by Walt Gragg
The Apaches struck. The calamitous conflict’s thunder roared once more.
In a little more than a hurried breath, six Russian tanks were burning in a field that had yielded a bountiful harvest of red cabbage and beets five months earlier. The lethal black spiders had popped up in perfect unison. Each had fired a single Hellfire missile, guided it to the target, and faded back into the protective trees. Six tanks were nothing more than twisted, burning wreckage in the middle of the snowbound field. The assault had been so quick and so destructive that only two of the surviving tank crews had determined its source.
While the pair of T-80s blindly fired their antiaircraft machine guns into the treetops, each of the Apaches slid fifty yards to the right. The helicopters reappeared. They fired a second missile. The final six tanks fell prey to Hellfires.
In fifteen seconds, a company of T-80s had vanished from the battlefield.
“All right, Warrior Flight, let’s move out.”
None of the Apaches had suffered a single scratch. They disappeared over the evergreens. Skimming the highest branches, they moved to spin their web once again. The next group of unsuspecting flies would soon be along.
• • •
It was combat like nothing the soldiers of the Second World War had experienced on these same bloodstained fields. It wasn’t even a form of battle they’d have recognized. With both sides’ remarkable weapons of mass destruction, the only defense was to provide no massed targets. As the winter sun peaked high on the first day and slowly continued its inexorable movement toward the western horizon, neither side could dare gather too many soldiers or pieces of equipment together. Any Russian attempt to do so would result in a swift and fatal response by B-2 and B-52 bombers or the Army’s Multiple Launch Rocket Systems.
Gone forever were the days when immense armies would slug it out in the mud to determine the outcome of a war. As it was, by massing huge amounts of armor at the border, the Russians had risked it all in the previous night’s attack. They’d taken a calculated gamble. They’d been forced to endure such a risk for the first eight hours of the war in order to gain a large enough area in Germany within which to operate. To General Yovanovich’s relief, his gamble had worked. He’d rolled the dice. And the dice had so far come up sevens. Had the Russians’ surprise not succeeded and the Americans been waiting, the result would have been certain annihilation.
This war would be fought by no group larger than battalion size—and even then, only rarely. It would be a war of company against company, platoon against platoon, squad against squad, and soldier against soldier.
It was a form of warfare at which the Americans excelled—and with which the Russian soldier was ill prepared to deal. The resourceful American private made up his own battle plan as he went. If the general’s orders didn’t work, or he found himself faced with an unanticipated situation, the American simply changed things on the spot. He’d then go about accomplishing the task he’d been assigned. The creative, freethinking American was in his element.
His opponent had no such ability. The Russian soldier was given an order, and he obeyed it without question. Throughout the coming days, when cut off from his unit or faced with unusual circumstances, the Russian would continue to follow the last order he’d been given. Many times it was a useless order two or three days old. A rigid, unthinking society had produced a rigid, unthinking soldier. That soldier was being called upon to fight a thinking man’s war.
The individual advantage was strongly with the Americans. The question still to be answered, however, was whether that tactical advantage would be enough to overcome the daunting ten-to-one odds the Americans faced.
• • •
The all-powerful tank of sixty years ago had become an ordinary weapon of the battlefield. The Russian attack involved fifty thousand tanks. The defenders had only four thousand with which to meet them. Yet there was still a chance of an American victory. In this world of extraordinary technology, the tank was a valuable weapon. It was, however, no longer king. Its place in the pecking order of the battlefield fell somewhere in the middle. The tank remained a strong destroyer. Nevertheless, the things that could destroy it were now many.
Despite their setbacks in the initial twelve hours of the war, America didn’t find itself holding an empty hand. For in its arsenal of cards to play on the killing fields of Germany, it held four aces. America had four weapons so deadly that, without help, the Russian armor was powerless to defeat.
The Apache Attack Helicopter was one of the greatest killers of armor in the world. Still, it was not America’s only ace. For there were three weapons in the American arsenal as strong or stronger.
CHAPTER 37
January 29—2:30 p.m.
1st Platoon, Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 69th Armor, 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division
At the Crossroads of Highway 19 and Autobahn A7
Thirty minutes after the drones and Apaches crossed Richardson’s position, two strange creatures passed so low over the evergreens that the snow from the highest branches tumbled down upon the hidden tanks. The small aircraft had been scouring the woods for quite some time, and they were low on fuel. But they decided to make one more run at the Russians while the runways at Ramstein were being repaired. They hurried forward, cautiously picking their way through the trees until they spotted their feast.
The A-10s slammed into a platoon of BMPs. The BMPs never had a chance. From a mile away, the first Warthog pilot made his run. The other stood back to protect him. In a two-second burst, the A-10’s seven-barrel cannon fired one hundred armor-piercing rounds into the personnel carriers. The pilot hurried forward. He dropped two five-hundred-pound bombs on the crippled BMPs. The Warthog’s lethal ordnance ripped the enemy apart.
