Eagle Guardian: The War of 2010

The Colonel is not going to have a good time!

Neither of those two countries will sit this war out. I won't say any more for now but hope not to disappoint with how that plays.

Yep, the Colonel messed up and this will not be good.
Libya isn't in the position that it was in 2011 admittedly but 2011 showed the weakness there.
Silvio's opponents will now have all the ammunition they need no matter what he does.

I Just call him 'the Colonel'.
That's exactly what has occured: similar to Mussolini in 1940 in joining the supposedly winning site. This a big mistake.

Ninety–Four

By the end of the seventh day of the war, Friday 13th of August, the combined losses of combat aircraft for the Russian and Belorussian air forces reached two hundred and fifty. This included those in other theaters (over Norway, the Black Sea and Central Asia) yet the majority had been inflicted upon aircraft taking part in Operation Slava. Glory it wasn’t with such high numbers. The figure too excluded attack helicopters, transports and other specialist aircraft. Those which were covered under the main total had been lost in combat in the skies, shot down by air defences, bombed when on the ground or destroyed in accidents while taking part in the war. Such losses were enough to bring tears to the eye. Pre-war estimates had said that one hundred, maybe one fifty at the very most if things went badly wrong, would be lost in a week of war: how wrong those who seemingly picked that number out of the sky had been. Before the fighting started, NATO air strength – in terms of numbers, capability and experience – was recognised for what it was and not in any way dismissed yet there had been the belief that Russian forces, even the Belorussians too (at least over their own territory), would be able to hold their own as long as they played it smart. Playing it smart had been done yet still all of those aircraft had been lost. The airframes and the aircrews were replaceable but only in the long-term. For now they were gone though, no longer available for much-needed duties fighting this war against NATO.

NATO air losses weren’t that far behind. They’d arguably won the air war but had taken many of their own losses. Two hundred and ten or so was their total loss number, a figure distorted by the destruction of the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman with fifty combat aircraft aboard. Russian air defences had been responsible for many, many NATO aircraft being lost. Their fighter efforts in the sky had been weak but not their anti-air platforms on the ground. It was these which had claimed so may NATO jets. Guided anti-aircraft artillery and SAMs had been used to bring down enemy aircraft… as well as inflicting friendly fire on their own side on several occasions as well. There were strategic- & operational- & tactical-level air defence systems. These worked together and worked individually too. NATO had thrown plenty of firepower at these weapons to eliminate them, often being forced to commit more missions to their destruction than the effort made to attack the targets which they protected. These air defences were all fully mobile. They were hidden well too with a lot of ingenuity used to disguise their presence. The Russians had dummy systems everywhere as well, platforms which were very much the real deal in the eyes of NATO until they were actually attacked. Older weapons had been removed from storage to complement newer ones: many of the legacy systems were just as deadly as the newer ones. All the way down to battalion-level for ground units moving forward and up to the air defences of the Russian & Belorussian homelands, there were anti-air platforms firing on NATO aircraft. Unwillingly and through gritted teeth, in the face of staggering losses to them, certain areas were off-limits to attacking aircraft. 1 ATAF – operating as the centralised command for NATO air assets throughout Eastern Europe – changed these on a regular basis responding to threat levels but larger and larger areas of the enemy rear were soon left unmolested. Flying into them was a literal death sentence for the aircrews. This was extremely controversial yet understood by many to be necessary. Those ‘no-go areas’ (mainly in Belarus though also through parts of the Kaliningrad Oblast too) were soon to cease to exist though. There were major air reinforcements arriving for NATO.

These were American combat aircraft assigned to the Air Force Reserve Command and the Air National Guard. Mobilised en masse at the start of the war, both the AFRC & ANG deployed with haste to Europe. Moving the aircraft themselves was quick but it took time to get the whole set-up which came with them across the ocean. Transport aircraft flew personnel, equipment and stores over the North Atlantic in flight after flight. Several squadrons had come on line in the past few days – a couple of AFRC units pre-alerted for possible wartime deployment – though today was when the majority of them first became available for action. These reinforcements were formed of first-rate aircraft: A-10s, F-15s and F-16s. There were a lot of them, all flown and operated (on the ground) by well-experienced and capable personnel who’d seen war before. Airbases and airports through Poland, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany and Slovakia filled up. There were further AFRC & ANG units sent elsewhere in the world, and some kept at home, yet it did seem like the whole of the many flying units all assigned to both were in Eastern Europe at once. There were so many of these jets and all were tasked for missions under 1 ATAF. 1 ATAF really needed them. Those losses had weakened the newly-formed command (it operated under CJTF-East led by General Mattis) but these reinforcements turned things around. There were now so much more that could be done with them here. European members of NATO watched with awe but also jealousy at this reinforcement. More than half of the downed aircraft had been from European nations. They couldn’t replace their losses in the short-term like the Americans could: their situation was similar to the one Russia was in with that only being a long-term option, and an extremely difficult one too. Training units had already been stripped bare for airframes and personnel but Britain, France, Germany, Poland and the others had nothing like the AFRC & ANG.

