People's War

[James G]

Sept 28, 2021 18:39:03 GMT lordroel said:

Sept 28, 2021 18:34:28 GMT James G said:

Twenty-eight – Going Downtown


Cruise missiles were the first to be used to open the Coalition air campaign against East Germany. In the Heligoland Blight (at the southeastern reaches of the North Sea), a trio of US Navy submarines lofted a couple of dozen Tomahawks. Those were shot out of VLS tubes and few off towards not-so-distant targets over in the DDR. Penetration of East German airspace was made fast and at low altitude with the Tomahawks tearing towards their targets. Those were airbases across the country but on approach, the missiles flew courses aiming at deception and to avoid efforts to bring them down. Long-range passive radars picked many of them up though upon launch and while they were lost when flying low and using terrain to mask their flights, air defence systems began to engage the Tomahawks closer to their targets. SAMs were lofted skywards with hits made. Nowhere near enough were taken out to really make a dent in the scale of the attack though. The others closed in upon their targets before they then overflew the airbases. Sub-munitions were spilled out across runways & taxiways with the follow-up being the missiles slamming into runways using their remaining fuel as primary ordnance. Results from the Coalition’s point of view were regarded as more than satisfactory. Air operations from the targeted sites would be heavily interrupted but more than that, the Tomahawks had fulfilled the role of lighting up mobile hidden air defence sites for what was soon to follow. More cruise missiles came in first before attacks direct against air defence platforms. B-52s flying out of the UK launched waves of ALCM missiles when above the Low Countries before an easy flight back to RAF Fairford was made by the US Air Force crews. Again, there were a lot of them and they crashed into targets across the DDR as well. Those were semi-fixed SAM launchers and associated support systems. The East Germans had a lot of older SA-2s and SA-5s for the ALCMs to target. Knocking them all out was impossible but much destruction was aimed to be caused. If the British or the French had operated cruise missiles, those would have been employed too. Alas, only the Americans made that opening attack using such expandable weapons that posed no risk at all to Coalition personnel.

The Americans also were the only ones flying stealth aircraft and so they went in after the cruise missiles. Four B-2 Spirits flew high above East Germany after coming all the way from the mainland United States. Three of them went after LSK headquarters sites which were only partially below-ground. It wasn’t bunker-busting done at Beeskow, Cottbus and Trollenhagen though a lot of heavy bombs – laser-guided ones – smashed into those command facilities to level buildings. Air defences around neither site got a look in at what was above. The fourth stealth bomber hit the main nuclear site for DDR efforts to become a nuclear-armed nation. That once-secret facility at Trebbin received a belly-full of bombs. Extreme care was taken to not cause a nuclear accident – no one wanted another Chernobyl – though the risk of anything like that was judged to be low. What the bombing did was flatten the site and end all East German work there for the foreseeable future. While the cruise missiles and the B-2s were doing what they were, the Americans and the British had stand-off electronic reconnaissance aircraft active. A pair of RAF Nimrod R1s were joined far back from the DDR in West German skies by EC-130 Compass Calls and also E-8 JSTARS’. Their mission to to react in real-time to the what they could observe of the East German immediate response and allow that information to be passed onto attacking aircraft. The Nimrods & the Compass Calls had little work to do though due to the continuation of intense EMCON by their opponents. However, the JSTARS aircraft picked up all sorts of activity. They were able to pinpoint and monitor East German movement on the ground with their mobile SAM systems. It wasn’t as if there were many private vehicles on the move in isolated, rural areas of the DDR. What they were seeing, vehicles moving in column, were military targets where dispersed SAM batteries – many of whom who’d already highlighted themselves by going after cruise missiles – redeploying as the air campaign started.

East German airspace was entered by waves of Coalition aircraft on the follow-up. Not just the Americans but aircraft from their partners in the conflict with the DDR flew fighters over the Inner-German Border; additional entry too was made into Czech airspace. Fighters aplenty went forward as they sought to engage the expected LSK interceptors sent up. There were also ‘HARM shooters’. Anti-radar missiles carried by F-16s (American, Belgian, Danish and Dutch aircraft) were carried with the HARMs ready to fire upon missile-control radars that were anticipated to come on-line once the large incursion took place. Several flights of RAF Jaguar GR1s carrying ALARMs and French Mirage F-1s with ARMATs – different types of anti-radar missiles – were also with them as well. Early spotted targets were engaged by the HARM-shooters. Other targets weren’t found though. Enemy radars weren’t coming on-line for them to race towards. It was a generally frustrating experience for those expecting to find a target-rich environment. Information from the JSTARS operations gave input as to where to find missile batteries and they were subject to some attacks using other munitions, but it wasn’t all as expected. Neither did the anti-fighter mission go as planned too. The LSK didn’t put their aircraft up. The previous night had seen the East Germans conduct a major night-time exercise in the vein of preparing themselves to defend their skies, but when those were invaded, nothing was done about that. A whole load of fighters flew around with no mission for them to undertake. Yet, over the Czech Republic, there was some air action. French Mirage-2000s and also American F-16s with them there met MiGs piloted by Czechs loyal to the illegal regime in Prague. It was pretty much a Turkey Shoot. Using AWACS aircraft flying far back over West Germany, advancing Coalition fighters were all over their opponents and able to attack from all directions with almost no warning for those on the receiving end. Down, down and down again went Czech fighters for only one loss: one of the US Air Force F-16s came unstuck in a tight engagement with an opposing MiG-29.


Fighters and HARM shooters remained in East German & Czech skies when the main strike force began a full night’s worth of multiple air strikes. That pre-conflict target list drawn up was something worked through. Up near the Baltic coast, American F-16s and Canadian CF-18s went on attack missions from out of Denmark covered by Danish and Norwegian fighters. The airbases at Laage and Peenemunde had already been worked over by sub-launched Tomahawks to close them to flight operations. The strike aircraft carrying laser-guided bombs came in next. Those were targeted against HASs and airbase facilities. So much of the LSK was dispersed – a job for someone else – but those air strikes up there still hit the main operating sites. The belief was that serious damage would be done to the East German’s air force. It was the same elsewhere at the airbases. Paveways were employed to smash those protected shelters while unguided general-purpose and cluster bombs were used by various Coalition air forces. Bautzen, Briest, Drewitz, Holzdorf, Neuhardenberg, Preschen and Trollenhagen were struck. RAF Tornado GR1s and also Italian IDSs were busy alongside American F-15Es and A-6Es (the latter flying from the USS Enterprise). Neuhardenberg was targeted by those US Navy jets while the US Air Force went after three more of the airbases. The British and the Italians struck at the trio of Drewitz, Holzdorf and Preschen with the Tornados employed meeting resistance. There were SAM launches aplenty against them – more than their Coalition allies faced around other airbases – while the attempted to smash apart such places in the eastern portion of the DDR to the south of Berlin. Waiting HARM shooters reacted fast and fired off their missiles when SAM systems were identified. Still, there were losses caused to attacking aircraft in that. The Tornados were designed for such missions as hitting those airbases and did their job in the face of the opposition.

More F-15Es were joined by veteran F-111Fs as the US Air Force gave them what looked like the last conflict that the ‘Vark’ would see. The targets for their deep-level strikes, again mostly on the far side of East Germany, were identified dispersal sites for the DDR ballistic missile force. Intelligence going back through June, and last-minute movement tracking done by both satellites and JSTARS, pinpointed locations to hit away from the garrisons: those were also attacked too though to knock out home-base support. Plenty of GBU-15 glide bombs as well as Maverick air-to-surface missiles were made use of. Explosions were reported with hits on vehicles identified as the launchers themselves and support vehicles. There was a significant SAM response to those attacks too. Across Brandenburg and Saxony, the Americans were certain that they knocked out many Scud and SS-23 systems. Closer to where the Inner-German Border was, across the Harz Mountains and the Thuringwald, there were more anti-SRBM operations involving American & Coalition F-16s as well as the RAF bringing in Harriers and the US Navy sending FA-18s. Other Scuds and shorter-range SS-21s were known to have been deployed to those regions where they were hiding closer to West Germany so as to give them more targets to fire against when East Germany was anticipated to make a response. Bombs, rockets and even cannon fire was used again to target suspected missile-launchers. Anti-radar missiles were also fired against SAM batteries which lofted missiles of their own against attacking Coalition aircraft in those areas.

The Franco-American air activity over the Czech Republic continued throughout the night. Air facilities used by the East Germans and their Czech allies across that country were targeted along with missile systems. Many inbound Armée de l'Air aircraft heavily-laden with bombs were refuelled above West Germany as they flew direct from France itself. American tankers gave thirsty aircraft a drink on the way where Mirages & Jaguars joined F-16s in pounding Czech targets. Interceptors came up once again to try and met the incursion and met the same response as before: multiple fighters firing missiles off against them guided by AWACS to allow for great success. There was the targeting within the Czech Republic of ground headquarters units as well as several logistical sites for Czech rebel forces as well. That wasn’t done in East Germany during the first night of Operation Allied Sword yet was done extensively above the Czech battlefield due to the different circumstances of conflict ongoing there. Much pre-attack reconnaissance had been done to avoid hitting Czech government and Polish forces also in-country though there were some errors made with that. Neither nation was in the Coalition and there had only been partial coordination. Later diplomatic contact would smooth over the resulting fallout from that but apologies would be of little comfort to those killed by ‘friendly’ air strikes meant to be conducted against their opponents also supposedly fighting for the legitimacy of Czech sovereignty.

When dusk approached on the morning of July 3rd, the night-time air campaign came to a close following a final Tomahawk strike where US Navy warships shot off more to target dispersed airstrips in East Germany as well as ‘suspected’ (or guessed: it depended upon your point of view) locations where hiding SAM batteries might have been hiding. Daylight activity was planned and there would be further nights of bombing, but the first night was over with. Post-strike reconnaissance was already underway before it all ended and would continue. The Coalition set about the process of recovering downed aircrew where possible as well as licking what few wounds from the fight which they had taken. Questions were asked though. Where had been the LSK’s fighter force? Had they really left their nation, their capital city too, undefended from air attack? Why had so few of East Germany’s SAMs been in the fight? Where were the others hiding? Eight Coalition aircraft had gone down with all but one of them shot out of the sky by what few SAMs were employed: none of them had been the SA-10s either which had been conspicuous by their invisibility. The Americans had taken four of those losses, the British two and the French & Italians on apiece. Of those, an F-15E had crashed not into East Germany but rather over Hesse in West Germany while flying home shot up. There was also an RAF Tornado included in the loss total that had made a hard landing in Poland at an unused former Soviet airfield while trying to divert to neutral territory after being hit with a SAM. It went up in flames after the two aircrew made a successful dash away from the wreck. Furthermore, not among the direct losses was a USAF Reserve F-16 that escaped from an air engagement over the Czech Republic seeking its temporary home base in the Rhineland yet lost power mid-flight. The pilot flew it as a glider and landed at Neuburg AB in Bavaria successfully. That was a Luftwaffe base leading to a situation where the West Germans would be legally right to intern it if they felt like it.


F-117s set about ‘going Downtown’ over East Berlin. Attack missions were conducted by several of those stealth attack aircraft deployed to Britain to target hardened East German command bunkers outside of the DDR capital alongside a select flight of F-111s as well. Those were high-risk missions conducted in the early hours when the skies above East Germany were already filled with Coalition aircraft.

Just outside of East Berlin, the F-111s involved dropped GBU-28 Deep Throat bombs atop the buried headquarters set-ups at Fuchshau and Strausberg. Those weapons had been made famous during the Gulf War against Iraq four years previously. They smashed down inside and exploded… thus their rude name. Both sites were knocked out of action for good with complete destruction done and great loss of life. The F-117s flying outside of the capital itself hit the Defence Ministry building (unlike other countries, the DDR didn’t have its MOD inside its capital) and above ground facilities at the sprawling Strausberg site too near where that Deep Throat attack had occurred. Laser-guided bombs as well as a heavy sprinkling of ‘smart’ cluster munitions were deployed in the face of a significant SAM threat. Those air defences were taken out by the cluster bomb attack right ahead of the later arriving F-111 too. Operations over the Strausberg area – the destroyed bunker at Fuchshau was nearby – were considered a remarkable success by the Coalition as that was meant to be well-defended but only light, ineffective opposition had been met.

There were a pair of targets inside East Berlin proper for the F-117 attacks there. The first was at Adlershof where the Stasi’s large paramilitary force had its primary garrison. Air defences around the city exploded into action following the detonations of bombs there though the attacking stealth aircraft flew away from all of those SAMs blind-fired upwards at a shadow. It wasn’t like Baghdad in January 1991 no matter what journalists might say afterwards though a lot of missiles were fired off. GBU-27 bunker-busters – weapons with less penetrating power than the Deep Throats employed outside of the city – crashed down first before other laser-guided bombs fell too. There was a lot of underground portions of the Adlershof site that the Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Division had access too, thus the need for the penetrating weapons first. A late addition to the Coalition target list, one which had to get approval all the from President Cuomo, was the new State Council Building in the Mitte district right in the middle of the city. Margot Honecker had spoken there when she had rebutted the Coalition’s deadline for action. It didn’t make it on the target list because of that (though that helped make Cuomo approve of it, giving in to hitting a ‘regime target’ when he had first been so opposed to such a thing) but instead because the East German regime was setting up there to make it their main centre of propaganda operations for the planned media effort to decry Coalition air attacks. The building was busy during the night but it wasn’t full of the international media as would be the case the following morning. Paveway bombs demolished it, leaving neighbouring buildings scared but still standing, so as to give the media something else to look at the following morning. The F-117 which made that attack was shot at by a SA-11 battery hidden within East Berlin. It was hit by shrapnel from the SAM which exploded in the aircraft’s wake though made it clear from the city and also out of the DDR too. An emergency landing was made afterwards at Eindhoven AB in the Netherlands with the aircraft out of action yet not officially counted as a loss. It had gone Downtown over East Berlin and been struck with the US Air Force afterwards in a mad flurry of activity to find out just how that had occurred… and how to make sure such a thing didn’t happen again.

While her capital city was bombed, alongside her country too, Honecker was away from there. She and the majority of the Politburo had evacuated East Berlin for the national command bunker below Prenden, away to the northeast of when American stealth bombers were in action. They were buried in what was believed to be an impenetrable shelter (such the official position was on it) that only a nuclear bunker-buster could take out. The defence minister and the head of the Stasi were elsewhere yet everyone else was at Prenden. Reports came in throughout the night and into the next morning of the air campaign launched against East Germany. There was a lot of concern expressed, and a lot of anger too. Of great worry was the reported elimination of the Fuchshau bunker for LSK command operations due to that being of almost the same quality as their one. Honecker gave the order before midnight that the planned retaliation come the next morning was to go ahead. There was no argument against that. The DDR had said they would reply with attacks of their own if the Coalition was stupid enough to strike at them. That hadn’t been a bluff. Huge damage had been done to East Germany and their rule was left under threat by that. A reply had to be made to cause those attacking them to cease what they were doing less the regime lose its vice-like grip on power.

Firing orders went out to dispersed ballistic missile units to do as promised and launch their weapons westwards once twilight arrived.

And so the largest war in Europe sins the end of World War II has begun with the Allies making the first blow.

One hell of a blow too. But East Germany has its first response ready.

Sept 29, 2021 15:03:06 GMT stevep said:

  Technically I would say it was the largest war in Europe since WWII once the GDR attack on the Czechs started, definitely the case once the Poles joined in.  However definitely got a LOT bigger now.  How much further it would grow we will have to wait and see.

I'd agree. The missile attacks on CZ, Slovakia and Poland were way overboard and smashed the peace since 1945.

Sept 29, 2021 15:04:25 GMT lordroel said:

Well East Germany has Scuds, so they are going to use it.

Scuds and others. SS-23 Spiders for long-range strikes. Shorter-range SS-21 Scarabs for tactical attacks but also FROG-7 guided rockets with a good range too.

Sept 29, 2021 15:08:58 GMT stevep said:

  Certainly and its going to be messy.  Hopefully they will only be conventionally armed.  If they try any chemical attacks then the allied response is likely to be very harsh and also their likely to lose any sympathy they currently have in western countries.

