Operation Armageddon, the planned 1969 Irish invasion of the North

Master and commander · 22-09-2011 4:15pm #1

I came across Operation Armageddon on wikipedia ther today and the general jist is that it would have been nothin short of military suicide for a tiny Irish army with practically no navy or air capability to take on the miight of a much larger and battle hardened force like the British Army.
The article states that there would have been a powerful counter attack within hours of the invasion and that it would be sufficient to reclaim any lost territory within hours or days at the most. The aim would be to reclaim territory and eliminate any further threat.
The author seems to stop short of explaining how far the British Armed forces would see neccesary to go to eliminate the threat.

-would it involve pushing the Irish Forces back as far as the border and leaving it at that,

-or after reaching the border, persuing any remaining Irish forces (fleeing back into the Republic) across the border and neutralising them so as to eliminate the possiblility of any further incurions.

- even going so far as to launch pre-emptive air strikes against Air Corp and Naval service installations and equipment in the republic to eliminate any possibility of further attack from them. and also strikes against Army bases across the country to neutralise material and destroy communications, command and control assets on site.

what people seem to overlook is the fact that the UK is a NATO member, so in launching attack, all NATO members are obliged to assist the UK in the event they are attacked, even by a friendly neighbour.

OS119 · 22-09-2011 5:00pm

its been debated here ad nauseum, feel free to read some of the old threads.

amurph0 · 23-09-2011 12:20am

Master and commander wrote: »

what people seem to overlook is the fact that the UK is a NATO member, so in launching attack, all NATO members are obliged to assist the UK in the event they are attacked, even by a friendly neighbour.

Like during the Falklands war?

OS119 · 23-09-2011 8:34am

amurph0 wrote: »

Like during the Falklands war?

Article 5 only applies north of the Tropic of Cancer - 23 degrees north (an imaginary line that passes through mexico, north west Africa, Saudi Arabia, India and the southern-most tip of China) - it was deliberately framed so as not to mean that all the weird and wonderful colonies/overseas dependancies/possessions were tinderboxes for World War 3. it also has a rather nebulous 'Europe and North America' area of operations.

nebulous because Europe is an ill-defined concept - Europes borders are in the eye of the beholder, some people think Europe stops at the Polish border, others think Georgia is in Europe...

snafuk35 · 29-09-2011 12:17am

This passage shows that the Republic of Ireland would have got their backsides handed to them by the British military if it came to a shooting war.

The plan ignored the incompatibility of forces. Britain was a member of NATO, while the Irish Defence Forces were much smaller than the British Armed Forces, had inferior arms and transportation in comparison to British forces, and had only minimal Air and Naval capabilities. The Defence Forces were said to train for "World War II operations using World War I weapons", such as the Lee-Enfield rifle,[8] although most Irish soldiers were armed with FN FAL 7.62 automatic rifles. The Irish Army also had some motorized transport, and the Irish Army Cavalry Corps generally had a low number of light armored vehicles. The Irish Air Corps had approximately half a dozen serviceable de Havilland Vampire jets, and the Irish Army Artillery Corps had only heavy mortars and some WWII-era howitzers. By contrast, British forces in Northern Ireland consisted of almost 3,000 heavily armed soldiers of the 2nd Queens Regiment, the Royal Regiment of Wales, and the Prince of Wales's Own Regiment of Yorkshire. These troops had considerable experience in training and conventional large-scale combat tactics, and many had returned from guarding NATO's Northern Flank. They were equipped with Humber Pig and Saracen armored personnel carriers. Royal Air Force F-4 Phantom and Sea Harrier jets were also stationed at airbases close to Northern Irish airspace. These forces would have been capable of dealing decisively with any Irish military incursion into the area. The mismatch was reflected in the choice of title. According to security analyst Tom Clonan, "irrespective of the element of surprise, the Irish Army would have been subject to a massive British counterattack - probably within hours of their initial incursion. Irish casualties would have been high as the British would have sought to swiftly and indiscriminately end the Republic's unilateral military intervention".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercise_Armageddon

After an inevitable defeat I think the British might have taken the opportunity to capture a strip of territory south of the border to serve as a buffer zone in which their forces would have been posted.

