James G
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Post by James G on Sept 26, 2021 18:29:07 GMT
Thank you. It is. Tick-tock goes the clock. Ah, yes. It will have an adventure indeed. Should i wish it good luck ore is that bad routing for the enemy. That is routing for the enemy! |
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Sept 26, 2021 18:31:57 GMT
Twenty-six – Shadow boxingThe Coalition had observation over the Potsdam garrison for a full division of the East German Army and where the Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Division was centralised at Adlershof within East Berlin. I know it was way big to be a regiment, having a strength OTL in 1989 of 11,426 soldiers and officers, but even then, while it grew to the size of a motorized infantry division it was still called a regiment. Has that changed here. |
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James G
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Post by James G on Sept 26, 2021 18:40:43 GMT
Twenty-six – Shadow boxingThe Coalition had observation over the Potsdam garrison for a full division of the East German Army and where the Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Division was centralised at Adlershof within East Berlin. I know it was way big to be a regiment, having a strength OTL in 1989 of 11,426 soldiers and officers, but even then, while it grew to the size of a motorized infantry division it was still called a regiment. Has that changed here. Yep. It is a full division but with mixed capabilities: tanks but also paratroopers. |
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Sept 26, 2021 18:46:26 GMT
I know it was way big to be a regiment, having a strength OTL in 1989 of 11,426 soldiers and officers, but even then, while it grew to the size of a motorized infantry division it was still called a regiment. Has that changed here. Yep. It is a full division but with mixed capabilities: tanks but also paratroopers. So it has grown over 5 years, figures as it is under the control of the Stasi and not the East German National People's Army (NVA) and thus is more reliable i assume. |
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Sept 27, 2021 16:52:58 GMT
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James G
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Post by James G on Sept 27, 2021 18:13:37 GMT
Yep. It is a full division but with mixed capabilities: tanks but also paratroopers. So it has grown over 5 years, figures as it is under the control of the Stasi and not the East German National People's Army (NVA) and thus is more reliable i assume. Reliability is the key there and so it stays with the Stasi. Not sure how it would be organised but I am thinking three regiments rather than that odd set-up of commands. They have paratroopers as well as SF units. Meanwhile, the Army has the 40th Parachute Brigade too. (that battalion you mention had grown to a regiment by the OTL end of East Germany. Like the IITL brigade, the regiment was more airmobile rather than parachute despite any names different) |
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James G
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Post by James G on Sept 27, 2021 18:13:58 GMT
Twenty-seven – No calm before the storm
In the hours before the Coalition began its long-threatened air campaign against East Germany, there was no calm before the storm on its way. A ‘day of action’ had been promised by anti-war protesters across West Germany and that was no idle threat. In various West German cities – Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich & Stuttgart in particular – there was serious disruption caused when tens of thousands of demonstrators made their presence felt. By the time it got dark, and Operation Allied Sword was already underway, parts of Frankfurt and Hamburg were engulfed in rioting. Troublemakers had attached themselves to the protesters and took the opportunity to loot and fight the authorities rather than demonstrate against the war being unleashed against their fellow Germans. Over in West Berlin, the Kreuzberg portion of that isolated city deep in the heart of the DDR also saw extensive violence. It was a rough neighbourhood already and there was a lot of trouble there when an anti-war protest turned violent. American soldiers emplaced in defensive positions ready to stop a feared East German assault were caught up in some of that too.
The anti-war movement went beyond West Germany on that final day of peace. There were demonstrations and marches in Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris too. Citizens of neighbouring Coalition countries followed the example set by their European brethren in trying to stop the conflict by taking to the streets. London was likewise hit by a major disturbance with police officers from across the capital, and then later outside too when assistance was requested, struggling to contain some rather ugly scenes in Trafalgar Square, down Whitehall and also across in Belgravia where the US Embassy was located. Some of the violence in Britain disrupted a police operation around the East German Embassy where it was sealed off pending a planned move against it to close it and detain those inside. MI-5 personnel waited for the word to go into there though they were active elsewhere in London and across the country too. Suspected spooks and undercover operatives with false identities serving with the HVA were moved against. There were armed policemen present due to the threat of a strong response. That was a wise move ahead of time because in both Harwich and Luton, gunshots met those raiding safehouses. MI-5 managed to get their hands on other East German agents without violence though elsewhere with a further intelligence boon expected once they got inside the embassy complex.
