Red Storm Rising
| Red Storm Rising | |
|---|---|
 Cover of 1986 first edition |
|
| Author(s) | Tom Clancy |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Techno-thriller, Novel |
| Publisher | Putnam Publishing |
| Publication date | August 1986 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 656 p. (hardback edition) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-399-13149-3 (hardback edition) |
| OCLC Number | 13475110 |
| Dewey Decimal | 813/.54 19 |
| LC Classification | PS3553.L245 R4 1986 |
Red Storm Rising is a 1986 techno-thriller novel by Tom Clancy about a Third World War in Europe between NATO and Warsaw Pact forces, set around the mid-1980s. Though there are other novels dealing with a fictional World War III, this one is notable for the way in which numerous settings for the action—from Atlantic convoy duty to shooting down reconnaissance satellites to tank battles in Germany—all have an integral part to play on the outcome. This is one of three novels (the others being SSN, and Against All Enemies) that has no association with Clancy's others, as it does not fall in the Jack Ryan universe.
The novel eventually lent its name to a game development company called Red Storm Entertainment, which Clancy co-founded in 1997.
Contents |
Plot summary [edit]
Islamic terrorists from Azerbaijan destroy a Soviet oil-production facility at Nizhnevartovsk, Russia, crippling the USSR's oil production and threatening to wreck the nation's economy. Contemplating concessions to the West to survive the crisis, the Politburo instead decides to seize the oil fields in the Persian Gulf by military force.
According to the Carter Doctrine, any attack on the Gulf is an attack on strategic interests to the United States, necessitating a military response. To prevent a combined reaction by NATO, the Soviets launch a KGB operation to carry out a false flag operation framing West Germany for an unprovoked attack on the USSR; afterwards, the Soviets plan to invade Europe in response to that “attack”. With West Germany occupied, and NATO defeated, the Soviets hope that the U.S. will not rescue the Arab oil states when it attacks them, as it can meet its oil needs with Western sources. The Politburo arranges a bomb blast in the Kremlin that kills some visiting schoolchildren, blaming a West German exile for the attack.
The KGB operation has limited success: the planned attack on West Germany is detected when a Spetsnaz major is captured in Aachen. The officer's capture gives NATO time to mobilize its forces and preserve the alliance. Nonetheless, the operation scores some success, as several governments, notably those of Greece and Japan, publicly claim that this “German-Russian disagreement” does not warrant involvement. Thus, the Soviets face no opposition in either the Pacific theater or the Mediterranean region.
NATO aircraft manage to sharply reduce Soviet ground superiority on the first night of the war by using first-generation stealth planes and tactical fighter-bombers to eliminate Soviet Mainstay AWACS aircraft and tactical fighters. The NATO forces achieve air superiority and destroy many key bridges over which much of the Soviet Army had yet to cross. The Soviets advance at great cost, having dramatically underestimated NATO defensive firepower. Germany becomes the epicentre of the conflict; here, NATO forces are slowly driven west while inflicting significant damage to the encroaching Soviet Army.
Simultaneously, the Soviets seize Iceland in a covert surprise attack with the Soviet merchant ship Julius Fucik disguised as a similar American ship, capturing the NATO air station at Keflavík and disrupting the GIUK-SOSUS line to allow the Soviet Navy to operate in the Atlantic Ocean undetected. In addition, the Soviet Navy takes steps to protect its ballistic missile submarine fleet in coastal waters behind minefields and ASW assets, freeing up its attack submarines to engage and destroy NATO shipping. In essence, the Soviet Navy is able to act as an offensive weapon contrary to pre-war NATO expectations, becoming a major strategic threat against resupply convoys coming from North America with both aircraft and submarines. This advantage is put to immediate use as a NATO carrier battle group, led by USS Nimitz, USS Saratoga and the French carrier Foch, is successfully attacked by Soviet Badger and Backfire bombers, the latter firing Kingfish missiles. The Soviets use Kelt missiles as decoys set to transmit as if they were Backfires on the predicted attack vector, far out from the main air fleet. The American carriers' F-14 interceptors are committed against the decoys, leaving an insufficient number of Crusaders from the Foch and the ships' surface-to-air missiles to defend against the bombers approaching from another direction. Foch is sunk, the amphibious assault carrier Saipan explodes, taking 2,500 Marines with her, and the two American carriers are forced to spend several weeks in drydock at Southampton, England.
In West Germany, the battle becomes a war of attrition that the Soviets expect to win through slow and sustained advances. A NATO air attack on the Soviet rear lines kills the Soviet CinC-West (a Moscow favorite); his deputy, CinC-Southwest General-Colonel Pavel Leonidovich Alekseyev, assumes overall command. Alekseyev commands a successful Soviet attack on the town of Alfeld, finally giving the Soviet Army the breakthrough it needs. As the OMG (Operational Manoeuvre Group) forces start to deploy, NATO looks likely to lose all of Germany east of the Weser River.