Conventional warheads: HE and FRAG.
A message similar to what Saddam got in '91 has been delivered by the US. A gas is a germ is a nuke. Use WMDs and we'll use ours.

Sept 29, 2021 15:36:53 GMT lordroel said:

Well Saddam did not use it either in 1991 and 2003 but then again, we do not know how the East Germans going to react being invaded.

Invasion is something that the Coalition has said nothing about but the East Germans believe that is on the cards.

[James G]

Twenty-nine – Missiles at twilight


President Cuomo and other Coalition leaders made addresses to their people quickly after the air campaign finally got going. It was the early afternoon in Washington while night-time across the ocean in Europe. Global audiences further afield watched those statements made where presidents and prime ministers explained that they had no other choice but to do what they were in seeking to force East Germany to respect international norms and law. From all of them it was said that the intention was for the air strikes to quickly change minds in East Berlin, and have the Honecker regime agree to cease its wars against its neighbours plus give up its nuclear weapons programme. However, the military action would continue until that was done no matter what the DDR did in response. Few foreign media teams were present within East Germany and those that were there were concentrated within that nation’s capital. There was some footage released of when East Berlin came under attack but it was grainy, confusing and cut short by the unseen actions of Stasi officers. Much better images came out of West Berlin. Journalists from across the world had chosen to stay in there despite the likelihood that an invasion of the city was thought to be on the cards: Coalition governments had dodged many questions as to whether that was going to happen while the DDR had refused to comment. Cameramen set up positions atop high-rise buildings to give them a better view looking across the Berlin Wall. It was only two F-117s which struck the East German capital and they did so in the very early hours of the morning. Before anyone watching knew what was happening, they had dropped their bombs and were making an escape. There were missile launches rather than footage of bombers for the cameras to record with a lot of SAMs going up both before and after multiple huge explosions went off at two separate sites. Satellite dishes were used to send out the footage live. European audiences were generally asleep but coverage from ABC, CNN & NBC was watched across the United States and Canada. It was exciting to see for many though plenty more were quite frightened by what they saw too.

Back in Western Europe, air raid sirens erupted into action just before dawn. Not just in West Germany but in Denmark and the Netherlands too there was a wail of alarm just as the sky got bright before the sun itself began to fully rise. There were no urgent warnings sent from Cold War era public broadcast systems in Belgium and France: they should have gone off in the former though there was no need in the latter. Those sirens sounded to alert people to danger because ballistic missiles raced towards four countries. Three of them were part of the Coalition and had sent aircraft on attack missions into East Germany though the fourth, West Germany, had done everything possible to stay out of a war which its leaders & people didn’t want yet nonetheless were targeted for attack. Britain was out of range of any possible missile strike and so there was no need for an alert. As to France, the DDR could have struck it with their missiles but opted not to do that early on the morning of July 3rd 1995.

Twenty-two missiles flew out of East Germany. An additional three didn’t make successful launches with one of those failures seeing an accidental explosion which destroyed the launch vehicle and killed almost a dozen missile-men. Scuds and Spiders were used, short-range ballistic missiles, and they carried conventional warheads. Towards fifteen distant targets they flew. Those were military ones but often near civilian areas.


On Jutland within Denmark, four Scuds flew towards two airbases from where Coalition aircraft had flown attack missions in the preceding hours. Skrydstrup AB and Vandel AB were those Danish targets with launches made from the northern reaches of East Germany and short overflights made of the Baltic on the way. Into the Netherlands flew two Spiders which covered a greater distance and made longer flights to again go after Coalition-used airbases at both Soesterberg AB and Volkel AB. The Belgian Air Force facility at Kleine Brogel – just over the Dutch border – was another target for just the one Spider. Those missiles had longer range than Scuds and were considered more accurate too therefore with just the one used each time. Launching against the Low Countries was, like the attack on Denmark, not previously something that the East German leadership had directly threatened to do. They did though as those countries came under fire just like West Germany also did.

The other missiles went after targets located across the length and width of West Germany. One Spider apiece went after the British airbases at RAF Bruggen and RAF Laarbruch with another shot towards JHQ Rheindahlen which was a combined British Army/RAF joint headquarters. All of those British military bases were located on the western side of the Rhine and right up against the West German-Dutch border. Osnabrück Garrison was closer to East Germany and was targeted by a pair of Scuds. There were soldiers based there but none of them had been taking directly part in Operation Allied Sword during the night which had just passed. Across the southern portion of West Germany, there were seemingly American military bases everywhere. Cutbacks following the end of the Cold War had seen many close but plenty did remain. Ballistic missiles flew several of towards them. Ramstein AB and Spangdahlem AB, two airbases in the Rhineland close to France, were targeted by one Spider apiece and then there were a pair of Scuds shot towards Hanau AAF along in the Main Valley. Campbell Barracks in Heidelberg and Patch Barracks in Stuttgart were each major command centres for US forces: two Scuds were shot towards the former and the latter came under fire from a lone Spider. Finally, the fifteenth target was Rhein-Main AB just outside of Frankfurt. It shared runways with that city’s international airport and wasn’t very far indeed from East Germany. Three Scuds were launched out of the Thuringwald – where American air activity had spent the night hunting for missile launchers – and went towards Rhein-Main.

Like the missiles shot towards the Frankfurt area, all of those launches came from forward-deployed East German missile units. They were dispersed and camouflaged out in the countryside with great use of made of deception to make sure that they survived the night. There had been casualties to other launchers yet much of what Coalition aircraft had actually hit when they thought they got a good portion of the DDR’s missile force was instead dummies. Those were realistic fakes, nothing shoddy. They had to be good because the Coalition, especially the Americans, weren’t going to be easily fooled when using various technical means to detect them for air strikes. Almost all of the missile force had survived the night and what was shot off as the first strike was only some of what the East Germans could make use of. When the air raid sirens had waited during the morning twilight, they did so due a warning signal sent by military forces. The Belgians didn’t get the warning in time but the others did. All of the ballistic missile launches were made over a ten minute period and were detectable by multiple platforms looking down and into East Germany. Out went that warning and also up went Patriot anti-ballistic missiles. The Americans, the Dutch and the West Germans all operated those systems who’d engaged Scuds four years beforehand in the Middle East though had never faced Spiders before. More than just more modern missiles coming their way, the Patriot crews faced concentrated attacks too. The targets for the East German attack were generally clustered near to each other. To call it a saturation attack would be an overstatement yet it was a lot to deal with for those tasked to knock incoming missiles out of the sky. Successes were had and there were too some awful failures.


In Belgium, Kleine Brogel took a direct hit. The impacting missile detonated just above the empty flight-line in front of the hangars and base facilities. There was a fantastic explosion when the Spider’s 1000lb warhead went off with fragmentation attack caused great damage. Belgian F-16s were either in their protected HASs or airborne though while almost everyone at the airbase was sheltering themselves. Damage was significant but the base and flight ops weren’t knocked out of action for any great deal of time once immediate recovery operations got going. At Skrydstrup, one of the Scuds made an impact with a contact-fused warhead while the other landed in a field seven miles off in what was quite the miss for an already inaccurate weapon. The one which did strike the Danish airbase exploded within the perimeter yet didn’t hit nor destroy anything important. Both of those Scuds which went towards Vandel likewise didn’t have the desire effect of causing any real military damage of note. Both landed within the confines of the airbase with one hitting a taxiway and the other smashing into an evacuated administration building. There were still a few casualties but the US Air Force Reserve F-16s and Canadian CF-18s which were flying from there would continue with their operations. Dutch-manned Patriots engaged the inbound Spider tearing towards Soesterberg and the other heading for Volkel. Volkel, which the Americans and Dutch were both using for combat operations, was hit by the missile aimed there in a similar strike to what was seen at Kleine Brogel. More casualties were caused though than what was seen down in Belgium but flight operations wouldn’t be brought to a halt for long: after a sweep for missile fragments, the runway would be reopened and then other damage dealt with. Soesterberg wasn’t hit. The missile inbound towards it was struck by one of the many Patriots sent skywards in a fantastic bit of shooting. Alas, celebrations rapidly turned to absolute horror when, rather than blowing up high, the Spider fell in pieces above the densely-populated Central Netherlands. The missile body landed it bits all over the place, harming no one (there were some close calls) yet the warhead itself tumbled into the city of Utrecht. It exploded and demolished two residential buildings while damaging a few more. Fourteen Dutch civilians lost their lives.

Luftwaffe Patriot coverage was over the Ruhr and cities in the lower reaches of the Rhineland. They were there to protect West German cities but were also active when those missiles targeting the cluster of British bases came in. None of the missiles went up managed to hit the ones inbound. The two RAF airbases were struck by accurate Spider shots. Once more, while damage was done, it wasn’t really enough to serious delay flight operations for very long once the post-strike clean-up stepped into gear. Another Spider was off-course and fell short of its target at Rheindahlen. It struck the edges of the city of Mönchengladbach and did what the West Germans had been fearing for so long: caused civilian casualties in their country. Three innocents, including a week-old baby, were killed. Osnabrück Garrison had no anti-missile coverage. One Scud landed in the River Hase while the other was on-target and flattened a portion of Roberts Barracks in a near-perfect hit on a prime military target. Soldiers with the Royal Artillery sheltering in the basement level were killed and wounded there.

US Army-operated Patriots, plus more in West German hands too, fired off defensive shots against targets for East German missiles launched at targets further south. Frankfurt and Rhein-Main were heavily defended but so too were the airbases and the major headquarters sites: the army airfield at Hanau was outside of direct cover. One of the Scuds flying towards the US Army Europe HQ in Heidelberg was successfully knocked down and there was glancing blow struck against the Spider seeking to hit Ramstein. That wasn’t enough to negate the scale of the attack. What did more damage to East German intentions was the inaccuracy of their strike elements. Patch Barracks, home to European Command and thus SACEUR’s staff (who were all in shelters), was missed entirely and Stuttgart itself spared when the inbound Spider went way off course and landed in the German countryside eleven miles short. Campbell Barracks in nearby Heidelberg only got one of those Scuds yet there was a lot of damage as well as casualties too when it was slightly off-course and instead exploded just outside the military HQ. The busy airfield at Hanau was hit by both inbound missiles and that was where greatest success was had in doing damage to American military operations. In comparison, Spangdahlem took a near direct hit yet flight operations would recommence not long afterwards. Meanwhile Ramstein was struck harder, but that airbase wasn’t going to be shut for any time at all due to the ‘winged’ Spider partially hit by a Patriot striking base housing rather than anywhere flight-connected. Military families of US airmen had been evacuated days beforehand leading to zero casualties there.

There were two dead West German civilians in Heidelberg – the total could have been much higher yet so many locals took quick action when the air raid sirens went off to find cover – but up at Frankfurt things were different. None of the inbound Scuds were hit in-flight when they went towards the US Air Force set-up at the airport. One landed in woodland east of the airport second before the second hit the north side of the facility. Aviation fuel tanks were struck rather than the military portion which was Rhein-Main itself on the other side of where the runway lay. As to the third missile, the Luftwaffe came close, oh so close, to getting it with a Patriot, but it managed to still get through. Not to the big airbase/airport though but instead it crashed right into the city. A residential apartment building in the Westend portion of Frankfurt was struck hard. Added to civilian losses at the airport – closed to commercial flights but with key workers present –, thirty civilians ultimately lost their lives in the Frankfurt attack. The fuel fire at the airport would burn for a long time too with smoke covering the city and a lot of people feeling the heat of the conflagration. All of Frankfurt was well aware of how their city had been struck with such a visible reminder like that fire to say nothing of the emergency service’s sirens as they sprung into action to aid other residents.


Chancellor Schäuble was incandescent with rage.

He’d bloody told Cuomo, Heseltine, Fabius and the others that his country would come under fire. West Germany had been treated like sh*t by the Coalition though and they had done what they wanted. Into his country came most of the immediate East German reply. His cities had been hit with civilians killed across the country in that. He and his ministers were at once on the phone to foreign counterparts. Stop this now, was their message, because Honecker was certain to not make just the one attack. The responses which came were ones of regret with help offered to deal with the aftermath of the missile strikes, yet a refusal to stop what they were doing too.

Pre-alerted, elements of the Bundeswehr and also the volunteer-manned Technisches Hilfswerk sprung into action. The latter was a Ministry of Interior body but still generally a civilian organisation which had a focus on civil defence and disaster recovery. In Mönchengladbach, Heidelberg and Frankfurt, there were major rescue efforts underway to locate trapped people who’d been on the wrong end of a missile impact. Medical aid for the wounded as well as helping to transport to hospitals those in need of further attention was done. Evacuation of damaged buildings and security against post-attack looting were additional tasks. Military firefighters were brought in to assist in fighting that raging fire at Frankfurt Airport but that was no easy challenge to meet due to all of the fuel which went up. THW volunteers helped scour the countryside looking for missile fragments from Patriot-engaged weapons as well as the ones which went wide of the mark. There was a lot of chaos in places, including those places far away from where war had been brought to West Germany. Anti-war protesters were out later in the day, just as enraged as their chancellor was too. They wanted the conflict to stop and carried on demanding that their wish was granted. Less violence than the day before was seen with them from a still-shocked West German population yet there was no let-up in their desire to get their way. Their battle was different from the military fight though it would be just as determined.

[lordroel]

Sept 29, 2021 18:35:19 GMT James G said:

Twenty-nine – Missiles at twilight


President Cuomo and other Coalition leaders made addresses to their people quickly after the air campaign finally got going. It was the early afternoon in Washington while night-time across the ocean in Europe. Global audiences further afield watched those statements made where presidents and prime ministers explained that they had no other choice but to do what they were in seeking to force East Germany to respect international norms and law. From all of them it was said that the intention was for the air strikes to quickly change minds in East Berlin, and have the Honecker regime agree to cease its wars against its neighbours plus give up its nuclear weapons programme. However, the military action would continue until that was done no matter what the DDR did in response. Few foreign media teams were present within East Germany and those that were there were concentrated within that nation’s capital. There was some footage released of when East Berlin came under attack but it was grainy, confusing and cut short by the unseen actions of Stasi officers. Much better images came out of West Berlin. Journalists from across the world had chosen to stay in there despite the likelihood that an invasion of the city was thought to be on the cards: Coalition governments had dodged many questions as to whether that was going to happen while the DDR had refused to comment. Cameramen set up positions atop high-rise buildings to give them a better view looking across the Berlin Wall. It was only two F-117s which struck the East German capital and they did so in the very early hours of the morning. Before anyone watching knew what was happening, they had dropped their bombs and were making an escape. There were missile launches rather than footage of bombers for the cameras to record with a lot of SAMs going up both before and after multiple huge explosions went off at two separate sites. Satellite dishes were used to send out the footage live. European audiences were generally asleep but coverage from ABC, CNN & NBC was watched across the United States and Canada. It was exciting to see for many though plenty more were quite frightened by what they saw too.

Back in Western Europe, air raid sirens erupted into action just before dawn. Not just in West Germany but in Denmark and the Netherlands too there was a wail of alarm just as the sky got bright before the sun itself began to fully rise. There were no urgent warnings sent from Cold War era public broadcast systems in Belgium and France: they should have gone off in the former though there was no need in the latter. Those sirens sounded to alert people to danger because ballistic missiles raced towards four countries. Three of them were part of the Coalition and had sent aircraft on attack missions into East Germany though the fourth, West Germany, had done everything possible to stay out of a war which its leaders & people didn’t want yet nonetheless were targeted for attack. Britain was out of range of any possible missile strike and so there was no need for an alert. As to France, the DDR could have struck it with their missiles but opted not to do that early on the morning of July 3rd 1995.

Twenty-two missiles flew out of East Germany. An additional three didn’t make successful launches with one of those failures seeing an accidental explosion which destroyed the launch vehicle and killed almost a dozen missile-men. Scuds and Spiders were used, short-range ballistic missiles, and they carried conventional warheads. Towards fifteen distant targets they flew. Those were military ones but often near civilian areas.


