Alternate History / Timeline: Invading the US

[Tomsdad]

Ok in the .280 thread I made this response to the idea of the USSR invading the US:


I'm not sure there was ever much threat of a conventional USSR invasion of the US? If nothing else I don't think the USSR ever had the capability to land or drop the numbers of troops and support they would require to make it a legitimate threat*. And that leaves aside all the other questions of the USSR needing to project air superiority or even better air supremacy over the US invasion, negating the US navy to prevent any amphibious landing force from being stopped before it got there etc, etc

*either in the 50's or any time since. In fact thinking about it an actual conventional invasion of the US combines all the fun of thousands of miles of territory to take and control and for the home team to retreat and swallow you up in, ala Russia. With having to do this over an ocean so via amphibious landing or airborne drop ala D-Day. Only imagine it's not 75 miles of channel, and a couple of hundred mile round trip from home air bases, but thousands of miles of ocean! All vs. the largest economic and military power in the world, with a nuclear deterrent.

Yeah that would be unfun

And I pretty much stand by that in terms of RL. But this story come up in fiction. film and computer games a lot as a compelling what if.

So how do we make this work?

I can think of couple of possibilities:

1). Someone else get nuclear weapons and uses (a lot*) of them before the US does, ala Man in the High Castle

2). Someone builds up a big enough land invasion force and crosses a land border. This still has big issues not only at the time of invasion, but with who's doing it and the US not noticing the build up. But at least you are not doing an amphibious landing and running supply lines over either the Atlantic or Pacific oceans.


All in all I can't help but think you need either an inherently changed US, or someone leap frogging the US as the global economic and military superpower, not only in one quick go but by a significant margin!

I'm generally thinking C20th / C21st, but actually earlier might be interesting too (and possibly more plausible)!


But this isn't a very GURPS specific thread though so not sure if this is the right forum. So Mods if this doesn't belong here, feel free to tie it off.

cheers

TD


*In the fiction it seem to often only take one, but I think it would take more

[khorboth]

I tend to think of things in terms of late 1980s or early 1990s because that's when I was playing microprose games.

So...

1) Something in SE Asia melts down. Let's call it Korea. The U.S. commits a lot of troops. Vietnam sides with Korea. China supports Korea, but doesn't directly fight.

2) A surprise invasion of the U.S. is launched. A whole bunch of Chinese-trained Chinese-equipped Vietnamese and Korean troops in Chinese equipment ship into the Atlantic northeast where they don't think we'll expect them. They're right, and of the nearly million-man invasion force, almost 20% make it to land. Cut off from supplies, the the invaders are hopelessly outnumbered, outmaneuvered, and outgunned. They establish a foothold and it lasts a few weeks because the U.S. is trying to minimize further collateral damage as well as negotiate for hostage/POW release. The U.S. captures a few surviving invaders. Victory!

3) While U.S. attention is elsewhere, the USSR (I suppose this puts us prior to 1992) is preparing their invasion as covertly as possible. They launch a four-pronged invasion.
a) Amphibious assault from Cuba. With secret stockpiles of supplies on the island built up over a decade, there are now sufficient supplies to keep an invasion force going for years.
b) Steamroll up through central America. Quickly capture Mexico City and then move into Texas over the poorly fortified border. With stores similarly built up in South America, an invasion force can be put together quickly.
c) Air drop/Amphibious assault on the West Cost. This is the most problematic. Supply lines are tough. They will seek to form a foothold and tie up U.S. resources until the other fronts join.
d) Northern assault. Attack across the Bering strait and move by land through Canada. The USSR has plenty of troops well-suited to this kind of terrain.

This strategy maximizes the one advantage the USSR forces always had. They had more. More tanks, more troops, more planes, more of everything. They were generally more able to hold a multi-front conflict going due to their superior numbers. Supply lines would still be tricky, but with allies in central America it would be sustainable for a while. Also note the willingness to attack "US puppet states" like Mexico and Canada. During the invasion, there would also be a psychological attack on the populous. I would guess that this would be focused on looting and crime followed by propaganda saying that in soviet states, the people are safe from such degenerate behavior. Probably also indications that the mere fact of the invasion is proof that the U.S. is a failure.

[Randyman]

Building off of the above...

One of the U.S. strategic concerns in the 80s was the possibility of the USSR gaining a Central American ally who would give them basing rights. That would be a likely staging point for expanding Soviet influence northward, by diplomacy, espionage, or military action. Imagine Mexico as a Soviet ally - that's your staging point for an invasion of the U.S.

More radically, imagine that the Quebec separatists in Canada had gained their independence - and then became a Soviet ally.

[Tomsdad]

I like the idea of soviet ally Mexico allowing a soviet build up, rather than the USSR quickly invading and beating Mexico and then going on to the US.

