Shanghaied - 2ACW

[James G]

Interlude


112 – Medal of Honor

In 2013, when she was a little girl, Holly Granger lost her father when he was killed fighting for America’s War in Afghanistan. Aged six a year later, she went with her mother and her much older brother to the White House where the family was presented with her deceased father’s Medal of Honor from the 44th President. The impression upon her young self which all of that made was something she had to live with since then. The memories weren’t easy to have to deal with: the glare of publicly had been awful. Her father had been a US Marine, a Staff Sergeant when blown up, and her brother first followed him into the US Marines. Holly’s sibling was admitted to the Naval Academy at Annapolis because he not only met the requirements but due to the award his father had won. He’d been killed not long after graduation while on active duty in a vehicle crash in Europe. There was no medal for him. Upon telling her mother that she wished to serve her country too, to follow them both, there had been strong objection to that. Holly had persisted though against her lone parent’s wishes. She’d gone to Annapolis too and was commissioned as an officer in 2027. Duty as a helicopter pilot had been Holly’s calling and the newly-serving 2nd Lieutenant Granger had been on active service when the Second American Civil War burst into life. A native of Arkansas, Holly had been on the West Coat at Camp Pendleton in California at the time. Like many other officers, she disagreed greatly with what had happened with regard to the presidential election. It was a stolen election as far as she was concerned. However, there was an oath that Holly had taken and that was to the United States of America. Her unit, HMLA-469, went over to the secessionists but Holly didn’t. As was done by many others, she deserted her post and fled the West during the crazy first days of the Democratic American Republic. Holly had ended up in Texas where she reported for duty there long ahead of the fighting starting. After some delay in finding her a post, and Holly worrying that she might end up shuffling papers rather than flying for her country, she was assigned to HMLA-773 (a Marine Forces Reserve) unit when it deployed from New Jersey to Oklahoma. The ‘Red Dogs’ flew AH-1Z Vipers and UH-1Y Venoms just as HMLA-469 did. She was qualified on the latter model of the modern versions of the old, dependable Huey. They needed an extra pilot and Holly was that. When HMLA-773 went to war against the secessionists, something that aggrieved Holly because they were her fellow Americans yet what she knew had to be done, she went with them.

Supporting not just reservists with the 4th Marine Division when they moved into New Mexico at the end of January 2029, Holly had flown missions as pilot of a UH-1Y over across a new border pushed through the middle of America in aid of the regulars with the 2nd Marine Division and national guardsmen with the 28th Infantry Division as well. Her little helicopter was used for a variety of roles before those winter storms came barrelling in from the north. There were light attack missions firing rockets, troop transport, lifting supplies, scouting and also MEDEVAC. Most of them Holly just had a co-pilot though there were the additions of extra crew members, one or even two, during certain flights. She saw war just like her father had done. That included her helicopter coming under fire when also making attacks of its own. When casualties were loaded aboard for urgent evacuation from the front to aid stations in the rear, Holly always tried to fly a little bit faster to see if their lives could be saved. Someone had done that for her father in Afghanistan and, while that had failed, it had been tried. Sometimes the wounded would scream though her crew member’s helmet kept out almost all of the noises of agony. There would often be blood in the helicopter. Holly would see that before the ground crews could clean it up. Those images stayed with her. On January 27th, US Marine reservists were fighting against DAR Marines – those out of California from where Holly had fled – near to a tiny little place called Villanueva. She was ordered to aid that fight along with a couple of other HMLA-773 helicopters. There was air support given to those below them and Holly opened fire with the rocket pods mounted to her helicopter on cue from forward air controllers. Up into the sky towards her came a Stinger missile. Her co-pilot saw it first, shouting a warning. She saw it a moment later and swung the stick over to starboard while dropping low. Holly flew her helicopter almost nose-first towards the ground while ejecting flares in a well-practised manoeuvre. It worked and the Stinger was evaded. Her second rocket pod was emptied upon a targeted requested not long afterwards before there was scouting done that same afternoon by her helicopter and another UH-1Y for the attack-rolled AH-1Zs also flying near to Villanueva. The Vipers unloaded upon the enemy a lot more ordnance than she did. Two badly hurt marines needed an urgent MEDEVAC and Holly was called in for that. A pair medics came along for the ride with the casualties for the flight, one as fast as Holly could make it, deep into the rear where both were off-loaded. Holly heard afterwards that one of them didn’t survive and that was a gut punch to her. The other marine did though. That news didn’t offset what she first heard but was something she was glad to be told.

Several days after the fighting around Villanueva, there was more near to the middle of New Mexico which Holly was involved in flying in support of before Winter Storm Ted arrived to shut everything down. For almost a week, Holly and HMLA-773 were snowed in where they had their forward base at Las Vegas (not the more famous city with the same name out in Nevada) Municipal Airport. US Marines had captured the place before the bad weather came though it was somewhere that the DAR Armed Forces made sure that Holly understood she wasn’t welcome to be occupying. On three separate occasions during the weather enforced cessation of major combat operations, cruise missiles coming in from hundreds of miles away to the west hit the airport. It wasn’t much of a place before the US Marines made it home yet there was a lot of room to spread out due to open ground all around. The missile attacks took their toll but didn’t force the Red Dogs with HMLA-773, plus other air units, to leave. Ulysses struck after Ted and that storm was worse. Holly marvelled at the ferocity of the weather while grounded. She wanted to go up in the air but it was something impossible in the face of nature at its most powerful. Finally, the weather cleared up though it wasn’t until the night of February 9th before Holly was back flying again. US Army North had moved the operational area of the II Marine Expeditionary Force northwards while moving units between commands up and down the front. The 4th Marine Division was staying where it was yet the 2nd Marine Division moved north. Most of that was done on the ground but Holly and other aircrew were tasked for airlift operations in support. Marines – ten at a time – got themselves a ride in her air taxi. She also flew equipment as well with underslung loads. For several days and nights while there was a wait for ARNORTH to go back over on the offensive, while the II MEF providing a flank attack for that, Holly made repeated flights across the north of New Mexico and up into Colorado at times too. Interstate-25 had all of those road convoys on it but the skies were just as busy.


It was the morning of February 13th when Holly got the word that she wasn’t making another transfer flight but instead was to take part in a CSAR mission. Only once before during the short conflict with the secessionists had she done that, unsuccessfully looking for the pilot of a downed F-35C. The new mission was one where survivors from a downed KC-130J were to be sought. One of big transport-tanker Hercules’ from VMGR-252 had been involved in the air movements of marines to the north but been shot down during that. Holly was told that it was on its way back to Albuquerque when hit, so not full of 2nd Marine Division personnel, but there were still half a dozen marines flying within when the turboprop was struck mid-flight. The damaged aircraft had gone off course, heading west for some inexplicable reason, with some or all of those aboard bailing out over the Pecos Wilderness to the west of where I-25 ran. Another HMLA-773 helicopter was going looking for the survivors too where they were believed to have gone down in the Mora Valley area. Two extra crew went with Holly and her co-pilot. She had a Navy corpsman and a door-gunner. The Pecos Wilderness was no man’s land at that time but it was a combat mission. She flew with rocket pods and an addition Minigun fitted within the cabin. Holly went away from the forward base and up into the high ground which loomed above where I-25 ran past the small Las Vegas. She maintained contact with air controllers and also her wingman during the flight up to the search area. He broke away near there to search his assigned area while she went towards her.

It was nap-of-the-earth flying. Everyone aboard her helicopter had their eyes open and the radio was tuned to the rescue channel. Enemy electronic jamming was intense but at a short range, Holly knew that they should pick up a signal from those on the ground when close. She was right. Less than an hour in, over the third area to look for the downed aircrew, a weak signal was picked up. Holly brought her helicopter towards those she came to get out, prepared for casualties to be part of those needing an air taxi out. What she hadn’t been prepared for was for her aircrew to become casualties though. The UH-1Y had minimal protection against direct attack. A heavy machine gun from a hidden position opened fire upon the starboard side just as she flew past a hill. Bullets ripped into her helicopter. The corpsman and the door gunner were both hit when in the passenger cabin. So too was her helicopter’s flight systems including the engines. Several of those bullets were explosive-tipped and the two T700 engines caught fire after small detonations. It took Holly not long at all to realise that the efforts of her and her co-pilot to try to keep their aircraft flying were impossible. There were screams over the intercom from those hit in the back as well. The UH-1Y couldn’t stay flying. Holly picked the best spot she could and brought her smoking helicopter to a stop. Her co-pilot told her that the fire was spreading: they had to abandon it. She saw the growing flames and didn’t disagree! They got the two wounded out – the corpsman hit the worst – and Holly also took the M-134 as well. It was a big weapon and not easy to carry but she was a big girl the gunner helped her as best he could. Being in enemy territory near to someone who had just hit them with their own heavy piece of weaponry meant that Holly didn’t want to leave the Minigun behind.

