Eagle Guardian: The War of 2010

Two bombers.
Well... Forcon had the Americans attacks Saint Petersburg and lose a bomber. That attack led to the cruise missle attack on targets outside of Washington... which led to this... which will lead toanother strike the other way. Tit for tat.
Those targets in SP you mention look mighty tempting for a return strike. You are correct too that even using a Blackjack, the Russians cannot bomb the American capital. They can use them against other capitals though.

Yup there will be no rise of China. One thing the US and the west will have the luxary of force and memory of war not to tolerate the rise of another autocratic regime. And this war will give the west the ball to not tolerate this.

Thanks.
Yep, they wanted revenge plus the propaganda coup too. Those doors opened and closed as fast as possible!

And, if I were Turkey postwar, I wouldn't call the US for help with anything either...

The same goes for Greece; their asking for a bailout will be greeted with, "And where were you when our cities were being bombed, our leaders and civilians were being killed, our soldiers were dying, and our territory was being invaded and occupied (this would go for Poland)?!? Screw you!!"

One-Hundred-Three

Diplomatic cables between Moscow and its Asian ally in Pyongyang went into overdrive after Libya entered the Third World War. Russia was offering the North Koreans all the oil that their tanks could drink, along with air support from the Far Eastern TVD. The Russians wanted the North Korean People’s Army to surge over the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and roll southwards towards Seoul, tying up US forces in the Pacific and drawing them away from the Russian Far East, all while inflicting greater casualties on the US Military. Supreme Leader of the DPRK Kim Jong Il was a more cautious player, however, than Moscow had given him credit for. The North Korean regime strongman had no intention of leading his country into an unwinnable war.

Both American and South Korean analysts were well aware that a North Korean offensive would lead to a bloody battle. Much of South Korea’s infrastructure, both military and civilian, would be destroyed and the economic damage caused by even a conventional war would be irreparable. However, North Korea would under no circumstances actually be able to defeat the combined might of the armed forces of both the Republic of Korea and of the United States. That was simply not possible; a breakthrough might be achieved by sheer numerical superiority, and the North Koreans might even get to the South Korean capital city of Seoul, on thirty kilometres from the border, but they would never be able to push Allied forces off of the Peninsula in its entirety. Even if the NKPA could achieve that, it would be met with a tactical nuclear response.

What Kim Jong Il thought could be achieved, however, was concessions from South Korea. This could be done with the threat of war and all the economic damage this would to South Korea. In support of these threats, attacks would have to be launched against South Korea using a tried and tested means; commandos. The North Korean People’s Army had a huge number of them, over seventy thousand by some estimates, as well as artillery units stationed on the northern side of the DMZ which could inflict massive damage.

As the war in Europe raged on, the frustrated US Army 2nd Infantry Division took up defensive positions along the border aside the ROK Army. They were soon to be reinforced by the US 3rd Marine Division out of Okinawa, regardless of what the Japanese were saying about that. These odds would be insurmountable for the North Korean Army to beat in a stand-up fight, but that was not what the regime was trying to do. A series of commando strikes and artillery attacks were planned to take place. They were designed to cause infrastructural damage and cause casualties both amongst US and South Korean forces and civilians, demoralising them and bringing Seoul around to the negotiating table in order to prevent a war. Moscow realised that it wasn’t going to persuade Pyongyang to jump headlong into an invasion of the south, and so settled in giving support to the North Korean’s plan to spark several border skirmishes rather than invade. It was, Putin reasoned, better than nothing. A US Army division and Marines who could have threatened Vladivostok would now be tied up facing an NKPA which wasn’t going to drive southwards.

That did not mean they would not see combat, however. What followed the initial panic on the Korean Peninsula became known as the Second Border War.

On August 10th, NKPA artillery units had opened fire on several positions occupied by members of the 2nd Infantry Division. A Stryker fighting vehicles and several trucks had been destroyed, and thirteen American soldiers were left dead. Responding quickly, US counterbattery fire opened up on the North Korean guns, silencing them and also killing twenty-six North Korean soldiers as a barracks was hit in response. With the war going on in Europe, this skirmish barely made the headlines in the United States, even though it was one of a dozen battles that would occur in Korea throughout the course of World War III. Later that night, another engagement occurred, this time involving the Republic of Korea Air Force and its North Korean counterpart, the North Korean People’s Air Force. A flight of North Korean MiG-21s, ancient aircraft when compared with their opponents, was engaged, with all four aircraft being downed, by South Korean F-15Ks.

