John Gardner Bond 22 Win_Lose_Or

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aboard, apart from normal and obvious duties, is strictly forbidden.
Anyone either attempting to, or actually fraternising can expect the
harshest possible penalty. Apart from that there was a long pause: the
Rear-Admiral had a quirky sense of humour, "good luck to you all."
Bond smiled to himself. The entire message had been blandly
understated, for this certainly was a different type of exercise, if
only for the strange mixture of who were Red Side, and who were Blue.
To inject an even deeper than usual "fog of war" some units of the NATO
powers remained in their real-life situations; while others were split
in half - some Red and some Blue. For instance this very Taskforce
consisted of ships of the Royal Navy, but were Red, other ships,
particularly submarines of the Royal Navy, were Blue.
Bond had read his own sealed orders, after coming aboard, and had sat in
on Walmsley's briefing to the Executive Staff.
The Exercise briefing was in three parts. Political situation; current
strategic situation at the commencement of Landsea "89; objective of all
parties involved, with an accent on their own powerful Taskforce Kiev.
The fictional scenario was shrewd and complex: shortly before Christmas
there had been a major military attempt to take over Chairman
Gorbachev's ruling power in the USSR. This action, spearheaded by
high-ranking officers of the Russian Army, Navy and Air Force, coupled
with some ambitious members of the Politburo - all disenchanted with
Gorbachev's glasnost - had gone off at half-cock, but was far from being
a failure.
The bulk of the military power remained anti-Gorbachev and now
threatened to take their own idealism out of Russia, and draw world
attention to the changing events in the Soviet Union, by engaging the
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NATO powers in a series of tactical operations designed to show they
could rattle sabres as loudly as anybody.
The USSR was, as Gorbachev had known from the first, heading towards a
huge, possibly catastrophic, financial and economic crash.
Gorbachev's way had been a more open system of government which would
assist in his begging-bowl diplomacy.
The military, and more hawkish members of the regime still held to the
idea that one could bargain only from power. Glasnost was, to them, a
watered down version of a great political ideology.
The USSR had to show strength, and, they argued, the only way to get
help from the class-ridden, consumer-orientated West was to show
strength and ability. They wanted to threaten the West - blackmail by
force to get assistance.
That night, elements of Red Side - representing Soviet forces would
cross into the West, and start aggressive covert military operations
against NATO bases, throughout Europe. These actions would be carefully
limited and controlled. In reality, the troops would be members of the
United States Tenth Special Forces Group (Airborne), and two troops of
Delta Force - each troop consisting of four four-man squads. The
choices had not been arbitrary, for the units bore a close resemblance
to the Soviet Airborne Force, which does not come directly under the Red
Army chain of command; and highly trained Spetsnaz "Forces at
Designation" - who come directly under the GRU (the elitist Military
Intelligence) and are also known as "diversionary troops US Air Force
facilities within the NATO boundaries could provide air back-up to Red
Side if things got out of hand, though no USAF bases in the UK were to
be used. The Royal Air Force, and remaining British and US Forces in
Europe, would act as their real selves, as would United States Naval
forces. They would be Blue Side - the goodies - while the British and
Parachute Regiment; the Special Air Service; 42 Commando, together with
Taskforce Kiev would be Red Side - the baddies.
At 23.59 hours - which is a Naval euphemism for midnight Taskforce Kiev
would be approximately fifteen miles off the Belgian coast, steaming
west. The Force was made up of the flagship, invincible; six Type 42
destroyers; and four Type 21 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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