The Bears gambit: Intermission 4

[Nike-Ajax]

Hello Everyone

 

First and foremost, then let me start by making an excuse:

I am sorry that both Intermission and next Scenario in this Campaign have been delayed. The fault is mine. 

 

The next and final Scenario will be held on Sunday the 29´th of April at the usual time of 2000 GMT+1, so 1900 GMT. 

 

Again thanks to everybody who made this work, including the people who were a part of the Session.  

 

As usually then I recommend reading the PDF

 

 

This is the Game list:

 

https://www.kanium.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=11630#p11630

 

And the PDF

 

BG Intermission 4.pdf

 

The AAR became so huge that its impossible to post here...

 

 

 

The Bears Gambit

 

 

“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

Albert Einstein

 

Intermission 4

 

 

 

By Nike-Ajax, All Rights reserved

 

World War 3 – for generations Europeans have dreaded the words and the ideas it conjured up.

Nobody really wanted it happen, but in the end, then nobody really was willing or able to stop it either. No matter what, then it is no longer just an academic concept or paper exercise. But rather it is a reality that the world in general and Europeans in particular will have to deal with, politics have failed and a military solution at least in the short perspective seems the only alternative.

On the 8^th of November 2018, the NATO countries invoked Article V of the NATO charter.

This followed the events of the huge battle that took place east of Klaipeda and left over 100 Russian vehicles destroyed and at least 1000 Russian soldiers dead and wounded. The JEF comparatively paid a comparatively light price having lost less than 20 vehicles and 100 dead and wounded. The 1:5 ratio and huge victory, however did not quiet the few but very vocal voices calling for a full withdrawal and unilateral ceasefire.

However consequently, and regardless of the tiny anti-war grouping in the west, a state of war now exists between Byelorussia and Russia on one side and NATO on the other. Or rather most of NATO, as France has declared that they have pulled themselves from the NATO command structure and refuse to be involved in what they have termed “A war of fools”.

Turkey at the same time not only pulled themselves completely out of NATO, but in a move that astounded most has chosen to sign a non-aggression pact and a friendship and cooperation agreement with Russia. Turkey has stated that this is a case of “Chickens coming home to roost”, and that this is also a consequence of decades of being slighted by both NATO and EU. Regarding the latter, then it is somewhat unclear if president Erdogan was talking about Turkey or Russia.

The TF´s of JEF have done well, as have all the other NATO units in the Baltic regions and other places. They have struck and they have struck hard. In the air then they – just barely - have air parity, but still have to contend with powerful Russian SAM systems including S-300, S-400 and S-500, which hampers the ability to do strike missions and CAS. They have however used this relative parity if not superiority effectively, perhaps mostly on sea.

The picture that is emerging, is that Russia had been planning an all-out war, and a simultaneous attack on all the Baltic Nations, but that the actions in southern Lithuania particularly the heavy defence as well as the precipitous action that the Russians got dragged into with TF-48 and later TF-32 near Vilkaviškis, forced them to postpone the other offensives to reinforce and concentrate on their southern attack vector. In other words it seems that the war started before their preparations were complete. This is only partly good news as the same certainly can be said of the other side.

Russia achieved total Strategic if not tactical surprise through the use of Maskirovka supported by applied politics in the Hybrid Battle Field. 

The Russian Baltic fleet based in Kaliningrad and Saint Petersburg, which had been surging and deploying in the mid- and southern Baltic Sea, was baited by the New Allies which Media have termed the Western coalition, which includes Sweden among others.

Information was deliberately leaked that a massive convoy action would fight their way to Estonia to resupply and reinforce units in the Baltics. This in fact was partially true.

What was not said is that this was preceded by the stealthy deployment of almost all the Diesel-electric submarines of the northern NATO countries, as well as some American Nuclear Attack Submarines, into the Area of Operations. They passed the Danish straits of the Great belt and Oresund submerged, unobserved and unopposed. At the same time the New Allies quietly concentrated SEAD, anti-sub, attack and fighter planes at airbases across the area. Concurrently with this, then USA supported by UK deployed a combined and reinforced Carrier Air Group supported by several SSNs, Norwegian fighter planes, numerous ASW planes and all of the Norwegian SSKs to the north of Norway to engage and destroy any Russian vessels or submarines trying to pass into the Atlantic or operating in the area. At the same time then the SOSUS network have come under full military control again, despite loud complaints.

In a twist of irony, then the Norwegian SSKs are now operating out of the reactivated Olavsvern naval base, which used to be leased by the Norwegians to the Russians. It has been strengthened, refitted and cleared of Russian surprises including listening devices and IEDs, and is now defended by a strong Norwegian force including SAM batteries.

