There was a brief silence.
“The balance of forces?” Prompted Sri Richard Hull. The Chief of the Defence Staff’s question was wholly rhetorical; today’s ‘briefing’ was to ensure that his political masters understood precisely how naked the Emperor was and did not get carried away with ‘any damned fool ideas’.
“The garrison at Abadan has approximately three thousand effectives, of whom five hundred are from the 1st Australian Brigade. The majority of our people on the ground are lines of communications men. That said, two batteries of Bloodhound long-range surface-to-air missiles are now operational and we have established good radar and command and control systems around the Island. Armour; we have twenty-one Centurions and six Conqueror’s. The latter aren’t as nimble as the Centurions but they are very hard nuts to crack. No. 19 Squadron based at Abadan has a dozen operational Hawker Hunter fighters; and there are also a small number of transport aircraft on the Island. Plans are afoot to base several more Canberra medium bombers and reconnaissance aircraft at Abadan. War stores are being built up on an ad hoc basis. Elsewhere, we are in the process of evacuating our contingent in Basra. Other than at Aden where we have the equivalent of four mechanised infantry battalions, our ground and air forces in the region are spread around in penny packets. The First Sea Lord will be able to speak to the Royal Navy presence in the area with immensely more authority that I, but essentially we are only talking about a couple of destroyers and various support vessels actually available for operations in the Persian Gulf at any one time.”
Admiral Sir Varyl Begg nodded brusquely.
“In total,” Carver continued. “We have something like sixty front line warplanes and approximately thirteen thousand service personnel in the region. I understand that the Australian government has offered to send significant reinforcements to the theatre. Obviously, we can fly out infantry and light equipment by air from the United Kingdom and Cyprus in fairly short order, albeit not in large numbers. Likewise, the RAF can reinforce existing units, always assuming airfields and such like are made available. One other thing; when the United States unilaterally pulled out of Saudi Arabia is it my understanding that they left three substantial ‘war stores’ depots in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The war stores left behind included a large number of armoured vehicles, including M-48 tanks and all manner of munitions. Given that the Suez Canal is blocked and that heavy equipment will take at least two months to arrive in theatre from the United Kingdom — a little less from Australasian ports — the existence of those American depots should not be overlooked in any future plans.”
“If we can’t expect any help from the Iraqis,” William Whitelaw posed, “who can we rely on, General Carver?”
“Several of the local Iranian commanders welcomed our co-operation in repelling the Iraqi armour that crossed the Arvand River at Basra.” He shrugged. “I should imagine the Saudis are getting nervous at the moment as they look towards Philadelphia. I suspect both Syria and Jordan, for different reasons will attempt to observe states of ‘armed neutrality’ and hope the Red Army leaves them alone. The other military powers in the region are Israel and Egypt. Neither are geographically ‘local’ to the likely main areas of fighting, and Israel’s active involvement in any way, shape or form would alienate all the Arab countries in the region and probably start new wars. As for Egypt, well, that’s the one Arab country with a large, middlingly well organised, if not well led, army and air force. Equipped largely with 1950s Soviet weaponry, admittedly, but still militarily potent and more to the point it has a vested interest in flexing its muscles. However, as for the mechanics of in any way harnessing its military clout, that’s not a question for me. The huge imponderable is what the Americans plan to do.”
Willie Whitelaw nodded, lost in his thoughts.
“What indeed?” He mused softly. He looked up. “Item three. What are the options available to us, General Carver?”
The soldier resisted the temptation to unfurl his maps.
“Before I deal with that, sir,” he apologised, “I think it would be helpful if I outlined, explicitly, what I think is likely to happen in the next few weeks.”
“As you wish, General.”
“Even were we to bomb the enemy in the mountains before he decamps from the Zagros Mountains, I don’t think we can stop the Soviets occupying Northern Iraq. Once the Red Army is encamped in the north and has secured its supply lines, established forward air bases and advanced supply dumps, it will move south defeating any Iraqi Army formations it encounters. Most organised resistance will evaporate after the first battles; thereafter the Red Army’s main enemy will be time and the hostile ground over which it is moving. By the time the invaders reach Basra they will have lost at least half their armour, almost exclusively to mechanical breakdowns and failures. At the stage where the Soviets are in a position to assault Abadan the invading armies will be stretched out over six or seven hundred miles all the way back into the mountains of Azerbaijan. The conquerors of Basra will be exhausted, short of fuel, ammunition, possibly hungry and much of the countryside and many of the cities in their direct line of advance will be in ruins. The Red Air Force will be in much the same state. Tanks and modern aircraft, and any kind of wheeled vehicle ‘hates’ the terrain and the climate of a place like Iraq. By the time the Red Army reaches Abadan it will have been fighting in daytime temperatures of over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit, at night the temperature can plummet to below zero, dust and grit and stones will have got into every piece of weaponry and machinery, tank tracks will be breaking and dropping off on every T-54, T-58 and T-62 every few miles, engines will overheat, seize up after an hour’s running in the daytime heat, and there will have been no clean, potable water for the crews to drink for days or weeks. The average Russian soldier will be dirty, lousy, thirsty and sick, dysentery will be rife in the ranks and the farther south the army moves the less friendly the natives will become. At this time of year the marshes for a hundred miles above Basra and all the way below it to the Persian Gulf are flooded, inundated by the snow melt coming down the Tigris and the Euphrates, no vehicle can go an inch of the road without bogging down and the Marsh Arabs have been resisting invaders for a thousand years. Tank commanders forced to stick their heads out of turrets to stop being roasted alive in the noon day heat will be picked off by snipers using rifles stolen from the corpses of dead British or Turkish soldiers killed in the Great War, stores will constantly be being pilfered. Whereas in northern Iran some Azeris would have viewed the invaders as liberators; in central and southern Iraq the Russians are just the latest unwelcome interlopers to be preyed upon, robbed and confounded.”
Carver could tell his audience was growing impatient.
Reality was complicated and he was not about to apologise about it.
“Be this as it may,” he said, wrapping up his introduction. “It is obvious to me that there is no way that we can stop whatever remains of the great Soviet invasion force which entered Iran approximately a fortnight ago reaching Basra, and,” he hesitated, “taking Abadan by force majeure.”