Regular US Air Force combat units aplenty were in Eastern Europe under 1 ATAF command. There were those deployed ahead of the conflict and then more moved in afterwards. They too had A-10s, F-15s and F-16s as well as F-22s. In addition, the Americans had with them their armed drones. The US Air Force had reconnaissance-rolled MQ-1 Predators which could carry weapons though also newer MQ-9 Reapers designed for combat rather than that being an add-on. The RAF had some of the latter too, barely a handful but better than having none. The Predators and Reapers had been and continued to be busy. They flew from sites in Eastern Europe with personnel assigned to get them airborne and then land them afterwards this side of the ocean. However, far off in distant Nevada, American and British personnel acted as a ‘pilot’ and a ‘weapons system officer’ for each during their flights. Satellite communications were used leaving only a second-long delay in their operations from when those over in North America had the drones see action across here in Eastern Europe. Predators carried out their scouting tasks with a few direct attacks made; the Reapers were used almost solely for strike tasks. The Russians went after them. They shot long-range missiles at the sites from where they flew – small airstrips rather than the big main jet bases – and then engaged them in the skies with both SAMs & even fighters. Several had been lost, though not included in the 210 number for NATO air loses. Today, the Reapers especially made their mark on the raging air war where many of them (there were some in ANG service too) flew multiple missions above Kaliningrad. They were sent in on a search-and-destroy mission with nearly a dozen flying all in crowded airspace: around them, many of those reinforcing American air assets were conducting daytime air strikes over Kaliningrad in numbers too in something else not done before apart from at night. Reapers went after mobile targets. Their long loiter time gave them the ability to operate in the hunt for them where external surveillance sensors supported their flights. They went after Iskander missile-launchers hidden away as well as mobile SAM launchers targeting manned aircraft over this little slice of Russian territory too. A mobile command column, believed to be a regimental post for Russian paratroopers pulled into the rear after fighting in Poland, was struck with moving command versions of the BTR-70 identified by radio antenna and hit with Hellfire missiles. Another successful Reaper attack eliminated a battery of SAM-launchers with JDAM bombs moving down from Estonia all the way towards Poland: these belonged to a combat brigade redeploying and was helping to defend the larger force against NATO air strikes with F-16s. The Reapers came under fire though. Two of them were downed. A Tunguska system – guns and short-range SAMs – hit one of the American ones and a British drone was lost to a Tor-M1 SA-15 air defence system as well. These unmanned aircraft were just as exposed to Russian attack from their anti-air platforms like their manned counterparts were.

Today was the first day during the fighting where neither the Russians nor Belorussians made long-range attacks with their aircraft into Poland nor pushed flights of fighters forward either to try to sweep the skies to protect those air strikes. They kept their strike assets back on the ground and the fighters stayed in friendly air space on defensive missions. There was no deliberate act of ceding of the skies to NATO, not officially anyway. What was done was instead the careful marshalling of assets. Intelligence had picked up the mass reinforcement for 1 ATAF and the presence of so many opposing aircraft over enemy skies was anticipated. So too were the NATO air attacks forward. There were launches made again of a couple of those KS-172S missiles fired at distances of several hundred miles against high-value NATO aircraft – hitting a E-8 JSTARS aircraft today but missing two E-2 Sentry aircraft; these missiles had a poor overall success rate only offset by the damage they caused when they did hit a target – and a flight of Sukhoi-30Ms flew a fighter sweep over the Baltic, but that was it for offensive air action today. Such a change was shocking compared to all that had come before. NATO reinforcements and their air attacks was one reason why this was done but not the reason.

That was because Russian and Belorussian ground forces were no longer going forward in-strength.


Slava had a twofold overall objective when launched. Expelling NATO ground forces from the Baltic States, where they threatened Russia but also the Minsk regime, was the first. The second was to establish a ‘security zone’ deep inside Poland and within that trap & destroy further NATO ground forces there in a mobile battle where a classical encirclement would occur. With the war a week old, it had been decreed that the former was fully completed (many days beforehand) and the latter half achieved. Only selected elements of NATO’s ground forces had been eliminated within Poland though grave damage had been done to other parts. It could be said that failure had come here yet this wasn’t something that many would agree with. Reports up the chain of command stated that many of those NATO units which had escaped were destroyed regardless of whether there was the claim that they had gotten away. Several American and Polish large formations were regarded to have been wiped out by the Slava offensive. Furthermore, other units from the armies of both of those countries plus those in the service of Britain, France and Germany were considered to be close to being combat-ineffective as well… optimistic hopes were that perhaps the damage done there had been underestimated and they too have been near wiped-out.

