Alaska and the Soviet Invasion (T2k)

[Schone23666]

I know it's probably been discussed on the forum before, but what are your feelings overall about how it was set up with the Soviet Invasion of Alaska in T2K canon I'm not sure how it was handled with the T2k 2013 scenario...but looking at this part of the world, it makes me wonder at just how feasible this really was.

The Bering Strait has some of the most extreme weather conditions anywhere in the world, needless to say. Very short summers and the winters are hellish, not to mention the ocean and wind currents alone in that area are just bad. That most parts of Alaska are pretty remote IIRC. Few roads and the terrain itself doesn't lend it very well to mass armored deployments I believe, plus it's still a lot of land to cover before reaching any logistics or communications hubs, unless I'm wrong.

I would definitely buy though if the Soviets had launched air raids against the early warning network set up in the area though, along with inserting small Spetsnaz teams and saboteurs to play havoc with the pipeline, any military bases in the area, etc. There apparently were a lot of wierd stories of strange items being found left behind or washed up on shore in parts of Alaska that didn't look like it should have been there to begin with. Sometimes you had to take it with a grain of salt, but some made you wonder and it probably wouldnt' have been a surprise. There's an interesting story told here by one on the tank.net forums. The snippet follows the link:

http://208.84.116.223/forums/index.phpshowtopic=28644

"That being said, one of my above-mentioned friends from Alaska had in his possession a handful of Cyrillic-marked brass in both 7.62mm and 5.45mm, which he claimed to have found somewhere along the coast. He'd heard the distinctive sounds of automatic fire coming from the next inlet, and gone to take a quiet look at whoever was shooting. When he got there, he'd found a couple of different locations where the brass (actually, lacquered steel...) was, and picked it up. There was a mix of 7.62x54mm, 5.45x39mm, and some 7.62x39mm. He collected a fair sample of what he could find, and gave some of it to a friend in the Alaskan law enforcement community, and that was the last he ever heard of it. Nobody ever got back with him about it.

Why do I mention this Simple. He showed me samples of this brass around 1986, long before surplus Soviet ammo was ever common in the US. Supposedly, this incident happened sometime in earlier in the 1980s--he was a little evasive as to which year. All the headstamps he showed me were from no later than 1980, however. Those 5.45x39mm cases were the first ones I ever saw, outside a book or magazine article. I still don't know what the hell to think about this incident, and the guy is long since dead of old age. I have no idea where he could have gotten those cases that allows for an explanation simpler than his "...demmed Russki's sneaking around Alaska..." one.

This was the era when the 5.45x39mm AK-74 was virtually unknown to the average westerner, and the cartridge sure as hell wasn't something you'd run into down at the local gunshop, either. He didn't even know what he had--the two types of 7.62mm cases he recognized, but the 5.45 wasn't something he even knew about. When I told him about it, he said it kinda made sense--the sounds he'd heard of firing reminded him of Vietnam, only there was a different sound to some of the shots that he didn't recognize. Which was actually what drew his attention--he thought he was having a flashback, or something. Going to investigate was kinda his way of "getting back on the horse", so to speak.

He also swore he saw a submarine periscope disappear as he came around the inlet's head...

To this day, this is one of those "WTF" things I still can't explain. I can't rule out that he wasn't telling me a tall tale, but where the hell did those 5.45mmx39mm cases come from They were still writing about the AK-74 and the ammo for it like it was some kinda super-secret big deal, and nobody in the US had the stuff, outside of the technical intelligence folks at Fort Devens and the guys at Soldier of Fortune. The SF battalion up at Fort Lewis didn't even have the stuff available to look at--the cartridge board with the Soviet-bloc rounds had a notecard in the place for the 5.45mm that described the ballistics as being "...similar to the US M193, but reportedly with greater wounding potential...". I just can't figure out where the hell some backwoods fisherman in Alaska could have come up with some cartridge cases, in order to put one over on me. "




Don't know what to make of that story, but assuming it was really Ivan himself, perhaps they came ashore, got spooked by something and opened fire, and figured "shit, we just compromised ourselves" and made a hurried fallback to whatever got them ashore in the first place. Assuming the story is true...

