Eagle Guardian: The War of 2010

Seventy–Six

The Norwegian’s Brigade Nord was in a bad shape after suffering hundreds of casualties and being forced to withdraw from Lakselv back to Alta in the face of the Russian cross-border ground offensive across Finnmark. They had thought that they could have held the 200th Motor Rifle Brigade back at Lakselv, even with there being another Russian Army brigade behind, but that had been proved impossible when the strong entry of external fire in the form of missiles and heavy bombers were used against them. They’d pulled back to Alta. This was a better position and in the manner which they did, the Norwegians spread the Russians out. It was supposed to be impossible for the Brigade Nord to be followed when taking the shortcut across the wilderness: the 200th Brigade was meant to follow Highway-8 and take the long way around to reach Alta. However, the Russians wouldn’t play by those rules. They took the shortcut too, smashing through Norwegian attempts to stop them with raiding units. Russian heavy guns as well as armed helicopters pounded Norwegian special forces teams to pieces and engineers cleared obstacles. The Russians came on towards Alta aiming this time to finish off the Brigade Nord for good. The 200th Brigade was tasked to do this while the following 25th Motor Rifle Brigade dodged the fight, went around Alta and headed further east. The Battle of Alta was fought not the way that the Norwegians wanted to do it. It wasn’t one which they controlled like they did at Lakselv. All of the 200th Brigade was thrown into battle with a clear aim to destroy the Norwegians with heavy losses of their own expected. In short, the 200th Brigade was now deemed expendable with the 25th Brigade being available. The Norwegians had their tanks, armoured vehicles and especially infantry in the way of a furious Russian assault on August 10th. The brigade commander was already dead and their own artillery had suffered losses even worse then their other components. The acting commander wasn’t just focused on what was at his front, he was looking to the rear too. Alta had been the rear-area field base for the Brigade Nord’s fight at Lakselv and was full of supplies brought forward before the war and also ahead of the Russian forces who’d taken Bardufoss Air Station spreading out from their overrunning Norwegian garrisons back in the Troms region. Those on-hand supplies were running out and the supply line was cut by that enemy presence there right on their main supply line. Ammunition expenditure, along with everything else in terms of consumables, was way above projections. An airlift into Alta’s airport had bene promised but had yet to take place: it was now being delayed until tomorrow. How much could be brought in by what few C-130 Hercules transports there were available? Not much was the answer there. That second Russian brigade was also observed not moving direct on Alta but surely aiming to slip past. Not one to disobey orders, orders which said he was to hold until relieved either by the US Marines or the Anglo-Dutch marines, the lieutenant-colonel fought on. He was hoping to see the strategic situation reversed with his country’s NATO allies winning a victory where they were fighting away to the west.

Then the Russians dropped a huge fuel-air bomb on Alta in the late afternoon. It exploded in mid-air behind the fighting outside the town. The detonation above the airport was immense. Physical destruction radiated outwards into Alta. Up to a thousand people were killed, two thirds of them civilians. The airport was unusable and Norwegian supplies at their logistics base lost. The use of such a weapon was meant to intimidate the Norwegians into surrendering as well as causing all of that sudden destruction. They weren’t going to give in but neither could they stay. Finally, orders came for another withdrawal to be made. This time it wouldn’t be taking a short step back to another nearby position but a full-on retreat out of Finnmark. The Brigade Nord was instructed to abandon Alta and keep going, getting ahead of the Russian 25th Brigade too, and keep going to head towards NATO forces to the west. The strategic situation there hadn’t improved but only gotten worse. If the Norwegians stayed here, they were doomed. They could only survive by escaping and linking up with friendly forces. The commander did as ordered and started making his escape. The Brigade Nord could only live to fight another day, to avenge all of its losses, if it made it away successfully. Alta was abandoned with haste. Civilians there, but also Norwegian military wounded too, were left behind. Nothing else could be done on this note. The race was on for the Brigade Nord to make it out of Finnmark before it was crushed when inside.


