1988: Soviet Storm

Alt. History set in late 80s early to mid 90s about a fictitious WW3, ACR= Armored Cavalry Regiment, ROK= Republic of Korea

1988: first strike
The USSR at the time of 1988 was falling to pieces, liberalization under Gorbachev had destabilized the country as the country's economy bottomed up and the cost of the war in Afghanistan was taking its toll. The people were no longer the loyal Communist people of the 50s and 60s they had tasted the west they had tasted Capitalism and they wanted more. In the vast wastes of Siberia Revolutionary groups fought Soviet internal troops in a pseudo-secret war against the government. But to this backdrop the newest Premier of the Soviet Union was a hardline Communist named Pavel Troika who in some of his first mandates had cracked down on the civil unrest, taken away certain social freedoms earned under Gorbachev and above all planned to reunite his nation, fix her economic problems and defeat the USSR's enemies all in one fell swoop.

On the other side of the border President George H. W. Bush had seen the unrest in the USSR as a good omen for the US and NATO but as the new hardline leadership came into power he grew concerned about the new leader who publicly denounced the west in front of the General Assembly and the entire USSR calling them rich wall street pigs and dogs of war for having attacked the left wing rebels throughout Central America so as President Bush ordered the cancellation of troop movements out of Germany he settled in for a waiting game to see how the USSR would act.

Meanwhile in China, the Chinese ousted Chairman Deng a year prior and had setup a Pro-Soviet government that strengthened ties with the USSR and its local allies in North Korea and even hostile Vietnam. In the Warsaw Pact the current governments became ultra left wing and began instituting measures to repress Liberal social movements and in one bloody case Polish secret police and soldiers opened fire on an Solidarity protest. The western nations were not only adamant about this but even offered to evacuate the remaining Solidarity members from Poland to political asylum in Britain.

On November 2,1988 without Soviet planes lifted off from border airstrips some were ground attack planes meant to attack U.S and NATO bases throughout West Germany and Europe but American radar picked up the planes incoming to their targets and all over Germany US, West German, Dutch, Belgian and British fighter pilots took off and intercepted the massive formation of fighters and both sides pummeled each other's air force over Germany with the Soviet fighters and ground attack planes failing to reach any of their targets. Attacks on NATO air defense facilities by the German Communist groups failed to materialized or in more than one case that attackers became the attacked when German Federal Police got wind of the plot but were unable to draw the lines to the impending attack. Meanwhile in the Fulda Gap, the Soviet 8th Guards Army charged through the gap attacking the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment and despite the initial surprise, the regiment was able to make a fighting retreat dealing damage and blunting the Soviet spear heads. Falling back a few miles they dug in and sent messages to the 8th Mechanized infantry division and 3rd Armored Division but German rebels had cut communications wires and had damaged the radio tower at Stuggart so and so a runner in a Hummvee had to be sent to the headquarters to get re-inforcements. Meanwhile, the 11th Cav had to fight on their own. Along the Northern Fronts units from the 3rd shock army and the 1st East German Army attacked NATO units along the border. But these attacks were secondary to the main breakthrough meant to come at the Fulda Gap. Meanwhile, the second phase of the plan came into play as the Soviets and East Germans dropped paratroopers around Stuggart and Ramstein AFB with the intention to attack and destroy as many US planes on the ground as they could and to cause chaos in the rear of the allies because of the East Germans dropped with the Soviets it was planned to ambush West German and other NATO troops going to the front. But as the transports took to the skies the NATO radar again picked it up and again patrolling groups of F-15s and F-14s attacked the transports taking out many those that did drop their men subjected them to a ruthless hunt down by West German and US Military Police. On the ocean the soviet sub fleet released from its pens attacked Norwegian and British ships patrolling in the North Atlantic but for the most part the Soviets were unable to gain the upper hand as years of training for this situation kicked in and the British and Norwegian navies fought back in a fierce anti-submarine campaign. In contrast to on the land things went just the way the Soviets had wanted they invaded Finland and within hours the