Post by forcon on Mar 10, 2020 18:21:54 GMT
Comments are greatly appreciated!
The year is 2021. The hawkish, nationalistic Russian government is experiencing a wave of instability as protests against the regime rapidly escalate. The summer sees the birth of a large-scale anti-government movement, as hundreds of thousands take to the streets in an effort to bring about regime change. Violent crackdowns against the demonstrators only breeds more disaffection with the regime. Western sanctions, imposed after the brutal response of the Russian security apparatus to the fledgling protest movement, lead to Russia cutting off supplies of oil and natural gasses to Europe. Moscow, terrified by the prospect of a full-scale ‘colour revolution’, believes that the United States and its allies in Europe are responsible at least in part for the unrest. The Federal Security Service or FSB, successor to the infamous KGB, uncovers evidence of collusion between CIA officers and the leaders of the fledgling protest movement.
In response, Russia mobilises several hundred thousand troops in the Western Military District, causing the Baltic Republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to prepare for an expected Russian attack. A showdown between a US reconnaissance aircraft and a Russian fighter jet over the Baltic Sea results in tragedy as the pilot of the Russian airplane collides with his American counterpart. While the crew of the American E-8 are able to nurse their damaged aircraft safely back to base, the Russian pilot is killed in the incident, sparking outrage in diplomatic circles. Russia’s First Guards Tank Army then moves into Belarus, apparently with the consent of the local government. Ostensibly, this move is to protect Russia’s European ally from ‘Western aggression.’
Both sides are now playing a dangerous game of chicken. A delicate dance of military power projection takes place in oceans and skies all around the world, from the Sea of Japan to the North Atlantic. Harrowing near-miss incidents between NATO and Russian ships and warplanes make the evening news headlines on a daily basis.
With tensions soaring, the North Atlantic Council votes to deploy several thousand NATO troops to Poland and the Baltic States over the course of the next month. This is done to deter perceived Russian aggression and, in a grim twist of irony, prevent war from breaking out. At the tip of the spear is the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VHJTF), a multinational brigade-group of over 10,000 troops from eleven different countries. Additional American, British, French, and German troops are called up to begin deploying into Eastern Europe. In a tragic coincidence, a spate of terrorist attacks occur in Moscow and St Petersburg, killing dozens of people and arming the Russian government with a lethal propaganda weapon. The attacks are allegedly the handiwork of a rogue faction of separatists from the still-restless province of Chechnya, although the FSB’s suspicions point westwards. Moscow sees this is the final straw. Now utterly convinced that NATO is trying to orchestrate the fall of the Russian government through a colour revolution, the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces present a plan to the President for a rapid offensive which will occupy NATO territory and allow for Moscow to negotiate from a position of strength. Though the Russian generals know that they will be outgunned and outnumbered in a drawn-out war, they hope to break the West’s will to fight, rather than fighting a long conventional conflict.
With the prospect of angry mobs kicking down the doors of the Kremlin at the forefront of his mind, the Russian President orders the military to begin preparations to initiate Operation Scalpel. A full-scale mobilisation is ordered, while the President declares martial law and secures sweeping emergency powers which effectively dissolve the Russian Parliament. NATO responds with a similar mobilisation. The autumn air is thick with tension. By now, US and European troops are pouring into Poland and the isolated Baltic States. Roads in Germany and Poland are chock-full of military convoys headed eastwards. A multinational amphibious strike group of over thirty ships is positioned off Denmark in an effort to demonstrate the resolve of the Alliance. In attempting to ward off a Russian strike against NATO, the Alliance has forgotten one thing; an animal is most dangerous when it is wounded and cornered.
Tragically, NATO’s effort to deter the Bear is not simply too little, too late; rather, it has served to provoke him.
On 15 November, Russia begins its offensive with a series of cyber-attacks and commando raids against Western infrastructure both in Europe and the US. Cruise missiles are launched by Bear bombers at airbases in Germany, Poland, and Denmark. Russian paratroopers occupy several strategic locations in northern Norway, including Andoya Airbase, located on the island of the same name, while Marines of the Black Sea Fleet land at Constanta, on the coast of Romania. These are merely diversionary attacks against NATO’s respective northern and southern flanks. The main offensive occurs in Eastern Europe. While ports and airfields are seized by paratroopers and commandos, Russian tanks pour into Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The Suwalki Gap is rapidly occupied in a daring helicopter assault, while two divisions of Russian troops in Belarus attack across the Polish border on a northward axis.
The Third World War has begun.
NATO has prepared for this, but the mobilisation is still ongoing and the sheer scale of the Russian attack shatters the Alliance into a million pieces in the first days of the war. Russian Ground Forces’ radio-electronic units successfully jam Western communications systems as artillery thunders down on NATO troop concentrations, causing mass casualties. The 12th Combat Aviation Brigade, US Army, loses two thirds of its Apache helicopters in the first twelve hours of combat. Turkey and Greece abrogate from their NATO commitments, declaring neutrality. NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence (EFP) battlegroups in the Baltic States are rapidly destroyed by overwhelming Russian firepower. Estonia is occupied in just two days; twenty-four hours later, Russian soldiers are raising the tricolour flag outside the US embassy in Riga, the capital of Latvia. Lithuania is able to stand and fight for no more than five days. Thousands of Allied troops are taken as Prisoners of War. While anti-war protests soon erupt in Germany, Spain, Italy, France, and the United Kingdom, their numbers are smaller than feared; upon the outbreak of hostilities, western law enforcement agencies commenced a herculean effort to arrest potential subversives before they could stir up dissent in any meaningful form.
