by Walt Gragg
There would be no opportunity for another ambush before the Russians freed themselves from the woods. The platoon sergeant and tank troop commander would have to return to their original plan. It was a good plan, capable of inflicting the utmost casualties upon the invaders. Nevertheless, both understood there was little chance for victory. Still, it was the best they could do against such overwhelming odds.
With the Russians on the move once more, Jensen would’ve given anything for a way to contact squadron headquarters. How nice it would be to call the Apaches forward a final time. But it was no use. Jewels said the enemy still had the squadron’s frequencies jammed, and his lengthy attempt to contact the squadron by landline had failed miserably. With so little time remaining before the Russian attack, there was no way for 2nd Platoon to alert the Apaches.
To a man, the waiting Americans knew they were alone.
The minutes slowly passed. Jensen took a final, slow drink of hot coffee. Out of the corner of his eye he caught the movement—movement from the east at the point where the highway left the forest and entered into open farmland. He pulled his night-vision goggles up to his face. There they were, an unending line of Russian armored vehicles. The lead tanks were clear of the woods. The point elements of the advancing enemy were two miles from the apple orchard.
Jensen’s heart sank once more. His spirits were as spent as his weary body. He knew the truth. No missile-laden savior was going to swoop down from the heavens to save his depleted platoon. There were going to be no miraculous escapes this time.
He prayed his instincts were wrong. Deep inside, however, he realized there would be no help.
• • •
Isolated by the lack of communications, Lieutenant Colonel David Townes had spent the last four hours guessing what his next move should be. The six returning Apaches’ victory on E48 had been welcome news. Nevertheless, the cavalry commander’s joy was short-lived. By 2:00 a.m., messengers had arrived from the squadron’s southernmost areas. The units protecting highway E50 had been smashed. The Russians were pouring into Germany. Rather than releasing the last of his reserves, Townes decided to wait to see what the squadron of tanks and supporting Bradleys he’d sent south two hours earlier could do to slow the enemy.
At 2:30 a.m., on a desolate stretch of roadway halfway between the border and Nuremberg, the American cavalry attacked a five-division armored force. Twelve M-1s and sixteen Bradleys met three thousand Russian armored vehicles.
By 2:40 a.m., every American was dead.
The cavalry soldiers did everything they could. Using their superior skills, they destroyed three of the enemy for every loss of their own. Even so, their efforts barely slowed the Russians down. Minus one hundred vehicles lost to the Americans, the herculean force continued its relentless push toward Nuremberg.
At 4:00 a.m., another scout arrived with word from the south. The Russians had advanced fifty miles inside Germany. The enemy was two-thirds of the way to Nuremberg. Unless stopped, in two hours they would capture the infamous city.
All fifteen Apaches took to the skies. Forty-eight of the sixty-four Bradleys Townes had in reserve roared south at breakneck speed to intercept the massive column.
The squadron commander had heard nothing further about the Russian tanks the Apaches had stopped four hours earlier on E48. He sent his final sixteen Bradleys up the highway. They would wait for the enemy three miles east of Camp Kinney.
Four hours into the war, he’d nothing left in reserve but two hundred cooks, clerks, and mechanics.
• • •
As the column’s T-72s emerged from the woods, they fanned out across the countryside. They rumbled forward across the heavy snows. The earth trembled beneath their massive weight. The tanks rolled irrepressibly on.
Jensen’s men were waiting. In six minutes, the Russians would reach the barren apple trees. Shielded by fortresses of snow, five Bradleys lay hidden in the orchard. The Americans watched the overpowering enemy’s steady progress. The platoon’s soldiers could hear their hearts pounding in their chests. They could feel the blood rushing through their veins. Fear was etched on every face. The Russians would soon be upon them.
Four hundred yards behind the point elements, the lead division’s commander breathed a sigh of relief as he left the nightmarish valley filled with so much suffering. Two battalions of his T-72s and BMPs were in the clear. Others would soon follow. Within the next couple of hours, every vehicle in the endless column would finally free itself from the confining woods.
