Operation Tropic Gull: A US Invasion of Cuba in 1980

[zert]

It was a very rarely used configuration after the addition of the WCSI upgrade (which took place after the time of this scenario). It was sometimes used when the aircraft was being used on long open water patrol, but in general, the aircraft carried no defensive weapons.

Ya learn something new every day. Thanks.

 

[M16A1994]

UH...

The Cubans didn't operate anything even remotely similar to what you have described. The certainly didn't use the M2 .50 cal, using instead the Soviet 14.5mm HMG in that role. Also, a ship, boat actually, of the size described would simply disappear if a Harpoon hit them. The Harpoon carries a 488 pound warhead, a single missile can sink a FFG/DDG sized target. In the scenario as described the first two Harpoons would probably wind up sinking all four vessels through blast and fragmentation damage.

There is also the not minor matter of how the Harpoon target seeker works. It will automatically lock onto the largest target present (something that is common with most active radar homing weapons), in this case the 215 foot, steel hulled, medium endurance cutter not the smaller targets laying less than 90 feet off her beam. In other words the almost certain target of every missile launched would be the Coast Guard cutter (although the blast and fragmentation of the three warheads would probably sink or cripple everything in the area, including anyone in the water).

I will leave it to others to go into depth on some of the other issues, including exactly what caused Castro to suddenly lose his mind and become clinically insane (that generally happens, if it is going to happen, by the time a person hits their early-mid 20s) after decades in control of the Cuban nation. Castro understood, apparently far better than some, that his regime survived at the sufferance of the United States. Any sliver of hope he ever held regarding the support of his Soviet benefactors in a direct confrontation with his massive Northern neighbor were thoroughly disabused in October of 1962. He may have chosen to believe that the Kremlin would help if he were to be attacked, but he knew very well exactly how alone he would be if he actually started something.

Oh you clever weasel! I must have forgotten to mention a POD somewhere in the past that allows the Cubans to operate these boats then, as well as the way US ordinance functions in 1980.

 

[CalBear]

Oh you clever weasel! I must have forgotten to mention a POD somewhere in the past that allows the Cubans to operate these boats then, as well as the way US ordinance functions in 1980.

Sorry.

You posted something and asked for feedback. If you only wanted positive feedback you should have said that. It might not have worked, but it would have saved me the time it took to respond.

You have been a member here long enough to know that asking for feedback means you will get some. If you want to play in an ASB world, which appears to be the case, just say that up front (posting it in ASB would probably be a good idea too).

 

[HeavyWeaponsGuy]

Any sliver of hope he ever held regarding the support of his Soviet benefactors in a direct confrontation with his massive Northern neighbor were thoroughly disabused in October of 1962. He may have chosen to believe that the Kremlin would help if he were to be attacked, but he knew very well exactly how alone he would be if he actually started something.

^

Cuba's tether from the Soviet Union got as far as it would ever go during the Cuban Missile Crisis. And even during that, the Soviet Union was far more concerned with ending the standoff than it ever was about its proxy regime in Cuba. Really, the negotiations between Anastas Mikoyan and the American government should pretty much show that the Soviets were not above screwing the Cubans over or cutting them out of negotiations entirely if it meant that they could bring an end to the crisis.

When push came to shove, the Soviet Union happily traded Cuban missiles in exchange for the withdrawal of US missiles from Turkey.

Suffice to say by 1980, the Soviet Union isn't going to want another issue like that. If Castro starts this, Moscow isn't going to back him up.

 

[Matt Wiser]

Forget 1980: After the Grenada invasion in '83, Castro had his air force draw up plans to attack targets in South Florida, fearing he was next. The Cuban AF's chief of operations flew a MiG-23 to NAS Key West in 1987, and asked for asylum. During his debrief, he indicated that among the targets was the Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant south of Miami. The strikes were to be launched if Castro thought there was an impending invasion. The Russians got wind of this and told Castro that if he struck first, the Soviet brigade in Cuba would remain in garrison, there would be no intel support-especially from the SIGINT Station at Lourdes, and Soviet advisors with Cuban units would return to the Soviet Embassy.

The Russians would not have supported Cuba unless the U.S. was acting without provocation. Here, though....they're more likely to stand aside. And it's worth noting that Anastas Mikoyan, the First Deputy Premier under Khrushchev, told Castro that if he refused to accept the 1962 deal that withdrew the missiles, the Soviets would stand aside if the U.S. did invade. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that the Soviets, say, in 1984-after the paranoid Yuri Andropov dies, tell the Cubans that if they get into a fight with the U.S., the USSR is not getting involved.

