[Mohoender]

On April 29th 2001, a report is issued to NATO high command by the CIA. It states that “if the major Soviet units that escaped in November 2000 remain unable to take any offensive action, that won’t last for very long. They are all actually undergoing repair at Murmansk and most ships should be available again by late fall. In addition, if Moscow didn’t lay down any more ships, work continues on the vessels that were already under construction. Most important a sister ship to the sunken Ulyanovsk is now nearing completion and the commission of such a ship could negate the previous victory. Therefore actions should be taken immediately against the Northern Fleet, its bases and the naval yard that was built there to replace the loss of Nikolayev yards to Ukraine.” At this time, NATO is already working on an offensive to take place in northern Norway but this report pushes them to accelerate things.

As a result, two weeks later, it has been decided two things. All available NATO naval forces to the Atlantic are to conduct an attack on Murmansk and Polyarny, taking advantage of the current weakness of the Soviet fleet there. Everyone agrees to this with the French Naval Attaché being the only one to express some doubts about the plan. The US and British officers reassure him that this is carefully studied and, moreover, it won’t come without a land action. This is the second part of the plan and the land action is to succeed to ensure ultimate victory. As the front there is too narrow to get through, forces are to be sent south to conduct a turning movement through Finnish territory. This time, it is the Belgian representative who objects pointing out Finnish neutrality. The answer comes from a German general who is positive that the Finns won’t react. His government has had continuous contacts with members of the parliament of Finland and they are all positive that their governments will not take any action against NATO.
On the base of the CIA report and reasserted by these late affirmations, NATO northern command decides that the offensive is to start on June 7th in order to take full advantage of the summer season. Land reinforcement are, then, rushed to the front in prevision for the turning movement that should conduct NATO forces through the hills and forest of Lapland into the Kola Peninsula, effectively isolating Soviet troops there. However, these troops’ deployments are carefully monitored by the Finnish military which takes several preventive measures: the air force is put on full alert as soon as June 1st, aircrafts being dispatched to several secondary airfields. The best trained reservists (about 50.000 men) are call back and sent to the north. More are called under arm to provide crews to the artillery units that are now carefully taking position in Lapland.

At sea, the NATO fleet is assembled on the Thames River and in Germany, centered on two US Task Forces (four aircraft carriers) and a small battle group organized around the Battleship Wisconsin. The French represent the second most important component of the fleet with two aircraft carriers and the cruiser “Colbert”. Then, the Deutsche Marine, the Koninklijke Marine and the Royal Navy are sending several ships but their involvement will be more limited than during the previous engagement. Sadly, these moves don’t go unnoticed and on June 2nd, a Soviet spy network gets word of what is going on. On the next day, they put their hand on a classified document confirming that an attack will take place soon but with no precise dates. On June 4th the report and the document are both transmitted to the Lubyanka at Moscow and the Kremlins take all necessary actions. The ground troops and the frontal aviation are both reinforced and they get additional supplies while all available ships are sailing out of Murmansk to join several remote locations where they are to wait for the attack. Finally, the Soviet ambassador at Helsinki is received by the government and transmits the new elements in its possession, also demanding if the Finns need any assistance. Helsinki declines the offer for assistance but asks for supplies and Moscow sends a large amount of ammunitions and spare parts. In the meantime, the Finns issue another call for reservists but, this time, they are kept away from the north in order not to alert NATO high command.

On June 7th, as planned, NATO troops cross into Finland while the fleet is closing on the North Cape. Quickly, it becomes obvious that the ground offensive will not cross easily into Finland. After 20 miles in Lapland they are facing an increasingly fierce resistance from Jääkärit (jaeger) and standard units supported by numerous artillery pieces and the NATO advance slows down. The US ambassador at Helsinki asks for an audience with the president. He is finally received on June 8th at about 10:00 only to be notified that he has to leave the country within the next 24 hours or be executed as spy. At 19:00, the US ambassador crosses the border into Sweden while several US citizens left behind are rounded up and thrown in jail (most will be freed after the signing of the armistice, a few days later). In the meantime, Finland addresses the still functioning but badly weakened international institutions, condemning the attack at a depleted UN in New York and accusing US and NATO of war crimes in front of the International Court at The Hague. This, of course, doesn’t change the course of actions. A week later, NATO troops in Lapland are facing a fully mobilized Finnish army and, increasingly outnumbered, they slowly retreat to Norway as the Soviets have launched a counter-attack of their own. On June 20th, an armistice is signed with Finland and fighting stops in Lapland.

As these events are taking place on land, the naval operation is pursued and on June 8th, in the evening, the NATO fleet leaves the North Cape behind and enters the Barents Sea. However, the French admiral refuses to follow on and, justifying his decision by the fact that France is not part of NATO integrated command, he orders his carriers to remain behind while he sends only the cruiser “Colbert” and a division of destroyers as a rear covering force. This decision on the part of the French admiral will be later widely criticized among NATO. Despite, this, the US admiral in charge continues as planned, confident in the report of the CIA and in the ability of NATO ground forces to cross through Finland (He has been informed in the morning that the Finns were resisting in Lapland but assumes that this is only the fact of isolated units and he remains confident that this will stop in no time).