At Bardufoss, the US Marines remained unable to take the airbase away from the Russians. Their Sixth Army had been given the addition of a further brigade of airmobile troops – the 31st Guards Air Assault, which should have gone to Copenhagen – to join those already operating on the ground in the region of Troms. Those men linked up with the 11th Air Assault Brigade starting early on Tuesday morning. Russian transports flew in and out of Bardufoss, making quick turnarounds after long and low-altitude flights to reach here, and then went back to airfields in the Kola Peninsula to get more of the brigade. Infantry units rather than light armoured vehicles or heavy guns were brought in. These reinforcements were fast despatched right to the frontlines. This was their first time in battle and they were thrown into it. They were fighting US Marines, so many of them veterans. It should have been a fight which the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade should have won. The numbers were against them though. The Russians were also now starting to conduct tactical air operations out of Bardufoss. It had taken them several days to get set-up, but they had Sukhoi-25 attack-fighters flying from here now. They flew low like the transports had done, between the mountains. Two came down in crashes where pilots misjudged the terrain and another pair were killed by US Marine FA-18 fighters flying from Evenes Airport away to the south. The others were making a difference though. They didn’t strike at the frontlines but rather behind them through the American’s immediate rear areas. Stinger missiles rose to meet them and failed to get a single one. Missile operators had had clear shots and their weapons should have found their targets. However, they failed to. The reason: jamming pods attached to the Su-25s with equipment tailor-made to block kills from the Stinger specifically.

The Russians were holding their ground where they fought the Americans. Positioned facing south and also west, they were no longer advancing. Their men dug-in and withered the storm of American fire power. There were heavy guns, helicopters and aircraft used against them which the Russians had to ride-out the barrage of ordnance used from each of those. Stuck in position, they did just this. They were battered and battered again but held, often because they had no other choice: getting out of whatever cover they had meant dying. US Marines on foot and supported by tanks tried to overcome these defences. They thus had to expose themselves on the advance to counterfire. They made progress in this yet not enough. The Russians had some heavy weapons of their own and while not as many, nor as well-experienced in using them, it was enough to keep the Americans back. A whole day was spent by the US Marines in trying to crack open a strengthening Russian defensive position for little appreciable gain. They did manage to several times shut down air operations at Bardufoss but there were many Russian airfield engineers there who kept on making patch-up repairs. Bardufoss was thus re-opened each time. A couple of transports made hard landings and wouldn’t fly again yet others, with ‘rough field’ capabilities, were able to get in and out again. Later in the day, with as many riflemen as they had now all sent in, heavy guns and more missiles were sent to Bardufoss instead. There had been an increase in American air attacks where they got through several attacks using AV-8Bs – the Harriers dodging anti-aircraft missiles – so the Russians made low-altitude air drops of those heavy weapons. The Americans were amazed at the Russian capabilities here in being able to fast adapt to a changing situation. That they could do all of this was known, it was just misunderstood that it could be done with such haste. The thinking had been that the ‘dense-headed’ Russians would stick to ‘the plan’ that they had and always wait for higher orders, all the way to the very top, before making any changes. They kept changing things up though. Therefore, even with their capable forces, and a lot of external fire support, the Americans weren’t going to be taking Bardufoss back any time soon. Russian casualties mounted but they held on. Bardufoss was theirs to keep.


Operation Atlas was the name given to the joint British-Dutch deployment to Tromsø and the surrounding area which had started yesterday. The whole thing had been undertaken with haste. It was poorly planned and based on the assumption of it working due to expected successes by allies elsewhere. It was ultimately a failure which culminated in Russia winning a victory. Things could have gone a hell of a lot worse than they did though.

