26.
Impressions
STENDAL, GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC.
The flight in was bad enough. They"d come in aboard a light bomber, racing in at low level to a military airport east of Berlin, no more than four staff members to an aircraft. All had arrived safely, but Alekseyev wondered how much of it was skill and how much luck. This airfield had clearly been visited by NATO aircraft recently and the General already had his doubts about what his colleagues in the Air Force had told him about their ability to control the sky even in daylight. From Berlin a helicopter took his party to CINC-West"s forward command post outside Stendal. Alekseyev was the first senior officer to arrive at the underground bunker complex, and he did not like what he found. The staff officers present were too concerned with what the NATO forces were doing and not concerned enough with what the Red Army was supposed to be doing to them. The initiative had not been lost, but his first impression was that the danger was real. Alekseyev located the command operations officer and started a.s.sembling information on how the campaign was going. His commander arrived half an hour later, and immediately took Alekseyev into his office.
"Well, Pasha?"
"I have to see the front at once. We have three attacks under way. I need to see how they are going. The German counterattack at Hamburg was repulsed, again, but this time we lack the forces to exploit it. The northern area is currently in stalemate. Our deepest penetration to date is just over one hundred kilometers. The timetable has gone completely to h.e.l.l, losses are far higher than expected-on both sides, but worse for us. We have gravely underestimated the lethality of NATO ant.i.tank weapons. Our artillery has been unable to suppress them enough for our forces to achieve a major breakthrough. NATO air power is hurting us badly, especially at night. Reinforcements are not getting forward as well as we expected. We still have the initiative in most areas, but unless we achieve a breakthrough, that may not last more than another few days. We must find a weakness in NATO lines and launch a major coordinated attack soon."
"The NATO situation?"
Alekseyev shrugged. "Their forces are fully in the field. Further reinforcements are coming in from America, but from what our prisoners have told us, not so well as they expected. My impression is that they are stretched very thin in some areas, but we have not as yet identified a major area of weakness. If we can find one, and exploit it, I think we can rupture the front and stage a multidivisional breakout. They can"t be strong everywhere. The German demand for forward defense compels the NATO forces to try and stop us everywhere. We made the same mistake in 1941. It cost us heavily. It must be doing the same to them."
"How soon do you wish to visit the front?"
"Within the hour. I"ll take Captain Sergetov with me-"
"The Party man"s son? If he"s hurt, Pasha . . ."
"He"s an officer in the Soviet Army, whatever his father might be. I need him."
"Very well. Keep me posted on where you are. Send the operations people in. We have to get control of this wh.o.r.ehouse."
Alekseyev commandeered a new Mi-24 attack helicopter for his reconnaissance. Overhead, a flight of agile MiG-21 fighters guarded the General as the helicopter skimmed low over the treetops. He eschewed the seat, instead crouching by the windows to see what he could. A lifetime of military service had not prepared him for the destruction that lay on the landscape below him. It seemed that every road held a burned-out tank or truck. The major crossroads had gotten particularly severe attention from NATO air power. Here a bridge had been knocked out, and immediately behind it a company of tanks waiting its repair had been savaged. The charred remains of aircraft, vehicles, and men had transformed the neat, picturesque German countryside into a junkyard of high-technology weapons. As they crossed the border into West Germany, things only got worse. Each road had been fought for, each tiny village. He counted eleven smashed tanks outside one such village, and wondered how many others had been pulled off the battlefield for repair. The town itself was almost totally destroyed by artillery and resulting fires. He saw only one building that looked like it might be habitable. Five kilometers west, the same story was repeated, and Alekseyev realized that a whole regiment of tanks had been lost in a ten-kilometer advance down a single road. He began to see NATO equipment, a German attack helicopter identifiable only from the tail rotor that stuck out from the circle of ashes, a few tanks and infantry carriers. For both sides the proud vehicles manufactured at the greatest expense and skill were scattered on the landscape like trash thrown from a car window. The Soviets had more to expend, the General knew, but how many more?
The helicopter landed at the edge of a forest. Just within the treeline, Alekseyev saw, antiaircraft guns tracked them all the way to the ground. He and Sergetov jumped out, ducking under the still-turning main rotor as they ran into the trees. There they found a cl.u.s.ter of command vehicles.
"Welcome, Comrade General," said a dirty-faced Red Army colonel.
