If Lynch had Invaded. Exercise Armageddon

[carlos marighela]

As the structure remained basically the same, it goes without saying that you can use those Unit histories to figure out the structure of the earlier Irish UN contingents to the Congo, if that's you area of interest.

[HESH]

More great info.

Thanks mate 👍

I am now at the stage of gathering kit.

[fred]

This is an intriguing idea.

What was the expected / actual British level of troops in NI at this time? And how quickly could they have been reinforced from England?

It feels the Irish forces are far too small to do anything useful, beyond the initial surprise. And even then I’m not sure how much of a surprise it could have been given how porous the border was.

[carlos marighela]

This is an intriguing idea.

What was the expected / actual British level of troops in NI at this time? And how quickly could they have been reinforced from England?

It feels the Irish forces are far too small to do anything useful, beyond the initial surprise. And even then I’m not sure how much of a surprise it could have been given how porous the border was.

Even the Irish Army's general staff concluded that it would be a disaster. The original intention had been intervention against the rampages of the B Specials when the rioting had reached a peak in mid August 1969. By the time the planning had been sought and delivered, the British Army had been deployed onto the streets of NI. There were 3 resident regular battalions at the outset and that more than doubled with deployments from the UK by the end of August. They could have been reinforced very quickly from the UK and if need be Germany. That's of course not counting the paramilitary security forces in NI. The RUC and the B Specials.

Ironically, at leat one of the objectives of the mooted commando raids, the BBC studios in Belfast, had British troops deployed as a result of the rioting, so any attempt to storm them would not have been without active resistance.

Overall the idea, wooly headed as it was, was a quick intervention, maybe 48 to 72 hours allowing for Catholic/ Republicans in the North to escape their Loyalist tormentors and to call for UN intervention. I'm not sure how members of the Irish cabinet reconciled the idea of UN intervention and presumably the deployment of blue helmets on the streets of Derry and Belfast with:

a) The fact that under international law they would be the aggressor.
b) The tiny but somewhat inconvenient fact that Britain sits on the Security Council, with veto powers, of said United Nations.
c) The fact that Britain was a founding member of NATO, with all that goes with that.

None the less, the plan was roll over the border, declare victory and bugger off again. The Mouse That Roared seems to have been the basis for the concept of operations.

Surprise for the British Army/ Government? The old military maxim: 'the object of a successful operation is to surprise the enemy not astound him' comes into play here although, in this instance, it probably would have played to the advantage of the Irish Army, at least initially. Nobody in their right mind would have expected the Irish Army to roll over the border.

The deployment of large portions of the Irish Army was noted, it coud hardly be otherwise as it absorbed a sizeable portion of Ireland's public transport fleet , it was publicly announced and as you point out, the border is porous. Remember that the establishment of field hospitals and deployment of troops along the border actually took place. Then there was Lynch's speech which did cause quite a bit of alarm in Stormont and Whitehall.

That said, if the cover for the deployment is the establishment of field hospitals in the guise of humanitarian relief and given the physical proximity of the identified military objectives (lodgement in/ around Derry and Newry) then no doubt some level of tactical surprise could have been achieved. Both Derry and Newry are what? About a five to ten minute drive from the border?

Newry, ironically, is the more likely surprise. Newry had and still has an overwhelmingly Catholic population and had not suffered from the sectarian violence taking place in Belfast and Derry. It also had a Cathloic majority council. Quite a pointless objective really but the Irish Army was attempting to be realistic about what it could achieve in a military and logistical sense and had concluded it wasn't much.

So, given that the planning objectives were to hit RUC stations, no doubt there would have been initial firefights with the police. Sidenote: The RUC still had Shorland armoured cars in 1969 (shout out to Minifigs who make one in 28mm), so you potentially have more toys to play with.

What would Ireland have done in the face of the swift and inevitable order to cease and desist from the British Government? Well, that's examined fairly well in the RTE doco at the start of this thread and for gaming purposes, having the Irish government decide it couldn't afford to lose face domestically works nicely for a game or mini campaign.

[carlos marighela]

Now, the potential complicator for the British Army is what is happening elsewhere. If the sectarian violence continues to ramp up, then the resident security forces are going to be fairly busy as is. I'd say that an Irish Army invasion of NI, however limited is going to be a sure fire recipe for stoking intercommunal violence. That's the Loyalist community's worst nightmare, right there.