Orders came for the Russian and Belorussian forces to start the process of digging-in in many places as a general rule. The frontlines ran from the Baltic coast to the tri-point where the Belorussian, Polish & Ukrainian frontiers met. It wasn’t straight, it curved all over the place with several salient. What was behind them would be defended as that security zone. ‘Corrections’ were allowed though. There were attempts to do this and this allowed for not just localised attacks to take place today but also withdrawals as well from exposed positions. The frontlines were going to be defined by terrain. This line was to be held. The security zone would remain rammed with heavy forces and there would be extensive defensive works in the form of earthen fortifications and minefields.

The objectives for Slava had been met, the orders came down from the top, and we have won our victory.

Polish troops with their 16th Mechanised Division (at the far northern end of Seventh Army’s lines) faced Russian localised attacks to strengthen their positions while in the areas where the US 4th Infantry & German 10th Panzer were fighting, they witnessed tactical withdrawals. There was fighting elsewhere too, all up and down the line. It wasn’t as if the war had stopped. It was just a matter of Russian and Belorussian forces no longer going forward in any more of their big attacks meeting successes or failures in those. Those in the thick of the fighting weren’t really aware of what was going on. The big picture wasn’t something for them: they were trying to stay alive. This was on both sides of those at war. Generals and thus their political masters started to understand what was going on. NATO realised that the Russians and Belorussians had been stopped.

They considered that they had finally stopped them in their tracks.


A total of four NATO corps commands were under the control of the US Seventh Army, which as 1 ATAF did, reported to CJTF-East. They held mixed components from various armies and were all expecting incoming reinforcements from across two continents. The Allied I Corps – once the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps – was on the left of the frontlines; on the right was the US V Corps. Behind them, the German-Dutch I Corps was being used as both a holding command for beat-up NATO units and also for flank security tasks. There was the newly-arriving US XVIII Airborne Corps which was forming-up further back from where the fighting was. The mixture within each of them when it came to multinational units was quite something and, in the case of the US V Corps in particular but also the German-Dutch I Corps, their names now gave lie to their make-up. There were eight divisions plus combat attachments – all heavy units – on the frontlines of the Seventh Army’s fight within the two corps commands out ahead. The fighting men within came from across the alliance with some in combat since the very start of the war and others being recent arrivals. Thrown into the fight where needed, not in a pretty fashion to see make sense on paper, they’d really had that fight they’d been sent here to take part in. The fight when on all day for them regardless of what decisions had been made with their opponents declaring that they had won and achieved their objectives in contrast to their own superiors believing that it was actually them who had seen success here. NATO forces which had taken major losses were behind them and so too were both untested units and incoming reinforcements: those out ahead were certainly not on their own and also not yet beaten like others had been.

The Russians and Belorussians hadn’t written off any of their own major combat formations like they had done so in intelligence summaries when it came to their opponents. The 5th Guards Tank Division and several Belorussian brigades had taken heavy losses and NATO rated them as partially or completely combat-ineffective though. The Twentieth Guards and First Guards Tank Armies were each deep inside Poland. They’d fought their way this far forward, battering their way past a fierce and capable enemy. Not everything had gone to plan, yes that was true, but what plan had ever survived contact with the enemy? From Moscow – Minsk didn’t really count – there was no rage with threats of executions or purges of military officers. There would be some reassignments to backwaters etc. yet there was general agreement that that Slava had had much success and the war so far had seen knocks taken that, while terrible, weren’t fatal. Reorganisations were made within the Twentieth Guards Army today as the once striking forward advance came to a halt: units were transferred about with men coming down from Estonia reaching the bottom of Lithuania and airborne units moving to the Baltic coast. Few changes took place within the First Guards Tank Army along those lines though they did move about artillery & engineering units all over the place for the new defensive mission. Both armies fired their heavy guns and tactical missiles: Warsaw was still being hit by Belorussian Scuds too with no let-up in that. In their rear, the Belorussian Fifth Corps had been tasked to command occupation & defensive forces in the Baltics with many Russians among them too. Over inside Belarus, the Russian Second Guards Army – Belorussians with Russians, many of the latter having come from the other side of their huge country – was still sitting there. It had not seen action yet and remained waiting for orders.

NATO was still gathering information on what was happening. Enemy actions were still taking place with fighting ongoing. Reports of observations of Russians digging-in came alongside those telling of attacks. Moreover, even when seen, the stopping of the advance wasn’t recognised as that because the Russians were considered to be just shunting forces about in the face of attacks against them so they could re-start attacking tomorrow or the next day: the movement of forces in their rears was the cause of that belief.

Confirmation of what the situation actually was would come from the Kremlin soon enough.

The high water mark. Now to see if NATO can organize an offensive to take that back. No way in hell Poland remains occupied. In rage of hyperbole I can see more hawkish folks comparing Putin to a 21st century Hitler.