If nothing else while in terms of lining up total conventional forces the USSR could overwhelm Mexico, in 1990 mexico has a population of 83m, it itself is a large country it wouldn't exactly fall over that quickly (especially as in the scenario the soviets are doing so via amphibious assault from Cuba). I also think that once the USSR invades Mexico, the US can't not act even if it's priority isn't the good of the Mexican people!

Even if it's embroiled elsewhere.

(Hell it probably does something once Soviet forces start building up in Cuba, I'm not sure you could hide that scale of thing).

[Harald387]

One scenario I've seen proposed is that in the early 30s, Canada's rising Socialist movement takes over and the democratic leadership is overthrown in favor of second major Communist state, sister to the USSR. It's conceivable - what with the distraction of the war in Europe - that the US would let this stand on the northern border, and that that government would persist. That'd give the avenue you need for Soviet invasion post WWII.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Harald387

One scenario I've seen proposed is that in the early 30s, Canada's rising Socialist movement takes over and the democratic leadership is overthrown in favor of second major Communist state, sister to the USSR. It's conceivable - what with the distraction of the war in Europe - that the US would let this stand on the northern border, and that that government would persist. That'd give the avenue you need for Soviet invasion post WWII.

That's an interesting one!

Is there a risk that with a soviet canada at her northern border the US might resist getting embroiled in WW2 in Europe though? That way if Germany beats the USSR, a soviet canada is less of a perceived threat (at points in the 30's we were happy for Germany to be our anti soviet foil).

I guess it matter when it happens, if it after 1939, but during Molotov-Ribbentrop pact

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by khorboth

I tend to think of things in terms of late 1980s or early 1990s because that's when I was playing microprose games.
1) Something in SE Asia melts down. Let's call it Korea. The U.S. commits a lot of troops. Vietnam sides with Korea. China supports Korea, but doesn't directly fight.

2) A surprise invasion of the U.S. is launched. A whole bunch of Chinese-trained Chinese-equipped Vietnamese and Korean troops in Chinese equipment ship into the Atlantic northeast where they don't think we'll expect them.

So their supply line is either around Africa (I'm assuming Gilbraltar and the Suez Canal are closed to them) or South America? Probably around Africa, as that's only 15,000 miles. Still, that's 8,000 miles of Atlantic travel while irritable SSNs try to sink your convoys.

Originally Posted by khorboth

3) While U.S. attention is elsewhere, the USSR (I suppose this puts us prior to 1992) is preparing their invasion as covertly as possible. They launch a four-pronged invasion.
a) Amphibious assault from Cuba. With secret stockpiles of supplies on the island built up over a decade, there are now sufficient supplies to keep an invasion force going for years.
b) Steamroll up through central America. Quickly capture Mexico City and then move into Texas over the poorly fortified border. With stores similarly built up in South America, an invasion force can be put together quickly.

III Corp is HQ'd at Ft. Hood, Texas, and while all the active duty units may be overseas, the National Guard units would be called up to replace them. Southeast Texas is great tank country, but that cuts both ways: it's a 600 mile front from El Paso to Corpus Christi, so there's a lot of space for vanguard units to get outflanked. And even after you conquer Texas, you haven't done a lot to cripple American war-fighting industry and any advance out of Texas leaves you vulnerable to a flanking amphibious assault out of the Gulf.

Supply lines aren't great here, as all the SSNs that aren't sinking Chinese convoys in the Atlantic are going to be sinking Russian convoys in the Pacific.

Originally Posted by khorboth

c) Air drop/Amphibious assault on the West Cost. This is the most problematic. Supply lines are tough. They will seek to form a foothold and tie up U.S. resources until the other fronts join.

I actually think this is one of the less awful options, though whether the Russians can pull off a 4000 miles amphibious invasion is debatable. It's no worse than Operation Torch in WWII, though possibly against tougher opposition.

Originally Posted by khorboth

d) Northern assault. Attack across the Bering strait and move by land through Canada. The USSR has plenty of troops well-suited to this kind of terrain.

That's a long, long salient from the Bering Strait to Seattle.

Originally Posted by khorboth

This strategy maximizes the one advantage the USSR forces always had. They had more. More tanks, more troops, more planes, more of everything. They were generally more able to hold a multi-front conflict going due to their superior numbers. Supply lines would still be tricky, but with allies in central America it would be sustainable for a while.

Even assuming that no one decides to go nuclear, this is still a tough row to hoe for the Russians. The Cuba assault has the best supply lines - only 120+ miles across open water - as long as the prepositioned supplies hold out, and everyone else is shipping stuff 1000+ miles from the depots to the front lines by the time they're threatening anything important.

Harald387's socialist Canada is probably the best solution for the Russian supply difficulties. Invading from Canada gives the Russians a 2500 mile wide front, but after they've conquered Alaska, their long supply lines are at least less vulnerable to being outflanked.

