Last week eight combat controllers of the USAF’s 352d Special Operations Wing surveyed a two-lane section of the Jägala-Käravete Highway in Estonia, deconflicted airspace, and exercised command and control on the ground and in the air to land a eight-aircraft stick of A-10Cs from the Maryland Air National Guard’s 175th Wing’s 104th Fighter Squadron.
Does it get any more 1970s Reforger than that?
The above video is pretty interesting if you know the history of the guerrilla war in the Baltic states that was fought by as many as 50,000 Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian partisans against the Red Army from the tail end of WWII through the early 1950s. It’s an unsung war, and the various “Forest Brothers” groups (whose members included several former German soldiers as well as Waffen SS members of the various Baltic legions, a facet often glossed over) that were backed in part by Western intelligence agencies.
The above video was put out this month by NATO, which, especially when combined with other similar videos about modern equivalent of stay-behind units, is probably meant to provide a moment of pause to the big bear on the Baltic states’ Eastern border.
And cue the Russian butt hurt, which is rich considering the little green men running around the Ukraine and Crimea, and the fact that they annexed the Baltics in 1939 by force.
Tiny Estonia, who share a long and increasingly tense border with Russia, uses a force of volunteer unpaid citizens– equipped with their own military arms– to hold the line.
The Estonian Defense League, a militia independent from the government, is made up of over 15,000 members, making it several times larger than the 6,500-member official Estonian Defense Forces.
Stationed in every part of the country the League is ready at a moment’s notice to sally out and repel possible invasion from unnamed neighbors. It’s the largest military force in the region and members vow to put up more of a fight than they did when the Soviet Union took over the county in 1940 and remained for decades.
Earlier this summer Vice News spent some time in-depth with not only the minutemen of the League but also those on both sides of Estonian politics and the above video shows some interesting footage of their training and doctrine.
The firepower shown is impressive, showing some sweet shots of donated German HK G3s and MG3s, old-school Chevy K5s that likely came from the U.S., a sweet 1950s-era Bofors Pvpj 1110 90 mm recoilless rifle, a smoking hot M240/FN Mag, some IMI Galils, a sprinkling of 84mm Carl Gustavs and at least one BTR-80 armored personnel carrier.
It seems Estonia is very down with the concept of civilian use of military-style arms.
Sure, Estonia has no illusions about stopping an all-out Russian incursion, but they just have to slow it down enough to allow fellow NATO members to apply action or rush reinforcements to the region and they plan to do so by putting a rifle behind every blade of grass.
“If Russia knows that attacking Estonia is not a walk in the park, maybe Russia will think twice,” says a commander.
Speaking of which, check out a recent NATO exercise with the League as part of Operation Hurricane in the video below.
With so much firepower at the hands of your everyday civilian, its hard to sell the prospect of being a member of the League because you want to hunt ducks.
But then again, back here in the states we know that Washington didn’t cross the Delaware to get to a duck blind.
So yeah, apparently the Russians are having second thoughts about letting go of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia. The last time this happened was in 1939. That’s a pucker factor for NATO right there…