"Where is the divisional commander?"
"I"m in command. The General was killed day before yesterday by enemy artillery fire. We have to move the CP twice a day. They are becoming very skilled at locating us."
"Your situation?" Alekseyev asked curtly.
"The men are tired, but they can still fight. We are not getting sufficient air support, and the NATO fighters give us no rest at night. We have about half our nominal combat strength, except in artillery. That"s down to a third. The Americans have just changed tactics on us. Now, instead of attacking the leading tank formations, they are sending their aircraft after our guns first. We were badly hurt last night. Just as we were launching a regimental attack, four of their ground-attack fighters nearly wiped out a battalion of mobile guns. The attack failed."
"What about concealment!" Alekseyev demanded.
"Ask the devil"s mother why it doesn"t work," the colonel shot back. "Their radar aircraft can evidently track vehicles on the ground-we"ve tried jamming, we"ve tried lures. Sometimes it works, but sometimes not. The division command post has been attacked twice. My regiments are commanded by majors, my battalions by captains. NATO tactics are to go for the unit commanders, and the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds are good at it. Every time we approach a village, my tanks have to fight through a swarm of missiles. We"ve tried rockets and artillery to suppress them, but you can"t take the time to blast every building in sight-we"d never get anywhere."
"What do you need?"
"Air support and lots of it. Get me the support to smash through what"s opposing me, and I"ll give you your d.a.m.ned breakout!" Ten kilometers behind the front, a tank division was waiting for this very unit to rupture the front-but how could it exploit a breakthrough that was never made?
"Your supply situation?"
"Could be better, but we"re getting enough forward to supply what we have left-not enough to support an intact division."
"What are you doing now?"
"We launch a two-regiment attack just over an hour from now. Another village, named Bieben. We estimate enemy strength as two understrength battalions of infantry, supported by tanks and artillery. The village commands a crossroads we need. Same one we tried to get last night. This a.s.sault should work. Do you wish to observe?"
"Yes."
"Then we"d better get you forward. Forget the helicopter unless you want to die. Besides"-the colonel smiled-"I can use it to support the attack. I"ll give you an infantry carrier to get you forward. It will be dangerous up there, Comrade General," the colonel warned.
"Fine. You can protect us. When do we leave?"
USS PHARRIS.
The calm sea meant that Pharris was back on port-and-starboard steaming. Half the crew was always on duty as the frigate held her station north of the convoy. The towed sonar was streamed aft, and the helicopter sat ready on the flight deck, its crew dozing in the hangar. Morris slept also, snoring away in his leather bridge chair, to the amus.e.m.e.nt of his crewmen. So, officers did it, too. The crew accommodations often sounded like a convention of chainsaws.
"Captain, message from CINCLANTFLT."
Morris looked up at the yeoman and signed for the message form. An eastbound convoy one hundred fifty miles north of them was under attack. He walked back to the chart table to check distances. The submarines there were not a threat to him. That was that. He had his own concerns, and his world had shrunk to include them only. Another forty hours to Norfolk, where they would refuel, replace expended ordnance, and sail again within twenty-four hours.
"What the h.e.l.l"s that?" a sailor said loudly. He pointed to a low-lying trail of white smoke.
"That"s a missile," answered the officer of the deck. "General quarters! Captain, that was a cruise missile southbound a mile ahead of us."
Morris snapped upright in his seat and blinked his eyes clear. "Signal the convoy. Energize the radar. Fire the chaff." Morris ran to the ladder to CIC. The s.h.i.+p"s alarm was sounding its strident note before he got there. Aft, two Super-RBOC chaff rockets leaped into the sky and exploded, surrounding the frigate with a cloud of aluminum foil.
"I count five inbounds," a radar operator was saying. "One"s heading toward us. Bearing zero-zero-eight, range seven miles, speed five hundred knots."
"Bridge, come right full rudder to zero-zero-eight." the tactical action officer ordered. "Stand by to fire off more chaff. Air action forward, weapons free."
The five-inch gun swiveled slightly and loosed several rounds, none of which came near the incoming missile.
"Range two miles and closing," reported the radarman.
"Fire four more Super-RBOCs."
Morris heard the rockets launch. The radar showed their chaff as an opaque cloud that enveloped the s.h.i.+p.