Eventually, the whole helicopter was consumed by fire. Holly took charge in making sure that the four of them got well away and into some cover. The badly-wounded corpsman passed out and could no longer try to guide efforts to treat him. The situation was pretty bad for Holly and those with her. The other helicopter wasn’t seen and neither were those who had fired on hers. Instead, soon approaching – carefully and making sure they were visible as friends – were survivors from the downed KC-130J. There were five of them (the sixth one on the aircraft when hit hadn’t escaped the doomed Hercules) including a lieutenant-colonel who took charge. Holly had come to rescue him and his people but was glad to be joined by them on the ground. The presence of the Minigun was commented on by that colonel. Holly told him what she had told herself when taking it: it might well be needed. She was proved correct in that. Her own door gunner was in no fit state to make use of it when the time came. It was up to Holly to turn it on the party of the enemy which made a sudden attack. The colonel was shot in the shoulder and dropped to the ground right beside Holly when she put that fearsome weapon into play. Others used their pistols or a couple of carbine M-4 light assault rifles to oppose a sudden attack by at least a dozen assailants. Those who tried to take them on had no idea what weapon Holly had her hands on until she opened fire with it. Six barrels firing 7.62mm shells at an extraordinary rate of fire brought the attack upon her and the marines with her to the quickest of all ends. Half of the attackers were cut down in an instant as Holly ‘hosed down’ the scrub from where they had emerged. The others ran or crawled away. It was all over in maybe a minute: from the first shots of the attackers until they were all gone. Eyes turned to Holly afterwards. There was a bit of awe but also some great apprehension at the sight of her behind that gun. She would afterwards recall very little of the whole thing. Holly did what she had to. It was as simple at that. Ahead were the enemy on the attack and she defended her party of marines including the wounded. The manner of her doing so, sweeping from one side to the other and not hitting friendlies, was just what she did without remembering the details. The gun fire drew the attention of the second helicopter. It landed nearby after a sweep from above checking for more of the enemy. There wasn’t room aboard for everyone. Holly made sure that the wounded colonel went aboard along with her corpsman because they were in the worst shape and she also sent out her own gunner with his wounds as well as one of the Hercules aircrew who was busted up from his landing. She volunteered to stay behind and wait on a second flight to come in. A new pick-up location was selected, one which Holly would lead the others who stayed behind towards. She took the Minigun with her, ready to use it again.

It was later that evening when, after no more enemy contact, Holly’s wingman showed up again. She and those with her who couldn’t get air-lifted out the first time went out on the second trip. There was a prisoner too, one found after the earlier exchange of fire and out on his own. Holly had him secured and got him aboard the UH-1Y when it flew out of the upper reaches of the Mora Valley back toward friendly lines. The Minigun came too. She was flying again the next day, back in the air on a range of missions at the front and in the rear. That shot lieutenant-colonel had a brother who was a congressman from Florida. Holly had saved the life of his brother and also shown extraordinary heroism in the face of the enemy… the congressman equated both as the same. Nonetheless, what Holly had done was regarded as above and beyond the call of duty. She didn’t entirely agree with that when she realised that a lot of fuss was being made. The story of what had gone on when out in enemy territory took on a life of its own as far as she was concerned. Nonetheless, that congressman who was on the US House Armed Services Committee, was determined that the actions of ‘Minigun Granger’ were worth making a real big deal out. Her did it for his own reasons mainly but knew there would be a good bit of national propaganda for the war effort to come from it all too. His brother and he worked together to see Holly recognised for what she did: they put into motion the process of having her nominated as a recipient of a Medal of Honor. It wasn’t something Holly was full on board with at the beginning. Yet the momentum built. Her family history and the Pentagon willing to run with it – they wanted to appease that congressman who’d been causing other problems – made it happen.

It would be much later in the year, when the fighting was over, when (by then) 1st Lieutenant Holly Granger went back to the White House and was adored with the same award which her father had gained. The name Minigun Granger was all over the news that day, making her blush. There was so much else that had gone on between that day back in February and her meeting the president in November. Holly had seen heroism everywhere, actions she deemed far more worthy than what she had done. Those actions didn’t get the reward she did though. Granger’s Medal of Honor citation and the decoration itself would give her a place in history. Long before she was embarrassed that day in DC at all of the attention, when memories flooded back from when she was a little girl too, there was a war to be fought to the finish though. Holly would play her part in that, just like so many others including all those who didn’t make it out alive and no so well honoured.

[gillan1220]

May 8, 2021 18:24:41 GMT James G said:

Most of their bases in Colorado and California ended up in DAR hands. The US re-took control remotely of many USSF assets and then advanced into CO. Still, immense damage has been done and the pain for US space efforts is real.

I'm assuming the USSF guardians immediately went over to the East? Or did most of them end up siding with the DAR?

[Brky2020]

I have not had the privilege of serving in the military (in peacetime or otherwise), but I'd imagine the only people who really understood the reality of the battlefield would be the participants. Everyone else lionizes (or demonizes) them; they alone see it for what it truly is, and from all accounts I've read and seen, the reality can be uglier than most people ever want to acknowledge.

[gillan1220]

May 9, 2021 2:27:24 GMT Brky2020 said:

I have not had the privilege of serving in the military (in peacetime or otherwise), but I'd imagine the only people who really understood the reality of the battlefield would be the participants. Everyone else lionizes (or demonizes) them; they alone see it for what it truly is, and from all accounts I've read and seen, the reality can be uglier than most people ever want to acknowledge.

It gets even more complicated knowing both sides have friends or family members serving on either under the U.S. or DAR flag. I have friends in the U.S. military on all branches minus the Space Force and I know they would not take it too kindly on shooting fellow Americans.

[James G]

May 9, 2021 2:03:26 GMT gillan1220 said:

May 8, 2021 18:24:41 GMT James G said:

Most of their bases in Colorado and California ended up in DAR hands. The US re-took control remotely of many USSF assets and then advanced into CO. Still, immense damage has been done and the pain for US space efforts is real.

I'm assuming the USSF guardians immediately went over to the East? Or did most of them end up siding with the DAR?

Nope, like everywhere it was a mess. There were defections, desertions and munities. The split wasn't down to where people were natives of - east or west - or even politics. It was a matter of belief in a cause or coercion. 

May 9, 2021 2:27:24 GMT Brky2020 said:

I have not had the privilege of serving in the military (in peacetime or otherwise), but I'd imagine the only people who really understood the reality of the battlefield would be the participants. Everyone else lionizes (or demonizes) them; they alone see it for what it truly is, and from all accounts I've read and seen, the reality can be uglier than most people ever want to acknowledge.

I agree fully with that. Bad sh*t will happen but theer will be moments of great humanity shown too.

[James G]

Part Six – Liberation


113 – Tanks

Right at the beginning of the building of the DAR Armed Forces, Sierra Army Depot up in the north of California had been seized by General Fuller’s people. It was somewhere that was needed for the significant war reserve stocks in-place there. Just like down in the famous Boneyard in Arizona where aircraft were kept out in the open, there were armoured vehicles kept at Sierra. Up high in dry terrain near the Nevada state line, the storage site had thousands of tracked vehicles parked outdoors where there was little chance of adverse weather threatening their condition in long-term storage. Armoured personnel carriers, self-propelled artillery, infantry fighting vehicles and, of great importance, tanks too. There were lots of tanks at Sierra: almost three thousand. M-1 Abrams’ of several variants not needed for active service were kept by the US Army there – the US Marines had some too – just in case the situation came about where they were in fact needed once more. A detachment of national guardsmen from California took the place without resistance from federal US control long ahead of the big dramas occurring when the garrisons at Fort Carson, Fort Lewis and Camp Pendleton went over to the Democratic American Republic. What was desired by Fuller for those tanks and other vehicles at Sierra was that they would end up forming the armoured complement of new combat formations to be formed by the DAR Army. He had planned to see some sent to existing units to beef them up, including the pull from state governors to give their National Guard elements an armoured strength, but most were meant to be fitting out formations such as the 2nd Armored Division and 7th & 9th Infantry Divisions too. Reservists and retirees with military service would man the equipment in tank-heavy units such as those – plus other smaller ones – so that the DAR Army could eventually double in size. The independence of the West was to be secured in many ways but a large number of tanks in active service was a key part of that.