To drive their point home the British would have blockaded our ports, perhaps captured Dublin port using the Royal Marines or sunk the Irish Navy at Haulbowline.

If there were continued hostilities and the Irish government refused to surrender a British column would probably have captured Dundalk, then Drogheda and then moved on Dublin. If need be another column might have captured Athlone before moving on Cork and Waterford. A third might have captured Sligo and then headed on to Galway, taking out any Irish forces in their path.
Ireland's government buildings are surrounded on three sides by St. Stephen's Green, Merrion Square and Trinity College which would be ideal landing zones for helicopters carrying British troops. They could have seized or eliminated the Taoiseach and the Cabinet in one fell swoop supported by naval vessels in Dublin Bay and fighters circling the city.

Airstrikes on every major Irish base would have rendered the Irish conventional military useless and bombing of ESB power stations would have left the country in the dark. With their point made the British might have withdrew, secured the bufferzone and left Ireland to rot by shutting us out of the EEC.

The British would have had carte blanche to deal with the IRA as they pleased.

yubabill1 · 02-01-2013 2:55pm

My personal theory (as opposed to hypothesis- I have had some off-record corroboration) is that the Irish Govt. negotiated to "piggy-back" onto the UK application to join the then EEC as a sweetener for their co-operation. Remember, De Gaulle had consistently objected to Ireland joining, presumably because of our WWII stance.
The UK would have been highly embarrassed if the UN stepped in to control a regional scrap and you must remember, Suez was still really fresh in their minds back then.

Win-win, except for Capt. Kelly and the other Arms Trial accused, of course.

Dogwatch · 02-01-2013 8:53pm

De Gaulle objected to the UK joining not Ireland!!!!!

yubabill1 · 03-01-2013 9:56am

Even if I concede that(too early in the morning for me to research), it doesn't invalidate my argument.

Dogwatch · 03-01-2013 11:28am

In both threads you are fishing at best. You are very short on facts and very long on rhetoric.
Do some proper research( when you are awake) and then come back with reasoned arguments based on facts.

yubabill1 · 03-01-2013 2:19pm

Facts are only two or three clicks away on the net.
Look it up yourself.
Make up your own mind.
I took part in debates around the time of the first ceasefire as an interested observer and have a good knowledge of the facts, thank you.

Dogwatch · 03-01-2013 6:08pm

yubabill1 wrote: »

Facts are only two or three clicks away on the net.
Look it up yourself.
Make up your own mind.
I took part in debates around the time of the first ceasefire as an interested observer and have a good knowledge of the facts, thank you.

In other words you are pretending to be something you are not.
IF you had the facts you would produce them here to back up your claims.

So in very simple language, produce the goods or go away.:p:p

yubabill1 · 03-01-2013 7:53pm

You are demanding facts in a thread where people have been speculating on what would have happened if Ireland had done something different in the past.
You are out of your depth.
I presented my personal theory on a part of the op.
I do not see evidence demanded from other posters in this thread.
Would you demand corroboration on such a dicey subject if my opinion agreed with yours?
You know this theory of mine would require some considerable resources to prove. However, that did not deter other posters from making their own postulates.

the_syco · 03-01-2013 8:21pm

snafuk35 wrote: »

The British would have had carte blanche to deal with the IRA as they pleased.

I'd wonder what the IRA's response to London would have been?

yubabill1 wrote: »

Look it up yourself.

If this is so, why did you get the facts of your argument wrong?

yubabill1 wrote: »

You are demanding facts in a thread

That you resurrected.

yubabill1 · 03-01-2013 8:47pm

Hi thesyko
Ok I can't easily defend the de Gaulle claim, think I may have heard that opinion on the radio.

