Big Time 1958
v1 Chapter 707: wrong judgment
The two armored divisions are not the entire offensive force in Syria, it is only the first offensive echelon in Syria. Under the cover of artillery, the Syrian army defending the north immediately crossed the border, almost at the same time Hafez al-Assad announced in Damascus that Syria had entered a state of war with Turkey. Infantry and motorized infantry divisions are rushing to northern Syria from all over the country.
Syria is known as the Israel of the Soviet Union. In order to gain the support of the Soviet Union, Hafez Assad even led the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party to abolish the status of the religion of peace. Syria is the most de-religious in the Middle East except Iraq, where the Communist Party has seized power. serious country. This of course has something to do with the fact that the Alawites themselves are a minority, but this attitude won the favor of the Soviet Union, and even the latest Soviet T72 tanks were sent to Syria.
After the violent Soviet artillery bombardment, billowing gunpowder smoke still shrouded the border positions. The newly established Syrian Army Group North crossed the border with the unique sound of the crawler of tanks. A fractured boundary marker not far away was written in Turkish. Syria and Turkey.
Army North includes two armored divisions, five motorized infantry divisions and infantry divisions. A total of 100,000 Syrian soldiers are marching north. The road to northern Syria has been blocked across the country, and fighter jets of the Syrian Air Force can be seen from time to time in the sky. Whizzing by, they were rushing to the front to bomb Turkish military targets.
The T72 equipped with a 125mm smoothbore gun on the ground continued to advance forward, and the MiG and Sukhoi fighters of the Syrian Air Force in the air poured bombs over the Turkish military targets, and the southern border of Turkey was suddenly covered with smoke.
The new president of Greece, Konstantin Karamanlis, has a headache in the face of attacks and accusations from various parties. He knew that because the military government had just fallen, the whole country of Greece was in a chaotic situation after being suppressed by the military government. After a long period of repression, the people need a catharsis point, and the ongoing war in Cyprus has obviously become this catharsis point.
Syria's President Hafez al-Assad aggressively attacked Turkey. After the news reached Greece, the people of Greece couldn't sit still. There are military enthusiasts everywhere, and Greece is not short of such people. In their eyes, Syria, a military power in the Middle East, was built by the Soviet Union, equipped with thousands of tanks, and fought **** battles with Israel in several Middle East wars. At this time to attack Greece, Greece should take advantage of this time and Syria. Together, a permanent solution to the Cyprus problem.
"The number of Syrian troops is not lower than that of Turkey, and it is itself a military power in the Middle East. If we unite with Syria, we can completely defeat Turkey. As president, you should choose actions that are beneficial to the country."
"If we pretend we don't see Syria, the protesters outside will tear us apart and replace them with a parliamentarian who can protect Greece."
"President Constantine, do you know that there is a saying among the people that all Orthodox countries are in the Warsaw Pact, why does Greece, the purest Orthodox country, help NATO against our own beliefs, don't we forget Who was the first to sack Constantinople?"
The entire parliament was filled with such voices, and Constantine Karamanlis was struggling to deal with all kinds of accusations. This thing of public opinion can usually be regarded as fart. As long as the bourgeoisie is united, most of the time, the public opinion can be played with applause. The problem is that the Greek bourgeoisie is not united now.
When it comes to Turkey, national sentiments have the upper hand. Konstantin Karamanlis did not doubt that if he did not agree, a crowd of up to 100,000 protesters would rush in and wash the parliament in blood.
"Quiet!" Constantine Karamanlis shouted, stopping the increasingly chaotic atmosphere in the parliament, and sighed, "We will now vote on the resolution to declare war on Turkey."
He can't put all the responsibility on himself, so if the war fails, he can easily shirk the responsibility. Obviously, Konstantin Karamanlis' ideas are similar to those of Brezhnev. The prospect of victory is very wonderful, and the credit is certainly one's own, but what about failure? Brezhnev is ready to let Serov take full responsibility, and Konstantin Karamanlis is ready to put the blame on parliament.
The result of the vote was almost one-sided. Soon, President Konstantin Karamanlis announced to the whole of Greece through a television broadcast, "Greece officially declares war on Turkey and guarantees the rights and interests of the Greeks in Cyprus." In this way, Greece will withdraw from the NATO military command system. Immediately after that, a heavy bomb was thrown inside NATO and declared war on Turkey.
The Greek Air Force quickly took off from the mainland and flew to Cyprus to bomb the landing Turkish troops. A few hours later, Hafez al-Assad's envoy came to Athens to announce that Syria and Greece would fight together. In fact the Syrian envoy received no recognition at all from Konstantin Karamanlis.
