Mackall adjusted his helmet and microphone as he peered out the view ports built into his commander"s cupola. The thick armor plate kept most of the noise out, but when the ground shook beneath them, the shock came through the treads and suspension to rock the vehicle, and each crewman reflected to himself on the force needed to budge a sixty-ton tank. This was how the lieutenant had bought it-a one-in-a-thousand shot from a heavy gun had landed a round right on his turret, and it had burrowed through the thin overhead armor to explode the vehicle.
Left and right of Mackall"s tank, the largely middle-aged German territorials cowered in their deep, narrow holes, their emotions oscillating between terror and rage at what was happening to them and their country-and their homes!
"Good fire plan, Comrade Colonel," Alekseyev said quietly. A screaming sound pa.s.sed overhead. "There is your air support."
Four Russian ground-attack fighters wheeled overhead to trace parallel to the ridgeline and dropped their loads of napalm. As they turned back toward Russian lines, one exploded in midair.
"What was that?"
"Probably a Roland," the colonel answered. "Their version of our SA-8 rocket. Here we go. One minute."
Five kilometers behind the command bunker, two batteries of mobile rocket launchers ripple-fired their weapons in a continuous sheet of flame. Half were high-explosive warheads, the other half smoke.
Thirty rockets landed in Mackall"s sector and thirty in the valley before him. The impact of the explosives shook his tank violently, and he could hear the pings of fragments bouncing off his armor. But it was the smoke that frightened him. That meant Ivan was coming. From thirty separate points, gray-white smoke billowed into the air, forming an instant man-made cloud that enveloped all the ground in view. Mackall and his gunner activated their thermal-imaging sights.
"Buffalo, this is Six," the troop commander called in over the command circuit. "Check in."
Mackall listened in closely. All eleven vehicles were intact, protected by their deep holes. Again he blessed the engineers-and the German farmers-who had dug the shelters. No further orders were pa.s.sed. None were needed.
"Enemy in view," the gunner reported.
The thermal sight measured differences in temperature and could penetrate most of the mile of smoke cover. And the wind was on their side. A ten-mile-per-hour breeze was driving the cloud back east. Sergeant First Cla.s.s Terry Mackall took a deep breath and went to work.
"Target tank, ten o"clock. Sabot! Shoot!"
The gunner trained left and centered the sight reticle on the nearest Soviet battle tank. His thumbs depressed the laser b.u.t.ton, and a thin beam of light bounced off the target. The range display came up in his sight: 1310 meters. The fire-control computer plotted target distance and speed, elevating the main gun. The computer measured wind speed and direction, air density and humidity, the temperature of the air, and the tank"s own sh.e.l.ls, and all the gunner had to do was place the target in the center of his sights. The whole operation took less than two seconds, and the gunner"s fingers jammed home on the triggers.
A forty-foot muzzle blast annihilated the shrubs planted two years earlier by some German Boy Scouts. The tank"s 105mm gun jerked back in recoil, ejecting the spent aluminum case. The sh.e.l.l came apart in the air, the sabot falling free of the projectile, a 40mm dart made of tungsten and uranium that lanced through the air at almost a mile a second.
The projectile struck the target one second later at the base of the gun turret. Inside, a Russian gunner was just picking up a round for his own cannon when the uranium core of the shot burned through the protective steel. The Russian tank exploded, its turret flying thirty feet into the air.
"Hit!" Mackall said. "Target tank, twelve o"clock. Sabot! Shoot!"
The Russian and American tanks fired at the same instant, but the Russian shot went high, missing the defiladed M-1 by nearly a meter. The Russian was less lucky.
"Time to leave," Mackall announced. "Straight back! Heading for alternate one."
The driver already had reverse engaged, and twisted hard on his throttle control. The tank surged backward, then spun right and headed fifty yards to another prepared position.
"d.a.m.ned smoke!" Sergetov swore. The wind blew it back in their faces, and they couldn"t tell what was going on. The battle was now in the hands of captains, lieutenants, and sergeants. All they could see was the orange fireb.a.l.l.s of exploding vehicles, and there was no way to know whose they were. The colonel in command had his radio headset on and was barking orders to his subunit commanders.