Seoul contacted the North Korean regime to ask just what it thought it was doing. South Korea’s Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan was responsible for this attempt at negotiation. All efforts from Seoul to calm tensions and bring the crisis down a notch were rebuffed. North Korea denied that it had launched any kind of military operations against the South; Pyongyang insisted that its artillery units had fired in self-defence after being attacked by American munitions, and although this was known to be false, there was little South Korea could do beyond bringing international support behind it. The South Korean government that night ordered a general mobilisation in expectance of further escalations and a possible invasion from the north. Hoping to draw South Korea into the war on its own side, the United States offered all available support in protecting South Korea. Though the ROK neglected to enter the fighting directly as a result of the skirmishing earlier in the day, the decision was made now to allow US fighter aircraft to launch combat operations from its bases in South Korea, putting Vladivostok firmly in the sights of the United States Air Force. This was done on the assumption that North Korea was acting on behalf of the Russian government.

The next day, tensions along the DMZ only worsened. At Camp Casey, South Korea, two gunmen armed with Makarov pistols opened fire on US personnel, including many members of the base civilian staff. Two soldiers and four civilians were killed in the surprise burst of gunfire before the two attackers were shot dead by US soldiers. All US military personnel in South Korea were now to be armed at all times in expectance of commando attacks. The attack today at Camp Casey had been carried out by sleeper agents in the employee of the DPRK’s intelligence apparatus rather than by military personnel, but the two things were viewed as being one and the same. Later on August 11th, US troops with the 2nd Division retaliated for the Camp Casey shooting with accurate mortar fire, causing casualties amongst the North Koreans. In turn, a platoon-sized element of DPRK commandos tried to infiltrate South Korea across the DMZ in the dead of night, a ferocious firefight occurred along the border as the US Army’s 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment moved to respond. The North Koreans were beaten back, leaving nine of their number dead and two captured; five American soldiers were killed.

A raid along the coast of South Korea occurred the next day. Having crossed the river at Gimpo, two dozen NKPA infiltrators attacked a South Korean Army patrol. Several ROKA trucks were destroyed, killing twenty-two soldiers before the North Korean unit was beaten back and forced to flee back to North Korea. There would be artillery duels throughout the day, this time with South Korean artillery units joining in with the Americans in bombarding known NKPA artillery units. The North Koreans fired back with their own weapons, albeit against purely military targets, and by the end of August 13th over two hundred people were dead, including nearly fifty American soldiers. Though the fighting on the Korean border could not match-up with the intensity of that in Europe, the US was beginning to see North Korea as a cobelligerent of Moscow. US soldiers in the ROK, along with ROKA troops, were fighting with the NKPA along the border every day and taking dramatic losses even without a full-scale invasion. Those US personnel stationed in South Korea were a part of World War III just as those in Poland, Norway, Afghanistan or the Mediterranean were.

More battles occurred in the air on the following night, seeing sixteen North Korean jets downed for only a trio of South Korean warplanes and a single US Air Force F-16. Kim Jong Il had expected these kings od casualties as part of his terrorist campaign; the goal was not even for North Korean units to win the fights that they got into, just to cause casualties and make Seoul realise the consequences of a war, thus bringing them further into North Korea’s fold and allowing for realistic, if costly, concessions to be extracted. Despite his image, the Supreme Leader was not a madman and he wouldn’t jump into a fight that would see him deposed and in hiding at best, and at worst executed.

US Marines from the 3rd Division got into a serious firefight near Paju the next day. Six US Marines were killed for ten North Korean commandos, and the Americans were onlly able to withdraw under the cover of a South Korean rapid reaction battalion and several US Air Force A-10s. After this, a decision was taken both by the South Korean government and by the Eighth Army command to begin sending US and ROKA forces on aggressive patrols along the border, which in some cases would include crossings of the DMZ in no more than company strength. The first of these was mounted by the 3rd Division’s Force Recon battalion, which sent over a hundred men into North Korea. The Marines were armed with light anti-tank weapons, and covered from hilltops by .50 calibre machineguns. The ploy was successful in drawing NKPA troops from their barracks into a firefight, with the North Koreans being engaged by superior firepower back on the other side of the border. The Marines withdrew under this covering fire, escaping with few casualties of their own and leaving nearly a whole North Korean battalion shattered. The ROKA launched a similar operation, probing the North Korean’s response times and pulling back without casualties. But the North Koreans, of course, had to retaliate with operations of their own, and so Camp Casey was shelled by artillery, leaving several dozen casualties before counterbattery fire silenced the North Korean guns.

The border skirmishes continued, and the question was asked, “where will this end?”