In Poland, the assault meets less success. The Polish Land Forces, backed by the forward-deployed US and British forces and advance elements of the Bundeswehr, slow the pace of the Russian advance to a crawl. Even so, the defenders pay a hefty price for the tenacity of their resistance; one US armored brigade is rendered combat ineffective, with casualties approaching ninety percent of its tanks and sixty percent of its personnel, while a Polish mechanised division sees over half of its personnel killed or captured defending the Suwalki corridor. The situation in the air is initially one of stalemate; while Russia’s undersized air force is unable to attain air superiority, or anything resembling it, over the front, its huge array of surface-to-air missiles prevent the combined NATO air forces from doing the same. Seven days of fighting in Romania sees the Russian marines encircled and defeated after the Romanian Land Forces are reinforced by a brigade of American paratroopers from their base in southern Italy.
In the Atlantic, the Russian Navy, despite many of its vessels being antiquated relics, scores an initial success against the NATO amphibious task force in the North Sea. Tupolev-22M Backfire bombers launch a massive missile attack from the north. With the defence systems of the Allied warships engaging the air attack, an Oscar II submarine launches a second strike with some twenty-four cruise missiles, which successfully sinks the amphibious assault ship USS Bataan, along with three of her escorts, killing almost 3,000 sailors and marines. The tide is quickly turned, however, by the arrival of two American aircraft carrier battle groups from the East Coast. While the Royal Navy leads an intensive anti-submarine warfare operation in the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom Gap, the US aircraft carriers, cruisers, and destroyers of the Second Fleet are able to sink seventy percent of the Russian Navy’s surface forces in just ten days of fighting.
In the air, Russia conducts a major effort to halt the flow of supplies pouring over the Atlantic. Airfields and ports in Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and the Low Countries, are subjected to massed cruise missile strikes and commando raids. The Patriot air defence batteries of the 10th Air & Missile Defence Command, along with the newly-arrived Terminal High Altitude Area Defence, or THAAD units, do their utmost to stop the missiles, but the sheer number launched means that at least some of them get through. The number of civilian casualties in Western Europe climbs into the hundreds. Unlike in the previous world wars, North America does not escape with its territory largely unharmed by enemy action. Delta Force assists the FBI in an operation which narrowly prevents Brooklyn Battery Tunnel from being destroyed by enemy commandos. Another Spetsnaz operation is more successful; Russian operatives successfully shoot down a Boeing 747 operated by American Airlines, now under the control of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, using a hand-held missile. The jet crashes down into the suburbs of Chicago, killing all the Illinois National Guardsmen on-board.
Led by the US Air Force, the Allies launch an operation to cripple the Russian air defence network around Belarus and the Baltic States. Attack submarines and stealthy F-35 strike fighters launch cruise missiles and other stand-off weapons, which overwhelm even the advanced SA-20 and SA-21 missile systems and either destroy or cripple sixty percent of them. This opens up Western Russia to attacks from NATO aircraft, which soon begin in earnest as satellite-guided bombs target the naval and air bases around St Petersburg, Russia’s second city. Both sides begin using experimental anti-satellite weapons with devastating effect as the war expands into space. Modified RIM-66 missiles from American cruisers begin the process of blinding Russia’s military by destroying its network of spy satellites. Russian MiG-31 interceptors’ use similarly high-tech weapons to do the same to American satellites. Launching from Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, American bombers destroy a Russian satellite launch centre in Kazakhstan. Russia’s military facilities in Syria, Armenia, and Tajikistan are also taken out.
By early December, after nearly three weeks of warfare, it becomes clear that the Russian advance will go no further. Russian armour has been stopped cold within sight of the great Masurian lakes. While casualties have been extremely heavy on both sides, NATO reinforcements are now pouring into Poland by the thousands. Russia’s situation is growing evermore precarious, with its air defence network having sustained major losses and the bulk of its navy destroyed. The Russian President, having achieved his goal of forestalling the dreaded ‘CIA-backed colour revolution’, offers peace terms to NATO. The terms suggested include a permanent Russian presence in the Baltic States, the lifting of economic sanctions against Russia, and the withdrawal of NATO forces from east of the Vistula River. To repent for its perceived aggression, the Alliance will be forced to contribute economically to Russia’s recovery. The offer is almost unanimously rejected. Only the delegations from Hungary, Spain, and Italy speak in favour of a ‘white peace’, and their arguments are quickly shut down.
On the northern flank, the American 10th Mountain Division provides aid to Norwegian forces in retaking the smattering of occupied territories. Andoya is recaptured in mid-December, preventing the use of the airfield for anti-shipping missions out over the North Atlantic. On the other side of the world, the US Pacific Fleet moves to open up a second front against Russia’s Pacific Coast. Strikes by carrier-based fighter-bombers hit targets around Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk. A Marine Expeditionary Force takes to the sea from Japan, ready to initiate an amphibious assault to tie down Russian forces in the Far East and prevent them from moving westwards. Special Forces are infiltrated into Belarus and the Baltic States to begin targeting Russia’s fragile communications nodes and supply network.