The advancing tanks and armored personnel carriers were entering an area of open farmland. The general smiled a brief smile. Nothing on earth had the power to stop the three divisions now. There was little chance they’d be embarrassed by their opponent again. The tank-killing American helicopters would be forced to come out and fight in the open. The Apaches would be easy prey for the column’s two hundred air-defense weapons. The enemy’s fighter aircraft would also be vulnerable. They’d have to think twice before braving an attack on the westward-rolling armada. Death awaited those who dared to challenge the power the division commander controlled.
The fleeting smile disappeared. An hour earlier, he’d been certain his life was over. There was no doubt the Army Group Central Commander had been serious when he threatened to put him in front of a firing squad of men from his own division. After their thrashing by the American helicopters, all three divisions had been trapped behind an impenetrable wall of hellish flames. Too late to turn the huge column around in the narrow space. And impossible to go forward.
For four hours, thirty thousand men had been unable to extricate themselves from the barrier of exploding shells and red-hot metal.
It was his fault. That he knew. The blunder was his and his alone. He’d kept his air-defense missiles and guns in the rear. He’d hoped to protect them until they were really needed. He was certain the enemy wouldn’t dare risking his attack helicopters in such horrible weather. No Russian commander would’ve taken such a gamble. But he’d guessed wrong. And the American cavalry commander’s bold move had inflicted a terrible toll. His division had been caught by the enemy’s swift strike. If the Americans had struck again, the entire column could’ve been destroyed. Fortunately, however, the enemy hadn’t been heard from since the Apaches’ surprising attack. He couldn’t understand why. The only answer the division commander could find was that the token enemy forces they faced at the border were even weaker than they’d been led to believe.
Even so, they were forty kilometers behind schedule. They had to hurry if they were going to free the seven-mile-long column from the woods well before sunrise. If they failed to do so, their enemy, weak or not, would send his fighter aircraft to find and destroy any units still trapped in the narrow valley passageway.
He’d been careless. One more careless act, and the Army Group Central Commander promised to come forward once again and personally pull the trigger that would end his life.
There would be no more carelessness. Of that he was certain. He was out of the woods. And nothing was going to stand in his way.
• • •
The plodding tanks and BMPs were three hundred yards from the lifeless orchard. Twenty abreast, they churned through the deep drifts toward the deserted village. The tiny force awaiting them remained undetected. In the Bradleys, the TOW operators and Bushmaster gunners took aim. Unaware of the American presence, the enemy continued on. The moment of truth had arrived. The time for a final desperate battle had come.
Jensen keyed his headset. He took a last look at the overwhelming force coming toward them.
“Open fire!” he screamed.
From one hundred yards apart, five TOW missiles leaped from their firing tubes. Little more than a blur, each roared a few feet above the blowing snows. They raced across the open ground. Their victims would never know what hit them. The missiles reached their targets at
nearly the same instant. On the tip of each TOW seven pounds of high explosives detonated upon contact. Five simultaneous explosions rocked the winter night. For thirty miles around, a soul-searing sound crushed the early-morning stillness. In the village four hundred yards away, every window shattered.
Just inside the timeworn town, a razor-sharp cascade of glass poured down upon Ramirez and Steele as they waited in the Humvee to protect the platoon’s rear.
In unison, five forty-seven-ton roman candles lit up the skies like the light of a thousand moons. An irresistible wave of flesh-consuming heat emanated in every direction. Fifteen Russian soldiers died in less than a heartbeat. The stark violence of the battlefield was unmistakably clear.
The Bushmaster cannons opened up on the approaching armor while the TOW operators quickly selected a second target. The surviving T-72s staggered but came on. The supporting armored personnel carriers ground to a stop. From the rear of fifty BMPs, figures dressed in white ran in every direction. More than three hundred Russian foot soldiers spread across the open ground. They rushed forward with their rifles spewing death. The American infantrymen answered with their chattering M-4s. The night was suddenly filled with gunfire.