Off in distant East Berlin, diplomats from various Western compounds had been trapped in that city and feared the worst. Imprisonment, mistreatment even, didn’t come to them. The Russian Government sent a large chartered airliner to the city to pull out their own people and lifts were offered first for French and Italian accredited diplomats before that offer was extended to those of the other eight Coalition nations. The jet wasn’t big enough to take everyone and thus those who didn’t fly out were offered shelter at the Russian Embassy. President Chernomyrdin was keeping a skeleton presence in East Berlin (below ambassadorial level) and gave permission for Westerners to enter his nation’s embassy grounds. He was still angry at the DDR’s nuclear programme, something denied direct to the Kremlin, and willing to act against what he believed was the interests of the Margot Honecker regime by denying her any human shields. West Berlin city authorities were opening up emergency air raid shelters for citizens of that city on the other side of the Berlin Wall. There was panic in places and trouble though nothing like what was seen in the near war-zone which Kreuzberg turned into with that riot there. The S-Bahn and U-Bahn public transport systems were shut down though before they closed, there was a shooting incident at the Friedrichstraße station on the latter network.
That had long been somewhere that had been made use of by East German spies due to its location and status as an important junction. Built into the below-ground maze of tunnels and passageways was what were called ‘border locks’. They were secret access points allowing Stasi and HVA people, even terrorists seeking shelter, to cross between the separated portions of Berlin. A CIA team was following a suspect and gunfire was exchanged with him plus East German border guards. Those border locks were elsewhere too, at selected points down the length of the Inner-German Border. Unlike right there in the heart of one of the biggest transport interchanges, the others were in isolated and hard to access places far away from where people usually ventured. The Harz Mountains and where the IGB ran on the other side of the Thuringwald were favoured locations for disguised crossing points. American Green Berets and British SAS teams were operating in border areas throughout July 2nd to search for attempted crossings by East German commandos and spies. The SAS engaged a three-man team who’d just emerged from one of the border locks with shooting occurring there in the Harz Mountains area. As to the Americans, they didn’t detect anyone coming through though had to admit that it was likely they had missed their quarry.
Less than five hours before the deadline imposed upon East Germany was up, there was diplomatic contact made by the East Germans seeking to avert what was coming. Throughout the entire crisis, utter rejection had come of any idea of the DDR doing what it was told to and it was regarded by the Coalition as if they weren’t taking things seriously. The last-minute attempt didn’t really come as a surprise though much of it in terms of what they offered to do was. Honecker’s ambassador to Austria sought out his opposite number from the West German embassy using a non-governmental Vienna mutual contact. At a hastily-arranged meeting, the East German suggested a way in which both their country’s could avert a ‘mutually destructive war’. The DDR was prepared to address the demands made by the Coalition… in their own way though. On the matter of East Germany’s ballistic missiles, there was talk of the country becoming a signatory to the INF Treaty and scrapping all of those weapons. No timetable was laid out but the offer was said by its spokesperson to be completely serious. Moreover, East Germany was also prepared to withdraw from the Czech civil war. DDR forces would pull out as long as the Poles did the same with the vacuum on the ground being filled by UN peacekeepers. That would leave the sitting government in Prague, the one allied to East Berlin in-power, but the ambassador said that that situation was one wanted by the Czech people, not anything morally or legally wrong that East Germany had done. When it came to nukes though, once more there was a complete denial that there was any development of weapons of mass destruction. It was all a fabrication, the ambassador said echoing what his leader had declared the day beforehand.
News went fast out of Vienna of that meeting up to Bonn. Chancellor Schäuble was informed and his cabinet had an emergency meeting about what the East Germans put on the table. The contact made down in Austria had come with a request for the West Germans to pass the offer to avert conflict on to the Coalition. Being put in that position by the DDR was something that Schäuble understood that Honecker had done on purpose. She wanted to have Bonn go to Washington, London and Paris with that offer certain that Schäuble’s government would urge the Coalition to if not accept it straight away, then delay their attack to see further reignitions take place. They were being used once more as East Berlin put Bonn in an awful position where it was torn between its long-standing allies and the desire to not see their country made into a battlefield of war. A realisation was in Schäuble and the others that it wouldn’t work, that the Coalition would reject it, but they realised that they had to try. They passed on to Coalition governments what the East Germans were putting on the table, with a request that an attack be delayed to give peace a chance, all while knowing it just wouldn’t work.
Cuomo, Heseltine and Fabius already knew though. That intermediary used in Vienna was working for the French DGSE. He alerted his handler to the meeting and what was said was broadcast live from out of Austria to Paris with recordings & a summary sent to France’s allies ahead of Bonn making contact. It was rejected. There was little consideration given to what was being said. When the first ultimatum was made from Rotterdam, leaders of the Coalition had decided not to impose a deadline back then for the fear that the DDR would play games with such a timetable. They’d done just that when given a countdown to respond. More than any of that, what was in the offer was completely unacceptable. Honecker had gone further on the matter of her country’s missiles and the situation she’d created in the Czech Republic, yet that didn’t matter. There was no belief by that late stage in East German honesty and there was too that bare-faced denial of the development of nuclear weapons.
