Operation Righteous Sword - AKA, Europe's Desert Storm

I was thinking the air raid warnings would come on the radio and by text. I suppose that would be national as well; there would be no way to tell where the bombers detected over the Norwegian Sea or Belarus are going to launch their cruise missiles. Dimming the lights wouldn't make all that much difference, I wouldn't think, but it might be done just in case. That amphibious operation was discovered; but that was meant to be the case, to persuade the Russians to divert forces to counter an amphibious move. 

Next update is below!

1st Cav Div would have taken fierce casualties. The dead and especially injured will be a huge toll.
Kaliningrad has to be knocked out or, masked enough, otherwise it is suicide to send an army up in the Baltic. They will fight there, more so than elsewhere as that is home soil.
Raiding the coast is a good distraction but it can easily go wrong. If the Russians get a missile or an aircraft through and hit one of those amphibious ships, the casualty count will be high and the propaganda boost a big deal.

Thanks for the comments, guys - I will reply tomorrow, sorry for the delay, I've been a bit busy with work and writing a short vignette to post!

Readers, this timeline will be updated soon! Sorry for the lack of updates this week; work has been trying to kill me and I've had a bout of writer's block. I'm also unwell at the moment, which doesn't help.

However, I promised myself that I would not abandon this story, and I have every intention of keeping that promise. Please bear with me, there will be updates soon!

I may change formats, meaning that updates will probably alternate between newspaper and historical formats, with a smattering of point of view stories as well.

Thanks Steve! It will certainly be coming before 2021, probably just in a few days to a week at most. 

Not a hair on his head harmed. Best approach to take.

Interlude #2

The boy lay shivering in the forest, clasping his rifle as they awaited the passing of the Russian munitions convoy. This would be the third such ambush, only tonight the sky was clear and cloudless, an ethereal crescent moon peering down through the treetops. This was bad news. The Russian Hinds and Havocs would be out in force, unburdened by the November fog and rain.

His rifle had started life in a factory in St. Petersburg; it’s previous owner as a Russian conscript. During the second month of the occupation, the Conscript had been lured into an alleyway by a member of their group. She’d given him a wink and a smile and then taken his hand as he stoog guard outside a Tallinn police station used as a local military headquarters. That was the first time the Boy had seen somebody die. He’d been waiting there with the Soldier – the retired soldier, more accurately – who had taken charge of the little band of Estonian guerrillas.

When the Conscript came into the alleyway, the Boy had lunged forwards to tackle him. The Soldier had cut his throat with a kitchen knife, and within minutes it was all over. The Guerillas had their first gun. They acquired a shotgun from the Farmer, who had eagerly joined the posse a few days later as they sheltered in his barn from roving patrols.

They’d cut the telephone lines to the police station next.

After that, they’d fired-bombed a patrol with Molotov cocktails, concealing themselves in a battle-scarred apartment block, launching their crude missiles, and running away. The next ambush had got them the weapons they really needed; a small, four-man squad patrolling a roadblock outside of Tallinn had been ambushed. The Soldier had killed two of them with the AK-74 liberated from the Conscript’s corpse, while the Farmer had nailed one with his shotgun. The third had been swarmed by the Boy, the Girl, and six others wielding baseball bats and kitchen knives. Two of them had died in the ambush, but their loss had been worth the gain; four AK-74s and a few hundred rounds of ammunition.

After that first ambush, they were real resistance fighters! Guerillas! Forest Brothers!

Ambushes and boody traps were sprung every few days before they’d melt back into the woods like their forefathers. Their numbers dropped as many were killed. The Girl, the Farmer, the Builder, two of the Teachers…their faces flashed across the boy’s mind as he struggled to recall their names. But equally, their numbers had swelled.

For the past two weeks, they’d been joined by the experts; American commandos, their famed Green Berets. The Americans – wearing helmets with night-vision goggles rather than their vaunted caps – had brought with them explosives, guns and ammunition, and most importantly, expertise.

This ambush was the culmination of three days of surveillance and planning. Cut the invaders’ supplies, was the mission, the Boy was told by the American Captain. The Captain, in his thirties with a beard that most soldiers would have found outrageous, had drilled the manouver into them. They’d practiced on that very road between Russian patrols. He’d felt like a stupid child, shouting bang as they trained in order to avoid wasting ammunition or alerting the Russians with gunfire.

He took a deep breath, watching as the air curled visibly through the night air like exhaled smoke.

The sound of a truck in the distance.

Nervous jittering.

Fingers sliding safety catches downwards.

A dull droning in the distance.

Birds fluttering away as searchlights disturbed them in the treetops.

Sickness in his stomach. Panic. Terror. Chaos.

Hinds.