Eagle Guardian: The War of 2010

These selections have already been made and we'll add them to the story. It's not a national unity government, I don't think the situation would require it, but it is strongly bi-partisan. The choices will be made fast and need Senate approval to go through.

Forty-Seven

The plan for Operation Slava required NATO airpower to be if not eliminated then at least significantly degraded in the opening hours of the war. Bear & Backfire bombers under the command of Russian long Range Aviation (DA) had the task of achieving this in conjunction with the Spetsnaz strikes. There had been some eleventh-hour hopes amongst the bomber crews that their mission would be cancelled and that war would be averted altogether, but most of the men flying the bombers new that it was far too late for that to happen and had prepared themselves accordingly. The operation which they were about to fly had been practiced on a smaller scale, but the coordination of so many aircraft flying sorties against so many different targets was something that was virtually impossible to prepare for. There were four groups of Bears & Backfires dedicated to a massive cruise missile strike which was to be initiated at right before dawn on August 7th.


Group #1 consisted of fourteen Bears. They had taken off from airfields around western Russia, and the pilots had skilfully grouped their aircraft into formation in the skies over Belarus.
These aircraft never strayed from Belarusian airspace as they began their mission. The bombers concealed themselves behind a cloud of electronic radar jamming in an effort to hide their presence from NATO ground-based radars in Poland and E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft further west over Polish airspace. NATO fighters – Polish F-16s and, somewhat ironically, Russian-built MiG-29s in the service of the Polish Air Force, along with American F-22A Raptors – patrolled the skies over the Polish-Belarusian border, but until the first shots were fired they were under strict orders not to enter Belarusian airspace, thus allowing the Bears to launch all of their missiles.

Those bombers each launched eight KH-55 cruise missiles, or as NATO would call them, AS-15 Kents. The missiles were loaded with high-explosive and runway-cratering warheads, designed to render NATO airfields inoperable at least on a temporary basis. They streaked away from the Bears and disappeared into the dawn sky, aimed at numerous airfields in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. Hundreds of NATO warplanes were crammed into those airfields and soon after the initial missile launches, an enormous effort was made to scramble those aircraft and get them away from their bases. Though NATO planners back in Brussels didn’t expect the initial strike to involve nuclear weapons, it was a possibility that had to be considered and planned for. A pair of NATO AWACS birds, one over North-Western Poland and another over Prague, detected over a hundred inbound cruise missiles and vectored in the Falcons, Fulcrums, and Raptors to intercept them; it was too late to go after the bombers. Splashing those missiles was what counted now! Radar and communications jamming by Russian air and ground elements, as well as the sheer speed of the inbound Kents made that a difficult task though. Plenty of missiles were shot down before they could reach their targets, firstly by fighters and then by American and German-manned Patriot missile batteries set up around major Allied airfields in Eastern Europe. Over two thirds of the missiles got through the hasty NATO defence effort, however, and slammed into their targets.

Poland saw its 21st Tactical Air Base, located right outside Świdwin, damaged by missile strikes. Jets from the air forces of Germany, France, Great Britain and the United States were all stationed their alongside Polish aircraft, and explosions devastated numerous aircraft hangers, fuel and ammunition storage dumps, and barracks as well. Similarly, the 22nd Tactical Air Base in Malbork was hit hard by the Kents, along with the 23rd Air Base further south near Mińsk Mazowiecki. Finally, the 31st Tactical Air Base received the attention of Kents, with those missiles cratering the main runway of the airbase and killing dozens of servicemen and women.

Further south, Zvolenska Air Base near Prague was hit. That facility, further from the frontlines that other bases, was a focal point for NATO support aircraft, such as tankers and electronic warfare planes; many of these valuable jets had gotten off the ground in time to escape destruction, but terrible damage was still wrought. The final target for missiles launched from the Bears over Belarus was Presov Air Base down in Slovakia. Spanish F/A-18 Hornets as well as German Tornado strike jets were stationed there, and several of these aircraft that had been unable to scramble in time were destroyed, while fires raged as missiles hit their hardened aircraft shelters and supply facilities.

This attack had been largely successful despite the failure of the Kents to knock out any of the AWACS planes deployed in the Czech Republic. It wasn’t truly devastating, but was more of a nuisance attack aimed at rocking the alliance back on its heels, levelling the playing field for Russia’s smaller air force in a tactical sense. Many buildings were left burning and runways cratered, but all of the targets struck by Group #1 were still capable of launching combat operations against Russia.