On Jutland within Denmark, four Scuds flew towards two airbases from where Coalition aircraft had flown attack missions in the preceding hours. Skrydstrup AB and Vandel AB were those Danish targets with launches made from the northern reaches of East Germany and short overflights made of the Baltic on the way. Into the Netherlands flew two Spiders which covered a greater distance and made longer flights to again go after Coalition-used airbases at both Soesterberg AB and Volkel AB. The Belgian Air Force facility at Kleine Brogel – just over the Dutch border – was another target for just the one Spider. Those missiles had longer range than Scuds and were considered more accurate too therefore with just the one used each time. Launching against the Low Countries was, like the attack on Denmark, not previously something that the East German leadership had directly threatened to do. They did though as those countries came under fire just like West Germany also did.

The other missiles went after targets located across the length and width of West Germany. One Spider apiece went after the British airbases at RAF Bruggen and RAF Laarbruch with another shot towards JHQ Rheindahlen which was a combined British Army/RAF joint headquarters. All of those British military bases were located on the western side of the Rhine and right up against the West German-Dutch border. Osnabrück Garrison was closer to East Germany and was targeted by a pair of Scuds. There were soldiers based there but none of them had been taking directly part in Operation Allied Sword during the night which had just passed. Across the southern portion of West Germany, there were seemingly American military bases everywhere. Cutbacks following the end of the Cold War had seen many close but plenty did remain. Ballistic missiles flew several of towards them. Ramstein AB and Spangdahlem AB, two airbases in the Rhineland close to France, were targeted by one Spider apiece and then there were a pair of Scuds shot towards Hanau AAF along in the Main Valley. Campbell Barracks in Heidelberg and Patch Barracks in Stuttgart were each major command centres for US forces: two Scuds were shot towards the former and the latter came under fire from a lone Spider. Finally, the fifteenth target was Rhein-Main AB just outside of Frankfurt. It shared runways with that city’s international airport and wasn’t very far indeed from East Germany. Three Scuds were launched out of the Thuringwald – where American air activity had spent the night hunting for missile launchers – and went towards Rhein-Main.

Like the missiles shot towards the Frankfurt area, all of those launches came from forward-deployed East German missile units. They were dispersed and camouflaged out in the countryside with great use of made of deception to make sure that they survived the night. There had been casualties to other launchers yet much of what Coalition aircraft had actually hit when they thought they got a good portion of the DDR’s missile force was instead dummies. Those were realistic fakes, nothing shoddy. They had to be good because the Coalition, especially the Americans, weren’t going to be easily fooled when using various technical means to detect them for air strikes. Almost all of the missile force had survived the night and what was shot off as the first strike was only some of what the East Germans could make use of. When the air raid sirens had waited during the morning twilight, they did so due a warning signal sent by military forces. The Belgians didn’t get the warning in time but the others did. All of the ballistic missile launches were made over a ten minute period and were detectable by multiple platforms looking down and into East Germany. Out went that warning and also up went Patriot anti-ballistic missiles. The Americans, the Dutch and the West Germans all operated those systems who’d engaged Scuds four years beforehand in the Middle East though had never faced Spiders before. More than just more modern missiles coming their way, the Patriot crews faced concentrated attacks too. The targets for the East German attack were generally clustered near to each other. To call it a saturation attack would be an overstatement yet it was a lot to deal with for those tasked to knock incoming missiles out of the sky. Successes were had and there were too some awful failures.


In Belgium, Kleine Brogel took a direct hit. The impacting missile detonated just above the empty flight-line in front of the hangars and base facilities. There was a fantastic explosion when the Spider’s 1000lb warhead went off with fragmentation attack caused great damage. Belgian F-16s were either in their protected HASs or airborne though while almost everyone at the airbase was sheltering themselves. Damage was significant but the base and flight ops weren’t knocked out of action for any great deal of time once immediate recovery operations got going. At Skrydstrup, one of the Scuds made an impact with a contact-fused warhead while the other landed in a field seven miles off in what was quite the miss for an already inaccurate weapon. The one which did strike the Danish airbase exploded within the perimeter yet didn’t hit nor destroy anything important. Both of those Scuds which went towards Vandel likewise didn’t have the desire effect of causing any real military damage of note. Both landed within the confines of the airbase with one hitting a taxiway and the other smashing into an evacuated administration building. There were still a few casualties but the US Air Force Reserve F-16s and Canadian CF-18s which were flying from there would continue with their operations. Dutch-manned Patriots engaged the inbound Spider tearing towards Soesterberg and the other heading for Volkel. Volkel, which the Americans and Dutch were both using for combat operations, was hit by the missile aimed there in a similar strike to what was seen at Kleine Brogel. More casualties were caused though than what was seen down in Belgium but flight operations wouldn’t be brought to a halt for long: after a sweep for missile fragments, the runway would be reopened and then other damage dealt with. Soesterberg wasn’t hit. The missile inbound towards it was struck by one of the many Patriots sent skywards in a fantastic bit of shooting. Alas, celebrations rapidly turned to absolute horror when, rather than blowing up high, the Spider fell in pieces above the densely-populated Central Netherlands. The missile body landed it bits all over the place, harming no one (there were some close calls) yet the warhead itself tumbled into the city of Utrecht. It exploded and demolished two residential buildings while damaging a few more. Fourteen Dutch civilians lost their lives.

Luftwaffe Patriot coverage was over the Ruhr and cities in the lower reaches of the Rhineland. They were there to protect West German cities but were also active when those missiles targeting the cluster of British bases came in. None of the missiles went up managed to hit the ones inbound. The two RAF airbases were struck by accurate Spider shots. Once more, while damage was done, it wasn’t really enough to serious delay flight operations for very long once the post-strike clean-up stepped into gear. Another Spider was off-course and fell short of its target at Rheindahlen. It struck the edges of the city of Mönchengladbach and did what the West Germans had been fearing for so long: caused civilian casualties in their country. Three innocents, including a week-old baby, were killed. Osnabrück Garrison had no anti-missile coverage. One Scud landed in the River Hase while the other was on-target and flattened a portion of Roberts Barracks in a near-perfect hit on a prime military target. Soldiers with the Royal Artillery sheltering in the basement level were killed and wounded there.

US Army-operated Patriots, plus more in West German hands too, fired off defensive shots against targets for East German missiles launched at targets further south. Frankfurt and Rhein-Main were heavily defended but so too were the airbases and the major headquarters sites: the army airfield at Hanau was outside of direct cover. One of the Scuds flying towards the US Army Europe HQ in Heidelberg was successfully knocked down and there was glancing blow struck against the Spider seeking to hit Ramstein. That wasn’t enough to negate the scale of the attack. What did more damage to East German intentions was the inaccuracy of their strike elements. Patch Barracks, home to European Command and thus SACEUR’s staff (who were all in shelters), was missed entirely and Stuttgart itself spared when the inbound Spider went way off course and landed in the German countryside eleven miles short. Campbell Barracks in nearby Heidelberg only got one of those Scuds yet there was a lot of damage as well as casualties too when it was slightly off-course and instead exploded just outside the military HQ. The busy airfield at Hanau was hit by both inbound missiles and that was where greatest success was had in doing damage to American military operations. In comparison, Spangdahlem took a near direct hit yet flight operations would recommence not long afterwards. Meanwhile Ramstein was struck harder, but that airbase wasn’t going to be shut for any time at all due to the ‘winged’ Spider partially hit by a Patriot striking base housing rather than anywhere flight-connected. Military families of US airmen had been evacuated days beforehand leading to zero casualties there.

There were two dead West German civilians in Heidelberg – the total could have been much higher yet so many locals took quick action when the air raid sirens went off to find cover – but up at Frankfurt things were different. None of the inbound Scuds were hit in-flight when they went towards the US Air Force set-up at the airport. One landed in woodland east of the airport second before the second hit the north side of the facility. Aviation fuel tanks were struck rather than the military portion which was Rhein-Main itself on the other side of where the runway lay. As to the third missile, the Luftwaffe came close, oh so close, to getting it with a Patriot, but it managed to still get through. Not to the big airbase/airport though but instead it crashed right into the city. A residential apartment building in the Westend portion of Frankfurt was struck hard. Added to civilian losses at the airport – closed to commercial flights but with key workers present –, thirty civilians ultimately lost their lives in the Frankfurt attack. The fuel fire at the airport would burn for a long time too with smoke covering the city and a lot of people feeling the heat of the conflagration. All of Frankfurt was well aware of how their city had been struck with such a visible reminder like that fire to say nothing of the emergency service’s sirens as they sprung into action to aid other residents.


Chancellor Schäuble was incandescent with rage.

He’d bloody told Cuomo, Heseltine, Fabius and the others that his country would come under fire. West Germany had been treated like sh*t by the Coalition though and they had done what they wanted. Into his country came most of the immediate East German reply. His cities had been hit with civilians killed across the country in that. He and his ministers were at once on the phone to foreign counterparts. Stop this now, was their message, because Honecker was certain to not make just the one attack. The responses which came were ones of regret with help offered to deal with the aftermath of the missile strikes, yet a refusal to stop what they were doing too.

Pre-alerted, elements of the Bundeswehr and also the volunteer-manned Technisches Hilfswerk sprung into action. The latter was a Ministry of Interior body but still generally a civilian organisation which had a focus on civil defence and disaster recovery. In Mönchengladbach, Heidelberg and Frankfurt, there were major rescue efforts underway to locate trapped people who’d been on the wrong end of a missile impact. Medical aid for the wounded as well as helping to transport to hospitals those in need of further attention was done. Evacuation of damaged buildings and security against post-attack looting were additional tasks. Military firefighters were brought in to assist in fighting that raging fire at Frankfurt Airport but that was no easy challenge to meet due to all of the fuel which went up. THW volunteers helped scour the countryside looking for missile fragments from Patriot-engaged weapons as well as the ones which went wide of the mark. There was a lot of chaos in places, including those places far away from where war had been brought to West Germany. Anti-war protesters were out later in the day, just as enraged as their chancellor was too. They wanted the conflict to stop and carried on demanding that their wish was granted. Less violence than the day before was seen with them from a still-shocked West German population yet there was no let-up in their desire to get their way. Their battle was different from the military fight though it would be just as determined.

Well this put oil on the fire.

[kyuzoaoi]

If this escalates to WWIII, people will see it as "Germany starting a World War again," except there are now two Germanies.

[stevep]

  James G ,

  Of course what is the worst case scenario for NATO/alliance - but what the GDR regime will want is if the German government decides it won't tolerate further actions by alliance forces on its territory.  Legally its still a 'conquered' state and the allies can do what they want but in practice it is an independent state with a powerful, albeit conventional, military of its own.  If the government was to order a cease fire and start moblising its forces making clear that it will act to impose such a ceasefire that would open up a BIG can of worms.  Both in terms of the potential for heavy fighting between NATO members and the political fall-out as W Germany is internationally recognised as an independent and democratic state so the allies performing military actions from their territory when they openly opposed that puts the alliance on fragile ground.

  Steve

[lordroel]

Sept 30, 2021 1:55:45 GMT kyuzoaoi said:

If this escalates to WWIII, people will see it as "Germany starting a World War again," except there are now two Germanies.

Do not think this will escalate to World War III, Russia for a example has already shown it has no interest in supporting East Germany, so they will stay out of this conflict.

[James G]

Sept 29, 2021 18:45:35 GMT lordroel said:

Sept 29, 2021 18:35:19 GMT James G said:

Twenty-nine – Missiles at twilight


President Cuomo and other Coalition leaders made addresses to their people quickly after the air campaign finally got going. It was the early afternoon in Washington while night-time across the ocean in Europe. Global audiences further afield watched those statements made where presidents and prime ministers explained that they had no other choice but to do what they were in seeking to force East Germany to respect international norms and law. From all of them it was said that the intention was for the air strikes to quickly change minds in East Berlin, and have the Honecker regime agree to cease its wars against its neighbours plus give up its nuclear weapons programme. However, the military action would continue until that was done no matter what the DDR did in response. Few foreign media teams were present within East Germany and those that were there were concentrated within that nation’s capital. There was some footage released of when East Berlin came under attack but it was grainy, confusing and cut short by the unseen actions of Stasi officers. Much better images came out of West Berlin. Journalists from across the world had chosen to stay in there despite the likelihood that an invasion of the city was thought to be on the cards: Coalition governments had dodged many questions as to whether that was going to happen while the DDR had refused to comment. Cameramen set up positions atop high-rise buildings to give them a better view looking across the Berlin Wall. It was only two F-117s which struck the East German capital and they did so in the very early hours of the morning. Before anyone watching knew what was happening, they had dropped their bombs and were making an escape. There were missile launches rather than footage of bombers for the cameras to record with a lot of SAMs going up both before and after multiple huge explosions went off at two separate sites. Satellite dishes were used to send out the footage live. European audiences were generally asleep but coverage from ABC, CNN & NBC was watched across the United States and Canada. It was exciting to see for many though plenty more were quite frightened by what they saw too.

Back in Western Europe, air raid sirens erupted into action just before dawn. Not just in West Germany but in Denmark and the Netherlands too there was a wail of alarm just as the sky got bright before the sun itself began to fully rise. There were no urgent warnings sent from Cold War era public broadcast systems in Belgium and France: they should have gone off in the former though there was no need in the latter. Those sirens sounded to alert people to danger because ballistic missiles raced towards four countries. Three of them were part of the Coalition and had sent aircraft on attack missions into East Germany though the fourth, West Germany, had done everything possible to stay out of a war which its leaders & people didn’t want yet nonetheless were targeted for attack. Britain was out of range of any possible missile strike and so there was no need for an alert. As to France, the DDR could have struck it with their missiles but opted not to do that early on the morning of July 3rd 1995.

Twenty-two missiles flew out of East Germany. An additional three didn’t make successful launches with one of those failures seeing an accidental explosion which destroyed the launch vehicle and killed almost a dozen missile-men. Scuds and Spiders were used, short-range ballistic missiles, and they carried conventional warheads. Towards fifteen distant targets they flew. Those were military ones but often near civilian areas.


On Jutland within Denmark, four Scuds flew towards two airbases from where Coalition aircraft had flown attack missions in the preceding hours. Skrydstrup AB and Vandel AB were those Danish targets with launches made from the northern reaches of East Germany and short overflights made of the Baltic on the way. Into the Netherlands flew two Spiders which covered a greater distance and made longer flights to again go after Coalition-used airbases at both Soesterberg AB and Volkel AB. The Belgian Air Force facility at Kleine Brogel – just over the Dutch border – was another target for just the one Spider. Those missiles had longer range than Scuds and were considered more accurate too therefore with just the one used each time. Launching against the Low Countries was, like the attack on Denmark, not previously something that the East German leadership had directly threatened to do. They did though as those countries came under fire just like West Germany also did.

The other missiles went after targets located across the length and width of West Germany. One Spider apiece went after the British airbases at RAF Bruggen and RAF Laarbruch with another shot towards JHQ Rheindahlen which was a combined British Army/RAF joint headquarters. All of those British military bases were located on the western side of the Rhine and right up against the West German-Dutch border. Osnabrück Garrison was closer to East Germany and was targeted by a pair of Scuds. There were soldiers based there but none of them had been taking directly part in Operation Allied Sword during the night which had just passed. Across the southern portion of West Germany, there were seemingly American military bases everywhere. Cutbacks following the end of the Cold War had seen many close but plenty did remain. Ballistic missiles flew several of towards them. Ramstein AB and Spangdahlem AB, two airbases in the Rhineland close to France, were targeted by one Spider apiece and then there were a pair of Scuds shot towards Hanau AAF along in the Main Valley. Campbell Barracks in Heidelberg and Patch Barracks in Stuttgart were each major command centres for US forces: two Scuds were shot towards the former and the latter came under fire from a lone Spider. Finally, the fifteenth target was Rhein-Main AB just outside of Frankfurt. It shared runways with that city’s international airport and wasn’t very far indeed from East Germany. Three Scuds were launched out of the Thuringwald – where American air activity had spent the night hunting for missile launchers – and went towards Rhein-Main.

