It makes it also fair game now that PRC could also launch its own nukes in retaliation.
Biggest urban battles that never happened
- Thread starter Monk78
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Exactly so the soviets may pre empt that by resorting to target Chinese nuclear assets
losing Vladivostok means losing the entire soviet Far East coast essentially so it’s not something Moscow will be in a mood to compromise
Was Macarthur’s plan was to invade through Korea or land in China?
He was planning to attack through Manchuria. I’ve never heard anyone say they wanted to directly land in Shanghai.
1. A combination of no Vietnam to distract the U.S., and East German participation in the invasion of Czechoslovakia means that the Prague Spring goes very, very hot in the city.
2. The Soviets take a hardline against Solidarity and Walesa, and we get Warsaw Uprising 2.0.
3. There's an American administration willing to take the final step to end the Vietnam problem, and directly invades North Vietnam by taking Hanoi ... eventually.
4. Someone other than JFK decides to solve the Cuba problem in the early '60s with an outright invasion, and Havana is especially ugly.
5. American forces intervene to stop the Khmer Rogue at the last minute, resulting in a long, bloody street fight in Phnom Penh. This probably requires a better ongoing war in Vietnam so that the U.S. has the political, military, and economic will for a large-scale deployment and the fighting & casualties.
2. The Soviets take a hardline against Solidarity and Walesa, and we get Warsaw Uprising 2.0.
3. There's an American administration willing to take the final step to end the Vietnam problem, and directly invades North Vietnam by taking Hanoi ... eventually.
4. Someone other than JFK decides to solve the Cuba problem in the early '60s with an outright invasion, and Havana is especially ugly.
5. American forces intervene to stop the Khmer Rogue at the last minute, resulting in a long, bloody street fight in Phnom Penh. This probably requires a better ongoing war in Vietnam so that the U.S. has the political, military, and economic will for a large-scale deployment and the fighting & casualties.
World in Conflict: Soviet Assault had a mission in Berlin, 1989...in the perspective of the invading Soviet Army.
Man, that was a shockingly good game. I wish we had more alt history strategy games like it.
I think in general the main biggest missed example of urban combat was Operation Downfall. It would’ve seen fights in places like Tokyo, Kagoshima and Fukuoka, and there’s a good chance there’d have been a serious battle to take cities like Osaka, Kobe, and Kyoto, depending on how long the Japanese were willing to fight. It would’ve been horrible.
Hamburg, Hanover, Kiel, Munich etc. Basically, any West German city, depending on how far west NATO allows the Warsaw Pact to get before nukes fly. Being a little different, we could add some East German cities, or Czech ones, like Leipzig, or Cheb.
Yeah man, agreed. Wish we got a sequel. The thing is that I noticed is that companies that make masterpiece games often shut down years later, thus cancelling the possibility of a sequel.
It has happened all too many times now.
I really wish we get to see more of the Asian Front, Middle Eastern Front, and the Caribbean Front had there been a sequel.
There are some stories here on the forum depicting urban combat in European cities in WWIII.
ABLE ARCHER 83: Timeline of a Third World War in 1983
My rules for a Alternative History of World War III Writing an alternative history of an hypothetical World War III is a very difficult task, mainly because there is an over-production of fictions, models an hypothesis on what it could have been. Every historian or alt-historian has his own...
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Land of Flatwater: Protect and Survive Middle America
Credit Where Credit Is Due. Protect and Survive. Macragge1's epic of the 1984 War that might have been in the UK. Gen's Patton's look at the '84 War in the US. Noi non ci saremo Mario Rossi's look at the '84 War in Italy. If you haven't read these yet, you betta ask somebody and check...
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Protect & Survive Miami: End of Watch
A special thanks to P&S Universe writers @General_Paul, @Tsar of New Zealand and longtime contributor @Unknown for creating the foundation of this spinoff in the open thread for P&S, When the Wind Blew. I decided to throw my hat in the ring of my all-time favorite AH story/universe (minus my...
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I said it in another thread but the example of this that’ll always piss me off is Sleeping Dogs. We should’ve gotten a sequel to that masterpiece.
The image of the PLA and Red Army duking it out in Vladivostok is an interesting one, but my money is on PRC being a radioactive hellscape long before the PLA got within artillery range of Vladivostok.
