Eagle Guardian: The War of 2010

Good update.

At this point, I'm thinking a demilitarized and neutral Belarus, Russian reparations in form of oil and gas shipments, admission of war guilt, and some kind of measures in the Ukraine would be a good peace. Russia can spend hundreds of billions rearming if they want to, but that will just wreck their economy. In exchange for voluntarily limiting rearmament, perhaps the West can assist in rebuilding non military infrastructure.

I think that it'll be quite hard to get any sort of support for any sort of funding for anything in Russia (for Western governments). Especially not when there is so much to rebuild in NATO and aligned countries.

One Hundred and Ninety

The men serving with the 3rd Battalion, the Royal Anglian Regiment were issued with just over ninety minutes warning of what was coming their way. Hold until relieved, the orders came from above to ‘the Steelbacks’. The TA soldiers and officers with the 3 R ANGLIAN dug-in among hastily arranged defensive positions on the southern side of the Daugava River in the middle of Latvia. Aircraft whizzed through the skies and there were explosions on the horizon. Those came closer and closer to where the reservists from across the East of England were positioned. A lot of things went through the soldier’s minds, a lot of questions were asked. Why couldn’t they withdraw over the river was one of the most prominent of those questions. Their task was not to consider the bigger matters this morning though but rather fight instead. That they would have to do.

Russian tanks and armoured vehicles arrived. There was no massive pre-attack artillery barrage though some shells did fall among British lines. 3 R ANGLIAN took the first of its casualties before many of those steel beasts disgorged riflemen were among their lines. MILAN anti-tank missiles were fired, mortars were launched and machine guns opened up. A dismounted infantry unit, 3 R ANGLIAN had no real mobility of its own. The Russian attack was all over the place and they couldn’t respond effectively as a battalion to what occurred. There was no ability to plug the holes which were ripped open through their lines despite the furious defensive fire put up. Russian mounted firepower and then charges made by riflemen forced the column that they led through the British lines and to the river beyond.

In their wake, they left hundreds of dead British reservists with 3 R ANGLIAN along with many more wounded with no immediate help on the way for them.

Many of these part-time volunteer soldiers had seen conflict before, going to Iraq and Afghanistan, though the Steelbacks had never been to war as a full battalion before. They were ordinary people from across East Anglia, Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire and Northamptonshire sent off to fight a different war. They’d meet violence while in Latvia but that came from terrorist actions by Russian-supported Militia. Today it was a completely different thing which destroyed their battalion and took their lives. Their losses would be felt among families and communities far and wide.

Elsewhere along the Daugava, further TA units as well as other troops assigned to the British 2nd Infantry Division were caught in the fire of Russia’s war machine as that river was reached. Instructions to hold until relieved were sent to them too. No relief came in time. The 15th Infantry Brigade had more TA soldiers from Yorkshire as well as a battalion of Canadian infantry from their Primary Reserve. There was too much damage done to and casualties caused within the 52nd Infantry Brigade where its TA units from England, Scotland and Wales serving within were literally driven over. Much of the third combat brigade – the 42nd Infantry Brigade – escaped the maelstrom of death and destruction that others suffered due to their inability to reach the fight in time: they were those meant to relieve the two other brigades. TA men riding in Scimitars and Spartan tracked armoured vehicles serving with the Queen’s Own Yeomanry went into battle though. Their orders had them attempt to shield the exposed infantry units from the incoming Russian armour spotted inbound. Some good efforts were made with kills made on enemy armoured vehicles but once the T-72 and T-80 tanks turned their fire on them back, the British were wiped out. The Queen’s Own Yeomanry, like many of the infantry battalions, would be completely destroyed as a fighting unit.

Meanwhile, the Russian Army was once more starting to cross the Daugava though this time going north rather than south.


It would be said afterwards that NATO took its eye off the ball in the Baltic States through September 10th when much of the UK 2nd Infantry & part of the US 7th Infantry Divisions were both hit as hard as they were. Too much focus was on celebrating the recent victory won in Belarus, disputing the course of the war that would come afterwards and also whether the Americans had done the right thing in making their limited air attacks on Kiev. Those detractors had a good point though that wasn’t completely fair. There was an understanding that the Russian Twentieth Guards Army was looking likely to escape from Lithuania by going over the Daugava through Latvia: that was what the US XVIII Airborne Corps had initially been sent to Latvia to stop. The Russians were being watched closely with there being the option in NATO’s eyes for them to make an ‘easy’ escape through Belarus or do things the ‘hard way’ and come over the Daugava. A lot of attention was being paid elsewhere though including the continued attempts by the US 82nd Airborne Division to take Riga due to political pressure within the alliance to liberate the Latvian capital. Overnight, making use of not just the darkness but also some clever deception efforts, the Twentieth Guards Army – well… what was left of it – broke north instead of east.

Far too late they were spotted, far too late to be really stopped before they reached the river. Both the 82nd Airborne and the UK-led 6th Airmobile Division were in the wrong position. While each would have suffered much in trying to stop the Russians, they probably could have achieved it. It fell on the lighter & less experienced units of the XVIII Corps though, those in the middle of the line along the Daugava. Both lighter divisions were on internal security duties and not in any way ready to be hit by what came their way. The other pair would have certainly been able to do far better. The Russians were retreating after all: they weren’t in the best of shapes. Yet they got out of Lithuania, into Latvia and started going over the Daugava.

