Eagle Guardian: The War of 2010

The POW MIA movement in America will get a new lease of life, and it gives potential for a remake of the Rambo movies, this time set in Siberia.


Another thought springs to mind: Russia and China go to war 5-10 years later, what happens if/when China captures the penal colonies that these prisoners are held in? Do they keep them for their own use or do they release them back to the Americans for propaganda purposes and/or to drag America into the war as an ally?

The reveal of the existence of unreported NATO POWs could be used by China as a good will move towards NATO. Although it might cause problems for NATO governments having to declare they didn't know or were keeping it secret to avoid unrest.

One Hundred and Fifty

Norwegian victory at Nordkjosbotn had been something to be proud of and something to celebrate. However, despite that achievement, there remained significant areas of their country under foreign occupation. There were a lot of civilians still trapped behind enemy lines. Prime Minister Stoltenberg used up a lot of political capital in diplomatic efforts among allies to keep them keen on continuing the mission of ridding Norway of the last of the Russians, even if to many those who were left were seen as no longer dangerous. Stoltenberg sold many of the notion of the propaganda value of causing defeats that could be truly seen to be inflicted upon the Russians: the best way to do that was to show them they were beaten but also have that victory known among the wider Coalition too. Norway had been engaged in several diplomatic disputes with allies during the war over certain actions – Israel as part of the Coalition was a matter of contention due to their activities was the main one – but they had success here. NATO and the Coalition would continue the task of liberating Norway.

After a pause following Nordkjosbotn where NATO forces were re-supplied & re-organised, the American-led (they had the numbers) Operation Checkmate got underway. It was a series of multiple, interlinked military moves launched over the weekend. They all connected and shared the common purpose. That was the final defeat of Russian forces inside Norway.


The Norwegian 6th Division advanced from Nordkjosbotn following the E6 highway. They pushed onwards to the village of Kjerkeneset, which sat at the base of the Storfjorden, and then past that up the side of the smaller fjord which became the larger Lyngenfjorden near to Skibotn. This second village was their objective. The Norwegians sought to gain control there in what had been a Cold War projected major defensive position against a Soviet invasion. They were playing the attacker now though coming from the other direction. Like Nordkjosbotn, Skibotn lay where two major roads met. The E6 continued onwards into Finnmark; heading southeast away from Skibotn was the E8 highway that went down to the Finnish border. These roads were important. They were major transport links in a region where there were few of those. In this area, neither was impeded by bridges or by being near to areas of high ground where explosives could bring down the mountainside to block them. The Russians that the Norwegians fought in going from Nordkjosbotn all the way to Skibotn inside of two days were rear-area soldiers with their Sixth Army. There were no frontline soldiers with any of the combat brigades left in any organised fashion beyond the company-level anymore. Instead, it was artillerymen (who had no shells for their guns), missilemen (no SAMs for their launchers), signalmen (much of their equipment smashed up), supply troops (no fuel for their vehicles, burning stocks of dwindling supplies) and so on. They had their rifles and each man had been through combat training upon induction into uniform. Officers and NCOs were instructed to form up rifle units and there were a few man-portable heavy units left. Try as they might, and they did, these Russians couldn’t stop the Norwegians. Those attackers were organised & trained properly for their role, had armour & heavy weapons and too had air cover. Through the Russians the Norwegians went in a series of tough fights but none of which saw them stopped. Only once past Skibotn did they pause, to allow their rear units to come up and deal with the mass of prisoners taken plus start to deal with a tremendous number of enemy wounded as well.

That E8 highway which went from Skibotn not into Finnmark but instead towards Finland followed the course of the valley of the small River Skibotnelva upstream. It went to somewhere known as the ‘Finnish Wedge’. The northernmost part of Finland had what could best described as a finger which pointed towards Norway with the Swedish frontier to the west. In Cold War defensive plans by the Norwegians, the Finnish Wedge too had been foreseen as important as Skibotn and the Lyngenfjorden. Finland and Sweden were neutral in this war. Each had had their airspace and territorial waters violated – by both sides it must be said, despite protestations from each of innocence – and now their borders were crossed. Russian soldiers went over into each country, aiming to seek safety from capture. It was summer but the weather was hardly idea and the terrain remained fatal to many as they tried to avoid crossing points where there were troops from those countries on guard and turning people away. Individuals and small groups were elsewhere but approaching the Finnish Wedge was a larger number of Russians. They came down the E8 and towards Finland. It was in no way an invasion though many of the Russians were armed. The Finns turned them back when they tried to cross the border where the road was and then when others sought passage over the frontier away from that visible point. The Border Guard was supported by the Finnish Army and the Air Force too with them using helicopters to support mobile ground patrols. The Russians weren’t to be allowed in no matter what. Inevitably, a few men slipped through and were disarmed when caught but most were kept out. Verbal instructions were met with warning shots fired skywards. Finland didn’t want conflict with Russia and tight ROE was issued to its men on the border to not shoot unless absolutely necessary, but this was a difficult situation. More and more Russians all escaped from the Norwegians and approached Finland. Difficult conversations were had among politicians down in Helsinki about what to do. A solution was decided upon in a high-level meeting, the result of which Finland aimed to keep secret though would come out in a leak made a few months later. The Finns used a backchannel to let NATO know how many Russians could be found along the E8. It was a quid pro quo for Finland who got something out of this.

