Eagle Guardian: The War of 2010

[DavidR]

The not-quite nuking of Minsk in the dying days of World War III is giving me Hackett flashbacks... (Good thing I don't live in Birmingham.)

[Dan]

As MOABs are non- nuclear, and chemical weapons weren't used against Minsk, what has it been contaminated with?

[James G]

Jun 24, 2019 5:04:45 GMT Dan said:

As MOABs are non- nuclear, and chemical weapons weren't used against Minsk, what has it been contaminated with?

My understanding there was that there was contamination by gas of the defensive line strung around it. I could be wrong though.
forcon? 

[forcon]

Jun 24, 2019 7:13:19 GMT James G said:

Jun 24, 2019 5:04:45 GMT Dan said:

As MOABs are non- nuclear, and chemical weapons weren't used against Minsk, what has it been contaminated with?

My understanding there was that there was contamination by gas of the defensive line strung around it. I could be wrong though.
forcon ? 

Yup, this. Gas from the Belarusian strike contaminated some areas of the city with the winds. 

[forcon]

Jun 23, 2019 23:06:40 GMT DavidR said:

The not-quite nuking of Minsk in the dying days of World War III is giving me Hackett flashbacks... (Good thing I don't live in Birmingham.)

Thank you. To be fair, that can be said even without the nukes!

[James G]

Jun 24, 2019 11:52:10 GMT forcon said:

Jun 24, 2019 7:13:19 GMT James G said:

My understanding there was that there was contamination by gas of the defensive line strung around it. I could be wrong though.
forcon ? 

Yup, this. Gas from the Belarusian strike contaminated some areas of the city with the winds. 

Resulting hypothetical scenario:
Post strike the Belorussians at once blame the evil Americans. A few years down the line, twerps on the internet assert this did happen, they heard it from their uncle's cousin's mate down the pub. The conspiracy theory gains ground online when it is leaked in the US in coming years that Washington looked at reactivating gas themselves.  This is conflated and presented as 'proof' it was the Dastardly Biden all along.

[James G]

One Hundred and Ninety–Four

Those big bombs weren’t dropped on Minsk at random locations. The major road junction around where Belorussian defensive efforts were clustered and the command post were struck because there were strategic targets as well as having an operational, even tactical value too. In addition to the primary goal of retaliating to the gas attack, American intentions were to smash the ability of Lukashenko’s regime to stop their capital from falling to NATO’s armies.

The Battle of Minsk was underway with use made of the advantages given by the use of the MOAB weapons.

Three of the combat divisions under US V Corps command took part in the opening moves to seize Minsk: the US Army’s 1st Armored & 101st Air Assault Divisions as well as the 12th Mechanised Division from the Polish Army. Those latter troops had spent most of war on Polish soil and only recently come to Belarus but they were here now and once more in the fight. The Americans went forward first and through that hole in the city’s western defences which had been ripped open. Tanks and infantry carriers moved in sent by the Old Ironsides before the Screaming Eagles dispatched some men via HMMWVs yet the majority on foot. There was a little use of helicopters too by the 101st Air Assault though anti-air defences in the form of shoulder mounted SAMs and AA guns limited those operations. NATO defence suppression against more capable missile launchers had been effective but the man-portable & lighter weapons were present in number and extremely dangerous… as the Screaming Eagles had found out to their cost around first Grodno and then Lida.

Belorussian forces were unable to stop the Americans getting inside the defensive line which they had established on the basis of the M-9 highway ring-road which went around their capital. The V Corps specially chose areas where VX gas had been used for supporting incursions, going through sections where local wind conditions had blown some of those chemicals back towards the Belorussians themselves. Vehicles were sealed up with overpressure systems switched on and the penetrations made. When the Poles made their attack not long after the Americans, those supposedly stronger defences collapsed as well. The lines were shattered and the conquerors rolled in with no serious ability from the defenders of the regime to stop them on the ground or through any form of organised counterattack. They just no longer had any fight in them.

Minsk began to quickly fall. The V Corps started out aiming to eliminate enemy forces and slow cleave off parts of the defences. The Belorussians crumbled though. Yes, at times there was much good effort put in by them, especially firing on helicopters and managing to ambush some tank columns with long-range shots from man-portable ATGM systems, but those bright spots were few and far between. The Americans and the Poles were everywhere, taking over the capital of Belarus fast. Elsewhere, other elements of the corps were fighting through central Belarus against Russian forces and engaging in some hard – though ultimately successful – engagements yet things were very different here. Now that they had broken inside the defences, the Americans and the Poles were hitting surviving defenders who were positioned to stop an attack coming from without now from within. Large-scale surrenders started occurring by men attacked from the rear who just gave up in droves.