Tight naval blockade of NK?

One Hundred and Four

A centralised command for operations in Norway and the nearby waters was formed via a NATO Council decision. NATO Forces Norway – similar to the Cold War era Allied Forces Northern Europe yet excluding Denmark and the Baltic Exits – was established starting August 15th. Earlier losses such as the Tromsø debacle were attributed to a general ‘come as you are, do as you wish, work together only when it suits you’ attitude prevalent during the first week of the war at the top end of Europe. Multiple NATO countries had committed a wide range of military forces all to the fighting here and while there had been much cooperation, none of that had been centrally organised leading to disasters occurring. That wasn’t something that anyone wanted to see done again. Before NATO Forces Norway was activated, that process of coordinating of actions by various countries had already begun but there had been that absence of leadership. This had been rather telling in the case of few wanting to do the difficult tasks and everyone wanting to achieve quick results while expecting everyone else to do the hard stuff: no one had been at the top to direct matters. Now there was someone at the top. A Norwegian Army three-star general had been appointed to head NATO Forces Norway. He had three deputies for ground, air and naval operations (one more Norwegian and two Americans) as well as a multinational staff assembling all at Reitan. The Norwegian Joint Headquarters was located inside a mountain here near to Bodo and the NJHQ had been commanding Norwegian operations while coordinating with allies: now it controlled them all. NATO regarded this as a significant process in turning the tide of war here in Norway. The Russians would share that opinion: they’d already undertaken a failed attack here with commandos at the war’s opening but would try again with a far bigger force soon enough to knock this place out.

As was the case in Poland, the Russian advance through Northern Norway had been stopped. A stalemate would be the wrong term to use to describe the situation on the ground here though. Both sides remained active in serious fighting to knock the other out of action. Their avenues for advances were limited and thus the war wasn’t moving in terms of large territory taken or major ground units defeated, but each was still pushing for that. Bardufoss remained close to the frontlines and limiting Russian flight operations from there. Their Sixth Army continued to push up against Norwegian Army units and US Marines who fought to retake it. The frontlines of the fight stretched inland from there towards the Swedish frontier. In the other direction, those frontlines had for a day or so briefly been out in the long stretch of the Lofoten Islands, yet German paratroopers had retaken control there leading to a re-shortening of the frontlines back on land back around Bardufoss. Much of the American’s 2nd Marine Division – including US Marine Reserve units and also the Anglo-Dutch brigade of marines – was engaged in that fight with a Norwegian division assembling behind them from those who had escaped from Finnmark as well as reservists. There were plenty of fighting men here on the NATO side but they needed more equipment as well as supplies. Stocks of munitions were being built to see that when they were finally able to go forward, they wouldn’t be stopped. The Russians were in the same position. They’d got their men forward but supplies were their issue. Ammunition had been burnt through and couldn’t as easily be flown in as men were, not with Bardufoss being so exposed. Much of what they needed still had to come over land all while facing NATO air and commando attacks across Finnmark. Efforts to open up the northwards-facing coastal approaches, making use of ships bringing in supplies to ports, had failed to achieve much: the Norwegians had been busy there and would continue to be so. It was supplies, or the lack of an instant access to all that was needed, which had seen the current situation develop into the slogging match it was. Air and naval support on both sides did matter, but not enough when compared to this matter which had forced the current stalled situation for each.