With the Russian invasion now stalled in Poland, a stalemate sets in with the terrible winter weather conditions. The snowfall is knee-deep, sometimes higher, and NATO commanders are unwilling to commence offensive operations to liberate eastern Poland until the spring. While Western politicians wish to go on the offensive immediately and win the war by Christmas, the generals feel that this is too risky; instead, they argue, it is better to wait through the brutal eastern winter. This has the added benefit of allowing US National Guard units and European reserve formations the time they need to mobilise and deploy overseas to support the attack, enigmatically codenamed Operation Righteous Sword.
With both sides digging in for the winter, fighting slows to daily artillery bombardments and patrol skirmishes, more reminiscent of the First World War than a modern, high-tech conflict. The American people, now understanding that this will be a drawn-out war, are mentally and physically preparing themselves for the long-haul. From the end of World War Two, strategists have believed that another great power conflict would be over rapidly. With this war, they are proven wrong. New draftees begin their induction into the US Armed Forces as accelerated basic training courses take place. The global economy is in ruins, and attempts to persuade the upper-middle classes to buy war bonds meet abject failure. While the war has thus far been a conventional one, many people still believe that a nuclear exchange is inevitable. The most reposted articles on social media are those containing survival tips for the post-apocalyptic world. America's military 'boneyards' are scoured for usable equipment. In the Arizona Desert, David-Monthan Air Force Base suddenly becomes a hive of activity as hundreds of fourth-generation aircraft are moved to be reactivated. It will take months for them to become combat-capable, but, as the continuation of the war into winter has demonstrated, this conflict is more than a 'come as you are' war. Lima Army Tank Plant in Ohio begins churning out Abrams tanks at rates not seen since the 1980s to replace losses in Europe.
The world waits with baited breath through a cold, and dark winter. Shipping out from ports from New York to Galveston, Texas, two fresh National Guard divisions and an abundance of support units are loaded aboard cargo ships. They are headed for Le Havre, Rotterdam, and Hamburg. After over a month of fighting, Russia has few submarines left. Those that are able to launch attacks against the convoy, sinking a huge Roll on/Roll off cargo ship laden with armoured vehicles, along with an escorting Danish frigate. Counterattacks by the NATO navies quickly subdue the last vestiges of Russian naval power. With the Russian Navy effectively destroyed as fighting force, the US Navy pushes its carrier groups round Norway and into the Barents Sea. From here, they begin launching airstrikes against the Kola Peninsula, further tying up Russian forces. Murmansk and Arkhangelsk bear the brunt of the bombing campaign, which is restricted more by terrible Arctic weather conditions than by enemy action. The US Air Force commences Operation Midnight Express on Christmas Day, sending its stealth bombers over the Arctic Circle and deep into Russia, where they bomb the Trans-Siberian Railway Line and destroy a Sukhoi aircraft factory outside Khabarovsk. While the mission is successful, losses are heavy; two of the six irreplaceable B-2 bombers fail to return.
By the end of February, NATO is ready to go on the offensive. With fresh US National Guard units on the frontline, and newly-raised British, French, and German brigades in position, the assault begins. Batteries of multiple-rocket launchers and howitzers rain death and destruction down onto Russian lines, while airstrikes sever communications nodes. A series of cyber-attacks coordinated by the NSA and Britain’s GCHQ wreaks havoc on the ability of Russian commanders to communicate with Moscow. NATO intelligence has correctly identified one of Russia’s major weaknesses; it’s reformed, but still notoriously top-heavy, command and control structure. The ancient, but still potent B-52H strategic bombers of the US Global Strike Command contribute to the devastation, each releasing several hundred cluster bombs onto enemy positions. The B-52s carry more ordinance than any other aircraft, and while vulnerable to SAMs, as proven by the loss of three of their number, the effect of such firepower when utilised against ground forces is absolutely devastating.
In Poland, the US 1st Cavalry Division mounts a headlong attack into Russian lines, achieving the hoped-for breakthrough which can now be exploited. British units follow the Americans into the fray, swinging northwards towards Suwalki, while two Polish divisions rapidly advance along the coastline towards Kaliningrad. The 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment, a National Guard unit from Tennessee, encounters several Russian armoured brigades as they withdraw eastwards. Depleted by months of fighting and terrible weather conditions, the Russian units suffer a series of calamitous battlefield defeats. The first moves of Operation Righteous Sword are successful, but extremely bloody. NATO troops run into spirited resistance and fighting is heavy, but nonetheless, Russian forces have been ejected from Polish soil by the first week of March. Some thirty thousand Russian soldiers are now POWs. Huge columns of retreating tanks and trucks make tempting targets for NATO pilots.
“It’s like shooting rats in a barrel,” reports one American F-35 pilot, “You can’t miss if you try to.”
With the first week of campaigning a success, commanders in the Pentagon and at SHAPE opt to press the attack into the Baltic States and Belarus. Kaliningrad, which has always been Russian soil despite being physically separated from the mainland, is to be encircled and attacked from above, but otherwise left alone; nobody wants to risk attacking the isolated enclave on the ground, for fear of provoking a nuclear response. The same cannot be said in the Pacific; elements of the III Marine Expeditionary Force mount a series of daring amphibious raids against Russian Navy bases along the coastline, drawing the four army groups in Siberia towards the Sea of Okhotsk; here, they are pinned in place by airstrikes and are therefore unable to move westwards.