Several of the V Corps’ operations staff were veterans of the drive into Baghdad in 2003. These US Army officers recalled how the thinking with the Iraqi capital had been the same as it had been here – that the city would take long to fall – but things here with Lukashenko’s city were going even quicker that the capital over which Saddam had once ruled. The senior planning officer already had discussed with the corps’ G3 doing something that had been done in Baghdad and that was given permission to do on the afternoon of the attack. The risk was high but a Thunder Run was made to go into the very heart, the government quarter, of the city.


Task Force 2–70 ARM (a battalion group of tanks and mechanised infantry built around the 2nd Battalion, 70th Armor Regiment) was given the go ahead. Men from the 1st Armored were going to get revenge for what happened to their fellow Old Ironsides soldiers in that gas attack by striking at what should have been the regime’s beating core. Abrams, Bradleys and armoured engineering & recovery vehicles – nothing light like a HMMWV or a truck – shot forwards supported by ground-hugging Apache gunships in the sky. They drove for two of the city’s main squares: October Square and Victory Square. A couple of embedded reporters went with them, sent to report on history as it was made.

Sniping and the odd RPG shot came against the column of the TF 2–70 ARM but there was no serious opposition. Where were the roadside bombs? The suicide bombers in vehicles? Barricades supported by anti-tank guns, roving missile teams and tanks hidden inside buildings were absent too. The Belorussians should have expected something like this, surely? They didn’t. They didn’t think the Americans would ever get inside. Only a couple of embarrassing instances of getting just a little bit lost slowed up the Americans. The streets were empty as people sheltered in their homes waiting for more B-52 strikes or more of those horrible vacuum bombs… or even for the Americans to use chemical weapons again like they had been told they had the day before. With nothing to stop them apart from navigation errors, TF 2–70 ARM located their objectives and moved on them with ease.

At October Square, the American soldiers found the rubble of what once had been Lukashenko’s official residence. Late summer rain started to fall as they parked their vehicles outside the Palace of Presidential Administration. Some shots were exchanged here with Belorussian regular soldiers – not the reservist and militia elsewhere – but none of the men with TF 2–70 ARM could understand why there was any fight for a pile of rubble courtesy of the US Air Force. A mixed company of tanks & infantry stayed behind here while the rest of the battalion group moved onwards, up the road, to Victory Square. There were a couple of missile launches from ATGMs which destroyed a Bradley and damaged an Abrams: Belorussian regulars active once more. Return fire was carefully directed. A pre-mission briefing had issued instructions to avoid the bringing down of the huge monumental obelisk in the middle of the square. This granite column celebrating the war against the Nazis. Toppling it by accident might not go down too well here but also elsewhere in propaganda terms. There were more remains of what had once been ‘regime targets’ here too. The important national television & radio centre had long been blown up and the nearby defence ministry had received the same sort of attention from the air. This was the American’s own propaganda, their very presence. More rain fell as the heavens opened. It washed away the blood of those few who had chosen to die here. This kept most people inside though some did venture the weather to come outside and see the foreign soldiers who were in their capital. The Americans had their weapons ready to open fire because elsewhere in Belarus the Belorussians had fought well but that wasn’t the case here. Neither did they celebrate their ‘liberation’ though.

They were just curious.

The Thunder Run – something invented in Vietnam though which gained fame after Baghdad – was done to test enemy defences and the resolve to fight. That resolve had been found lacking elsewhere around Minsk and now in the very centre too. The rest of the parent brigade to which TF 2–70 ARM arrived. More of the Old Ironsides (two of the four brigades came in; one of the other two had taken gas casualties while the other stood ready waiting to move on any ambush) entered Minsk, coming in through the opened route. Even fewer shots from die-hard regime loyalists met them. Casualties were light for the 1st Armored and also the 101st Air Assault too. Where the Poles entered the city, they too came in ready for a fight. There were several cases where they exercised less restraint than the Americans had done in dealing with isolated fire against them – firing back with several tank canons against a sniper in a window for instance – but this was expected: Belarus had caused so much pain to Poland and vengeance was sought. Their soldiers knew how Warsaw had been the target of all of those Scud missiles. Overall though, light resistance meant that much of Minsk was in NATO hands before the daylight finished and those were the bits regarded as important especially when the French at the airport were reached too.