Group #2 consisted of six of the smaller, faster Tu-22M Backfires. They were far more survivable aircraft, being capable of flying at supersonic speeds and having a far smaller radar signature than the Bears did. They carried shorter-ranged cruise missiles, with each bomber carrying ten KH-15s as opposed to the larger KH-55s. Named the AS-16 Kickback by NATO intelligence, these missiles had originally been designed to carry nuclear warheads, but today they had purely conventional payloads. The Backfires launched their missiles at four targets in Denmark and Northern Germany. Already, Luftwaffe Typhoon fighters were on their way to intercept, and the Russian jets went to afterburners and fled back eastwards immediately after firing their missiles. Still, it wasn’t enough to save two of the aircraft, which plummeted into the Baltic Sea after being taken out by long-range air-to-air missiles fired by the German fighters.

Screaming in over the coast, numerous Kickbacks slammed into Aalborg and Karup Air Bases, housing F-16s of the Royal Danish Air Force. There were other bases in Denmark that could have been targeted, but these facilities were seen as the most vital and given the smaller number of missiles allocated to this element of Operation Slava, planners at the Russian Defence Ministry wanted to hit those important bases first; other targets in Denmark could be taken out at a later date if that was deemed necessary.

The RDAF was unable to shoot down any of those incoming missiles, and all twenty-six of them hit their targets. Men and women dived for cover as they impacted, with the massive explosions sending fragments of burning metal flying into the darkness. Dozens of personnel on the ground died at Aalborg and Karup, but nevertheless, many of the Royal Danish Air Force F-16s were able to take to the skies after a brief period of reconstitution, with few of the aircraft themselves being destroyed.

More missiles came in over the Baltic coastline of Germany. They were launched at Schleswig Air Base as well as Rostock-Laage International Airport, which despite being a civilian airport also held a military role. The objective of targeting these to airfields was to harass NATO air forces there and prevent them from intervening further north or east. There were more German Tornados based at both Schleswig and Rostock-Laage, as well as US Air Force F-16s and some French Mirage-2000s. Most of the jets escaped destruction either by getting into the air or by remaining in hardened aircraft shelters. Some didn’t though. At the latter target, a trio of American F-16s was annihilated by a Kickback that struck the centre aircraft on a taxiway, whilst a German C-130 transport plane – thankfully empty apart from the crew – was struck by another missile at Schleswig Air Base.


Over the North Sea, Group #3 was not so lucky.

The six Bears that had been assigned to strike targets in the Netherlands and Western Germany would never launch their missiles. A pair of Royal Netherlands Air Force F-16s flying Combat Air Patrol (CAP) along the coastline were vectored toward the bombers, which were totally helpless against fighters crewed by well-trained pilots with excellent air-to-air missiles at their disposal.

The two F-16s attained missile locks on the lead Bears and fired their AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAMs) at them. Predictably, the two lumbering Russian bombers were knocked out of the sky in a ball of fire. Another bomber was shot down by a third AMRAAM. Then the Dutch fighters moved in, this time firing heat-seeking missiles at a much closer range, knocking down another two Bears.

The final Bear pilot jinked and dived his aircraft in a hopeless effort to avoid destruction; he was shot down by cannon fire from the F-16s which sheared off the bomber’s wing and sent it spiralling into the North Sea. Other F-16s were scrambled both from Holland and from Belgium, but to the disappointment of their pilots, the Bears over the North Sea had all be neutralised.

Not one single missile would strike Holland or Western Germany that morning thanks to the efforts of the Royal Netherlands Air Force, who had achieved the first air-to-air kills of World War III.


Eight more Bears flew down over Norway and neared the airspace of the United Kingdom. They had avoided US Navy and Royal Norwegian Air Force fighter patrols, aided by the successful jamming efforts of electronic warfare aircraft all the way back over the Kola Peninsula. The Atlantic Ocean was a very big place indeed and avoiding Allied air defences was something that the Bear pilots had practiced countless times. These Bears, like the ones that had struck at Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia moments earlier, carried the longer-ranged AS-15 Kents as their primary (and only) weapons. Launching their missiles from over a thousand kilometres away from British airspace, those bombers were easily able to evade any sort of defence that the Royal Air Force could have mounted had they seen the bombers coming. Radar stations in Scotland and along the coast of East Anglia tracked the incoming missiles and passed that information onto the UK’s own air defence network as well as the American Patriot missile battery commanders stationed around US Air Force bases in Britain. A trio of targets were to be struck that summer morning. British and American air defences reduced the number of incoming missiles by over a quarter, but far too many would still get through.