But the Syrian envoy announced the news, which immediately made all the Greeks boil. This made the Greek Presidential Palace not dare to clarify. At this time, President Karamanlis, who had not been in office for a few days, did not dare to provoke public opinion. The Greeks can only tacitly assume that they have a military power in the Middle East as an ally.
Actually, on the border of Constantinople, Greece is just posing as a large army, and using artillery and Turkish artillery to shell each other, there is no big attack like Syria. President Karamanlis is still reluctant to enter the war completely, and at most just use the navy and air force of Greece not inferior to Turkey to fight for Cyprus.
Turkey's response was not unpleasant. The troops stationed in the south immediately assembled to resist the invasion of the Syrian army. The two sides met in a relatively rare open area in Turkey, and immediately launched a tank battle. The T72 125mm smoothbore gun with a hot metal heat flow bombarded the armor of the American M60 tank turret, and then, in the second-stage hollow armor-type cover behind the rocket motor, the main charge became the metal heat flow , keep bombarding!
Under this metal heat flow, the main armor of the M60 tank was directly penetrated! The hot metal heat flow penetrated into the tank, and the ammunition inside was instantly detonated! This is very normal. After the baptism of the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet Union has always been very advanced in the concept of developing tanks, and this advanced has been maintained until the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Until disintegration, European and American tanks could only win with a physique that was twenty tons heavier than Soviet tanks. What if the Soviet tanks were also sixty tons?
"Boom!" With the roar of the barrel, the 105mm tank shells flew towards the Syrian armored forces in the distance. There was a violent explosion, and after the smoke cleared, the T72 tank continued to advance, and at the same time began to counterattack, continuously shelling the Turkish military's American-made M60 tanks with large-caliber artillery.
The first time that the Soviet T72 tank became famous was the tank battle between Syria and Israel in the Bekaa Valley. When almost all the weapons and equipment and the quality of the soldiers in Syria were backward, they relied on the T72 tank to hit the Israeli armored forces. This not-so-high-end tank in the Soviet Union has just appeared, and NATO has clearly realized what despair is.
Imagine the scene where tens of thousands of T72 tanks are whizzing at them. The NATO army will realize what it means to be desperate. Now the battle of the Bekaa Valley in history has not yet come. The Turkish soldiers first experienced the feeling of the Third Reich , when Germany faced the T34 crisis, they faced the T72 crisis.
In less than 30 minutes, the T72 tank swept the Turkish and American tanks it faced, and went away like a proud knight, leaving behind the wreckage of the Turkish tanks that were still burning in place, proving that these Turkish soldiers had done their best.
This is what happened in less than eight hours and many people wake up in the morning to find the world has changed. Greece and Turkey went to war, and a civil war began within NATO. The reinforcements they sought turned out to be Syria, an ally of the Soviet Union. Even the military enthusiast with the biggest brain hole can't imagine it.
is actually quite normal. Syria itself is an ally of the Soviet Union, and Greece is of course an ally of the Americans and a member of NATO, but Greece has always had no ill feelings towards the Soviet Union because Greece and Turkey have hatred. The Soviet Union also had a grudge against Turkey. The largest religion in the Soviet Union was the Orthodox Church. Although it has been suppressed, no one can change this fact.
The fact is that what could not have happened now, a NATO country and a Soviet ally joined forces to attack another NATO country. Syria’s participation in the war made the situation more complicated, and the United States could not sit still immediately, calling for Greece to stop and maintain unity with Turkey to jointly resist Syria’s invasion.
At the same time, Kissinger issued a diplomatic note asking the Soviet Union to stop Syria's actions. But at this time, Andrei Gromyko, the foreign minister of the Soviet Union, who had been calling for peace, changed his tone for the first time. His words were still very formal and his language was very decent, but the meaning was completely different. Andrei Gromyko called on Turkey to return the illegally occupied territory of Syria to Syria and Xu La, in exchange for peace. The reason for the problem is that the US should put pressure on Turkey.
Whether it is Turkey or Greece, it is a dilemma for the United States. Greece is weak, Turkey is strong, and the United States can only exert pressure on Greece. In fact, as long as it makes such a choice, the United States will lose whoever chooses, and the most happy is the Soviet Union. How about choosing one over the other? If the Soviet Union starts to win over, who knows what will happen?
"Are the Soviets going to fight a proxy war with us?" Many generals were outside advocating that the Soviet Union was going to attack Turkey, but these generals had high IQs when they were in the White House, and those remarks were just to confuse ordinary people. They did not think the Soviet Union would directly attack a NATO country. (To be continued~^~)