The division commander took stock of the enemy. It only took a moment to determine that the pitiful force challenging the might of his rolling armada was insignificant. A handful of armored vehicles supported by a small group of infantry. Nothing more than a minor irritant. Right now, however, he was in no mood for irritations, minor or otherwise. The column was well behind schedule. If they fell any further behind, a bullet to the head would be his reward.
Four of the five Bradleys fired a second volley of screaming TOWs. Three tanks and a BMP met the same calamitous fate as had befallen their countrymen a few seconds earlier. Four brightly burning pillars joined in lighting up the dreadful night.
In the fifth Bradley, Austin also fired. Unfortunately, rather than racing across the battlefield to destroy its victim, the TOW dropped harmlessly from its tube. The missile skidded along the ground for a few feet and stopped.
“Shit! A damn misfire!”
It only happened about 5 percent of the time with the highly reliable TOWs. Still, it wasn’t a good omen for the embattled defenders.
In near unison, the Bradley crews retracted their firing tubes. Each began reloading. For the next two minutes, the Bushmasters would have to go it alone.
The division commander saw his opening.
“All units pinch in toward the orchard and finish them off. Do it now and move on.”
Five rows of Russian armor headed straight toward the apple orchard.
The moment the first explosion occurred, four Bradleys from Captain Murphy’s force sprang from their hiding place at the edge of the village. They roared up the highway two by two. It would only take a half minute for them to arrive at the front of the orchard. That, however, was going to be too much time for them to be of any help to 2nd Platoon. In thirty gruesome seconds, Jensen’s men were decimated.
One hundred yards to the platoon sergeant’s right, Sergeant Richmond reached back for a replacement missile. A T-72’s 125mm cannon shell ripped through the snow wall in front of his position. The shell drove headlong into the stationary Bradley. It bored through the fighting vehicle’s seven inches of frontal armor and detonated inside the command compartment. Richmond’s Bradley exploded. Another fireball crushed the fleeting darkness.
On the far left, a foot soldier supporting Renoir’s position took a bullet in the face from an AK-47.
Renoir was positioning a TOW in its firing tube when half a dozen rounds from a BMP’s 30mm cannon ripped through the thinner armor on his Bradley’s turret. Both Americans were killed instantly. For good measure, a nearby T-72 finished off the crippled Bradley with a single shell from its main gun. The horrific fires were growing with every passing heartbeat.
Austin’s Bushmaster gunner returned the favor, repeatedly striking the commander’s compartment of a charging BMP. Hatches on the top of the BMP sprung open. Two frantic figures clambered from the smoking vehicle. A lethal burst from Jelewski’s M-4 struck both. The Russians crumpled half-in, half-out the open hatches. Neither moved again.
Beneath Jensen’s deadly fire, four white-clothed Russians went down in quick succession. Somewhere on the right, a cavalry soldier screamed. The turret of a T-72 turned. Its main gun lowered. Austin had a TOW in its firing hole. From point-blank range, the T-72 fired. Austin’s shattered Bradley leaped into the air. Flaming chunks of jagged metal and minute fragments of fragile flesh flew in every direction.
A white-hot piece of aluminum the size of a giant fist landed upon the prone Jelewski. The searing metal burned through the soldier’s clothing. His parka burst into flames. The soft flesh between his shoulder blades started to sizzle. The platoon radio operator shrieked in agony. He dropped his rifle and rolled onto his back. Jelewski frantically clawed at the burning aluminum. The metal fell into the snows.
One by one, the ground soldiers of 2nd Platoon were isolated, engaged, and eliminated. By the time Murphy’s four Bradleys completed their suicidal rush through the orchard, only six of the fourteen American infantrymen were still firing.
The quartet of Bradleys raced past the barren trees. They roared into the center of the fray. On the right, the lead Bradley never got off a single round. A BMP beat him to the draw. A Spandrel missile smashed into the fighting vehicle, setting it ablaze. Its crushed steel treads moved no more. The remaining Americans fired TOWs into the oncoming tanks. As the TOWs struck, three more huge flaming candles melted the night’s new drifts.