massive Finnish border defenses were over run and the Finnish army was falling back to secondary positions the Finns signed on with NATO and received support from the Norwegian army the Finnish navy proved valuable in the fighting of the Soviet Submarine fleet. In one of the most successful operations of the war a British sub with a Finnish crew attacked and sunk the Soviet carrier ''Minsk. ''The Swedes followed suit when Soviet bombers made a pre-emptive strike on Swedish naval yards destroying several ships and patrol craft. Still in the Baltic the Soviets won supremacy over the primarily Danish naval force in the region after the attack on Danish naval bases by Ballistic missile subs and then a follow up bombing on the Danish navy the Danes were effectively crippled. In the Mediterranean The Turks who the Soviets had counted on to stay out of the war joined with the other NATO countries and effectively blocked the passage from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. What few ships that made it through were mostly subs who concentrated on attacking the Turkish navy and going after the US 6th Fleet which was to be redeployed to the North Atlantic to help defend Iceland and the Atlantic passage. The inclusion of Turkey and Greece into the war forced the Soviets to allocate the 2nd shock army to the invasion of Turkey. Greece honoring the NATO agreement also joined in and made yet another front which the Soviet ordered Romania and Bulgaria to reduce. The one true victory for the Soviets came in the destruction of Thule Air Force Base in Greenland. The base was attacked by surprise by a team of Spetsnaz commandos posing as an incoming LC-130, when the plane landed they jumped out attacking the guards and blowing up the bases Ballistic missile detection system, the group was attempting to fallback to the transport when it was destroyed by a patrolling F-14 that heard the base's cries for help the group after which surrendered to the guards who hauled them off to the states. The destruction of the system created a gap in NORAD's defenses and thus as work began to get the base fixed up the Soviet launched an air raid on the base bombing it to the point when it was deemed too costly to repair and thus abandoned. A new base was put under construction at the northern most point in Quebec. Meanwhile in Fulda, the 11th ACR was being pushed to its limits by the 8th Guards Army, most of its squadrons were down to half strength from the intensive Soviet attacks and yet the regiment did not budge and was finally relieved when the forward elements of the 3rd Armored showed up along with that the 68th Armored Regiment came to re-inforce the 11th ACR with the arrival of these two units the 11th ACR was pulled off the line to be re-inforced. The first two weeks of the war had ended in stalemate. But the Soviets renewed their offensive with support by the 1st Guards Tank Army which smashed into the defensive line setup by the 68th and 3rd armored. The attack was so fierce and brutal that the Americans once again found themselves being rolled back having to setup secondary and tertiary defensive positions losing many men in the process. The 11th ACR and 8th Mech. Infantry were thrown into the fray slowing down the Soviet Juggernaut long enough to prepare basic positions from which they defended from for another twenty four hours and without support the line would've likely broken. On the ocean sea Operation Iceberg was underway this entailed most of the US 6th Fleet including the massive USS Nimitz and the British North Atlantic squadron lead by the HMS ''Ark Royal. ''The ships were to head to the Soviet naval base at Murmansk and attack the Submarines under construction there with the hope of crippling the Soviet submarine fleet the expedition set out but midway through Soviet subs started to follow and track the fleet knowing the number of anti-submarine warfare ships were around they simply tracked it keeping the Soviet naval command updated on its position. This gave Soviet naval planners enough time to setup an ambush for the fleet and on November 22 the fleet rolled right into the trap cruise missiles launched from submarines targeted the USS Nimitz and HMS Ark Royal albeit the cruise missiles did miss both carriers, they landed instead amongst support vessels destroying several and capsizing three ships with the massive impact and waves created. With the loss of 2000 sailors the expedition turned around but not before giving a goodbye present to the Soviets ASW ships the few that remained tracked down these missile subs and sunk them, this cost the Soviets six valuable missile subs which were necessary for the upcoming attack they were planning. Back in Europe with the re-inforcement of the US 2nd Armored and 1st infantry division the Soviet assault again ground to a halt. The Soviets hope for a swift victory had all but disappeared.