I just can’t see the Soviets letting the Chinese cut the Trans-Siberian Railroad and threatening their primary port on the Pacific without resorting to at minimum a tactical nuclear strike on the Chinese vanguard, which then leads to preemptive strikes on Chinese strategic nuclear assets. And if the Chinese get any missiles off or can get a bomber through, I’d expect those to be countervalue strikes due to the disparity in the PRC’s and USSR’s respective nuclear forces. Assuming a Russian city gets a dose of instant sunshine, I do not expect Moscow to hold back against Chinese cities.
The wild card in such a scenario is the US’s response. I’d expect the US (and NATO in general) to position themselves as potential mediators in a Sino-Soviet conflict. But absent moves against NATO on the western front or against SK and Japan, I’d think the US would adopt a heightened alert posture and issue strident calls for Moscow and Beijing to back off—Washington is not going to trigger global nuclear war over the loss of Beijing or Shanghai. But the threat of US intervention does open the door for a scenario posted by above.
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The same for Homefront which was supposed to see a EU/NATO coalition help America liberate the West from a Greater Korean Republic but THQ closed before a sequel would be made. Instead, we got a bad reboot set in a dystopian future.
Yes, the USSR would not have tolerated any Chinese incursion in its territory. The Red Army would have used every missile, bomb, and chemical weapon to stem the tide of PLA troops heading for the border.
True about the vulnerability of the Trans-Siberian RailRoad. It's the place where the Chinese can hurt the USSR in this area, as well as using H-6K bombers to threaten Vladivostok, Chita, Almaty, etc. It would hurt the USSR but the Soviet response would be much worse. China would be turned into a radioactive wasteland.
The U.S. would probably try to mediate the conflict. Any Sino-Soviet War that turns nuclear would have radiation spreading to Southeast Asia, Japan, Korea, and even Alaska.
Here are some Sino-Soviet War scenarios in the 1980s:
Ashes of the Dragon: A Protect and Survive Tale
Dear Readers, I know it's been a long time since I last updated a P&S thread. Well, I had a stroke of inspiration yesterday evening and decided to start in on this little one-off. It's set in and around the locale that I've been living in here in China for the last two years. The events...
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DBWI: No Sino-Russian nuclear war in 89
Now, we all know how things between China, and Russia just fall apart, and the nuclear war they had in 89, and China hit both Russia, and the Warsaw pact. What if they was no nuclear war?
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Historyrox
Banned
In a second, post-Gulf Iran-Iraq War, Baghdad would be something. Iranians and their allies brutally smashing into what would undoubtedly be a very desperate Saddam Hussein.
Several possibles here:
1) Amman 1970: the U.S. was preparing to intervene in support of King Hussein during Black September and both Nixon and Kissinger were well disposed to do so. Marines were with Sixth FLT (with air support from two carriers) and were prepared to land at Haifa and move overland to Jordan, and the 82nd Airborne was on alert for a possible jump on the Amman area.
2) Iran 1980: if the Hostage Crisis escalates (as it easily could have) into a shooting war, Bandar Abbas and Bushehr were likely targets for Airborne and amphibious landings.
3) Kuwait City 1991. The Iraqi Army (NOT the RGFC) is more resolutely led, and two Iraqi Army Divisions make a stand even as the rest of the Army in Kuwait is either routed or destroyed. 1st and 2nd Marine Divisions have to fight their way in as the Iraqis try to turn it into Hue City.
4) Belgrade 1999: The Serbs don't give in to the NATO bombing campaign, and a ground offensive out of Hungary is launched by NATO
5) Baghdad 2003: Saddam reluctantly lets his generals run the war, and the Iraqis make their stand with regular forces (Army and RGFC). Iraqi generals knew that any major stand would end in defeat no matter what. But they felt that such a final stand would have made the U.S. pay a higher price for Baghdad than it did. There was a pitched battle in Northern Baghdad between a 3rd ID brigade and at least one brigade, maybe two, of RGFC who did not want to go quietly, only two miles from Saddam's palaces and parade ground, where many 3rd ID soldiers were celebrating what they (and many others) thought was the end of the war.
1) Amman 1970: the U.S. was preparing to intervene in support of King Hussein during Black September and both Nixon and Kissinger were well disposed to do so. Marines were with Sixth FLT (with air support from two carriers) and were prepared to land at Haifa and move overland to Jordan, and the 82nd Airborne was on alert for a possible jump on the Amman area.
