A Very Bad Day for the British Armed Forces
Nov 30, 2019 11:01:39 GMT
lordroel, James G, and 2 more like this
Post by forcon on Nov 30, 2019 11:01:39 GMT
Disclaimer; I know this reads like alarmist 'invasion literature', but this is not my intention. I don't think the scenario is particularly likely, but nor is it impossible for losses like this to be taken. Please enjoy!
The Royal Air Force arguably suffered the least in the first hours of the European War, when compared with losses taken by the British Army and Royal Navy. Typhoon and Lighting II fighter jets were based in Poland, Denmark, Germany, and Hungary. They had been since the crisis had started at the turn of the decade. Many more fighters, tankers, transport planes, and support units were still stationed back home and preparing for war when the fighting began.
Cruise missiles struck airfields across Eastern Europe and before they knew it, RAF pilots were taking to the skies to commence bombing missions against the hordes of Russian tanks that were now pouring across the countryside of the Baltic States and Eastern Poland. Russian jets, Su-30s and Su-35s, came to meet them. Coordinated by AWACS aircraft bearing NATO colours, the British fighters – alongside those of Britain’s NATO allies, needless to say – did well in the first dogfights, losing only four of their number in air-to-air combat. However, by the time the first strike aircraft crossed into the airspace of the Baltic States, they were engaged by S-400 and S-300 missile batteries scattered around Russia Proper, Kaliningrad, and Belarus. This SAM trap had been expected, but the needs of NATO commanders on the ground for immediate air support meant that the proper defence suppression sorties had yet to be mounted, and thus Allied warplanes were vulnerable to enemy missiles. The RAF lost sixteen fighters in the skies over Eastern Europe in just one day of fighting.
The British mainland was not safe from enemy attacks. By noon, flights of Bear bombers had taken off from bases on the Kola Peninsula. Flying in groups of three, the bombers split up to make intercepting them harder. While the Royal Norwegian Air Force was able to down a dozen of the bombers, twice that number of Bears reached their missile launch points and unleashed barrages of KH-55SMs. The cruise missiles were engaged by RAF fighters flying combat air patrols of the skies of the UK and by Royal Artillery air defence units. The vast majority of them got through the defensive effort and slammed into targets across Britain. In the south, RAF Marham and RAF Brize Norton were struck, along with the American airfield at Fairford. So too were the Royal Navy’s bases at Portsmouth and Plymouth, and the Air Traffic Control Centre at Swanwick. Scotland saw its key RAF bases as well as the dockyards at Rosyth ravaged by missile attacks.
The worst was yet to come.
The Royal Navy had a task force in the North Sea, led by the pride of the British fleet, HMS Queen Elizabeth II. Lighting IIs from the deck of the aircraft carrier were already conducting close air support missions over Eastern Europe. The Royal Navy had a pair of Type-45 destroyers and five Type-23 frigates providing escort to the carrier, while Belgian, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian and Spanish ships were also assigned to the task force. None of this succeeded in stopping the enemy attack. Tu-22M Backfire bombers flew round Norway and attacked with anti-shipping missiles. Two hundred such missiles were launched at the carrier group before fighters could be vectored in to engage the bombers. This attack, however, was not what finished off the battlegroup. The bomber raid was merely a distraction while a Russian submarine, the Severodvinsk, launched an attack of its own. With the fleet’s SAM batteries focused on eliminating the threat from the north, the Russian submarine launched a mass of its own Kalibr cruise missiles.
HMS Queen Elizabeth II sustained four missile hits, breaking apart and sinking shortly afterwards. HMS Dauntless survived unscathed, but HMS Defender, another Type-45 destroyer, bravely took a missile aimed at the amphibious ship HMS Albion. She, like the aircraft carrier, sank. Three frigates were also lost; HMS Iron Duke, HMS Sutherland, and HMS Kent.
The 3rd (UK) Division held the bulk of the British Army’s firepower. On the Polish-Belarusian border, it commanded the 12th & 20th Armoured Infantry Brigades and the 1st Strike Brigade, along with support elements falling under the 101st Logistics Brigade. Some twenty thousand British soldiers were under the division’s control. Both of the active heavy armoured regiments and the two self-propelled artillery regiments were deployed here, along with all of the country’s Warrior-equipped armoured infantry units. On paper and indeed in practice, this was a huge array of firepower, making 3rd Division a potent formation. However, despite all of its strengths, the division was not prepared to face the foe which appeared from the mist on that frosty February morning. Like the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, it would suffer greatly under a relentless attack from a determined opponent.