Mackall was in his first alternate position in less than a minute. This one had been dug parallel to the ridgeline, and his ma.s.sive turret trained to the left. He could see the infantry now, dismounted and running ahead of their a.s.sault carriers. Allied artillery, both German and American, ripped through their ranks, but not quickly enough . . .
"Target-tank with an antenna, just coming out of the treeline."
"Got "em!" the gunner answered. He saw a Russian T-80 main battle tank with a large radio antenna projecting from the turret. That would be a company commander-maybe a battalion commander. He fired.
The Russian tank wheeled just as the shot left the muzzle. Mackall watched the tracer barely miss his engine compartment.
"Gimme a HEAT round!" the gunner shouted over the intercom.
"Ready!"
"Turn back, you mother-"
The Russian tank was driven by an experienced sergeant who zigzagged his way across the valley floor. He jinked every five seconds, and now brought his tank left again- The gunner squeezed off his round. The tank jumped at the recoil and the spent round clanged off the turret"s rear wall. Already the closed tank hull stank of the ammonia-based propellant.
"Hit! Nice shot, Woody!"
The sh.e.l.l hit the Russian between the last pair of road wheels and wrecked the tank"s diesel engine. In a moment the crew began to bail out, "escaping" into an environment alive with sh.e.l.l fragments.
Mackall ordered his driver to move again. By the time they were in their next firing position, the Russians were less than five hundred meters away. They fired two more shots, killing an infantry carrier and knocking the tread off a tank.
"Buffalo, this is Six, begin moving to Bravo Line-execute."
As platoon leader, Mackall was the last to leave. He saw both of his companion tanks rolling down the open reverse slope of the hill. The infantry was moving also, into their armored carriers, or just running. "Friendly" artillery blanketed the ridgeline with high explosives and smoke to mask their withdrawal. On command, the tank leaped forward, accelerating to thirty miles per hour and racing to the next defense line before the Russians could occupy the ridge they were leaving behind. Artillery fire was all over them, exploding a pair of German personnel carriers.
"Zulu, Zulu, Zulu!"
"Get me a vehicle!" Alekseyev ordered.
"I cannot permit this. I cannot let a general-"
"Get me a d.a.m.ned vehicle! I must observe this," Alekseyev repeated.
A minute later, he and Sergetov joined the colonel in a BMP armored command vehicle that raced to the position the NATO troops had just vacated. They found a hole that had sheltered two men-until a rocket had landed a meter away.
"My G.o.d, we"ve lost twenty tanks here!" Sergetov said, looking back.
"Down!" The colonel pushed both men into the b.l.o.o.d.y hole. A storm of NATO sh.e.l.ls landed on the ridge.
"There"s a Gatling gun!" the gunner said. A Russian antiaircraft gun carrier came over the ridge. A moment later a HEAT round exploded it like a plastic toy. His next target was a Russian tank coming down the hill they"d just left.
"Heads up, friendly air coming in!" Mackall cringed, hoping the pilot could tell the sheep from the goats.
Alekseyev watched the twin-engine fighter swoop straight down the valley. Its nose disappeared in a ma.s.s of flame as the pilot fired his ant.i.tank cannon. Four tanks exploded before his eyes as the Thunderbolt appeared to stagger in midair, then turned west, a missile chasing after him. The SA-7 fell short.
"The Devil"s Cross?" he asked. The colonel nodded in reply, and Alekseyev realized where the name had come from. From an angle, the American fighter did look like the stylized Russian Orthodox crucifix.
"I just called up the reserve regiment. We may have them on the run," the colonel said.
This, Sergetov thought incredulously to himself, is a successful attack?
