Whiskey on the Rocks, The Soviet-Swedish War of 1981

[Jim Smitty]

I was cleaning up the files on my computer and found this. Let me know if you guys want to see more. Enjoy.

Whiskey on the Rocks, The Soviet-Swedish War of 1981

AMH-5540 Modern Western Military History
University of South Florida
Professor John Smith
April 23 2012

This is a reading of the material cover in class. The First few minutes are not covered because they deal with house keep and attended.

Class today we are covering the Soviet-Swedish War of 1981, a part of the wider Cold War which we have been covering for the past few weeks. Though never officially a war, since neither side officially declared war against each other. But it was a war with one of the highest casualty rate seen in a short war. The war started on October 27 1981 and lasted till a UN back cease fire when into effect on November 1 of the same year.

A total of six days, lest than a week, but it was does six days that brought a world to a halt. Many of you are too young to remember the war, or even the after math of it. But let me say this, as a sergeant in the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment station inside West Germany, it put everyone was one edge. It was the only time all the US forces with Germany had ever been on DEFCON 2 alert. Many people in the military thought Ivan would come crashing thought the Fulda Gap at any second.

To this day we don't know you fired the first shots of the war, but is what we do know for sure. The Soviet submarine S-363[1], and old Whiskey class submarine ran aground just outside the main Swedish naval base at Karlskrona in the early morning hours of October 27 1981. It surface soon after. It was well within Swedish territory waters, and the Swedish soon learned of this breach of neutrality.

Soon after the Swedish Navy send an unarmed officer to speak to captain of the S-363. The captain of the S-363 claimed his boat had simultaneous failures of his navigational equipment, despite the fact he have cleared a series of treacherous rocks, straits, and island to get to where he was. The Swedish Navy then offered to help S-363 leave the area, which was turned down by the captain of the S-363.

At the same time the Soviet Navy put together a large rescue task force to help the S-363. This task force was made up of ocean going tug boats, destroyers, and frigates. The Swedish Air Force spotted this task force in international waters. Then Swedish Prime Minister Thorbjorn Falldin gave his famous "Hold the Border" order on learning of the Soviet fleet.

After the "Hold the Border" order when out all of the Swedish military when on to high alert. The Air Force armed their strike fighters with their most advance anti-ship missiles, and their fighters with anti-air weapons. Their anti-ship batteries were fully man, and there radars were turned on.

At 17:31 hours local time, the Soviet task force reached the 12mile territorial limit of Swedish waters, at which time the Swedish when to their war time radar frequency hopping mode. We don't know if this was to scare the Soviets away or their getting ready fire on the Soviets. As I said before no one knows who fired first.

But as the first missiles landed all sides started to fire more missiles. Aircraft were scrambled to support both sides. It ended 35 minutes later the Soviet Fleet withdrew with heavy losses. But the Soviets also gave it back to the Swedish.[2]

Five minutes later after the Battle of Karlskrona started, both side scrambled their air forces.

[1] ITL the S-363 have no nuclear weapons on board her.
[2] Soviets losses, 1 Kashin Class DDs, 3 Mirka Class FFs, and two Ocean going tugs sunk. 3 more ships damaged. Swedish losses 5 Mobile missiles batteries lost, 4 radar sites, 2 mobile gun batteries.

[Durabys]

Interested. What is the 'butterfly differences' in this ATL's future/present due to this near-WW3-making cluster fu*k?

[rirre]

This is something I definitely want to see more of, please do continue this TL

[Uruk]

Looking forward to see more, didnt ever think to see a TL from my home province

[Hades]

I'm interested in how they avoided the apocalypse, especially since the Reagan Administration was very anti-communist at the time.

[Jim Smitty]

The first sign of trouble was picked up by an USAF E-3 Sentry orbiting near Hamburg. It picked up the sortie of Swedish Air Force around 0921 local time. The crew of E-3 were trying to make since of the Swedish sortie. When they radio in to command about the Swedish sortie, they were order to fly north and take up an orbit near Copenhagen to learn more about this Swedish sortie. They were met in route to their new station by a pair Danish Air Force F-16s. What they were about to watch on their radar scopes was the first meeting between the Swedish and Soviet Air Forces.

The Swedish had sortie their Saab 37 Viggen fighters. They were either with Shyflash and SIdewinder missiles. To attack the Soviet fleet, they sent in their Saab 35 Draken and Saab 32 Lansen fighter bombers. The Soviets sent in fighters to cover the withdraw of their fleet, as they got ready for a counter strike against Sweden. These aircraft included the MiG-25 Foxbat and Mig-21 Fishbed.

In the first meeting between modern missile arm fighters was a draw. The Swedish managed to finish off another Mirka class frigate that had been damaged in the Battle of Karlskrona that had just ended when the Swedish Air Force arrived on the sight. They also sunk a Krivak Class frigate in shallow waters. This would later prove to be a great intelligence coup once the war was over. They damaged a number of other ships in Soviet fleet in their strike. The Soviets did strike back with their SAMs and Triple A guns blasted 18 Swedish fighter-bombers out the sky on the cold October morning.

The Viggen fighters who were there to keep the skies clear for the fighter bombers picked up the Soviet fighters on their radar scopes as the fighter bombers were going in on the first wave. They let use with their Skyflash missiles, downing 11 fighters, for the 36 missiles they let loose. Then it began a fur ball the likes of which hadn't been seen since World War 2. Each side took their licks in it, but the Swedish withdrew in good order, once their fighter bombers were clear of the targets. The remaining Soviet fighter formed a CAP over the withdrawing fleet.

As all of this was happing the S-363 which had cause all of this, was being boarded by a team from the Swedish Army. The Soviet sailors fought the Swedish off long enough to set off the scuttling charges within the S-363. This killed most everyone on board the boat at the time. Only 2 Swedish soldiers and 3 Soviet sailors came out alive, badly wounded but alive.

The shocked crew of the E-3 Sentry relayed what they were seeing on their scopes to NATO command in Brussels. Who in turn passed this information on to Washington, London, and Paris.