Like the missiles shot towards the Frankfurt area, all of those launches came from forward-deployed East German missile units. They were dispersed and camouflaged out in the countryside with great use of made of deception to make sure that they survived the night. There had been casualties to other launchers yet much of what Coalition aircraft had actually hit when they thought they got a good portion of the DDR’s missile force was instead dummies. Those were realistic fakes, nothing shoddy. They had to be good because the Coalition, especially the Americans, weren’t going to be easily fooled when using various technical means to detect them for air strikes. Almost all of the missile force had survived the night and what was shot off as the first strike was only some of what the East Germans could make use of. When the air raid sirens had waited during the morning twilight, they did so due a warning signal sent by military forces. The Belgians didn’t get the warning in time but the others did. All of the ballistic missile launches were made over a ten minute period and were detectable by multiple platforms looking down and into East Germany. Out went that warning and also up went Patriot anti-ballistic missiles. The Americans, the Dutch and the West Germans all operated those systems who’d engaged Scuds four years beforehand in the Middle East though had never faced Spiders before. More than just more modern missiles coming their way, the Patriot crews faced concentrated attacks too. The targets for the East German attack were generally clustered near to each other. To call it a saturation attack would be an overstatement yet it was a lot to deal with for those tasked to knock incoming missiles out of the sky. Successes were had and there were too some awful failures.


In Belgium, Kleine Brogel took a direct hit. The impacting missile detonated just above the empty flight-line in front of the hangars and base facilities. There was a fantastic explosion when the Spider’s 1000lb warhead went off with fragmentation attack caused great damage. Belgian F-16s were either in their protected HASs or airborne though while almost everyone at the airbase was sheltering themselves. Damage was significant but the base and flight ops weren’t knocked out of action for any great deal of time once immediate recovery operations got going. At Skrydstrup, one of the Scuds made an impact with a contact-fused warhead while the other landed in a field seven miles off in what was quite the miss for an already inaccurate weapon. The one which did strike the Danish airbase exploded within the perimeter yet didn’t hit nor destroy anything important. Both of those Scuds which went towards Vandel likewise didn’t have the desire effect of causing any real military damage of note. Both landed within the confines of the airbase with one hitting a taxiway and the other smashing into an evacuated administration building. There were still a few casualties but the US Air Force Reserve F-16s and Canadian CF-18s which were flying from there would continue with their operations. Dutch-manned Patriots engaged the inbound Spider tearing towards Soesterberg and the other heading for Volkel. Volkel, which the Americans and Dutch were both using for combat operations, was hit by the missile aimed there in a similar strike to what was seen at Kleine Brogel. More casualties were caused though than what was seen down in Belgium but flight operations wouldn’t be brought to a halt for long: after a sweep for missile fragments, the runway would be reopened and then other damage dealt with. Soesterberg wasn’t hit. The missile inbound towards it was struck by one of the many Patriots sent skywards in a fantastic bit of shooting. Alas, celebrations rapidly turned to absolute horror when, rather than blowing up high, the Spider fell in pieces above the densely-populated Central Netherlands. The missile body landed it bits all over the place, harming no one (there were some close calls) yet the warhead itself tumbled into the city of Utrecht. It exploded and demolished two residential buildings while damaging a few more. Fourteen Dutch civilians lost their lives.

Luftwaffe Patriot coverage was over the Ruhr and cities in the lower reaches of the Rhineland. They were there to protect West German cities but were also active when those missiles targeting the cluster of British bases came in. None of the missiles went up managed to hit the ones inbound. The two RAF airbases were struck by accurate Spider shots. Once more, while damage was done, it wasn’t really enough to serious delay flight operations for very long once the post-strike clean-up stepped into gear. Another Spider was off-course and fell short of its target at Rheindahlen. It struck the edges of the city of Mönchengladbach and did what the West Germans had been fearing for so long: caused civilian casualties in their country. Three innocents, including a week-old baby, were killed. Osnabrück Garrison had no anti-missile coverage. One Scud landed in the River Hase while the other was on-target and flattened a portion of Roberts Barracks in a near-perfect hit on a prime military target. Soldiers with the Royal Artillery sheltering in the basement level were killed and wounded there.

US Army-operated Patriots, plus more in West German hands too, fired off defensive shots against targets for East German missiles launched at targets further south. Frankfurt and Rhein-Main were heavily defended but so too were the airbases and the major headquarters sites: the army airfield at Hanau was outside of direct cover. One of the Scuds flying towards the US Army Europe HQ in Heidelberg was successfully knocked down and there was glancing blow struck against the Spider seeking to hit Ramstein. That wasn’t enough to negate the scale of the attack. What did more damage to East German intentions was the inaccuracy of their strike elements. Patch Barracks, home to European Command and thus SACEUR’s staff (who were all in shelters), was missed entirely and Stuttgart itself spared when the inbound Spider went way off course and landed in the German countryside eleven miles short. Campbell Barracks in nearby Heidelberg only got one of those Scuds yet there was a lot of damage as well as casualties too when it was slightly off-course and instead exploded just outside the military HQ. The busy airfield at Hanau was hit by both inbound missiles and that was where greatest success was had in doing damage to American military operations. In comparison, Spangdahlem took a near direct hit yet flight operations would recommence not long afterwards. Meanwhile Ramstein was struck harder, but that airbase wasn’t going to be shut for any time at all due to the ‘winged’ Spider partially hit by a Patriot striking base housing rather than anywhere flight-connected. Military families of US airmen had been evacuated days beforehand leading to zero casualties there.

There were two dead West German civilians in Heidelberg – the total could have been much higher yet so many locals took quick action when the air raid sirens went off to find cover – but up at Frankfurt things were different. None of the inbound Scuds were hit in-flight when they went towards the US Air Force set-up at the airport. One landed in woodland east of the airport second before the second hit the north side of the facility. Aviation fuel tanks were struck rather than the military portion which was Rhein-Main itself on the other side of where the runway lay. As to the third missile, the Luftwaffe came close, oh so close, to getting it with a Patriot, but it managed to still get through. Not to the big airbase/airport though but instead it crashed right into the city. A residential apartment building in the Westend portion of Frankfurt was struck hard. Added to civilian losses at the airport – closed to commercial flights but with key workers present –, thirty civilians ultimately lost their lives in the Frankfurt attack. The fuel fire at the airport would burn for a long time too with smoke covering the city and a lot of people feeling the heat of the conflagration. All of Frankfurt was well aware of how their city had been struck with such a visible reminder like that fire to say nothing of the emergency service’s sirens as they sprung into action to aid other residents.


Chancellor Schäuble was incandescent with rage.

He’d bloody told Cuomo, Heseltine, Fabius and the others that his country would come under fire. West Germany had been treated like sh*t by the Coalition though and they had done what they wanted. Into his country came most of the immediate East German reply. His cities had been hit with civilians killed across the country in that. He and his ministers were at once on the phone to foreign counterparts. Stop this now, was their message, because Honecker was certain to not make just the one attack. The responses which came were ones of regret with help offered to deal with the aftermath of the missile strikes, yet a refusal to stop what they were doing too.

Pre-alerted, elements of the Bundeswehr and also the volunteer-manned Technisches Hilfswerk sprung into action. The latter was a Ministry of Interior body but still generally a civilian organisation which had a focus on civil defence and disaster recovery. In Mönchengladbach, Heidelberg and Frankfurt, there were major rescue efforts underway to locate trapped people who’d been on the wrong end of a missile impact. Medical aid for the wounded as well as helping to transport to hospitals those in need of further attention was done. Evacuation of damaged buildings and security against post-attack looting were additional tasks. Military firefighters were brought in to assist in fighting that raging fire at Frankfurt Airport but that was no easy challenge to meet due to all of the fuel which went up. THW volunteers helped scour the countryside looking for missile fragments from Patriot-engaged weapons as well as the ones which went wide of the mark. There was a lot of chaos in places, including those places far away from where war had been brought to West Germany. Anti-war protesters were out later in the day, just as enraged as their chancellor was too. They wanted the conflict to stop and carried on demanding that their wish was granted. Less violence than the day before was seen with them from a still-shocked West German population yet there was no let-up in their desire to get their way. Their battle was different from the military fight though it would be just as determined.

Well this put oil on the fire.

The promise was made.
Politically, it is big. In military terms, the strike has done little though.

Sept 30, 2021 1:55:45 GMT kyuzoaoi said:

If this escalates to WWIII, people will see it as "Germany starting a World War again," except there are now two Germanies.

As lordroel explains below, WW3 is almost impossible here. Even with Saddam's itchy trigger finger, Libya angry, maybe NK looking for an opening, the Yugoslav wars still raging with the Bosnian-Serbs & Serbia too seeking to act, I cannot see a global fight.
Yet, if that happened, I'd agree that 'Germany' would get the blame.

Sept 30, 2021 11:06:26 GMT stevep said:

  James G ,

  Of course what is the worst case scenario for NATO/alliance - but what the GDR regime will want is if the German government decides it won't tolerate further actions by alliance forces on its territory.  Legally its still a 'conquered' state and the allies can do what they want but in practice it is an independent state with a powerful, albeit conventional, military of its own.  If the government was to order a cease fire and start moblising its forces making clear that it will act to impose such a ceasefire that would open up a BIG can of worms.  Both in terms of the potential for heavy fighting between NATO members and the political fall-out as W Germany is internationally recognised as an independent and democratic state so the allies performing military actions from their territory when they openly opposed that puts the alliance on fragile ground.

  Steve

Interesting scenario.
In military terms, WG could do a lot though they'd be just as f8cked, maybe more, than the East Germans. The Coalition surrounds them and even has soldiers on their soil. Let's say Bonn goes that route and the Coalition ceases using the airbases: they still have the many others in Denmark, NE/BE and France. So teh Luftwaffe would have to stop Coalition aircraft in WG skies? Good luck with that! 
Politically it is doable in terms of Bonn saying STOP as the situation is wholly unreasonable from their point of view. There would have to be political unity for that though and East Germany would have to look like an innocent victim of aggression. More than that though, while they will rage, I cannot see how I could have anything like that work: West Germany just doesn't seem capable of going that far.

Sept 30, 2021 13:56:43 GMT lordroel said:

Do not think this will escalate to World War III, Russia for a example has already shown it has no interest in supporting East Germany, so they will stay out of this conflict.

The idea of German nukes - German: not East nor West, divided nor united - sent Russia mad. They remember 1941 there.

[James G]

Thirty – Voices of caution


Over West Berlin once daylight arrived in that isolated city, there were air attacks which took place. It wasn’t jet fighters nor even high-flying bombers in action but instead armed helicopters. The LSK – the air force, not the army operated all helicopters – followed standing orders to make harassment attacks throughout all three sectors of West Berlin where the Americans, the British & the French garrisoned. They used small, nimble Mil-2s, larger Mil-8s and also the flying tanks which were the Mil-24s. Only a couple of the Hinds were seen in action yet they made the greatest presence when unleashed waves of ordnance carried. Missiles, rockets and shells flew from them. The other helicopters employed also made their own attacks too. From all sides, high-speed runs were made into the skies above West Berlin where at times the attacking helicopters flew between buildings. They targeted the known positions of the deployed garrisons where those troops were out of their barracks and in a defensive posture. However, the Mil-8s in particular (assault transports laden with rocket pods rather than troops) did also go after the airports. Tegel and Tempelhof were shot-up significantly: RAF Gatow received less attention from the air though would be mortared later in the day. Man-portable missiles raced upwards against those helicopters. The British got a Mil-2 and damaged a Mil-24 with Javelins while the Americans claimed four kills with their Stingers though they only actually got a Mil-8 as well as a Hind too. Two of the East German air losses saw those helicopters crash land inside the perimeter around the city formed by the Berlin Wall. All around that there were the well-armed Grenztruppen. The defenders, who had curled themselves up into a tight defensive position where they only set out to defend half of the city, prepared themselves for what they feared was a follow-up attack. When long-range mortars were employed later in the day, that set off alarm bells that the feared assault was coming. It didn’t though. From a distance, the East Germans seemed intent to selectively shell identified military targets within West Berlin. No ground assault came on the back of that. Civilians and Coalition soldiers died during the day though the butcher’s bill was less than two dozen. West Berlin was rammed full of people, so many of them in a state of panic as they feared the worst, but the death toll was rather light considering that.

Coalition aircrews had been lost over both East Germany and the Czech Republic the night beforehand. Americans, Britons, French and Italians had ejected from hit aircraft and handed deep in enemy territory. Pre-flight reminders had come for all aircrew involved once Operation Allied Sword started that they were to follow their SERE training and await for rescue. That meant that during the daylight hours they were supposed to stay hidden and wait for a night-time rescue. There was no radio communication with them and instead their rescue beacons had been activated once they found what had looked like safe shelter. The idea was to stay out of sight and not do anything foolish. Efforts were made by the East Germans to capture those on the run. One of the aircrew out of a Tornado IDS which had been shot down on its way to bomb Preschen AB had been captured during the night with his navigator/bombardier sought in a major effort close to the Polish-DDR frontier. He was eventually caught in a dragnet when the hunters used attack dogs to flush him out and he made for a failed run for it. Tackled to the ground rather than shot when trying to flee, he was taken into custody. An American airman from a downed F-16 was caught in Saxony but died of gunshot wounds before he could received medical treatment his hunters were prepared to give. The East Germans wanted prisoners alive yet that captain from the 69th Fighter Squadron – part of the 347th Wing out of Georgia and flying from Jehonville AB over in Belgium – refused to go quietly. He killed two of the soldiers seeking him after they spotted his hide and wounded another. The returned fire was necessary to save the lives of the East Germans involved. They’d be in trouble yet they didn’t really have a choice. As to the others hiding and awaiting rescue, their hunters wouldn’t get a line of them. It wasn’t easy to find a single man or two who had ejected from aircraft struck with SAMs and could have been anywhere over wide areas. Moreover, the pilot of an RAF Tornado was found clinging to the side of a holed life-raft in the Baltic. It was the Danes though who recovered him with a search-and-rescue helicopter. He was damn glad to be saved though would spend a long time in hospital afterwards due to having been in the water for almost fifteen hours. Canadian and Danish fighters were involved in defending the rescue effort too when the East Germans – unaware that they were targeting a rescue helicopter rather than one on another mission – tried to shoot it down. A MiG-21 was hit by a Danish F-16 with a good missile shot though with its pilot dying in a mid-air explosion.

Throughout the daylight hours of July 3rd, the LSK did what it hadn’t done the night beforehand: put aircraft up over the skies of the DDR. The whole of the combat force wasn’t in action with much of it still hidden away, but there was plenty of contacts for AWACS aircraft supporting the Coalition air campaign to track and direct fighters towards. Hit-and-run tactics were tried by the LSK rather than making what would certainly be a foolish effort to try and evenly challenge the might of what was facing them. Flying low, using jamming, keeping radars off and working with mobile SAM batteries on the ground was done. That was dangerous, especially the cooperation mounted with missile systems when there was so much radio silence via EMCON. Missile operators shot down several of their own aircraft on occasion. Targeted jamming against AWACS aircraft hadn’t worked before the Coalition launched its air campaign – when they were monitoring what was happening with regards to East German involvement in the Czech civil war – and it didn’t work too in combat against them. Frequencies were changed by radar operators. The Coalition had all of those potent other electronic warfare aircraft flying as well where they were always going to be the winners of a fight in the battle of technology. Into East German skies due to that air activity the Coalition sent fighters. There were American F-14s (off their carriers) and F-15s with the British having Tornado F3s up as well. Those aircraft focused on long-range missile shots against air targets at distance. F-16s flown by the Americans, Belgians and Dutch went in for closer range work. The RAF called it ‘attempting to run up a cricket score’ in the manner in which LSK fighters were engaged. That quickly started to happen when East German MiGs went down aplenty. Seven were fast downed in the morning (two by ‘friendly’ SAMs) before the skies were cleared. However, once the afternoon started, there was that Baltic air clash which F-14s from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower were waved off from to let the Canadians & Danes deal with. Norwegian fighters, based down in Denmark, and French jets flying into Czech skies got a couple of kills in too. The East Germans lost thirteen MiG-21s & -23s. In return, their fighters took out zero Coalition aircraft. Not a cricket score but on the way towards that it was! What aircraft weren’t seen again were LSK MiG-29s though.