The Russian Naval Infantry getting ashore – if not on Tromsøya Island then nearby – and the Russian Navy taking out that American carrier destroyed the chances of success for Atlas. Tromsø was held by NATO marines linking up with Norwegian Home Guard troops yet the 61st Naval Infantry Brigade had made their landings nearby and were soon on the advance. Only half of the 61st Brigade’s tanks were on the mainland but those that survived everything thrown at them when aboard the landing ships were on land and now on the move. They followed Highway-8 away from their landing sites. This saw them bypass Tromsø – NATO was holding the bridge and the tunnel linking Tromsøya to the mainland – and go south. Almost twenty T-80s, along with a couple of dozen wheeled & tracked infantry carriers, struck down towards where this road met Highway-6 far out ahead. The junction of the two was at the town of Nordkjosbotn, at the bottom of the Balsfjorden. It was there that British and Dutch marines had been sent late yesterday. There was Z Rifle Company from 45 Commando as well as most of the Dutch 22 Raiding Squadron (another company-sized force) at Nordkjosbotn who’d been sent here by multiple helicopter lifts. The rest of the Royal Marines were at Tromsø and the remainder of the Dutch aboard ships some distance away. These men had been sent here to stop a Russian infantry assault by helicopters or maybe a ground column of armoured personnel carriers laden with riflemen. They weren’t expecting tanks, especially not as many as showed up: intelligence had said that the Russian tanks had bene lost aboard sunken ships. However, warning came in good time of the approaching T-80s when they were spotted from above. Air strikes were promised to stop them and there was also the assurance given that a SBS raiding team would block the road with a rockfall when linking-up with some Norwegian stay-behind troops to do that. Neither occurred. The T-80s approached Nordkjosbotn. Using all weapons at-hand, the NATO marines made a stand. They didn’t have a chance though. Nordkjosbotn was flattened in the fight which lasted three hours of a beautiful day where the Russians dug out those defenders with tanks and infantry. The senior officer on the ground was the Dutch major who made repeated calls again and again for assistance. He was told that none was coming: Russian attacks were occurring elsewhere in the Tromsø area. His men and the Royal Marines had been sent here when told they would be supported. He was furious that that promise had been broken. For as long as they could, until it was just pointless to keep on doing so, the British and Dutch fought on. Finally, they surrendered. A breakout was made first by a dozen men under the command of a Royal Marines captain, covered by a rear-guard, and they would escape into the Norwegian wilderness – maybe they could make it to the Swedish frontier? – but everyone else was left dead and prisoner. Russian forces had control of Nordkjosbotn afterwards. The line of retreat for Brigade Nord away to the east was cut. Link-up between the Russian Naval Infantry here and Russian Airborne Troops operating from Bardufoss was now impossible to stop.

The Battle of Nordkjosbotn occurred when other forces involved in Atlas were under attack. Without the expected American carrier out in the Norwegian Sea providing air cover, those land-based aircraft, already whittled down by several days of combat, were on their own. There were Norwegian F-16s, US Marines FA-18s and RAF Typhoons. Those Typhoons numbered only nine aircraft: No. 3 Squadron had lost two Typhoons in combat (two SAMs, not fighters) while another hadn’t left its Lincolnshire base due to a mechanical issue. The nine were extremely busy. Flying from Bodo Air Station, some distance south, they were called upon multiple times to engage Russian fighters in the sky and also to attack ground targets. Today, Sukhoi-27s showed up in number over Northern Norway and focused on Tromsø. Another Typhoon was lost in combat with them. The RAF would claim two air-to-air kills in reply and were going for more when the four Typhoons in the sky found that there were eight more Su-27s still left in the sky. Outnumbered, they were pulled out of the fight. While these high-altitude clashes occurred, other Russian aircraft came low into what those on the ground and aboard ships called ‘bomb alley’. Tromsøya and the waters immediately around it, plus also those westwards, were all part of the ocean-facing reaches of the Balsfjorden. Sukhoi-24s flew in following the water, avoiding missile teams on land, to attack NATO troops on the ground and their ships too. HMS Cumberland, a Royal Navy frigate, was hit (she’d survive) while many more bombs were dropped on Tromsøya. The Russian Air Force didn’t have the aircraft numbers to keep this up forever, especially when a Starstreak missile got one of those Su-24s: jammers fitted to these aircraft to guard against Stingers couldn’t stop the Starstreaks. The Russian Navy then sent aircraft into bomb alley to follow the opening air attacks. From their distant carrier, they flew in several flights of Sukhoi-33 multi-role strike-fighters. Bombs were dropped on Tromsø Airport from where NATO helicopters were flying but their real targets were NATO ships, especially the amphibious ships known to be west of Tromsø. HMS Albion was hit again, worse than yesterday. This time a big Kh-41 missile slammed into the ship after another one was successfully destroyed before it could join in. The Albion was left alight. A heroic effort would commence to save her and minimize casualties yet she was out of action for the time being. Air defence missiles from the Dutch frigate HNLMS De Ruyter took down a second pair of incoming Su-33s using its Evolved Sea Sparrow system: the Russian pilots, overworked and under pressure, didn't see the stealthy ship until they were too late and in firing range. This was an excellent achievement and much needed: if not, more Kh-41s could have easily hit the already-damaged transport HNLMS Johan de Witt or slammed into the Albion or the undamaged HMS Ocean.