When Russian MLRS launchers – BM-26s & -27s for the most part – opened fire, they outranged the M270s of the 26th Regiment, Royal Artillery, the divisional fires regiment. The Russian guns were guided onto their targets expertly by radio-electronic warfare units, striking headquarters units of the numerous brigades and battlegroups scattered across the frontier. Casualties were immense, and only climbed as the 152 and 203mm guns of the Russian brigades and divisions joined in the assault. Of course, this did not take place in a vacuum: British, American, and Polish guns returned fire en masse, but their efforts were mitigated by the numerical superiority of Russian artillery units. Explosions roared across the Polish countryside.
Air attacks also took place. Under an umbrella of effective SAM cover, Russian Su-25s & Su-34s released cluster bombs onto any British positions they could locate. Attack helicopters of the 15th Army Aviation Brigade popped up from behind the cover of hills or woodlands and destroyed targets with AT-6 ‘Spiral’ anti-tank missiles. The Starstreak missile gunners of 12th Regiment, Royal Artillery, did their utmost to defend their comrades. With a single battery assigned to each brigade, there wasn’t enough missiles to go around. 1st Strike Brigade suffered the most, routed from above before the enemy ever assaulted on the ground. The brigade’s 105mm guns, while manned by experts with 3rd Regiment, Royal Horse Artillery, simply lacked the range and punch to knock out enemy formations even when their locations were pinpointed by drones operated by the Royal Artillery’s 32nd Regiment. When Russian tanks did emerge from the mist which hung low across the border, the Ajax light tanks of the Household Cavalry Regiment were the first to be engaged.
The lead battlegroup, supported by elements of 3rd Battalion, The Rifles (3 RIFLES), tried in vain to slow the Russian advance. The 40mm guns mounted on the HCR’s Ajaxes could not dent the paint on T-14s and T-90s which came barrelling towards them. BMP and BTR fighting vehicles fell victim to the Ajaxes guns, but only the anti-tank missile platoons, equipped with excellent Javelin ATGMs, could do any real damage to enemy armoured formations. These brave men and women succeeded in knocking out some fifteen Russian tanks, but the losses amongst the Ajax and Boxer vehicles were immense. By ten in the morning, the HCR battlegroup had been totally destroyed. Furthermore, the attempted withdrawal of 1st Strike Brigade was prevented by Russian flanking movements, leaving them pinned in place to be destroyed by enemy artillery at will. An air attack succeeded in destroying the brigade’s forward headquarters, killing the Brigadier in command and further degrading command and control amongst the units below. Jamming efforts succeeded in cutting off company commanders from their superiors and, as a result, the battlegroups were defeated in detail by midday. Only some elements of 1st Battalion, Scots Guards, were able to escape total destruction, and only a company of them made it back to friendly lines. The tattered remnants of Left Flank Company, under the command of a junior Captain, were all that was left of the strike brigade.
Equipped with 155mm AS90 guns and Challenger 2 main battle tanks, the two armoured infantry brigades performed far better, but suffered much similar fates to 1st Strike Brigade. The 20th Armoured Infantry Brigade was pummelled by enemy artillery units, but more effective counterbattery fire allowed the brigade to weather the bombardment. Men died in their vehicles and foxholes, but there were more survivors than there were casualties. A battlegroup led by the Queen’s Royal Hussars, Royal Armoured Corps, rained down fire on Russian units as they crossed the border. The excellently dug in Challenger 2s were able to destroy a whole battalion of T-90s, but more came behind them. Russian tanks pushed through the marshy ground and got within range of their opponents, slaying them with ATGMs of their own as well as 125mm cannon fire. Attempting a fighting withdrawal, the commander of 20th Armoured Infantry Brigade found two of his units cut-off. 5th Battalion, The Rifles, was destroyed by an overwhelming armoured assault. Its dismounted infantrymen engaged enemy troops in hand-to-hand combat as they dismounted to enter the woodlands in which the British troops sheltered. Many Warrior fighting vehicles were obliterated by enemy helicopter gunships and cannon fire, despite taking out dozens of BMP-3s before they were neutralised. With so many of its vehicles destroyed, 5 RIFLES battlegroup was unable to withdraw. The battalion died in the forest, fighting the enemy with bayonets and grenades. The destruction of 5 RIFLES led to the Queen’s Royal Hussars and its neighbouring armoured infantry battalion, 1st Battalion, Royal Regiment of Fusiliers (1 RRF), outflanked by a push from the south. A breakout effort, spearheaded by the Queen’s Royal Hussars, succeeded in punching out of the encirclement; five of the eighteen tanks under the regiment’s command remained operational at the end of the effort.