Where Coalition aircraft were lost were when they were involved in hunting SAM targets. Wild Weasel missions were flown by HARM shooters seeking out air defences, not just protecting strike packages. Cruise missiles fired by the US Navy were flying at the same time as the Wild Weasels went to work with the aim of seeing SAM batteries come to life: there was also distant electronic support for that. SAM launchers were located and attacked though they got their own hits in where two F-16s were downed and another lost a wing to later crash land in West Germany. Those were Soviet-manufactured weapons in East German hands and with their mobile operations, making uses of lures and cunning, they were able to take the fight back to those seeking to kill them. A good number of Tomahawks flying towards East German airbases and dispersal air-strips – where few LSK aircraft could be found – were taken out as well by the SA-15s that were in service. It was those which claimed those kills of American aircraft. The deep-level Wild Weasel work came alongside border area attack missions flown by A-10s and Harriers. Those aircraft entered East German skies just across from West Germany and sought out targets of opportunity in identified areas where DDR ballistic missiles had fired earlier in the day. Large areas were given ‘weapons-free’ status where the aircraft could attack anything which looked hostile. The American A-10s did that especially whereas the fewer RAF Harriers were a bit more cautious. Man-portable SAMs were a real danger to them and so too were multiple-barrelled mobile anti-aircraft guns. Both Coalition air forces lost an aircraft apiece to ZSU-23-4s with that A-10 brought down struck dozens upon dozens of times. The Harrier hit was less armoured and had already been struck by a SAM first. Other A-10s who made in back to friendly skies were shot-up yet survived the barrage that they faced when conducting low-level, slow attack missions which left them exposed to opposing fire because they were built to take punishment.


By the evening, the Coalition was getting ready for the second night of bomb runs on a large scale over East Germany and the Czech Republic again. Fighters were still up ahead of that despite the LSK seemingly once again surrendering the skies. If they hadn’t, that would have been a big mistake. Previously unused SA-10 long-range SAMs were shot outwards and into West German skies to engage Coalition aircraft where they weren’t expecting that. An F-14 from the USS Enterprise was hit with other fighters having close shaves. Further east, more SA-15s as well as SA-11s were used for medium-range shots and took down a Dutch F-16 as well as a Canadian CF-18. A lot of SAMs went up for the return of ‘only’ three Coalition fighters yet disruption was caused. In the midst of that, AWACS aircraft detected low-level, high-speed dashes by LSK aircraft. Those weren’t fighters trying to do what had failed earlier in the day but rather jets on strike missions going west. With their wings swept back and going supersonic, MiG-23s raced out of hidden dispersal sites and over the Inner-German Border. Coalition aircraft went over them from both sides of that imaginary line in the sky. In the north, an attack was made against the British Army garrison at Bergen on Luneburg Heath; the US Army garrison at Würzburg in Bavaria was targeted to the south. It was a brazen, risky move by the East Germans. They hit Faulenberg Kaserne yet the strike against Bergen (closer to East Germany too) didn’t get through. Of the six aircraft sent westwards, five didn’t make it home. Missile shots from all directions came at the MiGs with that one that escaped making it home all shot-up too. The crash sites in West Germany were all in lightly-populated areas leading to no civilian casualties though there were US Army soldiers killed in Würzburg. In addition, more MiGs were detected above the Czech Republic also heading west towards Bavaria. French Mirage-2000s took two of them down in long-range shots set-up perfectly by an AWACS in Armée de l'Air service. Unfortunately, those were Polish aircraft on a combat mission against East German forces which were subsequently misidentified as hostile. Poland hadn’t joined the Coalition yet there was already a military liaison team in-place. The coordination was off though when tensions were high and an error thus made. When later explanations were given, the unhappy Poles would get over it yet it wasn’t a good start to things with that.

Post-strike reconnaissance had been done once the first air strikes had gone in the previous night. Satellites and reconnaissance aircraft were used for that. The Coalition got a good look at what its bombs and missiles had done with the first round of Operation Allied Sword. There were errors spotted and realisations that they had missed targets, yet still much optimism over a lot of success known to be had. East German military forces had been battered on the first night of combat operations. Military leaders said that to their political masters though were savvy enough not to make too many promises. That was a wise move when that twilight ballistic missile attack came. It was thought in military circles that a whole load of launchers had been knocked out but no firm numbers were given in briefings and the warning had been given that that the DDR had dispersed them plus would be using deception to see dummy systems targeted. When the missile strike came though, it was heavy and also involved platforms deployed into cover uncomfortably close to the Inner-German Border. A lot of generals let fly against subordinates who’d been too confident that they had hit dozens of batteries and also said that they were all deep inside East Germany.

The trickery which the DDR had done with its missile force was something that was feared when it came to other weapons systems. Junior personnel were voices of caution to those mid-ranking positions when it came to assuming that everything that post-strike reconnaissance was showing was true. The damage done to the first round of major targets looked to many to be too good to be true. There was plenty of pre-conflict intelligence on East German military camouflage units and what they could do. Some of what was said was taken on board but not all of it. The circumstances varied among different national armed forces and personalities involved. No one liked to be told that they had been successfully played for a fool and the guys on the other side had outsmarted them. Human nature didn’t work that way. There was a lot of cases where Coalition military personnel were believing too much in their own capabilities and not enough respect given to their opponents. That came because East Germany’s fighters were downed with ease and the responses made were generally lucky and not doing a great deal of damage: that latter thinking was down to those Scud and Spider missile hits not making any real impact on Coalition military activity despite killing West German civilians aplenty. SAM activity during the day did heighten many preparations, a damn wise move in light of what later came, but not enough everywhere. When night #2 got going, the DDR’s air defences would be far more active than they had been the night before.

[lordroel]

Sept 30, 2021 18:33:06 GMT James G said:

Thirty – Voices of caution


Over West Berlin once daylight arrived in that isolated city, there were air attacks which took place. It wasn’t jet fighters nor even high-flying bombers in action but instead armed helicopters. The LSK – the air force, not the army operated all helicopters – followed standing orders to make harassment attacks throughout all three sectors of West Berlin where the Americans, the British & the French garrisoned. They used small, nimble Mil-2s, larger Mil-8s and also the flying tanks which were the Mil-24s. Only a couple of the Hinds were seen in action yet they made the greatest presence when unleashed waves of ordnance carried. Missiles, rockets and shells flew from them. The other helicopters employed also made their own attacks too. From all sides, high-speed runs were made into the skies above West Berlin where at times the attacking helicopters flew between buildings. They targeted the known positions of the deployed garrisons where those troops were out of their barracks and in a defensive posture. However, the Mil-8s in particular (assault transports laden with rocket pods rather than troops) did also go after the airports. Tegel and Tempelhof were shot-up significantly: RAF Gatow received less attention from the air though would be mortared later in the day. Man-portable missiles raced upwards against those helicopters. The British got a Mil-2 and damaged a Mil-24 with Javelins while the Americans claimed four kills with their Stingers though they only actually got a Mil-8 as well as a Hind too. Two of the East German air losses saw those helicopters crash land inside the perimeter around the city formed by the Berlin Wall. All around that there were the well-armed Grenztruppen. The defenders, who had curled themselves up into a tight defensive position where they only set out to defend half of the city, prepared themselves for what they feared was a follow-up attack. When long-range mortars were employed later in the day, that set off alarm bells that the feared assault was coming. It didn’t though. From a distance, the East Germans seemed intent to selectively shell identified military targets within West Berlin. No ground assault came on the back of that. Civilians and Coalition soldiers died during the day though the butcher’s bill was less than two dozen. West Berlin was rammed full of people, so many of them in a state of panic as they feared the worst, but the death toll was rather light considering that.

Coalition aircrews had been lost over both East Germany and the Czech Republic the night beforehand. Americans, Britons, French and Italians had ejected from hit aircraft and handed deep in enemy territory. Pre-flight reminders had come for all aircrew involved once Operation Allied Sword started that they were to follow their SERE training and await for rescue. That meant that during the daylight hours they were supposed to stay hidden and wait for a night-time rescue. There was no radio communication with them and instead their rescue beacons had been activated once they found what had looked like safe shelter. The idea was to stay out of sight and not do anything foolish. Efforts were made by the East Germans to capture those on the run. One of the aircrew out of a Tornado IDS which had been shot down on its way to bomb Preschen AB had been captured during the night with his navigator/bombardier sought in a major effort close to the Polish-DDR frontier. He was eventually caught in a dragnet when the hunters used attack dogs to flush him out and he made for a failed run for it. Tackled to the ground rather than shot when trying to flee, he was taken into custody. An American airman from a downed F-16 was caught in Saxony but died of gunshot wounds before he could received medical treatment his hunters were prepared to give. The East Germans wanted prisoners alive yet that captain from the 69th Fighter Squadron – part of the 347th Wing out of Georgia and flying from Jehonville AB over in Belgium – refused to go quietly. He killed two of the soldiers seeking him after they spotted his hide and wounded another. The returned fire was necessary to save the lives of the East Germans involved. They’d be in trouble yet they didn’t really have a choice. As to the others hiding and awaiting rescue, their hunters wouldn’t get a line of them. It wasn’t easy to find a single man or two who had ejected from aircraft struck with SAMs and could have been anywhere over wide areas. Moreover, the pilot of an RAF Tornado was found clinging to the side of a holed life-raft in the Baltic. It was the Danes though who recovered him with a search-and-rescue helicopter. He was damn glad to be saved though would spend a long time in hospital afterwards due to having been in the water for almost fifteen hours. Canadian and Danish fighters were involved in defending the rescue effort too when the East Germans – unaware that they were targeting a rescue helicopter rather than one on another mission – tried to shoot it down. A MiG-21 was hit by a Danish F-16 with a good missile shot though with its pilot dying in a mid-air explosion.

Throughout the daylight hours of July 3rd, the LSK did what it hadn’t done the night beforehand: put aircraft up over the skies of the DDR. The whole of the combat force wasn’t in action with much of it still hidden away, but there was plenty of contacts for AWACS aircraft supporting the Coalition air campaign to track and direct fighters towards. Hit-and-run tactics were tried by the LSK rather than making what would certainly be a foolish effort to try and evenly challenge the might of what was facing them. Flying low, using jamming, keeping radars off and working with mobile SAM batteries on the ground was done. That was dangerous, especially the cooperation mounted with missile systems when there was so much radio silence via EMCON. Missile operators shot down several of their own aircraft on occasion. Targeted jamming against AWACS aircraft hadn’t worked before the Coalition launched its air campaign – when they were monitoring what was happening with regards to East German involvement in the Czech civil war – and it didn’t work too in combat against them. Frequencies were changed by radar operators. The Coalition had all of those potent other electronic warfare aircraft flying as well where they were always going to be the winners of a fight in the battle of technology. Into East German skies due to that air activity the Coalition sent fighters. There were American F-14s (off their carriers) and F-15s with the British having Tornado F3s up as well. Those aircraft focused on long-range missile shots against air targets at distance. F-16s flown by the Americans, Belgians and Dutch went in for closer range work. The RAF called it ‘attempting to run up a cricket score’ in the manner in which LSK fighters were engaged. That quickly started to happen when East German MiGs went down aplenty. Seven were fast downed in the morning (two by ‘friendly’ SAMs) before the skies were cleared. However, once the afternoon started, there was that Baltic air clash which F-14s from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower were waved off from to let the Canadians & Danes deal with. Norwegian fighters, based down in Denmark, and French jets flying into Czech skies got a couple of kills in too. The East Germans lost thirteen MiG-21s & -23s. In return, their fighters took out zero Coalition aircraft. Not a cricket score but on the way towards that it was! What aircraft weren’t seen again were LSK MiG-29s though.

Where Coalition aircraft were lost were when they were involved in hunting SAM targets. Wild Weasel missions were flown by HARM shooters seeking out air defences, not just protecting strike packages. Cruise missiles fired by the US Navy were flying at the same time as the Wild Weasels went to work with the aim of seeing SAM batteries come to life: there was also distant electronic support for that. SAM launchers were located and attacked though they got their own hits in where two F-16s were downed and another lost a wing to later crash land in West Germany. Those were Soviet-manufactured weapons in East German hands and with their mobile operations, making uses of lures and cunning, they were able to take the fight back to those seeking to kill them. A good number of Tomahawks flying towards East German airbases and dispersal air-strips – where few LSK aircraft could be found – were taken out as well by the SA-15s that were in service. It was those which claimed those kills of American aircraft. The deep-level Wild Weasel work came alongside border area attack missions flown by A-10s and Harriers. Those aircraft entered East German skies just across from West Germany and sought out targets of opportunity in identified areas where DDR ballistic missiles had fired earlier in the day. Large areas were given ‘weapons-free’ status where the aircraft could attack anything which looked hostile. The American A-10s did that especially whereas the fewer RAF Harriers were a bit more cautious. Man-portable SAMs were a real danger to them and so too were multiple-barrelled mobile anti-aircraft guns. Both Coalition air forces lost an aircraft apiece to ZSU-23-4s with that A-10 brought down struck dozens upon dozens of times. The Harrier hit was less armoured and had already been struck by a SAM first. Other A-10s who made in back to friendly skies were shot-up yet survived the barrage that they faced when conducting low-level, slow attack missions which left them exposed to opposing fire because they were built to take punishment.


By the evening, the Coalition was getting ready for the second night of bomb runs on a large scale over East Germany and the Czech Republic again. Fighters were still up ahead of that despite the LSK seemingly once again surrendering the skies. If they hadn’t, that would have been a big mistake. Previously unused SA-10 long-range SAMs were shot outwards and into West German skies to engage Coalition aircraft where they weren’t expecting that. An F-14 from the USS Enterprise was hit with other fighters having close shaves. Further east, more SA-15s as well as SA-11s were used for medium-range shots and took down a Dutch F-16 as well as a Canadian CF-18. A lot of SAMs went up for the return of ‘only’ three Coalition fighters yet disruption was caused. In the midst of that, AWACS aircraft detected low-level, high-speed dashes by LSK aircraft. Those weren’t fighters trying to do what had failed earlier in the day but rather jets on strike missions going west. With their wings swept back and going supersonic, MiG-23s raced out of hidden dispersal sites and over the Inner-German Border. Coalition aircraft went over them from both sides of that imaginary line in the sky. In the north, an attack was made against the British Army garrison at Bergen on Luneburg Heath; the US Army garrison at Würzburg in Bavaria was targeted to the south. It was a brazen, risky move by the East Germans. They hit Faulenberg Kaserne yet the strike against Bergen (closer to East Germany too) didn’t get through. Of the six aircraft sent westwards, five didn’t make it home. Missile shots from all directions came at the MiGs with that one that escaped making it home all shot-up too. The crash sites in West Germany were all in lightly-populated areas leading to no civilian casualties though there were US Army soldiers killed in Würzburg. In addition, more MiGs were detected above the Czech Republic also heading west towards Bavaria. French Mirage-2000s took two of them down in long-range shots set-up perfectly by an AWACS in Armée de l'Air service. Unfortunately, those were Polish aircraft on a combat mission against East German forces which were subsequently misidentified as hostile. Poland hadn’t joined the Coalition yet there was already a military liaison team in-place. The coordination was off though when tensions were high and an error thus made. When later explanations were given, the unhappy Poles would get over it yet it wasn’t a good start to things with that.

Post-strike reconnaissance had been done once the first air strikes had gone in the previous night. Satellites and reconnaissance aircraft were used for that. The Coalition got a good look at what its bombs and missiles had done with the first round of Operation Allied Sword. There were errors spotted and realisations that they had missed targets, yet still much optimism over a lot of success known to be had. East German military forces had been battered on the first night of combat operations. Military leaders said that to their political masters though were savvy enough not to make too many promises. That was a wise move when that twilight ballistic missile attack came. It was thought in military circles that a whole load of launchers had been knocked out but no firm numbers were given in briefings and the warning had been given that that the DDR had dispersed them plus would be using deception to see dummy systems targeted. When the missile strike came though, it was heavy and also involved platforms deployed into cover uncomfortably close to the Inner-German Border. A lot of generals let fly against subordinates who’d been too confident that they had hit dozens of batteries and also said that they were all deep inside East Germany.

The trickery which the DDR had done with its missile force was something that was feared when it came to other weapons systems. Junior personnel were voices of caution to those mid-ranking positions when it came to assuming that everything that post-strike reconnaissance was showing was true. The damage done to the first round of major targets looked to many to be too good to be true. There was plenty of pre-conflict intelligence on East German military camouflage units and what they could do. Some of what was said was taken on board but not all of it. The circumstances varied among different national armed forces and personalities involved. No one liked to be told that they had been successfully played for a fool and the guys on the other side had outsmarted them. Human nature didn’t work that way. There was a lot of cases where Coalition military personnel were believing too much in their own capabilities and not enough respect given to their opponents. That came because East Germany’s fighters were downed with ease and the responses made were generally lucky and not doing a great deal of damage: that latter thinking was down to those Scud and Spider missile hits not making any real impact on Coalition military activity despite killing West German civilians aplenty. SAM activity during the day did heighten many preparations, a damn wise move in light of what later came, but not enough everywhere. When night #2 got going, the DDR’s air defences would be far more active than they had been the night before.