Finally, the fleet engagement starts on June 9th, at 11:00, as the Wisconsin’s Combat Group closes on the Pescaton peninsula while the aircraft carrier are cruising further away from the coast and rear elements of the fleet patrols off the small Norwegian town of Vardo. The battle starts when the Soviet Naval aviation engages the Wisconsin Battle Group. The carriers immediately send their squadrons in support of the Wisconsin and despite some escorts provided by the frontal aviation, they wreak havoc among Soviet squadrons. On this occasion, the Soviets are losing aircrafts fast despite a small number of successful hits. Then, at 11:45, the NATO Carrier Task Forces come under the attack of several Soviet aircrafts flying out of an unexpected location. They are quickly identified as carriers’ aircrafts and the US admiral realizes that the CIA account has been wrong: the Soviets have managed to make enough repairs on their ships and their major units are no longer sitting in dry docks. They are at sea, coming up fast on the Carriers Task Forces. The carrier’s squadrons are immediately called back but they arrive too late and they are short in ammunition. At last, it will be the intervention of the Rafales and Super Etendards coming (with some delays) from the French carriers that sunk most remaining Soviet ships and allow for the escape of two of the four US aircraft carriers. In fact, as soon as the aircrafts show up, the battlecruiser “Pyotr Velikiy and the Slava-class cruiser “Rossiya” leading a fleet of smaller cruisers, destroyers and frigates engage the US Task Forces, ultimately sinking an aircraft carrier (The admiral in charge is killed on board), damaging a second one (That carrier is sunk by a SSN on her way back to US) and disabling a third one (That last carrier is scuttled by her own crew to prevent Soviet’s capture). Before this is over, surviving US naval pilots find the “Kuznetsov” and sink her. In the end, of the last three major Soviet units in the Atlantic, only the “Rossiya” survives but it is so badly damaged that it will never be repaired.

As this tragedy occurs in the middle of the Barents Sea, the Wisconsin Battle Group finds itself in an equally bad situation. As the naval squadrons withdraw a second wave of Soviet bombers shows up (Beriev Tchaïka and Bears) and starts to target the fleet. In the meantime almost a hundred small coastal missile and torpedo boats appear, sinking the NATO ships one after another. NATO officers are surprised that these small ships perform so well but it seems that the lesson given by the destruction of 12 Iraqi Osa-class patrol craft in 1991 has been learned. Flaws in the radar systems have been obviously corrected and this is another surprise (Since the execution of Adolf Tolkachev in 1986, the CIA flood of information on Soviet radar projects has dried up). At last, the Wisconsin Battle Group fall victim of another element which is more directly related to the failure of the ground offensive through Finland. As NATO ground forces are stuck in Lapland, SS-N-3 systems mounted on trucks and deployed along the coast are still in place firing hundreds of missiles at the fleet. Despite severe losses on the Soviet side, only very few NATO ships escape and the Wisconsin herself goes down but not before she fulfilled her main mission. The venerable battleship has been hit by no less than 34 torpedoes and more than 100 missiles but her crew fights up to the end, continuing toward Murmans while firing their guns for more than 30 hours at Soviet ground positions and, finally, at the dry dock housing the Ulyanovsk’s sister ship (only about 300 sailors will be saved by the Soviet navy). Then, this will result in one of the strangest event of the Twilight War when a truce is asked by the Soviet high command for Poland on January 14th 2002. This is accepted by NATO and 294 sailors from Wisconsin are delivered to NATO authorities.

The final act of the battle occurs when a small Soviet flotilla conducted by the Sverdlov-class cruiser “Murmansk” shows up behind the French rear guard, coming from the North Pole. The “Murmansk” is firing with her twelve guns while the accompanying frigates fire their missile. In a matter of minutes, the Colbert’s stern is destroyed and the cruiser, unable to maneuver, hits a wandering iceberg. With her hull wide open, she starts sinking. Most of her crew dies in the cold waters before the Soviet Icebreaker “Arktika” can get to them, saving no more than 43 sailors. In the meantime, the “Murmansk” keeps firing at the remaining three French vessels and they are all lost. One blows up, another one sinks after burning for several hours and the last one sees her entire superstructures being destroyed. An hour later, the “Murmansk” and her small flotilla reach the Wisconsin’s battle area, definitely tipping the balance in favor of the Soviet Navy.

At last, NATO naval forces for the Atlantic are dramatically reduced, left with only two US aircraft carriers (one in dry dock) and the two “Charles de Gaulle”. In addition, two-third of the fleets engaged has been lost and wouldn’t be replaced before long. However, the situation is even more dramatic for the Soviets which are left with a single vintage destroyer and a Krivak-class frigate in the Baltic Fleet while only eight surface combatants (several damaged) survive in the Northern Fleet. Of course, they still can count on several surviving small patrol craft but this is insufficient and conducting most long range operations in the Atlantic is not an option anymore. The only part of the fleet still able to conduct long range actions is the submarines at Polyarny and, indeed they will conduct as many missions as possible in the following years. If they inflict some damages to NATO surface shipping, they essentially conduct a cat and mouse game with NATO submarines.