Operation Crescent Moon: A Short Story by Forcon

[forcon]

Notes: 

• U.S. Military Special Missions' Units names change frequently; Delta Force/CAG, SEAL Team 6/DEVGRU, and Intelligence Support Activity/Task Force Orange, for example. I have used the most recent known names for these units. 
• The political background of this story is not particularly realistic; the story is merely meant to be an exploration of how a 'modern day Operation Eagle Claw' might play out. I chose Belarus as the 'OPFOR' because it makes more strategic sense than my alternative options and because information is more readily accessible.
• Enjoy the story!

Part I.

A Surprise in Minsk

The United States Armed Forces' have a troubled history when it pertains to hostage-rescue. The catastrophic failure that was Operation EAGLE CLAW, which took places over forty years prior to the publication of this report, in turn led to the formation of the Joint Special Operations Command or JSOC, which oversaw the U.S. Military's first successful hostage-rescue, that of Kurt Muse, an American citizen imprisoned in Panama. Over the course of the War on Terror, U.S. forces would be responsible for numerous successful hostage-rescues, and for some failures too. Nevertheless, the most inarguably significant operation of such was Operation CRESCENT MOON. The War on Terror had seen America grow used to fighting insurgents and Islamic fundamentalists in Iraq and Afghanistan, and more covertly, in Africa. Hostage rescue operations had naturally been a part of this conflict; American commandos had successfully rescued hostages from the Taliban in Afghanistan, from Al-Shabab in Somalia and from pirates off of that nation's coast, and from Boko Haram in Nigeria. There had come failings with those successes; a British hostage had been killed by a grenade thrown by an American Navy SEAL with the Navy's Special Missions Unit (SMU), the Naval Special Warfare Development Group or DEVGRU. Another attempted raid into ISIS-held territory in Syria the Army's SMU engage in a bitter firefight with hostile militants only to discover that the hostages - amongst them, American aide worker Kayla Mueller - had been moved. The SMU's had learned from their mistakes over the course of two decades of war. It appeared that JSOC had perfected the art of hostage rescue. However, the coup in Belarus, mounted by hardliners led by General Vladimir Krylov that saw the ousting of that country's short-lived democratic government, would lead to JSOC facing a very different mission to those it had been conducting in the Middle East.

When General Krylov's new 'government' discovered what it perceived as evidence of American involvement in what he described as an unlawful seizure of power by Western-backed liberals, it wasn't long before BTR armoured personnel carriers of the KGB (Belarus's interior security service maintained the name and lineage of its Soviet predecessor) appeared outside the U.S. Embassy in Minsk. Krylov, a diagnosed narcissist who's feared temper warded even his closest advisors away from any form of criticism, ordered the arrest of the entire embassy staff, some 107 people, in a fit of rage at his purported discovery. Ambassador Wes Stanford's frantic phone calls to Washington were of little use as black-clad KGB Commandos dismounted from the BTRs and took up positions outside the embassy. Fortunately, the small U.S. Marine Corps security detachment did not offer heavy resistance, which would likely have led to a ferocious firefight and dozens of deaths within the embassy. The Marines only sought to buy time for the staff inside to burn classified documents before the KGB breached. Half-an-hour after their arrival, the KGB did just that. The Marines in the courtyard laid down their weapons before being handcuffed and brutally beat down. The civilian embassy staff inside fared little better as the KGB swarmed in. They barked commands at frightened staffers, who, faced with armed and balaclava-wearing attackers, quickly complied. This study does not endeavour to cover the events that led-up to the arrest of American embassy staff and their detention at the Minsk Detention Facility; it seeks to describe in detail the build-up to and occupation of Operation CRESCENT MOON, the U.S. Military's effort to extract the hostages after negotiations failed to achieve this goal.

*

The actions of General Krylov drew instant and nearly unanimous worldwide condemnation. Even Belarus' staunch Easterly ally, Russia, was hesitant to defend the dictator's actions. In the United States, there was outrage comparable with that seen after the occupation of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979. Unlike on that fateful day, however, live news reporters from Minsk had seen clearly-marked KGB personnel assaulting the American diplomatic facility, which was technically sovereign U.S. soil. In Washington D.C., the Administration, already facing criticism for its doveish nature, turned almost instantaneously to the Joint Chiefs of Staff for options. General John Hargesty, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, presented numerous response plans, including an ultimatum backed up by the threat of military force, along with hostage-rescue scenarios. The Administration, in the hopes of avoiding all-out war with Belarus and enthralled by the special operations capabilities at its fingertips, very quickly ordered Hargesty to have JSOC begin planning a rescue mission.

JSOC, and the military as a whole, had long since planned for the day an American Embassy or diplomatic facility was overrun or taken captive. Decades of planning had come to nothing when insurgents attacked an American outpost in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012. The 10th Special Forces Group - a 'white-side' special operations element reporting to the local theatre commander, not to JSOC like the SMU's - had it's Commanders in-extremis Force or CIF company ready to deploy to buy time for the Delta alert squadron at Fort Bragg to deploy. As it happened, neither units made it to the area in time to prevent the slaughter that would occur at Benghazi. Previous attacks on diplomatic embassies, such as those in Beirut and Kenya, had similarly seen an overall security failure met with similar shortcomings by JSOC. The command as a whole was adamant that this time, things would be different. As the JSOC staff began putting together a comprehensive plan to extract the embassy staff from Belarus, a major operational failing began to rear it's ugly head in the form of a near total lack of intelligence. It was public knowledge due to Belarusian television broadcasts that all 107 detained embassy staff were being held at Minsk Detention Facility #1, the old castle in the centre of the city. The location of the prison was known; beyond that, however, it was a proverbial black hole. Where were the hostages being held within the prison? What was the enemy strength? Could the power be turned off? How thick were the outer walls? How quickly could the enemy respond? All of these questions had to be answered before an assault could be mounted.

To answer these questions, JSOC Commander Lieutenant-General Michael Connery turned to a man who he'd known many years ago while commanding a Ranger Battalion in Afghanistan. Lieutenant-Colonel Vic Sawyer was the commander of Delta's G Squadron, the units in-house clandestine operations unit. While all Delta operators underwent training in basic low-visibility and espionage-type operations, G Squadron focused exclusively on clandestine arts such as agent running and counter surveillance. Many G Squadron Operators were also shooters recruited from Delta's sabre squadrons, but a smaller number of its personnel were pulled from outside the unit. Unlike in Delta's line squadrons, many G Squadron Operators were women, most of whom were from military intelligence and cryptography-focused MOS'. Delta selection was open to women, but thus far none had managed to pass through the course. It must be said that in fairness, the selection course for Delta is designed for men, and that a different selection course exists for women hoping to join the ranks of G Squadron. The course is by no means easier than that of the men, it is simply designed for women hoping to take part in covert and low-visibility operations in predominantly urban environments and thus focuses more on psychological aspects than physical conditioning. DEVGRU's Black Squadron was the Navy SMU's equivalent of G Squadron; the Intelligence Support Activity or Task Force Orange (TFO) was similar in capability and mission set to G and Black Squadrons, only it's purpose was to perform that role for JSOC as an entity rather than for any individual SMU. 