Sergeant Foster fought to keep his head. His second TOW was entering its firing tube. Next to him in the compartment, Marconi continued to fire the Bushmaster. The last thing Foster would ever hear was Marconi’s dejected, “Aw, shit.”
The young soldier had recognized that a Russian tank’s long barrel was pointed straight at them from two hundred yards away. A huge explosive round escaped from the tank’s main gun. Foster and Marconi never heard the night-shattering “whoosh” the round made. The shell hurtled across the flaming field in less than an instant. It smashed full force into the fighting vehicle. Four of 2nd Platoon’s Bradleys were enveloped in roaring flames. A single one remained.
Brown fired a TOW from his reloaded tubes. The missile slammed into a T-72.
One of the Bradleys on the highway fell prey to a charging BMP. The American vehicle’s fiery wreckage slammed into an apple tree twenty yards to Jensen’s left. The ancient tree was soon ablaze.
The other two fired a second missile with devastating effect. Beneath the striking TOWs, more earthshaking explosions rocked the bitter night. The Russians pounced on the surviving pair of Bradleys. Two T-72s fired, and the third of Murphy’s fighting vehicles was gone. The last, its missile tubes empty, turned to make a desperate run for the safety of the village. The Bradley hadn’t gone far before the power of the enemy fell upon it. Another scorched and twisted mass of unrecognizable metal was created by the impact of striking shells.
On the far right, Brown fired his second replacement TOW. Like a comet searching the heavens, burning pieces of a defeated BMP soared into the bright night. It was Brown’s sixth kill of the war. It would be his last.
All attention turned to the sole surviving American vehicle. A T-72 quickly isolated and, in a vivid display of its immense power, destroyed the final Bradley of 2nd Platoon.
Jensen and Jelewski continued to return the Russian fire.
From the safety of his command tank, the Russian general surveyed the killing ground. A smile came over him once again. The brief skirmish had gone exactly as he’d hoped. Despite being surprised by the enemy, his men had responded quickly. Just what he’d needed to save himself from the firing squad. He’d suffered some losses. Yet his losses were trivial in the grand scheme. The encounter had been little more than a min
or bump in the road for his rolling armada. In scarcely three minutes’ time, his lead units had finished off the small force of enemy armor. The threat from the foolish Americans was over. The fierce little battle was at its end. There were only two inconsequential infantrymen with whom to deal, and the column would be advancing again. At least that’s what the division commander believed.
The Russians had taken the bait. As Jensen and Captain Murphy had anticipated, the firing from the orchard and the rush of the four Bradleys into the middle of the nasty conflict had focused the enemy on the area surrounding the highway. With their tanks concentrated in the center of the battlefield, the Russians’ flanks were extremely vulnerable.
He’d sacrificed his platoon, but the plan had worked exactly as Jensen had hoped.
The time had come to spring the Americans’ trap. At just the right moment, identical groups of six M-1s and six Bradleys appeared north and south of the orchard. Thirty-two foot soldiers struggled through the waist-deep snows to support the armored vehicles.
Firing as they went, the Americans smashed into the enemy’s soft flanks. They ripped into the exposed sides of their gigantic foe. Fireworks blazed in all directions. Four . . . five . . . six Russian tanks fell in the first seconds. The Americans surged forward, determined to take the fight to their opponent. Confusion gripped the field. M-1s and Bradleys waded deep into the T-72s and BMPs. Cannon shells and TOW missiles roared through the grievous morning. Explosion after explosion rocked the fallow fields.
The M-1s were over twenty tons heavier and technologically superior. Their frontal armor was nearly impenetrable. The American crews were the best in the world. They struck a severe blow on the lead division’s armor. The slaughter went on without letup. If they had had twice their number, the Americans could have stopped the enemy in his tracks. But without pause, Russian tanks and BMPs kept appearing from the woods and moving toward the orchard.