Another good update and a night for the coalition over the skies that makes Iraq of OTL a quit event.

So where is USS Enterprise operating from, i presume the North Sea as the Baltic would be to close, especially with a East German Kilo still on the lose.

[James G]

Sept 30, 2021 19:07:02 GMT lordroel said:

Sept 30, 2021 18:33:06 GMT James G said:

Thirty – Voices of caution


Over West Berlin once daylight arrived in that isolated city, there were air attacks which took place. It wasn’t jet fighters nor even high-flying bombers in action but instead armed helicopters. The LSK – the air force, not the army operated all helicopters – followed standing orders to make harassment attacks throughout all three sectors of West Berlin where the Americans, the British & the French garrisoned. They used small, nimble Mil-2s, larger Mil-8s and also the flying tanks which were the Mil-24s. Only a couple of the Hinds were seen in action yet they made the greatest presence when unleashed waves of ordnance carried. Missiles, rockets and shells flew from them. The other helicopters employed also made their own attacks too. From all sides, high-speed runs were made into the skies above West Berlin where at times the attacking helicopters flew between buildings. They targeted the known positions of the deployed garrisons where those troops were out of their barracks and in a defensive posture. However, the Mil-8s in particular (assault transports laden with rocket pods rather than troops) did also go after the airports. Tegel and Tempelhof were shot-up significantly: RAF Gatow received less attention from the air though would be mortared later in the day. Man-portable missiles raced upwards against those helicopters. The British got a Mil-2 and damaged a Mil-24 with Javelins while the Americans claimed four kills with their Stingers though they only actually got a Mil-8 as well as a Hind too. Two of the East German air losses saw those helicopters crash land inside the perimeter around the city formed by the Berlin Wall. All around that there were the well-armed Grenztruppen. The defenders, who had curled themselves up into a tight defensive position where they only set out to defend half of the city, prepared themselves for what they feared was a follow-up attack. When long-range mortars were employed later in the day, that set off alarm bells that the feared assault was coming. It didn’t though. From a distance, the East Germans seemed intent to selectively shell identified military targets within West Berlin. No ground assault came on the back of that. Civilians and Coalition soldiers died during the day though the butcher’s bill was less than two dozen. West Berlin was rammed full of people, so many of them in a state of panic as they feared the worst, but the death toll was rather light considering that.

Coalition aircrews had been lost over both East Germany and the Czech Republic the night beforehand. Americans, Britons, French and Italians had ejected from hit aircraft and handed deep in enemy territory. Pre-flight reminders had come for all aircrew involved once Operation Allied Sword started that they were to follow their SERE training and await for rescue. That meant that during the daylight hours they were supposed to stay hidden and wait for a night-time rescue. There was no radio communication with them and instead their rescue beacons had been activated once they found what had looked like safe shelter. The idea was to stay out of sight and not do anything foolish. Efforts were made by the East Germans to capture those on the run. One of the aircrew out of a Tornado IDS which had been shot down on its way to bomb Preschen AB had been captured during the night with his navigator/bombardier sought in a major effort close to the Polish-DDR frontier. He was eventually caught in a dragnet when the hunters used attack dogs to flush him out and he made for a failed run for it. Tackled to the ground rather than shot when trying to flee, he was taken into custody. An American airman from a downed F-16 was caught in Saxony but died of gunshot wounds before he could received medical treatment his hunters were prepared to give. The East Germans wanted prisoners alive yet that captain from the 69th Fighter Squadron – part of the 347th Wing out of Georgia and flying from Jehonville AB over in Belgium – refused to go quietly. He killed two of the soldiers seeking him after they spotted his hide and wounded another. The returned fire was necessary to save the lives of the East Germans involved. They’d be in trouble yet they didn’t really have a choice. As to the others hiding and awaiting rescue, their hunters wouldn’t get a line of them. It wasn’t easy to find a single man or two who had ejected from aircraft struck with SAMs and could have been anywhere over wide areas. Moreover, the pilot of an RAF Tornado was found clinging to the side of a holed life-raft in the Baltic. It was the Danes though who recovered him with a search-and-rescue helicopter. He was damn glad to be saved though would spend a long time in hospital afterwards due to having been in the water for almost fifteen hours. Canadian and Danish fighters were involved in defending the rescue effort too when the East Germans – unaware that they were targeting a rescue helicopter rather than one on another mission – tried to shoot it down. A MiG-21 was hit by a Danish F-16 with a good missile shot though with its pilot dying in a mid-air explosion.

Throughout the daylight hours of July 3rd, the LSK did what it hadn’t done the night beforehand: put aircraft up over the skies of the DDR. The whole of the combat force wasn’t in action with much of it still hidden away, but there was plenty of contacts for AWACS aircraft supporting the Coalition air campaign to track and direct fighters towards. Hit-and-run tactics were tried by the LSK rather than making what would certainly be a foolish effort to try and evenly challenge the might of what was facing them. Flying low, using jamming, keeping radars off and working with mobile SAM batteries on the ground was done. That was dangerous, especially the cooperation mounted with missile systems when there was so much radio silence via EMCON. Missile operators shot down several of their own aircraft on occasion. Targeted jamming against AWACS aircraft hadn’t worked before the Coalition launched its air campaign – when they were monitoring what was happening with regards to East German involvement in the Czech civil war – and it didn’t work too in combat against them. Frequencies were changed by radar operators. The Coalition had all of those potent other electronic warfare aircraft flying as well where they were always going to be the winners of a fight in the battle of technology. Into East German skies due to that air activity the Coalition sent fighters. There were American F-14s (off their carriers) and F-15s with the British having Tornado F3s up as well. Those aircraft focused on long-range missile shots against air targets at distance. F-16s flown by the Americans, Belgians and Dutch went in for closer range work. The RAF called it ‘attempting to run up a cricket score’ in the manner in which LSK fighters were engaged. That quickly started to happen when East German MiGs went down aplenty. Seven were fast downed in the morning (two by ‘friendly’ SAMs) before the skies were cleared. However, once the afternoon started, there was that Baltic air clash which F-14s from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower were waved off from to let the Canadians & Danes deal with. Norwegian fighters, based down in Denmark, and French jets flying into Czech skies got a couple of kills in too. The East Germans lost thirteen MiG-21s & -23s. In return, their fighters took out zero Coalition aircraft. Not a cricket score but on the way towards that it was! What aircraft weren’t seen again were LSK MiG-29s though.

Where Coalition aircraft were lost were when they were involved in hunting SAM targets. Wild Weasel missions were flown by HARM shooters seeking out air defences, not just protecting strike packages. Cruise missiles fired by the US Navy were flying at the same time as the Wild Weasels went to work with the aim of seeing SAM batteries come to life: there was also distant electronic support for that. SAM launchers were located and attacked though they got their own hits in where two F-16s were downed and another lost a wing to later crash land in West Germany. Those were Soviet-manufactured weapons in East German hands and with their mobile operations, making uses of lures and cunning, they were able to take the fight back to those seeking to kill them. A good number of Tomahawks flying towards East German airbases and dispersal air-strips – where few LSK aircraft could be found – were taken out as well by the SA-15s that were in service. It was those which claimed those kills of American aircraft. The deep-level Wild Weasel work came alongside border area attack missions flown by A-10s and Harriers. Those aircraft entered East German skies just across from West Germany and sought out targets of opportunity in identified areas where DDR ballistic missiles had fired earlier in the day. Large areas were given ‘weapons-free’ status where the aircraft could attack anything which looked hostile. The American A-10s did that especially whereas the fewer RAF Harriers were a bit more cautious. Man-portable SAMs were a real danger to them and so too were multiple-barrelled mobile anti-aircraft guns. Both Coalition air forces lost an aircraft apiece to ZSU-23-4s with that A-10 brought down struck dozens upon dozens of times. The Harrier hit was less armoured and had already been struck by a SAM first. Other A-10s who made in back to friendly skies were shot-up yet survived the barrage that they faced when conducting low-level, slow attack missions which left them exposed to opposing fire because they were built to take punishment.


By the evening, the Coalition was getting ready for the second night of bomb runs on a large scale over East Germany and the Czech Republic again. Fighters were still up ahead of that despite the LSK seemingly once again surrendering the skies. If they hadn’t, that would have been a big mistake. Previously unused SA-10 long-range SAMs were shot outwards and into West German skies to engage Coalition aircraft where they weren’t expecting that. An F-14 from the USS Enterprise was hit with other fighters having close shaves. Further east, more SA-15s as well as SA-11s were used for medium-range shots and took down a Dutch F-16 as well as a Canadian CF-18. A lot of SAMs went up for the return of ‘only’ three Coalition fighters yet disruption was caused. In the midst of that, AWACS aircraft detected low-level, high-speed dashes by LSK aircraft. Those weren’t fighters trying to do what had failed earlier in the day but rather jets on strike missions going west. With their wings swept back and going supersonic, MiG-23s raced out of hidden dispersal sites and over the Inner-German Border. Coalition aircraft went over them from both sides of that imaginary line in the sky. In the north, an attack was made against the British Army garrison at Bergen on Luneburg Heath; the US Army garrison at Würzburg in Bavaria was targeted to the south. It was a brazen, risky move by the East Germans. They hit Faulenberg Kaserne yet the strike against Bergen (closer to East Germany too) didn’t get through. Of the six aircraft sent westwards, five didn’t make it home. Missile shots from all directions came at the MiGs with that one that escaped making it home all shot-up too. The crash sites in West Germany were all in lightly-populated areas leading to no civilian casualties though there were US Army soldiers killed in Würzburg. In addition, more MiGs were detected above the Czech Republic also heading west towards Bavaria. French Mirage-2000s took two of them down in long-range shots set-up perfectly by an AWACS in Armée de l'Air service. Unfortunately, those were Polish aircraft on a combat mission against East German forces which were subsequently misidentified as hostile. Poland hadn’t joined the Coalition yet there was already a military liaison team in-place. The coordination was off though when tensions were high and an error thus made. When later explanations were given, the unhappy Poles would get over it yet it wasn’t a good start to things with that.

Post-strike reconnaissance had been done once the first air strikes had gone in the previous night. Satellites and reconnaissance aircraft were used for that. The Coalition got a good look at what its bombs and missiles had done with the first round of Operation Allied Sword. There were errors spotted and realisations that they had missed targets, yet still much optimism over a lot of success known to be had. East German military forces had been battered on the first night of combat operations. Military leaders said that to their political masters though were savvy enough not to make too many promises. That was a wise move when that twilight ballistic missile attack came. It was thought in military circles that a whole load of launchers had been knocked out but no firm numbers were given in briefings and the warning had been given that that the DDR had dispersed them plus would be using deception to see dummy systems targeted. When the missile strike came though, it was heavy and also involved platforms deployed into cover uncomfortably close to the Inner-German Border. A lot of generals let fly against subordinates who’d been too confident that they had hit dozens of batteries and also said that they were all deep inside East Germany.

The trickery which the DDR had done with its missile force was something that was feared when it came to other weapons systems. Junior personnel were voices of caution to those mid-ranking positions when it came to assuming that everything that post-strike reconnaissance was showing was true. The damage done to the first round of major targets looked to many to be too good to be true. There was plenty of pre-conflict intelligence on East German military camouflage units and what they could do. Some of what was said was taken on board but not all of it. The circumstances varied among different national armed forces and personalities involved. No one liked to be told that they had been successfully played for a fool and the guys on the other side had outsmarted them. Human nature didn’t work that way. There was a lot of cases where Coalition military personnel were believing too much in their own capabilities and not enough respect given to their opponents. That came because East Germany’s fighters were downed with ease and the responses made were generally lucky and not doing a great deal of damage: that latter thinking was down to those Scud and Spider missile hits not making any real impact on Coalition military activity despite killing West German civilians aplenty. SAM activity during the day did heighten many preparations, a damn wise move in light of what later came, but not enough everywhere. When night #2 got going, the DDR’s air defences would be far more active than they had been the night before.

Another good update and a night for the coalition over the skies that makes Iraq of OTL a quit event.

So where is USS Enterprise operating from, i presume the North Sea as the Baltic would be to close, especially with a East German Kilo still on the lose.

Thank you. Indeed it will.
There are two American carriers in the North Sea along with a British one. With tanker support, plus plentiful land divert sites, they can be quite effective. That Kilo is over in the Baltic with no easy way out of there.

[lordroel]

Oct 1, 2021 5:52:30 GMT James G said:

Sept 30, 2021 19:07:02 GMT lordroel said:

Another good update and a night for the coalition over the skies that makes Iraq of OTL a quit event.

So where is USS Enterprise operating from, i presume the North Sea as the Baltic would be to close, especially with a East German Kilo still on the lose.

Thank you. Indeed it will.
There are two American carriers in the North Sea along with a British one. With tanker support, plus plentiful land divert sites, they can be quite effective. That Kilo is over in the Baltic with no easy way out of there.

Well the Kilo need to pass the Danish straits to get to the North Sea and i assume Norwegian P-3s are operating from Norway and maybe British Nimrods and American P-3s are operating from Denmark to keep it close.

[James G]

Oct 1, 2021 5:56:15 GMT lordroel said:

Oct 1, 2021 5:52:30 GMT James G said:

Thank you. Indeed it will.
There are two American carriers in the North Sea along with a British one. With tanker support, plus plentiful land divert sites, they can be quite effective. That Kilo is over in the Baltic with no easy way out of there.

Well the Kilo need to pass the Danish straits to get to the North Sea and i assume Norwegian P-3s are operating from Norway and maybe British Nimrods and American P-3s are operating from Denmark to keep it close.

Aircraft like those plus warships too. An escape is unlikely indeed, especially with the Volksmarine new at sub ops.

[James G]

Thirty-one – Ambush


The RAF’s 617 Squadron had not taken part in operations during the first night of the air campaign. They had a week beforehand redeployed from their Scottish base at RAF Lossiemouth (where they’d only been for a year) back to RAF Marham in East Anglia and held ready for naval air operations. With Sea Eagle anti-ship missiles, the plan was for them to see action in the Baltic. However, while the Volksmarine was at sea, with plenty of small warships which a Sea Eagle could take out with one hit, those corvettes & missile boats had sailed east further into the interior of the Baltic and not massed together. They posed no threat to the Danish Straits nor was there any inclination among Coalition leaders to go after them less they did that. Questions had been asked of the wisdom of leaving that naval force intact as well as neither bombing their bases, but those weren’t for 617 Squadron to answer. For the second night of Operation Allied Sword they were given offensive tasks but those were to be in the conventional strike role over East Germany. There were a lot of Tornado GR1 strike-bombers flying out of RAF Bruggen in West Germany yet the ones from Marham – the GR1B variant – remained there and flew a long distance mission. Several flights climbed out of British skies and flew above the North Sea before meeting RAF tankers above Zealand. Refuelling was done with Danish F-16s in the skies to ensure the protection of those tankers (who were also topping up their fuel tanks too when needed) before the Tornados then went east over the Baltic and towards the DDR. They swung around the far side of the island of Rugen and then entered enemy skies ‘through the back door’. Low-level fast penetrations were made far into East Germany with 617 Squadron aircrews flying close to the DDR-Polish border southwards. They went deep, far past Berlin, and split up into small strike packages. Bruggen-based aircraft as well Italian Tornados had been in the same area the previous night though had made more direct approaches. What 617 Squadron did attracted no SAM attention because they had sneaked in through the rear. Instead of hitting the main operating bases of the LSK as had been done on the first night, the second attack went after identified dispersal sites near to those airbases from where the East Germans had been flying during the day when they’d tried to challenge the Coalition in the air. Hidden improvised runways close to the airbases at Drewitz, Holzdorf and Preschen were struck. Paveway laser-guided bombs and unguided 500lb dumb bombs were dropped. 617 Squadron aircraft then turned around and flew back north. SAMs came skywards but too late. Back towards the Baltic and those tankers over Denmark they flew with what was considered a perfect strike mission.