US forces lead the charge into Belarus, engaging the Russian rear-guard and fighting their way through the Lida Gap. The location, pinpointed on a map by US military intelligence, is the site of a massive tank battle. American Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles punch through enemy lines, opening up the way to Minsk, the Belarusian capital, on March 21. Following their assault through the now-infamous gap, the brigade combat teams of the 4th Infantry Division race towards Minsk, pressing on through all the resistance in their path. By now, the population of Belarus has split in its loyalties; pro-Western groups are harassing government forces and welcoming their liberators with open arms, while die-hard elements of the military continue to resist, remaining loyal to a regime which is struggling for its life.
More NATO divisions, including American, British, French, German, Polish and Canadian formations, attack into the Baltic States. As they cross through Suwalki, opposed by the remnants of a Russian paratrooper brigade, a further surprise occurs behind Russian lines. The resistance in all three Baltic nations comes out of its hiding places and begins a wave of attacks against the occupiers. Aided by their Green Beret ‘advisors’, the guerrillas make life hell for the Russian troops, blowing up bridges and ammunition and fuel storage facilities and ambushing resupply convoys. Emerging from the fog which hangs low over the Baltic Sea, amphibious warships begin depositing 14,000 sailors and marines of the 4th Marine Expeditionary Brigade along the coastline of Latvia. Helicopters bring several battalions of marines further inland, while tanks and armored vehicles are offloaded from hovercraft. On March 27, the Challenger 2s of the Royal Tank Regiment enter the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, to cheering crowds and waving flags.
Three days later, NATO forces enter Latvia from the west and cross the Daugava River, the natural barrier already having been ‘leapfrogged’ by US Marines moving inland from the Gulf of Riga. Amidst the anarchy taking place inside the country, a political coup occurs in Minsk. American tanks are at the gates of the Belarusian capital. The airport to the south of the city is secured by Italian alpine troops, while French forces are massing to the north. The new government sues for peace, asking NATO for assistance in subduing the remnants of Russian military units deployed on its soil. After a short period of deliberation, on April 2, NATO commanders in Belgium receive permission from their political superiors to accept the Belarusian government’s request.
In the Kremlin, the mood is grim. NATO ground forces are pushing through any resistance that meets them, and Russian forces in the Far East are being pinned in place. To emphasise to Moscow the gravity of their situation, American stealth bombers again strike the Russian mainland. This time, they hit the capital itself, destroying the Defence Ministry building and flattening Domodedovo International Airport. For the Russian President, this is too much. He orders the use of a single tactical nuclear weapon, hoping to break the will of the Alliance; he reasons that while they are willing to fight a conventional war, most Westerners will not sacrifice their homes, families, and indeed their countries, in an all-out nuclear exchange to defend the Baltic States.
On April 6, an Iskander tactical ballistic missile is fired from the now-encircled Kaliningrad. It detonates over the Polish port city of Gdansk, a focal point for NATO reinforcements entering the country. The city is totally destroyed by the blast, which kills some fifty thousand people, including at least eight thousand American servicemen and women. Seconds after the impact, a message is sent to the Pentagon over the Moscow-Washington hotline calling for the termination of hostilities on terms that leave the Russian-speaking areas of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in Moscow’s grip. The US President, enraged by the nuclear strike, responds politely, but harshly; “Mister President, I’m afraid that at this point I cannot consider negotiating a ceasefire on the terms of a nation which has just used nuclear weapons against a city filled with innocents.”
One hour after the destruction of Gdansk, a Trident ballistic missile is launched from the USS Henry M. Jackson. The Ohio-class submarine is deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean, protected not by strength but by silence. The Trident missile carries eight warheads, which split off from the main body of the projectile upon re-entry into earth’s atmosphere. There are five targets to be struck. The launch site of the Iskander which destroyed Gdansk is, naturally, the main target. Additionally, three other Iskander sites, discovered by the surviving US spy satellites, are targeted, along with Chkalovsk Airbase. Over the course of three minutes, all five targets are wiped from the face of the earth; six of the eight Trident warheads have made it through. Over one hundred thousand Russians die in the blasts.
By now, both sides are digging in and awaiting Armageddon. Troops on the frontlines in Lithuania see the explosions in the distance, diving for cover as mushroom clouds rise. Now, they take shelter wherever it is available; foxholes are covered with armoured vehicles and trenches hastily reinforced by sandbags and whatever corrugated steel can be located. Commanders on the ground are awaiting permission to utilise tactical nuclear weapons against their opponents, in the knowledge that Pandora’s Box has now been opened.
However, there is still a chance to avert Armageddon. From his E-4B ‘Doomsday Plane’, the US President desperately contacts his Russian counterpart. The counterattack against Kaliningrad has showed American resolve, he believes, and now there is a chance that the Russians, as ‘rational actors’ will come to the negotiating table on Western terms. Upon the third attempt to contact him, the Russian President responds. Humanity now stands on the brink of Armageddon. As the world stares into the abyss, the two unprepared leaders try to come to an agreement that does not humiliate either of their nations.
The American offer is simple. The message sent over the hotline (actually an email-based system rather than a literal telephone) reads; “I propose a phased mutual stand-down over the next thirty-six hours. Russian forces will afterwards withdraw from NATO soil. Additional terms to be discussed at later date. We do not have to destroy ourselves. Please think of your country.”
After a moment of tense silence, Russia’s President responds. Coldly, he tells his American counterpart, “Mister President, I believe that we have reached an impasse.”
