Eagle Guardian: The War of 2010

Oh, and on the subject of Posse Comitatusthere are ways around that. The act is there to prevent the US military from being deployed for law enforcement purposes; hunting down enemy soldiers on US soil could be seen as fighting a war rather than enforcing the law. Anyway, the act can be suspended by Congress and they would do so in a heartbeat if President Biden asked them to.

Marine one was a mistake in that if the events in europe would have came in few minutes earlier the secret service would have gates and Clinton pulled off the helicopter and set out in separate vechiles. also when are we going to start getting updates on the fighting in Europe.

RIP for the Marine One losses , but Biden will be a good leader.

First we have another update on the Spetsnaz and the initial airstrikes, but there will be plenty of tank battles before it's over! Plus air and naval battles of course.

One of the main worry’s I had when based in Germany during the Cold War was running in to these boys. When ever we were called out on Active Edge I always took my trusted Winchester Modle 97 as well as my issues SLR a pain to carry to weapons as a platoon commander but rifles jam pump actons very rarely do. After each and every call out my CO would call me a naughty boy and tell me not to take it.

Move on to Iraq and guess what SA80 Jammed Mr Winchester did not two big booms I lived the other two chaps at the wrong end did not big telling off yes but well worth it vindicated in the end.

Forty–Six

As there was in Washington, the GRU had placed a strike team inside London too. Like their counterparts in the American capital, this small team of Spetsnaz in the British capital were here to kill political targets. Moreover, they too were on a time restriction: they couldn’t act until it was four o’clock in the morning on August 7th. No matter what, they couldn’t do anything before that moment. The afternoon beforehand, they had been sneaked into an old and historic building on Whitehall known as Banqueting House. This was a place for functions – official and private – and was right inside the heart of the area around Whitehall which was on security lockdown since the emergency powers under the Civil Contingencies Act had come into play. There were only nine men who hid inside the building. Well-armed and well-trained they were, but the small number of them limited what they could do. Their orders were for them to do much: those who gave those orders were safe and far away. Overnight, when several of the GRU men had been tasked to conduct a reconnaissance of the area – they’d been here before when it wasn’t under lockdown but seeing the area when it was guarded was necessary – they had found that task near impossible. There was ongoing trouble in London. An unofficial and illegal anti-war march had taken place through the middle of the city and been broken up by the authorities. In the heat of the moment, things had turned very ugly and protesters run riot. They hadn’t gotten anywhere near Whitehall but all caused all sorts of trouble elsewhere. There had been disturbances elsewhere in London too on that Friday evening and into the night where criminals had taken advantage of the situation and started looting as well as violence. All of this trouble had aided the Spetsnaz on one hand but hurt them on the other. Security forces were called upon to support supressing trouble elsewhere yet those who remained were on high-alert less some troublemakers had evaded detection and made it to Whitehall. There were helicopters in the sky right over Whitehall with both infrared systems as well as spotlights looking down. Getting up onto the roof of Banqueting House nor moving far from there at ground level had been impossible. Furthermore, unbeknownst to the GRU, where firstly that defector had gone running to the French in Paris and the Dutch had gone after that ship in the North Sea, this increased security even more. One of the scouts attempted to enter the grounds of the Ministry of Defence’s Main Building, which lay behind Banqueting House, but found the area full of soldiers. The police were gone and the pre-scouted entry point had a British Army Land Rover (mounting a 12.7mm heavy machine gun too!) parked right in front of it. Policemen came inside Banqueting House and did a thorough job of searching for anyone inside… they weren’t quite thorough enough but it was a close call. Without voicing it, both the detachment commander and his deputy, experienced men who’d been in tougher spots than this yet didn’t except it here, considered abandoning the mission in the face of all of this security. Time ticked away though towards the allotted strike time. Their doubts eased when the policemen left the building and observations made outside showed the empty Whitehall with a near absence of soldiers in view.