Lt-Col. Sawyer was assigned to lead an Advanced Force Operations (AFO) Cell into Minsk to gather intelligence on the target. Sawyer, a veteran Delta Troop and squadron commander with 11 deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan under his belt, was essentially given free reign to choose his team. He settled on a motley crew of operatives recruited from CAG and its navy counterpart, DEVGRU, as well as the Intelligence Support Activity. The outlier in this force of no more than twenty individuals was it's second-in-command, Major Todd Brenervick. Brenervick, unlike the other members of AFO, had no experience in a Special Missions Unit. However, he was a veteran military intelligence officer who had also spent five of the fifteen years since he had graduated West Point as a Special Forces officer, first commanding an Alpha Team and then serving as the Operations Officer of a special forces battalion. Brenervick's experience and skills were respected within AFO despite the fact that he had been summoned from outside of JSOC. The AFO Operators infiltrated Belarus using non-official cover identities of their own making; each operator crafted a detailed 'legend' based on their own language skills and cultural and ethnic backgrounds. They posed as Frenchmen, Canadians, Moroccans, Belgians, Czechs, Brazilians, Germans, and Koreans, acting as mixture of businessmen and thrill-seeking tourists. While their infiltrations into Minsk were gut-wrenchingly harrowing, AFO made it into the city and set up shop at a warehouse provided by a local CIA asset. Within two weeks of the embassy seizure, JSOC had operatives on the ground in Minsk.

In the United States, both the CIA and JSOC's own intelligence-gathering apparatus worked to interview former detainees held at the Minsk Detention Centre. As it happened, their were two former detainees, one of whom was a resident of Poland while the second individual lived in California under a new identity. Members of the JSOC Intelligence Brigade, a creation of General Stanley McChrystal, who had overseen the Command's transformation into an all-arms 'network' during the counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq. A successive series of interviews saw JSOC gain a rough idea of the layout of the prison.

Meanwhile, at Fort Bragg, CAG's alert sabre Squadron, at the time B Squadron, was spending it's days in the 'house of horrors', honing it's skills in close-quarter-combat. It was destined to be B Squadron that would conduct the rescue, simply by virtue of it being the alert squadron at the outbreak of the crisis. B Squadron's operators were thrilled when CAG's intelligence officer showed up at their compound with a hand-drawn diagram of the layout of the detention centre, and a myriad of photographs taken by the AFO Cell already conducting reconnaissance operations in Minsk. Engineers immediately began constructing a mock-up of the building based on the photographs AFO had provided and the interviews with former detainees. B Squadron's commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Jim Vaughan, worked tirelessly with his Troop Commanders and senior NCOs to come up with a workable assault plan, before deciding that his squadron as a whole was undermanned, given the size of the target building, its urban nature, and the need to provide security for the assault force. Vaughan asked Colonel Jack Lynch, the Unit's commanding officer, to provide another Assault Troop from one of the other squadron's to reinforce his assault plan. Lieutenant-Colonel Sawyers had recruited a sniper/recce team from A Squadron as part of his AFO Cell, and D Squadron was at present on a three-month rotation through Iraq and Syria. All CAG Sabre Squadron's had three 'Troops', each led by a Captain or a Major; there were two Assault Troops, consisting of a headquarters section and four, five-man assault teams, and a single sniper/recce troop, which also contained a headquarters section, but consisted of four-man sniper/spotter teams rather than assault teams. At the risk of leaving the Unit dangerously undermanned to deal with another contingency which might occur, Lynch agreed to attach C Squadron's Assault Troop 2 (C2) to B Squadron. This left B Squadron with four Troops; Assault Troops B1, led by Major Elliot Bradshaw, B2, led by Captain Nate Dwyer, C2, led by Captain Scott Kelley, and B3, the sniper/recce troop, led by Major Casey Lyndall. B Squadron practised relentlessly for a variety of assault scenarios on the prison compound, including a ground-based attack, a helicopter air assault and a parachute jump.

*

One problem that JSOC had not yet resolved was how to insert and extract the assault force and the hostages. While a helicopter assault was deemed plausible, it would require dozens of helicopters to insert the assault force and even more to bring the hostages out with them, all of which would require massive support to avoid Belarusian air defences. An option that was generally favoured within the Command was the parachute assault variant, which would put JSOC in a position where extracting the assault force would become just as dangerous as using helicopters. Initially, Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) wanted to use its MC-130Js based in England at RAF Mildenhall to complete this task. However, the mission would require at least eight MC-130Js, and so it was suggested that C-17As be used instead, due to their ability to carry almost twice the number of troops as the smaller, but more capable special operations aircraft. After much back-and-forth between AFSOC and Army officers at JSOC, it was decided after-all that the smaller MC-130Js would be used after all, predominantly due to their limited rough-landing capabilities and the excellent training of their aircrews, who were specially trained to operate behind enemy lines. That posed a question, however, as to how the assault force and the hostages could be evacuated from the prison after the successful completion of the raid. The solution involved Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, commanded by Captain Owen Schultz.

Captain Shultz' men were part of the alert Ranger battalion, in itself a component of the larger JSOC Alert Package. Having been eagerly anticipating news regarding the embassy crisis in Minsk, the Rangers finally got the word that their services would be needed nearly a month after the beginning of the crisis. JSOC's plan now involved the capture of Minsk-Machulishchi Airbase, located west of the capital. Acting simultaneously with the CAG Assault on the prison complex, the Rangers would seize the airfield while an AC-130W destroyed the barracks and guard posts around the facility. JSOC Presented the plan to all of the key officers involved, including Lieutenant-Colonel Sawyer in Minsk through an encrypted video call. Sawyer believed that he would be able to acquire and provide vehicles to move the assault force and the hostages from Minsk Detention Centre to Minsk-Machulishchi Airbase, provided there was enough fire support to allow the vehicles to move through the city without being destroyed or overrun. Sawyer's assessment of the political situation in Minsk provided opportunities; General Krylov was barely holding the Army, the Internal Forces, and the KGB together. Purges had seen the ranks of the military decimated. Belarus' radar stations, however, could blow the whole operation by detecting the assault force as it entered their airspace. A representative from Cyber Command was brought in, and cyber attack, combined with kinetic operations, was deemed a viable means of eliminating the Belarusian air defence network.

Thus a complex but workable plan was born.

While a cyber attack and a barrage of Tomahawk cruise missiles disabled Belarusian radars, CAG's B Squadron would parachute into a field outside the prison, mount an assault, free the hostages, and then link up with several trucks procured by AFO. Meanwhile, Captain Shultz' Ranger company would capture the airfield and secure a perimeter. Under the cover of an AC-130W and fire directed by AFO Operators positioned in high-rise buildings overlooking the route, the trucks would conduct the forty-minute drive to the airfield, where the assault force would load the hostages onto the MC-130Js, which would have landed immediately after the Rangers declared the airfield secure. The MC-130Js would then fly the hostages, Rangers, and CAG Operators back to RAF Mildenhall, leaving Lieutenant-Colonel Sawyer's AFO Team to Escape and Evade back to friendly territory. The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, afloat in the Denmark Strait, would provide a Quick Reaction Force and a Combat Search & Rescue or CSAR element; Air Force F-22As and F-35As loaded with air-to-air missiles and HARMs would fly above and below the MC-130Js respectively, eliminating any fighters or SAMs that tried to confront the assault force. CAG's veteran Operations Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Vince Rutledge, was assigned as the overall ground force commander; he would parachute in with the Rangers and coordinate the mission from their, while Lieutenant-Colonel Jim Vaughan would command B Squadron's assault on the prison, and Captain Owen Shultz would lead the airfield seizure mission.

Six weeks after the capture of the embassy, B Squadron and C/3/75th Rangers conducted a dress rehearsal for the raid, flying in at low altitude over the Appalachian Mountains to a secret mock-up of the prison located on the Griffiss Air Force Base in up-state New York. Using USAF SERE School candidates in as hostages, B Squadron assaulted the prison mock-up while the Rangers parachuted into the disused air force base. Aside from a sprained ankle sustained by the Ranger Company First Sergeant, Tom Mulroney, the 'dress rehearsal' went off without a hitch.