1988: Deep Strike
The Soviets believed the only way to defeat this stalemate was to make another front from which the NATO forces would have to pull troops from their existing fronts to defend. This came in the form of Italy. In the Mediterranean during the second month of the war the Warsaw Pact forces had made significant gains - mostly in Greece where Yugoslav and Bulgarian troops had overrun Greece. Greece, from her entrance in the war, had been facing an overwhelming force of hostile and determined forces. The Greeks had fought hard and determined but in the face of the combined armies they were overwhelmed and eventually pushed back to the southern coast of Greece where the survivors were rescued by the Royal Navy's Mediterranean Squadron and taken to Turkey where they continued to fight the Soviets. For the Soviets the knockout of Greece as a factor meant that more of their forces could be diverted to the front in Germany and Southern Europe. With the massive Yugoslav army on their side the Soviets also had a new pool of men to get fresh grunts from. In the Black Sea the Soviet Black Sea fleet gathered and as Bulgarian troops completed surrounding Istanbul the Soviet ships ran the straits to the Mediterranean and made it with the loss of a destroyer. The ships damaged in the run went to Southern Greece to undergo quick repairs. The rest of the fleet went to pick up waiting Soviet marines and Paratroopers in Greece transporting them to neutral Libya where Colonel Gaddafi had pledged his countries support to the Socialist cause. He supplied another 3000 men for the Soviets who promptly, in an massive landing, dropped the troops in Sicily under heavy resistance from the Italian army. The Soviet and Libyan troops pushed forward taking Palermo and after a paradrop around the city Messina. The Soviets gave the Italians the option to sign a peace treaty with the Soviets denouncing NATO and having Italy remove itself from the organization. The Italians refused and with the support of the US III Corp and the British 1st Armored Division began to prepare for a counter landing. Meanwhile, the Italian Air Force began to bomb the Soviets in Sicily heavily. The Soviets hope for a quick victory over and drop out of Italy faded quickly. The Soviets then began to prepare to defend the island itself. On December 18th NATO troops landed near the town of Palermo Sicily and quickly retook the town. US tankers of the 1st Armored Division led by the 17th ACR charging up the coast to Messina meant to be the men to liberate both Palermo and Sicily while Italian and British troops charged head on into the heart of Sicily. But quickly the offensive petered out as Soviet and Libyan troops dug in around the mountain tops forcing US troops to have to climb the mountains in order to get at the Soviets. In the valleys the American and Soviet tanks tangled for hours leaving the battlefield a mass of twisted wreck of tanks and run-over corpses. The 17th ACR ground itself down to a pulp trying to fight Soviet troops dug in around the Nebrodi Range while fighting. Soviet armored battalions counter attacking in the valleys caused a brutal melee between the opposing tankers. This constant brutal combat, that some analysts say was even bloodier than the battles of Monte Cassino and Cold Harbor combined, brought the 17th ACR down to less than half strength. The 17th was eventually pulled off the line and replaced by the US 4th Infantry Brigade on loan from the 4th Infantry division. The regiment would be out of the fighting for three whole months before finally being able to conduct combat operations. Back on the Mediterranean Sea the US 6th Fleet, after being re-inforced by ships brought from the Fifth fleets and the Canadian Navy, began to search for their Soviet foes whom they found off Malta - which they had seized as a naval base. The Soviet fleet had not been fully re-inforced by their comrades undergoing repairs in Greece. In fact, only a handful of ships had actually returned. Constant attack by the Italian air force prevented much work to be done on the ships. The US 6th Fleet opened the first battle off Malta with the help of the Royal Navy Mediterranean squadron which had been skirmishing with the Soviets for some time. They attacked. The USS Nimitz and HMS Ark Royal began to launch planes immediately on detection of the Soviets and airborne duels between Soviet, American and British pilots began. Meanwhile, the surface ships for the first time in years began to close with one another. The USS Oliver Hazard Perry, launching missiles at one another the two fleets closed. Soon their ships' deck guns began to fire on one another causing a fierce melee between the two fleets. The Perry itself took three separate missile strikes from Soviet frigates and destroyers and in one of the shining examples of the use of an old tactic in a modern situation, the Perry, after battering the Soviet Cruiser Moskva, the Perry after taking two more missile strikes from the ''Moskva. The Crew of the Perry boarded the Moskva ''and in a brutal close quarters duel the Americans took the ship and its remaining crew prisoner, but the capture had not been an easy one. The boarding crew had taken 36 casualties and over half were KIA. With orders from the fleet commander the crew placed explosives throughout the ship and blew it up sending it to the bottom. The Perry fought the rest of the battle with half of its crew killed or wounded and finally limped into Naples victorious a week later. The battle itself was against the Soviets. From the start, the Soviets who had