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.php?showtopic=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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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.

Originally Posted by Raellus

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?