If you remove the Cuban element, this might also work better as an early 1950s scenerio: not a sudden flashpoint around Korea, but an escalation of the original Korean War. Setting this in 1952 also justifies why there aren't any ICBMs - there's various nuclear bombers, but Russian might rationally conclude they can intercept/absorb those attacks. The lack of SSNs and SSBNs in the USN also helps the Russians - no need to worry about submerged SSNs relocating to intercept your convoys at 25 knots sustained.

I'd have to look at the force ratios and all, but this really might make more sense in the 1950s: the USSR still has a great deal of surplus WWII equipment and veteran soldiers. Maybe Stalin decides to outflank the US's defenses in Germany by just conquering the US?

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

...

I actually think this is one of the less awful options, though whether the Russians can pull off a 4000 miles amphibious invasion is debatable. It's no worse than Operation Torch in WWII, though possibly against tougher opposition.
...

Although to be fair only 1 in 3 invasion groups in Torch came direct from the US the other two came from the UK.


But the one from the US was still approx half the total at 35k men (in a convey of a 100 ships).

Torch is a bit of an interesting one. It's a hard comparison in a few ways though, the presence of the Vichy French makes it hard to do a like for like I.e it's not like they landed and had to fight their way off the beaches in the face of ongoing german resistance, ala d-day relying on a continuous 3000 mile supply line while doing so.

I guess my issue with any amphibious invasion over any serious distance (other than the actual amphibious invasion part) is how does a convoy large enough to bring enough forces and support for it, travel that far without being seen*? And how does any convoy that is small enough to stand a chance of escaping detection not end piece-mealing your forces at the point of landing?

Once seen you not only risk losing it at sea (as you mention in you post about SSNs prowling about) but you also lose your element of surprise if you get there.




I like your points about doing it in the early 50's as well! (although I don't think the Soviet ocean fleet is very large or capable in the 50's, and while I take your point about experienced Soviet land troops left over from the WW2, you have a pretty experienced and capable US pacific fleet for the same reason at this time I think?)



*and how do you manage continuous long range supply, you need a conveyor belt of supply over 4000 miles, and if your not making serious headway at the invasion end you end up just feeding your troops etc into the grinder in bite size chunks. i.e it's hard to concentrate your forces.


Anyway sorry I realise you said the basic idea was debatable, I'm really just riffing off your points not saying "nuh-uh"

[Harald387]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

Harald387's socialist Canada is probably the best solution for the Russian supply difficulties. Invading from Canada gives the Russians a 2500 mile wide front, but after they've conquered Alaska, their long supply lines are at least less vulnerable to being outflanked.

If you remove the Cuban element, this might also work better as an early 1950s scenerio: not a sudden flashpoint around Korea, but an escalation of the original Korean War. Setting this in 1952 also justifies why there aren't any ICBMs - there's various nuclear bombers, but Russian might rationally conclude they can intercept/absorb those attacks. The lack of SSNs and SSBNs in the USN also helps the Russians - no need to worry about submerged SSNs relocating to intercept your convoys at 25 knots sustained.

I'd have to look at the force ratios and all, but this really might make more sense in the 1950s: the USSR still has a great deal of surplus WWII equipment and veteran soldiers. Maybe Stalin decides to outflank the US's defenses in Germany by just conquering the US?

Socialist Ally Canada is also very much capable of feeding and maintaining that Soviet force without that supply line stretching through Alaska. With the USSR providing manpower and materiel and Canada providing food and replacement parts that would be a very serious threat to 1950s US.

In fact, here's a scenario with a few divergence points:
-The Canadian government's intention to join the declaration of war against Germany sparks a workers' revolt; instead of joining Britain in war, the Communist Party of Canada seizes power and breaks from the commonwealth. With ample distraction in Europe, Britain can't do anything about it.
-WWII diverges in a lot of places: Pearl Harbor still occurs and a war between Japan and the United States happens, but because they're wary of the socialist state to the north, the US never becomes involved in Europe. Hitler's invasion of the USSR stalls, and French Resistance backed by British troops manage to bring things to a halt in the European theater. Without the US backing, the Germans are never pushed back in the same way they were in reality, but a bankrupt Germany eventually surrenders under much the same conditions. No side develops nuclear capability; instead, the US engages in a horrifically costly invasion of Japan, eventually forcing surrender - but not without exhausting the US war machine. WWII ends in 1947 or 49 instead of 1945.
-Stalin is left with the world's biggest army, the fascist powers in ruins, and the democratic powers' economic strength exhausted. He quickly makes arrangements with sister socialist state Canada, and the invasion of Alaska happens in Summer of 1951.

[thrash]

Wasn't there a board wargame about Russia invading over the North Pole? Despite the challenges, it's still the shortest route (just as it is for missiles and bombers).

(Of course, we all know that the invasion involves an airborne assault on the western prairies by Russian-backed clients from South and Central America -- "Wolverines!")

Edit to add:

I haven't been able to find the game I was remembering. I may have been conflating these two:

Invasion America
War in the Ice