When the first ended his run, the second came forward. He wanted to make sure they’d completed the job. Like a pair of relentless hyenas finishing off a wounded quarry, the A-10s went about the task of disemboweling the BMPs. It was over in a few baneful seconds. Inside the mangled armored personnel carriers, forty soldiers were dead.
The Warthog was undisputedly the ugliest ace in the American armor-killing arsenal. Its ugly name and ugly disposition matched it perfectly. Incredibly slow, it was scarcely more than a flying cannon. It was invulnerable to the 12.7mm antiaircraft machine guns the Russian tanks and BMPs carried. The A-10 pilots simply ignored the efforts of the armored vehicles to defend themselves and blew the enemy straight into the next world.
One of the Americans’ favorite tricks was to combine the Apaches and Warthogs into a pack of ruthless killers. The strength of both predators could then be played in harmony to destroy whatever strayed into their path. Working in unison, these hyenas and jackals were the scourge of the German forest. Watching for the enemy to show any weakness, they’d attack without mercy to drag their victim down and rip him to pieces. All over southern Germany, these packs of wild dogs were picking the Russian armored bones clean.
Nevertheless, like everything on the battlefield the Warthog was vulnerable. If a MiG found this slow mover, he could kill him with relative ease. And as had happened in the skies over Ramstein and Spangdahlem, Russian air-defense missiles were quite capable of knocking the little Warthog out of the sky forever.
For that reason, the Warthogs’ trip home to Ramstein would be made at something less than one hundred feet above the ground. The aircraft would never be in a straight, stable position for more than four seconds at a time.
Or else the nasty little hunter would all too soon find himself the quarry.
• • •
Two hundred miles north, another colossal battle had commenced. Rather than being content to defend the German soil still free from the stain of the Slavic invader, four German divisions were attacking the Russians with everything they had. It was an all-out effort to recapture the eastern portion of the country.
The noose had been placed around the East German neck, but it hadn’t yet been tightened. The Russians’ hold on the East German border was paper-thin. Using everything they had, the German armored divisions rammed into the defenders. The Russian line collapsed in the first hour. By two, it was a rout. A pair of German divisions raced fifty miles into East Germany. They were halfway to Berlin. Another division recaptured Leipzig. The final one wreaked havoc in the far north, freeing Rostock and moving on.
The Russians waited. At just the right moment, they came up in force from the area around the town of Selb. They swarmed in behind the Germans. Ten armored divisions sprung the trap closed. The Germans were cut off. Twenty Russian divisions raced from their hiding place in far eastern Germany. They hit the Germans head-on. The slaughter of half the German army had begun.
By midnight, the four German divisions would be no more. And East Germany would be firmly within Russian hands.
• • •
The fast-arriving sunset was only an hour away. Frustrated by his inability to break through the 1st Armor Division’s spirited defenses, a Russian brigade commander made a fatal mistake. He brought his three thousand men together to smash the American line. A lazily circling reconnaissance drone spotted the Russian’s error.
Richardson watched four Multiple Launch Rocket Systems on modified Bradley chassis tearing down Highway 19. One of the greatest aces of the American armor killers stopped in the open area between the hidden tanks and the crowded Autobahn. A pair of the huge rocket launchers was quickly positioned on a knoll a half mile below the tanks. The other launchers were placed in a wide field a hundred yards west of the Autobahn. Two shoulder-mounted Stinger gunners readied themselves to protect the rocket systems. Each three-man rocket-launcher crew prepared to open fire.
The MLRS platoon leader verified the coordinates for the attack. The launcher commanders inputted the firing data into their computers. All four signaled their readiness.
“Fire!” the lieutenant screamed.
They released unspeakable brutality upon an unseen enemy nearly twenty miles away. In a single minute, each launcher fired twelve 227mm rockets toward the massed Russian brigade. Inside each rocket were 518 antipersonnel and antitank submunitions that would be released once they were over the target area. Each submunition was capable of tearing a three-inch hole in the top of a tank or BMP. Once inside the armored vehicle, the little bombs would fragment to kill everyone aboard.
One hundred tanks and an equal number of BMPs waited in a narrow ravine for the brigade commander to give the order to crush the overextended American lines. From out of nowhere, more than eight thousand armor-piercing bomblets poured down upon their heads. The munitions ripped into the thin tops of the armored vehicles.
In sixty seconds, one the Soviet Union’s finest brigades disappeared in a firestorm of unbelievable savagery. Not a single soldier survived the grisly massacre. The corpses of the three thousand, and their burned-out vehicles, would stand forever as a monument to the new world’s warfare.
The Multiple Launch Rocket Systems’ crews started to reload. They’d be ready to fire again, or to move on to a new location, in three minutes. While the attackers prepared to release fearsome death and destruction once more, they were instantly transformed from aggressor to victim.
