperenberg (not a combat base but much used by transports and support aircraft) was also attacked. Across in Poland, another headquarters complex, this one at Legnica which the Soviet commander General Postnikov had only just been evacuated from was struck. The combined headquarters set-up & airbase at Milovice in Czechoslovakia made the target list and so too did the Gorna Malina command base in Bulgaria. Finally, outside of Eastern Europe, Shayrat Airbase in Syria, being used by Soviet aircraft, also drew nuclear fire directed at it. This American nuclear strike did as the Soviet one did: it avoided Western Europe. It had long been believed that in any superpower-to-superpower nuclear exchange, those would occur first in West Germany. The ironic joke was that the distance between towns in that country could only be measured in kilotons. The two targets in East Germany and the one in Czechoslovakia were all far back away from West Germany. Whether this situation would last was a different matter but for now, nuclear war seemed to have skipped this country when common wisdom had always been that it would first start there.

Into Eastern Europe, the Americans launched Pershing-2 ballistic missiles and GLCM cruise missiles from mobile launchers at military sites in them. Zossen–Wünsdorf was wiped from the face of the earth while Sperenberg took a near-miss. Legnica was soon no more and neither was Milovice. A Soviet SAM unit in Bulgaria shot down the pair of GLCMs coming towards Gorna Malina to avert that particular nuclear strike. Down in the Middle East, the battleship USS Iowa joined one of her escorting missile-cruisers in firing nuclear-armed Tomahawks against Shayrat with complete destruction to there coming. No longer would MiGs & Sukhois from there be bombing US Marines fighting in Lebanon. Those launches against European targets came from American missile units currently operating from sites in Britain, France and Italy. The Pershing-2s had been based pre-war in West Germany but were now in France; the GLCMs were UK-& Italy-based ones that had been hiding in the English countryside and that of Sicily too since the war begun. Neither European leader was best pleased at this, France’s president especially, though the Italian PM was also dealing with the knowledge that his country had suffered a nuclear strike on his soil whereas the other two had not. The Americans had told them first, so there was that, but the notice was short and the launches were also being made no matter what. The situation was urgent and the Americans were going to launch those missiles from where they were based.

It had been five for six instead of six for six. Like with the Soviet attack, the Americans used several missiles (each with just the one warhead) to attack their targets yet had seen the Bulgarian attack averted by a good defence. It could be argued that they should have made eight attacks because that was what Ligachev had done yet the failure of two of the Soviet ones meant that Reagan made just the six. He did this to answer the nuclear attack with one made in return to match it. The aim was to show the Soviets that while they could strike at will, so would the United States. The limited nature of the reply, against military advice, was done not to escalate further too. Reagan wanted to end this. A return message over the Hotline was sent to this effect.

Across the world, the leaderships of many nations not already in secure and safe locations went to them now. Military forces of the warring powers were joined by those of the neutral ones, especially those nuclear armed ones, in going to the highest possible alert status. Everyone was waiting for what was going to happen next. Fingers were on triggers as prayers were said. No one wanted to see apocalypse follow this but the fear was there that it was just a moment or two away. It just wasn’t conceivable that nuclear use would stop after these exchanges.

Good update James G as always.

I also wonder, can this nuclear Apocalypse end ore is it already to late.

[stevep]

Feb 21, 2020 2:58:00 GMT lordroel said:

Feb 20, 2020 20:36:45 GMT James G said:

205 – Six for six


Ballistic missiles had been used throughout the war. The Soviets and their allies, including both the Iraqis & the Iranians before World War Three broke out ‘properly’, had fired many of the infamous Scuds while there had also been the use of newer missiles too. The Saudis had used ballistic missiles against Iraq and then once the fighting started with the Soviets, the Americans had employed some of their Lance missiles as well. All of these instances had involved the employment of either conventional or chemical warheads with them. Nuclear-armed ballistic missiles hadn’t been used. However, when launches were made throughout the many different theatres of warfare raging it was often not known until warhead detonation that the missile wasn’t armed with a nuke. So many missiles were dual-capable and could have been carrying a nuclear warhead. If the Americans and Soviets had been launching ICBMs from silos or SLBMs out of strategic missile submarines, or certain missiles with a shorter range but known to only have nukes as their armament, then there would have been no doubt that a nuke was being employed: with the others it was impossible until impact was made. On countless occasions, all across the globe, there was absolute terror while missiles were in the air because no one could know for sure that this wasn’t a nuclear attack disguised as a conventional one. No matter how many times non-nuclear launches were made, the fear didn’t go away.