Anyway, just wanted to throw this out there and see if anyone wanted to comment about how feasible such a scenario with the Soviets invading Alaska might have been. Though I recall at least a few Russian nationalist nutjobs like Zirinovsky() always making talk about wanting to redraw the borders of the Russian empire's "traditional empire" which apparently includes Alaska.

[Webstral]

Many believe that the Soviet invasion of Alaska would have been nearly impossible from a logistical point of view. A lot of effort has been expended in an effort to explain how a Soviet incursion in Alaska on the scale given in the Soviet Vehicle Guide might be made to work. Personally, I'm content to go along with it because it adds an interesting dimension to the Twilight: 2000 story. One has to suspend a fair amount of disbelief, though.

[Schone23666]

Many believe that the Soviet invasion of Alaska would have been nearly impossible from a logistical point of view. A lot of effort has been expended in an effort to explain how a Soviet incursion in Alaska on the scale given in the Soviet Vehicle Guide might be made to work. Personally, I'm content to go along with it because it adds an interesting dimension to the Twilight: 2000 story. One has to suspend a fair amount of disbelief, though.

Oh, I've no problem with suspending some disbelief, you should see some of the stuff I write.

What materials are out there that expand on what happened and what went down with the Soviet invasion of Alaska Is it safe to assume they got bogged down Though with the potential oil and mineral supplies up in Alaska I can see it as still quite a prize in the T2k world, even if the state of most of the machinery used to extract said oil and minerals, much less refine them, may yet be in question.

[Legbreaker]

There's very little published material on the Alaska situation although there's at least one Challenge article which touches on it to some degree. Basically it's an open invitation to come up with ideas to explain what's in the various vehicle books, etc.

[Raellus]

Various tidbits in the v1.0 vehicle guides seem to suggest that the Soviet invasion of Alaska, although initially surprisingly successful, fell apart quickly, leaving pieces of a couple of Soviet divisions cut off and stranded in parts of Alaska, western Canada, and the Pacific Northwest.

I feel pretty much the same way about this scenario as Web. I'd love for someone to flesh out the scenario and make it more plausible.

[Legbreaker]

2.x uses the same unit histories as 1.0.

I feel pretty much the same way about this scenario as Web. I'd love for someone to flesh out the scenario and make it more plausible.

Taking what others have said about the distances and lack of infrastructure in the region, it seems to me the only way it could possibly work is after the US and Canadian naval forces have been removed from play. Transportation and supply lines would have to be primarily by sea and utilise whatever few merchant ships are still floating. Once you move away from the coast, both sides would start running into serious logistic problems.

Perhaps it's this reliance on seaborne logistics which proved the Soviet's undoing Once the nukes fell and the ports were glowing (on both sides) it may have become almost impossible for supplies and reinforcementsto be brought in.

Can anyone tell us when the Soviet units first stepped foot on Alaskan soil

[Webstral]

It seems that the Soviets first crossed the Bering Strait during the summer of 1997. I want to say July. US forces had been ranging onto the Soviet side until the nuclear exchange began. Then the Soviets pushed across the Strait while the weather was good, landing first in or around Nome and moving east and southeast.

An ugly thought: if the pipeline was out due to nuking, the US might have decided to turn the tables on the Soviet thinking. The Soviets (probably) invaded Alaska to divert American resources from other theaters. What if the American leadership decided to defend Alaska with just enough guys to keep several Soviet divisions and Soviet logistics diverted. A look at the numbers of Soviet troops in Alaska in July 2000 shows that the Soviets had a lot more uniformed personnel committed. If the oil could not be quickly made to flow again, then Alaska might have been seen as a bear trap that would cause the Soviets to divert resources that might otherwise go to another theater.

[HorseSoldier]

There are a couple crazy issues with the Soviet invasion of Alaska, mostly relating, I think, to the GDW authors not really grasping either the size of the AK/Yukon/British Columbia area or the difficulty in sustaining any sort of logistics across those distances given a very minimal road network.