Some concern had been expressed in Helsinki that NATO might launch massive air attacks against the Russians there, making more flee towards Finland. Their colleagues had been told that something else would occur. Attached to the Norwegian 6th Division were Germans with their 26th Fallschirmjager Brigade. They’d seen action before though not in this offensive until now. With a battalion assigned to this urgent task, some of them were moved by helicopter lifts but others travelled by tracked vehicles down towards where they could find those Russians. They came ready for a fight and did exchange many shots with plenty of Russian soldiers who refused to put down their weapons – not liking the idea of surrendering to Germans! – but otherwise it was a military police action on a grand scale. Hundreds upon hundreds of POWs were taken. Loot was seized too: these deserting Russians, acting as a mob, had stolen absolutely anything they could of even negligible value. There were civilians recused among them too including many young women. They had suffered gravely among the mob with only worse to come but they were saved. Russian military order had broken down completely with this behaviour, the mass desertion included. These men had been ordered to keep fighting regardless and wait upon reinforcements of combat troops. Others had done so but not all of these who’d fled towards Finland with few managing to get that far.


Operation Rook was the codename for the British-Dutch element of the bigger Checkmate where they made a return to Tromsø. The Royal Marines with the 3rd Commando Brigade was assigned to the American’s 2nd Marine Division: forming their third combat element alongside their 2nd and 8th Regimental Landing Teams (the RLT format was used over brigades here). The Americans moved overland and struck northwards from Nordkjosbotn. They smashed through the 61st Naval Infantry Brigade, going northwards the same way that those Russian marines had previously come south. This brigade was the last major Russian combat unit left in Norway and had been cut off form all of those supporting elements of the Sixth Army. Hit head-on by the US Marines, the 61st Brigade was already doomed. The Americans had the firepower and especially the air cover which they used to great effect. Despite fighting very well, the Russians were crushed by the American advance.

Then the assault commenced on Tromsø.

The Americans helped with helicopter transport support and also loaned their allies some amphibious lift in light of previous losses they had taken. The British and Dutch, joined by some Norwegians too, wouldn’t have been able to undertake Rook without this support. They’d lost too many ships (sunk or significantly damaged) as well as seen many losses of helicopters and landing craft. As it was their ‘assets’ on the line, the Americans had much control over how they were deployed. They drafted a lot of the finer details of Rook, infuriating many of their allies in doing so. It was the way things had to be though. Moreover, seeing as the 3rd Commando Brigade was attached operationally to the 2nd Marine Division, they had the right to do so.

Tromsø didn’t fall easy but still fell. Most of the Russians were on the mainland peninsula trying to hold back the US Marines. Still, losses came to NATO troops involved in seizing the town and the island on which it sat. They wanted the airport there and the port because with them in their hands, more of Northern Norway could be retaken. Seizing Tromsø was also done – and why the Americans had agreed to support in rather than seeing it bypassed – to cut off an escape route for the 61st Brigade. They couldn’t go home to Mother Russia but they could fall back to Tromsø and establish themselves there. The US Marines wanted their enemy counterparts wiped out. Royal Marines, aided by their Dutch allies who they called ‘Cloggies’, fought an infantry fight in Tromsø. It wasn’t easy to win here. They did though, beating a cut off and battered opponent. There were surrenders of a lot of Russian units but others kept on fighting. Once they got their guns and light armour ashore, to support all their air cover and naval gunfire support already in-place, things became easier. Still, it was tough. Norwegian soldiers involved were aghast at the destruction caused and the loss of life among civilians caught up in this. They had their own views on their prime minister and government back in Oslo demanding that Norwegian soil be liberated. Did it have to be done in this fashion? Well… it was. Tromsø was won and much of it left a ruin in the process before final enemy opposition collapsed as Rook was completed.