Today, when selective Soviet launches came within a short period of time from multiple locations with ballistic missiles going in different directions, it wasn’t known whether this was an attack with nukes or not. It didn’t look like such a thing but at the same time, it could just well have been. Both EUCOM and CENTCOM reporting stations broadcast ‘Pink Panther’ alerts. The name changed daily and it was a warning that ballistic missiles were in the air over Europe and the Middle East. There weren’t that many of them and none were going intercontinental but the urgent flash notice went out and over-rid other communications. On radar screens, operators and analysists tried to tell what type of missiles they were. Early indication was sought to discover whether this was a conventional attack or whether a different broadcast from Pink Panther needed to be sent out. The missiles climbed away from previously unknown launch sites – these were mobile launchers who would at once redeploy – and there were second-stage separations of missile bodies. All attention was on them. The flight time was going to be short but every second counted.

Suddenly, the alert broadcasts changed: ‘Amber Moon’!

Those were SS-20 Sabres in the sky.

Nuclear detonations occurred in Europe and the Middle East. Keflavik Airbase on Iceland was hit. So too was Karup Airbase in Denmark. The NATO command centre at Kolsås leir on the edges of the Norwegian capital Oslo was another target. In Egypt, the airbase at Cairo West was struck. The naval base at Souda Bay in Crete was attacked. Finally, last on the list of successful impact zones, was the naval airbase at Sigonella in Sicily. There were crashes of missile fragments in Iraq from a weapon which failed to make proper orbit. In Hungary, a massive but non-nuclear explosion blew up a launch site where a missile went off there rather than far off in a distant target.

The SS-20s used either carried a trio of medium-sized thermonuclear warheads or a single large one. Much of Oslo was destroyed by a one megaton blast which missed the buried command centre at Kolsås leir (which itself survived) while a big chunk of the coastline on the Greek island of Crete was wiped from the face of the earth when another huge warhead was deployed there. On Iceland, only one of the three aimed at Keflavik made a direct hit while the two others landed nearby, both exploding in the populated southwestern corner of that island nation. All three warheads aimed at Karup struck there and inflicted immense damage in the middle of Jutland. Two of the three warheads reached Sigonella with only one of the going off; nearly the same situation occurred with Cairo West though the single blast was off-target and did little direct damage to the airbase while instead blowing up a large patch of desert. The USS Missouri had evaded her planned demise when in the Persian Gulf: hitting a fast-moving ship with a ballistic missile fired from so far away was a big ask and the missile didn’t even leave Iraqi airspace before it broke up. As to that on-the-ground explosion at the launch site in Hungary, it was of a missile aimed at the military base of Caserma Ederle (a second target in Italy, the only country to be targeted twice, but foreign military forces there).

The Amber Moon alert reached some of those in the firing line as well as many others not targeted by the SS-20s. There was very little time to react. The time to do so was less than a minute once it was realised that these were nuclear missiles – the SS-20 couldn’t carry conventional ones – and not much could be done apart from those in the way to seek shelter. In military terms, the loss was greatest at Karup, Keflavik and Sigonella. Those places were full of NATO aircraft. Cairo West also had many aircraft present but the near-miss saw the majority of them unhindered from flight operations. Souda Bay had much shipping there and the loss of plenty of them was significant yet not something that was going to change the war. Allied Forces Northern Europe continued to operate inside the buried Kolsås leir while outside their bunker the city of Oslo was literally gone. The missiles came with a message from the Soviet leadership which went out over the Hotline to the Americans.