The night saw full control over the city move to be established. The Americans secured the central, southern and western parts with their control over transport routes. They also sent men to other key buildings too: those still standing. They went to the parliamentary complex, Government House, somewhere which had survived World War Three like it had miraculously came through World War Two, and also to the facilities of the Belorussian KGB… places which had been bombed but which still had interest for the occupiers. Soldiers from the Screaming Eagles, veterans of MOUT (military operations in urban terrain), were in their element in doing this in a conquered city where they secured it fully. However, there was gunfire which occurred during the night. Taking advantage of the cover offered by darkness, committed Belorussians and the odd Russian detachment too launched a few attacks against the Poles through the north and the east of Minsk. The former reported to a dying regime; the latter were under instructions from the Kremlin. Polish military casualties came and so too were deaths recorded among Belorussian civilians caught in the crossfire. Once more, the Polish hadn’t been gentle especially when ambushed and even fired upon some of those ugly Soviet-era apartment buildings from where shots had come: NATO jets in the sky over Minsk, RAF Tornados and French Mirage-2000s, had received orders from above to not drop bombs on such buildings much to the Poles fury with that. The British and French blamed the weather yet it had been the unwillingness not to kill hundreds, maybe thousands of civilians by doing that that had seen no bomb runs like that take place. Polish T-72 tanks and BMP-1 infantry carriers – the 12th Mechanised had only Soviet-era equipment, nothing newer – were hit by downwards shots and so up into those buildings and in between them went Polish infantry teams supported by heavy fire from below. The battlefield which their allies hadn’t wanted to see such places become entered up being fought over though at least not brought down.

Yet, by morning, much of this was over. Those who wanted to fight were few and far between as well as significantly outgunned once the well-experienced Polish 12th Mechanised got ‘down and dirty’ with them in urban fighting.


Footage of Minsk’s fall was broadcast around the world.

In the Kremlin, they pictured in their minds American soldiers & tanks in Red Square and crawling over the remains of the building in which they sat. They also reflected upon the previous belief that Minsk was supposed to hold out for a significant period of time. Back home in the United States, images of their soldiers raising the American flag in Minsk were celebrated. What the footage didn’t show were concerns that NATO governments had. Minsk hadn’t been expected to fall in less than a day! They now occupied an city with a million and a half plus inhabitants, none of them who appeared to be keen to be freed from their government, many of them having weapons recently issued by a government on its last legs, and all of whom responsibility for fell upon the conqueror. They’d need feeding, access to medical care and security. They’d have to be treated well too. The possibility of Minsk turning into a Baghdad was considered impossible but it could be another Daugavpils yet on a far bigger scale than that Latvian city. NATO would have to be careful here.

Detachments of Green Berets, SAS and French 13e RDP special forces were in the city. It was they whom soldiers serving with the Screaming Eagles escorted to certain other locations around Minsk looking for people on lists which they worked through. Number One on that list was President Lukashenko. He was being hunted here though not to be found inside the city. He was on the run, but for how long…?

[davidfloyd]

Great update as always!

Just to speculate, other than the liberation of Latvia and ongoing conflict in Georgia, this is where NATO should stop and dig in. Let the Red Cross and UN observers into Belarus, continue deploying VII Corps and other reinforcements, but not a toe into Russia.

Crucially, I would continue a strategic air campaign against industrial and economic targets, especially those with military utility, and wait for Russia to ask for terms.

[James G]

Jun 24, 2019 21:18:41 GMT davidfloyd said:

Great update as always!

Just to speculate, other than the liberation of Latvia and ongoing conflict in Georgia, this is where NATO should stop and dig in. Let the Red Cross and UN observers into Belarus, continue deploying VII Corps and other reinforcements, but not a toe into Russia.

Crucially, I would continue a strategic air campaign against industrial and economic targets, especially those with military utility, and wait for Russia to ask for terms.

Thank you.
I agree fully. Minsk is taken and the blow struck. Liberating the rest of Latvia and then going onto Estonia should be the priority now as those are NATO countries. Even the Caucasus is a distraction to be fair. Blasting Russia from above is what they should be doing too, in attacks which Russia won't just feel today but what they know will hurt them in the long term as well.
However, it depends on how things play out.