2) Iran 1980: if the Hostage Crisis escalates (as it easily could have) into a shooting war, Bandar Abbas and Bushehr were likely targets for Airborne and amphibious landings.
3) Kuwait City 1991. The Iraqi Army (NOT the RGFC) is more resolutely led, and two Iraqi Army Divisions make a stand even as the rest of the Army in Kuwait is either routed or destroyed. 1st and 2nd Marine Divisions have to fight their way in as the Iraqis try to turn it into Hue City.
4) Belgrade 1999: The Serbs don't give in to the NATO bombing campaign, and a ground offensive out of Hungary is launched by NATO
5) Baghdad 2003: Saddam reluctantly lets his generals run the war, and the Iraqis make their stand with regular forces (Army and RGFC). Iraqi generals knew that any major stand would end in defeat no matter what. But they felt that such a final stand would have made the U.S. pay a higher price for Baghdad than it did. There was a pitched battle in Northern Baghdad between a 3rd ID brigade and at least one brigade, maybe two, of RGFC who did not want to go quietly, only two miles from Saddam's palaces and parade ground, where many 3rd ID soldiers were celebrating what they (and many others) thought was the end of the war.
There was also this timeline I read in the Wiki back then in 2015-2016. The POD is Gorby is removed in a coup in 1988, causing hardliners to take over the Kremlin. Then in China, Deng is also removed in a coup of hardliners who favor greater cooperation with the Soviets.
It's like World in Conflict and War Game: The Red Dragon. We do see urban battles in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, both Korea, the Philippines, China, and Russia itself which suffers a civil war.
althistory.fandom.com
Manila was turned into a Stalingrad as the PLA invaded it but the AFP, the police, and civilians fought street by street (In OTL, China would not have invaded the Philippines because of the lack of sealift in 1988). Same for Seoul which the allies fought both the Chinese and North Koreans.
The turning point of the war in Europe was the Battle of Amsterdam, which turns it to the favor of the allies.
althistory.fandom.com
As the tide of the of the war turns to U.S. and allies, both the USSR and China suffer a second civil war. We also see urban warfare occur in both Russian and Chinese cities. Later, NATO recognizes the government of Boris Yeltsin of the Russian Republic against the hardliners and sends a peacekeeping force. In China, the CCP is overthrown and new democratic government takes place.
It's like World in Conflict and War Game: The Red Dragon. We do see urban battles in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, both Korea, the Philippines, China, and Russia itself which suffers a civil war.
1988: Soviet Storm
Alt. History set in late 80s to early 90s about a fictitious WW3, ACR= Armored Cavalry Regiment, ROK= Republic of Korea, ANZAC= Australian, New Zealand Corp, Author Captain Cain, started this some time ago and finally decided to make myself an account. The USSR at the time of 1988 was falling to...
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Manila was turned into a Stalingrad as the PLA invaded it but the AFP, the police, and civilians fought street by street (In OTL, China would not have invaded the Philippines because of the lack of sealift in 1988). Same for Seoul which the allies fought both the Chinese and North Koreans.
The turning point of the war in Europe was the Battle of Amsterdam, which turns it to the favor of the allies.
Battle of Amsterdam (1988: Soviet Storm)
The turning point of the Third World War . The Soviet 1st Guards tank Army and units from the 1st East German Army also sat poised outside of Amsterdam, facing them were the remnants of the Dutch Army and the US 4th infantry Division. However, with internal strife increasing in the East, the...
althistory.fandom.com
As the tide of the of the war turns to U.S. and allies, both the USSR and China suffer a second civil war. We also see urban warfare occur in both Russian and Chinese cities. Later, NATO recognizes the government of Boris Yeltsin of the Russian Republic against the hardliners and sends a peacekeeping force. In China, the CCP is overthrown and new democratic government takes place.
Similar scenario:
In Perpetuity: The War for Hong Kong
4 December, 1984 “The Prime Minister today pulled British negotiators out of talks with China over the future of Hong Kong, labelling as ‘unacceptable’ the attitude of the Chinese government. Beijing has maintained its claimed right to impose China’s socialist system on Hong Kong, which has...
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No, the IDF on a good day would experience a nightmare assaulting such a massive city. And at that stage it was exhausted.