Reagan was on the NECAP aircraft over Ohio at the time; Bush was at Mount Weather in Virginia while SecDef Weinberger was underneath Pennsylvania at Raven Rock. This communication came just after a flurry of other important incoming messages. First there had been the reports of successful detonations of the American nuclear strike against the Iranian Army – they’d wanted initial information; not eager to wait it out – before both NORAD & SUBLANT were in contact concerning nuclear blasts of unknown origin which had occurred sometime before up in the Barents Sea. There was now clarification of what had happened there whereas before (ahead of Operation Thunderstreak against Iran) there had only been confusion. It was being considered almost a certainty that a missing / presumed sunk US Navy submarine had followed standing orders ahead of the nuclear truce with the Soviets and made an attack there. It had engaged an unidentified subsurface target with what appeared to be nuclear depth charges. This issue with the USS Boston, it being uncontactable and possibly capable of further attacks, was what the United States’ leadership was focused upon when the Pink Panther alert turned to an Amber Moon alert. Next up, the Hotline message came. Everything happened so fast. Information was fed to them because they needed to know. It also overwhelmed them.

Reports were coming in of what exactly had happened with those SS-20 strikes but ahead of the details, the Soviets were supplying their own on that. Their message told Reagan that Soviet nuclear attacks had been made in a deliberate fashion. This was no accident. It was done because the United States had broken the agreed-upon nuclear truce between the two of them, answering Soviet offers of an honest ceasefire and end to the conventional war in such a manner as they had. The message, signed off by Ligachev, stated that there had been a nuclear attack against a submarine in the Barents Sea and then Soviet personnel in number had been killed down in Iran by further nuclear usage. The Soviet Union would not stand for the Americans doing this. They were retaliating accordingly while desiring a situation where contact between the two superpowers returned to the subject of a global end to the fighting.

After the Hotline message, as discussions were about to begin as to how to respond, there was contact sought with Reagan, Bush and Weinberger from others. The (new) British Prime Minister, the French President and leaders of Canada, Israel & others all placed urgent calls. Generals Rogers and Crist bypassed the Joint Chiefs to contact Weinberger directly as was the chain-of-command in such a situation. SACEUR and CENTCOM’s commander had each seen forces under their command hit with nukes and were expecting more to occur. The maddening situation was only exasperated by the urgency coming from foreign leaders and American military commanders; Rogers and Crist were followed by the commanders of SAC and PACOM too.

No immediate response was sent to the Soviets. Hurd and Mitterrand, plus Israeli MP Shamir, were spoken too and so were the military commanders. Other high-ranking officials (from the US Intelligence Community as well as the National Security Council) were brought in on the teleconference as well. Input came from everyone, some of it unwelcome. Everyone could agree that something had to be done though no one could agree as to what that was. Rogers and Crist were insistent that a nuclear response must be made. They called for a return strike, using many more weapons than the Soviets: Weinberger agreed with them where he called a proposed attack ‘disproportionate’ but ‘not enough to cause a full weapons release’ from the Soviets in reply. Others agreed that the United States had to return fire though there was disagreement on how and on what scale. The two leaders of Europe’s nuclear powers ended up arguing with each other too.

It took an hour. Reagan finally made a decision. It would be one that would please none. Six for six it was: six nuclear attacks to match the six ones which the Soviets had successfully managed to get through. Targets were selected from a planning list and missile launches were made. ‘Pale Horse’ was broadcast as a warning to friendly forces.


In East Germany, the Soviet command centre at Zossen–Wünsdorf was targeted; the big airbase at Sperenberg (not a combat base but much used by transports and support aircraft) was also attacked. Across in Poland, another headquarters complex, this one at Legnica which the Soviet commander General Postnikov had only just been evacuated from was struck. The combined headquarters set-up & airbase at Milovice in Czechoslovakia made the target list and so too did the Gorna Malina command base in Bulgaria. Finally, outside of Eastern Europe, Shayrat Airbase in Syria, being used by Soviet aircraft, also drew nuclear fire directed at it. This American nuclear strike did as the Soviet one did: it avoided Western Europe. It had long been believed that in any superpower-to-superpower nuclear exchange, those would occur first in West Germany. The ironic joke was that the distance between towns in that country could only be measured in kilotons. The two targets in East Germany and the one in Czechoslovakia were all far back away from West Germany. Whether this situation would last was a different matter but for now, nuclear war seemed to have skipped this country when common wisdom had always been that it would first start there.