Fair cop.

I did apply unsuccessfully to a foundation to research this further in the last couple of years.

666irishguy · 03-01-2013 9:00pm

Our men would not have stood a chance against the RAF. We would have wasted a lot of lives and probably had a lot of vital infrastructure like power plants bombed into oblivion. They would probably have pushed us or flushed us out back to our own border in a few days and then a peace treaty would have been signed. We'd still be singing songs glorifying such a ridiculous campaign today. Our best hope for any kind of "operation" in Northern Ireland would have been to infiltrate weapons and instructors to places like Derry or train them inside our own borders and send them back in and establish a sort of fifth column before an operation like Armageddon began. That in itself would be nigh on impossible to hide seeing as such a force would be riddled with spies. (that rhymes).

thebigfella1 · 18-02-2013 11:31pm

All would have depended on getting to the towns of Derry and Newry without being hammered. With this if supplies could have been brought and the support of the population a FIBUA/Guerilla battle could have been fought which had propensity for 1/2 weeks max(cant carpet bomb UK towns), but weapons and supplies could have been stored for IRA in long term.

Aim was never victory but to highlight the situation enough to spark international involvment via the UN.

Utter defeat in a military sense but political gain in the long run.

Who knows what would have happened in the following 30 years.

Morpheus · 20-02-2013 11:12am

Return to the stone age for the republic most likely. invasion and occupation for definite. 30 years of war and insurgency for Ireland and the uk

yubabill1 · 20-02-2013 11:34am

Morpheus wrote: »

Return to the stone age for the republic most likely. invasion and occupation for definite. 30 years of war and insurgency for Ireland and the uk

Very like what actually happened! :pac:

thebigfella1 · 06-08-2013 8:57pm

Brits wouldn have invaded past dundalk / letterkenny token occupation and withdrawal after UN calls. They would of hammered Irish military on the border to prove a point.

Destabilisation of whole border area.

tac foley · 06-08-2013 9:36pm

Rule #1 - Do not invade another country without having 3:1 ground superiority.

Rule #2 - Do not invade another country without having 3:1 or better air superiority.

Rule #3 - If neither of the above two rules apply, get your military ready for a serious ass-whooping when the invadees get their act together about an hour after you started your invasion.

Rule #4 - Have some really good excuses why the PDF has, to all intents and purposes, ceased to exist in a recognisable form, except as a series of smoking holes where their second echelon/follow-on forces were once located.

Question - Just what do you imagine that the RAF would be doing to the rest of the Republic while the boyos on the ground are fighting the sixteen thousand British troops at that moment based in Northern Ireland?

Invading an albeit remote-from-centre part of a UK that has been at war, somewhere, non-stop since September 1939? You have to remember that in 1982 the UK went 8000 miles and suffered immense losses in men and matériel to regain a few windswept and treeless acres. All hypothetical responses to an almost unthinkable scenario.

tac

knucklehead6 · 07-08-2013 1:37pm

There was a 'What if' style of article written around the time the tv show "What if Lynch had invaded" was broadcast. I can't remember too much of it but basically 30 odd years down the line it hypothesised that Gerry Adams was leader of a one party state, the most only type car available was a trabant, links with communist countries such as Cuba and the USSR were about the only trading Ireland did.

I found this as well.
http://althistory.wikia.com/wiki/Exercise_Armageddon

thebigfella1 · 11-08-2013 1:13pm

tac foley wrote: »

Rule #1 - Do not invade another country without having 3:1 ground superiority.

Rule #2 - Do not invade another country without having 3:1 or better air superiority.

Rule #3 - If neither of the above two rules apply, get your military ready for a serious ass-whooping when the invadees get their act together about an hour after you started your invasion.

Rule #4 - Have some really good excuses why the PDF has, to all intents and purposes, ceased to exist in a recognisable form, except as a series of smoking holes where their second echelon/follow-on forces were once located.