committed most of their air arm to the fighting in Sicily. So the combined fleet had control over the air for most of the battle. The British who distinguished themselves during the battle personally took on the Soviet Battleship Comrade Lenin and its battle group in a pitched battle that sent the battleship to the ocean floor along with most of its support ships, one of which surrendered. In one brutal acts of war the Soviet sailors on orders fro their political officers machine gunned British sailors in life rafts in retaliation to the sinking of ''Comrade Lenin. At some point during the battle the Soviets abandoned the destroyer Kara believing it to be sinking but the crew never radioed their abandonment of the ship, (The radio was damaged) British, Canadian and American sailors backed up by a platoon of Royal Marines boarded and commandeered the ship moving into the line of Soviet ships the crew opened fire on the unsuspecting Soviet ships and managed to sink several of them before they rammed the Soviet Missile Cruiser Stalin and proceeded to fight the crew of that ship to the death even firing their deck gun point blank into the Stalin the last group of men on board the Kara fighting the counter boarding parties sent by the Stalin ''fought to the last man while one of their own set off explosives rigged through out the ship. The Battle of Malta ended in a resounding Soviet defeat causing the Soviets to have to pull back to the safe Greek ports. For the NATO forces the battle was a costly victory costing 15 ships sunk and most of the others taking some sort of damage the acts of the Oliver Hazard Perry and Kara would go down in the history books as bravest acts of the war, the British won special commendation for their sinking of the Comrade Lenin and for their show of restraint in the face of slaughter. In Europe or more importantly the Fulda Gap things went the exact opposite for the US forces in the region. The Soviet 8th Guards Army had been pushing against the US forces in the region for some time with almost no effect. But finally after re-inforcements had come from the 1st Shock Army plus renewed efforts from the 1st Guards Tank Army began to slowly roll the American defenders backwards and the snapping of American lines came on December 25 the weary, tired and fought out US 102nd infantry company was being pulled off the line the unit had been fighting with the 2nd Armored as infantry support since the divisions arrival at the front several weeks earlier. As the company was being pulled off the line for a few hours break for Christmas the Soviets struck, an advancing company of Soviet tanks found the barely defended section of the line and exploited it attacking directly into the gap. The remainder of the 102nd left in the positions held out for as long as possible but the Soviets quickly ran them down. The Soviets kept up the attack driving directly into the American rear, as more Soviet units poured into this gap the American front began to disintegrate as the men fell back as to not be cut off. The fifth corp was soon rolling backwards as the Soviets pressed them. Digging in wherever possible the Americans tried desperately to stem the tide of Soviet troops but the shear number of Soviet troops drove them back. All across Germany NATO forces realized that if the Soviets weren't held their own forces would be encircled. In the Soviet command the main force continued to attack the slowly retreating Americans while elements of the 1st Shock Army broke off to attack North with objectives being set as far north as Hannover. But as the Soviets continued to drive forward the Americans slowed their retreat long enough to dig in around Fulda the Soviets attacked and in three hours of brutal fighting the Americans were driven back and out of Fulda the Americans continued to fight delaying actions but the battle for the most part was lost for the Americans finally in pre-prepared positions outside of Frankfurt the Americans held up the advancing Soviets. In the north the Soviet 3rd Shock Army and 1st East German army struck at the British and French defenders rolling them back in a similar fashion as in the south. But soon the front leveled off on a line leading from Hamburg to Frankfurt. In the Scandinavia the Soviets continued to fight battle along the static front in Finland when the Soviet Navy now in command of the entire Baltic attempted a landing around the defenders in Sweden. The initial landing went well but the attacks quickly slowed and the Swedes were left to reduce the pocket of Soviet troops. The achievement in Scandinavia came in the form of the Marine Force Recon the elite special forces group was deployed for deep strike raids in the Soviet rear which came in the form of the Gulag 17 raid. On December 27th while US troops were clinging to ground in the Fulda Gap these commandos backed up by Norwegian Rangers the attack began. The plan being the main force of Maine Force Recon attack the Gulag and liberate the capture NATO POW's in it while a forty man strike force would attack the rapid response force a mile from the Gulag. The Rangers would provide a distraction by raiding a Soviet Coastal position to the north hopefully distracting most other Soviet troops in the area. The attack went very well almost from the start the raid caught the KGB guards by surprise and thus quickly killed or captured the entire guard detail. The POW's were quickly evacuated by Norwegian navy helicopters and quickly the American disappeared, in the nearby rapid response camp the attack went exactly as planned keeping the