Into Eastern Europe, the Americans launched Pershing-2 ballistic missiles and GLCM cruise missiles from mobile launchers at military sites in them. Zossen–Wünsdorf was wiped from the face of the earth while Sperenberg took a near-miss. Legnica was soon no more and neither was Milovice. A Soviet SAM unit in Bulgaria shot down the pair of GLCMs coming towards Gorna Malina to avert that particular nuclear strike. Down in the Middle East, the battleship USS Iowa joined one of her escorting missile-cruisers in firing nuclear-armed Tomahawks against Shayrat with complete destruction to there coming. No longer would MiGs & Sukhois from there be bombing US Marines fighting in Lebanon. Those launches against European targets came from American missile units currently operating from sites in Britain, France and Italy. The Pershing-2s had been based pre-war in West Germany but were now in France; the GLCMs were UK-& Italy-based ones that had been hiding in the English countryside and that of Sicily too since the war begun. Neither European leader was best pleased at this, France’s president especially, though the Italian PM was also dealing with the knowledge that his country had suffered a nuclear strike on his soil whereas the other two had not. The Americans had told them first, so there was that, but the notice was short and the launches were also being made no matter what. The situation was urgent and the Americans were going to launch those missiles from where they were based.

It had been five for six instead of six for six. Like with the Soviet attack, the Americans used several missiles (each with just the one warhead) to attack their targets yet had seen the Bulgarian attack averted by a good defence. It could be argued that they should have made eight attacks because that was what Ligachev had done yet the failure of two of the Soviet ones meant that Reagan made just the six. He did this to answer the nuclear attack with one made in return to match it. The aim was to show the Soviets that while they could strike at will, so would the United States. The limited nature of the reply, against military advice, was done not to escalate further too. Reagan wanted to end this. A return message over the Hotline was sent to this effect.

Across the world, the leaderships of many nations not already in secure and safe locations went to them now. Military forces of the warring powers were joined by those of the neutral ones, especially those nuclear armed ones, in going to the highest possible alert status. Everyone was waiting for what was going to happen next. Fingers were on triggers as prayers were said. No one wanted to see apocalypse follow this but the fear was there that it was just a moment or two away. It just wasn’t conceivable that nuclear use would stop after these exchanges.

Good update James G as always.

I also wonder, can this nuclear Apocalypse end ore is it already to late.

  Hopefully so but the Soviets have escalated things massively.  The attacks on the Iranians were purely on military targets and using tactical warheads.  Soviet attacks were much larger and directed such that even without some inaccuracy would cause heavy civilian losses.  Also their admission that their forces were fully supporting the Iranian invasion sinks any pretense that Iranian actions had nothing to do with them.

  As well as the strike Reagan needs to respond quickly in the propaganda war.  Both in replying to Moscow that any further nuclear uses will get a heavy response and publically to the world, most especially the allies as to what has happened and why.  Probably a good idea to remind everybody that this started with a sneak Soviet attack coupled with assassinations when they were pretending they wanted peace. their illegal use of chemical weapons and now the latest excesses.

  Ideally the idiots in the Kremlin will see sense, if only some members of the Politburo and/or army or security services couping the rest.  Otherwise I don't think they have the sense or strength to back down now so their most likely to escalate things further.  Although the fact that the WP satellites have been hit could also cause some unrest in them, although they lack the political or military power to do much I fear.

  Steve

[James G]

Feb 21, 2020 2:58:00 GMT lordroel said:

Feb 20, 2020 20:36:45 GMT James G said:

205 – Six for six


Ballistic missiles had been used throughout the war. The Soviets and their allies, including both the Iraqis & the Iranians before World War Three broke out ‘properly’, had fired many of the infamous Scuds while there had also been the use of newer missiles too. The Saudis had used ballistic missiles against Iraq and then once the fighting started with the Soviets, the Americans had employed some of their Lance missiles as well. All of these instances had involved the employment of either conventional or chemical warheads with them. Nuclear-armed ballistic missiles hadn’t been used. However, when launches were made throughout the many different theatres of warfare raging it was often not known until warhead detonation that the missile wasn’t armed with a nuke. So many missiles were dual-capable and could have been carrying a nuclear warhead. If the Americans and Soviets had been launching ICBMs from silos or SLBMs out of strategic missile submarines, or certain missiles with a shorter range but known to only have nukes as their armament, then there would have been no doubt that a nuke was being employed: with the others it was impossible until impact was made. On countless occasions, all across the globe, there was absolute terror while missiles were in the air because no one could know for sure that this wasn’t a nuclear attack disguised as a conventional one. No matter how many times non-nuclear launches were made, the fear didn’t go away.