California, Colorado, Oregon and Washington took a couple of hundred of the tanks on offer and the latter two states especially made early use of them when fielding ad hoc tank units to fight in Idaho and then on the edges of Montana. Almost all of the ones which Colorado wanted were still sitting in the rear when the US Army took the eastern half of that state away from the DAR. The units hadn’t been stood up due to the inability to supply personnel and supporting equipment. Those were in the western half of Colorado by mid-February and out of the main fighting. What was important was the rest of those from Sierra. As the Colorado Army National Guard had found, the DAR Army was unable to quickly get those new units combat capable. Fuller had known that there would be problems, especially since he was trying to build something huge so fast – OR and WA had gone small on a state-level on purpose because they were aware of the limitations – but hadn’t anticipated just how hard it would be. Those combat formations were easier to built than the case was with all of the supporting infrastructure. Behind the front-lines of the fighting which took place at the end of January before bad weather put pay to any more major combat operations for two weeks, the rear-area infrastructure had strained under the weight of supporting what forces Fuller had had at the front. Losses were taken both at the front and in the rear in the face of United States activity. The patchwork support element was left in a state of near collapse and only saved by all of the snow and ice. Fuller didn’t have idiots working for him in the military force which had been created from the ground up, one which was built atop hi-jacked US forces though, and so there was the same effort thrown into enlarging the rear-area elements as there was creating new combat units. The latter took even longer than the former. Significant, even crippling in places, damage was done by enemy strikes throughout the rear against the supply links behind the front-lines. Fuller had needed to get what supporting units he could moving east first before he brought in the combat ones. Tempting as it might be just to flood all of his tanks forward where the main battle was going to be joined in western New Mexico, he didn’t do that. The vehicle repair & maintenance teams, the engineers, the supply units and the communications elements needed to be there first.

The 2nd Armored Division was established at Fort Irwin in Southern California on January 18th 2029. The on-post 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment had departed for New Mexico and took with them all that they needed to fight. Convoys of both personnel and equipment descended upon Fort Irwin so Fuller could built that new formation there. Low-loaders went down through California from Sierra up in the north with their cargoes of tanks and other armoured vehicles. By mid-February, Fuller believed that the 2nd Armored Division was ‘ready enough’ to do battle. It wasn’t at full strength yet he needed it in New Mexico. However, the 2nd Armored Division stayed where it was at Fort Irwin with additional strength and capability added. That was because out through Arizona and into New Mexico there was a complete reorganisation underway of the rear-area forces supporting the combat ones ahead of them. The New Mexico Corps didn’t have half as many tanks as the combat division kept far back in the rear did. The 2nd & 40th Infantry Divisions, the Blackhorse Cav’, the pair of training brigades re-rolled for combat duty and what remained of the once mighty 1st Marine Division just weren’t as well equipped with as many tanks as they needed to have. There had been combat losses incurred among the units which had been involved in the fighting since January in New Mexico, and those new arrivals from elsewhere brought few with them. Moving across the Rio Grande on Valentine’s Day were tank-heavy United States Army elements towards the New Mexico Corps. Each side had a lot of other weaponry at-hand but only one had a plentiful stock of tanks to fight with. The ones in US service outnumbered those in the markings of the DAR Army more than four to one. On the battlefields of the east of New Mexico, tanks would play a key role.


Every single US Army tank in Europe was sent home when the decision was taken by President Roberts – a policy followed by President Mitchell – to withdraw from the Continent. They were loaded aboard ships and sent across the North Atlantic during and after the airlift which saw first equipment & supplies followed by personnel flown home. None of those hundreds of tanks went over the Rio Grande in the middle of February when US Army North made its major offensive but they were on their way to the battle which ARNORTH was tasked to take all the way to the Pacific. US Army Europe had several combat divisions on-hand ready to finish off the DAR and would use its tanks to achieve that. They formed the V Corps arriving into ports along the Gulf Coast and ready to move up into New Mexico. The trans-Atlantic shipment hadn’t been without its hiccups yet it was one which was unopposed in any meaningful way. Further onwards movement from the ports in Texas, Louisiana and Alabama was where the DAR had tried to, and would continue to, delay matters. However, the V Corps was a complete force already with its own supporting infrastructure to allow those sent into battle to have everything behind them ready to allow them to do just that. There was no delay in building what was needed because it already existed and came home to fight a war where no one ever expected to see one: on American soil.

It was the III & VII Corps which were pushed over the Rio Grande and sent westwards. They had all of their own tanks on-hand, those which formed that significant disparity in numbers over those in DAR Army service. The 1st Cavalry, 1st Infantry, 29th Infantry & 48th Infantry Divisions all had tanks. Theirs were formed into mixed combined arms units within the division’s brigades. The units had all been blooded – like those without tanks who had seen action too – and were ready for anything that their enemy could throw at them on the battlefield or from above. The terrain which they were to advance across was considered to be ‘good tank country’. Though New Mexico and into Arizona there was so much of that. No plans were for them to go into urban areas when the movement westwards came. Instead, they would fight out on the open or through areas where there was natural cover for them. There were freeways which ran all the way towards the distant Pacific but those were to be the arteries for supply and support elements following them rather than the tanks going down them. The job of the tanks was to smash apart enemy forces either in meeting engagements or when they dug themselves in. That couldn’t be done alone. Air cover, artillery support and the presence of protected infantry who could keep up with the tanks was needed for that. Nonetheless, they had to be there too. The tank remained king of the battlefield, long after experts time and time again had written it off. There was still nothing quite like it for smashing into another tank-heavy force and tearing that apart.

There was no big store of tanks under United States control which could be drawn from as the DAR Army had done with those at the Sierra Army Depot. A good number of tanks were being modified to the M-1A3 standard down in the Deep South but that location out in California in enemy hands was the single storage point for all excess armoured vehicles due to the conditions and infrastructure which it came with. What there was though was the Lima Army Tank Plant in Ohio. That facility was where Abrams’ were built. Production had been running at a low ebb for many long years with a handful produced every month for domestic use and some more for overseas customers. In decades past, Lima had been joined by others (at Detroit and in New York state) in building American tanks but those days were long gone. To built another factory from scratch or to try and convert a civilian facility making motor vehicles just wasn’t possible in the short- or medium-term. Upon the change in administration in DC when President Walsh left office, the Pentagon threw everything at getting Lima to significantly increase its production of new tanks. Combat losses for both opposing sides in the Second American Civil War were to be made up for so that once the nation was reunited, the US Army would have the weaponry it needed to fulfil its global commitments. It could be done. Lima could manufacture more tanks. However, it couldn’t knock them out like it was World War Two all over again. The Abrams was a very complicated weapon of war. The skills, the materials and the plant capability were all in short supply. A trebling of production was what Lima could do at the start with additional rates of production later on. Any idea though that there would be a sausage factory type approach to the whole thing, where tanks were just rolling off the production line with great haste, was foolish though. Lima was defended. Missile batteries and troops provided close-in guard against an attack to halt or eliminate production. There were jets in the sky over Ohio to keep Lima in operation. To lose the capability to built tanks would be even worse than what had happened when Air Force Plant 42 in Fort Worth was bombed to knock out production of F-35 Lightnings. The Pentagon knew that the DAR had to be looking at hitting Lima just as they had struck elsewhere across the South, Mid-West and East of the country. Preparations were in-place to see any effort like that defeated because losing Lima would do real long-term strategic harm to the United States if tanks couldn’t be manufactured while others were being blown up by fellow Americans out in the nation’s West.