When a brilliantly timed naval attack on Soviet bomber bases with submarine-launched cruise missiles cripples the Soviet bomber force, the Soviets lose their most effective convoy and fleet killing weapon. The U.S. Marines take this opportunity to stage an amphibious assault on Iceland backed by NATO navies, retaking the island and closing the Atlantic to Soviet forces. A failed bomber raid on the NATO naval forces attacking Iceland (in which the remaining Soviet naval cruise missile bomber fleets are nearly wiped out) essentially means victory in the Atlantic, opening the USSR to direct attacks from carrier strike groups against its Northern strategic areas and the free flow of convoys across the Atlantic. Simultaneously with the sudden reversal in the Atlantic, SACEUR, a renowned poker player, makes an audacious gamble in the face of a final Soviet offensive that pushes NATO ground forces to the breaking point, launching an unexpected flanking manoeuvre that places heavy NATO forces in the rear of the Soviet spearhead, cutting their last frontline units off behind two different rivers and interdicting their supplies. Intelligence gained from a prisoner on Iceland finally reveals the dire fuel situation in the USSR to NATO, who promptly switch bombing tactics and wipe out significant forward fuel depots, essentially immobilising the last of the elite Soviet formations. With the Soviet advance decisively halted, NATO catches its breath and prepares to move into a general offensive against the increasingly ineffective Soviet Category C reserves being moved forward.
With the conventional situation in Europe turning against them and their strategic situation increasingly bleak due to the drawdown on national oil reserves resulting in a crippled economy, the Politburo are moved to consider the use of tactical nuclear weapons at the front to regain the initiative. Alekseyev, realizing that a tactical nuclear exchange would almost certainly lead to a strategic nuclear exchange, seeks and obtains control of his theatre's nuclear weapons as part of their planning; ostensibly for practical matters of tactical targeting but in reality to ensure they are never used. In the face of this nightmare scenario, the general joins forces with Energy Minister Mikhail Eduardovich Sergetov and the unnamed KGB Chairman, in staging a coup d'état, replacing the Politburo with a troika consisting of Sergetov, Agriculture Minister FM Krylov, and longtime Politburo member Pyotr Bromkovskiy (an elderly and respected World War II veteran). The KGB Chairman is executed by a major whose daughter was one of the children killed in the Kremlin bombing.
With the government back under control, Alekseyev flies back to Germany and personally negotiates with SACEUR to bring an end to the war, forestalling the launching of NATO's counter-offensive with an agreement of a cease fire and withdrawal to pre-war lines. The aftermath of the conflict is left untold.
Characters in Red Storm Rising [edit]
- Colonel General Pavel Leonidovich Alekseyev, SA — first 2IC-Southwest and then Commander in Chief, Western Theater. Later made Deputy Minister of Defense and Chief of the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces.
- Commander Edward Morris, USN — Commanding officer, USS Pharris, later USS Reuben James
- Commander Daniel X. McCafferty, USN — Commanding officer, USS Chicago
- Sergeant First Class Terry Mackall, US Army — M1 Abrams tank commander, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment on the German front. Receives a battlefield promotion to 2LT.
- Mikhail Eduardovich Sergetov — Candidate (nonvoting) Member of the Soviet Politburo and Energy Minister, later General Secretary of the Soviet Union.
- Lieutenant Commander Robert A. Toland, III., USNR — NSA analyst. Promoted to commander just prior to the outbreak of war.
- First Lieutenant Michael D. Edwards, USAF — Meteorological officer, Keflavík Air Base, American evader on Iceland. Leads intelligence gathering and guerrilla group in Iceland.
- Sergeant James Smith, USMC — Company Clerk, Keflavík Air Base, American evader on Iceland
- Private Garcia, USMC — Infantryman, Keflavík Air Base, American evader on Iceland
- Private Rodgers, USMC — Infantryman, Keflavík Air Base, American evader on Iceland
- Vigdis Agustdottir, Icelander — Civilian, Rescued by the American evaders on Iceland
- Captain Ivan Mikhailovich Sergetov, SA — Alekseyev's aide-de-camp and Sergetov's son. Promoted to major during the war.
- Major Amelia “Buns” Nakamura, USAF — An F-15C pilot who becomes the first American female ace pilot by shooting down three Tu-16 Badger bombers and, using ASM-135 anti-satellite missiles to destroy two Soviet ocean reconnaissance satellites.
Publication History [edit]
In 1987 it was published in French as Tempête Rouge, translated by France-Marie Watkins, with the collaboration of Jean Sabbagh.
Games [edit]
Clancy and Larry Bond, designer of the Harpoon (series) modern naval warfare game, used the second edition miniatures rules to test key battle sequences, notably the Soviet operation to seize Iceland and the attack on the carrier battle group in the "Dance of the Vampires" chapter. Bond refereed the game sessions, which typically involved several players on each side (Clancy among them) acting in various roles.[citation needed]
In December 1988 MicroProse released a Red Storm Rising computer game, in which the player commanded an American submarine against Soviet forces. The player had the option of choosing between both single missions or campaign and which era to play in; modern missions offered the player more advanced submarines and weapons, but also a more technologically advanced adversary as well.
In 1989, TSR, Inc. released a board game designed by Douglas Niles, based on the book. The game won the Origins Award for Best Modern-Day Boardgame of 1989 and Best Graphic Presentation of a Boardgame of 1989.[1]
References [edit]
- ^ "Origins Award Winners (1989)". Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design. Archived from the original on 2007-11-05. Retrieved 2007-10-29.
External links [edit]
|
|||||||||||