reserve battalion in the camp and for the most part keeping their heads down, this could be attributed to the fact that the soldiers in the camp were mostly reservists or KGB officers trained to put down prison riots not to combat commando raids. along the coast a few more miles to the north the Norwegian marines raided a Soviet air relaying station meant to keep orders going out to the Soviets sub fleet, in the base the Rangers found very disturbing intel on a planned Soviet attack on not only the US naval yards in Norfolk but a commando raid by Spetsnaz Units on a Soviet Air defense base in Northern Scottish on the island of Shetland. The destruction of this base would mean all of Great Britain would be open to air attack and thus the Soviet were hoping a repeat of the Blitz would occur forcing the US's closest ally out of the war. This information was quickly transported back to NATO high command but did not reach Britain in time to stop the raid. The Gulag 17 raid went well but the following Soviet raid on Shetland made the results fade quickly. The night of December 31st the Soviet sub Stalingrad came off the coast of Shetland deploying a company of Spetsnaz commandos, there was supposed to be two but the other team and the sub carrying them was sunk by the USS John Paul Jones. The commandos proceeded off the beach and to the outer perimeter of the base, built around an old castle it supposed to be a tough target for Soviet Bombers and commando raids alike. But in the pouring rain and blowing wind the Soviets easily sneaked past the tired guards and proceeded to place charges on the launchers and detonate them destroying the launchers and their crews alike. The commandos would never leave though as British troops and even tanks descended on the base the entire company was killed in the resulting firefight. But just as the war seemed to be in full swing the Soviets called for a truce. In retrospect it was clear that the week long truce was used to a) bring up much needed re-inforcements to the front and b) get Cuba, China, North Korea and Vietnam to support them in the war. The week of peace also gave the US to mobilise itself, Reservists from every branch of the Military was mobilised and prepared to be sent to Europe, The Navy was able to get the Merchant marine fully running putting less of a strain on the Air force transportation wing. On January 7th Hostilities resumed except this time NATO was back on the ball counter attacking Soviet forces around Frankfurt giving them some much needed breathing room and finally driving them away from Frankfurt. The U.S forces centered around Frankfurt under the U.S V Corp counter attacked driving back the Soviets and trapping the 63rd Guards Motor Rifle Division in a pocket near Frankfurt, the West German 10th armored Division would reduce it for the next three months. The U.S V Corp was able to break the Soviet Siege of Frankfurt and drive it back, so bad was the defeat that the Soviets only regrouped around Fulda, thus continuing the seesaw battle going on in Germany. In the North the British, French and Low countries forces counter attacked and using the massive salient created by the defeat of Soviet Forces near Frankfurt were able to encircle 3000 East German soldiers and force their surrender. In Sicily the U.S III Corp and Italian forces continued to push the Soviet and Libyan forces backwards, the Libyan forces already having began to surrender while the Soviets held on despite the low amount of supplies they had left. The U.S 6th Fleet after its Titanic clash at the Battle of Malta, had been undergoing repairs in Naples and had been receiving re-inforcements in the form of ships from the Italian, French, British and Canadian fleets making  it a very multinational fleet. The Fleet was finally able to return to duty on January 11th, despite a few ships (USS Oliver Hazard Perry) still undergoing repairs. The Soviet ships in Greece took to the seas and after a little bit of searching found the 6th Fleet again both side went to battle but this time it was strictly a carrier battle with aircraft dueling for hours over the fleets, but again the fragment Soviet fleet was defeated losing two destroyers and a troopship. But in a whole other front, the Caribbean, things began to heat up. The Cubans surprised NATO and the U.S with its surprise invasions of the Bahamas, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. The Cubans defeated the tiny defense forces easily and soon, Cubans had taken Haiti, and were invading Puerto Rico. The U.S response came from the U.S Fourth fleet the small and ill-used fleet launched cruise missile after cruise missile at Cuban forces supporting as best as they could the defending forces. the Florida and Louisiana Air national Guard began air strikes on the Cuban troops and soon the National Guardsmen were going against the Cuban Air Force and to no ones surprise easily defeated the ancient air planes used by the Cubans. Even in their aging F-4 Phantoms they still outmaneuvered and out fought Cuba's airmen. In the Bahamas the 11th MEU counterattacked landing on Andros island and supporting the last remnants of the Bahamian policemen holding out on the island from the Cubans. But the sheer numbers of the Cuban troops began to even overwhelm the marines, even with precision air strikes on constant call. But the marines were re-inforced at the last second by a battalion of Michigan National Guardsmen, who filled the gaps and soon local counter attacks against the over stretched Cuban 84th Infantry Division, finally able to go back on the offensive.