Mackall watched a pair of ant.i.tank missiles reach out into the Russian lines. One miss, one kill. More smoke came in from both sides as the NATO troops fell back another five hundred meters. The village they were defending was now in sight. The sergeant had counted a total of five kills to his tank. He hadn"t been hit yet, but that wouldn"t last. The friendly artillery was really in the fight now. The Russian infantry was down to half the strength he"d first seen, and their tracked vehicles were laying back, trying to engage the NATO positions with their own missiles. Things looked to be going reasonably well when the third regiment appeared.
Fifty tanks came over the hill in front of him. An A-10 swept across the line and killed a pair, then was blotted out of the sky by a SAM. The burning wreckage fell three hundred yards in front of him.
"Target tank, one o"clock. Shoot!" The Abrams rocked backward with yet another shot. "Hit."
"Warning, warning," called the troop commander. "Enemy choppers approaching from the north."
Ten Mi-24 Hinds arrived late, but they made up for it by killing a pair of tanks in less than a minute. German Phantom jets then appeared, engaging them with air-to-air missiles and cannon in a wild melee that suddenly included surface-to-air missiles also. The sky was crisscrossed with smoke trails, and suddenly there were no aircraft in view.
"It"s bogging down," Alekseyev said. He"d just learned one important lesson: attack helicopters cannot hope to survive in the face of enemy fighters. Just when he thought the Mi-24s would make a decisive difference, they"d been forced away by the appearance of the German fighters. Artillery support was slacking off. The NATO gunners were counterbatterying the Soviet guns expertly, helped by ground-attack fighters. He had to get more front-line air support.
"The h.e.l.l it is!" the colonel answered. He radioed new orders to the battalions on his left flank.
"Looks like a command vehicle at ten o"clock, on the ridgeline, can you reach it?"
"Long shot, I-"
Whang! A shot glanced off the turret"s face.
"Tank, three o"clock, close in-"
The gunner turned his yoke controls and nothing happened. Immediately he reached for the manual traverse. Mackall engaged the target with his machine gun, bouncing bullets off the advancing T-80 that had come out of nowhere. The gunner cranked frantically at the handle as another round crashed into their armor. The driver aided him, turning the vehicle and praying that they could return the fire.
The computer was out, damaged by the shock of the first hit. The T-80 was less than a thousand meters away when the gunner settled on it. He fired a HEAT round, and it missed. The loader slammed another home in the breech. The gunner worked his controls and fired again. Hit.
"There"s more behind that one," the gunner warned.
"Buffalo Six, this is three-one, bad guys coming in from our flank. We need help here," Mackall called; then to the driver: "Left track and back up fast!"
The driver needed no encouragement. He cringed, looking out his tiny viewing prisms, and rocked the throttle handle all the way back. The tank raced backward and left as the gunner tried to lock onto another target-but the automatic stabilization was also out. They had to sit still to fire accurately, and it was death to sit still.
Another Thunderbolt came in low, dropping cl.u.s.ter munitions on the Russian formation. Two more Soviet tanks were stopped, but the fighter went away trailing smoke. Artillery fire joined in to stop the Soviet maneuver.
"For Christ"s sake, stop so I can shoot one of the f.u.c.kers!" the gunner screamed. The tank stopped at once. He fired, hitting a T-72 on the tread. "Reload!"
A second tank joined Mackall"s, a hundred meters to his left. It was intact and fired off three quick rounds for two hits. Then a Soviet helicopter reappeared and exploded the troop commander"s tank with a missile. A shoulder-fired Stinger missile then killed the chopper as the German infantry redeployed. Mackall watched a pair of HOT ant.i.tank missiles go left and right of his turret, reaching for the advancing Soviets. Both hit.
"Antenna tank, dead ahead."
"I see him. Sabot!" the gunner cranked the turret back to the right. He elevated his gun to battle sights and fired.
"Captain Alexandrov!" the division commander shouted into his microphone. The battalion commander"s transmission had stopped in midword. The colonel was using his radio too much. Ten miles away, a German battery of 155mm mobile guns tracked in on the radio signals and fired twenty quick rounds.
Alekseyev heard the incoming and jumped into a German-dug foxhole, dragging Sergetov with him. Five seconds later the area was blanketed by smoke and noise.