[James G]

114 – Advance to contact

National guardsmen from Hawaii continued to fight for the Democratic American Republic after their state had re-defected back to the United States. It wasn’t kept secret from them that something had happened, that would be impossible and highly counter-productive, but those fighting with the 29th Infantry Brigade (part of the 40th Infantry Division) in the west of New Mexico weren’t told the entire truth of what had gone on back home. The story they heard was that a ‘hard right illegal coup’ had toppled the legitimate state government to ‘betray the people of Hawaii’. There was supposedly an effort underway for the DAR to retake Hawaii so ‘democracy could be supported’. Of course, all that wasn’t true. The idea was to keep them in the war though. They were needed by the DAR to fight to keep US forces from penetrating deep into the DAR’s claimed territory despite the fact that their home state was completely lost to the regime in Las Vegas. There had been some desertions regardless of the spun tale but, on the whole, most of those Hawaiians who formed the bulk of the 29th Infantry Brigade – it had components from Arizona and Guam too – carried on with the fight. The Hawaiians fought against a full-scale US attack which took place during the night of February 14th and into the next day too. The 40th Infantry Division was on the right flank of where the New Mexico Corps came under attack from US Army North elements driving west after going over the Rio Grande. Using tanks and mechanised infantry, the 1st Infantry Division tore into the Hawaiians who had light transport and very little armoured support. They came off terribly, just as would be expected when fighting an opponent as mobile as the Big Red One. Where there was a stubborn stand on good defensive ground by the 29th Infantry Brigade, the US tanks went around them rather than making set-piece attacks. Those would be costly in terms of casualties and time. Defeated but not destroyed, most of the Hawaiians soon found themselves cut off in the rear. They’d fought before, at the end of January, and done well in those early engagements but what they faced in the middle of February was something else entirely. The US Army was showing what it could do best and the 29th Infantry Brigade was unfortunate enough to be in the way.

Throughout the offensive undertaken by ARNORTH elements with the III & VII Corps to race towards Arizona, there were fights all over the place with bits and pieces of the New Mexico Corps. The latter had positioned themselves back from where the no man’s land on the western side of the Rio Grande had been. The plan of action for DAR forces in the fight was to counterattack US forces when they were on the move and break them up. They did so because they were outnumbered and in the unwelcome position of being on the defence in territory where they couldn’t give ground. East of the Rio Grande in earlier fighting, they had fallen back while bloodying the nose of ARNORTH but that time had passed. ARNORTH sent a total of six full-sized divisions on the attack spread down a line from Albuquerque to Las Cruces. Their mission was to parry the counterattacks against their advance which were correctly anticipated to be the enemy strategy and reach their objective: the Arizona state line. Going forward in the darkness, US forces first had to find their opponents. They had orders to advance to contact yet that contact was tasked to be met on their terms, not those of the New Mexico Corps. Recon elements were used for that. There were drones, helicopters, aircraft and mobile scouting ground units. The electronic warfare game was played to guide those recon components. Opposing all of that, to stop ARNORTH finding them first and for New Mexico Corps elements to win the battle of finding the other side, DAR forces did exactly the same. They had their own scouts out on the ground, up above and in the rear using electronic detection systems. It was shadow boxing at first before recon elements took shots at each other and the first big clashes took place. There were a lot of the latter.

The 40th Infantry Division and 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment clashed with VII Corps units on tribal land some distance west of Albuquerque and then up near to the Cibola National Forest. Interstate-40 was the gateway to the Arizona and there was some fighting on the very edges of that freeway. Controlling the use of it for later on was what each side sought to do. That was a Main Supply Route for each of them and it mattered who could deny the use of it to the other. When recon elements guided attackers and defenders towards their opponents, bloody clashes in the darkness occurred. There was the bringing into the fight of as much firepower as possible due to how each met the others, accidently or on purpose, away from populated areas. Heavy artillery, rocket launchers, mass missile firings from helicopters and aircraft zooming in dropping bombs pounded those below. Tanks and armoured vehicles fired on the other as well as dismounted infantry. Infantry units themselves clashed, though not as strongly as might have been thought by how many of them were involved. Neither side was keen on getting stuck into a stand-up fight like that and so aimed to keep their infantry on the move and use them for lightning strike attacks. By the early hours of the 15th, when Blackhorse Cav’ elements made a successful counterattack into the flank of a good portion of the 30th Armored Brigade (North Carolinans with the 29th Infantry Division), it looked like the New Mexico Corps’ central-positioned elements might be able to emerge victorious. The Hawaiians then had that terrible experience at the hands of M-1A3 Abrams’ on the rampage and were brushed aside when the 1st Infantry Division pushed them up against the edges of the Cibola National Forest. Past them the US tanks went, allowing for a free-fire zone for all available heavy fire support to come into play across a wide area to keep them out of the fight. The 40th Infantry Division couldn’t close the gap opened up by that move. By first light that morning, the VII Corps had got all the way to the state line. Lead units waited there rather than foolishly push onwards while in the rear those which they had bypassed were ‘taken care of’. Neither the Hawaiians nor California national guardsmen would be utterly crushed, and the Blackhorse Cav’ made an escape too, but it was a big defeat incurred by DAR forces there.

Southwards of those fights, the US III Corps was spread out more over a larger frontage when going west. At first, they found it less easy to locate and then properly engage with New Mexico Corps elements ahead of them. The advance to contact was broken up by good manoeuvring and care taken to try and fight US forces on their own terms by DAR units. The 189th & 196th Infantry Brigades did very well; the 2nd Infantry Division did reasonably okay. When they could counterattack, they did. The III Corps hadn’t had the best of things on the other side of the Rio Grande and that continued to the west of that river. In night-time fighting near to the Gila Wilderness, the 48th Infantry Division was unable to fully bring its firepower to bare against those two independent brigades. Only when daylight came did the situation improve and there was a steady advance made going west. Yet, by that point their opponents were making a fighting retreat as they bloodied the national guardsmen from all across the Deep South significantly. Interstate-10 ran across the southern portion of New Mexico on the western side of the river. The 1st Cavalry Division fought both side of that freeway, but especially on the southern side up against the Mexican border where there was so much open terrain. Recon elements took a battering when faced with the well-experienced 2nd Infantry Division that the DAR had brought down from the north in the previous weeks. What that defending unit lacked was tanks though. They had some assigned but nowhere near as many as the US formation did. Using their tanks in co-ordination with external fire support once the enemy was finally firmly fixed, the 1st Cavalry Division was finally able to do its worst. The III Corps’ 2nd Cavalry Regiment, fielding wheeled Strykers just like the 2nd Infantry Division, was used to draw away the opposition and force the DAR soldiers northwards towards where they could be squeezed up against the edges of the Gila Wilderness and hit from above. US tanks then slotted into the rear, cutting off attempts at retreats and forcing parts of the 2nd Infantry Division into ever-increasing pockets to be pounded from above. None of that was easy. DAR forces were just as well-trained and just as capable as US ones. They wouldn’t be overcome like that unless they were unlucky or mistakes were made. Nowhere near enough of them were forced to defeat like that. However, they were knocked out of that way and hit from above where possible as the night-time and then morning skies were full of US aircraft and armed helicopters. The final objective of the Arizona state line wasn’t reached by the III Corps by the morning of the 15th and neither had they eliminated their opponents. Still, they were almost there and had also smashed apart a good portion of those who had tried to stand in their way. Arizona was in sight and an entry into there was assured in the long run.