RAF Lakenheath, despite its name, was a US Air Force facility, housing the F-15Cs and F-15Es of the US 48th Fighter Wing, making it a crucial target; a dozen missiles hit this massive American airbase, lighting up the Norfolk countryside with explosions. Tragically, a C-17 carrying men from the US Air Force was hit as it taxied towards a hardened aircraft shelter, with that explosion killing eighty-seven men and women; more damage was done when the main control tower took a direct missile hit.

RAF Fairford, another American-run base, housed B-52H strategic bombers belonging to US Air Force Global Strike Command. Here the defenders had done well and the bombers had been sheltered to the best standard that they could have been; none of the ancient B-52s – older, like the Bears, than most of the men and women who flew them – were destroyed although some suffered minor damage. However, significant damage was done to the airbase facilities, with numerous taxiways and runways cratered and buildings destroyed.

Finally, RAF Marham, one of the Royal Air Forces’ largest facilities, was hit. Royal Air Force Typhoons and Tornados took to the skies to avoid destruction, leaving personnel on the ground to fend for themselves; an effort was made by RAF pilots to intercept the Kents but little could ultimately be done with those missiles flying so low and at such high speeds. Hangers and storage depots crumpled under massive explosions and yet more damage was done, but Marham, like most other targets, remained a functional airbase.


Russia's initial strike had bene largely successful despite the annihilation of Group #3 by the Dutch. Russian planners knew they weren’t going to be able to destroy NATO’s air forces with cruise missiles alone; the idea of the strike was to wreak as much havoc as possible and cause casualties on a large scale, slowing down the pace of NATO air operations and buying time for the Russian Ground Forces to push out into Baltic States, Poland and Norway.

In that respect, the goal had been achieved.

Brilliant

Looks like it'll be a good week.

I’d imagine there will be the first US declaration of war wince WWII... The air attacks are bad enough, but even normally doveish Democrats will be absolutely apoplectic over the events in DC and the Russians wiping their asses with the Geneva conventions.

I can’t say enough about how brilliant this is guys. Great work. And the prospect of two updates a day? Amazing.

Forty–Eight

NATO fighters and even the US Army’s Patriot missiles could engage air-launched cruise missiles fired by Russian bombers yet there was no defence available against shorter-ranged ballistic missiles fired from mobile launchers on land. The speed, ballistic arc and the closeness of launch point to target area negated any defence against them. From out of Russia proper, the Kaliningrad region and Belarus, missiles came. They crashed into a wide variety of targets through the Baltic States and Poland. The missiles used were the newer Iskanders and the older Tochkas. There were a lot of them used and fired off in a series of short barrages with a few at a time. The gaps between the waves of incoming missiles occurred when the mobile launchers from which they were fired changed locations to relaunch. However, different units were involved in this and it allowed for an extended period of launches where they came with an overall regular fury. In the end though, the missiles stopped coming. Russia didn’t have an endless supply of them. Over a hundred had been fired as a target list was worked down and while there were more, these were being saved for further missions in the following hours, days and weeks. The barrage was over with but only for now.

It hadn’t been perfect. There had been all sorts of problems with the attack. It was all very complicated where a strict series of orders was meant to be followed. Incompetence, faulty equipment and just plain bad luck had affected the firings of them. The Iskanders were used as magic bullets to hit the most-important targets and did well yet not all of them worked as advertised. A lot of disappointment came with the Tochkas. In recent years, many systems within the launchers had been upgraded and the crews had had much recent training. These weapons had long been stored though and not all of them had been stored correctly. The range on these missiles had been something that the Russians had sought to artificially increase ahead of their use. During the build-up to military action, the rocket brigades transferred towards Russia’s western borders and into Belarus had been kept some distance back from the border with the launchers & supporting vehicles at staging sites. Over the night of August 6th / 7th, they had moved forward. They were tasked to go right up to the frontiers of the nations which they fired into and launch from there. Detachments of personnel with radio beacons – simple technology, nothing fancy – were waiting at pre-scouted sites. This gave the missiles that extra range. Not all firing teams reached those sites though. There would be hell to pay for them; couldn’t they read a damn map? Accuracy within the missiles themselves was good, especially the Iskanders, but never perfect. Some of these expensive weapons were wasted where they missed their targets by distances great and small.