F-15E Strike Eagles which the US Air Force had at Soesterberg AB in the Netherlands had likewise missed the first night of action too. There were two squadrons deployed there: one each from parent wings home-based in Alaska and North Carolina. The 90th Fighter Squadron had left behind other aircraft at Elmendorf and gone to Europe right before the air campaign started. For second night operations, they took a short flight through West German skies and entered the DDR when crossing the Elbe to the south of Hamburg. Enemy air defences were under attack at that time and the F-15Es met no trouble going in when they did fast, low and with passive jammers active. Half of the squadron was involved in a series of strikes across the East German countryside between Wismar and Schwerin. On either side of Lake Schweriner, there was intelligence that Scud missile batteries were dispersed into hidden positions there. A couple had fired on Denmark, targeting airbases there, but there were more if the reconnaissance data gathered was to be believed. Using LANTIRN targeting pods designed for night-time deep strikes low down, the F-15Es rained down upon suspected ballistic missile launchers and associated support vehicles the contents of cluster bombs. Those were CEM weapons: smart bombs built to not waste munitions when a ‘dumb’ cluster bomb attack would do that. Explosions rocked the countryside behind the departing aircraft which then raced back towards the Inner-German Border to make crossings into friendly territory near to Lubeck. One of the F-15Es didn’t make that crossing though. It was hit by an SA-15 SAM and blew up in mid-air killing the two aircrew within.

The LSK didn’t come up to defend East German skies... not at the beginning of the night anyway. It was just SAMs again that were lofted and there was also close-in anti-aircraft fire around certain locations. The Coalition moved down their target list from the highest priority attacks made on the first night. Some of them were gone back afterwards again, especially suspected areas where ballistic missile launchers were, but otherwise there was moving onwards. None of the East German major airbases looked operational until major repairs were done to the multiple holes in runways and taxiways so it was secondary sites for them targeted. The major command bunkers had been bombed to ruin and didn’t need another visit. It was the same with the nuclear research sites though one of the smaller, sub facilities, located near the small city of Brandenburg an der Havel, was bombed by another B-2 flight made all the way from the United States again. US Navy submarines fired Tomahawks into the area first to knock out suspected SAM defences before a lone stealth bomber appeared overhead and dropped a belly full of bombs.

Secondary targets across East Germany were plentiful. Many Coalition aircraft were involved once again when, for several hours, they went on the attack. Strike aircraft were supported directly in DDR skies by waves of fighters as well as electronic combat aircraft. There were more of the both of them back over in West German skies too ready to provide assistance where needed. The air campaign was a big deal with so many people involved. There were aircrews in those combat jets but then all of those in supporting aircraft too. Moreover, all of the ground support personnel at the airbases which they flew from plus all of the headquarters staffs too. Pilots and bombardiers might get all of the glory yet without all those not directly in danger, they wouldn’t have been able to do what they did. As to the targets, multiple big ammunition dumps were struck in spectacular attacks across East Germany. They were protected but not when laser-guided bombs came through the roofs of their shelters to then explode. Follow-up blasts of stored ammunition went off as planned to finish what had been started. In the city of Magdeburg, there were more F-15Es involved (ones home-based in Britain at RAF Lakenheath) where they took extreme care with where they laid their bombs due to civilians near to their target. The aviation plant there which overhauled LSK aircraft was struck in the early hours of the morning. It was flattened though there was SAM activity despite all efforts to silence that. Across the DDR where the East German Army had its garrisons, American, British, Canadian & Italian jets raided them. There had been activity around them since mobilisation was declared ahead of Operation Allied Sword starting where troops and equipment was sent into the field. Headquarters units for divisional commands as well as part of those divisions were clustered around several major cities, leading to care being taken like what was done in Magdeburg not to slaughter innocents in their beds, but other divisional elements were often outside of highly-populated areas. The East Germans hadn’t gotten all of their soldiers out and around those less high-risk sites, Coalition air strikes were particularly heavy.

A lot of care had been taken when F-111Fs went after Erfurt where the 4th Motorised Infantry Division was headquartered. Paveways were dropped by the swing-wing aircraft which raced in low at high speed. A smart bomb isn’t always so smart though. Several of them, despite so much care being taken, went off-course. A church – thankfully empty – was blown apart and there were also two 1000lb bombs which hit an apartment building. Air raid sirens had wailed across Erfurt and residents were rushing to basement shelters. So many hadn’t reached the one below the particular building that the pair of errant GBU-16s smashed into those with many caught in stairwells and corridors. More than sixty deaths occurred with most of them women and children. The Erfurt attack, which DDR propaganda would soon be telling the world about, killed in one stroke more East German civilians than DDR ballistic missiles had killed in West Germany. There would be claims made from East Berlin that the strike was deliberate, to target civilians on purpose and thus try to frighten the people into surrender. That assertion would hardly wash with many but there were always going to be some people who would be taken in by it.


Up at Potsdam, on the edges of West Berlin, there was the Army HQ nearby at Geltow that a Coalition air strike went after as well as in the city there being the headquarters for the 1st Motorised Rifle Division. An F-117 flying from Norway went after prime target in that area. What had happened to one of the stealth bombers flying from Britain where a SAM over East Berlin had damaged it the night before was on the minds of the two aircrew and they were cautious on the approach. That didn’t do them any good though. A pre-strike cruise missile attack of ALCMs fired by a pair of B-52s had meant to have taken out – or at least shot-up – SAM defences in the Potsdam area but many of them had hit dummy positions. Using infrared systems aplenty, the LSK monitored the skies for what came after that cruise missile strike due to witnessing that tactic the night before. A ‘lucky’ pair of operators saw what looked like an F-117. Seconds later, the SA-11 battery they were part of made a launch solely relying upon IR targeting rather than lighting up a radar. BOOM! One of the SAMs struck its target. That aircraft couldn’t keep flying for long afterwards, not with major damage incurred. Using all their skill, and a lot of luck, the aircrew got it out of East Germany less it fall into enemy hands and then ejected over the Luneburg Heath across in West Germany. British troops, followed by American military personnel, would reach the air wreck soon afterwards with everyone glad that it hadn’t fallen into the hands of the DDR but unhappy at what the East Germans had managed to do. The Geltow HQ complex was left un-attacked and there was also the continuation of the wider Potsdam air strike which still went ahead. With hindsight, Coalition air campaign chiefs down at US European Command in Stuttgart should have called off all operations in that area. The thought the LSK had just got lucky. What wasn’t realised, what wasn’t thought that was possible, was that the East Germans would pull of an ambush.

Infrared systems of various types were active in the Potsdam area. There were mobile ground stations supporting air defence of both missiles and MiG-29s which showed up. That RAF strike against the Preschen dispersal sites, including hitting the Forst highway strip, had meant to have disabled their operations yet those first-rate fighters hadn’t been seen since the start of Operation Allied Sword. They showed up on the second night though. Their base of operations had shifted to the former Soviet base at Juterbog. The Russians had left there in 1992 and Tomahawks had still hit the unused runway. The LSK made use of a hidden runway, one underneath fast removable camouflage instead. Half a dozen MiG-29s got airborne and raced towards Potsdam. American F-16s and Italian Tornados were in the area on attack runs supported by Belgian F-16s for close fighter escort with US Navy F-14s back in West German skies. The MiG-29s were all over those more numerous Coalition aircraft. The strike aircraft scattered – dropping munitions early to give them speed – but the Belgians bravely fought while waiting on the F-14s to show up. Those F-16s never stood a chance. Each MiG-29 went up with seven air-to-air missile with all of those being IR-guided. The LSK pilots had helmet-mounted sights with fantastic capabilities. For zero losses, they shot down four F-16s while two more Belgian jets rocketed back westwards with the pilots escaping through the skin of their teeth. In came the F-14s, a long way from their carrier off in the distant North Sea. AWACS aircraft guided them in and Phoenix missiles flew before the US Navy aviators intended to finish off the East Germans with Sidewinders. They only hit one MiG-29 though and then faced a return fire of more missiles back at them. AA-11s were used to hit the Belgians with AA-10s fired at the Americans. Two F-14s went down. The remaining MiGs then disappeared. The skies had been cleared and a Coalition aerial victory won but the cost was high and the majority of the enemy had remained elusive. The short air battle was in many ways an East German victory where the ambush tactics used in daylight had been upgraded to a far more successful one at night. They’d only lost one jet and would be able to repeat that feat many times again.

Six air-to-air kills made by the LSK had been achieved. That total came alongside seven other Coalition aircraft which were taken out during the night by SAMs: the total included the F-117 that crashed into West Germany and another French jet hit over the Czech Republic. The Coalition had a lot of aircraft involved in Operation Allied Sword, and was doing tremendous damage to East Germany, yet losses like that were painful. Enemy kills, to SAMs especially, were racking up uncomfortably. They were knocking out time and time again what looked like SAM launchers and associated systems but were still facing them. The scale of enemy deception efforts – part of that hiding those MiG-29s – became more apparent to those sending the orders out for the air campaign to continue. It was hoped though that that second night of strikes to go after the DDR ballistic missile force had been more successful too, especially since it had been followed by daylight operations as well. An answer to how that had gone came on the morning of July 4th.

[lordroel]

Oct 3, 2021 18:36:53 GMT James G said:

Thirty-one – Ambush


The RAF’s 617 Squadron had not taken part in operations during the first night of the air campaign. They had a week beforehand redeployed from their Scottish base at RAF Lossiemouth (where they’d only been for a year) back to RAF Marham in East Anglia and held ready for naval air operations. With Sea Eagle anti-ship missiles, the plan was for them to see action in the Baltic. However, while the Volksmarine was at sea, with plenty of small warships which a Sea Eagle could take out with one hit, those corvettes & missile boats had sailed east further into the interior of the Baltic and not massed together. They posed no threat to the Danish Straits nor was there any inclination among Coalition leaders to go after them less they did that. Questions had been asked of the wisdom of leaving that naval force intact as well as neither bombing their bases, but those weren’t for 617 Squadron to answer. For the second night of Operation Allied Sword they were given offensive tasks but those were to be in the conventional strike role over East Germany. There were a lot of Tornado GR1 strike-bombers flying out of RAF Bruggen in West Germany yet the ones from Marham – the GR1B variant – remained there and flew a long distance mission. Several flights climbed out of British skies and flew above the North Sea before meeting RAF tankers above Zealand. Refuelling was done with Danish F-16s in the skies to ensure the protection of those tankers (who were also topping up their fuel tanks too when needed) before the Tornados then went east over the Baltic and towards the DDR. They swung around the far side of the island of Rugen and then entered enemy skies ‘through the back door’. Low-level fast penetrations were made far into East Germany with 617 Squadron aircrews flying close to the DDR-Polish border southwards. They went deep, far past Berlin, and split up into small strike packages. Bruggen-based aircraft as well Italian Tornados had been in the same area the previous night though had made more direct approaches. What 617 Squadron did attracted no SAM attention because they had sneaked in through the rear. Instead of hitting the main operating bases of the LSK as had been done on the first night, the second attack went after identified dispersal sites near to those airbases from where the East Germans had been flying during the day when they’d tried to challenge the Coalition in the air. Hidden improvised runways close to the airbases at Drewitz, Holzdorf and Preschen were struck. Paveway laser-guided bombs and unguided 500lb dumb bombs were dropped. 617 Squadron aircraft then turned around and flew back north. SAMs came skywards but too late. Back towards the Baltic and those tankers over Denmark they flew with what was considered a perfect strike mission.

F-15E Strike Eagles which the US Air Force had at Soesterberg AB in the Netherlands had likewise missed the first night of action too. There were two squadrons deployed there: one each from parent wings home-based in Alaska and North Carolina. The 90th Fighter Squadron had left behind other aircraft at Elmendorf and gone to Europe right before the air campaign started. For second night operations, they took a short flight through West German skies and entered the DDR when crossing the Elbe to the south of Hamburg. Enemy air defences were under attack at that time and the F-15Es met no trouble going in when they did fast, low and with passive jammers active. Half of the squadron was involved in a series of strikes across the East German countryside between Wismar and Schwerin. On either side of Lake Schweriner, there was intelligence that Scud missile batteries were dispersed into hidden positions there. A couple had fired on Denmark, targeting airbases there, but there were more if the reconnaissance data gathered was to be believed. Using LANTIRN targeting pods designed for night-time deep strikes low down, the F-15Es rained down upon suspected ballistic missile launchers and associated support vehicles the contents of cluster bombs. Those were CEM weapons: smart bombs built to not waste munitions when a ‘dumb’ cluster bomb attack would do that. Explosions rocked the countryside behind the departing aircraft which then raced back towards the Inner-German Border to make crossings into friendly territory near to Lubeck. One of the F-15Es didn’t make that crossing though. It was hit by an SA-15 SAM and blew up in mid-air killing the two aircrew within.

The LSK didn’t come up to defend East German skies... not at the beginning of the night anyway. It was just SAMs again that were lofted and there was also close-in anti-aircraft fire around certain locations. The Coalition moved down their target list from the highest priority attacks made on the first night. Some of them were gone back afterwards again, especially suspected areas where ballistic missile launchers were, but otherwise there was moving onwards. None of the East German major airbases looked operational until major repairs were done to the multiple holes in runways and taxiways so it was secondary sites for them targeted. The major command bunkers had been bombed to ruin and didn’t need another visit. It was the same with the nuclear research sites though one of the smaller, sub facilities, located near the small city of Brandenburg an der Havel, was bombed by another B-2 flight made all the way from the United States again. US Navy submarines fired Tomahawks into the area first to knock out suspected SAM defences before a lone stealth bomber appeared overhead and dropped a belly full of bombs.

Secondary targets across East Germany were plentiful. Many Coalition aircraft were involved once again when, for several hours, they went on the attack. Strike aircraft were supported directly in DDR skies by waves of fighters as well as electronic combat aircraft. There were more of the both of them back over in West German skies too ready to provide assistance where needed. The air campaign was a big deal with so many people involved. There were aircrews in those combat jets but then all of those in supporting aircraft too. Moreover, all of the ground support personnel at the airbases which they flew from plus all of the headquarters staffs too. Pilots and bombardiers might get all of the glory yet without all those not directly in danger, they wouldn’t have been able to do what they did. As to the targets, multiple big ammunition dumps were struck in spectacular attacks across East Germany. They were protected but not when laser-guided bombs came through the roofs of their shelters to then explode. Follow-up blasts of stored ammunition went off as planned to finish what had been started. In the city of Magdeburg, there were more F-15Es involved (ones home-based in Britain at RAF Lakenheath) where they took extreme care with where they laid their bombs due to civilians near to their target. The aviation plant there which overhauled LSK aircraft was struck in the early hours of the morning. It was flattened though there was SAM activity despite all efforts to silence that. Across the DDR where the East German Army had its garrisons, American, British, Canadian & Italian jets raided them. There had been activity around them since mobilisation was declared ahead of Operation Allied Sword starting where troops and equipment was sent into the field. Headquarters units for divisional commands as well as part of those divisions were clustered around several major cities, leading to care being taken like what was done in Magdeburg not to slaughter innocents in their beds, but other divisional elements were often outside of highly-populated areas. The East Germans hadn’t gotten all of their soldiers out and around those less high-risk sites, Coalition air strikes were particularly heavy.

A lot of care had been taken when F-111Fs went after Erfurt where the 4th Motorised Infantry Division was headquartered. Paveways were dropped by the swing-wing aircraft which raced in low at high speed. A smart bomb isn’t always so smart though. Several of them, despite so much care being taken, went off-course. A church – thankfully empty – was blown apart and there were also two 1000lb bombs which hit an apartment building. Air raid sirens had wailed across Erfurt and residents were rushing to basement shelters. So many hadn’t reached the one below the particular building that the pair of errant GBU-16s smashed into those with many caught in stairwells and corridors. More than sixty deaths occurred with most of them women and children. The Erfurt attack, which DDR propaganda would soon be telling the world about, killed in one stroke more East German civilians than DDR ballistic missiles had killed in West Germany. There would be claims made from East Berlin that the strike was deliberate, to target civilians on purpose and thus try to frighten the people into surrender. That assertion would hardly wash with many but there were always going to be some people who would be taken in by it.