There were more New Mexico Corps elements which didn’t see battle when the DAR tried to defend the western half of that state. What was left of the 1st Marine Division had fallen back from Santa Fe and gone up into the Española Basin north of that city. They had linked up with the rear of the 25th Infantry Division (with the Colorado Corps) who had been forced to retreat into the Rockies when failing to keep the eastern portion of Colorado from out of US hands. Pushed aside, those DAR Marines on the left flank of the failed defensive effort were unable to play a part in stopping ARNORTH driving towards Arizona. Geography, their weakness after earlier defeats and successful US screening efforts kept them out of the fight. Down to northing more than a brigade in reality despite its name, the 1st Marine Division had been forced out of the war just like the DAR Army division who were behind them. It wasn’t just them. Throughout the Rockies and up into Idaho too there were more troops who were forced into holding their positions by comparable-sized US forces who were content to keep them occupied on the defence. Better ground was held by the defenders but they were dug into those places now. If they were pulled out, and that was no easy feat, the whole front was likely to collapse. Late on February 15th, General Fuller came to understand how bad the situation was for the DAR Armed Forces’ efforts to defend its border with the United States. More news had filtered in about the beating that the New Mexico Corps had taken: its units weren’t destroyed but they were smashed up and no longer able to defend where they stood. He had all of those remaining forces either spread northwards pinned down or not yet fully up to strength in the rear. All hopes had been pinned on a successful defence of western New Mexico and that had failed.

His country was in dire straits. The US Army had finally done what it was capable of, not even employing its full strength, and the defensive war he had tried to fight with guile and imagination to make up for lack of numbers was failing. All wasn’t lost at that point, there were still cards to play, but the situation was beginning to look disastrous.

[James G]

115 – Hammer down

While US Army North pushed through New Mexico towards Arizona, over that second state which formed part of the Democratic American Republic on the rampage went Air Forces North. The night and then the morning skies were filled of AFNORTH jets focusing their full might on smashing the opposition below them. A good portion of the air strength at hand, and there was a lot of that, went after those on the ground with the New Mexico Corps. Yet, at the same time, AFNORTH undertook Operation Hammerhead too. Aircraft which had recently returned from Europe joined with those in-theatre – the Tenth Air Force had operational command – to target DAR Air Force on the ground where it was spread across Arizona. The commander of the 555th Fighter Squadron, the Triple Nickel which had come home with the 31st Fighter Wing from Eastern Europe, was told of the operation’s name and the aim of pinning down enemy aircraft. He made the connection which he thought everyone else did: he called it ‘hammer down’ after a film from the Noughties but it was a reference which few got.

The F-35 Lightings with the Triple Nickel were involved in the first big attack made against Luke AFB, over on the far side of Phoenix. That city’s urban sprawl made the requirement for targeting to be spot on meaning that in a few cases individual strikes were called off. Most went through though. The US Air Force, Air National Guard units and elements of the US Marines went at Luke. It was a huge base, home to many DAR air units despite the dispersal elsewhere throughout Arizona. It was targeted for low-level repeated air strikes by aircraft coming at it from all directions not long after a trio of DAR Air Force AWACS aircraft had been shot down by F-22s. Those Raptors were also with a returning home unit – the 90th Fighter Squadron was Alaska-based but had been in Poland – and had been guided to their targets by drones which had followed those E-3G Sentrys out of their wartime base at MCAS Miramar. No radars were used by the F-22s in making their attacks and each kill was timed with the other. All of a sudden, airborne warning and control went down and places such as Luke were getting worked over. High-explosive bombs were dropped there including anti-runway munitions. Not only would those tear up the surface of the runways, taxiways and flight ramp, but they penetrated deep. Delayed action fuses set off blasts in the following hours making it near impossible for repair teams to work. Targeted also at Luke were parked aircraft and the base facilities which allowed them to operate. Huge fires were started when aviation fuel went up. Triple Nickel pilots imagining that they were bombing a monster from out of space blew Luke to pieces just as those in other attacking units did too.

Libby Army Airfield was hit by napalm. Selected use of that fearsome weapon had been made up in the Rockies at the beginning of the fighting back in January but when it was used in Arizona next to Fort Huachuca, there was a lot of it dropped. The nearest population centre, the small town of Huachuca City, was just up the road so care was taken in how it was used. Yet, Libby was set alight. It was a major dispersal site for DAR aircraft and they were targeted along with all of the military personnel who were stationed there. The facility was gutted by a raging fire. Buildings, aircraft and people were set alight with no end in sight for the roaring flames. MCAS Yuma away to the west of where Libby was located faced a similar attack. The Mexican frontier was near to both places and that was taken advantage of: US aircraft flew through Mexican airspace during their attacks against Libby and Yuma. Denials were made afterwards when the Mexicans complained but in no way did that mean that it wouldn’t happen again. The napalm dropped over Yuma soon started a fire which got out of hand. Aviation fuel went up in flames as well causing one heck of a conflagration. Civilian firefighters from out of the small city of Yuma, and later further afield, were called upon to stop the raging fire from moving out of the military facility and into civilian areas. Drone footage coming from a high-flying and distant (it was over Mexico) RQ-4B of the fire was later watched live in DC where at the Pentagon and then in the White House agreement came that there should be no repeat of such a thing again. If only the utmost of care hadn’t been taken with the attack upon the military base at Yuma, the neighbouring city could have also been engulfed in flames leading to untold civilian losses. Political considerations were also taken into account. The regime in Las Vegas would, and did, make a big deal out of what happened at Yuma. President Mitchell told the National Security Council that attacks like that would be repeated but he didn’t want to see anything like that again with a city almost surrounded by fire.

Where first F-35s and then later F-16s made their attacks against Davis-Monthan AFB, a different type of primary weapon was used. Laser-guided bombs did hit key facilities to create fantastic targeted explosions yet there was also the employment of non-explosive projectiles. CBU-107s were dropped in abdunance. Those were cluster bombs with their payloads being thousands of steel & tungsten rods of various sizes. They fell like rain with gravity pulling them down into plentiful targets. Few fell atop the long runway though and there was a reason for that. AMARG, the Boneyard, was part of Davis-Monthan. More of the CBU-107s were dropped there. The DAR was still removing aircraft from there and putting them into service. Where there were efforts to do that, in certain places of the massive open air storage site for retired aircraft, the death rain came from the sky to hit personnel and aircraft. The targeted airbase was on the edges of the city of Tucson and so too was that city’s airport, no more than a few miles off with the runway orientated in the same direction. Arizona’s Air National Guard had a station on-site and there was no civilian traffic making use of the airport. High-explosive bombs hit military targets and then more of those metal rods fell. The latter fell atop large aircraft parked out in the open. Those were transports, tankers and electronic warfare aircraft. The DAR Armed Forces had non-combat aircraft such as those elsewhere across Arizona at civilian airports which they were making use of. The big Sky Harbor International, Mesa and Scottsdale Airports all clustered around Phoenix were hit like Tucson’s airport was. None of those facilities were blown to ruin but aircraft suffered major damage. In addition, for flight operations to continue afterwards, the runways and taxiways would have to be carefully checked – every square inch – for any more of those rods less they be sucked into an engine air intake and cause an accident.

Those big air facilities were in the south of Arizona either on the edges of the two big urban areas in the state or down near to the Mexican border. However, through the north and the west of Arizona, the DAR was making use of smaller civilian airfields. Those were dispersal and divert sites, and also being enlarged too so that greater use could be made of them by many more aircraft than already had been. Drone images and reports from special forces out on long-range patrol had shown AFNORTH what was being done at all of them. When Operation Hammerhead got going, smaller attacks were made against them though ones of just as much importance as striking the big facilities. DAR aircraft which were airborne when the massive raid over Arizona took place would divert to them when unable to go back to their home bases and also the DAR Air Force would try to use them when faced with all that was done to Luke, Libby, Yuma and Davis-Monthan. Bombs fell atop them and there was also the employment of short-range rockets and missiles from attacking aircraft. Explosions ripped through those targeted for attack. A couple of the strikes had to be called off at the last minute when there was judged to be too much civilian activity but those were only on a couple of occasions. The airlines hadn’t been flying since the Unilateral Declaration of Independence was made on January 11th in Las Vegas and other air traffic had been significantly curtailed. Military needs saw a ban on all flying without a permitted reason and there were also extensive shortages of fuel: all aviation fuel that the DAR Armed Forces could lay their hands on was requisitioned to keep its military aircraft flying.

When the AFNORTH air attacks deep inside Arizona concluded on the morning of February 15th, there were plentiful reports filled of great success. Some claims made were exaggerated, as always was the case, but there was evidence to back up the assertion made by AFNORTH to US Northern Command that Operation Hammerhead had been a complete victory. DAR air strength on the southern flank of the fight to liberate the West, where the United States had concentrated its main effort, had been shattered when so much of it was caught on the ground. Furthermore, two important air facilities there, ones with envious eyes being cast towards, were still generally intact afterwards: Davis-Monthan AFB and Tucson International Airport.

