Eagle Guardian STORY ONLY thread[{locked}]

Ninety-Five

The airspace over Eastern Europe was alive with aircraft. AWACS crews in command-&-control aircraft struggled to keep track of what was going on and where, with mistakes being made by both sides. Hundreds of new aircraft with fresh crews had arrived throughout the continent in the past few days.

The US Air Force, along with its Reserve and National Guard counterparts, provided the largest aerial contingent by far, but there was a rush to bring warplanes from non-NATO coalition members into the fray as well. Singapore contributed a squadron of its F-15s, while the Royal Australian Air Force had offered up a squadron of its own jets to NATO’s 1st Allied Tactical Air Force. That offer had been declined; the US had other ideas for the Australians, somewhat closer to home than Europe was. The US Air Force used its A-10s in the Close Air Support (CAS) role while the Royal Air Force deployed its Harrier GR9s similarly; while both of these types of aircraft were immensely effective, they suffered the highest attrition rates of the war due to their slow and vulnerable nature. Neither the American Warthogs nor the British Harriers could be deployed over Belarus as Operation Eclipse continued.

The Spanish Air Force, the Luftwaffe, and the RAF all had their Typhoons up in the air, with most of those aircraft flying as fighters alongside the American F-15s & F-22s but some carrying air-to-ground weapons also. F/A-18s, some from the Spanish Air Force and others from US Navy and Marine Corps fighter squadrons that did not have a ship to fly from, were present in Europe too. The Royal Canadian Air Force had its CF-188s, modified Hornets, flying out of Poland and from Hungary as well as a token number of jets up in Norway. Tornado strike aircraft, again operated by both Germany and the United Kingdom, flew alongside US warplanes in bombing targets through Kaliningrad and Belarus. The Americans had their F-16s & F-15Es carrying out these strikes.

B-1B Lancers were there too, flying from numerous airfields; down in Texas, the old Strategic Air Command facilities were being used, while further east, the B-1Bs were flying from Keflavik Airport in Iceland and from Lajes Airfield in the Azores. Unlike the cumbersome old B-52s, the Lancers could infiltrate enemy airspace with a reasonable chance of survival, while the B-52s had to launch stand-off weapons to have any hope of coming home again. They would, tonight, be striking targets further south with said cruise missiles, but first, a massive series of strikes would target Belarus.

With airfields across Russia’s closest (both diplomatically and geographically) ally being pounded night after night by NATO airpower, 1ATAF commanders felt confident in removing some of their assets from their initial focus on the Offensive Counter-Air (OCA) role, and instead tasking them to strike Russian Lines of Communication running through Belarus. There were Green Berets & SAS on the ground already, and while those units had attacked some supply convoys by themselves, more effective strikes would have to be made using airpower. The presence of NATO Special Forces within Belarus meant that strikes could be guided in more effectively than before.

B-1 Lancers came in at low altitude while F-16s from the US Air Force, the Royal Netherlands Air Force, the Royal Danish Air Force and the Belgian Air Force all carried out defence suppression strikes with their HARM and Shrike anti-radar missile systems. Using Mark-84 bombs, which scattered a huge number of explosive bomblets above a wide area, the Lancers hit the Russians’ Second Guards Army as it traversed westwards towards the front through the Belarusian countryside. Commandos on the ground below would duck for cover before reporting successful strikes and moving in to move up what was left. Tanks and armoured vehicles sometimes survived the bombardments, but vulnerable supply trucks, filled to the brim with ammunition and fuel, were hopelessly vulnerable to attacks from above. The bombers rarely got away unscathed; one B-1B was shot down by a SA-10 Grumble battery located northwest of Minsk, a site that had been missed by NATO intelligence.

Belarusian Scud missile batteries were another key target for the Coalition. An SAS troop behind the lines managed to destroy several of these with light anti-tank weapons, while additional groups of American, Polish, German and French commandos all successfully directed in laser-guided bombs and missiles onto several hidden launchers. Airfields, though taking a secondary priority behind logistical targets, were struck hard as well from the air. The same major facilities that had been hit before were bombed again. In a controversial measure, 1ATAF commanders switched tactics; they moved to directly target enemy personnel rather than the runways and aircraft hangers. Barracks buildings were blasted to pieces, with that measure being taken to prevent the Belarusians from quickly rebuilding their runways.

Kaliningrad was hit time and time again. The major naval base used by the Russian Baltic Fleet was demolished when B-1Bs again utilised their AGM-154 JSOW munitions, the same type which had obliterated a Russian armoured division several days ago. Airstrips were hit with runway-cratering munitions, while behind the lines, E-8 JSTARS aircraft sought to track Russian communications and establish the whereabouts of enemy command centres so that they too could be taken out with airpower.

The Russian Iskander missile strikes located within the enclave, which had continued to pummel Copenhagen even after the city had been liberated, were deliberately sought out with major effort being put into destroying them. Those weapons had been used conventionally so far, but they were capable of carrying nuclear or chemical warheads, possibly biological ones too, and that threat had to be eliminated before any NATO counteroffensive could take place on the ground.

High above the strike aircraft, NATO fighters again engaged the enemy. There were somewhat fewer Russian and Belarusian fighters in the skies tonight than had been expected. Losses to the Russians and their allies had been extremely severe, with little in the way of reinforcements coming on from further east. Sill, Fulcrums & Flankers rose to meet NATO jets and ferocious dogfights occurred again as they had every day and every night for the past week of the war, with the result being the same as it always was; NATO gained the upper hand, but with many casualties of its own. Commanders on both sides were beginning to rethink their strategies when carrying their air campaigns. Losses were heavy but it seemed too many that little was being achieved for all the pilots killed or captured and all the multi-million dollar aircraft destroyed.

NATO continued to strike the Russian mainland. The US Air Force was not yet ready to launch a direct attack against Moscow, but further targets within mainland Russia had been identified by the Pentagon since yesterday’s attack on the United States. The Russian oil infrastructure in the Caucuses was strategic in nature, an asset that would provide not only fuel for the Russian military on a short-term basis but also post-war, regardless of who won. Oil is the water that armies run on, and Russia could not function without her supplies. Operations were being planned to deal with the Far East and Russian oil supplies there, but tonight would see the expansion of Operation Eclipse into southern Russia. Much of the natural resources within that mountain range were located in neutral Azerbaijan, but there were still targets within Russia aplenty.

The night of August 13th saw Operation Eclipse expanding southwards. The aircraft taking part were almost all from the US Air Force, but the Bulgarian and Romanian Air Forces mounted operations of their own to secure their own airspace and covert the Americans’ retreat. B-52H bombers took off from two separate airfields; RAF Fairford in the United Kingdom, and Sofia Airport in the Bulgarian capital city. The latter facility had a military airbase located on its territory, and most civilian airstrips in Europe had been taken over for wartime uses regardless, leaving the B-52s free to operate from it.

Eighty-seven Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched by US Navy ships belonging to the Stennis aircraft carrier strike group as the B-52s took off and formed up. The cruise missiles came in over the Black Sea, skirting Ukrainian airspace and first targeting Russia’s navy base at Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula, before additional missiles hit the Russian airfields at Krasnodar and Rostov-on-Don. There were a pair of SA-10s that had to be eliminated as well; Tomahawks took care of one of these sites while another Grumble would evade destruction after it was moved before the Tomahawk missile strike.

Following the Navy’s strike package, the B-52s went after Moscow’s southern-based oil supplies. Eleven B-52s were present, each armed with twenty AGM-86 cruise missiles. Some of these weapons were to be held back as a reserve in case any of the B-52s went down before they could hit launch their missiles. There were F-15C Eagles of the US Air Force present over the Black Sea, mounting as fighter sweep over the murky waters to lure out Russian interceptors. F-16s from Aviano in Italy joined them, refuelling over the Adriatic Sea.

The fighter patrols did their job, drawing Russian fighters away from the distant B-52s acting as ‘missile trucks’. MiG-29s from Russia’s Southern Military District and its 4th Air Army raced out over the Black Sea and clashed with the F-15s & F-16s. The Russians had an AWACS of their own orbiting near their border with Georgia, allowing their fighters to be coordinated expertly. The air battle over the Black Sea had been planned as a mere sideshow to distract Russian air defences, but it turned into a major fur-ball. The Americans, using their AIM-120s & AIM-7s, got off the first volley of air-to-air missiles, but they were quickly targeted by the Russians. The fighters clashed at close range with cannons and heat-seeking missiles. Victory, for the US Air Force, was achieved, when a flight of F-15Cs managed to ‘bounce’ the Russian A-50 on the edges of Russian airspace, downing it with an AMRAAM missile before one of their own aircraft was shot by a pursuing Su-30.

AGM-86s from the Air Force B-52s flew fast and low into Russian airspace, avoiding the attention of enemy air defences by flying at extremely low altitude. Despite their terrain-following radars, several missiles would crash into the ground before hitting anything useful. While it made low-level flying a harrowing task and took down several unmanned missiles, the mountainous terrain of southern Russia was useful in protecting the missiles from enemy radars. The first that the 4th Air Army new of the second wave of missile attacks directly on Russian soil was when oil drilling platforms started exploding. The oil burned furiously throughout the night and Russian emergency crews were hard-pressed to deal with the casualties. In all, the Russian Southern Military District had seen its principal naval base, two airfields, a SAM site, and a dozen oil drilling platforms destroyed or heavily damaged, while an A-50 had been shot down along with nine fighter aircraft. All that they could claim for all the losses suffered was the downing of five American fighters.





Ninety–Six

Russia’s CSTO allies in Central Asia had plenty of combat aircraft. Kazakhstan in particular had many Soviet-era aircraft of the same type that Russia and Belarus flew: Flankers & Foxhounds & Fulcrums as well as Fencers & Frogfoots, even Foxbats which had been only-recently retired from Russian Air Force service yet remained effective weapons. Upon the American air attack over Tajikistan where Russian forces inside that country opposite Afghanistan were struck, the Security Council of Russia activated the provisions of not just the CSTO treaty but the Joint CIS Air Defence System too. Demands were made upon allies that they too come to the aid of Tajikistan as they themselves were doing. Lukewarm support from Moscow’s allies in this region for their war in Europe had been the dominant theme in intra-CSTO relations before the Americans attacked, but that changed once war came to them in this manner. Armenia (outside of Central Asia), Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan all answered the call. They would aid Russia in its defence of the wider region against this ‘American aggression’ against two of their partners. On the face of it, this unity on this matter of helping to protect Tajikistan – and Russian forces there at the invitation of the Tajiks –, brought all of these former Soviet states together with their once imperial master again where they too were at war with the Coalition. That wasn’t what they wanted though.

The armed forces of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan were small and of little significance: in Central Asia, Russia was the strongest power but followed not that far behind by Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in terms of available on-the-ground forces. Those two countries not only sent air units to the effort to help defend Tajikistan (the Uzbeks had a reasonably-sized air force) but also troops as well. Moving them there wasn’t easy yet had been done. What was facing the Coalition forces over the border in Afghanistan to the north was a still-growing and capable defensive force. What it wasn’t though was an offensive force. Russia wasn’t about to lead a CSTO army on the advance towards Kabul. Even if their regional allies had agreed to that, which they surely wouldn’t, there wasn’t the capability to do so in military terms. Instead, Russian and Central Asian troops positioned themselves to guard against incursions coming north. Those might come in the form of an invasion into Tajikistan or maybe further special forces raids: either way, there were defensive measures taken to block those. It wasn’t only Tajikistan which bordered Afghanistan where the Coalition had their ISAF command either. Uzbekistan had a short frontier with that nation and then there was Turkmenistan as well. The Turkmens had a far longer border with Afghanistan and this country was neither a part of CSTO nor the regional air defence system either. In the lead-up to the war, Russia had browbeaten Turkmen cooperation even further than pre-tension bilateral military relations already were. Those thousands of Russian military forces within the country – all de jure serving the interests of Turkmenistan and not Russia – reverted to proper Russian command. Russia would assist the Turkmens in the defence of their country, it had been agreed many years beforehand, and that now became the case now. Aircraft in Turkmen Air Force colours joined those in the skies over Central Asia engaged in defensive missions and responded to the multinational air defence network (aircraft, bases, missiles, radars & command-and-control) that the CSTO countries were part of.