Russian inability to support their Sixth Army support units and also their Naval Infantry units at the frontlines came due to NATO activity throughout their rear – across occupied Finnmark – and also beyond there too. There were special forces teams active and then the air strikes over the Kola by Task Force 20’s aircraft carriers. NATO had control of the seas and increasingly control of much of the skies. They as well made sure that the ground links across Norway through occupied territory were impossible for the Russians to use.

Once more, historical Cold War factors came into play with regard to Northern Norway. In a NATO-vs.-Soviet conflict, the E6 highway would have supplied the Soviets then like it had been supplying the Russians now. Much effort was put into keeping that road open in 2010 as it would have been during a war in previous decades. Regardless, that highway was shut down as a transport route. It went over bridges and ran beside high ground where demolitions could cause rockfalls. There were countless ambush positions for mines, snipers or air strikes. Russia didn’t have the troops nor other defensive assets to protect the road. It was littered with burnt-out trucks and rotting bodies. Where the E6 close to the Russian border went over the River Tana, the pre-war civilian bridges had long been brought down. In their place, Russian engineers laid pontoon bridges. Those came down too when men on the ground guided-in bombs from high-flying aircraft before then moving in afterwards on the ground to kill engineers aiming to try to repair what they could.

Across in the Kola, Russian reservists had been ordered to form up into a couple of combat brigades. Reserve units of Naval Infantry had been sent into Norway ahead of them on lines-of-communications duties but Russian Army reservists were gathered in depots where they were issued equipment, formed up and preparations were made to march them west. They couldn’t even reach the Norwegian border. TF 20 bombed those depots (Murmansk and Pechenga especially) and also cut transport links. In addition, while the US Marines undertook Operation Checkmate close to Tromsø, the Russians believed that they instead would leave Tromsø alone and instead land in the Kola. US Navy aircraft were hitting targets when guided to them by SEALs: US Marines were expected next. Even when the news came that the 61st Brigade was being destroyed by the 2nd Marine Division, they still believed that ‘more’ US Marines were coming. There were some missing from the ORBAT drawn up by the GRU but the intelligence effort here missed where reservists from the 4th Marine Expeditionary Brigade were going: that was nowhere near the Kola Peninsula at all.

James G and forcon, great updates.

One Hundred and Fifty–Two

The national shame of the surrender of the Second Guards Army on the battlefield was something that at first Russia tried to hide. From the Kremlin, there came instructions that no mention was to be made of what had occurred. It was to be as if it never happened…

…then the Americans trumpeted it far and wide. They didn’t just do this in their own country nor around the world but specifically aimed the news of it into Russia. A major propaganda effort was made to tell the Russian people directly of that surrender of tens of thousands of Russian Army soldiers. Using pirated television and radio signals, plus also making use of the internet (bypassing state information controls with ease), the United States told the people of the Rodina what their government refused to. They proved what they had done too. Images, information and interviews of captives were broadcast across Russia.

Putin wasn’t carpet-chewing at this inside the Kremlin but he was pretty mad. Orders were given to shut down that propaganda barrage. He demanded of his defence minister and the generals that an ‘overwhelming’ response be made to all of this. At a meeting of Russia’s Security Council, there was quite the scene made. Several members present were rather taken aback at the behaviour. Putin wasn’t being Putin anymore.

Worse was the come for Russia on the battlefields of Poland in the days afterwards. The last weekend of August would see the loss of the last of Eastern Poland from their military control.


The Second Guards Army had passed through the positions of another field army, the First Guards Tank Army, to launch its attack against the US V Corps. This had been rather complicated to do. It required plenty of on-the-ground coordination to make sure that the incoming troops got where they needed to be, didn’t engage in friendly fire and also were able to go straight into the attack against a surprised opponent. It was all meant to have brought about victory. It didn’t and the Second Guards Army was left surrounded before being blasted to bits. In closing that trap which they made, NATO forces crashed into parts of the First Guards Tank Army which had stepped aside. Those worn-down elements took serious losses. They weren’t given a chance to recover before the V Corps pushed onwards. Whether the trapped Second Guards Army surrendered or not it didn’t matter, NATO was pushing on here and towards the Polish-Belorussian border.