NATO air power screaming in from all directions to hit the Russians who’d leapfrogged ahead overnight. Screening units had been left behind – the majority of them being Belorussians who were lied to about how they were being abandoned – to hold up the Allied I Corps as it liberated the majority of Lithuania along with completing the final stages of occupying Kaliningrad. Operation Baltic Arrow was going well there, just not here. Most of the Russians had gone charging northwards though. The Twentieth Guards Army was escaping and so left equipment and even supplies too. What was moving up to that river which ran across the width of Latvia and then over to it was hit and hit hard from above. There were some unfortunate instances of friendly fire where those NATO troops on the ground were hit by their own air support and also Latvian civilians were once more caught up in bombing raids too.

Nonetheless, the Russians were crossing the river. They even made use of many captured NATO bridges over the Daugava as well, those assembled by engineers and not blown up in time. Thousands of them, along with a significant armour presence, would make sure that if NATO wanted to take the rest of Latvia, and go up to Estonia as well, that was going to be extremely difficult for them to achieve now.

There was still much fighting near to and along the Daugava throughout the day: some Russian units didn’t make it across, the XVIII Corps had been split in two and the I Corps moved up as well. Elsewhere, the recriminations were already underway because this wasn’t supposed to have happened.


The British Government didn’t have any direct operational control over military units in the field overseas from the UK. There were many opt-outs which could – and had been already – be used for certain matters and there was too full knowledge of what was being done by whom when and where. Elements of the British Armed Forces deployed on NATO missions were under NATO control through an organised and wartime tested command structure. When deployed to Latvia, the 2nd Infantry Division came under the control of the XVIII Corps: in turn command responsibly went upwards to the US Seventh Army, CJTF–East and the SACEUR. If there had been the decision in London not to have their troops on the Daugava, then they wouldn’t have been there. It had been the decision taken by Cameron’s War Cabinet to send them there though and thus to an active war zone.

Throughout the day, reports arrived back in the UK of losses taken among British forces which had fought along the Daugava. Each time a new report arrived, the casualty figures rose higher and higher. British forces had fought costly land battles before in this war and there had been some significant losses of personnel at sea though this was rather different. First it was TA infantry and Yeomanry who were killed, wounded and missing before it was rear area support troops of the 2nd Division who were caught up in the disaster which was the Russian Twentieth Guards Army getting away. Those in London were unable to intervene in what happened there.

Aghast would be a good word to describe the reactions from them.

Only that morning, the War Cabinet – a committee formed from senior Cabinet ministers with officials and senior military officers assigned – had been discussing sending further British troops to Eastern Europe. There were plans afoot to deploy the 51st Infantry Brigade, a headquarters which had remained back in the UK overseeing security and training missions through Scotland. More TA troops plus also the British Army regulars who had fought in Transnistria were to be sent to Belarus, attached to the US V Corps there. This would be a reversal of the previous decision not to commit British forces in number in that country and instead keep them contained in other theatres of war for ease of logistics. The talking of making such a change was down to politics and the recent issue over the future direction of the war in Belarus where several NATO countries were growing apprehensive over continuing that when parts of the Baltics remained occupied. Cameron and his ministers were considering committing significantly to that war in Belarus – attaching the 51st Brigade to the French division fighting there seemed plausible – with TA troops when the Daugava Line was breached in the shocking way that it was. It could be said that they had relegated the fight in the Baltics to something secondary at the worst time possible to do that. Yet, as said, the fighting there on the ground in Latvia was a combined NATO matter.

A lot of anger in London was outwardly directed – they weren’t about to start blaming themselves – to the Americans. Lt.–General Helmick, the US Army officer in command of the XVIII Corps, would find that his name was mud among the British Government. Why had he not prepared his defences properly? Why had he not given more warning of what was coming? Why had he put British troops in the most exposed position? Not being able to talk to him directly, the rage coming from London on this went via a trans-Atlantic routing instead.

Major–General Shaw, the 2nd Infantry Division’s commander, was spoken to over the satellite link-up by Defence Secretary Davis before the end of the day too and he wasn’t in any favour among the War Cabinet either: blame the messenger that was. He gave another casualty count when it came to British troops who fought on the Daugava. The information which Shaw had was that close to three thousand were dead, a similar number were seriously injured and about six hundred were missing.

These were losses eventually going to have to be explained to the British public.

Very bad.
5th Battalion Royal Anglicans are a transport squadron based in Peterborough. Less fun is that I know 2 NCOs serving with the 3rd Batt at this time, and would probably have known a number of the squaddies out there too.

Right on the back of a major victory. They took their eye off the ball because the Russians are overall beaten, though not finished yet everywhere.




It was one of the reasons why I choose the TA: the assurances of local impact.
I have just noticed your signature. Well done, Tovarich.


I've worried since that the numbers were too high. I was thinking light, immobile infantry hit with tanks and everything else would get slaughtered, but, as said, I am considering toning those figures down somewhat.
They'll be looking for many scapegoats. Also, while much of that field army is lost, what got away will cause NATO more trouble.

There were protests right on the eve of war and a big one planned for the day it started.
Wartime powers - all long-standing - would have stopped several ones for public safety reasons but there will still be some which have and will happen.
Britain won't be the only country too.