Now there were no known plans to arm republican terrorists at this point but you could easily weave that in as the invaders assisting 'local community self-defence forces'.

Early in 1970, a few short months after all of this was initially mooted, there was a an actual scandal, that saw a couple of Irish cabinet members given the boot for exactly that, seeking to purchase arms for the OIRA. One of those ministers was Charles Haughey, who would go on to become Taoiseach. The scandal very nearly caused the fall of Lynch's government and there are claim and counterclaim as to whether Lynch knew of the whole.

For gaming purposes no need to give your auxiliary/insurgent forces a hundred thousand quids worth of moody Belgian weapons, hand out the largesse of the Irish FCA's armouries, the thousands of .303s still in store. The OIRA were familiar with those having helped themselves to a few over the years.

[fred]

Thanks Carlos great write up - I’ll have a look at the videos if I get chance.

The various paramilitary groups would certainly take the chaos caused by a military intervention to take care of matters they wished too, but had felt constrained to do so from.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

The past is a different country.

I wonder if that was the inspiration for https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p016qh1n

[carlos marighela]

The past is a different country.

I wonder if that was the inspiration for https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p016qh1n

 

[HESH]

Great stuff lads .

The story develops and falls squarely into my ‘Anarchy In The UK’ project .

Just as well really as I collect this lot tomorrow !!! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🙏🤣

[carlos marighela]

Oh my God! What have I done? 

 

Here you go!

[HESH]

Yep it’s 100 per cent down to you …. and I’m grateful mate . 🙏

Your kit is terrific  …. I’ll be searching for the ‘copter . 👍

[carlos marighela]

The Alouettes come up quite frequently on fleabay. There was a bloke not far from me who had a whole stash of them and I ended up buying the lot cheapish for cash. He even included a Solido 1/80 something Puma as a freebie which I then donated to another member on LAF whose need for such a thing was greater than mine.

The decals I nicked from an Italeri Cessna or it might have been a Magister, I forget which. Digging it out I found it's moved around in storage so requires a bit of a touch up here and there but luckily diecasts are fairly robist bits of kit.

[CapnJim]

This all quite fascinating.  If not tempting.  I need another period like I need another hole in my head, though....but I gotta admit, for some reason, various Irish, and Irish-inspired wars fascinate me.  We've already gamed Ridgeway from the Fenians' raid across the Niagara River after the ACW.  And I've oft thought about doing the '98 Rising, as well as the various activities between 1916 and 1923.  And Jadotville, too.  Maybe I'll add this little bit of "What If..." to that list...   

[carlos marighela]

Funnily enough Ridgeway's always been of interest to me. I remember there was a really good piece on it in  one of the wargaming mags back in the 1980s. Nearest I've got in time and space is half finishing Canadian Revolt figures.

I know what you mean about needing more periods. Just the other day I was looking at a thread on here and though hmm those look good and they started to rekindle my interest in doing Walker and the filibusters in Nicaragua. Earlier in the year it was how about kicking off that Colombus/Pershing Expedition project I've had on the back burner for a decade or so. I've always had a slightly morbid interest in off beat conflicts in the Western Hemisphere.

This place can be quite dangerous, in terms of temptation.

[fred]

Finally got round to watching the first video, very informative. It’s rather reset my image of the period, 1969 was a couple of years before I was born so my mental picture of the troubles is far more late 70s onwards.

Some tidbits from the what if part:

1) British air power, the senior Irish soldiers seem justly worried about this - and it seems this would have been a hugely decisive factor in any shooting war

2) Columns of Nationalist refugees heading south. This seems a bit fanciful, given the military operation was to move in on highly Nationalist towns, would people from these really want to leave everything behind to walk to the South? If they wanted to leave, they could have done this at any point earlier. But it these had happened they might have been quite effective at neutralising the RAF - can’t see bombing columns of civilians would have looked good on the TV

3) Nobody really seems to know what the Irish government was trying to achieve if they went with the military option. The whole triggering a UN intervention seems bizarre.

Feels a bit more real now, probably better to just think of it in terms of toy soldiers…