Question - Just what do you imagine that the RAF would be doing to the rest of the Republic while the boyos on the ground are fighting the sixteen thousand British troops at that moment based in Northern Ireland?

Invading an albeit remote-from-centre part of a UK that has been at war, somewhere, non-stop since September 1939? You have to remember that in 1982 the UK went 8000 miles and suffered immense losses in men and matériel to regain a few windswept and treeless acres. All hypothetical responses to an almost unthinkable scenario.

tac

I disagree the 3:1 theory is outdated at present, you hit nail on the head with air superiority. There will always be boots on the ground but air power is the key to all modern conflicts with exception of neither side having any.

ROEs would be the key factor, would it be open warfare?? more likely a militray zone similar to the falklands, E.g. 50km inside borders of "Free state".

Nobody can argue anything other than full militray defeat for us but would it bring UN involvement which was a key aim of the Irish policy during the troubles.? and if so could it be judged a political if not military success in the long run.

Red Nissan · 11-08-2013 1:38pm

Most likely the detachment would be called a renegade group, after all The Real Taoiseach at the time had not sanctioned the troop movements.

The groups would probably have been surrounded and besieged. The plan was to get the UN in before the massive British reinforcements arrived.

Timing was the key, the time had already passed when the troops were Oscar Mike.

tac foley · 11-08-2013 7:45pm

thebigfella1 wrote: »

I disagree the 3:1 theory is outdated at present, you hit nail on the head with air superiority. There will always be boots on the ground but air power is the key to all modern conflicts with exception of neither side having any.

ROEs would be the key factor, would it be open warfare?? more likely a militray zone similar to the falklands, E.g. 50km inside borders of "Free state".

Nobody can argue anything other than full militray defeat for us but would it bring UN involvement which was a key aim of the Irish policy during the troubles.? and if so could it be judged a political if not military success in the long run.

A 'great success', indeed, with an eventual 'peace park' built on the rubble of Dublin. It would have been a total catastrophy for Ireland and the Irish people.

Remember that attacking a one member of NATO is liable to bring a response from ALL of NATO.

The end result of this ill-advised operation really is unthinkable.

tac

thebigfella1 · 11-08-2013 8:53pm

tac foley wrote: »

A 'great success', indeed, with an eventual 'peace park' built on the rubble of Dublin. It would have been a total catastrophy for Ireland and the Irish people.

Remember that attacking a one member of NATO is liable to bring a response from ALL of NATO.

The end result of this ill-advised operation really is unthinkable.

tac

there would be no NATO involvment for the simple reason, the british armed forces wouldn't have needed it. Did you see leopard tanks being sent from berlin to help destroy Ireland?

Dublin would not have been touched either. The british forces would have wiped out the border units in a show of force and there would have been a ceasefire within 48 hours.

There was sympathy in the american Govt for the catholic civil rights movment, which would have ensured the above.

I'm glad it didnt happen but there were positive possible outcomes, of course we can never know for certain what would have happened but the scenairos being put out on these board cannot be dismissed as impossible cause we simply do not know. It is enjoyable to debate.

Irelands history is full of great sacrificies which had little chance of success but yet the sacrifice led to a greater goal.

Jawgap · 16-08-2013 8:54am

thebigfella1 wrote: »

Irelands history is full of great sacrificies which had little chance of success but yet the sacrifice led to a greater goal.

Except a lot of those valiant sacrifices were laid down against an imperial force in the context of rising ideas of the concept of replublicanism (in the international sense) and anti-colonialism.

In this situation, Ireland, as a sovereign state, would have perpetrated aggression against another sovereign state at a time when there were diplomatic and international institutional solutions available to it.

The country would have become a pariah state for a generation and been excluded from the EEC / EU for all that time - think Northern Cyprus without the sunshine.