The General stuck his head up to see the colonel still standing, still giving radio orders. Behind him the command vehicle was burning, the radios with it. Five men were dead, another half-dozen screaming with the pain of their injuries. Alekseyev looked with annoyance at a b.l.o.o.d.y streak on the back of his hand.
Mackall killed one more tank, but it was the Germans who stopped the attack, using the last of their HOT missiles to do so. The remaining Russian commander lost his nerve when half the tanks in the battalion were hit. The survivors turned on their smoke generators and retreated back around the hill to the south. Artillery chased after them. The land battle was over for the moment.
"Mackall, what"s happening down your way?" the troop executive officer inquired.
"Where"s Six?"
"To your left." Mackall looked and saw the troop commander"s burning tank. So that"s who it was . . .
"Just us, sir. What"s left?"
"I count four."
My G.o.d, the sergeant thought.
"Get me a Regiment from the tank division and I can do it. They have nothing left!" the colonel insisted. His face was b.l.o.o.d.y from a superficial wound.
"I will do this. How soon can you continue the attack?" Alekseyev asked.
"Two hours. I need that long to regroup my forces."
"Very well. I must return to headquarters. The enemy opposition was tougher than you expected, Comrade Colonel. Otherwise your forces performed well. Tell your intelligence section to work harder. Gather up your prisoners and interrogate them rigorously!" Alekseyev moved off with Sergetov in his wake.
"Worse than I expected," the captain observed once they were inside their vehicle.
"They must have had nearly a Regiment facing us." Alekseyev shrugged. "We can"t make that kind of mistake very often and expect to succeed. We advanced four kilometers in two hours, but the cost was murderous. And those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds in the Air Force! I"ll have something to say to our Frontal Aviation generals when we get back!"
"That makes you troop XO," the lieutenant said. It turned out there were five surviving tanks. One had both radios broken. "You did good, real good."
"How"d the Germans make out?" Mackall asked his new boss.
"Fifty-percent losses, and Ivan kicked us back four klicks. We can"t expect to survive much more of this. We may have some reinforcements in an hour. I think I convinced Regiment that Ivan really wants this place. We"ll be getting help. Same for the Germans. They promised another battalion by nightfall, maybe a second one by dawn. Take your track down for refuel and reload. Our friends may be back soon."
"That"s one little and two big attacks for this village. They ain"t got it yet, sir."
"One other thing. I talked to Regiment about you. The colonel says you"re an officer now."
Mackall"s tank spent ten minutes getting to the rearm point. Fueling took ten minutes while the exhausted crewmen loaded a new collection of sh.e.l.ls. The sergeant was surprised that he had to head back to the front five rounds short.
"You"ve been hit, Pasha." The younger man shook his head.
"I scratched my hand getting out of the helicopter. I"ll let it bleed awhile to punish myself for clumsiness." Alekseyev sat opposite his commander and downed a full liter canteen of water. He was embarra.s.sed by his slight wound and decided to lie about it.
"The attack?"
"Opposition was ferocious. We"d been told to expect two infantry battalions, plus tanks. I estimate the actual enemy strength as a damaged regiment, and they had well-prepared positions. Even so, we almost broke through. The colonel in command had a good plan, and his men pushed as hard as anyone could expect. We forced them back to within sight of the objective. I want to release a regiment of tanks from the OMG to the next attack."
"We are not permitted to do this."
"What?" Alekseyev was stunned.
"The Operational Maneuver Groups are to remain intact until the breakthrough is achieved. Orders from Moscow."
"One more regiment will do it. The objective is in sight! We"ve chewed up one motor rifle division to get this far, and lost half the strength of another. We can win this battle and get the first major rupture in NATO lines-but we have to act now!"
"You"re certain?"
"Yes, but we must move fast. The Germans must realize how close this battle has become. They"ll try to reinforce also. The lead regiment from 30th Guards Tank Division is one hour from the front. If we can get them moving within thirty minutes, they"ll be part of the next attack. In fact, we should move the whole division up. This opportunity will not last long."