These actions of the Central Asian nations saw the Coalition regarded them as active participants in a war against them just as Belarus and Transnistria were. Diplomatic relations were cut, trade links were shut off – this would really hurt all of them – and formal notifications were made that they were considered to be at war. They hadn’t signed up for this but had been dragged in all while undertaking their mutual security commitments when one of their number had been the victim of an attack.

Under centralised ISAF control, reporting to General McChrystal, the Coalition had their own aircraft in the region. The Americans had two of their Expeditionary Air Wings inside Afghanistan which included F-15s (the multirole Strike Eagle variant), F-16s, Predator & Reaper drones and US Marines jets attached to them too. The big air strike on Tajikistan had been conducted by B-52s which were based off in far off Diego Garcia. No further B-52 bomb-runs came in the following days, but there was more conventional air action conducted by ISAF air forces into Tajikistan and also Uzbekistan as well. Fighter sweeps were undertaken and ‘limited’ air strikes were made. Russian and CSTO air power was targeted along with its missile defences. The Americans weren’t alone with this. The RAF had a squadron of Tornado GR4s in Afghanistan, aircraft that the British really wanted to have flying over European skies. They remained in Afghanistan though, flying combat missions into Tajikistan alongside the Americans. Furthermore, from bases in Iraq and Kuwait, the Americans had more aircraft which were there to support what was supposed to have been the last months of the United States’ military presence in Iraq. Some of them were going to have to stay, providing important air cover for troops there battling a reinvigorated insurgency, but others were going to be transferred to ISAF control. CENTCOM had been informed that air and ground reinforcements weren’t going to be sent to the Middle East at this time because of the pressing need for reinforcements for Eastern Europe unless there was a significant change in the geo-political situation. That was happening over in Libya and there was concern too over Syria’s intentions. This meant that what was in the wider region would have to be moved about, robbing Peter to pay Paul, instead of relying upon incoming combat assets from overseas. More Strike Eagles were transferred up from Iraq leaving the many A-10s in-place there to support the ongoing fighting which was left behind.


In the skies above where aircraft clashed yet without anywhere near the intensity of those occurring above Eastern Europe, there was fighting on the ground too. Combat was seen on the northern borders of Afghanistan and inside as well.

Cross-border skirmishing from Tajikistan and now Uzbekistan continued. It wouldn’t be long before that included Turkmenistan too. Russian forces engaged in low-level (compared to how things were in Europe) combat with American and British forces all along the frontiers. Artillery shelling, launching of tactical missiles and raids went on. Both the 7th Guards Air Assault & 201st Motor Rifle Divisions were involved in this alongside a large Spetsnaz contingent too. Behind them, CSTO forces were arrayed in their defensive positions yet not yet having seen action. Opposing the Russians in this fight, doing back what was being done to them, were the 10th Mountain Division, the 4th UK Mechanised Brigade and the 3rd Marine Regiment. The latter American unit was actually a Regimental Combat Team while the former consisted of two organic brigades of the 10th Mountain as well as two more from additional divisions part of the ISAF rotation. When it came to the British, their brigade was a ‘medium’ unit in terms of capability though that wasn’t a term the British Army would use. There was light armour, a lot of infantry and also Royal Marines with 40 Commando present: a battalion of Gurkhas had left Afghanistan days before the war started and flown back to the UK rather than stay here. All of these troops on the two opposing sides were fighting on Afghanistan’s borders with deaths and injuries occurring. Munitions expenditure was immense and so too was the rate of destruction of equipment. The Russians had troops behind them from their so-called allies yet couldn’t really count on them as any form of reinforcement; ISAF’s frontline troops had friendly troops behind them but they were busy where they were.

Many here in this fight were calling this a forgotten war because they were out here seemingly all alone unsupported. That might not have been the case, but it sure felt that way for those on the ground.

Russian special forces had yet to go into Afghanistan. There was the intention to send in some Spetsnaz detachments to cause trouble though they really weren’t needed to do that. The Taliban was doing that all by themselves. They were fighting other ISAF forces which included many NATO troops from across Europe attached to three combat brigades in the form of the French 27th Mountain Infantry, the German 31st Airborne and Polish 25th Air Cavalry in addition to two American national guard brigades as well. All five of those formations were split up across the country engaged in combat to varying degrees against a dedicated enemy who were under no illusion that this was the only chance they were ever going to really have to win here. The Taliban, long said to be on its last legs yet an opponent which just never died out, gave it their everything. Many previous strict rules of engagement which several European nations followed – to the ire of the Americans who had very relaxed ROE – had been thrown out of the window. The situation with the Poles here in Afghanistan was something of note. They wanted to be back home, fighting to directly defend their country. Instead, they were half a world away fighting for someone else’s… just as their own many allies were doing for theirs though.

Ninety-Nine

Norway’s Lofoten Islands were known for, amongst other things, being an excellent place to fish and to hike. This popularity was destroyed by the carnage that befell the Lofoten Islands during World War III. Several companies of Spetsnaz seized control of the virtually undefended islands, and were quickly joined by surviving troops from the 11th Guards Air Assault Brigade. The islands had been taken by naval commandos going in by submarine and then the paratroopers had been flown in to join them.

With the island chain being incredibly isolated, Russian commanders had thought it would be at the lower end of NATO’s priorities for recapture. However, with the situation in Norway continuing to unfold in Russia’s favour, NATO needed a victory for morale purposes and more importantly the recapture of the islands would allow for NATO troops to hit the Russians from behind if they advanced any further into Norwegian territory. Back on the Norwegian mainland, the German Army’s 26th Airborne Brigade had been impatiently waiting to be sent into action. They had been sent to Norway right before the fighting had broken out and so far had yet to see any real action, with the Norwegians themselves along with US and Royal Marines doing the vast majority of the fighting.

Resistance against the German paratroopers was expected to be moderate. While the enemy troops that needed clearing out of the island chain were excellently-trained for this kind of warfare, they were also demoralised and lacking in critical supplies. A battalion-sized airdrop occurred outside Grimsoya, Norway, with the Germans using that isolated area as an infiltration point. Only a platoon of enemy troops were there near Grimsoya, but those soldiers fought back despite the odds against them. The fight was brief, lasting less than half an hour, but saw seventeen dead Russians for nine Germans killed.

Following the battalion which had airdropped into the Lofoten Islands, the rest of the 26th Airborne Brigade moved in by helicopter, using US Marine Corps utility aircraft, including MV-22 Ospreys, to enhance their mobility. As German airmobile troops moved both eastwards and westwards across the E-10 Highway bridges, they met resistance from Spetsnaz troops who had been attempting to demolish those transport routes.

The Germans had the numbers, facing squad-sized Russian units with entire companies. However, the Russian commandos and paratroopers never failed to put up a steadfast fight. The majority of the Germans went north-east, pushing up through the island chain and leaving only a pair of companies, joined by a small number of British SBS operators, to secure the south-western quarter of the Lofoten Islands. The operation went relatively smoothly in the southwest, with the Russian defenders dislodged and then forced to surrender.

There would be dozens of casualties on both sides, and NATO commanders in Norway sought a quick victory in order to avoid the fight here, once a sideshow, developing into a quagmire. Reluctantly, more airpower was siphoned away from the fighting throughout the rest of Norway and sent to the islands. US Marine Corps AV-8Bs proved decisive in destroying Russian light infantry units as they attempted to dig in, and their efforts were further supported by AH-1W Super Cobra gunships.

Fighting in the Lofoten Islands would continue throughout the day as German and Russian paratroopers met, with the latter falling back farther and farther. Eventually, the Russians would become isolated and be fighting with their backs to the sea, cut off from any resupply. The eventual surrender of the Russian garrison came at the price of sixty-two dead German paratroopers and over a hundred fallen Russians. Many had died in this fight, all for a strip of islands that barely even registered on a map. And the fighting in Norway would continue.

Meanwhile, Special Operations Command was executing a mission of its own. It would take time for the US Navy to inflict a crippling defeat on Russia’s Northern Fleet, but it was felt by many that such a thing was inevitable. As such, NATO commanders wanted permission to begin preparing to strike targets in the far north of Russia. The Kola Peninsula was rife with airfields, naval bases, and air defence systems. All of these facilities were inviting targets for US naval airpower, but enemy air defences were of major concern. Before any major air campaign could be initiated against the Kola area, they would have to be located and either targeted for destruction by anti-radiation weapons, or destroyed by those who located them.

Tasked with carrying out this mission was the US Navy SEAL’s Team Two. An Atlantic-assigned SEAL Team, Team Two had served tours overseas in places like Afghanistan, although on a somewhat less frequent basis than other units. Nevertheless, the men of the SEAL unit were highly skilled, and had trained to operate in an environment like Kola many times before, often in Norway.

USS Florida, a vessel which had previously launched Tomahawk cruise missiles against both Kola and Russian-occupied Norway, carried over two dozen SEALs northwards towards Murmansk. She slipped undetected through the choppy waters of the Norwegian Sea, up past the North Cape, and into the Barents Sea. Russian frigates and maritime patrol aircraft all the while scoured the seas for any signs of an American or NATO submarine. Days earlier, the American submarine USS Norfolk had been attacked, and lost, when a Russian submarine was able to get the drop on her. The Americans were desperate to prevent this happening again, and the Florida was former Ohio-class nuclear missile submarine, built almost entirely around the premise of stealth.

Florida evaded detection until she reached her release point. Using rebreathers and wetsuits the first SEAL element left Florida’s protective hull. They swam ashore under the cover of darkness, approaching the coast just west of Murmansk. Narrowly avoiding the village of Vidyadevo, the twelve-man SEAL element entered the nearby woodlands before burying their scuba gear and switching into combat fatigues. Each SEAL was armed either with an M-4 Carbine or an M-249 light machinegun; Sig Saur 9mm pistols were the preferred sidearm, while snipers carried modernised M-14 rifles.

Shared between the commandos were a trio of Light Anti-Tank Weapons or LAWs, along with a significant quantity of plastic explosives. Though heavily-armed, the SEALs would rely on stealth to survive their infiltration. Actual combat with the enemy could only occur with ambushes and lighting attacks which had to be followed immediately by a withdrawal.

Florida then went eastwards, still avoiding enemy anti-submarine units. Coastal patrol boats and Ka-27 helicopters carrying torpedoes narrowly missed the submarine, but after several spine-chilling near-misses she made it to the secondary drop-off point. To the east of Murmansk, near Granitnyy, two dozen more SEALs disgorged from Florida. Equally as well-armed and well-trained as the previous commando element, they swam ashore, avoiding the attention of a circling Ka-27, before moving further inland and changing into more appropriate gear.

The first indication that Moscow would have of the presence of US commandos on Russian soil proper would be the disappearance of a trio of MVD men and their vehicle. The vehicle would be found overturned and burned, along with its three occupants. Closer examination would reveal that two of the MVD men had been shot and another had had his throat cut. The hapless Russian patrol had stumbled onto the SEALs unknowingly; two of its members had immediately been shot dead, and the third had been killed with a knife while trying to flee, according to the eventual after-action report. It would take nearly a week from the initial insertion of the SEALs for this to occur though. With that knowledge, Russian troops would begin to search the Kola area, but it was already too late at that point.

The commandos from SEAL Team Two represented only a small fraction of the troops set to go into the Kola Peninsula. Task Force Black, named by the Ministry of Defence rather than the Pentagon, was to have responsibility over the SEAL units that had gone into the region today. Soon joining them would be additional Navy SEALs and members of the British SBS as well. Once the US Navy was in position to begin a real air campaign against the Kola Peninsula, those SEALs and their SBS brethren would begin to take out radar sites and strategic air defence weapons, paving the way for the Hornets and Super Hornets.




One Hundred

The Norwegian submarine HNoMS Uredd remained unable to get into position to strike at the big ships of the Russian Northern Fleet. As those finally set out from the partially-sheltered position they had inside Norwegian waters west of the North Cape, the Uredd managed to get off a contact report – a burst transmission by a raised antenna – before following. The hope was that their allies would have some luck in making an attack. Then, maybe, the Uredd would get a fortunate break. There were several NATO submarines out in deeper waters of the Norwegian Sea who all received the signal. One of those was close enough to take advantage today of this gifted opportunity.