REFORGER, 2021
The year is 2021. The hawkish, nationalistic Russian government is experiencing a wave of instability as protests against the regime rapidly escalate. The summer sees the birth of a large-scale anti-government movement, as hundreds of thousands take to the streets in an effort to bring about regime change. Violent crackdowns against the demonstrators only breeds more disaffection with the regime. Western sanctions, imposed after the brutal response of the Russian security apparatus to the fledgling protest movement, lead to Russia cutting off supplies of oil and natural gasses to Europe. Moscow, terrified by the prospect of a full-scale ‘colour revolution’, believes that the United States and its allies in Europe are responsible at least in part for the unrest. The Federal Security Service or FSB, successor to the infamous KGB, uncovers evidence of collusion between CIA officers and the leaders of the fledgling protest movement.
In response, Russia mobilises several hundred thousand troops in the Western Military District, causing the Baltic Republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to prepare for an expected Russian attack. A showdown between a US reconnaissance aircraft and a Russian fighter jet over the Baltic Sea results in tragedy as the pilot of the Russian airplane collides with his American counterpart. While the crew of the American E-8 are able to nurse their damaged aircraft safely back to base, the Russian pilot is killed in the incident, sparking outrage in diplomatic circles. Russia’s First Guards Tank Army then moves into Belarus, apparently with the consent of the local government. Ostensibly, this move is to protect Russia’s European ally from ‘Western aggression.’
Both sides are now playing a dangerous game of chicken. A delicate dance of military power projection takes place in oceans and skies all around the world, from the Sea of Japan to the North Atlantic. Harrowing near-miss incidents between NATO and Russian ships and warplanes make the evening news headlines on a daily basis.
With tensions soaring, the North Atlantic Council votes to deploy several thousand NATO troops to Poland and the Baltic States over the course of the next month. This is done to deter perceived Russian aggression and, in a grim twist of irony, prevent war from breaking out. At the tip of the spear is the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VHJTF), a multinational brigade-group of over 10,000 troops from eleven different countries. Additional American, British, French, and German troops are called up to begin deploying into Eastern Europe. In a tragic coincidence, a spate of terrorist attacks occur in Moscow and St Petersburg, killing dozens of people and arming the Russian government with a lethal propaganda weapon. The attacks are allegedly the handiwork of a rogue faction of separatists from the still-restless province of Chechnya, although the FSB’s suspicions point westwards. Moscow sees this is the final straw. Now utterly convinced that NATO is trying to orchestrate the fall of the Russian government through a colour revolution, the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces present a plan to the President for a rapid offensive which will occupy NATO territory and allow for Moscow to negotiate from a position of strength. Though the Russian generals know that they will be outgunned and outnumbered in a drawn-out war, they hope to break the West’s will to fight, rather than fighting a long conventional conflict.
With the prospect of angry mobs kicking down the doors of the Kremlin at the forefront of his mind, the Russian President orders the military to begin preparations to initiate Operation Scalpel. A full-scale mobilisation is ordered, while the President declares martial law and secures sweeping emergency powers which effectively dissolve the Russian Parliament. NATO responds with a similar mobilisation. The autumn air is thick with tension. By now, US and European troops are pouring into Poland and the isolated Baltic States. Roads in Germany and Poland are chock-full of military convoys headed eastwards. A multinational amphibious strike group of over thirty ships is positioned off Denmark in an effort to demonstrate the resolve of the Alliance. In attempting to ward off a Russian strike against NATO, the Alliance has forgotten one thing; an animal is most dangerous when it is wounded and cornered.
Tragically, NATO’s effort to deter the Bear is not simply too little, too late; rather, it has served to provoke him.
On 15 November, Russia begins its offensive with a series of cyber-attacks and commando raids against Western infrastructure both in Europe and the US. Cruise missiles are launched by Bear bombers at airbases in Germany, Poland, and Denmark. Russian paratroopers occupy several strategic locations in northern Norway, including Andoya Airbase, located on the island of the same name, while Marines of the Black Sea Fleet land at Constanta, on the coast of Romania. These are merely diversionary attacks against NATO’s respective northern and southern flanks. The main offensive occurs in Eastern Europe. While ports and airfields are seized by paratroopers and commandos, Russian tanks pour into Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The Suwalki Gap is rapidly occupied in a daring helicopter assault, while two divisions of Russian troops in Belarus attack across the Polish border on a northward axis.
The Third World War has begun.
NATO has prepared for this, but the mobilisation is still ongoing and the sheer scale of the Russian attack shatters the Alliance into a million pieces in the first days of the war. Russian Ground Forces’ radio-electronic units successfully jam Western communications systems as artillery thunders down on NATO troop concentrations, causing mass casualties. The 12th Combat Aviation Brigade, US Army, loses two thirds of its Apache helicopters in the first twelve hours of combat. Turkey and Greece abrogate from their NATO commitments, declaring neutrality. NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence (EFP) battlegroups in the Baltic States are rapidly destroyed by overwhelming Russian firepower. Estonia is occupied in just two days; twenty-four hours later, Russian soldiers are raising the tricolour flag outside the US embassy in Riga, the capital of Latvia. Lithuania is able to stand and fight for no more than five days. Thousands of Allied troops are taken as Prisoners of War. While anti-war protests soon erupt in Germany, Spain, Italy, France, and the United Kingdom, their numbers are smaller than feared; upon the outbreak of hostilities, western law enforcement agencies commenced a herculean effort to arrest potential subversives before they could stir up dissent in any meaningful form.