As for the point about NATO - members are required to 'assist' other members. It doesn't automatically require that the assistance be of a military nature, they could just have imposed sanctions, expelled ambassadors etc.

tac foley · 16-08-2013 10:38am

Jawgap wrote: »

As for the point about NATO - members are required to 'assist' other members. It doesn't automatically require that the assistance be of a military nature, they could just have imposed sanctions, expelled ambassadors etc.

Hence my comment - 'Remember that attacking a one member of NATO is liable to bring a response from ALL of NATO.'

Please show me where I said that the response would be military.

tac

Jawgap · 16-08-2013 11:11am

tac foley wrote: »

Hence my comment - 'Remember that attacking a one member of NATO is liable to bring a response from ALL of NATO.'

Please show me where I said that the response would be military.

tac

Please show me where I said I was responding to you......

I was responding to @thebigfella1, that's why I included the quote from him.

thebigfella1 · 17-08-2013 9:00pm

Jawgap wrote: »

Except a lot of those valiant sacrifices were laid down against an imperial force in the context of rising ideas of the concept of replublicanism (in the international sense) and anti-colonialism.

In this situation, Ireland, as a sovereign state, would have perpetrated aggression against another sovereign state at a time when there were diplomatic and international institutional solutions available to it.

The country would have become a pariah state for a generation and been excluded from the EEC / EU for all that time - think Northern Cyprus without the sunshine.

As for the point about NATO - members are required to 'assist' other members. It doesn't automatically require that the assistance be of a military nature, they could just have imposed sanctions, expelled ambassadors etc.

I agree with you on the pariah state. I know there would be an initial downfall but I am saying that in the long run there may have been benifits (opinion not fact, as are all our points as it didnt happen).

I can see no other NATO support than a dressing down to be honest. Diplomats called in dressed down told to cop on and sort it out. Numerous NATO states were actually on the Irish side of thinking e.g. Spain.

In relation to having "other institions" available to us I dont agree. I believe this was only even considered because the UN could do nothing because it cannot involve itself in members states internal conflicts without consent and the british as a member of the SC was never going to give it.

I completly understand the initial response(1-5years) would be to the deathrement of the country.

Does anyone think the UN or EU should/could have pushed harder during the troubles for a solution??

thebigfella1 · 17-08-2013 9:01pm

And before Tac asks me to explain how spain wanted us to invade the North I was speaking more in a Civil Rights and Support sort of way not militraily

Sorry

Jawgap · 18-08-2013 4:26pm

It's a lot of 'what-iffery' but......

I think it's one thing to suggest that other countries' governments or populations were sympathetically disposed towards the civil rights movement and another to suggest they were on the 'Irish' side - I also think that as the aggressor, the country would have found any support quickly evaporating, if defence forces violated the territory of another sovereign state.

I'd also suggest that the British would be astute enough not to over-reach, knowing full well they would contain any incursion and obliterate it at will in a matter of hours. As such, they wouldn't need to undertake any operations south of the border and could retain the moral high ground by simply acting within the borders of their own country - it's a bit like the quote about Ali that suggests he was a great boxer because of the punches he didn't throw!

People also always over-estimate the influence of Ireland in the US - 1969 was the Nixon / Kissinger era. The State Department has always had a tradition of Anglophilia and Nixon was very focused on foreign policy. He appointed Rogers as his Secretary of State to simply administer the State Department while he and Kissinger made all the big decisions - can anyone honestly see Tricky Dicky coming to the Paddies' rescue?

Finally, our time in the wilderness would have been as long as the British wanted it to be. If they had joined the EEC/EU ahead of us then they would have always had a veto on when we joined, just like they would have always had the whip hand on the Security Council in the UN.

But on the question of whether the EU or UN should have pushed harder, maybe they did behind the scenes, but whether you like it or not it was an internal matter in the UK so I'm not sure they should have had a role, unless they're going to start getting involved in that type of dispute in a whole lot of other countries.

Operation Armageddon, the planned 1969 Irish invasion of the North

Comments