HMS Torbay, one of the Royal Navy’s Trafalgar-class hunter-killers, was positioned into a perfect ambush and made an attack. A trio of Spearfish torpedoes were launched in the first wave of the Torbay’s strike and then another three were fired soon afterwards. Once the targets for them were acquired, their guidance wires were cut. The Torbay then dove and ran. Her Spearfish raced onwards in the other direction. Two of them (of three targeted; the other went after a decoy) slammed into the destroyer RFS Severomorsk, detonating beneath her as she sprung into action to defend the big ships after the torpedo alert had come, and these broke her back. The Udaloy-class anti-submarine warship would split in half soon enough with both ends going down to the sea bottom. Many, many Russian sailors would go down with her. Other British torpedoes closed-in upon the battle-cruiser RFS Pyotr Velikiy. This huge vessel of the Kirov-class, the Northern Fleet’s flagship, had just lost her close-in protection. There were helicopters in the sky and other warships were firing anti-submarine mortars and missiles (the latter carrying torpedoes far outwards which would search for a submarine). An all-stop was called for with the battle-cruiser’s engines and a call for the men to brace for impact was shouted. Those inside the ships’ control station listened to the noises of the torpedoes getting closer and they knew that their ship was doomed.

The Pyotr Velikiy was hit by all three torpedoes. Like with the Severomorsk, the warheads within each blew up when underneath the hull aiming to break her keel. They didn’t manage to do so yet immense holes were torn into the warship. Seawater flooded in at a prodigious rate. More of that water gathered on the starboard side of the Pyotr Velikiy rather than over to port. She began to list though also was going down by the stern too. The angle of her list rapidly increased. Within, damage control parties raced to try and save her. Counterflooding efforts were attempted as the list to starboard got even worse. The bow was raised further and further out of the water as she leaned over. These were no calm waters which the Pyotr Velikiy was sailing in at the time of her torpedoing and the sea-state where there were dangerous waves and high winds combined with everything else. The ship was doomed. Her captain ordered an evacuation but this was far too late. Less than sixty of her seven hundred plus crew were gotten off before over she went.

The Pyotr Velikiy capsized and would be taken by the sea.

Long-delayed, the captain of the Torbay was able to add in his submarine’s war diary that – finally – ‘Peter the Great sleeps with the fishes’. Running to avoid a major Russian countereffort to sink her, the Torbay eluded those pursuers and was able to later broadcast a contact report. Before then though, having witnessed from afar the destruction out ahead using hydrophones rather than sonar or radar, the Uredd struck again. Peter the Great had already been ‘claimed’ by the Royal Navy and the aircraft carrier RFS Admiral Kuznetsov was too well-protected but the plucky little Norwegian boat found some further targets. A tanker was sunk first and then the destroyer RFS Rastoropnyy was torpedoed leading to her later capsizing as well. The Rastoropnyy was an already damaged ship with this Sovremenny-class vessel having been struck by a Hellfire missile (designed for anti-tank work but lethal against any target) fired by Norwegian coastal rangers in their fast combat craft during the Tromsø debacle. Now it was finished off for good.

Three major Russian warships plus a support ship had been sunk off Norway. Later events on land during the day saw other NATO successes occur where those Norwegians with their Brigade Nord had made it to friendly lines north of Narvik to link up with the US Marines while the Germans had achieved much in the Lofoten Islands. They Norwegians had fought for Finnmark and eventually had to flee yet they had gotten away from a pursuit and would be able to fight again; the Fallschirmjager had won an important if small victory. The day looked extremely promising for NATO in the norther theatre of the war raging with Russia here. Events much further out to sea wouldn’t be as fortunate though, especially not for the Royal Navy.


Out in the North Atlantic, more submarines were in action.

NATO intelligence believed that the Russians had put many of their Northern Fleet submarines far out to sea away from the Norwegian Sea and into the ocean proper. Estimates stated that at least half a dozen big nuclear-powered boats were positioned in a (curved) line running from the bottom of Greenland southeast towards Ireland. This was a subsea forward line of defence though full of offensive assets. That intelligence summary was bang on the money. There were six submarines there indeed: three of which NATO deemed Oscar-class vessels, two Victors and an Akula. One of them had yesterday sunk a French submarine – FNS Casabianca – and another had been vigorously pursued, but not caught, by several NATO aircraft on the hunt for her and her comrades. Those Russian submarines were right in the way of a large US Navy carrier battle group with two aircraft carriers, more than twenty warships (not all American) and a dozen support ships crossing the ocean heading towards Northern Europe. The USS Harry S. Truman had been lost in the Norwegian Sea: the Americans were sending the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and the USS Enterprise to the same area. Those carriers were on their way to influence the fighting in Norway and then take the war to Russia’s shores beyond. The fate of the Truman wasn’t one which was wanted to be seen to occur to the Eisenhower and the Enterprise. NATO knew how she had been killed – that Oscar strike with only a third of its payload of missiles – and weren’t in the mood to see that happen again. Furthermore, these Russian submarines, the three hunter-killer attack models as well as the missile-submarines, had their own offensive capabilities should they be re-tasked from their line strung across the ocean. The North Atlantic would be full of targets for them should they be let off the leash, including all of those unarmed ships sailing from North America full of NATO’s machines of war for the frontlines in Eastern Europe. These included the equivalent of three US Army heavy divisions. Aircraft and submarines were hunting those Russian submarines in the way and today, one to be long remembered for all the wrong reasons, a pair of British submarines were very unlucky here.

HMS Talent and HMS Tireless were each lost. These sisterships of Torbay were sunk in separate incidents only a few hours apart. Talent took down her own killer with her when trading shots with the Russian submarine RFS Vepr, that lone Akula. The captains aboard each made mistakes and these errors saw the boats hit by torpedoes – Spearfishes and Skhvals – with the complete loss of full crews. The Vepr made a final kill shot with one of those supercavitating torpedoes even when doomed herself in a last act of revenge. Tireless was moments away from firing her torpedoes upon the RFS Voronezh. This Oscar-class submarine, out in the North Atlantic with twenty-four anti-ship cruise missiles all waiting for an American carrier to come into range, wasn’t as clueless to the stalking British submarine as believed. The Voronezh fired first and achieved a hit upon her wannabe attacker before the Royal Navy could react. Like the Talent, the Tireless was lost with all hands though in this engagement that Russian boat involved escaped unscathed.

The Americans got themselves two Russian submarines and without suffering a loss of their own. The US Navy would could this as a good day for them because one of the pair of enemy boats eliminated was the RFS Orel, that submarine which had sunk the Truman. One of their own submarines, USS Albany, ambushed the Orel and put four torpedoes into her: the double-hulled boat was always going to be a hard kill though this was really an overkill when two Mk.48s would have done the job. Vengeance was gained for the Truman and all the lives lost with her. The later sinking of the RFS Tambov was a serendipitous occurrence. Flying from Scotland, a RAF Nimrod MR2 aircraft – the withdrawal from service of the Nimrod had been delayed by the Brown Government in a decision taken last year due to international tensions – had been dispatched in case there were any survivors to be found from the sunken Tireless: a rescue buoy had floated to the surface broadcasting an ‘I’m dead’ signal. This maritime patrol aircraft didn’t find any of them nor the Russian boat which had eliminated her but did get a partial track on another submarine. This was the Victor-class Tambov. Calling for assistance, the Nimrod tried her luck in her own attack but was unable to get the Victor. The Americans came to help, late to the party yet walking home with the prize. A MH-60R Seahawk helicopter was flying far out ahead of the destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill (a ship which had a permanently-assigned RN officer aboard due to the history there) and raced in after the Nimrod’s miss. Two torpedoes were dropped into the water and one of them achieved a hit. Instead of imploding, the Tambov came up to the surface. Ten crewmen escaped but the seas then quickly took the Russian boat back down along with everyone else. The Nimrod dropped a life-raft (she was equipped for air-sea rescue) and then Seahawk hovered nearby. Seven Russian sailors would be saved by their enemies – three others hadn’t survived despite escaping at first – who had only just before tried to kill them. They’d face captivity though that was far better than the fate of their comrades.

Two Russian attack submarines and an Oscar had been sunk: another three boats, including two more missile-submarines, remained unmolested though. They were still at sea and part of the now-diluted defensive line. NATO would continue to hunt them down, sending aircraft and submarines but also warships as well after them. The way ahead needed to be cleared, especially of the Oscars known to be there and just waiting for another carrier or two to come into range. Of course though, there were more Oscars too…


The day also saw naval action in the Baltic Sea… well, naval-air action to be accurate. NATO was pushing warships into the Baltic through the Danish Straits and gathering its strength there. Out ahead went submarines from several navies including many German boats but also ones in Dutch and Spanish service too: American, British and French attack submarines remained elsewhere leaving smaller ones to go into the Baltic. The mission for all of those vessels, above and below the water, was to head towards the coastlines of the occupied Baltic States and Russia too. Air power went in first, opening the way.

What remained of the Russian’s Baltic Fleet after the destruction of so many vessels on the war’s first day was sought. There weren’t any big ships, few ‘medium’ ships yet many small ships. The old frigate RFS Neukrotimyy was targeted. This Krivak-class ship had been taken out of reserve in the New Year yet had stayed behind when the Baltic Fleet went forward last weekend to aid the landing at Copenhagen. German Tornados attacked her attacked her using Kormoran-2 anti-ship missiles while escorting Luftwaffe EF-2000s engaged Russian Naval Aviation fighters. Multiple missile hits were achieved as the air defences of the Neukrotimyy were overwhelmed: the Germans attacked from three directions all at once. Fires raged from bow-to-stern but before any significant numbers of men could get off, her missile arsenal detonated. The Neukrotimyy was blown to pieces. The Germans got two missile boats, Nanuchka-class corvettes, as well with Kormorans originally destined for the frigate with one-shot kills made on the smaller vessels. Turning back for home, the Tornados faced a pair of Sukhoi-27s that evaded their fighter cover and chased after them. Both sets of aircraft raced westwards with the Flankers firing on the fleeing Germans and bringing down a pair of Tornados.

There were other Russian warships. Further corvettes – with guns and missiles – remained as well as armed minesweepers/minelayers and patrol boats. The Germans came back, this time alongside American F-16s from one of those Air National Guard squadrons which had recently arrived in Europe. Flights of two, four and six aircraft spent the latter half of the day and into the night searching for targets. They had distant radar coverage but there was also support from a French special forces team of naval commandos who were active within Latvia’s Courland Peninsula looking out to sea with high-powered binoculars and radioing contact reports of observed ships. Another Nanuckha, two Parchim-class corvettes and four minesweepers were all found. Others were missing though no matter how hard these NATO aircraft tried to find them they remained undetected. There was a brand-new Steregushchiy-class corvette especially sought along with the Tarantul-class corvettes hunted fruitlessly as well. None of these were big but all were well-armed. NATO wanted to open-up the Baltic’s eastern shoreline completely for later operations here. To do so, they needed to eliminate as many ships as possible which would stand in the way of further commando operations and possibly even full-scale landings. These weren’t the only enemy which stood in the way though. There were Russian submarines known present but unseen. The Russians were observed laying naval mines; they too were seen bringing forward coastal missile batteries including ones which must have come from the Black Sea and also out of storage. The Kremlin was clearly expecting a serious effort at NATO landing operations here and getting ready to oppose that.

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?”






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.

One-Hundred-Seven

World War III was now a conflict that was truly global. Syria had entered the fighting yesterday after a series of Israeli airstrikes, and Libya had been drawn into the fighting several days before. Israel was now a member of the Coalition, fighting in the Middle East. Yesterday’s airstrikes against Syria had been met with some muted criticism from several European nations, but there little in the way of real condemnation. Russian troops were in Syria in small numbers and in itself this, in the eyes of many, made Syria a cobelligerent of Moscow’s. Syria’s deliberate retaliation against civilian targets within Israel had only worsened matters, with the government of Israel declaring that it would respond with “total force” against the Assad Regime.