The Administration in D.C. gave the mission its preliminary go-ahead, and the assault force moved as one to RAF Mildenhall to begin staging. D-Day was set for March 19th, two weeks from the date of the dress rehearsal.

[James G]

Jun 19, 2021 10:28:16 GMT forcon said:

Notes: 

• U.S. Military Special Missions' Units names change frequently; Delta Force/CAG, SEAL Team 6/DEVGRU, and Intelligence Support Activity/Task Force Orange, for example. I have used the most recent known names for these units. 
• The political background of this story is not particularly realistic; the story is merely meant to be an exploration of how a 'modern day Operation Eagle Claw' might play out. I chose Belarus as the 'OPFOR' because it makes more strategic sense than my alternative options and because information is more readily accessible.
• Enjoy the story!

Part I.

A Surprise in Minsk

The United States Armed Forces' have a troubled history when it pertains to hostage-rescue. The catastrophic failure that was Operation EAGLE CLAW, which took places over forty years prior to the publication of this report, in turn led to the formation of the Joint Special Operations Command or JSOC, which oversaw the U.S. Military's first successful hostage-rescue, that of Kurt Muse, an American citizen imprisoned in Panama. Over the course of the War on Terror, U.S. forces would be responsible for numerous successful hostage-rescues, and for some failures too. Nevertheless, the most inarguably significant operation of such was Operation CRESCENT MOON. The War on Terror had seen America grow used to fighting insurgents and Islamic fundamentalists in Iraq and Afghanistan, and more covertly, in Africa. Hostage rescue operations had naturally been a part of this conflict; American commandos had successfully rescued hostages from the Taliban in Afghanistan, from Al-Shabab in Somalia and from pirates off of that nation's coast, and from Boko Haram in Nigeria. There had come failings with those successes; a British hostage had been killed by a grenade thrown by an American Navy SEAL with the Navy's Special Missions Unit (SMU), the Naval Special Warfare Development Group or DEVGRU. Another attempted raid into ISIS-held territory in Syria the Army's SMU engage in a bitter firefight with hostile militants only to discover that the hostages - amongst them, American aide worker Kayla Mueller - had been moved. The SMU's had learned from their mistakes over the course of two decades of war. It appeared that JSOC had perfected the art of hostage rescue. However, the coup in Belarus, mounted by hardliners led by General Vladimir Krylov that saw the ousting of that country's short-lived democratic government, would lead to JSOC facing a very different mission to those it had been conducting in the Middle East.

When General Krylov's new 'government' discovered what it perceived as evidence of American involvement in what he described as an unlawful seizure of power by Western-backed liberals, it wasn't long before BTR armoured personnel carriers of the KGB (Belarus's interior security service maintained the name and lineage of its Soviet predecessor) appeared outside the U.S. Embassy in Minsk. Krylov, a diagnosed narcissist who's feared temper warded even his closest advisors away from any form of criticism, ordered the arrest of the entire embassy staff, some 107 people, in a fit of rage at his purported discovery. Ambassador Wes Stanford's frantic phone calls to Washington were of little use as black-clad KGB Commandos dismounted from the BTRs and took up positions outside the embassy. Fortunately, the small U.S. Marine Corps security detachment did not offer heavy resistance, which would likely have led to a ferocious firefight and dozens of deaths within the embassy. The Marines only sought to buy time for the staff inside to burn classified documents before the KGB breached. Half-an-hour after their arrival, the KGB did just that. The Marines in the courtyard laid down their weapons before being handcuffed and brutally beat down. The civilian embassy staff inside fared little better as the KGB swarmed in. They barked commands at frightened staffers, who, faced with armed and balaclava-wearing attackers, quickly complied. This study does not endeavour to cover the events that led-up to the arrest of American embassy staff and their detention at the Minsk Detention Facility; it seeks to describe in detail the build-up to and occupation of Operation CRESCENT MOON, the U.S. Military's effort to extract the hostages after negotiations failed to achieve this goal.

*

The actions of General Krylov drew instant and nearly unanimous worldwide condemnation. Even Belarus' staunch Easterly ally, Russia, was hesitant to defend the dictator's actions. In the United States, there was outrage comparable with that seen after the occupation of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979. Unlike on that fateful day, however, live news reporters from Minsk had seen clearly-marked KGB personnel assaulting the American diplomatic facility, which was technically sovereign U.S. soil. In Washington D.C., the Administration, already facing criticism for its doveish nature, turned almost instantaneously to the Joint Chiefs of Staff for options. General John Hargesty, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, presented numerous response plans, including an ultimatum backed up by the threat of military force, along with hostage-rescue scenarios. The Administration, in the hopes of avoiding all-out war with Belarus and enthralled by the special operations capabilities at its fingertips, very quickly ordered Hargesty to have JSOC begin planning a rescue mission.

JSOC, and the military as a whole, had long since planned for the day an American Embassy or diplomatic facility was overrun or taken captive. Decades of planning had come to nothing when insurgents attacked an American outpost in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012. The 10th Special Forces Group - a 'white-side' special operations element reporting to the local theatre commander, not to JSOC like the SMU's - had it's Commanders in-extremis Force or CIF company ready to deploy to buy time for the Delta alert squadron at Fort Bragg to deploy. As it happened, neither units made it to the area in time to prevent the slaughter that would occur at Benghazi. Previous attacks on diplomatic embassies, such as those in Beirut and Kenya, had similarly seen an overall security failure met with similar shortcomings by JSOC. The command as a whole was adamant that this time, things would be different. As the JSOC staff began putting together a comprehensive plan to extract the embassy staff from Belarus, a major operational failing began to rear it's ugly head in the form of a near total lack of intelligence. It was public knowledge due to Belarusian television broadcasts that all 107 detained embassy staff were being held at Minsk Detention Facility #1, the old castle in the centre of the city. The location of the prison was known; beyond that, however, it was a proverbial black hole. Where were the hostages being held within the prison? What was the enemy strength? Could the power be turned off? How thick were the outer walls? How quickly could the enemy respond? All of these questions had to be answered before an assault could be mounted.

To answer these questions, JSOC Commander Lieutenant-General Michael Connery turned to a man who he'd known many years ago while commanding a Ranger Battalion in Afghanistan. Lieutenant-Colonel Vic Sawyer was the commander of Delta's G Squadron, the units in-house clandestine operations unit. While all Delta operators underwent training in basic low-visibility and espionage-type operations, G Squadron focused exclusively on clandestine arts such as agent running and counter surveillance. Many G Squadron Operators were also shooters recruited from Delta's sabre squadrons, but a smaller number of its personnel were pulled from outside the unit. Unlike in Delta's line squadrons, many G Squadron Operators were women, most of whom were from military intelligence and cryptography-focused MOS'. Delta selection was open to women, but thus far none had managed to pass through the course. It must be said that in fairness, the selection course for Delta is designed for men, and that a different selection course exists for women hoping to join the ranks of G Squadron. The course is by no means easier than that of the men, it is simply designed for women hoping to take part in covert and low-visibility operations in predominantly urban environments and thus focuses more on psychological aspects than physical conditioning. DEVGRU's Black Squadron was the Navy SMU's equivalent of G Squadron; the Intelligence Support Activity or Task Force Orange (TFO) was similar in capability and mission set to G and Black Squadrons, only it's purpose was to perform that role for JSOC as an entity rather than for any individual SMU. 