In Poland, the assault meets less success. The Polish Land Forces, backed by the forward-deployed US and British forces and advance elements of the Bundeswehr, slow the pace of the Russian advance to a crawl. Even so, the defenders pay a hefty price for the tenacity of their resistance; one US armored brigade is rendered combat ineffective, with casualties approaching ninety percent of its tanks and sixty percent of its personnel, while a Polish mechanised division sees over half of its personnel killed or captured defending the Suwalki corridor. The situation in the air is initially one of stalemate; while Russia’s undersized air force is unable to attain air superiority, or anything resembling it, over the front, its huge array of surface-to-air missiles prevent the combined NATO air forces from doing the same. Seven days of fighting in Romania sees the Russian marines encircled and defeated after the Romanian Land Forces are reinforced by a brigade of American paratroopers from their base in southern Italy.
In the Atlantic, the Russian Navy, despite many of its vessels being antiquated relics, scores an initial success against the NATO amphibious task force in the North Sea. Tupolev-22M Backfire bombers launch a massive missile attack from the north. With the defence systems of the Allied warships engaging the air attack, an Oscar II submarine launches a second strike with some twenty-four cruise missiles, which successfully sinks the amphibious assault ship USS Bataan, along with three of her escorts, killing almost 3,000 sailors and marines. The tide is quickly turned, however, by the arrival of two American aircraft carrier battle groups from the East Coast. While the Royal Navy leads an intensive anti-submarine warfare operation in the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom Gap, the US aircraft carriers, cruisers, and destroyers of the Second Fleet are able to sink seventy percent of the Russian Navy’s surface forces in just ten days of fighting.
In the air, Russia conducts a major effort to halt the flow of supplies pouring over the Atlantic. Airfields and ports in Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and the Low Countries, are subjected to massed cruise missile strikes and commando raids. The Patriot air defence batteries of the 10th Air & Missile Defence Command, along with the newly-arrived Terminal High Altitude Area Defence, or THAAD units, do their utmost to stop the missiles, but the sheer number launched means that at least some of them get through. The number of civilian casualties in Western Europe climbs into the hundreds. Unlike in the previous world wars, North America does not escape with its territory largely unharmed by enemy action. Delta Force assists the FBI in an operation which narrowly prevents Brooklyn Battery Tunnel from being destroyed by enemy commandos. Another Spetsnaz operation is more successful; Russian operatives successfully shoot down a Boeing 747 operated by American Airlines, now under the control of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, using a hand-held missile. The jet crashes down into the suburbs of Chicago, killing all the Illinois National Guardsmen on-board.
Led by the US Air Force, the Allies launch an operation to cripple the Russian air defence network around Belarus and the Baltic States. Attack submarines and stealthy F-35 strike fighters launch cruise missiles and other stand-off weapons, which overwhelm even the advanced SA-20 and SA-21 missile systems and either destroy or cripple sixty percent of them. This opens up Western Russia to attacks from NATO aircraft, which soon begin in earnest as satellite-guided bombs target the naval and air bases around St Petersburg, Russia’s second city. Both sides begin using experimental anti-satellite weapons with devastating effect as the war expands into space. Modified RIM-66 missiles from American cruisers begin the process of blinding Russia’s military by destroying its network of spy satellites. Russian MiG-31 interceptors’ use similarly high-tech weapons to do the same to American satellites. Launching from Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, American bombers destroy a Russian satellite launch centre in Kazakhstan. Russia’s military facilities in Syria, Armenia, and Tajikistan are also taken out.
By early December, after nearly three weeks of warfare, it becomes clear that the Russian advance will go no further. Russian armour has been stopped cold within sight of the great Masurian lakes. While casualties have been extremely heavy on both sides, NATO reinforcements are now pouring into Poland by the thousands. Russia’s situation is growing evermore precarious, with its air defence network having sustained major losses and the bulk of its navy destroyed. The Russian President, having achieved his goal of forestalling the dreaded ‘CIA-backed colour revolution’, offers peace terms to NATO. The terms suggested include a permanent Russian presence in the Baltic States, the lifting of economic sanctions against Russia, and the withdrawal of NATO forces from east of the Vistula River. To repent for its perceived aggression, the Alliance will be forced to contribute economically to Russia’s recovery. The offer is almost unanimously rejected. Only the delegations from Hungary, Spain, and Italy speak in favour of a ‘white peace’, and their arguments are quickly shut down.
On the northern flank, the American 10th Mountain Division provides aid to Norwegian forces in retaking the smattering of occupied territories. Andoya is recaptured in mid-December, preventing the use of the airfield for anti-shipping missions out over the North Atlantic. On the other side of the world, the US Pacific Fleet moves to open up a second front against Russia’s Pacific Coast. Strikes by carrier-based fighter-bombers hit targets around Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk. A Marine Expeditionary Force takes to the sea from Japan, ready to initiate an amphibious assault to tie down Russian forces in the Far East and prevent them from moving westwards. Special Forces are infiltrated into Belarus and the Baltic States to begin targeting Russia’s fragile communications nodes and supply network.