This promise was carried out early in the morning on August 16th. Israeli F-16s & F-15s attacked Syria from the south, striking known headquarters of Assad’s Republican Guard formations. Syrian air defence batteries launched dozens of missiles into the dawn sky, backed by a handful of Russian weapons systems. While Syrian losses were relatively heavy, only one Israeli F-16 was shot down, while a pair of other jets were damaged. Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean and CENCTOM under General John Allen, US Marine Corps, both asked the Administration for permission to engage Syrian forces alongside the Israelis. This was given almost immediately. Washington was seeing the chance to knock Russian allies down while the Russian Armed Forces were defeated.

Though the political will did not exist for a costly American-led invasion of Syria that would have similar results to the war in Iraq, Biden the Pentagon was more than obliged to allow the Israeli’s to take the lead and send troops to support Tel Aviv. The John C. Stennis aircraft carrier battle group was headed westwards towards Libya and her mission would not be changed. However, numerous American aircraft resided at Romanian and Bulgarian facilities, and the British government would allow its airfield at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus to be used by the Americans as well. F-16s belonging to the Air National Guard’s 323rd Air Expeditionary Wing flew from Romania down over the Black Sea and into Syrian airspace, bombing Tartus once again. The strike did little more than bounce the rubble left behind by the Israeli attack yesterday, but it was an important show of support by the United States to its key Middle Eastern ally.

Syrian and Israeli ground forces clashed in the Golan Heights. The Syrian Arab Army’s First Corps, stationed in northern Syria near the Israeli frontier, moved into the mountains with surprising speed. With three mechanised and armoured divisions, equipped with Soviet-made T-72s, the First Corps was a deadly threat to Israel. The Syrian Arab Army had seen Russian advisors operating in support of it for the past two years, with much progress being made in terms of training and doctrine. Nevertheless, Israel was equipped with a far more modern military, with first-class training and near total air superiority.
Opposing the Syrian corps was Israel’s Northern Command, with four divisions, including the over-strength 36th Armoured Division. Israeli fighters immediately engaged Syrian forces moving through the mountains, with their bombs guided in by commandos on the ground. The eastern and western sides of Highway-81 would be the site of some of the heaviest fighting in the Middle East in decades. The Syrian 5th Mechanised Division made a push along the road and through the surrounding desert, attempting to open up the path for follow-on forces behind. Their attempt was blocked by the Israeli 36th Armoured Division. With their Merkava MBTs the Israelis vastly outgunned their opponents, although the Syrians fought with unusual vigour and tenacity. It would be deemed the Battle of Ortal.

Fighting continued with the Israeli’s launching a counterattack which effectively destroyed the 5th Mechanised Division. Heavy casualties were suffered by the Syrians, with nearly half of the division killed or captured. It wasn’t an easy victory for the Israeli Defence Forces either; they’d suffered over one hundred killed, about half of that number occurring when a logistical unit was bombarded by accurate Syrian artillery fire. With reinforcements moving in from the remainder of the country, the Israeli Northern Command’s troops went southwards towards Syria. How far they were going to go had not yet been decided, but options were planned for the full-scale invasion and occupation of Syria, or at least for the ousting of Bashar al-Assad.

US troops began landing in Israel. These were light formations whose usefulness in the high-intensity battlefields in Europe was questionable. General Petraeus, while being noticeably guarded about the deployment of his units elsewhere, could offer no real objection to the formation of Task Force David’s Shield. The 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, stationed in Italy, went off to Israel later in the day, deploying to the country by C-130 aircraft. Joining them soon would be members of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, a small but formidable force. A brigade from the 10th Mountain Division was to be peeled off and sent into battle in Israel behind the paratroopers and marines. Soon, US troops would be fighting alongside the Israelis as Coalition troops entered Syria.

Meanwhile, Libya was suffering under an intense aerial bombardment. The use of French warplanes and American carrier-based strike aircraft meant that few of the aircraft that were needed in Poland were being sent away to hit Libya instead, but nonetheless the airstrikes being carried out against Gadhafi’s regime were devastating. A smaller number of Spanish jets were involved in the airstrikes, but much of the Spanish Air Force was away in Poland or providing air defence against potential attacks against the homeland by Russian cruise missiles. The political support for the expanding of operations against Libya was near unanimous within NATO after the hostage takings of embassy staff, with such a thing being seen as chillingly ruthless as well as totally unacceptable. The desire was there for the world to he shown that this was just not publicly acceptable, and would be responded to with extreme force despite the threats to the safety of the hostages that Tripoli continued to make. US Army Green berets infiltrating from Niger guided in airstrikes and carried out small-scale ambushes of their own against Libyan troops. French Special Forces would soon be joining them in Libya.

French Mirages & Rafales, Spanish Air Force and US Navy Hornets & Super Hornets, and US Air Force B-1Bs & B-52Hs flew sorties to knock out Libya’s air defence infrastructure and air force before moving onto more strategic targets. Bombs fell all across the country, including on Tripoli itself. From within their prison yard, the NATO embassy staff taken as hostages could feel and see the fireballs rising into the sky. Tripoli International Airport was bombed by F/A-18s, but its runway was deliberately left open; all of this was part of a deception plan that would be vital in the future. Meanwhile, French, Spanish, and Portuguese troops along the Mediterranean were being readied for an operation which would oust Gadhafi’s regime for good; though it had not yet been scheduled, a decision had been taken first in Paris and then in Brussels that Libya was to be invaded and occupied.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon was working on a plan to extract the hostages. Operation Midnight Talon, it was called, and it would be almost as audacious as the failed Operation Eagle Claw back in 1980. This mission, which drew inspiration from the raid on Entebbe, was to be sophisticated but plausible. Special Operations Command had been allowed to take over the planning of the mission to avoid inter-service confusion and to prevent the squabbling which had doomed the failed Tehran rescue mission all those years ago. This extended down to officers within the ranks of the 75th Ranger Regiment, Delta Force, and the Marine Raider Regiment. The generals would simply approve the plan written for them by lt.-colonels, majors, and captains with those elite commando units. There was a full Delta Force squadron that could be used for the mission, along with a battalion of Rangers and a significant number of Marine Corps commandos. The US Air Force would contribute its 352nd Special Operations Wing, and help had been offered by the French & British SAS units. However, SOCOM felt that this mission was best left within the United States’ command structure to avoid international confusion.

With that being said, an infiltration route into Libya was needed. Going in over the coast would be too obvious, USAF officers said, with the Libyans being able to identify transport aircraft or helicopters. This would lead them to suspect that a rescue mission was occurring and compel the Libyans to either move or execute the nearly five hundred hostages they held. Instead, the US Air Force reasoned, a back door into Libya had to be used. This would be through Egypt. The involvement of the Egyptians in such a mission was controversial, with many in the DOD disliking the idea. Nevertheless, CIA reports told the Biden Administration that tensions between Egypt and Libya were currently running high over numerous disputes, and that the Egyptians would be willing to help out if approached correctly. Many even expected Egypt to jump into the fighting on the Coalition’s side, seeing an opportunity for the government, waning in popularity, to gain support through a foreign adventure that it was sure to win. Egypt as yet remained neutral, but when approached the Egyptian Army was willing to allow Special Operations Command to stage for Operation Midnight Talon in their country.

The rescue mission was given a date, one which many thought was too soon. August 22nd would see American commandos entering the lion’s den.




One Hundred and Eight

Late last week, the English town of Harrogate had seen gunfire in its streets. Hundreds of bullets had been fired by rapid-firing assault rifles between British forces and Russian Spetsnaz in two separate engagements inside and on the outskirts of that usually quiet part of North Yorkshire. Seventeen deaths had occurred: eight foreign commandos, four policemen, four British Army soldiers and a young woman out walking her dog. Police officers, even highly-trained Authorised Firearms Officers, shouldn’t have been and wouldn’t be used again for such tasks due to their killings and perceived failings in how they operated during this. There had been heated debate and strong words used down in London among the Cabinet – composed of senior members of the National Government – over the whole thing. The loss of civilian life was initially something of grave concern too… but then that became something unexpected. The young woman turned out to not be so innocent, nor a civilian either. By chance, her false identity was exposed and MI-5 broke open the fraudulence which was her supposed life. She was identified as deep-cover GRU agent who’d been in Britain for at least five years doing all sorts of things against the interests of the country; her dog, a three year old female Labrador, was innocent and certainly not a Russian agent. Natalie – or Natalia as she was believed to be – opened up a major line of enquiry for MI-5. Britain’s domestic intelligence agency had had a terrible war but when uncovering who Natalie really was, they smashed apart a whole network which she was connected to. The military had initially been at the forefront of the hunt for the supporting infrastructure which had allowed the GRU to operate within Britain where they had captured and interrogated Spetsnaz, including two more (both seriously wounded men) from the second Harrogate gunfight, yet now ‘the professionals’ preformed as they were meant to. Natalie’s identity led the investigators to the nearby town of Knaresborough. This was a smaller rural locality, just up the road from Harrogate. Patience and hard work brought attention to a bed-and-breakfast on the edges of Knaresborough which lay beside the River Nidd. Over sixty soldiers were involved on the raid to hit the B-&-B. Some were SAS men but mainly the force consisted of TA soldiers. Land Rovers with armour-plating and even a speedboat took part in getting them there. A light helicopter with snipers aboard hovered above. Extreme violence was expected on the same scale as Harrogate. Yet none occurred, not a single bullet was fired by anyone. The assault teams hit the converted house simultaneously and came in ready to kill suspected commandos hiding there. Instead, they found just two people inside. These were supposedly a Polish married couple (they were no such thing) in their early fifties who had years ago moved to Yorkshire and opened a B-&-B. It was a safehouse for the GRU where for a long time their people had stayed here whilst travelling through Britain. Both occupants threw their hands up despite weapons being in the house when armed men poured in through doors & windows. They were cuffed, hooded and taken away. MI-5 investigators entered the property afterwards and would start what would become a fruitful search which would uncover communications equipment, weapons stores and much useful intelligence. This would lead to further activities hitting other locations across the country in the coming days, alongside what the two prisoners – Russians, not Poles as they had pretended to be – would give them as well.

That success up in Yorkshire that Monday morning at dawn was something still being celebrated in London that afternoon among the Cabinet when such smiles turned to frowns when there was a fantastic explosion in the city’s West End. In a small road off Baker Street, a car bomb detonated with one hell of a wallop. The vehicle was completely destroyed – significant bits of it being blown up to a hundred yards away – and so too were the three people inside. One of those was the prominent Russian exile Boris Nemtsov; the other victims within being a driver and a bodyguard. Another five casualties occurred as well with two policemen dead, a civilian killed (this time a ‘real’ civilian) and two more civilians left with grave injuries. Nemtsov was someone which the Met. Police and MI-5 considered to be in danger of an assassination. He’d fled Russia during Putin’s Putsch when so many others had failed to get away and then spent his time in Britain orchestrating exile-based opposition to the Kremlin. Battles had come with Berezovsky in being who was to be the public face of that opposition and there had been that shooting incident which had seen a policeman killed. Since the war had started, these two groups – Berezovsky’s mob and Nemtsov’s circle – had been working to each form a government-in-exile based in London which would see theirs getting recognition and the other ignored. There had even been legal action initiated on the matter, something which arguments had occurred over whether this was a matter for the British courts to decide. Nemtsov had been positioning himself as a president-in-waiting, one who could have returned to Moscow at some point to replace Putin. He had his detractors on the outside, Berezovsky’s mob mainly but also elsewhere, who compared him unfavourably to what Ahmed Chalabi had once been on for the Americans with Iraq. Nemtsov had been seeking the recognition of Whitehall for his efforts though the whole matter sat uncomfortably with the National Government. As said, his life was regarded as being in danger and Russia already had had its killers on London’s streets. Security around him should have been tight and was planned to be restrictive yet he had eluded what he deemed ‘his jailers’ and gone to a meeting. Someone had betrayed him, maybe the same person who set up the apparently urgent meeting. Then the SVR went and blew him to smithereens. The killing was done on Putin’s personal orders. Director Fradkov hadn’t wanted to see it done because he was sure it would blow the last of his organisation’s network in the UK (a spy network, not one of professional killers despite the car bomb) when the plot was investigated, but his president had demanded it. As Fradkov feared, once the smoke had cleared, MI-5 would be all over this where they would hope to repeat their Harrogate-Knaresborough success and uncover all those involved.