The West Germans were told that, regrettably, the Coalition wouldn’t be acting on the DDR’s attempt to forestall military action. That was going to go ahead.
They were told that there in Bonn when the first moves were made for the air campaign to begin were underway.
Making a flight all the way from Missouri in the middle of the United States were B-2A Spirit stealth bombers making their combat debut. The bombers were making landfall over the shores of Europe when the West Germans were given that message. Already flying in European skies were non-combat electronic warfare aircraft. US Air Force EC-130H Compass Call and EA-6B Prowlers from two aircraft carriers were working on trying to cripple East Germany’s defences from afar. Several US Navy submarines moved into the Heligoland Blight to give them a straighter shot at East Germany for when they launched their Tomahawks. At any moment ahead of the subs opening fire and the bombers actually penetrating East German airspace, the order could have come for them to abort their missions. Yet, that didn’t happen.
Twenty hundred hours approached rapidly. At airbases within West Germany and across Western Europe, there was extensive activity when aircraft came out of their HASs and began to roll down runways. They were airborne before the deadline finally came to pass. Despite those shenanigans played in Vienna, the Coalition regarded the East Germans as having refused to accept the demands made upon it to cease its behaviour. So the response to that refusal, to make them do as demanded following being attacked from above, was unleashed upon them.
Operation Allied Sword started bang on the hour.
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Sept 27, 2021 18:25:37 GMT
So it has grown over 5 years, figures as it is under the control of the Stasi and not the East German National People's Army (NVA) and thus is more reliable i assume. Reliability is the key there and so it stays with the Stasi. Not sure how it would be organised but I am thinking three regiments rather than that odd set-up of commands. They have paratroopers as well as SF units. Meanwhile, the Army has the 40th Parachute Brigade too. (that battalion you mention had grown to a regiment by the OTL end of East Germany. Like the IITL brigade, the regiment was more airmobile rather than parachute despite any names different) Checking the German Wikipedia page of the regiment James G i get this: Since the guard regiment "Feliks Dzierzynski" was subordinate to the MfS, it was seen as a mere police force, and the ambassadors were able to pass their form of honor without loss of credibility. Because the regiment was subordinate to the Ministry for State Security and was therefore not officially part of the armed forces, it could be barracked in Berlin- Adlerhof despite the stationing ban in connection with the four-power status. But as you mentioned, there could have been a reorganization in this TL and the Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Division could have switched to regiments systems as it grew. |
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James G
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Post by James G on Sept 28, 2021 18:30:30 GMT
Reliability is the key there and so it stays with the Stasi. Not sure how it would be organised but I am thinking three regiments rather than that odd set-up of commands. They have paratroopers as well as SF units. Meanwhile, the Army has the 40th Parachute Brigade too. (that battalion you mention had grown to a regiment by the OTL end of East Germany. Like the IITL brigade, the regiment was more airmobile rather than parachute despite any names different) Checking the German Wikipedia page of the regiment James G i get this: Since the guard regiment "Feliks Dzierzynski" was subordinate to the MfS, it was seen as a mere police force, and the ambassadors were able to pass their form of honor without loss of credibility. Because the regiment was subordinate to the Ministry for State Security and was therefore not officially part of the armed forces, it could be barracked in Berlin- Adlerhof despite the stationing ban in connection with the four-power status. But as you mentioned, there could have been a reorganization in this TL and the Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Division could have switched to regiments systems as it grew. It would be a check on the military at that size. The Soviets had a division in Moscow belonging to the Interior Ministry and KGB troops as well. Such a thing has been copied here. I have it IITL certainly organised as a division though with quite the capabilities. |
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James G
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Post by James G on Sept 28, 2021 18:34:28 GMT
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.
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Post by lordroel on Sept 28, 2021 18:39:03 GMT
Twenty-eight – Going DowntownCruise 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. |
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stevep
Fleet admiral
Posts: 24,860
Likes: 13,247
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Post by stevep on Sept 29, 2021 15:03:06 GMT
Twenty-eight – Going DowntownCruise 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.
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.
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Sept 29, 2021 15:04:25 GMT
And so the largest war in Europe sins the end of World War II has begun with the Allies making the first blow. 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.
Well East Germany has Scuds, so they are going to use it. |
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Sept 29, 2021 15:08:58 GMT
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.
Well East Germany has Scuds, so they are going to use it.
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.
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Sept 29, 2021 15:36:53 GMT
Well East Germany has Scuds, so they are going to use it. 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.
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. |
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