This is a move that has been mirrored across Europe as many former military installations have been taken over or reactivated by the military again, including the Swedish naval base at Muskö. This has proven to not be without problems as many of them have been neglected for years, and many former military areas have been turned over to civilian authorities, in a post-cold war effort to exploit the so-called, but in reality fictional,  “Peace dividend”. The political eagerness to shut down military installations is a move that in hindsight has now proven foolish, ill-advised and short-sighted, not to mention very expensive. The European nations are thus finding out that reactivating units and installations is not just difficult, but also a costly effort.

On the 1^st of December 2018 the first hammer stroke fell in the Baltics, following the Russian reaction to the very deliberately leaked information. In a very complex and well-coordinated attack, the New Allies struck with everything they had in the Air, Ground, Sea and Below sea against all Russian Vessels in the Baltics: both at sea and in Port. While the Russians expected the attack, they certainly did not expect the ferocity and scale of it.

This attack was preceded by massive and simultaneous attacks on the military and civilian IT infrastructure as well as infrastructural targets by the New Allies against Russia and their allies. In this they thus mirrored, what Russia, China and others had done to the west, and did it with a ferocity the enemy seemed to not have expected at all. Informally and unbidden, then parallel to these attacks, Russia, China and Iran were the targets of a multitude of coordinated internet attacks by numerous hacker groups including Anonymous, that targeted everything from newspapers to traffic lights and Governmental IT infrastructure.

And thus the Dance of death started.

The – very secretly – stated objective was simple but ambitious: wipe away most if not all Russian naval capability in the Baltics, while degrading Russian air defence and air power locally in that theater in the process.

It makes little sense to say where it started, as this battle was waged across thousands of square kilometres and from a height of kilometres to a depth of hundreds of meters below the sea.

Allied diesel-electric submarines that had been stealthily shadowing Russian submarines either torpedoed them or radioed instructions to Hunter-killer air ASW groups that destroyed most of the remaining. Most but not all the Russian submarines was destroyed like this, and although the allied losses in this Phase were comparatively light, then that is hardly a consolation to the crews of the two allied submarines or 3 ASW airplanes that was lost in counter fire or by Russians just shooting first.

And this did not account for all Russian submarines.

A Russian submarine managed to sneak up on one of the Surface Action Groups and sink one warship, while severely damaging a second. Another Russian sub managed to sneak up on the huge convoy and sink three of the transport ships and set a fourth ablaze. Both submarines were engaged and at least one is confirmed sunk. 

As for the Russian surface assets them some were destroyed in ports, which were struck by a combination of SEAD, Air-to-Ground attack and huge number of cruise missile attacks.

Again this did not come without cost. Even though Allied SOF forces, including Swedish SOG, Norwegian MJK and FSK, Danish Jæger- and Frømandskorps, Polish GROM and English SBS and SAS had struck at Russian Air defence and Air control sites as well as military command centres in advance, then the Russian Air defence is very sophisticated and comprehensive. And the Russians are no fools.

In the ensuing battle 27 allied fighter planes were shot down as well as one AWACS aircraft that fell to a sustained attack.

Even though after action reports that almost all targets were successfully engaged and destroyed, then this is a severe blow to the alliance. Although the attack took a toll of almost twice that number in Russian planes, then this is a bitter if not Pyrrhic victory. Regardless of which, then it was a victory that the New Allies can hardly afford to repeat too many times.

On the sea the New Allies fared better: in successive waves then Russian surface assets were mercilessly engaged and reengaged by air, sea and subsurface attacks by missiles, bombs and torpedoes. Even though this took a toll of another 9 combat aircraft, another submarine and two Allied surface assets, then the Russians lost many airplanes as well and the Russian Baltic fleet is basically no longer is a fighting force. But the operation also hammered home another problem: due to years of budget cutbacks, then there simply isn’t a large enough stockpile of smart weapons and missiles to keep this rate of operation up. In some instances then the New Allies are already starting to look at using less sophisticated ordnance. However there also exists a limited supply of these.

There also exists a limited amount of Combat Aircraft, as the European nations who bought the F-35 fighter, has yet to receive let alone fly one of them. This in turn has forced them to re-evaluate their situation, which means interim orders of amongst others the Gripen fighter has been placed and production is ramping up to full 24/7 wartime production. But things take time. 

The Russians have struck back though, and done so with a well-aimed blow. Russian submarines that slipped through the not very tight NATO screen to the north, a screen that simply no longer have the strength it did during the cold war; have attacked and destroyed most of the undersea communication cables linking Europe and North America.

This is an unmitigated disaster as these cables not only carried a lot of civilian information traffic, but also much of the Military communication. NATO is still reeling from this blow.