Lt-Col. Sawyer was assigned to lead an Advanced Force Operations (AFO) Cell into Minsk to gather intelligence on the target. Sawyer, a veteran Delta Troop and squadron commander with 11 deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan under his belt, was essentially given free reign to choose his team. He settled on a motley crew of operatives recruited from CAG and its navy counterpart, DEVGRU, as well as the Intelligence Support Activity. The outlier in this force of no more than twenty individuals was it's second-in-command, Major Todd Brenervick. Brenervick, unlike the other members of AFO, had no experience in a Special Missions Unit. However, he was a veteran military intelligence officer who had also spent five of the fifteen years since he had graduated West Point as a Special Forces officer, first commanding an Alpha Team and then serving as the Operations Officer of a special forces battalion. Brenervick's experience and skills were respected within AFO despite the fact that he had been summoned from outside of JSOC. The AFO Operators infiltrated Belarus using non-official cover identities of their own making; each operator crafted a detailed 'legend' based on their own language skills and cultural and ethnic backgrounds. They posed as Frenchmen, Canadians, Moroccans, Belgians, Czechs, Brazilians, Germans, and Koreans, acting as mixture of businessmen and thrill-seeking tourists. While their infiltrations into Minsk were gut-wrenchingly harrowing, AFO made it into the city and set up shop at a warehouse provided by a local CIA asset. Within two weeks of the embassy seizure, JSOC had operatives on the ground in Minsk.

In the United States, both the CIA and JSOC's own intelligence-gathering apparatus worked to interview former detainees held at the Minsk Detention Centre. As it happened, their were two former detainees, one of whom was a resident of Poland while the second individual lived in California under a new identity. Members of the JSOC Intelligence Brigade, a creation of General Stanley McChrystal, who had overseen the Command's transformation into an all-arms 'network' during the counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq. A successive series of interviews saw JSOC gain a rough idea of the layout of the prison.

Meanwhile, at Fort Bragg, CAG's alert sabre Squadron, at the time B Squadron, was spending it's days in the 'house of horrors', honing it's skills in close-quarter-combat. It was destined to be B Squadron that would conduct the rescue, simply by virtue of it being the alert squadron at the outbreak of the crisis. B Squadron's operators were thrilled when CAG's intelligence officer showed up at their compound with a hand-drawn diagram of the layout of the detention centre, and a myriad of photographs taken by the AFO Cell already conducting reconnaissance operations in Minsk. Engineers immediately began constructing a mock-up of the building based on the photographs AFO had provided and the interviews with former detainees. B Squadron's commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Jim Vaughan, worked tirelessly with his Troop Commanders and senior NCOs to come up with a workable assault plan, before deciding that his squadron as a whole was undermanned, given the size of the target building, its urban nature, and the need to provide security for the assault force. Vaughan asked Colonel Jack Lynch, the Unit's commanding officer, to provide another Assault Troop from one of the other squadron's to reinforce his assault plan. Lieutenant-Colonel Sawyers had recruited a sniper/recce team from A Squadron as part of his AFO Cell, and D Squadron was at present on a three-month rotation through Iraq and Syria. All CAG Sabre Squadron's had three 'Troops', each led by a Captain or a Major; there were two Assault Troops, consisting of a headquarters section and four, five-man assault teams, and a single sniper/recce troop, which also contained a headquarters section, but consisted of four-man sniper/spotter teams rather than assault teams. At the risk of leaving the Unit dangerously undermanned to deal with another contingency which might occur, Lynch agreed to attach C Squadron's Assault Troop 2 (C2) to B Squadron. This left B Squadron with four Troops; Assault Troops B1, led by Major Elliot Bradshaw, B2, led by Captain Nate Dwyer, C2, led by Captain Scott Kelley, and B3, the sniper/recce troop, led by Major Casey Lyndall. B Squadron practised relentlessly for a variety of assault scenarios on the prison compound, including a ground-based attack, a helicopter air assault and a parachute jump.

*

One problem that JSOC had not yet resolved was how to insert and extract the assault force and the hostages. While a helicopter assault was deemed plausible, it would require dozens of helicopters to insert the assault force and even more to bring the hostages out with them, all of which would require massive support to avoid Belarusian air defences. An option that was generally favoured within the Command was the parachute assault variant, which would put JSOC in a position where extracting the assault force would become just as dangerous as using helicopters. Initially, Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) wanted to use its MC-130Js based in England at RAF Mildenhall to complete this task. However, the mission would require at least eight MC-130Js, and so it was suggested that C-17As be used instead, due to their ability to carry almost twice the number of troops as the smaller, but more capable special operations aircraft. After much back-and-forth between AFSOC and Army officers at JSOC, it was decided after-all that the smaller MC-130Js would be used after all, predominantly due to their limited rough-landing capabilities and the excellent training of their aircrews, who were specially trained to operate behind enemy lines. That posed a question, however, as to how the assault force and the hostages could be evacuated from the prison after the successful completion of the raid. The solution involved Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, commanded by Captain Owen Schultz.

Captain Shultz' men were part of the alert Ranger battalion, in itself a component of the larger JSOC Alert Package. Having been eagerly anticipating news regarding the embassy crisis in Minsk, the Rangers finally got the word that their services would be needed nearly a month after the beginning of the crisis. JSOC's plan now involved the capture of Minsk-Machulishchi Airbase, located west of the capital. Acting simultaneously with the CAG Assault on the prison complex, the Rangers would seize the airfield while an AC-130W destroyed the barracks and guard posts around the facility. JSOC Presented the plan to all of the key officers involved, including Lieutenant-Colonel Sawyer in Minsk through an encrypted video call. Sawyer believed that he would be able to acquire and provide vehicles to move the assault force and the hostages from Minsk Detention Centre to Minsk-Machulishchi Airbase, provided there was enough fire support to allow the vehicles to move through the city without being destroyed or overrun. Sawyer's assessment of the political situation in Minsk provided opportunities; General Krylov was barely holding the Army, the Internal Forces, and the KGB together. Purges had seen the ranks of the military decimated. Belarus' radar stations, however, could blow the whole operation by detecting the assault force as it entered their airspace. A representative from Cyber Command was brought in, and cyber attack, combined with kinetic operations, was deemed a viable means of eliminating the Belarusian air defence network.

Thus a complex but workable plan was born.

While a cyber attack and a barrage of Tomahawk cruise missiles disabled Belarusian radars, CAG's B Squadron would parachute into a field outside the prison, mount an assault, free the hostages, and then link up with several trucks procured by AFO. Meanwhile, Captain Shultz' Ranger company would capture the airfield and secure a perimeter. Under the cover of an AC-130W and fire directed by AFO Operators positioned in high-rise buildings overlooking the route, the trucks would conduct the forty-minute drive to the airfield, where the assault force would load the hostages onto the MC-130Js, which would have landed immediately after the Rangers declared the airfield secure. The MC-130Js would then fly the hostages, Rangers, and CAG Operators back to RAF Mildenhall, leaving Lieutenant-Colonel Sawyer's AFO Team to Escape and Evade back to friendly territory. The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, afloat in the Denmark Strait, would provide a Quick Reaction Force and a Combat Search & Rescue or CSAR element; Air Force F-22As and F-35As loaded with air-to-air missiles and HARMs would fly above and below the MC-130Js respectively, eliminating any fighters or SAMs that tried to confront the assault force. CAG's veteran Operations Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Vince Rutledge, was assigned as the overall ground force commander; he would parachute in with the Rangers and coordinate the mission from their, while Lieutenant-Colonel Jim Vaughan would command B Squadron's assault on the prison, and Captain Owen Shultz would lead the airfield seizure mission.

