If Italy was overrun they had a paramilitary guerrilla “stay behind” army in place code named Gladio. It’s job would have been to form a guerrilla movement behind the lines. Gladio became a tool though for the rightist governments of Italy in the 1970s and 80s to suppress Communist and $ociali$t movements.

Yeah I watch Archer too.

The U.S. does have around the globe a number of Maritime Pre-Positioning squadrons. These are groups of massive cargo ships operated by Military Sealift Command and are preloaded with all the supplies, equipment and vehicles necessary to equip or reinforce a mechanized brigade. These squadrons are positions around the globe, notably at Guam and at Diego Garcia. But I don’t think there is any notion that Europe is under threat these days from surprise ground attack by anyone and so any contingency plan is likely to be a very old one.

Yes even a conventional war would have been catastrophic. Even though Red Storm Rising is fiction and completely out of the mind of Tom Clancy defense analysts have praised him for seeing the importance of the convoy system across the Atlantic, for describing how ammunition and especially missile stocks would be quickly emptied by the rapid pace and firepower of modern warfare. Battlefields would be utter chaos as units would be destroyed almost as quickly as they could be deployed due to the accuracy and destructive power of modern weapons systems. Air power would play a major role and whoever controlled the skies would have a major advantage.

France would have been an important logistics center for any armies fighting in Germany. How successful this would have been is subject to debate because France from the late 1950s until Sarkozy took power in the 2000s was not part of NATO’s integrated command structure. But they were nonetheless alliance members. Germany would have fight to hold as much territory as possible until British and American reinforcements could arrive from across the Channel and the Atlantic. The Royal Navy was designated as the allied navy responsible for ASW warfare in the north Atlantic and thus for safely convoying across American and Canadian reinforcements. A U.S. Carrier group or two would attempt to plug the G-I-UK gap by constant patrols in the north Atlantic and, if necessary would break through into the Barents to launch air strikes against the Soviet naval and missile bases on the Kola Peninsula. Finland and Sweden were neutrals but if the Soviets ignored their territorial integrity Norway was, along with a mixed Allied Unit of Italian and German Alpine troops working with U.S. 10th Mountain Division detachments would try to hold the northern flank against Soviet incursions. Denmark was tasked with holding closed the entrance to the Baltic. This would make Germany the deciding battleground.

was reading this a few weeks ago…horribly formatted but…

As I monitored the Russian conversation, I walked around to the west side of the mountain. Shore just pointed west toward another one of the huge Laotian mountains, which was lighting up like a massive Christmas tree.

there’s just so much there across so many countries and decades. fucking scary.

Parche may have recovered Chinese missile fragments. In 1995 and 1996, the People’s Republic of China launched DF-21 and DF-15 ballistic missiles into the sea surrounding Taiwan to deter Taiwan from moving toward independence; Robert Karniol writes: “I suspect that “the Parche might have gone after these Chinese missile fragments”, and “I suspect that Beijing gave away some useful missile secrets.”[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Parche_%28SSN-683%29

I don’t recall off the top of my head. Had to be a Sturgeon class though.

yea, saw that appendix and was reading this about the russian k-141.

hough rescue attempts were offered by the British and Norwegian teams, Russia declined initial rescue offers. All 118 sailors and officers aboard Kursk perished. The Russian Admiralty at first suggested most of the crew died within minutes of the explosion; however, the motivations for making the claim are considered by outside observers[who?] as political since some of the sailors had time to write notes.