12th Armoured Infantry Brigade stood and fought, and, eventually, died. Communications with higher command were cut by electronic warfare and artillery attacks, leaving the brigade commander unaware of the destruction taking place to his left and right flanks. Subsequently, no efforts were made to conduct a retreat. A squadron of F-35s managed to penetrate the Russian SAM barrier, halting the enemy advance. British tanks, Warriors, and ATGM units rained death and destruction down onto the armoured regiment charging towards them. For a moment, it seemed like there was hope. Unfortunately, a salvo of fire from a TOS-1 flamethrower raked across the lines manned by infantrymen from 1st Battalion, Royal Welsh. The perpetrating vehicle was rapidly identified and knocked out by tanks from the Royal Tank Regiment, but the damage had been done. A hole was torn in the brigade’s lines, and communications failings meant that the brigade commander wasn’t even aware of this. Tearing through the gap, a mechanised infantry battalion, supported by a company of T-14s, swung southwards and struck the Royal Tank Regiment battlegroup in its rears; attacked from both sides, the regiment ceased to exist as a fighting force. To the north, 1st Battalion, Mercian Regiment, was hunkered down under increasingly heavy air and artillery bombardment until Russian infantry dismounted from their BMPs and began to storm British positions.
With the combat units of the 3rd (UK) Division annihilated, Russian armour tore into the supporting elements of the 101st Logistics Brigade; troops belonging to the Catering Corps, the Royal Engineers, and the Royal Logistics Corps now found themselves the new frontline. In foxholes with rifles to their shoulders, these rear-echelon troops were slain by enemy tanks and the brigade’s command captured as his command tents were overrun.
In a day, the British Armed Forces had suffered over twenty thousand casualties, lost an aircraft carrier and a full division, and had been powerless to stop an attack on the British mainland.
The Royal Air Force arguably suffered the least in the first hours of the European War, when compared with losses taken by the British Army and Royal Navy. Typhoon and Lighting II fighter jets were based in Poland, Denmark, Germany, and Hungary. They had been since the crisis had started at the turn of the decade. Many more fighters, tankers, transport planes, and support units were still stationed back home and preparing for war when the fighting began.
Cruise missiles struck airfields across Eastern Europe and before they knew it, RAF pilots were taking to the skies to commence bombing missions against the hordes of Russian tanks that were now pouring across the countryside of the Baltic States and Eastern Poland. Russian jets, Su-30s and Su-35s, came to meet them. Coordinated by AWACS aircraft bearing NATO colours, the British fighters – alongside those of Britain’s NATO allies, needless to say – did well in the first dogfights, losing only four of their number in air-to-air combat. However, by the time the first strike aircraft crossed into the airspace of the Baltic States, they were engaged by S-400 and S-300 missile batteries scattered around Russia Proper, Kaliningrad, and Belarus. This SAM trap had been expected, but the needs of NATO commanders on the ground for immediate air support meant that the proper defence suppression sorties had yet to be mounted, and thus Allied warplanes were vulnerable to enemy missiles. The RAF lost sixteen fighters in the skies over Eastern Europe in just one day of fighting.
The British mainland was not safe from enemy attacks. By noon, flights of Bear bombers had taken off from bases on the Kola Peninsula. Flying in groups of three, the bombers split up to make intercepting them harder. While the Royal Norwegian Air Force was able to down a dozen of the bombers, twice that number of Bears reached their missile launch points and unleashed barrages of KH-55SMs. The cruise missiles were engaged by RAF fighters flying combat air patrols of the skies of the UK and by Royal Artillery air defence units. The vast majority of them got through the defensive effort and slammed into targets across Britain. In the south, RAF Marham and RAF Brize Norton were struck, along with the American airfield at Fairford. So too were the Royal Navy’s bases at Portsmouth and Plymouth, and the Air Traffic Control Centre at Swanwick. Scotland saw its key RAF bases as well as the dockyards at Rosyth ravaged by missile attacks.