Six weeks after the capture of the embassy, B Squadron and C/3/75th Rangers conducted a dress rehearsal for the raid, flying in at low altitude over the Appalachian Mountains to a secret mock-up of the prison located on the Griffiss Air Force Base in up-state New York. Using USAF SERE School candidates in as hostages, B Squadron assaulted the prison mock-up while the Rangers parachuted into the disused air force base. Aside from a sprained ankle sustained by the Ranger Company First Sergeant, Tom Mulroney, the 'dress rehearsal' went off without a hitch.

The Administration in D.C. gave the mission its preliminary go-ahead, and the assault force moved as one to RAF Mildenhall to begin staging. D-Day was set for March 19th, two weeks from the date of the dress rehearsal.

This rescue is not going to go easy.
Belorussian forces will not yield easy at all. There could even be Russian 'advisers' in-place.

[gillan1220]

I'm always excited for another one of forcon's techno-thrillers.

[sandyman]

Love it yet more great work to read week done.

[forcon]

Jun 19, 2021 13:05:37 GMT James G said:

Jun 19, 2021 10:28:16 GMT forcon said:

Notes: 

• U.S. Military Special Missions' Units names change frequently; Delta Force/CAG, SEAL Team 6/DEVGRU, and Intelligence Support Activity/Task Force Orange, for example. I have used the most recent known names for these units. 
• The political background of this story is not particularly realistic; the story is merely meant to be an exploration of how a 'modern day Operation Eagle Claw' might play out. I chose Belarus as the 'OPFOR' because it makes more strategic sense than my alternative options and because information is more readily accessible.
• Enjoy the story!

Part I.

A Surprise in Minsk

The United States Armed Forces' have a troubled history when it pertains to hostage-rescue. The catastrophic failure that was Operation EAGLE CLAW, which took places over forty years prior to the publication of this report, in turn led to the formation of the Joint Special Operations Command or JSOC, which oversaw the U.S. Military's first successful hostage-rescue, that of Kurt Muse, an American citizen imprisoned in Panama. Over the course of the War on Terror, U.S. forces would be responsible for numerous successful hostage-rescues, and for some failures too. Nevertheless, the most inarguably significant operation of such was Operation CRESCENT MOON. The War on Terror had seen America grow used to fighting insurgents and Islamic fundamentalists in Iraq and Afghanistan, and more covertly, in Africa. Hostage rescue operations had naturally been a part of this conflict; American commandos had successfully rescued hostages from the Taliban in Afghanistan, from Al-Shabab in Somalia and from pirates off of that nation's coast, and from Boko Haram in Nigeria. There had come failings with those successes; a British hostage had been killed by a grenade thrown by an American Navy SEAL with the Navy's Special Missions Unit (SMU), the Naval Special Warfare Development Group or DEVGRU. Another attempted raid into ISIS-held territory in Syria the Army's SMU engage in a bitter firefight with hostile militants only to discover that the hostages - amongst them, American aide worker Kayla Mueller - had been moved. The SMU's had learned from their mistakes over the course of two decades of war. It appeared that JSOC had perfected the art of hostage rescue. However, the coup in Belarus, mounted by hardliners led by General Vladimir Krylov that saw the ousting of that country's short-lived democratic government, would lead to JSOC facing a very different mission to those it had been conducting in the Middle East.

When General Krylov's new 'government' discovered what it perceived as evidence of American involvement in what he described as an unlawful seizure of power by Western-backed liberals, it wasn't long before BTR armoured personnel carriers of the KGB (Belarus's interior security service maintained the name and lineage of its Soviet predecessor) appeared outside the U.S. Embassy in Minsk. Krylov, a diagnosed narcissist who's feared temper warded even his closest advisors away from any form of criticism, ordered the arrest of the entire embassy staff, some 107 people, in a fit of rage at his purported discovery. Ambassador Wes Stanford's frantic phone calls to Washington were of little use as black-clad KGB Commandos dismounted from the BTRs and took up positions outside the embassy. Fortunately, the small U.S. Marine Corps security detachment did not offer heavy resistance, which would likely have led to a ferocious firefight and dozens of deaths within the embassy. The Marines only sought to buy time for the staff inside to burn classified documents before the KGB breached. Half-an-hour after their arrival, the KGB did just that. The Marines in the courtyard laid down their weapons before being handcuffed and brutally beat down. The civilian embassy staff inside fared little better as the KGB swarmed in. They barked commands at frightened staffers, who, faced with armed and balaclava-wearing attackers, quickly complied. This study does not endeavour to cover the events that led-up to the arrest of American embassy staff and their detention at the Minsk Detention Facility; it seeks to describe in detail the build-up to and occupation of Operation CRESCENT MOON, the U.S. Military's effort to extract the hostages after negotiations failed to achieve this goal.

*

The actions of General Krylov drew instant and nearly unanimous worldwide condemnation. Even Belarus' staunch Easterly ally, Russia, was hesitant to defend the dictator's actions. In the United States, there was outrage comparable with that seen after the occupation of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979. Unlike on that fateful day, however, live news reporters from Minsk had seen clearly-marked KGB personnel assaulting the American diplomatic facility, which was technically sovereign U.S. soil. In Washington D.C., the Administration, already facing criticism for its doveish nature, turned almost instantaneously to the Joint Chiefs of Staff for options. General John Hargesty, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, presented numerous response plans, including an ultimatum backed up by the threat of military force, along with hostage-rescue scenarios. The Administration, in the hopes of avoiding all-out war with Belarus and enthralled by the special operations capabilities at its fingertips, very quickly ordered Hargesty to have JSOC begin planning a rescue mission.

JSOC, and the military as a whole, had long since planned for the day an American Embassy or diplomatic facility was overrun or taken captive. Decades of planning had come to nothing when insurgents attacked an American outpost in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012. The 10th Special Forces Group - a 'white-side' special operations element reporting to the local theatre commander, not to JSOC like the SMU's - had it's Commanders in-extremis Force or CIF company ready to deploy to buy time for the Delta alert squadron at Fort Bragg to deploy. As it happened, neither units made it to the area in time to prevent the slaughter that would occur at Benghazi. Previous attacks on diplomatic embassies, such as those in Beirut and Kenya, had similarly seen an overall security failure met with similar shortcomings by JSOC. The command as a whole was adamant that this time, things would be different. As the JSOC staff began putting together a comprehensive plan to extract the embassy staff from Belarus, a major operational failing began to rear it's ugly head in the form of a near total lack of intelligence. It was public knowledge due to Belarusian television broadcasts that all 107 detained embassy staff were being held at Minsk Detention Facility #1, the old castle in the centre of the city. The location of the prison was known; beyond that, however, it was a proverbial black hole. Where were the hostages being held within the prison? What was the enemy strength? Could the power be turned off? How thick were the outer walls? How quickly could the enemy respond? All of these questions had to be answered before an assault could be mounted.

To answer these questions, JSOC Commander Lieutenant-General Michael Connery turned to a man who he'd known many years ago while commanding a Ranger Battalion in Afghanistan. Lieutenant-Colonel Vic Sawyer was the commander of Delta's G Squadron, the units in-house clandestine operations unit. While all Delta operators underwent training in basic low-visibility and espionage-type operations, G Squadron focused exclusively on clandestine arts such as agent running and counter surveillance. Many G Squadron Operators were also shooters recruited from Delta's sabre squadrons, but a smaller number of its personnel were pulled from outside the unit. Unlike in Delta's line squadrons, many G Squadron Operators were women, most of whom were from military intelligence and cryptography-focused MOS'. Delta selection was open to women, but thus far none had managed to pass through the course. It must be said that in fairness, the selection course for Delta is designed for men, and that a different selection course exists for women hoping to join the ranks of G Squadron. The course is by no means easier than that of the men, it is simply designed for women hoping to take part in covert and low-visibility operations in predominantly urban environments and thus focuses more on psychological aspects than physical conditioning. DEVGRU's Black Squadron was the Navy SMU's equivalent of G Squadron; the Intelligence Support Activity or Task Force Orange (TFO) was similar in capability and mission set to G and Black Squadrons, only it's purpose was to perform that role for JSOC as an entity rather than for any individual SMU. 