Up at Potsdam, on the edges of West Berlin, there was the Army HQ nearby at Geltow that a Coalition air strike went after as well as in the city there being the headquarters for the 1st Motorised Rifle Division. An F-117 flying from Norway went after prime target in that area. What had happened to one of the stealth bombers flying from Britain where a SAM over East Berlin had damaged it the night before was on the minds of the two aircrew and they were cautious on the approach. That didn’t do them any good though. A pre-strike cruise missile attack of ALCMs fired by a pair of B-52s had meant to have taken out – or at least shot-up – SAM defences in the Potsdam area but many of them had hit dummy positions. Using infrared systems aplenty, the LSK monitored the skies for what came after that cruise missile strike due to witnessing that tactic the night before. A ‘lucky’ pair of operators saw what looked like an F-117. Seconds later, the SA-11 battery they were part of made a launch solely relying upon IR targeting rather than lighting up a radar. BOOM! One of the SAMs struck its target. That aircraft couldn’t keep flying for long afterwards, not with major damage incurred. Using all their skill, and a lot of luck, the aircrew got it out of East Germany less it fall into enemy hands and then ejected over the Luneburg Heath across in West Germany. British troops, followed by American military personnel, would reach the air wreck soon afterwards with everyone glad that it hadn’t fallen into the hands of the DDR but unhappy at what the East Germans had managed to do. The Geltow HQ complex was left un-attacked and there was also the continuation of the wider Potsdam air strike which still went ahead. With hindsight, Coalition air campaign chiefs down at US European Command in Stuttgart should have called off all operations in that area. The thought the LSK had just got lucky. What wasn’t realised, what wasn’t thought that was possible, was that the East Germans would pull of an ambush.

Infrared systems of various types were active in the Potsdam area. There were mobile ground stations supporting air defence of both missiles and MiG-29s which showed up. That RAF strike against the Preschen dispersal sites, including hitting the Forst highway strip, had meant to have disabled their operations yet those first-rate fighters hadn’t been seen since the start of Operation Allied Sword. They showed up on the second night though. Their base of operations had shifted to the former Soviet base at Juterbog. The Russians had left there in 1992 and Tomahawks had still hit the unused runway. The LSK made use of a hidden runway, one underneath fast removable camouflage instead. Half a dozen MiG-29s got airborne and raced towards Potsdam. American F-16s and Italian Tornados were in the area on attack runs supported by Belgian F-16s for close fighter escort with US Navy F-14s back in West German skies. The MiG-29s were all over those more numerous Coalition aircraft. The strike aircraft scattered – dropping munitions early to give them speed – but the Belgians bravely fought while waiting on the F-14s to show up. Those F-16s never stood a chance. Each MiG-29 went up with seven air-to-air missile with all of those being IR-guided. The LSK pilots had helmet-mounted sights with fantastic capabilities. For zero losses, they shot down four F-16s while two more Belgian jets rocketed back westwards with the pilots escaping through the skin of their teeth. In came the F-14s, a long way from their carrier off in the distant North Sea. AWACS aircraft guided them in and Phoenix missiles flew before the US Navy aviators intended to finish off the East Germans with Sidewinders. They only hit one MiG-29 though and then faced a return fire of more missiles back at them. AA-11s were used to hit the Belgians with AA-10s fired at the Americans. Two F-14s went down. The remaining MiGs then disappeared. The skies had been cleared and a Coalition aerial victory won but the cost was high and the majority of the enemy had remained elusive. The short air battle was in many ways an East German victory where the ambush tactics used in daylight had been upgraded to a far more successful one at night. They’d only lost one jet and would be able to repeat that feat many times again.

Six air-to-air kills made by the LSK had been achieved. That total came alongside seven other Coalition aircraft which were taken out during the night by SAMs: the total included the F-117 that crashed into West Germany and another French jet hit over the Czech Republic. The Coalition had a lot of aircraft involved in Operation Allied Sword, and was doing tremendous damage to East Germany, yet losses like that were painful. Enemy kills, to SAMs especially, were racking up uncomfortably. They were knocking out time and time again what looked like SAM launchers and associated systems but were still facing them. The scale of enemy deception efforts – part of that hiding those MiG-29s – became more apparent to those sending the orders out for the air campaign to continue. It was hoped though that that second night of strikes to go after the DDR ballistic missile force had been more successful too, especially since it had been followed by daylight operations as well. An answer to how that had gone came on the morning of July 4th.

Poor Belgian F-16s, they suffered the most devastating loss by the Belgian air force sins 1940.

Also i do not think the Allies are going to like this 4th of July.

[James G]

Oct 4, 2021 3:40:17 GMT lordroel said:

Oct 3, 2021 18:36:53 GMT James G said:

Thirty-one – Ambush


The RAF’s 617 Squadron had not taken part in operations during the first night of the air campaign. They had a week beforehand redeployed from their Scottish base at RAF Lossiemouth (where they’d only been for a year) back to RAF Marham in East Anglia and held ready for naval air operations. With Sea Eagle anti-ship missiles, the plan was for them to see action in the Baltic. However, while the Volksmarine was at sea, with plenty of small warships which a Sea Eagle could take out with one hit, those corvettes & missile boats had sailed east further into the interior of the Baltic and not massed together. They posed no threat to the Danish Straits nor was there any inclination among Coalition leaders to go after them less they did that. Questions had been asked of the wisdom of leaving that naval force intact as well as neither bombing their bases, but those weren’t for 617 Squadron to answer. For the second night of Operation Allied Sword they were given offensive tasks but those were to be in the conventional strike role over East Germany. There were a lot of Tornado GR1 strike-bombers flying out of RAF Bruggen in West Germany yet the ones from Marham – the GR1B variant – remained there and flew a long distance mission. Several flights climbed out of British skies and flew above the North Sea before meeting RAF tankers above Zealand. Refuelling was done with Danish F-16s in the skies to ensure the protection of those tankers (who were also topping up their fuel tanks too when needed) before the Tornados then went east over the Baltic and towards the DDR. They swung around the far side of the island of Rugen and then entered enemy skies ‘through the back door’. Low-level fast penetrations were made far into East Germany with 617 Squadron aircrews flying close to the DDR-Polish border southwards. They went deep, far past Berlin, and split up into small strike packages. Bruggen-based aircraft as well Italian Tornados had been in the same area the previous night though had made more direct approaches. What 617 Squadron did attracted no SAM attention because they had sneaked in through the rear. Instead of hitting the main operating bases of the LSK as had been done on the first night, the second attack went after identified dispersal sites near to those airbases from where the East Germans had been flying during the day when they’d tried to challenge the Coalition in the air. Hidden improvised runways close to the airbases at Drewitz, Holzdorf and Preschen were struck. Paveway laser-guided bombs and unguided 500lb dumb bombs were dropped. 617 Squadron aircraft then turned around and flew back north. SAMs came skywards but too late. Back towards the Baltic and those tankers over Denmark they flew with what was considered a perfect strike mission.

F-15E Strike Eagles which the US Air Force had at Soesterberg AB in the Netherlands had likewise missed the first night of action too. There were two squadrons deployed there: one each from parent wings home-based in Alaska and North Carolina. The 90th Fighter Squadron had left behind other aircraft at Elmendorf and gone to Europe right before the air campaign started. For second night operations, they took a short flight through West German skies and entered the DDR when crossing the Elbe to the south of Hamburg. Enemy air defences were under attack at that time and the F-15Es met no trouble going in when they did fast, low and with passive jammers active. Half of the squadron was involved in a series of strikes across the East German countryside between Wismar and Schwerin. On either side of Lake Schweriner, there was intelligence that Scud missile batteries were dispersed into hidden positions there. A couple had fired on Denmark, targeting airbases there, but there were more if the reconnaissance data gathered was to be believed. Using LANTIRN targeting pods designed for night-time deep strikes low down, the F-15Es rained down upon suspected ballistic missile launchers and associated support vehicles the contents of cluster bombs. Those were CEM weapons: smart bombs built to not waste munitions when a ‘dumb’ cluster bomb attack would do that. Explosions rocked the countryside behind the departing aircraft which then raced back towards the Inner-German Border to make crossings into friendly territory near to Lubeck. One of the F-15Es didn’t make that crossing though. It was hit by an SA-15 SAM and blew up in mid-air killing the two aircrew within.

The LSK didn’t come up to defend East German skies... not at the beginning of the night anyway. It was just SAMs again that were lofted and there was also close-in anti-aircraft fire around certain locations. The Coalition moved down their target list from the highest priority attacks made on the first night. Some of them were gone back afterwards again, especially suspected areas where ballistic missile launchers were, but otherwise there was moving onwards. None of the East German major airbases looked operational until major repairs were done to the multiple holes in runways and taxiways so it was secondary sites for them targeted. The major command bunkers had been bombed to ruin and didn’t need another visit. It was the same with the nuclear research sites though one of the smaller, sub facilities, located near the small city of Brandenburg an der Havel, was bombed by another B-2 flight made all the way from the United States again. US Navy submarines fired Tomahawks into the area first to knock out suspected SAM defences before a lone stealth bomber appeared overhead and dropped a belly full of bombs.

Secondary targets across East Germany were plentiful. Many Coalition aircraft were involved once again when, for several hours, they went on the attack. Strike aircraft were supported directly in DDR skies by waves of fighters as well as electronic combat aircraft. There were more of the both of them back over in West German skies too ready to provide assistance where needed. The air campaign was a big deal with so many people involved. There were aircrews in those combat jets but then all of those in supporting aircraft too. Moreover, all of the ground support personnel at the airbases which they flew from plus all of the headquarters staffs too. Pilots and bombardiers might get all of the glory yet without all those not directly in danger, they wouldn’t have been able to do what they did. As to the targets, multiple big ammunition dumps were struck in spectacular attacks across East Germany. They were protected but not when laser-guided bombs came through the roofs of their shelters to then explode. Follow-up blasts of stored ammunition went off as planned to finish what had been started. In the city of Magdeburg, there were more F-15Es involved (ones home-based in Britain at RAF Lakenheath) where they took extreme care with where they laid their bombs due to civilians near to their target. The aviation plant there which overhauled LSK aircraft was struck in the early hours of the morning. It was flattened though there was SAM activity despite all efforts to silence that. Across the DDR where the East German Army had its garrisons, American, British, Canadian & Italian jets raided them. There had been activity around them since mobilisation was declared ahead of Operation Allied Sword starting where troops and equipment was sent into the field. Headquarters units for divisional commands as well as part of those divisions were clustered around several major cities, leading to care being taken like what was done in Magdeburg not to slaughter innocents in their beds, but other divisional elements were often outside of highly-populated areas. The East Germans hadn’t gotten all of their soldiers out and around those less high-risk sites, Coalition air strikes were particularly heavy.

A lot of care had been taken when F-111Fs went after Erfurt where the 4th Motorised Infantry Division was headquartered. Paveways were dropped by the swing-wing aircraft which raced in low at high speed. A smart bomb isn’t always so smart though. Several of them, despite so much care being taken, went off-course. A church – thankfully empty – was blown apart and there were also two 1000lb bombs which hit an apartment building. Air raid sirens had wailed across Erfurt and residents were rushing to basement shelters. So many hadn’t reached the one below the particular building that the pair of errant GBU-16s smashed into those with many caught in stairwells and corridors. More than sixty deaths occurred with most of them women and children. The Erfurt attack, which DDR propaganda would soon be telling the world about, killed in one stroke more East German civilians than DDR ballistic missiles had killed in West Germany. There would be claims made from East Berlin that the strike was deliberate, to target civilians on purpose and thus try to frighten the people into surrender. That assertion would hardly wash with many but there were always going to be some people who would be taken in by it.


Up at Potsdam, on the edges of West Berlin, there was the Army HQ nearby at Geltow that a Coalition air strike went after as well as in the city there being the headquarters for the 1st Motorised Rifle Division. An F-117 flying from Norway went after prime target in that area. What had happened to one of the stealth bombers flying from Britain where a SAM over East Berlin had damaged it the night before was on the minds of the two aircrew and they were cautious on the approach. That didn’t do them any good though. A pre-strike cruise missile attack of ALCMs fired by a pair of B-52s had meant to have taken out – or at least shot-up – SAM defences in the Potsdam area but many of them had hit dummy positions. Using infrared systems aplenty, the LSK monitored the skies for what came after that cruise missile strike due to witnessing that tactic the night before. A ‘lucky’ pair of operators saw what looked like an F-117. Seconds later, the SA-11 battery they were part of made a launch solely relying upon IR targeting rather than lighting up a radar. BOOM! One of the SAMs struck its target. That aircraft couldn’t keep flying for long afterwards, not with major damage incurred. Using all their skill, and a lot of luck, the aircrew got it out of East Germany less it fall into enemy hands and then ejected over the Luneburg Heath across in West Germany. British troops, followed by American military personnel, would reach the air wreck soon afterwards with everyone glad that it hadn’t fallen into the hands of the DDR but unhappy at what the East Germans had managed to do. The Geltow HQ complex was left un-attacked and there was also the continuation of the wider Potsdam air strike which still went ahead. With hindsight, Coalition air campaign chiefs down at US European Command in Stuttgart should have called off all operations in that area. The thought the LSK had just got lucky. What wasn’t realised, what wasn’t thought that was possible, was that the East Germans would pull of an ambush.

Infrared systems of various types were active in the Potsdam area. There were mobile ground stations supporting air defence of both missiles and MiG-29s which showed up. That RAF strike against the Preschen dispersal sites, including hitting the Forst highway strip, had meant to have disabled their operations yet those first-rate fighters hadn’t been seen since the start of Operation Allied Sword. They showed up on the second night though. Their base of operations had shifted to the former Soviet base at Juterbog. The Russians had left there in 1992 and Tomahawks had still hit the unused runway. The LSK made use of a hidden runway, one underneath fast removable camouflage instead. Half a dozen MiG-29s got airborne and raced towards Potsdam. American F-16s and Italian Tornados were in the area on attack runs supported by Belgian F-16s for close fighter escort with US Navy F-14s back in West German skies. The MiG-29s were all over those more numerous Coalition aircraft. The strike aircraft scattered – dropping munitions early to give them speed – but the Belgians bravely fought while waiting on the F-14s to show up. Those F-16s never stood a chance. Each MiG-29 went up with seven air-to-air missile with all of those being IR-guided. The LSK pilots had helmet-mounted sights with fantastic capabilities. For zero losses, they shot down four F-16s while two more Belgian jets rocketed back westwards with the pilots escaping through the skin of their teeth. In came the F-14s, a long way from their carrier off in the distant North Sea. AWACS aircraft guided them in and Phoenix missiles flew before the US Navy aviators intended to finish off the East Germans with Sidewinders. They only hit one MiG-29 though and then faced a return fire of more missiles back at them. AA-11s were used to hit the Belgians with AA-10s fired at the Americans. Two F-14s went down. The remaining MiGs then disappeared. The skies had been cleared and a Coalition aerial victory won but the cost was high and the majority of the enemy had remained elusive. The short air battle was in many ways an East German victory where the ambush tactics used in daylight had been upgraded to a far more successful one at night. They’d only lost one jet and would be able to repeat that feat many times again.

Six air-to-air kills made by the LSK had been achieved. That total came alongside seven other Coalition aircraft which were taken out during the night by SAMs: the total included the F-117 that crashed into West Germany and another French jet hit over the Czech Republic. The Coalition had a lot of aircraft involved in Operation Allied Sword, and was doing tremendous damage to East Germany, yet losses like that were painful. Enemy kills, to SAMs especially, were racking up uncomfortably. They were knocking out time and time again what looked like SAM launchers and associated systems but were still facing them. The scale of enemy deception efforts – part of that hiding those MiG-29s – became more apparent to those sending the orders out for the air campaign to continue. It was hoped though that that second night of strikes to go after the DDR ballistic missile force had been more successful too, especially since it had been followed by daylight operations as well. An answer to how that had gone came on the morning of July 4th.

Poor Belgian F-16s, they suffered the most devastating loss by the Belgian air force sins 1940.

Also i do not think the Allies are going to like this 4th of July.

The Belgians will want revenge indeed!
An unhappy Independence Day is coming for American troops stationed in West Germany.