 

[HeavyWeaponsGuy]

The Russians would not have supported Cuba unless the U.S. was acting without provocation. Here, though....they're more likely to stand aside. And it's worth noting that Anastas Mikoyan, the First Deputy Premier under Khrushchev, told Castro that if he refused to accept the 1962 deal that withdrew the missiles, the Soviets would stand aside if the U.S. did invade. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that the Soviets, say, in 1984-after the paranoid Yuri Andropov dies, tell the Cubans that if they get into a fight with the U.S., the USSR is not getting involved.

I don't think any time after the Cuban Missile Crisis is really all that possible. The Soviets got involved in Cuba as a gambit that was a means to an end for dealing with the missiles in Turkey, once that purpose was served, it never again acquired quite the same level of strategic importance that it had had before.

Even under Andropov, the Soviet ambassador to the US, Anatoly Dobrynin, had first gotten his job under the Cuban Missile Crisis, if there is anyone who could convince the Soviet leadership that Cuba wasn't worth it over something like this, it would've been an elder statesman with decades of experience with American diplomacy and intimate relationships with major American politicians like Dobrynin.

 

[NothingNow]

^

Cuba's tether from the Soviet Union got as far as it would ever go during the Cuban Missile Crisis. And even during that, the Soviet Union was far more concerned with ending the standoff than it ever was about its proxy regime in Cuba. Really, the negotiations between Anastas Mikoyan and the American government should pretty much show that the Soviets were not above screwing the Cubans over or cutting them out of negotiations entirely if it meant that they could bring an end to the crisis.

When push came to shove, the Soviet Union happily traded Cuban missiles in exchange for the withdrawal of US missiles from Turkey.

Suffice to say by 1980, the Soviet Union isn't going to want another issue like that. If Castro starts this, Moscow isn't going to back him up.

But, Castro is also a canny enough player not to start serious shit with the US directly because he knows that Moscow won't back him up. This isn't like Angola, the Congo, or Nicaragua, where everyone's playing mostly by proxy.

But yeah, the whole basic premise of the thread is completely out of touch with the realities of the situation (to the point that it's actually managed to get under my skin,) even down to the equipment being used, as calbear noted.
Cuban Zhuks had 2-4x14.5mm KPVs instead of the standard 4x12.7mm NSV machine guns. The Prometey-class tugs also used NSVs.
Everything else that'd be used as a patrol craft generally had a pair of 25mm Autocannons, or something larger.

 

[HeavyWeaponsGuy]

But, Castro is also a canny enough player not to start serious shit with the US directly because he knows that Moscow won't back him up. This isn't like Angola, the Congo, or Nicaragua, where everyone's playing mostly by proxy.

Pretty much my feeling, this whole premise is out of touch with how Castro seemed to generally behave in these situations: he knew that there were certain lines that could never be crossed, and that Moscow's aid didn't come unconditionally, or for free.

He would never have allowed a situation like the one in the OP to happen to begin with.

 

[Matt Wiser]

HWG: Castro thought that Grenada was the first step. Then either invasion of Nicaragua, or Cuba itself, was next on Reagan's agenda. In a way, Castro, under the right circumstances, may have welcomed a confrontation with the U.S.. Annual U.S. exercises in the Caribbean, or an increase in air and naval activity in South Florida, and Fidel might draw the wrong conclusions. All it takes for something to happen is one side or the other miscalculating, and things start rolling from there.

Would the paranoid Andropov, a man with no firsthand experience of the U.S., have listened to Dobrynin, or his Station Chief, Oleg Kalugin?

 

[HeavyWeaponsGuy]

HWG: Castro thought that Grenada was the first step. Then either invasion of Nicaragua, or Cuba itself, was next on Reagan's agenda. In a way, Castro, under the right circumstances, may have welcomed a confrontation with the U.S.. Annual U.S. exercises in the Caribbean, or an increase in air and naval activity in South Florida, and Fidel might draw the wrong conclusions. All it takes for something to happen is one side or the other miscalculating, and things start rolling from there.

Would the paranoid Andropov, a man with no firsthand experience of the U.S., have listened to Dobrynin, or his Station Chief, Oleg Kalugin?

Andropov had been the head of the KGB, that job taught him to be paranoid.

I don't, offhand, know what his views on the Cuban issue were, nor his personal relationship with Dobrynin.

One thing Andropov did seem interested in though was finding a way to disentangle the Soviet Union from some of its more costly foreign entanglements, notably Afghanistan, so as to have the time and space to pursue domestic reforms. This line of thought popped up every so often in Soviet leadership.

For various reasons this group rarely had much success, in Andropov's case, he died too early for anything to be done.

 

[Dan]

I think it may be worth looking at swapping out the aircraft for Phantoms as I believe they either had a Vulcan installed or could carry it in wing pods.
I agree with regards to the use of Harpoons so maybe guns might be a better option in this situation.

Other than that, I'm really enjoying this and am waiting for Pt 2.

