Operation Red Tide
The Soviet buildup in the Pacific was so great that it took until mid-July before the Soviet Army declared itself ready for any seabourn operations. Two hundred thousand soliders crowded the island of Oahu, while in the harbour, great battleships rubbed with lowly transport and supply ships as aircraft off all types and descriptions flew overhead.
The Soviet troops embarked for America on the 20th of July, and despite all the equipment being already loaded, the proceedings still took the entire day, meerly to move the human resources aboard the invasion ships.
The troops themselves were a mixed bunch. Marines shared ships with tankers, and normal infantrymen found themselves eating beside vetran paratroopers. Around them, the four great Soviet Fleet Carriers - the Vladivostock, the Admiral Ushakov, the Slava and the Alexander Nevsky sheparded the transport fleet westward, while the great hulks of the Soviet battleships presented a daunting sight.
The Soviet Pacific Fleet sails for America.
The chosen landing site was a strech of beach north of Los Angeles. Close enough to a major port, and far away enough to be lightly defended, it presented the ideal landing ground for a invasion.
However, the American Navy quickly noticed upwards of fifty capital ships steaming towards America, and a series of naval engagements began, marking the start of the Battle of Los Angeles.
All the ships America had to spare on the West Coast were thrown at the Soviet ships peacemeal, the greatest flaw in the American defense plan. Despite the American fleet outnumbering the Soviet fleet, they never concentrated thier forces, instead using small raiding parties constructed around battleships and heavy crusiers, which swiftly fell pray to Soviet CAG'.
When the American Navy deployed thier carriers, the result was inconculsive. Neither side made a dent in the other, and the American Fleet evidently decided to retire, and the landings went ahead unopposed.
One of dozens of naval battles of the American coast. Here, the the First Far East Carrier Squadron destroys a American raiding group totaly.
The first footfalls of Soviet soldiers onto American soil began at midnight on the 24th, as the troops disembarked onto the three beaches chosen for landings. There was no resistance, and within hours, Soviet sappers had thrown up a simple pier and started flattening ground for a airstrip for aircraft being flown in from Pearl Harbour.
Around mid-day the next day, Soviet troops were advancing at good speed, and the first contact with the American units was made. The invasion force split into two main prongs, one headed north, to dig in behind the rivers and halt reinforcements driving south.
The other was to take Los Angeles, with its large port and airfeild intact, and hold it against the American troops stationed in San Deigo.
The strike North.
Despite Soviet spearheads reaching the outskirts of Los Angeles on D-Day +1, the American troops but up strong resistance, a trend which was matched elsewhere along the frontlines. In response, the Soviet Navy hurried its delivery of the second wave, mostly armoured units, which were landed without any interferance from the USN.
The VVS was at a severe disadvantage working from airstrips hacked out days before, but nevertheless made a good fight for the airspace.
It took Soviet troops until the 3rd of August to clear Los Angeles, and even then the city was subjected to a American counter-attack. Heavy fighting had left much of the city in ruins. However, the critical airfeilds and port facilites were unharmed, much to the releif of the new Soviet government, which would have undoubatbly collapsed had the invasion been subjected to such a crippling blow in the first days.
Soviet tank and infantry advancing down a Los Angeles street, probably to see off a counterattack by the Americans.