"CIC," called a lookout. "I see it. Starboard bow, inbound-it"s gonna miss, I got a bearing change. There-there it goes, pa.s.sing aft. Missed us by a couple hundred yards."
The missile was confused by the chaff. Had its brain had the capacity to think, it would have been surprised that it struck nothing. Instead, on coming back to a clear sky, the radar seeker merely looked for another target. It found one, fifteen miles ahead, and altered course toward it.
"Sonar," Morris ordered, "check bearing zero-zero-eight. There"s a missile-armed sub out there."
"Looking now, sir. Nothing shows on that bearing."
"A five-hundred-knot sea-skimmer. That"s a Charlie-cla.s.s sub, maybe thirty miles out," Morris said. "Get the helo out there. I"m going topside."
The captain reached the bridge just in time to see the explosion on the horizon. That was no freighter. The fireball could only mean a wars.h.i.+p had had her magazines exploded by a missile, perhaps the one that had just missed them. Why hadn"t they been able to stop it? Three more explosions followed. Slowly the noise traveled across the sea toward them, reaching Pharris as the deep sound of an enormous ba.s.s drum. The frigate"s Sea Sprite helicopter was just lifting off, racing north in the hope of catching the Soviet sub near the surface. Morris ordered his s.h.i.+p to slow to five knots in the hope that the lower speed would allow his sonar to perform just a little better. Still nothing. He returned to CIC.
The helicopter"s crew dropped a dozen son.o.buoys. Two showed something, but the contact faded, and was not reestablished. Soon an Orion showed up and carried on the search, but the submarine had escaped cleanly, her missiles having killed a destroyer and two merchantmen. Just like that, Morris thought. No warning at all.
STORNOWAY, SCOTLAND.
"Raid warning again," the Group Captain said.
"Realtime?" Toland asked.
"No, an a.s.set we have in Norway. Contrails overhead heading southwest. He counts twenty or so, aircraft type unknown. We have a Nimrod patrolling north of Iceland now. If they"re Backfires, and if they rendezvous with a tanker group, we might just get something. See if your idea works, Bob."
Four Tomcat interceptors were sitting ready on the flight line. Two were armed with missiles. The other pair carried buddy-stores, fuel tanks designed to transfer fuel to other aircraft. The distance they expected for a successful intercept meant a round trip of two thousand miles, which meant that only two aircraft could reach far enough, and they were stretching to the limit.
The Nimrod circled two hundred miles east of Jan Mayen Land. The Norwegian island had been subjected to several air attacks, destroying the radar there, though so far the Russians had not launched a ground attack as expected. The British patrol aircraft bristled with antennae but carried no armament of her own. If the Russians sent escorting fighters out with the bomber/tanker force, she could only evade. One team listened in on the bands used by the Russians to communicate between aircraft, another on radar frequencies.
It was a long, tense wait. Two hours after the raid warning, a garbled transmission was heard, interpreted as a warning to a Backfire pilot approaching a tanker. The bearing was plotted, and the Nimrod turned east hoping for a cross bearing on the next such signal. None was detected. Without a firm fix, the fighters had only the slimmest hope of an intercept. They were kept on the ground. Next time, they decided, there"d be a pair of snoopers up.
USS CHICAGO.
The QZB bell-ringer call arrived just after lunch. McCafferty brought his submarine to antenna depth and received orders to proceed to Faslane, the Royal Navy submarine base in Scotland. Since losing contact with the Russian surface force, they had not tracked a single positive contact. It was crazy. All the pre-war a.s.sessments told McCafferty to expect a "target-rich environment." So far he was rich only in frustration. The executive officer took them back down to a deep cruising depth while McCafferty began to write up his patrol report.
BIEBEN, FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY.
"You"re pretty exposed here," the captain observed, crouching just behind the turret.
"True enough," Sergeant Mackall agreed. His M-1 Abrams tank was dug into the reverse slope of a hill, its gun barely clear of the ground behind a row of shrubs. Mackall looked down a shallow valley to a treeline fifteen hundred meters away. The Russians were in there, surveying the ridges with powerful field gla.s.ses, and he hoped that they could not make out the squat, ominous profile of the main battle tank. He was in one of three prepared firing positions, a sloped hole in the ground dug by the engineers" bulldozers, helped over the last few days by local German farmers who had taken to the task with a will. The bad news was that the next line of such positions required traversing five hundred meters of open fields. They"d been planted with something a bare six weeks before. Those crops would never amount to much, the sergeant knew.
