Funny thing, I once planned an invasion of LA starting from
Fort Irwin. It was during the Rodney King riots. I was stationed at Fort Irwin, running an NTC mission planning section. We had two fully armed armored brigades the base at the time (the OPFOR and a training unit), and I was sure we'd get called.
It turns out that the key terrain isn't where you think it would be. Step one is to secure the Cajon Pass and routes through San Bernardino. The most critical military objective is the National Guard base in Los Alamitos, in Orange County, since that's the only place rioters could acquire heavy weapons. The next priority is to secure the passes to the San
Fernando and San Gabriel Vallies, and on the coast headed to Ventura, and to position units on the major freeways. The LA Basin is remarkably flat, and that makes the freeways the key terrain. They can be used to divide the area into sectors, they channelize movement between sectors, and armored vehicles can use them to dominate the neighborhoods on either side. That allows you to isolate the trouble spots and support pacification efforts.
Needless to say, we never launched that particular operation. In fact I got pretty roundly reemed out for starting the process since there was never any plan to use the regular military to intervene in the riots.
I would never propose a plan like this in a We're Alive scenario. The Fort Irwin we've seen doesn't have enough manpower to make a full scale invasion work, and Los Angeles, in and of itself, isn't an important enough objective to justify the effort. All of which is a long-winded way of saying I don't think the Army recon was a precursor to re-taking LA. They're looking for something, or someone.
Bookmarks