Today, when selective Soviet launches came within a short period of time from multiple locations with ballistic missiles going in different directions, it wasn’t known whether this was an attack with nukes or not. It didn’t look like such a thing but at the same time, it could just well have been. Both EUCOM and CENTCOM reporting stations broadcast ‘Pink Panther’ alerts. The name changed daily and it was a warning that ballistic missiles were in the air over Europe and the Middle East. There weren’t that many of them and none were going intercontinental but the urgent flash notice went out and over-rid other communications. On radar screens, operators and analysists tried to tell what type of missiles they were. Early indication was sought to discover whether this was a conventional attack or whether a different broadcast from Pink Panther needed to be sent out. The missiles climbed away from previously unknown launch sites – these were mobile launchers who would at once redeploy – and there were second-stage separations of missile bodies. All attention was on them. The flight time was going to be short but every second counted.

Suddenly, the alert broadcasts changed: ‘Amber Moon’!

Those were SS-20 Sabres in the sky.

Nuclear detonations occurred in Europe and the Middle East. Keflavik Airbase on Iceland was hit. So too was Karup Airbase in Denmark. The NATO command centre at Kolsås leir on the edges of the Norwegian capital Oslo was another target. In Egypt, the airbase at Cairo West was struck. The naval base at Souda Bay in Crete was attacked. Finally, last on the list of successful impact zones, was the naval airbase at Sigonella in Sicily. There were crashes of missile fragments in Iraq from a weapon which failed to make proper orbit. In Hungary, a massive but non-nuclear explosion blew up a launch site where a missile went off there rather than far off in a distant target.

The SS-20s used either carried a trio of medium-sized thermonuclear warheads or a single large one. Much of Oslo was destroyed by a one megaton blast which missed the buried command centre at Kolsås leir (which itself survived) while a big chunk of the coastline on the Greek island of Crete was wiped from the face of the earth when another huge warhead was deployed there. On Iceland, only one of the three aimed at Keflavik made a direct hit while the two others landed nearby, both exploding in the populated southwestern corner of that island nation. All three warheads aimed at Karup struck there and inflicted immense damage in the middle of Jutland. Two of the three warheads reached Sigonella with only one of the going off; nearly the same situation occurred with Cairo West though the single blast was off-target and did little direct damage to the airbase while instead blowing up a large patch of desert. The USS Missouri had evaded her planned demise when in the Persian Gulf: hitting a fast-moving ship with a ballistic missile fired from so far away was a big ask and the missile didn’t even leave Iraqi airspace before it broke up. As to that on-the-ground explosion at the launch site in Hungary, it was of a missile aimed at the military base of Caserma Ederle (a second target in Italy, the only country to be targeted twice, but foreign military forces there).

The Amber Moon alert reached some of those in the firing line as well as many others not targeted by the SS-20s. There was very little time to react. The time to do so was less than a minute once it was realised that these were nuclear missiles – the SS-20 couldn’t carry conventional ones – and not much could be done apart from those in the way to seek shelter. In military terms, the loss was greatest at Karup, Keflavik and Sigonella. Those places were full of NATO aircraft. Cairo West also had many aircraft present but the near-miss saw the majority of them unhindered from flight operations. Souda Bay had much shipping there and the loss of plenty of them was significant yet not something that was going to change the war. Allied Forces Northern Europe continued to operate inside the buried Kolsås leir while outside their bunker the city of Oslo was literally gone. The missiles came with a message from the Soviet leadership which went out over the Hotline to the Americans.