The US Navy’s Task Force 20 avoided a head-on confrontation with the still remaining (if weakened) line of Russian submarines spread between Iceland and Ireland. Instead, the two aircraft carriers and their combined battle groups went through the Denmark Strait. This stretch of water lay to the north of Iceland, between that island and Greenland, and allowed access to the Norwegian Sea from what was in many ways the back door. There was a Russian submarine there – this was known about – but it was just the lone boat and identified as a hunter/killer attack model, not one of those Oscars with their missile arsenals. The submarine in the Denmark Strait was being pursued closely by aircraft flying from the smashed-up Keflavik Airport and also several warships too. The Denmark Strait route wasn’t ‘safe’ but it was safer than going into the Norwegian Sea direct from the North Atlantic. There would be comments later about supposed cowardice with what TF 20 did. Only a fool would suggest that. The Americans played it smart. Why go head on into a fight when one could be avoided? Late on Monday August 16th, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and the USS Enterprise entered the Demark Strait to cut through here to reach the Norwegian Sea by tomorrow. They would be a day later than planned but would come through unmolested.

NATO needed these two carriers to make it through without suffering the same fate as the USS Harry S. Truman. When that first carrier had been destroyed, Allied Forces Norway had seen loss of what should have been air superiority over Norway. The skies had become equal with neither side having an advantage. Major NATO loses had occurred as a result of this: the Tromsø debacle was still fresh in everyone’s memory. Now everything was about to change with the two carriers soon to arrive after bypassing Russian efforts to try to stop them or at least cause them major damage on the way. Both of them were carrying ninety plus combat aircraft: a full load. Squadrons from the US Navy Reserve as well as ‘extra’ regular squadrons – those not aboard a carrier – had been sent to sea with the Eisenhower and the Enterprise. These jets would fly in Norwegian skies first. Afterwards, there was another country’s skies in which they would fly. Does anyone need a guess as to whose they would be? That country’s name begins with an ‘R’…


The 101st Air Assault Division arrived in Germany. It’s long-delayed overseas deployment saw the movement of the division to Europe by air. The process took several days and was still not completed, but the majority of the Screaming Eagles were now here. Hundreds of aircraft had been involved in the airlift. There were military transports – C-5s, C-17s and C-130s – used as well as civilian airliners & freighters which made these many trans-Atlantic crossings. Moving the soldiers was the easy bit. It was all of the equipment and stores which saw the major effort needed to do this. The 101st was a ‘light’ division but it still had a lot of gear. The logistics effort was something that only the Americans could have done yet they did have help too with aircraft from other countries assisting in addition to the staging support for refuelling stops made by territories of nations along the way. Coming from Fort Campbell in Kentucky, the division arrived across the length and width of Germany at airports and airbases. They 101st wasn’t deployed to Poland though via the airlift and neither did the division at once begin moving there overland. For more than a week this formation had remained back home while elsewhere America’s soldiers went overseas. The intention from the Pentagon and the US Army had been to keep the 101st ready to move anywhere needed: they were held as a worldwide contingency force. The thinking had been that they might go to the Middle East, to Afghanistan or to East Asia in case fighting in either erupted where they might be needed. Conflict was taking place in all three regions now yet the 101st had been sent to Europe instead. Some would call this madness! Now in Europe, that idea of a contingency force remained when it came to the division. No orders came for them to move straight to Poland but instead they held ready here. General Mattis’ CJTF-East headquarters didn’t have them under operational command despite the stated urgent need for the 101st. Possible deployments elsewhere were still being considered. They could go to Libya, to Syria, to fight the Ukrainians, to Norway… That decision still hadn’t been made. It was madness but it was happening. There were other US Army divisions and smaller formations currently in transit: airlift schedule for them had been negatively affected by what occurred with the 101st though much of their make-up was also moving by sea it must be said. The 1st Armored & 1st Cavalry Divisions had their men in Europe already – in Germany too – with so much of their gear on the way via sealift. In addition, the Pentagon had decided to see them joined by three smaller units. These were the 3rd Cavalry & 11th Cavalry Regiments (the latter a training unit) as well as a national guard brigade which had been in the latter stages of preparation for a deployment to Afghanistan when the war begun: this being the 116th Cavalry Brigade. While focus was on these combat units, more personnel were in supporting roles. Fully-mobilised, the Americans had hundreds of thousands of personnel already in or on the way. All those artillerymen, engineers, signalers, medical personnel, truck drivers, supply troops and so on were tasked to Europe. They kept on arriving on aircraft which came across the ocean in what seemed like (it wasn’t) an endless tide.

Canada was sending soldiers to Europe as well. Much of their army was being deployed to fight in Poland with the intention to integrate them within both the Allied I Corps & US V Corps but also lower down into other army’s combat divisions. Not all of this was yet fully arranged but things were moving there. First to Europe and seeing action starting today were elements of the 2nd Mechanized Brigade Group. They had been moved to the frontlines in northeastern Poland where they linked up with the British 3rd Mechanised Division and took over certain combat sectors. The Canadians were quick to see fighting. They faced shelling and enemy patrols. A stalemate it was overall with the war here but men were killing each other up and down the frontlines. One of the infantry battalions among the Canadians got a baptism of fire indeed when on the wrong end of a major artillery & rocket attack undertaken by the Russians who struck when observing what looked to them like reinforcements arriving possibly ahead of an attack. Belgian troops also saw fighting today when their Medium Brigade – also intended to be integrated within a division of a NATO ally – reached the frontlines where the British 1st Armoured Division was. British soldiers were able to step back from holding the frontlines and did so with relief. The Belgians didn’t come here blind. They knew what they were getting into. Still… it wasn’t a welcome anyone would have wanted when their soldiers saw fighting but also the effects of either fighting. Parts of Poland had been blown to pieces when fought over. Croatian troops had turned up over the weekend. Back home, there had been questions raised in Zagreb about so much of the country’s army sent to Poland when intentions of the Serbs were still something of concern but these soldiers were here now. They had so far seen little fighting. Instead, they were dealing with deserters today. The Armoured Guard Brigade took custody of close to two dozen Belorussian soldiers who came across individually, in pairs and in one group of four. These men joined hundreds of others who had done the same – Russians as well as Belorussians – in defecting throughout the war in Eastern Europe to many NATO forces. They came across for various reasons with very few purposely defecting in an effort to betray their countries but instead just no longer wishing to fight. All were treated well yet with suspicion too: to not do so would be stupid. None had so far been found to have anything resembling dishonest intentions though.


Air attacks continued going both ways through the day and into the night. NATO and the Russians attacked each other using their aircraft either on direct bombing runs or firing from afar. There were some close air support missions flown by NATO aircraft though generally there were long-range air attacks to hit the other’s rear that each was undertaking. Russia carried on trying to blast parts of Western Europe, especially its transport links, to bits. They did a lot of damage and caused many casualties yet that was harder than it looked. There were so many ports, airports, rail bridges, highway overpasses and so on. The Russians couldn’t hit them all and they couldn’t destroy the ones which they did strike. The strikes came at a cost too. They had more luck attacking special-purpose NATO aircraft in the skies. More of those KS-172S long-range air-to-air missiles were fired and they took down four targets (of ten missiles launched) which were hundreds of miles off. They got a NATO-crewed E-3, a German P-3 (over the Baltic), a US Air Force RC-135 and also an American E-8 JSTARS too. NATO suffered these losses in frustration at still not being able to deal with such weapons used against them. The Americans had gotten a MiG-31 certain to be carrying another unused weapon when that Russian fighter was deep inside Belarus and lining-up a shot but the others had been fired with no one aware until the aircraft were blown up far away from the frontlines. That shootdown of the MiG had occurred over eastern Belarus where NATO was continuing its Operation Eclipse. There were plenty of targets to bomb there – as well as in the occupied Baltic States too – which included striking at the unused Russian Second Guards Army. It still hadn’t moved. The Russian and Belorussian forces present remained an ‘army in being’ with the threat that at any time it could move forward. NATO intelligence had all sorts of ideas on what Moscow was planning to do with the Second Guards Army. One of those (less believed than the primary one of it making a massive attack into Central Poland) was that it was going to be broken up to be used piecemeal across the frontlines while those already on the frontlines who’d seen much fighting would be returned to the rear to reform the field army with now-veterans. No one knew if this was yet to happen though: it was only speculation.

NATO aircraft over the Baltic States on reconnaissance missions today came across something interesting and also rather troubling. Occupation forces of Russian and Belorussian troops within both were rather small. They had generally left the population alone. Attacks from freedom fighters and guerrillas – those ‘terrorists’ as Moscow deemed them – took place and there was guarding of important infrastructure, but it wasn’t an occupation which physically invaded the lives of everyone there. The effects were away from people’s homes but rather with jobs and the organs of government. NATO special forces inside Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania found that they had room to operate. There was still danger yet there weren’t enemy troops on every street corner, in every field etc. Those aircraft above found that things were now changing though. The terror attacks and the entry of so many NATO commandos, only going to get worse as the Baltic shoreline was seemingly open, brought about a reaction. Arriving into the three countries were volunteers. There were vehicles and even aircraft which delivered men who’d formed paramilitary units to preform security. Cossacks, those from the Caucasus and even Russian-speaking Ukrainians turned up. They were carrying weapons and organised. They wore armbands but not proper uniforms. It was men like these who it could have been said started all of this by the actions of those volunteers in Georgia almost exactly two years ago. Now thousands, not hundreds as were in Georgia, were deploying across the Baltic States.


In Rome, Silvio Berlusconi was forcibly removed from office.

There was no coup d’état or anything like that in the Italian capital. The prime minister was summoned to see the president who had with him in attendance several senior ministers including those holding the defence, economy, foreign affairs, interior and justice briefs. It was an ambush. Berlusconi walked right into too without realising what was happening. He said nothing as President Napolitano presented him with evidence of his personal, illegal crimes and alleged that agents of the Russian state had used this to see Berlusconi betray the Italian people. One of the ministers asked if the usually brash and assertive had anything to say. Nothing was said. It was all so un-Berlusconi. Napolitano asked him to resign while also saying that if not he would be removed… which this really was regardless of the words used. The ministers all stated that they too wanted him to resign as well. Some of these were his party colleagues while others were coalition partners. Finally, Berlusconi had something to say. He denied the allegations made – not very forcefully though – and started to speculate on the consequences for Italy – he meant himself – if this all came out. Napolitano told him that none of that needed to happen if he resigned. These things could be kept private. Berlusconi, now talking a lot, began to speculate further and this time on how the coalition government which he led would survive without his personal leadership. Once again, he was stopped in his tracks. Emergency powers would keep the government in-place until a later date where elections could be worried about then. There was nothing more that Berlusconi could say. He folded and gave in. He resigned on the spot, right there in the office of the president with a piece of paper & pen provided: there was no going back to his office to have discussions with others. It was all very un-Berlusconi!

Frattini was asked by Napolitano to lead a national unity government. He accepted this position. Things were not going to be easy. Berlusconi, who left the meeting, was certain to cause trouble. Those who had forced him out did not want to back up their threat with action: they thought of the political upheaval which would come with all the horrors of that. That was for later. For now, Berlusconi was gone and Frattini would take his place as prime minister.

Within hours, from Rome came word to NATO capitals that starting tomorrow Italy was to now honour its treaty obligations with regard to mutual defence of its partner nations rather than just defending its own territory as had been the position for the last ten days. Elements of Italy’s armed forces would be made available where needed, be that in Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean or anywhere else (with conditions attached though). The Italian Armed Forces wouldn’t just be moving to engage Russian and Belorussian forces but also the Libyans as well. Italy was at war.

One-Hundred-Eleven

Just because neither side was currently in the process of advancing across the Polish countryside, it did not make the fighting there any less violent. Constant artillery duels offered no respite, and patrols continued to skirmish all across the line as NATO reinforcements poured into the country. Tank battles went on at long-range; American, British, French, German, Polish and other NATO armour would hold off probing attacks by Russian and sometimes Belarusian tanks, with the only thing either side managed to achieve during this period being casualties. Hundreds on either side were killed by the day, albeit with less soldiers and airmen being killed than during the initial period of Russian advance; casualties were also projected to be extremely heavy once NATO launched its planned counteroffensive.
The British-led I Corps, a formation which barely resembled the pre-war Allied Rapid Reaction Corps, stood in the Masuria region of Poland. Troops were dug in deep, holding out against wave after wave of artillery fire and also under a diminishing number of enemy airstrikes. NATO air defences batteries at the tactical level – American Avengers & British Starstreaks and Rapiers – as well as at the strategic level – American & Germany Patriot missile systems – held off numerous attacks, and the ever-increasing number of Allied fighters present meant that Russian strike aircraft took heavier and heavier casualties as they tried to make their way through into enemy airspace.