 

[NothingNow]

HWG: Castro thought that Grenada was the first step. Then either invasion of Nicaragua, or Cuba itself, was next on Reagan's agenda. In a way, Castro, under the right circumstances, may have welcomed a confrontation with the U.S.. Annual U.S. exercises in the Caribbean, or an increase in air and naval activity in South Florida, and Fidel might draw the wrong conclusions. All it takes for something to happen is one side or the other miscalculating, and things start rolling from there.

Yes, except for the fact that the Cubans never actually harbored any illusions that they could actually win a direct confrontation with the United States (as any nation with one 1/20th the population of the local great power would reasonably expect.) Instead, they fully expected to only be able to bleed the US heavily before falling back and waging a guerrilla war in the Sierra Maestra mountains, where they'd spend decades caching arms in fucking every single hole and lava tube they could find (they're also host to some of the roughest terrain in the caribbean, and are a traditional home for cuban guerrillas, dating back to the ten years' war.) Acting offensively just means the rest of NATO won't put pressure on the US to lay off, which is very bad.

And given that the US Military isn't exactly an agile creature, there'd be a week or two's notice before a sufficiently large invasion could begin, along with a noticeable uptick in radio traffic, and political rhetoric. They'll be watching for all of these. If it's only one out of three, there's no real threat, just business as usual. Grenada, OTOH looked like a test run for an invasion, and had all the ducks lined up in a row to be an actual invasion.

 

[lucaswillen05]

The same Reagan whose response to the loss of 400 lives in the Marine bombing in Lebanon was to turn tail and get American troops out of there?

The same Reagan whose major military foreign military initiative was the invasion of Grenada?

I dunno. The notion of Carter as a dove or Reagan as a hawk seems to mostly depend on how they talked. In terms of actual action, not much difference.

Reagan also did a lot of sabre rattling over the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, referred to the Soviet Union as the "Evil Empire" Carter on the other hand had the disasterous Iranian Hostages Crisis. I find it hard to see Carter actually invading Cuba.

 

[NeoDesperado]

I really and truly want to like this. It's the sort of 80s Cold War pulp thriller scenario one doesn't see anymore and that I have a bit of a soft spot for.
Also: Tropic Gull = Tropical? Ahh, good times.

If I'm understanding this correctly, you're trying to set up a sort of Cuban Missile Crisis 2.0 but seeing what happens if U.S. troops are actually sent in, which in turn leads to the kickoff of WWIII. For some reason it brings to mind one of WOPR's Global Thermonuclear War scenarios in Wargames, but maybe that's just me. We see in your post a case of mistaken identity and a misunderstanding escalating into an engagement, but it's occurring at a time when the world isn't particularly on the brink and we need a valid reason as to why Cuba would want to escalate this any further. Stereotypical hot-blooded Latino requirements to avenge their honor only go so far here, and it certainly won't have the backing of the Soviet Union. They're already occupied dealing with Afghanistan, and at this point in the Cold War they're not about to come rushing in to save some client state's bacon when they mess up. They stood down for Libya and Grenada, and if Castro tries to keep raising the stakes here they'll almost certainly cut ties and leave him to his fate.

Now, if we want to press on with a full-blown shooting war between the U.S. and Cuba, there are a couple of options you could go for.

1) Arrange for Castro's death in some manner and put someone else in charge, something that leads to an internal rebellion, coups and counter coups a la Haiti that endangers commercial traffic in the Caribbean to the point of forcing a U.S. intervention to restore order.

2) Arrange for an incident (basically reuse your opening confrontation here) around the time of or post-Grenada like Matt Wiser posted where Castro is on edge and wondering if Cuba is next in the line of targets. If immediate fallout from the incident reaches the point where he believes that an operation against him is truly imminent, he could try to pre-empt with strikes to try and buy time. It'd take some serious handwaving in places, but it doesn't require Castro to go binonkers out of the blue.

Like I said, interesting premise, and a time frame that we don't see very often, but it just needs some more work. It's a lot better to put in a little extra research beforehand than asking us to play along with your new world rules. We're kind of sticklers for research on this board, but if you know what you're talking about we're much more willing to give you creative license as you spin your tale of destruction. Also, if you're dead set on this turning into a WWIII TL, don't be diabolical and sucker me in with expectations of a simple Caribbean war romp.

 

[NothingNow]

Reagan also did a lot of sabre rattling over the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, referred to the Soviet Union as the "Evil Empire" Carter on the other hand had the disasterous Iranian Hostages Crisis. I find it hard to see Carter actually invading Cuba.

Yeah, looking at everything Carter actually was doing trying to rein in the CIA, etc, I wouldn't be surprised if, having won re-election, he had either normalized relations with Cuba, or even attempted to neutralize the country. Handing over Luis Posada Carriles, letting El Bloqueo dissipate and recognising Sandinista as being a legitimate president would just about do it, as unlike Johnson and Nixon, he wasn't actively fighting communism elsewhere, and unlike the Kennedys hadn't ordered Fidel's death as a favor to the Mob.