Lt-Col. Sawyer was assigned to lead an Advanced Force Operations (AFO) Cell into Minsk to gather intelligence on the target. Sawyer, a veteran Delta Troop and squadron commander with 11 deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan under his belt, was essentially given free reign to choose his team. He settled on a motley crew of operatives recruited from CAG and its navy counterpart, DEVGRU, as well as the Intelligence Support Activity. The outlier in this force of no more than twenty individuals was it's second-in-command, Major Todd Brenervick. Brenervick, unlike the other members of AFO, had no experience in a Special Missions Unit. However, he was a veteran military intelligence officer who had also spent five of the fifteen years since he had graduated West Point as a Special Forces officer, first commanding an Alpha Team and then serving as the Operations Officer of a special forces battalion. Brenervick's experience and skills were respected within AFO despite the fact that he had been summoned from outside of JSOC. The AFO Operators infiltrated Belarus using non-official cover identities of their own making; each operator crafted a detailed 'legend' based on their own language skills and cultural and ethnic backgrounds. They posed as Frenchmen, Canadians, Moroccans, Belgians, Czechs, Brazilians, Germans, and Koreans, acting as mixture of businessmen and thrill-seeking tourists. While their infiltrations into Minsk were gut-wrenchingly harrowing, AFO made it into the city and set up shop at a warehouse provided by a local CIA asset. Within two weeks of the embassy seizure, JSOC had operatives on the ground in Minsk.

In the United States, both the CIA and JSOC's own intelligence-gathering apparatus worked to interview former detainees held at the Minsk Detention Centre. As it happened, their were two former detainees, one of whom was a resident of Poland while the second individual lived in California under a new identity. Members of the JSOC Intelligence Brigade, a creation of General Stanley McChrystal, who had overseen the Command's transformation into an all-arms 'network' during the counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq. A successive series of interviews saw JSOC gain a rough idea of the layout of the prison.

Meanwhile, at Fort Bragg, CAG's alert sabre Squadron, at the time B Squadron, was spending it's days in the 'house of horrors', honing it's skills in close-quarter-combat. It was destined to be B Squadron that would conduct the rescue, simply by virtue of it being the alert squadron at the outbreak of the crisis. B Squadron's operators were thrilled when CAG's intelligence officer showed up at their compound with a hand-drawn diagram of the layout of the detention centre, and a myriad of photographs taken by the AFO Cell already conducting reconnaissance operations in Minsk. Engineers immediately began constructing a mock-up of the building based on the photographs AFO had provided and the interviews with former detainees. B Squadron's commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Jim Vaughan, worked tirelessly with his Troop Commanders and senior NCOs to come up with a workable assault plan, before deciding that his squadron as a whole was undermanned, given the size of the target building, its urban nature, and the need to provide security for the assault force. Vaughan asked Colonel Jack Lynch, the Unit's commanding officer, to provide another Assault Troop from one of the other squadron's to reinforce his assault plan. Lieutenant-Colonel Sawyers had recruited a sniper/recce team from A Squadron as part of his AFO Cell, and D Squadron was at present on a three-month rotation through Iraq and Syria. All CAG Sabre Squadron's had three 'Troops', each led by a Captain or a Major; there were two Assault Troops, consisting of a headquarters section and four, five-man assault teams, and a single sniper/recce troop, which also contained a headquarters section, but consisted of four-man sniper/spotter teams rather than assault teams. At the risk of leaving the Unit dangerously undermanned to deal with another contingency which might occur, Lynch agreed to attach C Squadron's Assault Troop 2 (C2) to B Squadron. This left B Squadron with four Troops; Assault Troops B1, led by Major Elliot Bradshaw, B2, led by Captain Nate Dwyer, C2, led by Captain Scott Kelley, and B3, the sniper/recce troop, led by Major Casey Lyndall. B Squadron practised relentlessly for a variety of assault scenarios on the prison compound, including a ground-based attack, a helicopter air assault and a parachute jump.

*

One problem that JSOC had not yet resolved was how to insert and extract the assault force and the hostages. While a helicopter assault was deemed plausible, it would require dozens of helicopters to insert the assault force and even more to bring the hostages out with them, all of which would require massive support to avoid Belarusian air defences. An option that was generally favoured within the Command was the parachute assault variant, which would put JSOC in a position where extracting the assault force would become just as dangerous as using helicopters. Initially, Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) wanted to use its MC-130Js based in England at RAF Mildenhall to complete this task. However, the mission would require at least eight MC-130Js, and so it was suggested that C-17As be used instead, due to their ability to carry almost twice the number of troops as the smaller, but more capable special operations aircraft. After much back-and-forth between AFSOC and Army officers at JSOC, it was decided after-all that the smaller MC-130Js would be used after all, predominantly due to their limited rough-landing capabilities and the excellent training of their aircrews, who were specially trained to operate behind enemy lines. That posed a question, however, as to how the assault force and the hostages could be evacuated from the prison after the successful completion of the raid. The solution involved Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, commanded by Captain Owen Schultz.

Captain Shultz' men were part of the alert Ranger battalion, in itself a component of the larger JSOC Alert Package. Having been eagerly anticipating news regarding the embassy crisis in Minsk, the Rangers finally got the word that their services would be needed nearly a month after the beginning of the crisis. JSOC's plan now involved the capture of Minsk-Machulishchi Airbase, located west of the capital. Acting simultaneously with the CAG Assault on the prison complex, the Rangers would seize the airfield while an AC-130W destroyed the barracks and guard posts around the facility. JSOC Presented the plan to all of the key officers involved, including Lieutenant-Colonel Sawyer in Minsk through an encrypted video call. Sawyer believed that he would be able to acquire and provide vehicles to move the assault force and the hostages from Minsk Detention Centre to Minsk-Machulishchi Airbase, provided there was enough fire support to allow the vehicles to move through the city without being destroyed or overrun. Sawyer's assessment of the political situation in Minsk provided opportunities; General Krylov was barely holding the Army, the Internal Forces, and the KGB together. Purges had seen the ranks of the military decimated. Belarus' radar stations, however, could blow the whole operation by detecting the assault force as it entered their airspace. A representative from Cyber Command was brought in, and cyber attack, combined with kinetic operations, was deemed a viable means of eliminating the Belarusian air defence network.

Thus a complex but workable plan was born.

While a cyber attack and a barrage of Tomahawk cruise missiles disabled Belarusian radars, CAG's B Squadron would parachute into a field outside the prison, mount an assault, free the hostages, and then link up with several trucks procured by AFO. Meanwhile, Captain Shultz' Ranger company would capture the airfield and secure a perimeter. Under the cover of an AC-130W and fire directed by AFO Operators positioned in high-rise buildings overlooking the route, the trucks would conduct the forty-minute drive to the airfield, where the assault force would load the hostages onto the MC-130Js, which would have landed immediately after the Rangers declared the airfield secure. The MC-130Js would then fly the hostages, Rangers, and CAG Operators back to RAF Mildenhall, leaving Lieutenant-Colonel Sawyer's AFO Team to Escape and Evade back to friendly territory. The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, afloat in the Denmark Strait, would provide a Quick Reaction Force and a Combat Search & Rescue or CSAR element; Air Force F-22As and F-35As loaded with air-to-air missiles and HARMs would fly above and below the MC-130Js respectively, eliminating any fighters or SAMs that tried to confront the assault force. CAG's veteran Operations Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Vince Rutledge, was assigned as the overall ground force commander; he would parachute in with the Rangers and coordinate the mission from their, while Lieutenant-Colonel Jim Vaughan would command B Squadron's assault on the prison, and Captain Owen Shultz would lead the airfield seizure mission.