Likewise, in southern Poland, the US V Corps was fighting a much similar battle.

With slightly better supply routes than their counterparts to the north, the US-led corps was in an overall better position. There was also more air support dedicated to its sector of the frontier, with NATO commanders suspecting that any renewed Russian offensive would be coming here rather than in the north. Casualties continued to mount as the war went on, again with so little of military significance being achieved. Many back home compared it to a high-tech stalemate, but in reality NATO was biding its time, allowing for more American units to cross the Atlantic and enter the battlefield. Thus far, to the relief of all, no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons had been used by either side.

Poland was effectively under martial law. Although the civilian government still technically ruled the country, the Armed Forces were calling the shots. This worry trend of military authoritarianism only worsened as the fighting went on. Everything from roads and railways to food and clothing factories was now under the control of the military. There was little the civilian government could do beyond giving rousing patriotic speeches and sending its members on morale-boosting visits to the troops. It was not that the Polish Chiefs of Staff wanted to take power any further, but rather that the situation made it simply inevitable.

The Chiefs of Staff were the ones planning and orchestrating military moves, and coordinating those with the rest of NATO; the government could merely approve what the generals asked for. With its own soil invaded, Poland, unlike most Western European nations, had begun the process of conscription amongst its civilian population, with men from seventeen to twenty-five being called up for military service. There had been some particularly disturbing criminal cases taking place near the frontlines as well, with the law being taken into military hands.

Under the European Convention on Human Rights, the death penalty was outlawed under all circumstances within Poland. However, the Armed Forces took it upon themselves to bring an end to this policy when desertions and refusals to obey orders occurred. Russian troops were marching across Poland, and there was no place for mutineers, it would be later be argued. When deserters were recaptured by military police units, they found themselves facing drumhead courts-martial in the field, organised at the divisional or brigade level. Most deserters – there were very few of them anyway – were young soldiers in their teens and twenties who just wanted to go home. There would also be a few cases of more senior NCOs and sometimes even officers deserting, but this were extremely rare.

However, those deserters who were captured once again would face a firing squad. This was not authorised by Warsaw but rather was done by military commanders on the ground, infuriated by seeing much of their homeland destroyed and then seeing their men running away in a tiny number of cases rather than standing alongside their comrades and fighting. There would be no prosecutions over the shooting of deserters, itself a fairly rare occurrence but an occurrence and an illegal one nonetheless.

A dozen or so Polish soldiers would end up being shot after abandoning their posts. This would be something that could be criticized later by human rights courts and European councils; the US government, itself a perpetrator of capital punishment, would have little to say about it. For now, the shooting of deserters did little to cause any real friction within NATO armies; many Europeans discretely supported it rather than condemning it, seeing it as a just punishment in times as dire as these.

However dire things on the continent were, they were about to get infinitely worse.


*


On the night of August 15th, the US Navy launched Tomahawk missiles at Russia once again. This was done by US Navy surface ships operating at the mouth of the Baltic Sea and also by a Royal Navy submarine in response to massive Russian raids against Scotland, with one-hundred-fifty-five missiles launched at targets within Russia proper. Several batteries of Grumble missiles were targeted, with a somewhat mismatched success rate for this operation. It was part of the tit-for-tat escalation in direct attacks both against the Russian and American heartlands since the US Air Force had struck St Petersburg earlier in the day. Targets near St Petersburg would again fall victim to attacks by the United States and Great Britain.

Within the city itself, building from which the Russian Baltic Fleet was headquartered was obliterated by Tomahawk missiles. Numerous airfields were likewise damaged by inbound Tomahawks, but none of those were totally destroyed in the same way that the Baltic Fleet HQ had been. More cruise missiles homed in on a heavily-defended target which had only been identified by NATO intelligence yesterday.
The facility, a cluster of buildings which appeared at first to look like a small college campus, was located outside of Gatchina, to the south of St Petersburg. NATO intelligence officers at first gave it no thought, but then the barbed-wire fencing was noticed. Troops were seen patrolling the area by reconnaissance satellites and even drones. There were machinegun nests identified and a pair of SA-15 missile batteries had been stationed in nearby farmland. Nearly a whole battalion of troops, soldiers who could have been of great use elsewhere, were guarding the buildings.

This was no college campus. What target would be so well-disguised and yet so heavily guarded? And why would something so secure be placed near to the border with Estonia? NATO analysts scoured the satellite photos for all they could find that might hint to the location’s purpose. They analysed things such as the type of cars being driven by those who appeared to frequent the fenced-off facility; they were expensive vehicles, those that were beyond the dreams of most people. This indicated that high-ranking officials and generals worked from the building. Helicopter flights took place to and from the area, with crated supplies being dropped off and picked up under heavy guard.

So what was the purpose of this facility?

NATO officers decided that it had to be some sort of secret command post for senior officers. The expensive, chauffeured cars were those driven in by generals. Its presence near Estonia meant that it was likely an alternate command post for the Baltic Front. The regular movement of supplies could mean that the Russians were preparing for nuclear war by stocking up some sort of bunker beneath the visible buildings. Some even suggested that President Putin himself resided at the facility; this suggestion was shot down as surely preposterous!

None of these suggestions would prove to be correct. A strike on the facility was authorised from the top down. So long as Putin himself wasn’t there, it was a legitimate target, and furthermore it would show the Russians that nowhere was safe from the reach of Allied air and naval power, perhaps serving to help break the Russians will.

Twenty-nine Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched at the facility. Some hit the barracks and others destroyed the two SA-15 batteries. The remainder targeted several buildings, levelling many and causing heavy damage to several more, but failing to totally destroy the facility. At first, the Alliance would briefly be triumphant – the alternate command centre for the Baltic Front had been destroyed or at least damaged severely enough to have bene rendered inoperable!

The facility was not an alternate command post. Neither was it a secret bunker for President Putin. It was a research facility run by a Kremlin-funded ‘pharmaceutical company’. This was all a cover for the bases’ true purpose. The facility was being used to manufacture and research biological weapons. The Soviet Union had signed the Biological Warfare Convention of 1972 and vowed to destroy its arsenal of biological weapons, but research had not been halted as the Cold War had gone on. Russia continued the legacy, despite protests from within, with its biological weapons programme stopping and starting at various eras during the 1990s before being continued under President Putin’s first tenure in government in the early 2000s.

Here, at this facility, a type of virus known as a Haemorrhagic Fever was being researched. Variant ‘U’ of the Marburg Virus had been seen as a potential weapon for many reasons; it had a mortality rate of near one hundred percent, and it killed its victims in a truly horrifying way. Organs shut down and victims would haemorrhage from eyes, mouths, noses and even the pores of their skin. One man had died from the weaponised variant of the virus decades ago after accidentally injecting himself with a needle that was meant for guinea pigs. He had died within a week, slowly and in unimaginable pain.

The destruction of this facility meant that an accidental leak of Marburg Variant U had now taken place. Troops and workers at the facility had become infected in the chaos as buildings burned and glass vials were knocked over or otherwise leaked. Nobody would be insane enough to use such a weapon deliberately, but not its horrors had been unleashed by accident. By the time President Putin was made aware of the disaster, it was early the next morning. Something had to be done to prevent this virus from spreading farther and farther. The fact that NATO and Russia were at war would help, as air travel would be severely limited, but thousands of troops were rotating through the countryside and already individuals who had been infected when the facility had been struck by Tomahawks had come into contact with others.

What could be done now?




One Hundred and Twelve

Taliban gunmen struck all across Kabul in a coordinated attack. Carrying assault rifles and grenades, while wearing explosive suicide vests, they made quite the daring attack when they attempted to raid a total of eight sites across the Afghan capital. Due to other activities elsewhere in the country in the preceding and following days, back home in the United States the American’s would call this the ‘Taliban’s Tet’. The reference was to what happened in Vietnam back in 1968 with the Viet Cong. The attack against the American Embassy was what made that name used in regard to this series of attacks. However, unlike Saigon forty-two years ago, the embassy didn’t fall to armed insurgents. US Marine guards drove the Taliban off. There were explosions and deaths but the intention to storm the embassy in a propaganda blow like no other failed.

Elsewhere in Kabul, the Taliban met other failures yet some successes too.

They were unable to get into ISAF’s headquarters (an administrative base rather than the field headquarters) across the road from the embassy nor the Presidential Palace which was the official residence of Hamad Karzai. Yet, they did get into the grounds of the Turkish Embassy and the Inter-Continental Hotel: the latter home to many diplomats and high-ranking visitors. Two police stations were successfully attacked as well as the offices of one of the main television networks. Dozens of deaths occurred, hostage situations happened and there were plenty of explosions. Most of those killed were Afghans. However, Westerners lay dead too with diplomats and military personnel killed. The fighting went on through most of August 17th until the last gunman blew himself up inside the large hotel ahead of a final assault against him by ISAF troops: Afghan security forces had hours beforehand decided that this fight wasn’t for them.

ISAF soldiers rushed into Kabul during and after the attacks to join those already in the fight. Among them were Turkish soldiers. The defence of the capital was under the control of Turkish military forces assigned to Regional Command Capital. This was an ISAF formation, not something directly tied to NATO. The Turks had long been involved in the ISAF mission and they had stayed in Kabul – like soldiers from many other countries not part of the Coalition who fought the Russians on Afghanistan’s northern borders – despite the major split between their homeland and its erstwhile allies. The raid on the Turkish Embassy was ultimately unsuccessful for the Taliban but they did take over part of the building before being driven out and also killed many Turks. What later results this would bring for the state of Turkish-NATO/Coalition elations wasn’t something they cared for much.

Apart from the Turks, there were many others who fought in Kabul today. American national guardsmen from the 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team – home-based in Vermont but with personnel from across New England – were in the capital and so too were Polish troops with their 25th Air Cavalry Brigade. Those Poles still wanted to go home but were being transferred from eastern Afghanistan to the frontlines in the north, going via Kabul, when the Taliban struck. Australians, Frenchman and Hungarians were among those who rushed small numbers of men around the city today as well. The Taliban strike teams – less than a hundred men over all – had no chance when faced with such insurmountable odds.

What happened in Kabul was important for several reasons. Chief among them was the fact that the Taliban remained able to do something like this and were able to, even in a crushing defeat, claim a victory. At the same time, Turkish forces had fought side-by-side among Coalition troops despite the complete schism between the two sides when it came to other matters… such as Turkey walking away from its NATO commitments and leaving them right in the sticky stuff. Would this matter in the long run?


Polish troops which moved through Kabul were on their way to the Afghan-Turkmen border. The fighting had spread away from the frontiers with the CSTO nations of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to Turkmenistan now. Hard-pressed on their flank, American and British forces under the command of the US I Corps needed that reinforcement. There remained fighting in their rear – Kabul was only one event on one day – and the Poles had been taking part in that but General McChrystal sent the Poles to the frontlines because that need was more pressing. As had been the case elsewhere along Afghanistan’s northern borders, what began as long-range air attacks soon became cross-border shelling and then cross-border fighting. Russian-commanded Turkmen forces engaged what few US Army troops had been covering that sector of the border and outnumbered them fast. McChrystal believed that the Poles could do the job of keeping the Russians and their allies out of Afghanistan.