With the Russian invasion now stalled in Poland, a stalemate sets in with the terrible winter weather conditions. The snowfall is knee-deep, sometimes higher, and NATO commanders are unwilling to commence offensive operations to liberate eastern Poland until the spring. While Western politicians wish to go on the offensive immediately and win the war by Christmas, the generals feel that this is too risky; instead, they argue, it is better to wait through the brutal eastern winter. This has the added benefit of allowing US National Guard units and European reserve formations the time they need to mobilise and deploy overseas to support the attack, enigmatically codenamed Operation Righteous Sword.
With both sides digging in for the winter, fighting slows to daily artillery bombardments and patrol skirmishes, more reminiscent of the First World War than a modern, high-tech conflict. The American people, now understanding that this will be a drawn-out war, are mentally and physically preparing themselves for the long-haul. From the end of World War Two, strategists have believed that another great power conflict would be over rapidly. With this war, they are proven wrong. New draftees begin their induction into the US Armed Forces as accelerated basic training courses take place. The global economy is in ruins, and attempts to persuade the upper-middle classes to buy war bonds meet abject failure. While the war has thus far been a conventional one, many people still believe that a nuclear exchange is inevitable. The most reposted articles on social media are those containing survival tips for the post-apocalyptic world. America's military 'boneyards' are scoured for usable equipment. In the Arizona Desert, David-Monthan Air Force Base suddenly becomes a hive of activity as hundreds of fourth-generation aircraft are moved to be reactivated. It will take months for them to become combat-capable, but, as the continuation of the war into winter has demonstrated, this conflict is more than a 'come as you are' war. Lima Army Tank Plant in Ohio begins churning out Abrams tanks at rates not seen since the 1980s to replace losses in Europe.
The world waits with baited breath through a cold, and dark winter. Shipping out from ports from New York to Galveston, Texas, two fresh National Guard divisions and an abundance of support units are loaded aboard cargo ships. They are headed for Le Havre, Rotterdam, and Hamburg. After over a month of fighting, Russia has few submarines left. Those that are able to launch attacks against the convoy, sinking a huge Roll on/Roll off cargo ship laden with armoured vehicles, along with an escorting Danish frigate. Counterattacks by the NATO navies quickly subdue the last vestiges of Russian naval power. With the Russian Navy effectively destroyed as fighting force, the US Navy pushes its carrier groups round Norway and into the Barents Sea. From here, they begin launching airstrikes against the Kola Peninsula, further tying up Russian forces. Murmansk and Arkhangelsk bear the brunt of the bombing campaign, which is restricted more by terrible Arctic weather conditions than by enemy action. The US Air Force commences Operation Midnight Express on Christmas Day, sending its stealth bombers over the Arctic Circle and deep into Russia, where they bomb the Trans-Siberian Railway Line and destroy a Sukhoi aircraft factory outside Khabarovsk. While the mission is successful, losses are heavy; two of the six irreplaceable B-2 bombers fail to return.
By the end of February, NATO is ready to go on the offensive. With fresh US National Guard units on the frontline, and newly-raised British, French, and German brigades in position, the assault begins. Batteries of multiple-rocket launchers and howitzers rain death and destruction down onto Russian lines, while airstrikes sever communications nodes. A series of cyber-attacks coordinated by the NSA and Britain’s GCHQ wreaks havoc on the ability of Russian commanders to communicate with Moscow. NATO intelligence has correctly identified one of Russia’s major weaknesses; it’s reformed, but still notoriously top-heavy, command and control structure. The ancient, but still potent B-52H strategic bombers of the US Global Strike Command contribute to the devastation, each releasing several hundred cluster bombs onto enemy positions. The B-52s carry more ordinance than any other aircraft, and while vulnerable to SAMs, as proven by the loss of three of their number, the effect of such firepower when utilised against ground forces is absolutely devastating.
In Poland, the US 1st Cavalry Division mounts a headlong attack into Russian lines, achieving the hoped-for breakthrough which can now be exploited. British units follow the Americans into the fray, swinging northwards towards Suwalki, while two Polish divisions rapidly advance along the coastline towards Kaliningrad. The 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment, a National Guard unit from Tennessee, encounters several Russian armoured brigades as they withdraw eastwards. Depleted by months of fighting and terrible weather conditions, the Russian units suffer a series of calamitous battlefield defeats. The first moves of Operation Righteous Sword are successful, but extremely bloody. NATO troops run into spirited resistance and fighting is heavy, but nonetheless, Russian forces have been ejected from Polish soil by the first week of March. Some thirty thousand Russian soldiers are now POWs. Huge columns of retreating tanks and trucks make tempting targets for NATO pilots.
“It’s like shooting rats in a barrel,” reports one American F-35 pilot, “You can’t miss if you try to.”
With the first week of campaigning a success, commanders in the Pentagon and at SHAPE opt to press the attack into the Baltic States and Belarus. Kaliningrad, which has always been Russian soil despite being physically separated from the mainland, is to be encircled and attacked from above, but otherwise left alone; nobody wants to risk attacking the isolated enclave on the ground, for fear of provoking a nuclear response. The same cannot be said in the Pacific; elements of the III Marine Expeditionary Force mount a series of daring amphibious raids against Russian Navy bases along the coastline, drawing the four army groups in Siberia towards the Sea of Okhotsk; here, they are pinned in place by airstrikes and are therefore unable to move westwards.