At zero four hundred hours, as the war begun elsewhere in the world, Russian soldiers brought the war here to the very heart of Britain’s capital. In the darkness (though it would be light really soon), the Spetsnaz exited their hiding place. They formed a trio of three-man teams and moved forward. Whitehall was a major London thoroughfare for traffic but was closed now. Either side the roadway there were buildings where some had bare frontages yet others had a little cover available. There were no hedges to hide behind or parked vehicles. The GRU strike team was extremely exposed but had no choice: the limited cover was too why only nine men had been sent. One trio scaled the walls of the frontage of the Horse Guards buildings – to the left of the main entrance – and sought cover there on the western side. The two other teams scurried along the pavement on the eastern side and sought cover behind trees after getting over the low railings for the MOD grounds or hiding behind a memorial in front of the building. It was a horrible battlefield for them to be in. Those atop a flat roof on the House Guards structure had some protection but those down below them had really very little: for the latter, the second team looked at the so-far unused floodlights and the third team (sheltering around a memorial & statute) were worried about ricochets off the concrete. This had all been seen before by these men though not at a time like this when there was now a war on. Time to think about the extreme danger they were now in was short though. Whitehall came alive with activity. It was as if a switch was thrown. Those floodlights in the MOD grounds were illuminated (the men below them on the grass froze) and British soldiers started moving. Six sets of Russian eyes were on the gates to Downing Street. Vehicles coming out of there onto Whitehall, to cross over the road and head into the MOD or to go either north or south away from here, were what they were looking for. There were government ministers meeting in Downing Street who’d now be starting to evacuate. Some would go out through the rear, likely to an incoming helicopter to land in Horse Guards Parade – where the other three sets of eyes were now looking –, but others would come out of the front entrance. The evacuation commenced just as foreseen. And it was one met with gunfire.

Chaos ensured with that gunfire. It was disorganised but murderous mayhem. The shooting took place for nearly five minutes. The Russian plan went awry. They should have sent more men if they wanted this to work. The British weren’t prepared for this but they weren’t helpless victims. Only one ministerial car was hit, an armoured Jaguar. An RPG round struck it while rifle fire raked escorting vehicles. That car contained Liam Fox, Britain’s defence secretary and he was dragged from the burning Jaguar by his wounded bodyguards. One of the Russians put a round into him when he was exposed. They blew most of the top of his head off and – literally – claimed quite the scalp. Met. Police officers with both SO1 and CO19 (Specialist Protection and Specialist Firearms) returned fire and so did Territorial Army soldiers who were part of the London Regiment: these were men with D Company, the London Irish Rifles, who had the rotating duty into Whitehall this morning. The Spetsnaz were extremely exposed and surrounded with haste. Their own evacuation attempt saw them shot down. Out over on Horse Guards Parade, no helicopter came into land. There was gunfire outside and David Cameron was kept inside first 10 Downing Street and then taken below the Cabinet Office into a secure room. Other ministers – Clegg, Hague and May – were kept inside buildings when the shooting occurred out on Whitehall. Their police bodyguards weren’t taking them into the gantlet of gunfire. No helicopter was coming (there was one waiting to though) and the men atop of the Horse Guards building were spotted soon enough. They had sniper rifles, an RPG launcher and a SAM launcher along with their assault rifles – a lot of weaponry to lug about! – but there were only three of them. They were pinned down and had fire directed at them. A helicopter did show up but this was a Met. Police aircraft. It shouldn’t have flown into this firefight and was lucky that the Russians below were under fire for they otherwise would have engaged it with their SAM launcher. These guys couldn’t escape: between them and the rally point in St. James’ Park there were soon more soldiers. From out of Wellington Barracks, men of the Grenadier Guards (whom the London Regiment was assisting) joined in the firing against them. The Spetsnaz in Whitehall, the three groups of them, were doomed.

It was all over by twenty past four.