Offshore, naval action continued. The Northern Fleet turned tail and headed back eastwards. The battle-cruiser RFS Pyotr Velikiy had been lost yesterday and without the flagship, the aircraft carrier RFS Admiral Kuznetsov and the accompanying other warships went back around the North Cape. They weren’t heading home, just retreating to safer waters. This retreat would be played up by NATO in propaganda terms soon enough though before then the submarine which had sunk the Peter the Great chased after them with the home of claiming another famous kill. HMS Torbay was frustrated though in being able to get a firing solution on any target which wouldn’t immediately see the Royal Navy vessel sunk in a counter-strike. She followed the Northern Fleet waiting for a later opportunity. In the Vestfjorden, not one but two Russian submarines got inside this stretch of water where there was supposed to be a defensive line strung to stop such an intrusion. Neither of the small Kilo-class boats opened fire at first against the many NATO warships inside – a wasted opportunity – but instead followed their orders and broadcast coded & detailed sighting reports in burst transmissions. They then waited for the incoming missiles to target those ships with the intention of attacking them afterwards. From some distance away, Backfire bombers launched an air strike on the Vestfjorden. NATO fighters – Norwegian F-16s, RAF Typhoons and the growing number of arriving American F-16s attached to Reserve & Air National Guard units – had been drawn off in a feint at first and then found that the launching bombers were heading back home before they understood that ruse. This had been tried the other day and failed but now in a modified form success was achieved. There hadn’t been that many Backfires but there were a lot of missiles: each bomber had launched three due to the short distances from their home bases allowing for a big payload. Kitchen missiles lanced towards the ships in the Vestfjorden. Fighters engaged the missiles first, taking down several with shots of their own. Then it was up to the warships and their own missile defences to get the rest. Those submarines had spotted clusters of warships and reported that there were more here than expected. The Royal Navy and the US Navy had each increased their presence here since yesterday with the Americans especially bringing in warships with air defences missiles. They had a cruiser and two destroyers (plus a general-purpose frigate) present. These lofted upgraded SM-2ER Standard missiles into the sky, knocking down Kitchens in conjunction with missiles from further American plus British ships. A kill rate of eighty plus per cent was achieved: the Kitchens were old and facing a very modern threat. Some got through though and smashed into shipping in the Vestfjorden. Their biggest kills were that of the newly-arrived US Navy destroyer USS Ramage and also the Canadian frigate HMCS Toronto, the latter which had in previous days aided in the evacuation from Tromsø. Both ships would be lost with high casualties. Non-combat support ships, including those loaded with munitions, would be targeted by other missiles. After the missiles came the Kilo attack. They feasted on the chaos as they sought to get to the light aircraft carriers present, those ships from which Harriers were flying and which had avoided missile impacts. HMS Ark Royal had a lone torpedo put into her (she’d survive) though the USS Bataan would be lost. Nearly twenty US Marines’ Harriers were flying from here – others calling the USS Nassau home – but not after the RFS Kaluga put four torpedoes into amphibious assault ship. Escorts killed the Russian boat afterwards but the kill on such an important ship had already been made. The second submarine, RFS Magnitogorsk, had put a hole in the Ark Royal and also sunk the Norwegian HNoMS Otto Sverdrup (Norway now only had one of four pre-war frigates left afloat) before sitting still and silent while a hunt for her went onwards. She remained in the Vestfjorden undetected and ready to strike again, guide in another missile strike or both. NATO needed to find her and sink her.


Russian POWs taken during the Battle of Copenhagen had been transferred off Zealand and removed into secured areas adjacent to several army bases through Jutland. This was a short-term solution to the issue of what to do with them. As a whole, NATO and the Coalition had many prisoners in custody and had taken improvised measures with regard to holding them. Those from Copenhagen numbered twenty-six hundred live prisoners (of thirty-nine hundred who had landed). They had been stripped of their weapons – including a disturbing number who had hidden knives on their person – and then shipped away from where they had fought. These prisoners needed guarding. They also needed caring for. Food and water was one need but so too was medical attention. Russian Naval Infantry taken on the battlefield had been joined by those removed from field hospitals. NATO took control of all of them. The aim was to treat them according to international standards and this was a big ask. Danish forces were joined by Belgians, French and Portuguese personnel in this task: after all the fighting losses inflicted taken, the Danes were incapable of doing this alone. The numbers of Russian POWs here in Denmark were of course smaller than those taken from the fighting in Poland yet that didn’t make it any easier. In addition to that, there was questioning done of certain POWs. Some volunteered information (suspicion was cast often on these apparent cooperators) but many refused. There were some questionable practices undertaken in some of this where intelligence agencies sent civilian personnel to talk to them.

The Russians had fought to control the Danish Straits and lost that fight. NATO control over that access to the Baltic Sea had been made much use of. Today, sailing past the war-scared Copenhagen was HMS Illustrious, sistership to Ark Royal. There were NATO warships from seven countries who’d already gone through or were on their way. The naval build-up of surface vessels continued like that of submarines did too, especially more and more German ones. Submarine combat took place inside the Baltic as the battle against what was left of Russia’s naval forces here went onwards. One of the German boats – U-33 – took out two missile corvettes far from the Danish Straits when off the coast of Kaliningrad. The Spanish submarine SPS Tramontana sunk a minesweeper and then a trawler strongly-suspected of being engaged in radio-electronic warfare. There was a Norwegian boat in the Baltic too, the one which had evacuated key members of the Latvian government on the war’s first day and then returned to the fight. HNoMS Ula was back in the Gulf of Riga and hunting targets of opportunity. The tables were turned on her though when from above, torpedoes fell into the water from a Russian maritime patrol aircraft in the form of a Beriev-12 amphibian. One of them hit the Ula and forced it to surface in an effort to save as many of the crew as possible. Seventeen men of the twenty-one aboard got off alive before the damaged submarine sunk: those men ended up in enemy custody. Russia had its own submarines in the Baltic, just the three of them. Neither had seen much action but that would change today. In the Gulf of Gdansk, RFS Vyborg wiped out a Polish fast attack boat – OPR Orkan – and then sunk a coastguard vessel even closer to shore. This was done by the Vyborg as it exited its position off the Polish coast where it had been depositing naval commandoes and found those Spetsnaz under fire before they even reached land. Another boat, this one out in the middle of the Baltic and in the way of the incoming flotilla of NATO ships heading east, had bad luck. The German frigate FGS Bayern got her third kill of the war (a frigate and an assault hovercraft had been the first two) when the RFS Dmitrov was hunted down and eliminated. This had taken time and was hard work yet was worth it in the end. Russia’s Baltic Fleet would miss that submarine greatly.