"Ivan must love this weather," Mackall observed. There was an overcast at about thirteen hundred feet. Whatever air support he could expect would have a bare five seconds to acquire and engage their targets before having to break clear of the battlefield. "What can you give us, sir?"
"I can call four A-10s, maybe some German birds," the Air Force captain replied. He surveyed the terrain himself from a slightly different perspective. What was the best way to get the ground-attack fighters in and out? The first Russian attack on this position had been repulsed, but he could see the remains of two NATO aircraft that had died in the effort. "There should be three choppers, too."
That surprised Mackall-and worried him. Just what sort of attack were they expecting here?
"Okay." The captain stood and turned back to his armored command vehicle. "When you hear "Zulu, Zulu, Zulu," that means the air is less than five minutes out. If you see any SAM vehicles or antiair guns, for Christ"s sake take them out. The Warthogs have been hit real hard, Sarge."
"You got it, Cap"n. You better get your a.s.s outa here, it"s gonna be showtime soon." One thing Mackall had learned was just how important a good forward air-control officer was, and this one had dug the sergeant"s troop out of a really bad sc.r.a.pe three days before. He watched the officer sprint fifty yards to the waiting vehicle, its engine already turning. The rear door hadn"t yet closed when the driver pulled out fast, zigzagging down the slope and across the plowed field toward the command post.
B Troop, 1st Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment had once been fourteen tanks. Five of the originals were gone, and there had been only two replacements. Of the rest, all had been damaged to one degree or another. His platoon leader had been killed on the second day of the war, leaving Mackall in command of the three-tank platoon, covering nearly a kilometer of front. Dug in between his tanks was a company of German infantry-men of the Landwehr, the local equivalent of the National Guard, farmers and shopowners for the most part, men fighting to defend not just their country, but their own homes. They, too, had taken serious losses. The "company" was no more than two platoons of effectives. Surely the Russians know just how thin we"re spread, Mackall thought. Everyone was dug in-deep. The power of Russian artillery had come as a shock despite all the pre-war warnings they"d had.
"The Americans must love this." The colonel gestured at the low clouds. "Their d.a.m.ned airplanes come swooping in too low for our radar, and this way we have practically no chance to see them before they fire."
"How badly have they hurt you?"
"See for yourself." The colonel gestured at the battlefield. Fifteen tanks lay in view-the burned-out remains. "That American low-level fighter did this-the Thunderbolt. Our men call it the Devil"s Cross."
"But you killed two aircraft yesterday," Sergetov objected.
"Yes, and only one of four gun vehicles survived the effort. The same vehicle got both-Senior Sergeant Lupenko. I recommended him for the Red Banner. It will be posthumous-the second aircraft crashed right on his vehicle. My best gunner," the colonel said bitterly. Two kilometers away, the wreckage of a German Alphajet was a charred garnish atop the remains of a ZSU-30 gun vehicle. No doubt it had been deliberate, the colonel thought, that German had wanted to kill just a few more Soviets before he died. A sergeant handed his colonel a radio headset. The officer listened for half a minute before speaking a few words that he punctuated with a quick nod.
"Five minutes, Comrades. My men are fully in place. Would you follow me, please?"
The command bunker had been hastily built of logs and earth, with a full meter of overhead cover. Twenty men were crammed into it, communications men for the two regiments in the a.s.sault. The division"s third regiment waited to exploit the breakthrough and pave the way for the reserve armored division to break into the enemy"s rear. If, Alekseyev reminded himself, everything went as planned.
No enemy troops or vehicles could be seen, of course. They would be in the woods atop the ridge less than two kilometers away, dug in deep. He watched the divisional commander nod to his artillery chief, who lifted a field phone and spoke two words: "Commence firing."
It took several seconds for the sound to reach them. Every gun the division owned, with an additional battery from the tank division, spoke as one dreadful voice, and the thunder echoed across the countryside. The sh.e.l.ls arched overhead, at first striking short of the opposite ridgeline, then closing on it. What had once been a gentle hill covered with lush gra.s.s turned into a brown obscenity of bare earth and smoke.
"I think they"re serious, Sarge," the loader said, pulling his hatch down tight.