While ISAF focused on securing the border against any possible proper attack into Afghanistan, nothing like that was anywhere on the cards. Fighting at the front, even as it spread southwest like it did, was all that could be done with the limited forces in theatre at the disposal of the Russians. On paper they had immense numbers of men yet there remained that unease among the governments through Central Asia at this war. They continued to assert that they were only undertaking a defensive mission in support of Tajikistan and couldn’t support any real offensive action. From Astana, Bishkek, Dushanbe, Tashkent and now Ashgabat the regimes maintained this common position in the face of what Moscow might or not want. Russia had been taken quite by surprise at how fast this unity came among countries which were often at odds with each other. Kazakhstan was at the head of this alliance but things were quiet equal among the five countries involved. There was no outward hostility towards Russia but none were willing to be dominated once again by their former colonial overlords when it came to this matter. Aware of this, there was talk in Moscow among the Russian Security Council of doing some about it. Yet that wouldn’t happen now. The whole bloc could fall apart and ISAF could roll northwards.

From each side, the fear of outright invasion by the other remained despite neither option being possible.


In the skies above the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan, American drones were busy today. There were Predators and Reapers flown by the US Air Force up in Afghanistan but these here over Pakistan were CIA-operated. Two Reapers undertook attack missions in Waziristan where they targeted ‘terrorists’. Hellfire missiles blazed away from the drones and blew up small structures, family homes. There was no Pakistani involvement in this. The targets for those missiles weren’t just the Taliban people believed to be inside the buildings blown up. At each of them, inside were also believed to be agents of the GRU in one and the SVR in another. Russian intelligence officers were known to be active in the FATA. The lines of communication for ISAF to the sea crossed through this volatile region and were (rightly) regarded as being something that Russia would like to see targeted. Intelligence had come to the CIA stating that the Russians were active here aiming to pay the Taliban – with cash or arms – to strike at supply columns here in Pakistan rather than just inside Afghanistan. Using the drone-fired Hellfires was done to put at least a dent in that Russian plot, hopefully knock it out for good if maybe the CIA had enough luck.

Back at Langley, a complex still with those holes in it after those Russian cruise missiles had struck last week, CIA Director Panetta would have had his drones over another part of Pakistan firing Hellfires if he had known where to send them. It had been almost nine years since 9-11 and Osama bin Laden, the architect of that attack, remained on the run. Unknown to Panetta or his employees, bin Laden was in Abbottabad: some distance away to the east from the FATA. It was from there where he had watched as Russia and NATO had set themselves on a collision course for war. Many ideas had swept through his mind as to how this could be exploited yet none had come to fruition yet. He had made a video recording – his first in years; there had been audio recording but not videos – instead and today it was released. Rise up and take advantage, bin Laden called upon the faithful, and strike against the enemies of Islam where you can find them. First broadcast on the Qatar-based al Jazeera television station, copies of it would be shared across websites worldwide. It didn’t look like it wasn’t going to set the world on fire and was the ‘standard’ stuff from bin Laden.

However, there were those watching and waiting for such a signal to spring into action. In the middle of a world war, al Qaeda was soon to launch a major terrorist attack all while the intelligence services of the West were as distracted as they were. Where and in what form would soon be revealed.

One Hundred Fifteen

A biological weapon, one created to destroy people and nothing else, was on the loose outside St Petersburg. The release of such a weapon had been accidental, and this was something that the Russian government, even in all its ill-informed recklessness, was well aware of. There was a fierce debate occurring in the Kremlin now; should NATO be notified of the incident, or should it be kept within Russia internally? President Putin was falling on the side of keeping the quarantine a secret within Russia. Others thought that informing NATO quietly was a necessary evil; if the virus spread and NATO personnel started to fall ill, it would be seen as a deliberate attack by Russia and could lead to a nuclear response.

Outside St. Petersburg, Russian troops had been deployed to enforce quarantines. Those who had been in the laboratory when it was hit by those American Tomahawk missiles had come into contact with emergency services personnel before going home to their families or being sent elsewhere. Firefighters, ambulance crews, and troops sent to help out after the facility was struck had been in contact with the virus and then had gone home to their own families, thus endangering them.

The Russian government threw an enormous amount of effort into tracking down those who had or may have been exposed. Armed soldiers in chemical warfare suits were sent to detain them. Macabre scenes played out across the region, like something out of a horror film. Those quarantined were taken to secure locations, but they would be given medical attention as efforts would be made to save them. There was no cure of vaccine to Variant U of the Marburg Virus, however, and short of a miracle, they were doomed.

In Moscow, the argument that NATO should be kept in the dark won out. However, an operation was going to take place behind the scenes at the behest of the GRU. Senior officers within Russia’s military intelligence organisation believed that the only way to prevent a global pandemic was to inform NATO of what had happened and for Russia to share its secrets with them regarding the contagion. Nobody liked the idea of collaborating with the enemy, but they saw it as a necessity to prevent a much worse outcome.

GRU officers contacted the Central Intelligence Agency through the US embassy in Helsinki. What they told the Americans was that a during an American missile strike, a ‘defensive’ research facility which contained several deadly pathogens had been destroyed and that a leak of the Marburg Virus had occurred. They told the American spooks that the disease had no known cure, vaccine, or even treatment beyond morphine, perhaps in enough dosage to end the suffering of those unfortunate enough to be infected.

This information was sent back up the chain of command, to Washington and to NATO commanders in Brussels as well. The treason of fewer than a dozen GRU officers had perhaps prevented a nuclear exchange…for now. But the disease was still active outside St Petersburg; the quarantine efforts had been unable to secure every single one of those people unfortunate enough to become exposed, and it would quickly transpire that an outbreak would occur amongst Russian troops in Poland. This would happen when a soldier who had been infected while in the area – his unit had been sent to the facility for security duties when it was attacked, having been in the process of moving from Russia proper into occupied Estonia and from there up to the frontlines - had not at first been symptomatic, and had been sent to the frontlines. There, he would infect several of his comrades.

All of this was kept very quiet indeed by both the Russian government and those of NATO. Fear was already palpable throughout the world at the prospect of a nuclear or chemical exchange between the two sides, and the last thing that was needed was the prospect of a pandemic, one which caused its victims to die in a slow and agonising way.

No, this would all be hushed up by NATO and by Russia. However, troops at the frontlines suddenly found themselves ordered to increase their CBRN readiness posture. Soldiers who had been fighting without having to wear cumbersome gas masks and charcoal-lined suits now had to don such attire to protect themselves from the virus. This would greatly affect the combat effectiveness of many units, slowing the pace of operations throughout the week.

*

The Middle East, meanwhile, continued to be the scene of more conventional fighting. Israel and Syria were now engaged in an armed conflict after the initial battles had been confined to the Golan Heights. American paratroopers and marines from the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team and the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit respectively were now in battle as well. The Syrian First Corps had been shattered while fighting there against the Israelis, and now the government of Bashar al-Assad was scrambling to put more troops in place to defend against the incursion.

Commanders and politicians, both in Israel and in the United States, were hesitant to push further into Syria. The US was still haunted by the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the last thing that was needed now was another occupation in the Middle East. However, persuasion from Tel Aviv slowly brought the Americans around; this would be Israel’s war and Israel’s occupation, they said, and although US troops were involved in the fighting in significant (although not compared to Europe) numbers, they wouldn’t be responsible for any potential regime change.

For Israel, the opportunity was too good to pass up. Assad could be if not ousted then totally humiliated, and the Syrian Arab Army could be destroyed as a fighting force, thus permanently ending the threat posed to Israel from its southern border.

In a decision that was somewhat resented by several European NATO nations, Allied troops were sent over the border into Syria proper, with the intention of at least luring the vast majority of the Syrian Arab Army into an unwinnable fight and destroying them, and at most of taking Damascus and ousting a-Assad. It would be an operation that would see casualties sustained, but there was little real risk of failure for the Allies.

As the Syrian Army scrambled to reinforce its shattered First Corps, Israeli armoured and mechanised brigades pushed into the country, using Highway 7 and Highway 98 to make a two-pronged advance. Following closely behind them were US Marines and paratroopers.

Almost immediate success was met for the 173rd Airborne, when it captured the city of Nawa on the first day of fighting. By standards of Iraq and Afghanistan, it was a bloody fight, with twelve American soldiers killed and several hundred militants slaughtered. However, the rapid occupation of the settlement meant that the invasion route of Highway 98 was secure. Israeli Merkava tanks pushed along the road, when they met more significant resistance from the newly-arrived Syrian 3rd Armoured Division. Predictably, this was a fight that the Syrian forces lost. Israeli airpower was used with great effect, destroying dozens of Syrian T-72s as ground troops fought in the desert. The remainder of the Syrian division was forced to withdraw north-east, effectively pulling them away from the highway and into the desert, where the remainder of the Third Corps was waiting.

Moving down Highway 7, Israeli mechanised infantry moved rapidly, securing several villages and small towns. Infantry units were left in the rear as insurgent-style attacks went on, but the Israeli and American troops were firmly winning this fight. Speed was paramount in the invasion of Syria; any battle that saw holdups and major US casualties could see American support for the invasion of Russia’s ally, already rocky as it was, fading away, especially with the need for US forces elsewhere. The two American units that were currently in Syria – soon to be joined by another infantry brigade – would not be effective in the European Theatre because of their primarily light nature, so their deployment to the Middle East was not a major loss. The issue was with logistics. A significant amount of resources were needed to keep ammunition being loaded into the soldiers’ guns, and many felt that these resources would be better used elsewhere.

Massive success was met several days into the invasion of Syria, as Israeli tanks pushed along Highway 7 against moderate resistance. US Marines of the 26th Expeditionary Unit saw some heavy fighting as well, along with attachments from the 5th Special Forces Group. They moved towards Damascus, but then suddenly swung in the opposite direction, linking up with Coalition forces on the opposite side of the two highways, thus encircling the vast majority of the Syrian Third Corps in the desert.

The road to Damascus now lay wide open.




One Hundred and Sixteen

RFS Vologda, a Kilo-class submarine in the service of Russia’s Northern Fleet, entered the English Channel. The little boat came in via the wide western end, close to Cornwall, before turning towards France. Le Havre was where the Vologda reached by the evening. The last intelligence reported received, when the submarine was out in the North Atlantic yesterday, said that a major convoy of transport ships coming from the South-Eastern United States (Charleston, Jacksonville & Savannah) would be in-sight off Le Havre. The Vologda was to attack these as per standing orders to impede NATO’s war efforts to ship across the ocean a mass of military equipment. The convoy had already arrived: the Vologda was too late. There were just warships instead, vessels from many member states of the alliance. Inside databanks with the targeting computer there were the recorded sounds of ships detected in earlier (peacetime) cruises by this boat and also others with the Russian Navy. There was no need to surface to classify those ships. There were plenty of submarine hunters there, all of whom had guarded the convoy coming across the North Atlantic and they remained outside of the port area now. Maybe they were going to escort emptied ships going back to collect more military wares? Maybe they were awaiting new orders to deploy elsewhere? The captain of the Vologda didn’t know. He had no weapons aboard capable of attacking the unarmed ships which had got here ahead of schedule but those were enemy warships out ahead which he could target.

The Vologda attacked them. Firings were made of her torpedoes against them in two separate attacks where old but reliable Type-53-65s were used. These were wake-homers which followed the churn of ship’s propellers in the water rather than sonar detection. Many NATO ships had protection against such an attack. This worked to deflect several Russian torpedoes but not others. The Vologda had achieved some good tactical firing positions and would claim three kills in the boat’s war diary. Only one of those targeted warships was actually sunk: the two others were targeted but with failures to sink them. The lone kill achieved today was that of an American frigate, USS Underwood; the Canadian HMCS Charlottetown and the French FNS Montcalm, two more frigates, were shot at with the former damaged significantly and many Canadians sailors killed but the latter came off without a scratch. Quickly, the Vologda ran away. There were other ports to head towards on both sides of the English Channel and also beyond should the little boat chose to go through the Straits of Dover. Not long after departing from the scene of her kill, she got another. This time it wasn’t a warship but a civilian vessel: a cross-Channel ferry in military service and laden with trucks. Britain and France were cooperating significantly, beyond just NATO links, and aiding each other as much as possible due to ties between Cameron and Sarkozy. The ship and her cargo would be missed. In response, NATO would throw a massive effort at hunting her down. They wanted to protect their shipping as well as keep the flow of reinforcements & supplies coming: London and Paris pushed this hard. Moreover, the Vologda would have easily been carrying commando frogmen too. Concern was expressed that they could be used to hit the Channel Tunnel. There had been a worry about this for some time due to the amount of use that was seeing at the moment again with much Anglo-French aid for one another making use of it as a freight rather than passenger link. There were no naval Spetsnaz aboard and attacking something like that would need a lot of men. Regardless, that was the current thinking of many. A lot of NATO military assets – ships, submarines, aircraft and helicopters – would be thrown at trying to get the Vologda in the coming days, far disproportionate to all that it had already and could later achieve.


