Operation Red Dragon and the Unthinkable

Operation Red Dawn

The National Control Defense Center (NCDC) facility was just down the road from Red Square. The NCDC was a massive edifice that replaced the older Ministry of Defense building in the mid-2020s. This center could control all military activities around the globe and run the entire economy and country if need be. Once the world powers agreed to keep the war conventional, President Fradkov began to spend more and more time at the NCDC. The facility boasted a nuclear shelter in the basement, and was connected to a number of other critical locations throughout the city via underground tunnels as well.

The war for Russia in Europe and the Middle East was going about as well as they had hoped for up to this point. Russia had secured all of its former satellite countries, and was devastating the EU. The Americans may have stopped them at the German border, but that would change with the coming summer offensive. In the meantime, the MiG40s were causing havoc among the Allied air forces. The only thing preventing Russia from having full control of the skies was the limited inventory of MiG40s available.

The allies were slowly figuring out how to track and identify the new MiGs, which had led to several of them being shot down. For the moment, Russia controlled the high altitude fight (everything above 15,000 feet). Below that level, the Doppler radars the Americans had would guide the laser defense systems or railguns in the area to their location. Fortunately, the MiG could also carry six guided bombs, enabling them to attack Allied laser and railgun systems from a high altitude. If the radars on the lasers or railguns could detect the bomb fast enough, they could engage and destroy it; however, the percentage of successful hits was typically around 30 %, still making the effort to attack them more than worth it.

President Mikhail Fradkov walked into the War Room in the basement of the Kremlin to discuss the war effort, the summer offensive and the Alaskan invasion: Operation Red Dawn. “Generals, please be seated. We have a lot to discuss, so let’s get to it. How are the invasion plans going with the Chinese?”

General Gerasimov, the head of the Russian military began his brief. “We have eight additional troop carriers and two roll-on roll-off transports at our port in Vladivostok. We have 1,800 Main Battle Tanks (MBT) and 2,400 light drone tanks in port ready to go. The plan calls for the Chinese to conduct a massive missile and air attack for several hours before the invasion starts, in order to pound the American positions a bit before the landings.”

“We have 300,000 troops ready to go when the Chinese are ready to move. Operation Red Dawn should start on May Day, 1 May. The Chinese plan on invading at nine different locations along the Alaskan coast, which will draw away most of the American air force. We believe we should have the upper half of Alaska secured by the end of summer, before most of it becomes impassable due to the weather. We will also be inserting several thousand Spetsnaz units throughout Alaska to attack their airfields, supply depots and critical communication nodes throughout central and northern Alaska.” The General spoke with an air of confidence that bordered on arrogance as several images of airfields and communication targets were shown.

With Operation Red Dawn starting to draw more resources away from the European theater, Sergei Puchkov, the Minister of Defense, needed to determine what they wanted to do in the Middle East. So he boldly interrupted the discussion, “—Generals, Mr. President, we need to discuss our strategy in the Middle East. Intelligence indicates the Americans are going to start a new offensive shortly, and prior to that happening we need to determine our strategy. Are we going to send more reinforcements and launch a counter offensive or are we going to withdraw our forces and use them somewhere else?”

President Fradkov had initially wanted to destroy the Americans and Israelis, but that had been proving harder to achieve than they had originally thought. The Middle East was starting to turn into a meat grinder and the question was — how much longer did Russia want to continue to fight in it? If the Americans had not committed so many troops to defending Israel, Russia never would have committed so many troops to the Middle East. At this point, the fight was forcing the Americans to have to battle on more fronts than they were effectively able to do.

“Generals, the fight in the Middle East is a fight we need to stay committed to as it ties down immense amounts of American resources. These are assets they cannot commit to Europe, or soon to our operations in Alaska. We will reinforce the 2nd Shock Army as appropriate. Is that understood?” questioned the President.

“Yes sir.”

Wanting to get back to the European front, the President wished to discuss the new tank that they had been developing and how soon it could be ready for action in Europe. “Minister Puchkov, what is the status of our new battle tank? Is it ready for action?”

Minister Puchkov began to open some folders and started displaying some pictures, video and stats of the new T1 main battle tank on the holographic display. “The T41 is going through its trial runs right now. The blizzards have been slowing some of these tests down, but we have determined that the main weapon functions to our satisfaction. The issue we are still trying to work out is the power supply. The T41 is a tank, but it is a very slow and cumbersome vehicle that will rely heavily on other support vehicles around it in its current iteration. Right now, the top speed of the T40 is roughly 30 kilometers per hour, and it has a range of about 200 miles.”

Not happy with these numbers, the President asked, “Why is the vehicle so slow and cumbersome? This is not what was briefed last month. Back then everyone said this new tank could keep up with our armored forces and would be a good counter to the American Pershing tanks. What has changed since our last discussion?”

“The power generation changed. The tank can fire just ten shots before it needs to idle and recharge for about an hour. Each individual shot requires about fourteen minutes of recharge before firing again. We thought we could get about thirty shots from the battery pack before it would need to idle, but once we started to test the laser against the Pershing’s armor, we were wrong. The energy used by the laser needed to be increased by some 300 % for it to penetrate the Pershing’s armor. This dropped the number of shots the battery could hold. To augment this, we had to build a new, larger power generator, which in turn meant a redesign of the rear mount. All of these changes added an extra 10 tons of armor and weight to the vehicle that it had not been initially designed for,” answered Minister Puchkov.

“Mr. President, if I may — I would like to suggest that we send the T41 back to the designers to figure out how they can integrate these new design changes better. I do not want to have some unreliable new tank on the battlefield, or worse, taking up production capacity and material,” said the Commanding General for the Russian Armed Forces.

“I agree. Let’s send the T41 back to the drawing board. I want a new prototype ready in 90 days, something that incorporates these new design requirements,” the President said as he ended the meeting.