These NATO amphibious ships had a couple of other warships in addition to the Cumberland and the De Ruyter as escorts yet they were exposed where they were. The Russians were expected to come back again and again. They could make a submarine attack or even have their Northern Fleet fire cruise missiles from far away if they could get an accurate fix on these ships. Staying here meant that that was sure to happen. How long before those Russian pilots who survived NATO air defences managed to get home and report where they could be found? Would the Typhoons or Norwegian F-16s be available to stop that and could they? When under attack, these ships, nor those forces deployed on Tromsøya, were unable to support the operations of ground forces. 42 Commando and the rest of 45 Commando were off the ships already while the majority of the Dutch and also 3rd Commando Brigade supporting assets were still afloat; the attached British Army infantry battalion 1 Rifles was over at Andoya. The whole brigade had yet to reach land: now they were unable to with all of these incoming attacks. Nordkjosbotn was lost rather than held as a blocking position. The Russians had taken losses to their marines but had enough ashore to do what they were away from Tromsø directly.

Operation Atlas had failed.

An evacuation was ordered. From Tromsø, those Royal Marines there (plus selected Dutch forces) would be withdrawn. NATO was having to abandon its position here due to enemy action close and far. That evacuation would take place overnight and the British and Dutch would try to evacuate back to Andoya, getting as many men out as possible with as few losses taken as they could. This wasn’t going to be easy.

Brutal. And Brilliant. But the Russian Air Force can’t maintain this op tempo for much longer. The Arsenal of Democracy is mobilizing! Uncle Joe will lead us to victory!

I think Crackpot means Uncle Joe as in Joe Biden. I assume he means the sobriquet ironically too... well... I assume!

Of course. Though perhaps I am not as witty as I think I am.

Great story!

Yup, but they won't be able to manage that on any other fronts, where the Russians have real dedicated anti-air.

Tajikistan is being used. Belarus and Transnistria are the only current 'real' Russian allies though Armenia and Kazakhstan are on-side, just not fully engaged as Tajikistan is.
Others, as we will see below, are soon to join with Moscow though.

Seventy-Nine

NATO airstrikes into enemy territory had continued since the first night of Operation Eclipse. After the disaster that had been August 9th, when countless European targets had been devastated by Russian cruise missiles, 1ATAF command was under increasing pressure to take further action to prevent this from happening again. Yesterday, August 10th, had been another dark day for NATO, and the continuation of Operation Eclipse was marred by the need for many aircraft to be diverted to focus their efforts on reversing NATO’s increasingly desperate situation on the ground. After the past two days, the darkest in the Alliances long history, the strategic air campaign to win control of the skies of Eastern Europe and to destroy Russia’s logistical ability to supply its troops was back on.

With more aircraft arriving at staging sites in Germany and Poland, NATO commanders felt more confident in their ability to resume Operation Eclipse at its original pace. Defence-suppression or SEAD efforts were again the responsibility of the 31st Fighter Wing with its F-16CGs, as well as the Luftwaffe’s Tornado ECR’s. The Italians had some of those aircraft in their inventory and SACEUR would have welcomed them joining in the effort but for now, at least, that wasn’t going to happen. An immense amount of effort was put into destroying SAM sites across Belarus and in Kaliningrad also. These missions met much success in finding and killing enemy missile batteries but plenty of SAMs evaded destruction and several NATO aircraft were shot down by their intended prey. The next targets to be hit were, naturally, the major Belarusian and Russian airfields that could be located. These same facilities had been bombed night after night, along with civilian airports, but repairing them was a relatively quick task if a hazardous one. The Belarusians were beginning to use POWs as forced labourers when it came to clearing up targets bombed by NATO, in the hopes that this would prevent the Alliance from utilising delayed-action munitions. The same tactics were used as on the first night of the air campaign, when the less-stealthy F-15s were used to draw out Russian fighters. Now there were F-22s as well as RAF, Luftwaffe, and Spanish Air Force Typhoons up in the air behind the Eagles. Yet more vicious air battles would occur throughout the night but 1ATAF would come out as the clear winner of those engagements. NATO pilots would report in excess of thirty enemy kills in air-to-air combat, while Russian and Belarusian pilots could claim less than ten. The Russian Air Force, despite making some powerful blows with their Raketonosets and cruise missiles, couldn’t keep this up for much longer. Russian commanders new it was only a matter of time before the airspace above them came firmly under NATO control, and that in itself would be an unmitigated catastrophe for them.