The oddest thing is that from the unit histories, it sounds like the Soviets came directly across the strait and made their first landings at Nome, then proceeded overland to Fairbanks. I honestly just don't see how this works. There's no roads, and the distance and terrain are such that even if done in the dead of winter to rely on frozen rivers would have honestly most likely killed more Soviet AFVs from simple wear and tear attrition than X Corps and the Canadians ever did on the battlefield.

Various other subsequent manuevers are equally improbable (offensives down through Juneau and into Canadian territory, especially).

Perhaps it's this reliance on seaborne logistics which proved the Soviet's undoing Once the nukes fell and the ports were glowing (on both sides) it may have become almost impossible for supplies and reinforcementsto be brought in.

A one megaton strike on Elmendorf AFB would most likely not only irradiate but cause extensive damage to the port of Anchorage, which seems to be the hub for Soviet forces remaining in Alaska circa 2000. The two are very close to one another, though the terrain the port sits in *might* protect it some from blast and overpressure from a nuke, depending on where exactly on Elmendorf it popped.

There's an alternate port at Whittier (built in secret during WW2), but no indication that any Soviet forces are anywhere near there, as it's about 100 km south east of Anchorage and the Soviet forces are mostly north of Anchorage up in the Mat-Su Valley (likely facing Sarah Palin's crack irregular militia or crack smoking irregular militia, depending on your politics ). And Whittier is on the far side of a 4 km long tunnel that any defenders could drop pretty effortlessly, and renders it pretty vulnerable to commando actions (cue daring group of PCs . . .).

Assuming the Soviets had pretty much free reign in the Pacific due to some serious misfortunes for the USN and other NATO/Allied naval forces, the likeliest invasion route would be to do an Inchon/Normandy gig at Anchorage with a feint at Valdez aimed at destroying the terminal end of the pipeline. Then you'd want to roll up the only two highways going up out of the Mat-Su Valley to launch pincers at X Corps in the Fairbanks/Ft Greely area. Getting the right wing to Glenallen and Tok would cut off anyone falling back from Valdez (Glenallen) and any vehicle traffic coming in from Canada (Tok).

Once you've got Tok out of the equation, and Anchorage occupied, Fairbanks is pretty much isolated by anything but aerial resupply. It would still have access to oil from the pipeline, unless it was cut north of the city, and there's a small refinery in the area that could keep X Corps plussed up on fuel, but everything else is pretty sketchy. If the .sovs can get up the road to the Greely area they can capture the only remotely significant agricultural area X Corps could be feeding itself and the civilian population from, and then it would probably be better to do more of a seige than an assault on Fairbanks.

[Mohoender]

What I'm going to write does work if the Soviets effectively land in Alaska with their small offensive spearheaded by arctic brigades.

First thing, recall that the entire Kamchatka Peninsula was, then, military ground and absolutely forbidden to all but soldiers. Then, USSR had a special body set up in 1932 only to run traffic through the artic. Since the soviet era, military installations and harbors up there had been dismantled and left to rot but they were substantial up to the early 1990's. If one place still holds some supplies it is it.

Oil might have been a problem but I would expect the Soviets to have planned a move similar to the one imagined by Von Rundstedt in the Ardennes fifty years before. Soviet units would be running low on gas with their first goal being to run for US oil supplies. Elmensdorf ASB had been targetted but that leaves the North Pole and Prudhoe Bay refineries intact with probable reserves. May be even growing ones since the pipeline might have been cut

Second, the best time for the Soviets to attack could be when the Ice is still there but getting thinner or slowly comming back. Strangelly I would expect early fall more than summer. The logical landing site for USSR could be Barrow and Prudhoe Bay (with its refinery), travelling through the Northern Seaway (a sea route they are about the only one to know by heart, they used extensively for decades and practiced for centuries) and invading Alaska from the arctic seaports of Pevek with a supply line going through Dikson and Tiksi. Then, and only then, would they push South toward Anchorage. However, when they arrive there, I doubt the northern refineries to be still intact.