The worst was yet to come.
The Royal Navy had a task force in the North Sea, led by the pride of the British fleet, HMS Queen Elizabeth II. Lighting IIs from the deck of the aircraft carrier were already conducting close air support missions over Eastern Europe. The Royal Navy had a pair of Type-45 destroyers and five Type-23 frigates providing escort to the carrier, while Belgian, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian and Spanish ships were also assigned to the task force. None of this succeeded in stopping the enemy attack. Tu-22M Backfire bombers flew round Norway and attacked with anti-shipping missiles. Two hundred such missiles were launched at the carrier group before fighters could be vectored in to engage the bombers. This attack, however, was not what finished off the battlegroup. The bomber raid was merely a distraction while a Russian submarine, the Severodvinsk, launched an attack of its own. With the fleet’s SAM batteries focused on eliminating the threat from the north, the Russian submarine launched a mass of its own Kalibr cruise missiles.
HMS Queen Elizabeth II sustained four missile hits, breaking apart and sinking shortly afterwards. HMS Dauntless survived unscathed, but HMS Defender, another Type-45 destroyer, bravely took a missile aimed at the amphibious ship HMS Albion. She, like the aircraft carrier, sank. Three frigates were also lost; HMS Iron Duke, HMS Sutherland, and HMS Kent.
The 3rd (UK) Division held the bulk of the British Army’s firepower. On the Polish-Belarusian border, it commanded the 12th & 20th Armoured Infantry Brigades and the 1st Strike Brigade, along with support elements falling under the 101st Logistics Brigade. Some twenty thousand British soldiers were under the division’s control. Both of the active heavy armoured regiments and the two self-propelled artillery regiments were deployed here, along with all of the country’s Warrior-equipped armoured infantry units. On paper and indeed in practice, this was a huge array of firepower, making 3rd Division a potent formation. However, despite all of its strengths, the division was not prepared to face the foe which appeared from the mist on that frosty February morning. Like the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, it would suffer greatly under a relentless attack from a determined opponent.
When Russian MLRS launchers – BM-26s & -27s for the most part – opened fire, they outranged the M270s of the 26th Regiment, Royal Artillery, the divisional fires regiment. The Russian guns were guided onto their targets expertly by radio-electronic warfare units, striking headquarters units of the numerous brigades and battlegroups scattered across the frontier. Casualties were immense, and only climbed as the 152 and 203mm guns of the Russian brigades and divisions joined in the assault. Of course, this did not take place in a vacuum: British, American, and Polish guns returned fire en masse, but their efforts were mitigated by the numerical superiority of Russian artillery units. Explosions roared across the Polish countryside.
Air attacks also took place. Under an umbrella of effective SAM cover, Russian Su-25s & Su-34s released cluster bombs onto any British positions they could locate. Attack helicopters of the 15th Army Aviation Brigade popped up from behind the cover of hills or woodlands and destroyed targets with AT-6 ‘Spiral’ anti-tank missiles. The Starstreak missile gunners of 12th Regiment, Royal Artillery, did their utmost to defend their comrades. With a single battery assigned to each brigade, there wasn’t enough missiles to go around. 1st Strike Brigade suffered the most, routed from above before the enemy ever assaulted on the ground. The brigade’s 105mm guns, while manned by experts with 3rd Regiment, Royal Horse Artillery, simply lacked the range and punch to knock out enemy formations even when their locations were pinpointed by drones operated by the Royal Artillery’s 32nd Regiment. When Russian tanks did emerge from the mist which hung low across the border, the Ajax light tanks of the Household Cavalry Regiment were the first to be engaged.