Seven Russians died in the firefight and another was shot when trying to escape while being given medical attention: ‘shot while trying to escape’ was actually true here though for a long time afterwards that would be regarded as an euphemism for an extrajudicial killing. As to the ninth man, he had been first thought dead. He’d taken a bullet to the head and lay bleeding on Whitehall. He was only unconscious though… his future wasn’t going to be one he would enjoy. British casualties were far higher. There were fifteen dead and three wounded. The dead included Fox with other casualties being soldiers, policemen and a couple of civil servants too. None of those injured had been shot. If they had been, they would have lost their lives. The bullets used by the GRU strike team were all laced with poison (as had been seen at the failed attack at Heathrow the week before) in their violation of international law. Whitehall was awash with security cameras and those caught the exchanges of gunfire and the explosion of the defence secretary’s car. However, there was no media presence at the time of the incident. As said, Whitehall was on lockdown and there were those media restrictions nationwide affecting the big news-gathering organisations. However, several independent journalists – that could mean anything from professional freelancers to amateur students – were covering the violence from that rioting which had reached the area of The Strand and close to Trafalgar Square which was ongoing from the night before. Some of them got camera stills or even video footage of distant activity. What occurred took place out of their view but close enough that the gunfire could be heard – automatic gunfire, a lot of it – and then there was the onrush of police and soldiers afterwards. What these journalists got was a confused picture of it all with grainy, jumpy images. Policemen shouting at them to get clear as well as soldiers running past with guns, heading for Downing Street, was the scale of their scoops. It would all be great ratings if presented to the public. Yet, who was going to publish or broadcast this all at this time?


Another Spetsnaz team were in Belgium. They went after the SHAPE complex in the Belgian countryside, where the military headquarters of NATO on this side of the ocean was located. SHAPE had a counterpart HQ at Norfolk in Virginia as well as the organisation’s political base being right inside the heart of Brussels. A holdover from the end of World War Two, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe was a real command centre and was located away from a population centre at the insistence of the Belgians back in the Sixties when it was transferred from its previous site in France. Back then, the Belgians had been worried about such a place being a target for an attack in wartime.

Ahead of the Russian assault at five o’clock in the morning, NATO’s commander had already left in an emergency evacuation. The Spetsnaz hadn’t seen him go. Even if he had been observed leaving, the GRU strike team here still had their orders. Hitting SHAPE was an operation that their superiors wanted. Why it couldn’t be hit with missiles, that wasn’t explained to the men on the ground. They were told to go in and kill as many of those inside as they could. That they did. Theirs was the biggest of all of the Spetsnaz teams at work at the moment of the war’s attack anywhere outside of the Baltic States and Poland (larger numbers were used there and supported by Russian Airborne Troops’ parachute forces) but this was still quite the task. The SHAPE complex was huge. Twenty-four men, no matter how prepared they were, were never going to have as big as an effect as a brace of cruise missiles fired by a distant bomber.

Gunfire and explosions erupted with the Russian assault. They split into four teams of six with two of those groups engaging surprised Belgian troops tasked for security duties with the other pair aiming to get deep inside the complex. They were looking for SACEUR and his senior people and had information on where he could be found. The Belgian troops – a second-line unit; the best troops from this small county were in transit through Germany and bound for Poland – did better than expected. Only the surprise factor, plus the intensity of the assault against them, caused the Russians to penetrate forward and into the complex. Regardless, the Belgian soldiers kept on fighting. They killed some of the Spetsnaz and caused others to be pinned down. Poison-tipped bullets defeated the efforts of those providing medical attention to save the lives of injured Belgians but still the others kept fighting against this ferocious enemy. Other gunfire against the GRU strike team came from NATO military personnel inside SHAPE. From across the alliance, officers and enlisted personnel were assigned here. For some it was a plump, no-work posting yet for others this was career advancement. These military personnel had access to weaponry. They couldn’t fight as a cohesive and trained unit and many ran for their lives instead, but others wanted to fight back and did so. In the darkness and with smoke swirling around from fires started, SHAPE was defended from within. Unfortunately, in the chaos, there was a lot of friendly fire where NATO personnel fired on one another believing they were shooting at Russians. Civilian staffers here were cut down while running for their lives instead of staying still and in any cover they could find. Several of the Spetsnaz fired smoke grenades to cover their attacks. Screams of ‘gas, gas!’ came from panicked NATO personnel due to pre-war briefings given on the expected use of chemical weapons by Russian forces – elsewhere, not here – in wartime. Like in London, it was pandemonium for the attackers and the defenders.