Bombs fell on targets that had been struck time and time again, but this time NATO escalated its air attacks. Not only were virtually all military and civilian airfields across Belarus and Kaliningrad struck, but NATO also began to target those sites in the occupied Baltic States. It wasn’t something that was looked at with much enthusiasm, but even if the airbases in Belarus were all neutralised, those in the Baltics, now being run by Russia and with civilian hostages being held nearby, could be used to mount effective air operations against the West. Sites such as Amari Airbase in Estonia and Lielvarde Airbase in Latvia, once used by NATO aircraft, were home to MiG-29s and Su-25s & -24s flying operations against Northern Poland. These bases were hit just like those in enemy territory were; less resources had been dedicated to their defence and so damage was somewhat more severe, but they couldn’t all be neutralised in a single night of operations. Tragedy struck when Belgian F-16s bombed Tallinn’s Lennart-Meri International Airport; one of their weapons strayed from its course and struck a housing estate, killing forty Estonian civilians and leaving the neighbourhood and flaming ruing. Moscow would, of course, tout this up, using it as evidence of NATO war crimes and as proof that the people of the Baltics needed Russian protection.

The Tornados came in from the south-west of Minsk, flying at just over one hundred feet as they neared the city. There were six of them in the air; three more were being used for other operations and the other three had all been shot down days prior. Pulling up right before they reached the target, the swing-wing jets released several Paveway II laser-guided bombs. The bombs hit and utterly annihilated the headquarters of Minsk’s state-run television channel, the Belarusian Television & Radio Company (BTRC). There was some controversy at the destruction of such a target, but planners both at SHAPE and the MOD agreed that it was a valid military target. The BTRC was spouting Russian and Belarusian propaganda like there was no tomorrow, and it had been used to showcase footage of captured British pilots several days in a failed propaganda big. The legal validity of such a target was irrelevant now; the building had been totally obliterated, as had many of the buildings on Makayonka Street, where the BTRC had resided. A second wave of strike aircraft, F-15Es this time, hit Minsk from the north-west. They’d turned over Poland again and then flown straight into Belarusian airspace, skirting the Ukrainian border as if daring the Ukrainians to interfere. Their bombs, this time unguided Mark-84s, wiped out the National Assembly building where Lukashenko’s rubber-stamp Parliament would meet. The attack was catastrophic for the citizens of Minsk, with the building flattened, and again with much damage done to areas of the city that were unlucky enough to be close to the target. One Strike Eagle was brought down by a Belarusian Fulcrum when that aircraft’s pilot had responded to warnings of an air raid against the capital itself taking place. The American jet came crashing down into the heart of Minsk, exploding as it struck the ground. There had been losses and civilian casualties as well, but a huge propaganda victory had been won for NATO with the destruction of such important targets, and right within Minsk itself. This attack against Minsk directly wasn’t happening in a vacuum.

More Tornados and Strike Eagles, joined by hundreds of other aircraft, conducted strikes throughout the night. The two highway intersections at Mogolev, Orsha, and Gomel were pummelled from the air repeatedly in an all-out effort to prevent their continued use by Russian forces. A whole army was moving from Russia into Belarus at this point, and with the situation already particularly grave in Poland, this was something that NATO had to stop or risk losing even more territory. Spanish and Canadian Hornets and then German Phantoms bombed the three cities relentlessly, all the while dodging – and sometimes failing to dodge – Russian SAMs and fighters. Likewise, Kaliningrad was attacked with targets of similar logistical importance targeted and destroyed. The bridges over the Daugava River, running through Latvia, were taken out by NATO airpower when the importance of their use as a supply route to the 20th Guards Army was recognised. From Tallinn all the way up to Gomel, fires burned, explosions boomed, and aircraft plummeted into the ground.

As part of Operation Eclipse, the US Air Force would carry out a mission of its own, one that was highly-sensitive and extremely covert. After they had become available to him, Major-General Raymond Thomas at SOCEUR had sent a very small number of men from DEVGRU into Russia proper. They had executed a High Altitude, High Opening parachute jump, otherwise known as a HAHO insertion, from the back of an MC-130. They’d landed outside St Petersburg and immediately begun marking targets within the Russian mainland for destruction. B-2 Spirit stealth bombers from Global Strike Command were to execute this mission as it was deemed extremely risky both militarily and in a political sense. A huge number of SAMs resided around St Petersburg and in north-western Russia, along with interceptors and ground radars. Politically, NATO was quite hesitant about hitting targets within mainland Russia. Though most European countries had already been attacked from the air, there were many worries that direct air attacks on the soil of the Rodina would elicit a nuclear response. This might happen deliberately as a warning to the Alliance not to do so again, but it was also considered likely that Russia might detect the B-2s on a radar and mistake that for the first steps of a pre-emptive American or NATO nuclear strike and launch its own nuclear weapons on a massive scale. 1ATAF’s commanders eventually won the argument that was taking place, brushing these concerns aside and gaining permission from their political masters to attack the Russian mainland.