US forces lead the charge into Belarus, engaging the Russian rear-guard and fighting their way through the Lida Gap. The location, pinpointed on a map by US military intelligence, is the site of a massive tank battle. American Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles punch through enemy lines, opening up the way to Minsk, the Belarusian capital, on March 21. Following their assault through the now-infamous gap, the brigade combat teams of the 4th Infantry Division race towards Minsk, pressing on through all the resistance in their path. By now, the population of Belarus has split in its loyalties; pro-Western groups are harassing government forces and welcoming their liberators with open arms, while die-hard elements of the military continue to resist, remaining loyal to a regime which is struggling for its life.
More NATO divisions, including American, British, French, German, Polish and Canadian formations, attack into the Baltic States. As they cross through Suwalki, opposed by the remnants of a Russian paratrooper brigade, a further surprise occurs behind Russian lines. The resistance in all three Baltic nations comes out of its hiding places and begins a wave of attacks against the occupiers. Aided by their Green Beret ‘advisors’, the guerrillas make life hell for the Russian troops, blowing up bridges and ammunition and fuel storage facilities and ambushing resupply convoys. Emerging from the fog which hangs low over the Baltic Sea, amphibious warships begin depositing 14,000 sailors and marines of the 4th Marine Expeditionary Brigade along the coastline of Latvia. Helicopters bring several battalions of marines further inland, while tanks and armored vehicles are offloaded from hovercraft. On March 27, the Challenger 2s of the Royal Tank Regiment enter the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, to cheering crowds and waving flags.
Three days later, NATO forces enter Latvia from the west and cross the Daugava River, the natural barrier already having been ‘leapfrogged’ by US Marines moving inland from the Gulf of Riga. Amidst the anarchy taking place inside the country, a political coup occurs in Minsk. American tanks are at the gates of the Belarusian capital. The airport to the south of the city is secured by Italian alpine troops, while French forces are massing to the north. The new government sues for peace, asking NATO for assistance in subduing the remnants of Russian military units deployed on its soil. After a short period of deliberation, on April 2, NATO commanders in Belgium receive permission from their political superiors to accept the Belarusian government’s request.
In the Kremlin, the mood is grim. NATO ground forces are pushing through any resistance that meets them, and Russian forces in the Far East are being pinned in place. To emphasise to Moscow the gravity of their situation, American stealth bombers again strike the Russian mainland. This time, they hit the capital itself, destroying the Defence Ministry building and flattening Domodedovo International Airport. For the Russian President, this is too much. He orders the use of a single tactical nuclear weapon, hoping to break the will of the Alliance; he reasons that while they are willing to fight a conventional war, most Westerners will not sacrifice their homes, families, and indeed their countries, in an all-out nuclear exchange to defend the Baltic States.
On April 6, an Iskander tactical ballistic missile is fired from the now-encircled Kaliningrad. It detonates over the Polish port city of Gdansk, a focal point for NATO reinforcements entering the country. The city is totally destroyed by the blast, which kills some fifty thousand people, including at least eight thousand American servicemen and women. Seconds after the impact, a message is sent to the Pentagon over the Moscow-Washington hotline calling for the termination of hostilities on terms that leave the Russian-speaking areas of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in Moscow’s grip. The US President, enraged by the nuclear strike, responds politely, but harshly; “Mister President, I’m afraid that at this point I cannot consider negotiating a ceasefire on the terms of a nation which has just used nuclear weapons against a city filled with innocents.”
One hour after the destruction of Gdansk, a Trident ballistic missile is launched from the USS Henry M. Jackson. The Ohio-class submarine is deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean, protected not by strength but by silence. The Trident missile carries eight warheads, which split off from the main body of the projectile upon re-entry into earth’s atmosphere. There are five targets to be struck. The launch site of the Iskander which destroyed Gdansk is, naturally, the main target. Additionally, three other Iskander sites, discovered by the surviving US spy satellites, are targeted, along with Chkalovsk Airbase. Over the course of three minutes, all five targets are wiped from the face of the earth; six of the eight Trident warheads have made it through. Over one hundred thousand Russians die in the blasts.
By now, both sides are digging in and awaiting Armageddon. Troops on the frontlines in Lithuania see the explosions in the distance, diving for cover as mushroom clouds rise. Now, they take shelter wherever it is available; foxholes are covered with armoured vehicles and trenches hastily reinforced by sandbags and whatever corrugated steel can be located. Commanders on the ground are awaiting permission to utilise tactical nuclear weapons against their opponents, in the knowledge that Pandora’s Box has now been opened.
However, there is still a chance to avert Armageddon. From his E-4B ‘Doomsday Plane’, the US President desperately contacts his Russian counterpart. The counterattack against Kaliningrad has showed American resolve, he believes, and now there is a chance that the Russians, as ‘rational actors’ will come to the negotiating table on Western terms. Upon the third attempt to contact him, the Russian President responds. Humanity now stands on the brink of Armageddon. As the world stares into the abyss, the two unprepared leaders try to come to an agreement that does not humiliate either of their nations.
The American offer is simple. The message sent over the hotline (actually an email-based system rather than a literal telephone) reads; “I propose a phased mutual stand-down over the next thirty-six hours. Russian forces will afterwards withdraw from NATO soil. Additional terms to be discussed at later date. We do not have to destroy ourselves. Please think of your country.”
After a moment of tense silence, Russia’s President responds. Coldly, he tells his American counterpart, “Mister President, I believe that we have reached an impasse.”