[arrowiv]

Poor Vlad must be having a Hitler-in-the-bunker moment and maybe even hitting the bottle by now!

[forcon]

One Hundred and Ninety Five

President Lukashenko wasn't going to be allowed to get away. He was a war criminal, a man who had participated in a war of aggression against NATO, who had not only authorised but outright ordered the abuse and torture of Prisoners of War and the use of hostages, and a man who was responsible for the use of chemical weapons against the US Army.

The Belarusian President was now outside the capital city as it fell to NATO. He wasn't found in any of the government buildings searched through by Allied troops, but rather has gone into hiding with several members of his security staff and military chiefs.
There were plenty of individuals still loyal to the regime and the exiled President moved from Minsk to a safehouse in Barysaw, which despite the effective collapse of the Belarusian government, remained a city loyal to Lukashenko or at least opposed to NATO.

Hot on his heels were NATO special operations units. Intelligence collected from across Minsk sent Allied troops towards Barysaw with the intention of capturing Lukashenko.
Barysaw was within the sights of Allied commandos.

A joint force led by soldiers from the SAS went towards the city, flying aboard American Black Hawk helicopters. The SAS men were a force thirty-two strong and led by a major. Joining them were two twelve man Green Beret Alpha Teams, along with a company of specialist soldiers from the British Army’s Special Forces Support Group or SFSG, Britain’s answer to the 75th Ranger Regiment.

On the ground came more Allied troops. American tanks from the 1st Armored Division broke off from their main formation. A whole company of tanks and a platoon of mechanized infantry as well came after Lukashenko to provide fire support. Barysaw, as expected, put up resistance as Lukashenko loyalists tried to prevent the forcing of the city by NATO troops.

British and American commandos fast-roped onto the deck under enemy fire as the American tankers entered the city. Air support from above was plentiful with transport helicopters using their miniguns to provide fire support. The suspected safe house was surrounded by SFSG members and American tanks as a perimeter was secured, and then the SAS and Green Berets stormed the building.

Men were shot dead by the raiders, but Lukashenko wasn’t there; he was fleeing east in a truck, one prisoner told him after being encouraged to talk by a Belarusian interpreter working with NATO troops, a man who had lost his son to this insane war!

As the American tankers moved to pursue, ambushes occurred with gunfire and RPGs aimed at them. This did little more than scratch their paint but it slowed the tankers down as they engaged their targets.
The vehicle was spotted as it tried to pass through the city’s urban streets, and the commandos fought their way through Barysaw to stop it. The vehicle was rendered inoperable by gunfire from a patrolling Black Hawk helicopter, and then the SAS commandos snatched the Belarusian President, throwing him to the floor before he was cuffed and hooded.

[James G]

Seeing as he is a British prisoner, To The Tower he should go!

[lordroel]

Jun 25, 2019 17:07:40 GMT James G said:

Seeing as he is a British prisoner, To The Tower he should go!

Is that still in use as prison.

[James G]

Jun 25, 2019 17:10:18 GMT lordroel said:

Jun 25, 2019 17:07:40 GMT James G said:

Seeing as he is a British prisoner, To The Tower he should go!

Is that still in use as prison.

Nope. Just a humorous remark.

[oldbleep]

Jun 25, 2019 17:11:47 GMT James G said:

Jun 25, 2019 17:10:18 GMT lordroel said:

Is that still in use as prison.

Nope. Just a humorous remark.

The Tower of London, officially Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, is a historic castle located on the north bank of the River Thames in central London. The castle was used as a prison from 1100 (Ranulf Flambard) until 1952 (Kray twins), although that was not its primary purpose.
Despite its enduring reputation as a place of torture and death, popularised by 16th-century religious propagandists and 19th-century writers, only seven people were executed within the Tower before the World Wars of the 20th century. Executions were more commonly held on the notorious Tower Hill to the north of the castle, with 112 occurring there over a 400-year period.
In the First and Second World Wars, the Tower was again used as a prison and witnessed the executions of 12 men for espionage.
Today, the Tower of London is one of the country's most popular tourist attractions. Under the ceremonial charge of the Constable of the Tower, and operated by the Resident Governor of the Tower of London and Keeper of the Jewel House, the property is cared for by the charity Historic Royal Palaces and is protected as a World Heritage Site.