Like the ballistic missiles, an artillery barrage came. For decades, NATO military personnel had been trained to ride out Soviet and then Russian artillery barrages in wartime scenarios. How do you train men for such a thing though when Soviet-Russian doctrine was to use so many guns all at once? There were NATO troops who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years and been under fire before… but nothing compared to what the Russians unleashed on the first morning of the war. Like they did with their missile-launchers, they brought their artillery forward to sites right up on the border in the hours of darkness – there were fantastic errors of navigation here too – and then opened fire. Barrages commenced with batteries and battalions opening fire and then motoring off to new sites. The Russians (and the Belorussians too) used self-propelled weapons for this while keeping their less-mobile, towed guns back for the time being. What they feared was counter-battery fire yet they weren’t firing off one shell and retreating: instead they fired many before departing for a new location. It wasn’t just shells being sent westwards either. These artillery units contained howitzers as well as heavy mortars and multiple-barrelled rocket-launchers (MLRS) too. The crash of the guns was continuous. The first big barrages were followed by weaker ones in terms of numbers of projectiles fired though it was kept up in the form of putting a lot of artillery upon the targets. Modern artillery was capable of a lot. Howitzers would raise their barrels high to fire their first shell and then slowly lower it each time as another was fired. Done right, this would bring many shells down on one target all at once and from the same gun. The MLRS’ fired a pre-loaded ‘package’ of rockets and had another set moved into place with ease to fire them off: there was no individual loading of twelve or sixteen rockets ahead of firing. Different types of warheads were used from conventional high-explosive fragmentation projectiles to anti-armour submunitions to aerial-scattered mines. Some weapons blew up on contact with the ground, others detonated at various altitudes. Some ‘special’ artillery was used as well in the form of a sort-of MLRS system known as the TOS-1. This was often called by the Russians a flamethrower. It fired thermobaric and fuel-air explosive rockets in a thirty-projectile barrage. Few of these systems were available and their range was short, but they had quite the effect where used.

The missiles and artillery were used in a tactical form. They were fired up and down the frontlines over which war was about to come yet also stretching backwards while retaining the tactical nature of their use still. The Isklanders were especially useful in the rear though some of the big howitzers could stretch pretty far too. Other weapons were used closer-in. The aim of this all was to blast open entrance ways into the Baltic States and Poland for attacking units as well as to pin down enemy units out of the immediate vicinity of where those attacks were coming so they could be later moved against. Heads were to be kept down and those on the receiving end left frightened as well. That was the aim here: shock and awe. Once the big opening barrages were done with, the artillery systems would move with attacking forces going forward and firing from inside occupied land. They would be broken up too where attached to operational commands rather than centralised. Some of them would be going very far forward indeed with the majority of the attacking forces who were now kept back from the frontlines and watching from afar the crescendo of fire on the horizon which all of this created.

Others were moving forward though under the cover of this barrage. Scouting units were striking out ahead and penetrating the borders to enter hostile territory ahead. There were armoured columns as well as dismounted men on foot (many Spetsnaz teams). Others used light vehicles, helicopters and transport aircraft: with the latter, no big parachute jumps were made even with two airborne units in-place but smaller ones were made still. Russian and Belorussian forces crossed into Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. Deterrence had failed and NATO countries were being directly invaded.