Reagan was on the NECAP aircraft over Ohio at the time; Bush was at Mount Weather in Virginia while SecDef Weinberger was underneath Pennsylvania at Raven Rock. This communication came just after a flurry of other important incoming messages. First there had been the reports of successful detonations of the American nuclear strike against the Iranian Army – they’d wanted initial information; not eager to wait it out – before both NORAD & SUBLANT were in contact concerning nuclear blasts of unknown origin which had occurred sometime before up in the Barents Sea. There was now clarification of what had happened there whereas before (ahead of Operation Thunderstreak against Iran) there had only been confusion. It was being considered almost a certainty that a missing / presumed sunk US Navy submarine had followed standing orders ahead of the nuclear truce with the Soviets and made an attack there. It had engaged an unidentified subsurface target with what appeared to be nuclear depth charges. This issue with the USS Boston, it being uncontactable and possibly capable of further attacks, was what the United States’ leadership was focused upon when the Pink Panther alert turned to an Amber Moon alert. Next up, the Hotline message came. Everything happened so fast. Information was fed to them because they needed to know. It also overwhelmed them.

Reports were coming in of what exactly had happened with those SS-20 strikes but ahead of the details, the Soviets were supplying their own on that. Their message told Reagan that Soviet nuclear attacks had been made in a deliberate fashion. This was no accident. It was done because the United States had broken the agreed-upon nuclear truce between the two of them, answering Soviet offers of an honest ceasefire and end to the conventional war in such a manner as they had. The message, signed off by Ligachev, stated that there had been a nuclear attack against a submarine in the Barents Sea and then Soviet personnel in number had been killed down in Iran by further nuclear usage. The Soviet Union would not stand for the Americans doing this. They were retaliating accordingly while desiring a situation where contact between the two superpowers returned to the subject of a global end to the fighting.

After the Hotline message, as discussions were about to begin as to how to respond, there was contact sought with Reagan, Bush and Weinberger from others. The (new) British Prime Minister, the French President and leaders of Canada, Israel & others all placed urgent calls. Generals Rogers and Crist bypassed the Joint Chiefs to contact Weinberger directly as was the chain-of-command in such a situation. SACEUR and CENTCOM’s commander had each seen forces under their command hit with nukes and were expecting more to occur. The maddening situation was only exasperated by the urgency coming from foreign leaders and American military commanders; Rogers and Crist were followed by the commanders of SAC and PACOM too.

No immediate response was sent to the Soviets. Hurd and Mitterrand, plus Israeli MP Shamir, were spoken too and so were the military commanders. Other high-ranking officials (from the US Intelligence Community as well as the National Security Council) were brought in on the teleconference as well. Input came from everyone, some of it unwelcome. Everyone could agree that something had to be done though no one could agree as to what that was. Rogers and Crist were insistent that a nuclear response must be made. They called for a return strike, using many more weapons than the Soviets: Weinberger agreed with them where he called a proposed attack ‘disproportionate’ but ‘not enough to cause a full weapons release’ from the Soviets in reply. Others agreed that the United States had to return fire though there was disagreement on how and on what scale. The two leaders of Europe’s nuclear powers ended up arguing with each other too.

It took an hour. Reagan finally made a decision. It would be one that would please none. Six for six it was: six nuclear attacks to match the six ones which the Soviets had successfully managed to get through. Targets were selected from a planning list and missile launches were made. ‘Pale Horse’ was broadcast as a warning to friendly forces.


In East Germany, the Soviet command centre at Zossen–Wünsdorf was targeted; the big airbase at Sperenberg (not a combat base but much used by transports and support aircraft) was also attacked. Across in Poland, another headquarters complex, this one at Legnica which the Soviet commander General Postnikov had only just been evacuated from was struck. The combined headquarters set-up & airbase at Milovice in Czechoslovakia made the target list and so too did the Gorna Malina command base in Bulgaria. Finally, outside of Eastern Europe, Shayrat Airbase in Syria, being used by Soviet aircraft, also drew nuclear fire directed at it. This American nuclear strike did as the Soviet one did: it avoided Western Europe. It had long been believed that in any superpower-to-superpower nuclear exchange, those would occur first in West Germany. The ironic joke was that the distance between towns in that country could only be measured in kilotons. The two targets in East Germany and the one in Czechoslovakia were all far back away from West Germany. Whether this situation would last was a different matter but for now, nuclear war seemed to have skipped this country when common wisdom had always been that it would first start there.