USSR had 9 (may be 10) working nulcear icebreakers, as many conventional heavy duty ones and several dozens of smaller patrol icebreakers belonging to KGB under its border services. Most carried some types of weaponries or were design to carry them and all were powerfull enough to open the way for the remaining landing ships and cargo. Moreover, there is no reason to have all these ships destroyed as they should have been moved out of the main harbors to the major Soviet arctic seaports. Moreover, The NATO fleet has been shaterred around Murmansk and the Arctic remain Soviet almost exclusive territory.

Meanwhile, US and Canadian navies couldn't match (and I think they still can't do) the Soviet Arctic Fleet. Morevoer, with surviving US ships occupied further South, the way is quite cleared. In addition, the Soviets would use LCAC and probably a few Orlyonoks plus aircrafts to drop spearheading forces. Of course, I have not doubt that what is left of US-Canadian command has thought that it could happen but they can have underestimated the immediate threat and with the chaos following the exchange they might have lacked the ressources to answer immediately. However, when the Soviets reach Juneau they have gathered what was needed to stop Soviet progression. Again, outside of the few arctic and naval brigades, their troops are all composed of second and third line units.

At last, as soon as full summer comes with the sealane easily reached, I doubt that Soviet ships can maintain a regular flow of supplies or troops. When everything achieves to crumble, some icebreakers might still be there, most arctic seaports might still be functional but the Kremlin has ceased to have the material means and the authority to keep them running.

[Mohoender]

There are a couple crazy issues with the Soviet invasion of Alaska, mostly relating, I think, to the GDW authors not really grasping either the size of the AK/Yukon/British Columbia area or the difficulty in sustaining any sort of logistics across those distances given a very minimal road network.

I agree but this is still tiny if compared to the size of Russian Siberia. The Soviets have managed to supply the most remote parts of Siberia for years without roads. Moreover, they fail in both British Columbia and Yukon.

Nome could be an option but why when its easier to go to Prudhoe Bay Going through the Chukchi Sea would be easier for the Soviets and more difficult to defend for US given their already overstretched lines of defense. Then, after taking Prudhoe Bay, you simply drive south and don't even care about Nome... You take Barrow to secure your supply line.

To supply all this, apart from their arctic fleet, they would probably using the river networks in Siberia itself and a large number of reindeer (the only number I have found was 1.5 million semi-domestic reindeer by 1999 after a ten years decline). I'm sure there will plenty of objections to this but damn, in a game that is planty of fun entertaining situation.

I would simply love to see a US Spec Ops born in Texas riding a reindeer its unit had capture from Soviet troops in Alaska.

[rcaf_777]

Forgot the Soveit Invassion how about a Canadian Invasion, Canada unhappy about the damage caused by what they see as US war they invade Alaska and cut the oil flow

[Schone23666]

Forgot the Soveit Invassion how about a Canadian Invasion, Canada unhappy about the damage caused by what they see as US war they invade Alaska and cut the oil flow

This makes me think of a favorite quote of mine from Otto Von Bismarck: "The Americans have conspired to be surrounded on two sides by weak neighbors, and on the other two sides....by FISH!"

That idea almost sounds amusing, LOL...but in all seriousness Highly unlikely.

[Fusilier]

"The Americans have conspired to be surrounded on two sides by weak neighbors, and on the other two sides....by FISH!"

I don't get it.

[Schone23666]

I don't get it.

Otto von Bismarck, the "Iron Chancellor" who was the first Chancellor of the German Empire from 1871 to 1890, was commenting on how the United States of America is bordered on two sides by the Canadians and Mexicans, who were seen to be weak on the international stage, AT THAT TIME. The other two sides that border the United States are the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans, obviously.

Bismarck was basically commenting (unless I'm wrong) that unlike Germany which had a series of neighbors to either dislike or worry about (France, Russia, Poland, the British Empire, the Balkans, etc. etc.) the Americans only really needed to worry about (if at all) the Canadians, the Mexicans, and lots of fish.

Bismarck was also quoted (though this may not be the exact phrasing) as saying, "The next great war in Europe will be over some damned silly thing in the Balkans". Turns out, unfortunately, he was right about that one.

[Fusilier]

I know. I was just being sarcastic.