Three targets had been chosen and the same number of Spirits (of only nineteen available) had been allocated to the mission. Each of the bombers was loaded with 2,000-pound GBU-31 JDAMs. No fighters or SEAD aircraft went into Russian airspace with them. It was felt that the deployment of such aircraft would tip off the Russians that something big was going on. Russian air defence forces did gain the occasional glimpse of the Spirits on radar, and MiG-31s were scrambled to intercept. The bombers kept disappearing though, never being ‘painted’ on radar for long enough for fighters to be vectored towards them.
Gliding elegantly over St Petersburg, the first B-2 struck Russia’s second city. The bomber dropped no less than twelve JDAMs on Leningrad Naval Base. The amount of firepower used was simply staggering. All twelve bombs hit their target and fused correctly. Dockyards, hangars and barracks were all hit. A fuel dump was hit by one of the bombs, igniting a monumental explosion. This raid alone had obliterated the naval base, a target which would be far harder to repair than an airstrip. A second American bomber hit St Petersburg’s Pulkovo International Airport. Though technically a civilian facility, it had been converted for military use and it was believed that Russian Backfire bombers were flying from it, along with their tankers and some A-50 AWACS aircraft too. The SEALs on the ground outside the city had confirmed this. When the JDAMs hit, nearly all of the airports buildings were destroyed, flattened by the explosions themselves or burned down by the resulting fires. The runway was bombed as well, with craters littering it. The Russians also lost one of their precious A-50s, and several other aircraft as well, with them destroyed by nearby bomb hits. The attack on St Petersburg had been a huge military success, with both targets out of commission for the foreseeable future. The third target was Ostrov Airbase, further north than St Petersburg itself. Il-76s & An-22s had flown from here when dropping paratroopers into Estonia and Latvia several days ago, and it was also home to several fighter and ground attack aviation squadrons. Heavily-defended, only the B-2s had a real chance of getting through and hitting the base. Despite some near misses with Russian fighter patrols, the remaining B-2 got into position above Ostrov and unleashed its payload. The results were the same as they had been in St Petersburg; fireballs, flattened buildings, dead men and women scattered across the ground and wounded ones screaming out for help in agony and terror. This time, the bomber was not to get away. The Spirit that had struck Ostrov was shot down by an SA-20 just as it turned to leave enemy airspace. The left wing of the bomber was sheared off by the explosion, sending it spiralling from the sky. Both pilots safely ejected, but they were now hundreds of miles behind enemy lines with little chance of extraction. As the crew of a vaunted stealth bomber, should they be caught then they were looking at spending the miserable remainder of their lives in enemy captivity.

The loss of a B-2 and the presumed capture of the crew – the two airmen had reported that they were ejecting before doing so – raised more questions at Ramstein Air Base. For the first three days of Operation Eclipse, Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) missions into enemy territory to recover downed pilots had been deemed an impossibility. The helicopters that would have to fly such missions were immensely vulnerable and couldn’t always be protected by fighters. The policy of leaving downed pilots behind in enemy territory was not sustainable, however. Many experienced aircrew would be lost and with more planes than qualified pilots, NATO needed all of those who survived to be back up in the air, or at least telling new pilots coming to Europe from safer skies of what to expect. 1ATAF decided on a policy change. In Baltics and Eastern Belarus, CSAR missions remained an impossibility. However, for those aircrew shot down over Poland and those who went down in the more western parts of Belarus, CSAR missions would now be launched. The US Air Force 352nd Special Operations Wing would fly these missions using its MV-22 Ospreys and modified HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters. The first such CSAR missions were flown on the night of August 11th, with aircraft of both models entering the treacherous airspace over Belarus at an extremely low altitude to recover downed aircrew. Of the dozen missions flown, there were many successes; fifteen pilots and navigators were brought out of Belarus alive, if sometimes injured either physically or psychologically during their experiences. Some had been on the run for days while others had only gone down recently, but all were grateful to be alive. One CSAR mission failed when an MV-22 was shot down by an anti-aircraft gun, leaving only more people lost in enemy territory who faced death or capture.