Into Eastern Europe, the Americans launched Pershing-2 ballistic missiles and GLCM cruise missiles from mobile launchers at military sites in them. Zossen–Wünsdorf was wiped from the face of the earth while Sperenberg took a near-miss. Legnica was soon no more and neither was Milovice. A Soviet SAM unit in Bulgaria shot down the pair of GLCMs coming towards Gorna Malina to avert that particular nuclear strike. Down in the Middle East, the battleship USS Iowa joined one of her escorting missile-cruisers in firing nuclear-armed Tomahawks against Shayrat with complete destruction to there coming. No longer would MiGs & Sukhois from there be bombing US Marines fighting in Lebanon. Those launches against European targets came from American missile units currently operating from sites in Britain, France and Italy. The Pershing-2s had been based pre-war in West Germany but were now in France; the GLCMs were UK-& Italy-based ones that had been hiding in the English countryside and that of Sicily too since the war begun. Neither European leader was best pleased at this, France’s president especially, though the Italian PM was also dealing with the knowledge that his country had suffered a nuclear strike on his soil whereas the other two had not. The Americans had told them first, so there was that, but the notice was short and the launches were also being made no matter what. The situation was urgent and the Americans were going to launch those missiles from where they were based.

It had been five for six instead of six for six. Like with the Soviet attack, the Americans used several missiles (each with just the one warhead) to attack their targets yet had seen the Bulgarian attack averted by a good defence. It could be argued that they should have made eight attacks because that was what Ligachev had done yet the failure of two of the Soviet ones meant that Reagan made just the six. He did this to answer the nuclear attack with one made in return to match it. The aim was to show the Soviets that while they could strike at will, so would the United States. The limited nature of the reply, against military advice, was done not to escalate further too. Reagan wanted to end this. A return message over the Hotline was sent to this effect.

Across the world, the leaderships of many nations not already in secure and safe locations went to them now. Military forces of the warring powers were joined by those of the neutral ones, especially those nuclear armed ones, in going to the highest possible alert status. Everyone was waiting for what was going to happen next. Fingers were on triggers as prayers were said. No one wanted to see apocalypse follow this but the fear was there that it was just a moment or two away. It just wasn’t conceivable that nuclear use would stop after these exchanges.

Good update James G as always.

I also wonder, can this nuclear Apocalypse end ore is it already to late.

Thank you.
Unfortunately, it is too late to stop the inevitable now.

Feb 21, 2020 11:58:04 GMT stevep said:

  Hopefully so but the Soviets have escalated things massively.  The attacks on the Iranians were purely on military targets and using tactical warheads.  Soviet attacks were much larger and directed such that even without some inaccuracy would cause heavy civilian losses.  Also their admission that their forces were fully supporting the Iranian invasion sinks any pretense that Iranian actions had nothing to do with them.

  As well as the strike Reagan needs to respond quickly in the propaganda war.  Both in replying to Moscow that any further nuclear uses will get a heavy response and publically to the world, most especially the allies as to what has happened and why.  Probably a good idea to remind everybody that this started with a sneak Soviet attack coupled with assassinations when they were pretending they wanted peace. their illegal use of chemical weapons and now the latest excesses.

  Ideally the idiots in the Kremlin will see sense, if only some members of the Politburo and/or army or security services couping the rest.  Otherwise I don't think they have the sense or strength to back down now so their most likely to escalate things further.  Although the fact that the WP satellites have been hit could also cause some unrest in them, although they lack the political or military power to do much I fear.

  Steve

Massive civilian casualties have just been taken: Oslo being the 'highlight' but not the only one.
Things are moving very fast now. There isn't time for careful, calculated decisions and actions to win the propaganda war. The big toys are being brought out to play.
There will be those in the Soviet leadership, as well as those at the highest rungs in the West, who will want to do anything to stop what is coming yet the die has now been cast on that. It is all unstoppable.