In the days leading up to the war, when many were convinced that it was certain to come regardless of what was done, others had been determined to see it stop. Extraordinary diplomatic efforts were made through international organisations, bi-lateral contacts and even unsupported lone contacts. Games had been played by the Kremlin in some of this too where they tried to deceive many – meeting success in some places and failure elsewhere – that the crisis could be averted. At SHAPE in Belgium (where war came directly to them) and also at the CJTF-East headquarters in Krakow, there was none of that delusion and false hope. The generals and political staffers assigned reported back to their governments that from what information was being gathered and funnelling into them, war was coming. This was listened to by some in distant capitals yet, shamefully, ignored in others: there were just some people who couldn’t, wouldn’t accept that fact ahead of it actually happening. From SHAPE and Krakow, they saw a massive gathering of enemy forces positioned to the east. Moscow and Minsk were play-acting with their fears of a NATO invasion – who could imagine such a thing? – and, it was decided, getting ready to attack. They saw all of those missile-launchers (being taken in by many inflatable dummies too though) and massed artillery. They also observed all of the enemy armour present. Russian maskirovka efforts here to conceal what they had fooled NATO intelligence. It was not though in the manner directly foreseen. NATO overestimated what was present. All of that moving of equipment around and all of the false radio signals – low-hanging fruit for the West’s ace in the hole which was its intelligence-gathering capability – gave a false impression that what was present was larger than it actually was. The joint Russian-Belorussian force was big but not a dozen heavy divisions big! On their intelligence charts, NATO staffers had given their opponent an army which they could only field with much more time. The intelligence was collected properly but analysed incorrectly. In some ways, it was better to be safe than sorry. Later, NATO would correct itself here and realise that all of those mobilisation-only units were yet to move away from garrisons and not in the field at the beginning of the war. Until then though, they were believed to be active.

The outbreak of war brought immediate orders in reaction to this perceived greater strength. Those orders were for NATO forward units to withdraw. It was to be a fighting withdrawal, and one to bloody the enemy to make them pay dearly for moving forward, but a withdrawal it would be nonetheless. It was empathically not a retreat! NATO forces were spread too thin and they could pull back to concentrate. As the Russians and Belorussians spread out, NATO would bring its air and ground units into play in a joint effort. The invaders would be shown what combined arms warfare was really done.

Not all NATO units under CJTF-East command, led by the US Army’s General Petraeus would retreat – some of them just couldn’t –, but the majority would. Admiral Stavridis had this already as standing policy and from his aircraft above Belgium (far away from the gunfight at his headquarters below), the signal was sent to Petraeus. There had been a respectfully dispute over this in recent days where Petraeus, further forward and personally unsure that the Russians had this in them, had questioned Stavridis on this approach. It did make strategic sense and was something that SACEUR’s subordinate wanted to do in reaction to an incoming attack, but he didn’t want to withdraw so fast straight away. He had in fact argued that many forward-deployed units should be withdrawn earlier while at the same time keeping others in-place to ride out the first opening Russian attack. The information that SHAPE had had been causing alarm there though. It was realised by both men that this was going to cause problems of a diplomatic nature. The Poles were going to go mad as their territory was abandoned to occupation… and the Baltic States governments were going to see themselves physically cut off. Petraeus was able to get a concession from Stavridis where for as long as possible the Suwalki Gap would be contested – two good units in the form of the US 2nd Cav’ and the Polish brigade of paratroopers – in a mobile battle, but elsewhere there would be that withdrawal. They weren’t going far, it wasn’t as if NATO was pulling back to Germany or anything like that, but the forward positions were to be withdrawn from from as the Russian-Belorussian force moved forward to take ground.

The orders went out. Some units didn’t get them while others did and chose to ignore them: in the latter category, that was many Polish formations. Radio jamming of signals came alongside refusals to retreat from sovereign soil. Elsewhere though, the majority of NATO units forward deployed started to withdraw. The Allied Rapid Reaction Corps, spread across northern Poland, pulled its British and most of its Polish troops back. The Americans with the US V Corps all retreated but one of the two Polish divisions there didn’t pull back away from the Belorussian border; the German airmobile brigade there didn’t get the order due to intensive jamming as well as being in the way of several successful Iskander hits on its own communications. This was Poland; things were even worse on the ground in the Baltic States. Here there was little room to withdraw and no willingness on the part of the local forces to do so. Command arrangements here were poor in the form of individual brigades all reporting to Krakow directly rather than through a divisional or corps headquarters. This was something which had been put off being sorted out with politics a factor in it. Even if it had been, so many local commanders here refused to take a step back. They would defend every square meter of their hard-won territorial integrity! With them up here though, in Estonia and Latvia, the Americans had their paratroopers and there was that mixed NATO brigade. They were both right in the firing line of tanks coming at them from ahead and with the (false) expectation that soon enough Russian airborne and amphibious troops would be striking at them from the rear. They were quickly going to be cut off with no one coming to rescue them. What a bad day they were about to have.

Cracking update!
Those poor Danes in Copenhagen waking up to that mess.