Six weeks after the capture of the embassy, B Squadron and C/3/75th Rangers conducted a dress rehearsal for the raid, flying in at low altitude over the Appalachian Mountains to a secret mock-up of the prison located on the Griffiss Air Force Base in up-state New York. Using USAF SERE School candidates in as hostages, B Squadron assaulted the prison mock-up while the Rangers parachuted into the disused air force base. Aside from a sprained ankle sustained by the Ranger Company First Sergeant, Tom Mulroney, the 'dress rehearsal' went off without a hitch.

The Administration in D.C. gave the mission its preliminary go-ahead, and the assault force moved as one to RAF Mildenhall to begin staging. D-Day was set for March 19th, two weeks from the date of the dress rehearsal.

This rescue is not going to go easy.
Belorussian forces will not yield easy at all. There could even be Russian 'advisers' in-place.

It's certainly going to be tough to pull off; there are enemy garrisons and airfields near to the area of operations, countless SAM sites and radar facilities. Fortunately, there is a plan to take them out...

As for Russians, they might well be there covertly, but Moscow has had to back off from overt backing of Belarus' actions following the embassy takeover. Even by Putin's standards, it's tough to support such a thing openly.

[forcon]

Jun 20, 2021 5:21:55 GMT gillan1220 said:

I'm always excited for another one of forcon's techno-thrillers.

Thank you! More to come this weekend.

[forcon]

Jun 22, 2021 11:04:36 GMT sandyman said:

Love it yet more great work to read week done.

Thanks! There will be more up this weekend!

[forcon]

Guys I'm so sorry for the hiatus, I planned to write the second and final part last weekend but I've been swamped and I've not really had the energy or the headspace to write, but I promise this story will be finished!

On a very related note, has anyone ever heard of Nitro Zues?

[forcon]

And a little teaser:

"All Bravo Elements, Bravo-One-One," Lieutenant-Colonel Jim Vaughan announced through his radio after his Delta assault team leaders confirmed they were in position. "I have control. On my count. Stand by. Five, four, three, two, one, execute, execute, execute!"

[James G]

Jul 14, 2021 17:12:33 GMT forcon said:

Guys I'm so sorry for the hiatus, I planned to write the second and final part last weekend but I've been swamped and I've not really had the energy or the headspace to write, but I promise this story will be finished!

On a very related note, has anyone ever heard of Nitro Zues?

These things take time when they are good!
Still looking forward to the outcome.

[forcon]

Part II.

Into the Storm

The plan to neutralise Belarusian radars, thus granting Operation Crescent Moon the element of surprise, was called Nitro Zeus. Originally developed as a weapon to be used against Iran, Nitro Zeus would, if all went to plan, cut off enemy radar sites from higher headquarters, thus denying them the ability to report the presence of numerous American aircraft in their airspace to higher command, which in turn would prevent the enemy from scrambling fighters or engaging the transports with mobile SAMs. Furthermore, actions would also be undertaken to prevent the mobile radars that worked as part of larger SAM batteries, namely SA-10s and SA-20s. At 2300 hours, as the seven MC-130J Commando II aircraft loaded with Delta operators and Rangers took off from RAF Mildenhall, an army of expertly-trained cyber warfare technicians began their 'non-kinetic' assault in cyberspace. At sea, the attack submarine USS John Warner, opened her launch tubes. From the choppy waters of the North sea, she launched 31 BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles, aimed at the now-ineffective air defence radars operated by the Belarusian air defence forces. Further west, the seven MC-130Js skimmed over Denmark, turning east over the Baltic Sea and then into Polish airspace. Amongst the Delta operators was a Polish GROM commando, a Major assigned as a liaison officer. His presence on the operation has been a condition of the use of Polish airspace, but Lieutenant-Colonel Vaughan, the B Squadron Commander who was also responsible for the assault on the prison had worked with GROM before in Iraq and he was glad to have the liaison officer on board. 

At 20,000 feet, high above the transports, F-22As of the 27th Fighter Squadron sailed through the night sky as escorts, ready to 'splash' any enemy fighters that dared to emerge to challenge the transports. Alongside the transports were F-35As of the 595th Fighter Squadron, equipped for a mixture of defence suppression and close air support tasks. An E-3G Sentry AWACS aircraft, held back over Poland, coordinated the aircraft while the overall mission commander, Brigadier-General Denton, the overall mission commander, was aboard an Air Force E-8C JSTARS aircraft. The assault portion of the task force - seven MC-130Js escorted by eight F-22As and twelve F-35As - slipped into Belarusian airspace through the disabled radar network, moments before the Tomahawks struck their targets. Now that the mission had gone 'kinetic', the race was on to free the hostages before General Krylov could have them executed. JSOC considered that possibility unlikely, as doing so would undoubtedly result in a massive bombing campaign and likely a ground invasion, but nonetheless it could not be ignored. Shortly after crossing into Belarusian airspace, the aircraft carrying the Rangers and Delta assault components split up, with Captain Shultz' men heading for the airfield they planned to seize and Lieutenant-Colonel Vaughan's operators flying straight towards Minsk. 

On the ground in the city, Lieutenant-Colonel Sawyer's AFO team was busy securing the trucks for to be used to move the freed hostages and the assault force to the airfield. Sawyer and his men wore civilian clothing, carrying their 9mm Glocks in concealed holsters. They also had Sig Saur MCX Low Visibility Assault Weapons or LVAWs and chest rigs to carry their ammunition and radios concealed in their footwells of their respective vehicles. They moved through a city that was beginning to realise that something was deeply, deeply wrong. Other members of Sawyer's undercover AFO cell were positioning themselves atop high-rise buildings to call-in airstrikes in support of the raid. Their role was particularly hazardous, as they would be completely without support and would have to escape from Belarus themselves after the assault was complete. The roar of turboprop engines suddenly echoed across the cloudy skies of the city. Ramps lowered, and B Squadron's operators were floating down towards the prison compound within a minute of entering the city's airspace. Anti-aircraft guns erupted into life with bursts of unguided tracer rounds. The Commando II pilots pulled their aircraft away, climbing hard as the AFO personnel began identifying the ZSU-23 guns. The circling F-35As locked their Mavericks onto several of the guns and fired, bringing war onto the city. Amidst the chaos, Delta Force operators began landing outside the prison in their respective Troops. Major Lyndall's Sniper/Recce Troop quickly established blocking positions, while Captain Kelley's attached Assault Troop moved into position to prepare to attack the barracks within the prison compound. Finally, B Squadron's two organic assault troops, led respectively by Major Elliot Bradshaw and Captain Nate Dwyer, landed and prepared to assault the compound and move into the main building in which the hostages were held. Lieutenant-Colonel Vaughan and B Squadron's headquarters Element attached itself to the Sniper/Recce Troop. All was set. 