The New Allies have accelerated the process of calling up whatever reserves not already activated, and pulling every conceivable piece of military equipment from storage or even museums and refurbishing them as necessary to get them into at least a reasonable ready combat state. There are both successes and failures in this. The Danes for instance have managed to get 12 M109s ready with new parts including new barrels, engines, torsion bars and suspension rushed from USA along with mechanics. Also they have pulled 12 Leopard 1a5DKs from museums and have done whatever updates and refurbishments they could and are now fielding them as heavy recon. Sadly the Swedes have discovered that most of their old JA/AJS-37 Viggens are no longer flyable, as someone apparently chose not to pay for the heating and dehumidifiers leading to corrosion and degradation of equipment and avionics.

On a positive note, then the Swedes have managed to get some more Coastal missile batteries into action by stripping museums and spare parts from wherever they can. Similar positive and negative surprises are being experienced across Europe as the wheels of war are grinding into full war-production.

USA has declared a national emergency and has stated that they again will become the Arsenal of Democracy – and are reactivating every ordnance, ship, airplane and weapons factory as fast as they can. They have also started recalling every reservist and person still covered by a contingency contract with the armed forces, as well as recruiting. And there are a surprising number of willing recruits not only in USA.

This is in part also due to the escalating international situation where it seems that every dictator is testing the boundaries and flexing his or her muscles at a time where the west and USA seems fully occupied with other issues.

Mixed ad-hoc battalions some of them equipped with weapons that include British surplus SLR and Bren guns have been fielded, and some deployed to the Baltics, along with whatever MANPADS, ATGM, Mortars and assorted support equipment that were in storage. Many of these are manned by National guard/Territorial army/Home guards units. Although good, then this in turn challenges the Allies Logistics because of the many different calibres and ordnance needs.  Most NATO countries are nationalizing formerly closed barracks and military training areas, where this is possible – with predictable negative backlash from those it concerns.

On the other side Russia and Byelorussia are also waking up militarily and have started reactivating their vast stores of equipment and ammunition, and recalling reservist and volunteers. The equipment might be old as are many of their reservists and not all reservist or vehicles are useable, but there are a lot of both. And ammunition, though a lot of it not modern at all, is plentiful.

And a week ago somebody opened Pandoras Box. Even though no one knows for certain, then the initial clues point towards Russia, Iran, North Korea and China.

In a massive leak that was simultaneous sent to press agencies, newspapers and Anti-corruption NGOs across the globe, and in a scope that easily dwarfs WikiLeaks, Panama papers and the Appleby Leak combined, then thousands upon thousands of files on decades of mistakes, corruption, crimes and cover-ups in all the industrialized nations, were distributed. 

Many hundreds of politicians, Political parties, business people and in a new move especially Civil servants, have found that the carpet has been lifted to reveal too many dirty secrets, lies and mistakes to be counted or countered. This has shook the nations at a time where they need to stand together, which indeed was in all likelihood probably the purpose.

Surprisingly then this cache of information also includes every single traitor that has worked for the Soviet Union, DDR, China, North Korea and former Warsaw Pact countries until 1990. Many of these traitors have through the years won liable lawsuits against people who declared them out as traitors. In at least some cases across Europe, then seven of these named traitors have been murdered by what is expected to be vigilantes operating outside the law.

The chaos is not lessened by the discovery of other traitors. The leak of information was a well thought –out ruse and trap:

Many different versions and with specific different wording was put out to what was considered suspect persons. And then every resource was used in tracking them. In this way many national NATO and JEF countries was able to arrest people, most of whom was very shocked to be discovered delivering information to Russia and other sources. This includes national as well as EU officials. Some of these traitors claim that they acted in the interest of peace. But whatever their motivation, then they about to discover that giving the Enemy restricted information in a time of war carries a very heavy sentence.

At the same time IT infrastructure in the EU and NATO countries are continually under attack and pressure, which is made more serious as it comes on top of the severing of the Trans-Atlantic communication cables. The same goes for Russia, however as there is less automation in Russia, then they are to a certain degree somewhat less vulnerable.

 

The war is here and given the price that has already been payed, then it looks like this will not be solved with words.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 29, 2018 by Nike-Ajax

[Nike-Ajax]

And if by now its getting confusing:

A Readers/players readlist

This Campaign relies heavily on a narrative, and probably more than is the norm. For those who want to experience everything in the proper and correct order, then this is the structure:

1. Prologue
2. Background Scenario 1
3. Orders Scenario 1
4. Scenario Session
5. Intermission 1 with AAR
6. Background Scenario 2
3. Orders Scenario 2
4. Scenario Session
5. Intermission 2 with AAR
Etc...

It will be finished with an Epilogue

I strongly recommend all to read the PDF - as any internetpage generally is a poor medium for textediting.

[Nike-Ajax]

So ... minor detail, just to verify:

 

It will be held on Sunday the 29´th of April, and NOT the 28´th as previously written ...