1989: Red Dragon
In the Far East the Communist nations began their offensives against the US and its allies in the region. In Korea the North Korean army started the day of January 17th by bombarding US and South Korean forces guarding the dividing DMZ before launching a massive ground assault, the US is caught by surprise with the attack and yet are able to recover quickly enough to counter the attacks by the North Korean Army. Soon enough Chinese troops join into the attack and the pressure on the 2nd Infantry Division in the region, General Mentrey ordered all units to hold their positions as he scraped what troops together to hold the line. But the Sea of North Korean and Chinese troops pushed the South Korean and American troops back before the troops were finally able to rally around the outskirts of Seoul and hold the line for the local allies of the US: Japan, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand had sent re-inforcements to the embattled Americans and South Koreans. Meanwhile, the Chinese were finally able to focus their attacks on Taiwan, the tiny island nation off the coast of the Chinese mainland had been a focal point of hostilities for years and it was assumed that it would easily be subdued by the Chinese but the Taiwanese put up a massive fight its especially from the navy. The Republic of China Navy was a massive and powerful force compared to its Chinese opposites and when the PLAN (People's Liberation Army Navy) began attacks on Taiwan the ROCN's submarine fleet went to sea attacking and sinking several Chinese destroyers in the first few hours of the war. The coastlines of China were soon prowled by American, Taiwanese and ANZAC submarines. On the Surface the US 7th Fleet attacked the Chinese East Sea Fleet at Ningbo and sunk several destroyers and Frigates along with destroying many Chinese Subs in their moorings. For the start of the war the Chinese had started pretty poorly for a nation who got the jump on the Americans and its allies. Not to say they didn't have their share of successes on the high seas, On January 30th the USS Ranger was sunk off the coast of South Korea by one of China's many diesel-electric submarines the loss of the aircraft carrier was a setback for the US plans in the region but with the US shipyards pumping out new ships weekly the aging carrier was replaced by the USS America, recently transferred from the Fifth fleet. In the Korean Peninsula it was an entirely different story, the North Koreans and Chinese continue to press the American and South Korean defenders hard as the ROK government orders a mass withdrawal from Seoul to Daegu farther to the south. The defenses around Seoul are for the most part well built and extensive, with interlocking positions, field of fire, etc, making most North Korean and Chinese attacks ineffective and blood baths for the Red forces thus halting all further Red advance. But the tide turned again when The Chinese East Sea Fleet sneaked through the American and allied blockade of their coastline with 80,000 assault troops in tow. They arrived off Manila, and the assault troops promptly charged ashore on the heels of a preceding air attack on the US base at Subic Bay and on Philippine bases in and around Manila. The 4000 men part of the intial landing wave took the beaches and began to move inland. Philippine forces reacted quickly counter attacking wherever possible but few of these counterattacks caused much of a delay to the Chinese advance and the loss of the local forces only made the situtation worse for the Philippinos. The US base at Subic Bay was attacked by a special assault group of 1300 men. The Americans were surprised by the air attack which sank three destroyers but they quickly recovered as the sailors and marines on the base defended it from attacks from the Chinese assault troops but eventually, ammo and losses became a problem and the Americans began to be pressed into the base having to defend individual buildings. The American Pacific Command began to pull troops from all over the Western Seaboard to send to the Philippines, the entire Hawaiian National Guard was mobilised to help defend the beaches in case of a similar attack. Meanwhile the Chinese were able to push into the streets of Manila and fierce street fighting began as police, the Philippino army and even local citizens took to the streets to help defend their homeland. What US assets left in the Philippines were mostly navy and air force bases of Clark Air Base and Wallace Air Station. The air units there began a round the clock attack on the Chinese Fleet outside of and within Manila Bay, this put great strain on not only the Chinese air force but the troops on the ground to capture bases from which the air force could base out of. But for the Chinese the Philippinos proved to be a tough shell to crack. Even after the fall of Manila they continued to fight back with a ferocity the Chinese had not planned for. Their hope for a drop out of the Philippines went the exact opposite direction. The US soon had the US 4th Marine regiment delivered to the Philippines and was quickly on the front lines. For the Chinese losses massed and soon their advance had ground to a halt. With 9000+ KIA the Chinese deemed the attack on the Philippines too costly to continue and thus ordered all remaining Chinese troops to return to their ships and prepare for re-deployment. The only problem was that the PLAN command had sent already sentt orders to the Chinese East Sea Fleet telling them to move to Shanghai and pick up another invasion force meant for their next operation. So the Chinese were forced to continue the invasion of the Philippines.