Reagan OTOH, was looking for a quick and easy foreign policy victory going into Grenada, and look how much of a disaster that was. Cuba would've been a much tougher nut to crack, and would've gone spectacularly wrong.

 

[M16A1994]

I really and truly want to like this. It's the sort of 80s Cold War pulp thriller scenario one doesn't see anymore and that I have a bit of a soft spot for.
Also: Tropic Gull = Tropical? Ahh, good times.

If I'm understanding this correctly, you're trying to set up a sort of Cuban Missile Crisis 2.0 but seeing what happens if U.S. troops are actually sent in, which in turn leads to the kickoff of WWIII. For some reason it brings to mind one of WOPR's Global Thermonuclear War scenarios in Wargames, but maybe that's just me. We see in your post a case of mistaken identity and a misunderstanding escalating into an engagement, but it's occurring at a time when the world isn't particularly on the brink and we need a valid reason as to why Cuba would want to escalate this any further. Stereotypical hot-blooded Latino requirements to avenge their honor only go so far here, and it certainly won't have the backing of the Soviet Union. They're already occupied dealing with Afghanistan, and at this point in the Cold War they're not about to come rushing in to save some client state's bacon when they mess up. They stood down for Libya and Grenada, and if Castro tries to keep raising the stakes here they'll almost certainly cut ties and leave him to his fate.

Now, if we want to press on with a full-blown shooting war between the U.S. and Cuba, there are a couple of options you could go for.

1) Arrange for Castro's death in some manner and put someone else in charge, something that leads to an internal rebellion, coups and counter coups a la Haiti that endangers commercial traffic in the Caribbean to the point of forcing a U.S. intervention to restore order.

2) Arrange for an incident (basically reuse your opening confrontation here) around the time of or post-Grenada like Matt Wiser posted where Castro is on edge and wondering if Cuba is next in the line of targets. If immediate fallout from the incident reaches the point where he believes that an operation against him is truly imminent, he could try to pre-empt with strikes to try and buy time. It'd take some serious handwaving in places, but it doesn't require Castro to go binonkers out of the blue.

Like I said, interesting premise, and a time frame that we don't see very often, but it just needs some more work. It's a lot better to put in a little extra research beforehand than asking us to play along with your new world rules. We're kind of sticklers for research on this board, but if you know what you're talking about we're much more willing to give you creative license as you spin your tale of destruction. Also, if you're dead set on this turning into a WWIII TL, don't be diabolical and sucker me in with expectations of a simple Caribbean war romp.

Alright sounds great. I will get to editing ASAP. Like you guys have mentioned, I did hastily jump into this with only a minimal amount of research. I shall take into account all of your guys' suggestions and integrate them into the re-release of the timeline. Thanks for the help!

 

[NeoDesperado]

Alright sounds great. I will get to editing ASAP. Like you guys have mentioned, I did hastily jump into this with only a minimal amount of research. I shall take into account all of your guys' suggestions and integrate them into the re-release of the timeline. Thanks for the help!

Not a problem! This board has lost more potentially great TLs because the OP decided to take constructive criticism as personal attacks and dug in their heels or lashed out. To that end, thank you for not going that route.

Definitely looking forward to seeing the revised Tropic Gull. Best of luck to you!

 

[lucaswillen05]

Not a problem! This board has lost more potentially great TLs because the OP decided to take constructive criticism as personal attacks and dug in their heels or lashed out. To that end, thank you for not going that route.

Definitely looking forward to seeing the revised Tropic Gull. Best of luck to you!

How about the CIA gets intelligence that Castro has hung on to a small number of nukes left over from the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. We have to remember that the Cold War circa 1982/3 was about as dangerous as it got. The Able Archer Crisis as we now know very nearly started WW3. Proxy conflicts were in full swing in Asia, Africa and Central America.

While a US invasion of Cuba might not be the spark for WW3 in itself it might lead to a situation where such a conflict does occur if it happens art the right time. August/September 1983 could be just such a time with the shootdown of KAL007 and the Soviet's Operation Ryan in full swing. What about, for example having Nicaragua deciding to invade Honduras at about this time drawing the US into a Central American War. Particularly with some form of Cuban involvment. Then the CIA gets intel about those early 1960s Cuban nukes (peraps from a defector or from a member of the Cuban opposition. The intelligence doesn't even have to be real (think Iraq 2003) At this point your incident with the Cuban navy occurs providing a casus belli. The Soviets, through Operation Ryan see this as another piece in the jigsaw of itheir interpretation of US intentions. Internaational tensions are now at an all time high. Then another incident occurs, perhaps related to the Cuban Crisis, perhaps somewhere else which actually starts WW3.