Down in Poland, the Seventh Army was engaged in the process of moving its forces around. Incoming reinforcements took up positions opposite the Russians and Belorussians while the stalemate continued. These were untested troops from across many NATO countries who, where possible, replaced those who had long been engaged in the fighting. This wasn’t done wholescale, just in certain sectors of the frontlines where it was felt that those incoming could maintain the line in the face of the enemy. It would give them time to ‘acclimatize’ to the battlefield. Croatian, Czech and Slovenian units took part in this, those from the smaller partner nations of the alliance, in what some would consider a major risk. It was one done though. They weren’t left out alone on their own too because either side and behind them were NATO formations from larger countries who all had battle experience. Elsewhere though, there were yet to be enough reinforcements to do this wholescale. Many American, British, German and Polish troops didn’t get replaced on the frontlines. They continued to take part in engagements with the enemy. Artillery and missile strikes continued. Patrolling and heavy exchanges of fire from static positions went on too. Each side was digging-in and reinforcing its positions yet had to fight as well. There were aircraft in the skies above in addition to those falling projectiles. These flew further and were almost all NATO aircraft with only few Russian jets present. France’s Armée de l'Air had the majority of its combat power ready to see action over Libya but they had aircraft in Poland too. Their Mirage-2000s and Rafales were used today to a great extent in daylight strikes through occupied parts of eastern Poland and giving their allies a temporary break. They struck Belorussian targets mainly, including several Scud launchers which had been located by NATO special forces teams on the ground. Tonight would be the first night of many where Warsaw wasn’t under missile attack. This was costly in terms of jets and special forces scouts yet it had been done due to immense Polish pressure on their allies to stop these attacks, even temporarily. American A-10s recently brought over from across the United States and flown by part-time crews now in the thick of it, flew missions in the northeast of Poland. With their huge cannons but also missiles and rockets, they flew low on tactical strike runs. Russian tanks and armoured vehicles were blown to pieces. Yet, as was the case before, air defences opened fire on them resulting in losses taken. Up came armour-piercing shells guided by radars and also plenty of SAMs. The Russians refused to sit still and inactive in the face of these air strikes.

In Moldova, Romanian-led Coalition forces began their offensive today to liberate the small bits of Moldovan soil held by the Russian & Transnistrian forces present and then drive into Transnistria afterwards. With Bulgarian and Moldovan forces under command, a two-pronged push was made. The small mixed NATO Brigade (it had a battalion of British troops within as well as several companies of infantry from multiple alliance nations) was held back ready to go with others into Tiraspol once the Romanians had done the main fighting. Russian paratroopers here fought alongside their local allies. It was a doomed effort. The War in Transnistria wasn’t going to end today but an end was now in-sight. The commander of the 237th Guards Air Assault Regiment lost most of his small armoured component when fighting Romanian tanks but also American A-10s & F-16s making heavy attacks on them. Air defence brought down a couple of these jets and captured pilots were found to be national guardsmen from Indiana and Wisconsin. They were quickly sent out of Transnistria via convoys of vehicles which also pulled out Bulgarian and Romanian prisoners. NATO intelligence watched the trucks full of POWs cross the border into the Ukraine. They couldn’t stop this despite wanting to. Maybe in the future the situation would change, but for now there were lines-of-communication which were untouched by air strikes which ran through the Ukraine. There was a suspicion that the Russian paratroopers themselves would evacuate via that route too in the end. That situation with Ukrainian so-called neutrality was something which was going to be have to be resolved at higher level than what those on the ground were involved in. For now, they fought onwards because there was no stalemate here in Moldova.