The First Guards Tank Army was unable to stop them. Too much had been stripped away to support that other army. Their opponents had the momentum but, more than that, they had air support. Little of the latter was available to the Russians and Belorussians. There was still that ongoing ‘guerrilla warfare’ effort in the sky with hit-and-run attacks taking place, sometimes which caused grave losses, but it was not enough. There needed to be hundreds of jets in the sky all undertaking coordinated action. Just a few wouldn’t cut it, not when NATO – the Americans especially – could put those hundreds upon hundreds of jets in the sky. Of course, Russian air defences were at work but it wasn’t the same.

Under their air cover, the V Corps drove towards Belarus. They smashed apart all those who stood in their way. Russia would lose another field army though this time without a mass, humiliating surrender. There were small-scale ones which did take place, yes, but no really large ones above battalion-level. They weren’t able to do anything like that because NATO was too quick for them. Moving about with the coordination which their opponents lacked, the V Corps hit hard those they wished to and then pushed others into surrounded pockets. The largest ones of those formed around towns. Throughout Podlachia these pockets formed in places such as Korycin, Lapy and the bigger Bielsk Podlaski. Each of those were at crossroads where it would seem that they would have to be taken by NATO to control those roads. Belorussian troops fell back towards the much larger Bialystok with the aim of making a stand there. They failed to do that when the 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment cut them off from doing that but it was a close-run thing. Many Polish civilians could have been trapped in there at their mercy if the US Army hadn’t got there first and then hit the retreating Belorussians from behind.

Russian defensive strategy for keeping NATO away from Belarus depended upon this as a last ditch move. Those towns, full of effective hostages, would stop the onwards Operation Noble Sword advance because they controlled those roads. The V Corps wasn’t about to be held up like that. They went towards the border and aimed to leave those caught behind them to be dealt with by others. The Poles reached the frontier first with the 11th Armoured Cavalry Division getting to Sokolka (another crossroads town) before then carrying on to the villages of Kuznica and Krynki. Within hours, the Americans were on the border as well to the south of them and east of Bialystok. Even further south, French, Italian and Polish forces were going to take longer but they were on their way there too. The First Guards Tank Army had crumbled in their wake, unable to stop them. This included the famous Taman Guards, Russia’s 2nd Guards Motor Rifle Division, who had their last fight and were eliminated by the American’s 1st Armored & 1st Cavalry Divisions in a rather unequal fight.


Over in Belarus, Lt.–General Chirkin, the Russian supreme commander, who headed up the Western Operational Command, was killed on the Sunday afternoon. A flight of four Belgian F-16s had been taking part in air strikes against dispersed airfields throughout western Belarus. They’d hit a couple but two of the F-16s were heading home still carrying some ordnance due to the last target not being located. Through an act of good fortune, while flying low on the way back to Poland, the flight leader spotted a moving convoy. There were seven armoured vehicles which included a pair of Tunguska anti-air vehicles as well as wheeled & tracked personnel carriers. A quick look saw a mass of radio antenna.

Command column!

The Tunguskas, with their missiles and guns, were engaged and so too were the other vehicles. Bombs were then dropped before the Belgians departed. They knew that they’d hit a valuable target – that level of protection against air threats was quite something – though it wouldn’t become apparent until later on just who they had killed. NATO intelligence efforts would point to the success through enemy communications intercepts.

Chaos came in the wake of Chirkin’s death.

At the time he was being killed, central control was being used when it came to try and save the First Guards Tank Army for an already certain destruction. That wasted effort came just when Chirkin was also overseeing the entry into battle of the Thirty–Sixth Army. Russia had several armies and while not on the same scale as the Cold War, there were still plenty of them… although their numbers weren’t infinite. Like the lost Second Guards Army, this field army had come from the other side of the Urals. It had reserve units among its number and all of the men were untested in battle. They were supposed to stop NATO from breaking into Belarus and do so while inside Poland. They never got there due to Chirkin’s sudden death because their own commander waited for new orders from whomever would replace Chirkin.

Those that did cross the frontier and going into Poland under orders from Chirkin were Belorussian Interior Troops. Many of these paramilitaries were already in Poland and had been taking part in occupation duties but a lot more had received orders to move. They started to do so regardless of what else was going on where their officers followed orders. Plenty of the men in uniform, lightly-armed as they were, had a rough idea of what they were marching into: they were going up against NATO’s armies. The opportunity was taken to desert. More than a thousand did so during the first night. Some were close to the frontlines with NATO forces but others were far away. Still, they abandoned their units. Officers instructed those who stayed behind that families would be punished for all that those who deserted. This wasn’t something that everyone believed. There would be more defections. They would only help open the way into Belarus.

Second that.