The lead battlegroup, supported by elements of 3rd Battalion, The Rifles (3 RIFLES), tried in vain to slow the Russian advance. The 40mm guns mounted on the HCR’s Ajaxes could not dent the paint on T-14s and T-90s which came barrelling towards them. BMP and BTR fighting vehicles fell victim to the Ajaxes guns, but only the anti-tank missile platoons, equipped with excellent Javelin ATGMs, could do any real damage to enemy armoured formations. These brave men and women succeeded in knocking out some fifteen Russian tanks, but the losses amongst the Ajax and Boxer vehicles were immense. By ten in the morning, the HCR battlegroup had been totally destroyed. Furthermore, the attempted withdrawal of 1st Strike Brigade was prevented by Russian flanking movements, leaving them pinned in place to be destroyed by enemy artillery at will. An air attack succeeded in destroying the brigade’s forward headquarters, killing the Brigadier in command and further degrading command and control amongst the units below. Jamming efforts succeeded in cutting off company commanders from their superiors and, as a result, the battlegroups were defeated in detail by midday. Only some elements of 1st Battalion, Scots Guards, were able to escape total destruction, and only a company of them made it back to friendly lines. The tattered remnants of Left Flank Company, under the command of a junior Captain, were all that was left of the strike brigade.
Equipped with 155mm AS90 guns and Challenger 2 main battle tanks, the two armoured infantry brigades performed far better, but suffered much similar fates to 1st Strike Brigade. The 20th Armoured Infantry Brigade was pummelled by enemy artillery units, but more effective counterbattery fire allowed the brigade to weather the bombardment. Men died in their vehicles and foxholes, but there were more survivors than there were casualties. A battlegroup led by the Queen’s Royal Hussars, Royal Armoured Corps, rained down fire on Russian units as they crossed the border. The excellently dug in Challenger 2s were able to destroy a whole battalion of T-90s, but more came behind them. Russian tanks pushed through the marshy ground and got within range of their opponents, slaying them with ATGMs of their own as well as 125mm cannon fire. Attempting a fighting withdrawal, the commander of 20th Armoured Infantry Brigade found two of his units cut-off. 5th Battalion, The Rifles, was destroyed by an overwhelming armoured assault. Its dismounted infantrymen engaged enemy troops in hand-to-hand combat as they dismounted to enter the woodlands in which the British troops sheltered. Many Warrior fighting vehicles were obliterated by enemy helicopter gunships and cannon fire, despite taking out dozens of BMP-3s before they were neutralised. With so many of its vehicles destroyed, 5 RIFLES battlegroup was unable to withdraw. The battalion died in the forest, fighting the enemy with bayonets and grenades. The destruction of 5 RIFLES led to the Queen’s Royal Hussars and its neighbouring armoured infantry battalion, 1st Battalion, Royal Regiment of Fusiliers (1 RRF), outflanked by a push from the south. A breakout effort, spearheaded by the Queen’s Royal Hussars, succeeded in punching out of the encirclement; five of the eighteen tanks under the regiment’s command remained operational at the end of the effort.
12th Armoured Infantry Brigade stood and fought, and, eventually, died. Communications with higher command were cut by electronic warfare and artillery attacks, leaving the brigade commander unaware of the destruction taking place to his left and right flanks. Subsequently, no efforts were made to conduct a retreat. A squadron of F-35s managed to penetrate the Russian SAM barrier, halting the enemy advance. British tanks, Warriors, and ATGM units rained death and destruction down onto the armoured regiment charging towards them. For a moment, it seemed like there was hope. Unfortunately, a salvo of fire from a TOS-1 flamethrower raked across the lines manned by infantrymen from 1st Battalion, Royal Welsh. The perpetrating vehicle was rapidly identified and knocked out by tanks from the Royal Tank Regiment, but the damage had been done. A hole was torn in the brigade’s lines, and communications failings meant that the brigade commander wasn’t even aware of this. Tearing through the gap, a mechanised infantry battalion, supported by a company of T-14s, swung southwards and struck the Royal Tank Regiment battlegroup in its rears; attacked from both sides, the regiment ceased to exist as a fighting force. To the north, 1st Battalion, Mercian Regiment, was hunkered down under increasingly heavy air and artillery bombardment until Russian infantry dismounted from their BMPs and began to storm British positions.
With the combat units of the 3rd (UK) Division annihilated, Russian armour tore into the supporting elements of the 101st Logistics Brigade; troops belonging to the Catering Corps, the Royal Engineers, and the Royal Logistics Corps now found themselves the new frontline. In foxholes with rifles to their shoulders, these rear-echelon troops were slain by enemy tanks and the brigade’s command captured as his command tents were overrun.
In a day, the British Armed Forces had suffered over twenty thousand casualties, lost an aircraft carrier and a full division, and had been powerless to stop an attack on the British mainland.