[James G]

Back in Las Vegas with the next update to look at how the DAR Gov. is trying to deal with the whole matter of defeat after defeat on the battlefield, economic nightmare and a fast growing protest movement among the people power it previously made so much use of.

[James G]

116 – The walls are closing in

Las Vegas witnessed a huge anti-war march where protesters in their tens of thousands, maybe even a hundred thousand by some estimates, came out in mid-February against the ongoing conflict with the United States. Permission wasn’t granted by city, state nor national authorities within the Democratic American Republic for that march yet, as had been seen elsewhere, officialdom was defied and the streets filled with people. It wasn’t just the ‘usual suspects’. With so many people out of work and the city having been attacked too, there was a widespread feeling within the largest city in Nevada that the war was something that they didn’t want after feelings its effects. Committed activists were a tiny minority of those involved who marched through the middle of Las Vegas demanding that there be no more fighting taking place. Enough was enough, the people declared. They wanted an end to it all. As had been seen in Honolulu first and then elsewhere, many of those on the anti-war march were those who had brought Las Vegas to a standstill when protesting against the federal US government with regards to the presidential election the year before, the arrest of Shauna McCleary and then her death in custody. People power had allowed for the secessionists in charge of the DAR to achieve what they did when the federal government was left powerless in the face of citizen’s hostility. That anger turned back against them… as some at the time had feared it just might do. However, what those marching against the war weren’t openly calling for was an end to the DAR itself. There were some among them who did want that yet their voices hadn’t risen to the top. When seeing all of those marchers, DAR leadership figures worried though that the time would come when that might happen. The fear of that, being toppled by the people power which had so successfully be weaponised beforehand, was very real for those on the Council of Twelve but also other people within the DAR regime too.

While the law was broken with the march – there were major wartime restrictions in-place –, no move was made to stop the gathering of so many people. There was nowhere near enough manpower available to try and disperse the crowds, not with all of the constraints imposed by the DAR Armed Forces needing everyone it could get to fight against the United States’ attempt to crush their independence. Moreover, to try and break up the march would be a disaster. Those at the top knew that. They themselves had so successfully exploited efforts by the US Government to try and ‘impose order’ on the West before the DAR came into creation. Any use of force would be met with opposition and it would only end in bloodshed. The march was allowed to go ahead. The protesters were left free to protest against the war being waged. Later that day of the Las Vegas march, DAR President Maria Arreola Rodriquez made an address over the airwaves and the (limited) internet where she spoke to the people. She didn’t dodge the issue of the march and what those who had protested were calling for. Instead, MAR assured her country’s citizens that she wanted the exact same thing as them: an end to the fighting. That was something which she said that her government was working towards. Yet, that was something which she asserted was at the same time very difficult. That DAR had been attacked and was being invaded. The United States, led by a wholly illegitimate president who had assumed office after what MAR called the ‘dubious, suspicious circumstances’ of his predecessor’s death, needed to stop with its war of aggression against the DAR before the fighting could end. The people had a right to be heard, MAR continued with her remarks on that matter, and she respected the strength of feeling: what her government wanted was just the same. Until President Mitchell halted his invasion though, one which she said was claiming so many innocent lives and was in violation of all international law, the DAR had to keep on fighting to oppose that though. If they didn’t, then the real democracy which ‘the people of the West’ had built would be crushed.

Not all of MAR’s fellow leaders of the secessionist country in the western half of North America agreed with what she said in that address and also how she was so firmly opposed to any form of intervention against those protesting in the streets of almost every city from San Diego to Seattle, from Boise to Phoenix. While there was near unanimous agreement that any overt use of force to put an end to it all before it spun out of control was a very bad idea, other members of the Council of Twelve did believe that there was a need to be a bit creative on that front. The governors of California and Washington state, Pierce and Quinn, proposed that there should be the quiet arrest and detainment of the ringleaders. The biggest voices and those who did all of the organising could be held in secret, they suggested. MAR would have none of that and neither would Vice President Padley, plus other governors such as those from Arizona, Nevada and Oregon too. Pierce persisted though, talking up the threat and also pointed to evidence that the elements of the US Intelligence Community were behind some of that. The CIA, NSA and Department of Homeland Security all had agents in the West. He presented the proof he claimed backed that up in the form of some of the recent work down by the Deputy Minister for Security (Minister for Defence & Security Rawlings had several deputies with different briefs) concerning that. Sarah Eaton, once a senior CIA official under the 46th & 47th Presidents, had had her people working up the information which Pierce used to argue for a wave of quiet removals form the public sphere of those leading the street protests. Utah’s Governor Clarke, who’d wanted to do what he’d done in Utah elsewhere and put an end to public gatherings with force, supported Pierce in that and there was also support from the leaders of both New Mexico (most of her state was under US control) and Nevada too. It came to a vote. The decision was firmly against doing what Pierce wanted. His colleagues had in their mind an idea of his intentions for what that might start. California’s governor had been the strongest proponent of a powerful DAR intelligence agency, one for domestic and foreign service, with Eaton at the top of that: it was believed that he wanted to start with those arrests and then go further. The idea of a hybrid CIA / FBI / NSA style organisation for the DAR sat too uncomfortably with the majority of those on the Council of Twelve though and Pierce was cut off before he could get started.


Gutierrez and Zane both left the government service when they departed from their high-level DAR roles. The Minister for Finance & Business and his counterpart for Foreign Relations were each asked by the Council of Twelve to resign because they had failed. The DAR was almost broke as the money ran out. The big, transformative ideas of Gutierrez hadn’t worked. He’d had more than a month and he could point to how the economic warfare unleashed by the United States against the Democratic American Republic was just as devastating as what was done with tanks and combat aircraft. He went without a fight though, without making excuses. He’d lost the faith of the leadership but, maybe more so, in himself. All of his progressive economic policies had turned to ash in the face of reality. There were no taxes to impose upon the rich, no big exploitive corporations to break up and no real Universal Basic Income beyond a bribe (from a shrinking pool of cash) to keep people ticking over financially. Gutierrez was left a broken man. Zane refused to go quietly. He tried everything to keep his post and made personal appeals to several Council of Twelve members to stay on and try to get the international recognition which the DAR needed. It was a wasted effort for him. Just as was the case with his resigning counterpart, Zane hadn’t been able to achieve anything because the actions of the US Government to stop that recognition effort were so successful. Presidents Roberts and Mitchell had made it crystal clear to anyone considering doing so, even in the most limited form, that dealing with Las Vegas in a diplomatic manner would bring them to ruin. Allies and those friendly towards the United States – never onside with what was regarded as completely illegal with the UDI made to form the DAR – understood the implications of defying that demand. When it came to hostile and unfriendly governments, those were nations which the DAR itself didn’t want anything to do with. Would the repressive regimes of Belarus, Cuba and Venezuela have made good allies for the DAR? Absolutely not. China had shown some inkling of maybe making an informal trading agreement, something to begin a relationship with, but the Council of Twelve wouldn’t hear of that despite Zane making what he had thought was a strong case for it. The politics defeated what he saw as common sense there. Out of government he went, almost kicking and screaming at what he saw as the complete injustice of being called a failure.

Those forced resignations came after Rawlings and General Fuller briefed the leadership that the aircraft carrier DARNS Midway, and her escorting battle group too, had surrendered to US forces in the Pacific. Holed after a submarine-launched torpedo strike, the carrier was unable to conduct air operations while at sea and trapped far away from DAR shores. Her battle group had been attacked without aircraft from the Midway being able to intervene and there was no way home. In a message sent to DAR Navy operational headquarters in San Diego, the at-sea commanding admiral informed those back on land that he took his force out of the conflict to avoid a greater loss of life. Members of the Council of Twelve had a lot to say, and much hot air to expel, but they were left unable to do anything about that. When discussing that surrender of the bulk of the DAR Navy’s fighting strength, leaving the whole Pacific coastline exposed, the matter of a possible direct threat to San Diego was raised. Intelligence information suggested that US forces based in re-taken Hawaii were seeking to make a landing there with the aim of establishing a foothold on the coast. Fuller reaffirmed what he had said when the first rumours about that had come: it was disinformation and no concrete intelligence was there beyond rumours and speculation. There was no way that US Marines and US Army paratroopers were going to assault San Diego! Rawlings agreed with him but the council members wasn’t so certain that the risk could be ignored. Against the wishes of the civilian and uniformed military leadership, they ordered the city to be defended. Part of the incomplete 5th Marine Division – being raised on the West Coast – was diverted from training duties getting ready to fight against US forces coming in from the east to San Diego. Fuller tried everything to stop that but failed. He could only rage at the stupidity of his political masters there… while secretly admiring what had been done back in the Pentagon to play that dirty trick.