The Spetsnaz ended up with failure on their hands. Some of their number were dead and the rest split into one large group and three smaller groupings. They were all over the place and increasingly pinned down. The Belgians brought in more men and within the complex and there was increasingly better leadership shown from the mixed bag of NATO personnel here: men who’d been in a warzone before or just those who stepped up once in their life really achieved quite the big deal. A junior British officer, carrying a shotgun along with his SA80, made a heroic charge with half a dozen more following him to gun down that larger group of Russians and even take a live prisoner. It was madness, worthy of a Hollywood film, though the traditional understated reaction from the Briton in response to later platitudes would ruin such a script. This put an end to any Russian escape attempt to a distant rally point hidden in woodland a few miles away. The rest of the Spetsnaz were trapped and isolated from the others. They grabbed hostages and barricaded themselves in offices. This had been something done half the world away out in Oklahoma and would be done elsewhere (the London strike team tried to grab a female Met. Police officer before that young lady broke his face and sat back to watch him being shot by a solider there) with hostage taking. Here at SHAPE, those in civilian attire were preferred to any hostage in a military uniform. The taken hostages would be human shields. Escape was what the Russians wanted to do, using these people, but how was that to be done? The Belgians were bringing in more men. There was Spetsnaz activity in Brussels itself meant to draw off what Belgian special forces weren’t on their way to Poland but still other soldiers arrived here in the following hours. A stand off ensued and it was one which wasn’t going to be solved anytime soon. Meanwhile, dozens upon dozen of people, Russians and NATO personnel, lay dead and wounded all across SHAPE. In the headquarters had been in Brussels rather than near Casteau, there would have been even more loss of life.


The number of commandos sent to SHAPE was the largest of all of their multiple strike teams to open the war. The smallest was just a detachment of six men active at one of the places targeted in France. This wasn’t the Cold War and there weren’t hundreds or even thousands of them available. They struck through many NATO countries though not all. Moreover, there was more of a tactical focus for the Spetsnaz closer to where the frontlines were in Eastern Europe where they opened the way for advancing columns of troops there. These high-risk attacks taking place so far away would see those taking part looking likely beforehand – as then proved by events – to never make it back. Those who gave the orders sent these men (and women too in selected strikes) to cause chaos in distant lands knowing that they would lose such people. They could have hit Marine One, Downing Street, SHAPE and other places with missiles, but they wanted ‘situations’ to develop where there were hostage situations, hunts for escaped attackers and such like. A missile strike was over in seconds; a commando raid could tie up enemy resources for quite some time. The fear of more attacks, where NATO had to deploy guards all over the place and also chased shadows, was desired.

Mixed results came from these actions where the GRU sent its people far afield. Complete and utter success came with the destruction of a communications site in the Czech Republic where the team got away without loses (which actually wasn’t foreseen back in Moscow). In the eastern half of Germany, a Luftwaffe communications site at Schonewalde was attacked by a strike team who met wholescale failure where they were gunned down by an alert defence without doing any damage; again, the quick ending didn’t suit the GRU’s needs. Washington, Tinker AFB and London would all be rated as successes along with attacks made against CFB Trenton in Canada (a military transport hub which was very busy) and the Geilenkircken airbase in western Germany too. Brussels and The Hague witnessed gunfire where attacks against political targets there resulted in casualties and produced similar results to what occurred in London. Two further UK strikes were planned yet the one against RAF Waddington was called off two days beforehand when all of the targeted E-3 Sentry aircraft were deployed away from there; there was an assault at RAF Kinloss which resulted in a lot of mayhem and a hostage situation with the Spetsnaz pinned down. Then there was France. All three operations – one due to be undertaken by a team instructed to abort their Italy attack with days to spare and hit a secondary target in France instead – were blown at the last minute by that defector. This saw events take a different turn with the Russians on the defensive. Burning aircraft, alight buildings, destroyed communications equipment… and a lot of dead people. That was what the attacks occurred overall. Killing Obama would be the defining event of all of this for history yet those who’d come under fire elsewhere and survived only concentrated on what they had emerged alive from. The Spetsnaz were nasty fighters. They weren’t supermen and died like anyone else in the right circumstances, but they took many with them when doing so. Using poisoned bullets and taking hostages was what they did too to make sure that they would be remembered long afterwards with infamy.

Hostage taking is another big no no in international law but done here too.