Meanwhile, three additional MC-130Js moved into position above the airfield. As the Rangers prepared to jump, two F-35As unleashed their payloads of GBU-15s onto the barracks just outside the airstrip, killing dozens of the guards. This first bombardment marked the initiation of the Rangers' airdrop. Stepping into the night, with Captain Shultz' and Company First Sergeant Aaron Wright naturally in the lead, a bouquet of parachutes quickly opened above the airfield as the troops below rushed to man defensive positions. The F-35s circled back again and strafed the anti-aircraft guns they had located in their previous runs. The Rangers landed on the airstrip in a disorganized fashion, quickly becoming separated as AAA and small-arms fire flew through the darkness. The Rangers were nonetheless excellently led and well-trained. They had practiced this jump a dozen times, preparing for every eventuality. Captain Shultz quickly linked up with his 2nd Platoon and led a successful attack on the control tower. From the tower, Shultz was able to coordinate 1st and 3rd Platoons to counterattack at the aircraft hangers from which ground personnel stationed at the airbase were organising their defence. It took a half hour for the Rangers to overcome enemy resistance, leaving 11 or their own dead during the gunfight. Several Rangers were involved in hand-to-hand combat while seizing the hangers. By 0100, however, the airfield was in American hands, at great cost. 

Back in Minsk, Lieutenant-Colonel Vaughan checked in on his Troop Commanders, recieving the word that they were ready to commence their assault. 

"All stations, Bravo Zero One," Vaughan announced through his radio, "I have control. On my count. Five, four, three, two, one, execute, execute execute." 

The assault commenced. 

[James G]

Jul 28, 2021 15:51:59 GMT forcon said:

Part II.

Into the Storm

The plan to neutralise Belarusian radars, thus granting Operation Crescent Moon the element of surprise, was called Nitro Zeus. Originally developed as a weapon to be used against Iran, Nitro Zeus would, if all went to plan, cut off enemy radar sites from higher headquarters, thus denying them the ability to report the presence of numerous American aircraft in their airspace to higher command, which in turn would prevent the enemy from scrambling fighters or engaging the transports with mobile SAMs. Furthermore, actions would also be undertaken to prevent the mobile radars that worked as part of larger SAM batteries, namely SA-10s and SA-20s. At 2300 hours, as the seven MC-130J Commando II aircraft loaded with Delta operators and Rangers took off from RAF Mildenhall, an army of expertly-trained cyber warfare technicians began their 'non-kinetic' assault in cyberspace. At sea, the attack submarine USS John Warner, opened her launch tubes. From the choppy waters of the North sea, she launched 31 BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles, aimed at the now-ineffective air defence radars operated by the Belarusian air defence forces. Further west, the seven MC-130Js skimmed over Denmark, turning east over the Baltic Sea and then into Polish airspace. Amongst the Delta operators was a Polish GROM commando, a Major assigned as a liaison officer. His presence on the operation has been a condition of the use of Polish airspace, but Lieutenant-Colonel Vaughan, the B Squadron Commander who was also responsible for the assault on the prison had worked with GROM before in Iraq and he was glad to have the liaison officer on board. 

At 20,000 feet, high above the transports, F-22As of the 27th Fighter Squadron sailed through the night sky as escorts, ready to 'splash' any enemy fighters that dared to emerge to challenge the transports. Alongside the transports were F-35As of the 595th Fighter Squadron, equipped for a mixture of defence suppression and close air support tasks. An E-3G Sentry AWACS aircraft, held back over Poland, coordinated the aircraft while the overall mission commander, Brigadier-General Denton, the overall mission commander, was aboard an Air Force E-8C JSTARS aircraft. The assault portion of the task force - seven MC-130Js escorted by eight F-22As and twelve F-35As - slipped into Belarusian airspace through the disabled radar network, moments before the Tomahawks struck their targets. Now that the mission had gone 'kinetic', the race was on to free the hostages before General Krylov could have them executed. JSOC considered that possibility unlikely, as doing so would undoubtedly result in a massive bombing campaign and likely a ground invasion, but nonetheless it could not be ignored. Shortly after crossing into Belarusian airspace, the aircraft carrying the Rangers and Delta assault components split up, with Captain Shultz' men heading for the airfield they planned to seize and Lieutenant-Colonel Vaughan's operators flying straight towards Minsk. 

On the ground in the city, Lieutenant-Colonel Sawyer's AFO team was busy securing the trucks for to be used to move the freed hostages and the assault force to the airfield. Sawyer and his men wore civilian clothing, carrying their 9mm Glocks in concealed holsters. They also had Sig Saur MCX Low Visibility Assault Weapons or LVAWs and chest rigs to carry their ammunition and radios concealed in their footwells of their respective vehicles. They moved through a city that was beginning to realise that something was deeply, deeply wrong. Other members of Sawyer's undercover AFO cell were positioning themselves atop high-rise buildings to call-in airstrikes in support of the raid. Their role was particularly hazardous, as they would be completely without support and would have to escape from Belarus themselves after the assault was complete. The roar of turboprop engines suddenly echoed across the cloudy skies of the city. Ramps lowered, and B Squadron's operators were floating down towards the prison compound within a minute of entering the city's airspace. Anti-aircraft guns erupted into life with bursts of unguided tracer rounds. The Commando II pilots pulled their aircraft away, climbing hard as the AFO personnel began identifying the ZSU-23 guns. The circling F-35As locked their Mavericks onto several of the guns and fired, bringing war onto the city. Amidst the chaos, Delta Force operators began landing outside the prison in their respective Troops. Major Lyndall's Sniper/Recce Troop quickly established blocking positions, while Captain Kelley's attached Assault Troop moved into position to prepare to attack the barracks within the prison compound. Finally, B Squadron's two organic assault troops, led respectively by Major Elliot Bradshaw and Captain Nate Dwyer, landed and prepared to assault the compound and move into the main building in which the hostages were held. Lieutenant-Colonel Vaughan and B Squadron's headquarters Element attached itself to the Sniper/Recce Troop. All was set. 

Meanwhile, three additional MC-130Js moved into position above the airfield. As the Rangers prepared to jump, two F-35As unleashed their payloads of GBU-15s onto the barracks just outside the airstrip, killing dozens of the guards. This first bombardment marked the initiation of the Rangers' airdrop. Stepping into the night, with Captain Shultz' and Company First Sergeant Aaron Wright naturally in the lead, a bouquet of parachutes quickly opened above the airfield as the troops below rushed to man defensive positions. The F-35s circled back again and strafed the anti-aircraft guns they had located in their previous runs. The Rangers landed on the airstrip in a disorganized fashion, quickly becoming separated as AAA and small-arms fire flew through the darkness. The Rangers were nonetheless excellently led and well-trained. They had practiced this jump a dozen times, preparing for every eventuality. Captain Shultz quickly linked up with his 2nd Platoon and led a successful attack on the control tower. From the tower, Shultz was able to coordinate 1st and 3rd Platoons to counterattack at the aircraft hangers from which ground personnel stationed at the airbase were organising their defence. It took a half hour for the Rangers to overcome enemy resistance, leaving 11 or their own dead during the gunfight. Several Rangers were involved in hand-to-hand combat while seizing the hangers. By 0100, however, the airfield was in American hands, at great cost. 

Back in Minsk, Lieutenant-Colonel Vaughan checked in on his Troop Commanders, recieving the word that they were ready to commence their assault. 

"All stations, Bravo Zero One," Vaughan announced through his radio, "I have control. On my count. Five, four, three, two, one, execute, execute execute." 

The assault commenced. 

Boom, we are underway!
Tough fight there at the airbase, but resistance was always going to be significant.

[gillan1220]

This would make a great movie. Not to mention, the SIG MCX is a beautiful gun. First saw it in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare where it is known as the M13.