Military intelligence within the DAR was supervised through Rawlings’ ministry and there were domestic intelligence operations (to protect against extremists, terrorists and spies) organised by the Ministry for Public Safety. Each jealously guarded their turf, especially the new head of the latter ministry who had replaced the assassinated Lauren Quiroz. However, Fuller really ran things on the military side despite the supposed civilian oversight. Pierce’s idea of another agency, one which would subsume their activities, met the disapproval of them just like it did those at the very top of the civilian leadership. For politicians such as MAR, her ideology stood in the way of that: those who already had intelligence work briefs wanted to keep what they personally had and also expand into external intelligence operations themselves. Rawlings’ support of Eaton leading a ‘super agency’ put Fuller at odds with her, and the new Minister for Public Safety was trying to assert himself. Those personal squabbles defined so much of what went on at the top of the DAR, beyond that dispute over what California’s governor wanted to see established. He found himself seemingly justified though with what he had been calling for when one of the senior-most aides to Cicely Blair Padley ‘skipped town with a bag full of goodies’ in the words of Quiroz’s replacement. The DAR’s vice president had long-serving aides who had been with her when she served in that post for the US Government and moved into the same role for the DAR. They had come with her to Las Vegas, breaking personal and political ties with the United States. Padley had long inspired strong loyalty and because of that, she was pretty careless at times. That aide of hers had been contacted by and agreed to work with the CIA. A wealth of intelligence material covering political, economic and even military affairs was gathered up and an exfiltration was made to US-controlled territory.

The damage was severe. Padley’s reputation among her peers was affected: her long-standing ally Pierce was furious at her. MAR and the others found out how much trust in her aide Padley had placed and how much leeway the young man had been given to do all that he could against the cause of the Democratic American Republic. There was also, as Peirce reminded the Council of Twelve, the need really shown for a better set up to protect their country against further similar instances. The CIA should never have been able to do what it had. The information which came afterwards concerning how seemingly easy it had all happened helped with his argument that the DAR needed a substantial intelligence agency, a centralised one too, to protect itself. Another vote on the matter was called. Padley moved to side with Pierce on that (she feared for her position) and Idaho’s Governor Winkelman voted with the new majority as well. There was an abstention from the president though. MAR told her colleagues that she wouldn’t vote for nor against the intention to give Eaton those powers but she would support the outcome of the vote. She thought it was a reasonable position to take. Others didn’t. It looked like a cop out from a matter of grave consequences: something that those for and against a super agency for intelligence purposes agreed upon. Rawlings – who didn’t have a vote – discussed the matter with Pierce afterwards. She didn’t want to see that intelligence service while he was its lead proponent. They couldn’t agree on that but they were in firm concord about what each saw as a lack of leadership from their president. She appeared to be feeling the walls closing in on her, acting as if she thought everything was about to collapse but putting a brave face on things, and not making sensible decisions any more where rash actions were taken. Her behaviour reminded Pierce of how she almost disappeared from the scene right before McCleary was killed, just after MAR had been robbed of the White House and when she certainly should have been more active. He and Padley had had to drag her into what they had eventually built. Rawlings declared that she had no real faith in MAR, someone who didn’t seem capable of doing all that had to be done to safeguard their country. She never had that, she confessed to Pierce, and never really would either.

Those admissions lead to further discussions onto all that was going wrong for their country, who else was at blame for that. Then ideas were put forth about how to change things for the better.

[gillan1220]

A horrible fate awaits The Council of Thirteen.

[James G]

May 13, 2021 8:35:01 GMT gillan1220 said:

A horrible fate awaits The Council of Thirteen.

If things go the way they want it in DC, it will either be drones firing Hellfires through their bedroom windows, or federal execution at Terre Haute!

[James G]

117 – Murder

Russian special forces soldiers, their infamous Spetsnaz, had quite the history of operations covert and overt throughout the history of the modern Russian Federation and the Soviet Union which it was a successor state of. During the Twenties, Spetsnaz fought in the Middle East, the Caucasus, Central Asia and the furthest regions of Eastern Europe – the ex Soviet nations of Belarus and the Ukraine – too to fulfil the geo-political ambitions of Russia’s presidents. President Makarov had sent them into Armenia in 2026 to ‘stabilise’ that small nation, to stop it falling into a revolt which would threaten the interests of his regime in Moscow, and then also into Belarus the next year for the same reason. When the Baltic States had faced the beginning of a long terrorist campaign starting roughly the same time that Belarus’s horrid regime was propped up, many of the activities blamed upon ethnic Russian separatists had been undertaken with the direct aid of Spetsnaz personnel. The United States had even caught a trio of them red handed about to assist an attack in Estonia with President Walsh secretly authorising their return to Russia less the incident bring about a war: few in Europe knew about that occurrence. Across Poland, attacks against military targets through late 2028 and into ‘29 were blamed upon Russian military personnel acting under a false flag. Warsaw couldn’t prove it and nothing done was game changing, but that was an ongoing issue. Spetsnaz entered Polish territory on an intermittent basis and did so once again on February 16th. A mission-specific detachment crossed over the from Kaliningrad exclave into Poland with the commandos coming from the 45th Guards Special Purpose Brigade. They came not to kill anyone nor cause trouble but instead to take something back, something that wasn’t supposed to be Poland.

Those Spetsnaz soldiers belonged to the Russian Airborne Forces but were utilised by the GRU: Russian military intelligence. That organisation had lost a drone which had malfunctioned and crashed in Polish territory. The GRU didn’t want the Poles, nor their NATO allies, the Americans especially, to get their hands on the small unmanned reconnaissance aircraft. Locate and destroy, was the mission for the detachment of soldiers sent into Poland, and get back to Russian territory without anyone knowing. They crossed into Poland along an isolated stretch of the frontier early in the morning and moved fast towards where it was believed the drone had gone down. The distance to the suspected crash site from the border was less than ten miles for the Spetsnaz and they were meant to return the next night. Certain electronic components from the drone were to be retrieved while the rest of it was meant to be broken up, scattered and buried. The task was difficult but by no means something not done successfully before elsewhere. Unfortunately for them, their crossing through the fence and then over no man’s land was spotted. Polish Army Commandos, their JKW force, intercepted them when the Spetsnaz were deep inside Polish territory. The reason for the covert border crossing was unknown but it was an armed invasion of Poland and one responded to in a manner which reflected recent events between the two countries. The Poles tried to get the Russians to surrender when they had them surrounded and announced that, but the Spetsnaz refused to lay down their arms. A gunfight broke out. The JWK had the advantage in numbers and were on home ground yet they were fighting the elite of all Russian Spetsnaz. A break out was made from the trap sprung and the Russians dashed for home long before they could get anywhere near that drone. Up above them, a pair of Polish-built S-70 Blackhawk helicopters in support of the JWK below poured gunfire down upon the Spetsnaz as they scattered and tried to make their way home. Those helicopters were flown low and fast by well-experienced pilots trained to operate alongside friendly special forces. One of them was shot down though. Using a short-range shoulder-mounted missile, the Blackhawk hit the ground and burst into flames. The crash aided most of the Spetsnaz in their journey to get closer to home. However, it also brought about a bigger Polish response. Several dozen miles off from that crash site, a Polish Army artillery unit received an urgent order for a fire mission. They were already on high alert due to the border crisis with Russia and were able to quickly start firing 152mm high-explosive shells from DANA self-propelled howitzers. The Poles fired on their own country, targeting an isolated border area free of civilians. Shells crashed into where the Spetsnaz were believed to be as they engaged in that fighting retreat against the JWK. Aircraft turned up too. An already airborne flight of F-16s on an air defence tasking swooped in low. They carried air-to-air missiles only, nothing for a strike mission, but were brought in to ensure that the Russians didn’t send helicopters to get their men out.