Aircraft from Task Force 20 were now active in Norwegian skies. From the decks of the carriers USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and USS Enterprise, FA-18s flew mission after mission. There were so many of them, all doing the job that those which had been on the USS Harry S. Truman were supposed to have been doing before their carrier was sunk ahead of them could see action. These Hornets and Super Hornets were flown by squadrons assigned to the US Navy, the US Navy Reserve and the US Marines. They undertook fighter missions, bombing runs and reconnaissance. Those from the Eisenhower and the Enterprise intended to swap roles daily. One carrier would focus on missions directly over Northern Norway while the other would focus on fleet defence tasks. Today Eisenhower’s aircraft were active above Bardufoss and also Tromsø. Russian forces underneath them came under a furious attack with serious losses sustained. Their own fighters had a terrible time in the sky and while air defences were able to make some impact, the Americans kept on coming. As to the aircraft from the Enterprise, those were ranging far out ahead. FA-18s were in the sky loaded with air-to-air missiles and all ready to take on a Russian cruise missile attack. Buddy-tanking was used to extend the range of the forwardmost fighters far out ahead and there was the support of several AWACS aircraft which each operated in an overlap fashion less the Russians use their long-range AWACS-killer missiles here. Enterprise’s fighters saw some action where they took down several Russian aircraft (reconnaissance jets & transports) who thought they were in ‘safe’ skies though they didn’t see any Backfires. In addition, the carrier’s air wing was also standing ready to launch a major anti-ship strike against the Northern Fleet when possible. The British had got the Russian’s flagship battle-cruiser but the Americans wanted their aircraft carrier.

The two US Navy carriers hadn’t come alone. TF 20 came with escorts of its own and at the same time, now there was significant air cover, NATO moved a chunk of surface naval power into the Norwegian Sea. There were many ships who had been kept back but now were forward-deployed. An equal parity in the air with the Russians beforehand had seen far too many ships lost yet now the situation had drastically changed with TF 20’s safe arrival. Unless the Russians could get through a Backfire strike – against so many ships spread out far and wide too thus making that difficult; and with their focus sure to be the carriers – these ships were all now protected from above. The threat in the Norwegian Sea was now submarines. NATO intelligence overestimated their numbers: they believed that there were four of them when in fact only two remained, one of those effectively trapped inside the Vestfjorden after striking them due to NATO activity to bar any further entry. Against this submarine threat, there were (including those with TF 20) close to fifty major warships – cruisers, destroyers & frigates – now in these waters. They had many tasks to do from anti-air defence to Tomahawk launches to coastal raiding missions soon to begin at the very top of Norway, but the fact remained that the Norwegian Sea was now fully in control of NATO. No longer would it be contested like it had been before.

Many Russian submarines were out in the North Atlantic. There remained several attack models plus also those Oscars with their missile arsenals sent there to engage TF 20 but flatfooted by the American’s ‘deception’ in going the wrong way into the Norwegian Sea: using the Denmark Strait, not the main bit of the GIUK Gap. Updated intelligence reports and new orders came to these submarines today like they had yesterday to the Vologda. Two of the Akula-class hunter-killers and two Oscars were informed of the mass of NATO warships which could be found inside the Norwegian Sea behind them. Moreover, the carriers were now confirmed as being there. Turn back around, the order thus was, and go after the enemy there in less open waters… right into the lion’s den in fact. Acknowledgements were sent back over the satellite link-up. Upon providing those receipts, one of the submarines, RFS Krasnodar with all of its SS-N-19 Shipwrecks so far unused, came mightily close to being caught. ‘Sniffing’ the air for signals to intercept, a US Navy EP-3E Aires caught a burst transmission. Decoding the signal was impossible nor directly localizing it, but NATO aircraft headed that way. Atlantiques, Nimrods and P-3s went hunting for it. They dropped what seemed like an ocean of sonobuoys on the surface with the intention of following them with torpedoes and depth bombs. If they’d gotten a fix, they would have had a kill. Yet, the Oscar had made good a timely escape. Whether the Krasnodar and the others would survive the Norwegian Sea was a different matter entirely.


Another day in Poland, another day of the ongoing stalemate there.

The frontlines were moving all of the time. These movements were never more than a mile – at the very most – in either direction though. Both sides continued to push up against each other and fought over hills, patches of woodland and the banks of small rivers. They were seeking better defensive positions, better offensive positions too. Each fight saw tremendous amounts of ammunition being expended… and great loss of life too. To an outsider, this was all crazy. Maybe it was to those involved too. But to those who made the decisions, it was all important when looking at the big picture. It mattered that those hills, woods and riverbanks were held by their side and not the other! The future was what commanders were thinking of.

Huge mechanised armies had been brought to a halt by the other. Increasingly, lighter troops were entering the fight and replacing heavier forces on those frontlines. At the beginning of Operation Slava, NATO light forces had been run over – literally in many places – and those who survived pulled back with haste less they suffer the same fate. However, now lighter forces were being moved forward into battle instead of retreating. They came from across the alliance and were slotted into the frontlines to replace worn-down units of a heavier nature. On the other side of the frontlines, the Russians and Belorussians were doing the same. There was the withdrawal of some of their heavy units – not on the scale as NATO did – and the replacement too by lighter units. All of these soldiers sent to the front, wearing the uniforms of so many armies, continued to shoot at each other while those behind them were readied to start doing that again soon enough. Of quite the surprise today was that sudden order for full NBC protection amongst troops in the field, those on the frontlines and far behind them too. The reason why wasn’t something given: just the order to do it and do it now. It was no easy undertaking to get so many soldiers into such equipment and to keep them wearing it at all times no matter what else was going on. Civilians both sides of the frontlines noted the ‘men in spacesuits’ and there was a lot of panic among them too, panic which didn’t go away when they were told that everything was supposedly okay.

The US Army’s 3rd Infantry Division had taken wartime losses of sixty per cent overall. They’d been withdrawn from the fighting last week, long before the stalemate set in and Putin’s ceasefire offer was so thoroughly rejected by the Coalition. There was no way that the 3rd Infantry could fight again as it had done before without a major rebuilding. Personnel and equipment losses had been staggering. There was disorganization throughout. Morale within was at rock bottom. Officially, they remained undefeated but they certainly hadn’t been victorious. Talk back in the Pentagon had been of possibly disbanding the 3rd Infantry – on a temporary basis – and distributing what was left across Poland to other US Army units: a new division could be stood up back home at Georgia. Orders from the top had denied permission to do that because the political optics of that didn’t work. Therefore, while in Central Poland now, men and equipment were being added to the division. Work was being done to rebuild the 3rd Infantry in-the-field. This was going to take a long time and all for the sake of politics. In a similar situation was the Russian Army’s 5th Guards Tank Division. Likewise, they too had taken fierce losses which affected the whole of the division completely. The Americans had unleashed their Operation Dragon’s Fire against the 5 GTD and made sure that it ended up combat ineffective. From the bomb-damaged Ministry of Defence back in Moscow, instructions came that the 5 GTD was to stay on the rolls: it wouldn’t be broken up with surviving components used elsewhere. No large numbers of reinforcing troops or equipment came the division’s way when it was pulled back into Belarus but there was some rebuilding attempted. Like its American counterpart, this would take a long time and the best solution would have been temporary disbandment yet politics got in the way. These two combat divisions were the most extreme examples of the visible damage that the opposing armies in Poland had done to each other. That didn’t take away from everything else shot-up though. Neither side was able to go forward and fight a battle of maneuver as they had only so recently done. Rebuilding but also reinforcement remained the shape of things for the current time.

Yet, at some point soon enough, they would be back at full-scale mobile warfare once again.


There were NATO military personnel on the run in the Baltic States like there were behind enemy lines in Belarus, Northern Norway and the occupied parts of Poland. Aircrew were in the same situation as cut-off ground personnel where they were in unfriendly territory with a hostile enemy searching for them. Rescue efforts did occur but these depended upon the right circumstances. Some lasted hours only on the run, others much longer including more than a week… closer to two weeks now in a few cases. Being on the run meant that capture and possibly death could come at any moment. That wasn’t the only issue though. There was thirst, hunger, injuries & illness and also the mental health of those hiding in fear to factor in to how long those on the run would remain uncaught. Willpower kept some out of enemy captivity for a long time yet others just had a lot of good luck. For most though, they couldn’t stay hidden for very long. NATO military personnel turned themselves in, handing over their fates to the unknown. Russian intelligence activities in the occupied territory which was the three Baltic States saw them gain POWs from among out there hiding. It wasn’t the intention though. The FSB was running false resistance groups among the local populations. This allowed for limited acts to take place all to stop larger ones. It was also done to discredit and destroy real resistance too. The schemes were complicated and sometimes contradictory… reports back to Moscow made this all seem perfect and successful though, even when one of their senior officers, a rising star of a colonel, was slain by the Latvian Resistance when he was too clever for his own good. Certain NATO forces came into contact with these groups where they sought shelter & safety or were spotted by duped members of them by chance. The Russians swept up close to a hundred prisoners this way. It was something to consider for them for the future though they weren’t sure how to proceed any further: thought would be put into how this could be done deliberately and on a bigger scale for a sought-for purpose rather than pure chance.

Late on Monday night, the new prime minister in Rome had instructed that Italian military forces be made available to help defend the country’s NATO allies abroad. By Wednesday, there were Italian aircraft flying from a Polish airbase. This was rather quick! Tornado IDS’ and ECRs – the strike and electronic combat versions of this aircraft – were flying their first missions against those who had invaded Poland. 1 ATAF tasked the Italians sent from 6o Stormo (6th Wing) to aid the Poles between Warsaw and Brest and they attacked the Belorussians below them. Only a few aircraft were involved on the first night but it would be an effort which would grow significantly. The speed of which this deployment was done was due to this being arranged before Berlusconi resigned. Direct contact between the Italian Armed Forces and NATO to plan this was approved at high levels on both sides (the Italian defence minister in Rome was involved) and so once the political decision had been made, off those jets flew from their base in Northern Italy to Radom Airport. The Italian Air Force had more aircraft in service though no more would be coming to north: they were instead involved in missions going southwards toward Libya alongside allies too. However, the personnel with 6o Stormo weren’t the only Italians who were being sent to Eastern Europe: they’d be joined by troops too in an even bigger logistics effort (also something pre-planned) than which brought these aircraft here.

Down in Transnistria, the Bulgarians and Romanians broke through the last major organised resistance in their way to completing the occupation of most of that tiny breakaway nation. The worn-down Moldovans stayed back in their own country. A pincer movement saw the capital Tiraspol surrounded by heavily-armed mobile NATO troops in tanks and armoured vehicles. They had air support in the sky with them (American jets in number) along with plenty of their own artillery to blast away at their opponents. Infantrymen was what Transnistria had a lot of as well as lighter gear: these were unable to stop the advance forward though it was a costly one. Tiraspol would be fought over, but not today. As Transnistria fought its penultimate fight, the Russians evacuated the country. They went eastwards and into the Ukraine: the Ukrainian Army on the border stood aside on orders from Kiev as Russian paratroopers abandoned their ally and fled to safety. This was the last evacuation out of the country though there had already been preceding ones where support personnel rather than combat soldiers had been airlifted out before that air route was shut by NATO tanks occupying airheads. It was because of the Ukrainians opening the border like they did, along with a lot of other things that Kiev had done too though, that tonight, as gunfire took place around the edges of Tiraspol, the Operation Crowbar was launched. Flying from Romania and laden with a human cargo of Romanian special forces & pathfinders instead of Americans, two US Air Force MC-130P Combat Shadows dropped them at low altitude in unfriendly territory far beyond the borders of Romania and Transnistria. The Romanians followed those Russians who left Tiraspol first. Tomorrow other troops would follow them as the long-delayed Crowbar got going. That operation would take place on a certain peninsula within the Black Sea and the Romanians sent first wouldn’t be out there all by their lonesome for long.