A salvo of SAMs targeted the F-16s and one of them was brought crashing down. The missiles came not from the Spetsnaz team but instead from out of Kaliningrad itself. As to that DANA battery, it wasn’t engaging in shoot-and-scoot behaviour – changing firing positions to avoid counter-battery fire – because it was operating on Polish soil against targets inside Poland. Nonetheless, where it was stationary and very much not doing anything to target Russian territory, short-range missiles from out of Kaliningrad smashed into the battery of guns and artillerymen. Those two instances of Russian attacks from out of Kaliningrad against Polish forces inside their own country were authorised at the highest level. So too was the Polish response. As before, after he gave the word for an attack, the Polish president then contacted his NATO allies rather than talking to them beforehand. Polish PrSM missiles once more hit Russian targets in Kaliningrad. Less than twenty minutes later, Iskander ballistic missiles started hitting Polish targets. In such a short space of time, rifle shots between small parties of men moved to the use of such weapons as those strategic missiles. Polish F-35s and Russian Su-35Ss exchanged shots as well, with the Poles losing two of their White Eagles and a Russian Super Flanker going down too. It was one huge mess. Those whose actions started it all, the Spetsnaz trying to make it home didn’t get away. The Poles would kill eleven of them – two killed while wounded and incapable of fighting – and take another four prisoner. No drone was recovered and another tit-for-tat massive exchange of serious weaponry was made. Europe once more tottered on the precipice of an outbreak of World War Three, especially since on that occasion when the Russians hit Poland, they didn’t just kill Poles.


A Patriot SAM battery operated by the Polish Army located on the outskirts of Warsaw was struck by an Iskander which targeted that system and wasn’t brought down during the effort. The blast from the warhead attached to the Russian ballistic missile killed five Poles and also two foreign contractors: both of them Americans. They were working for the Pentagon and recall home for them had been delayed due to their civilian status but was something in the works. Their lives were lost before they could be brought back to the United States to fight against fellow Americans. Inside Warsaw itself, the EU’s president was there. Her spat with Poland’s leader over the first Polish-Russian exchanges was fresh in everyone’s mind at the time yet she had gone to Poland – where she had received the second lowest number of votes for her EU-wide election when elected; Hungarian voters were less keen on her – to try and salvage the situation. Like everyone in Warsaw, she heard the sirens wail over the city when missiles flew towards Poland’s capital. The actual city wasn’t targeted by two military sites outside (that Patriot battery one of them) were. Trying to work to defuse tensions, which she and the majority of the EU leadership blamed Warsaw and Moscow equally for, became impossible after the further clashes which occurred that day. Poland’s leader would hear nothing of her talk about Poland backing down when he claimed that his capital had been attacked and the EU President was in league with Moscow.

In the Suwalki Gap, where the Polish and Lithuanian borders met, with Kaliningrad and Belarus nearby too, the US Army’s 3rd Infantry Division had been sent to deploy there back in 2027 by President Walsh when the first serious trouble erupted in the Baltics. Those Americans had been on both Polish and Lithuanian soil, maintaining a major presence making any Russian attempt to seize it impossible without engaging them. There was no way that Russian tanks in either place either side of the gap (the Russian Army had a big presence in Belarus) could isolate the Baltics from Poland without engaging them. When President Roberts gave the instruction for his soldiers to go home, one followed by President Mitchell, the Canadians and the French had moved into the Suwalki Gap. On the Lithuanian side, the French had their 7th Armored Brigade while the Canadian Army sent the 5 Mechanized Brigade Group to the Polish areas of that vital land connection with the Baltics. Their joint mission – that Canadian unit was a Francophone one – was to do as the Americans had done: provide a real deterrent to any Russian move. No ‘limited war’ launched by Russia, maybe just fighting the Poles and the Baltic States, could occur when the Suwalki Gap was defended like that and also other NATO countries had troops up in the Baltics as well. Those Canadians were hit by a Russian missile with casualties incurred. The Canadians had taken losses when they had soldiers in Latvia (a battalion group) and so too had the Americans, the British, the Dutch and the Italians as well. Terrorists supported by Russia yet natives of Estonia and Latvia had caused those deaths and injuries. The Iskander which hit personnel serving with the brigade group’s 12e Régiment blindé du Canada was sent direct by Russia though. Six soldiers died and another ten were badly wounded when a regimental supply post was struck. There were no Polish military units within the vicinity of the target area for that missile. The Canadians had made no secret of their presence and it was clear that the Russians knew it was them they fired a missile against.

Across the ocean back in Ottawa, the Minister of National Defence told his PM that it was ‘murder’. Their country’s soldiers had been struck on purpose: there was no way that the attack could have been a mistake. Discussions turned to why that was the case. The PM and her top-tier cabinet members were joined by military and intelligence chiefs in the aftermath of the strike on their soldiers in Poland. Various ideas were put forth but the agreed upon wisdom of why the attack had taken place was that Makarov in Moscow was trying to send a message. He murdered Canadian troops as part of a grand strategy to force division among NATO members where Canada would blame Poland and either walk away from the deployment or get the Poles to change their steadfast behaviour in the face of Russian aggression. Why Canada was chosen, not the French or anyone else, was believed in Ottawa to be because Canada wasn’t part of the EU. It was decided that Makarov had all sorts of games running and he was trying to work to peel away NATO countries outside of the EU – Canada and Britain – from supporting Poland while at the same time working to do damage with internal Polish-EU relations as well. The exact thinking in the mind of the dictator in Moscow was difficult to understand but Canada’s leaders understood enough of it.

Makarov murdered Canadians so he could force the Poles to back off from the defence of their sovereignty. Ottawa hadn’t gone along with what those in Europe had done where they had applied pressure on Warsaw to back down. Makarov had seen that and decided to play by his own rules of the game there. The PM spoke to her British counterpart. From London, Ottawa was told that there was an expectation that British forces would likely be hit soon. Agreement was made to try and work out a solution, one involving everyone on their side working together to stop Makarov doing what he was. As to a Canadian military reaction, there wasn’t one. Canada had no ability to make a meaningful strike against Russia which wouldn’t result in a more devastating Russian counter-response. Canadian jets bombing targets in Kaliningrad would set off a war, one which no one wanted. The PM addressed the Canadian people later that day and informed them of what had happened as she condemned the murder of Canadian soldiers serving far from home in the interests of international peace. There was anger in her yet impotence too. Things would have been very different if America wasn’t gripped by civil war: there would have been no Russian attacks if that wasn’t the case.

Yet Canada’s southern neighbour was gripped by internal conflict. Both before and after government discussions concerning what happened in Poland, the PM was updated regarding events on her country’s southern border, out there in the western reaches of Canada. Small-scale isolated border incidents where territory claimed by the Democratic American Republic a-joined Canada were becoming more frequent. There were no armed clashes between soldiers nor missile firings but instead violations of the border by criminal groups smuggling goods of which there were shortages of within the DAR. Organised criminal gangs were operating a thriving black market within the DAR states of Idaho, Oregon & Washington and transporting what they could sell for extraordinary prices across the border. Americans from both the DAR and the United States as well as Canadians were involved. There had been shooting incidents where Canadians and Americans had died. Certain areas of British Columbia and Alberta near to the southern border were dangerous for the unwary. The premiers of the two provinces were demanding action from Ottawa and even calling for the deployment of troops on the border. It was a worsening situation with worries from the PM that things were going to get really bad. Once more, as was the case with what Russia had done to Canadians in Poland, a solution wasn’t at-hand for Canada’s leader with that border issue.

What was she going to do – send the Canadian Army (more than half of which was in Eastern Europe anyway) into the DAR!?

[gillan1220]

Makarov definitely knows how to take advantage of America tearing itself from within.

[James G]

May 14, 2021 2:45:42 GMT gillan1220 said:

Makarov definitely knows how to take advantage of America tearing itself from within.

Yep, and he is causing chaos and division in Europe.