A Russian spotter located the source of the rocket firing. He called in a squadron of attack helicopters. Six Mi-24 “Hind-Gs” roared across the American lines. It took them just over a minute to cover the distance to the rocket launchers. The American crews were still in the process of reloading. They were caught in the open by the Hinds’ sudden appearance. At the last possible instant, their Stinger team spotted the Hinds as they roared out of the low trees on the eastern side of the autobahn. A Stinger gunner locked onto the lead helicopter. He waited for the sweet tone. The second it sounded, he fired. The helicopter exploded into a thousand flaming pieces one hundred feet above the autobahn filled with terrified German civilians. Death rained down upon the fleeing maze of cars. Scores of German vehicles were soon ablaze.
The other Hinds opened fire with rockets, missiles, and machine guns. On the open ground, the Americans had no chance of escape. The two rocket-laden launcher systems on the snowy knoll below Richardson’s position exploded with incredible force. The monstrous blasts shook the hilltop to its very foundation. A mammoth fireball reached high into the heavens.
The second Stinger gunner fired. Only a few feet above the autobahn, the Hind on the far right blew up in midair. The Stinger gunners desperately tried to reload.
A Hind opened fire on the exposed soldiers kneeling on the snowy ground. One of the air defenders went down in a twisted heap.
Hidden on the hilltop, the tank platoon watched the one-sided battle.
“Tim, we can’t just sit here and watch these guys get slaughtered!” Warrick screamed. “We gotta help them!”
“They’re out of range of my antiaircraft machine gun,” Richardson said.
“Well, they’re not out of range of our main gun. I’m certain we can nail a few of those bastards and help those guys out. I’m going to start targeting the one hovering on the far left, even if you haven’t given me an order to do so.”
“Tony, go ahead and target him if you want. I’ll even give you a hand with the coordinates. But you’re wasting your time. We’re not going to fire unless the lieutenant tells us to. And you and I both know that Lieutenant Mallory’s never going to issue such an order. We’re here to defend this crossroads, and we can’t do that if we’re dead. If we pick a fight with a handful of Hinds, when they’re through with us, there’ll be nothing left on this hilltop but three smoldering tanks.”
“But we’ve got to do something.”
“There’s nothing we can do. All we can do is pray the Hinds don’t spot us. Because if they do, they’ll do to us what they’re doing to them.”
Another of the swarming Hinds’ machine guns ripped into the last Stinger gunner. He dropped motionless into the snows. The Hinds went after the final pair of American rocket launchers. Missiles tore from pods beneath the helicopters’ stubby wings. In a desperate attempt to survive, the launcher crews ran up the hill. They were fifty yards from their launchers when the missiles hit. The launchers exploded with such overpowering violence that even at such a distance, the soldiers were killed instantly.
Like an ancient farmer’s scythe cutting the pliant winter wheat, flaming metal and erupting munitions cut a swath thirty yards wide in the civilian cars on the jammed autobahn. The carnage on the roadway was inconceivable. And quite final. Death and suffering were everywhere Richardson surveyed.
The victorious helicopters raced off to the east. In the three tanks, the crews breathed a collective sigh of relief.
• • •
The defeated Russian brigade was quickly replaced by another. One whose commander wasn’t nearly as foolish as his predecessor.
The Americans had nothing with which to replace the demolished Multiple Launch Rocket Systems.
Throughout the long afternoon, the intense pressure on the Allies’ line was unyielding. Russian losses were tremendous. Yet for each Russian soldier lost, for each Russian tank destroyed, one moved forward to take its place. And another moved forward to take the place of the one that had just moved forward. And another moved forward to take that one’s place.
The replacement process for those poor souls who’d never again in this lifetime fight for Comrade Cheninko went on almost without end.
Unfortunately, the Americans had no such luxury. For every American soldier lost, for every ravaged American tank, the line grew a little weaker. There’d be no one to take their places. The beleaguered American defenses were dangerously thin. Still, all along their lines, the 1st Armor Division held fast.
The first twelve hours of the battle for Germany had belonged to the Russians. But at noon, the tide
had changed. The last three hours had been owned by the stalwart Americans. By midafternoon on the first day, the Russians weren’t one foot closer to the Rhine River than they’d been at midday. With the sun settling in the west, both sides prepared to battle throughout the bitterly cold, sixteen-hour night that would follow.
The Americans were in a desperate situation. It was, however, a desperation tinged with the smallest blush of hope.
And so far, the Americans hadn’t been forced to use their trump card.
Their final ace had yet to be played.
CHAPTER 38
January 29—3:15 p.m.
On the Eastern Fence
Ramstein Air Base
Slumped over his machine gun, Arturo Rios fell asleep at a little after two. As he did, the temperature reached its highest point of the day—twenty-eight degrees. Neither Goodman nor Wilson tried to keep him from sleeping.
The exhausted Rios had been unconscious for about an hour when a strong hand grasped his shoulder and vigorously shook it.
“Airman . . . hey, Airman, wake up. They tell me after all the Russians you killed this morning, you’re in need of a bit of relief.”
The hand continued to shake him. Rios slowly opened his eyes. Standing over him were three grinning soldiers with burgundy berets in their pockets. Rios could see the square patch on each soldier’s left shoulder with the AA on it, and the word AIRBORNE above the patch.
With Spangdahlem gone, the last American fighter base inside Germany had to be held at all cost. A battalion from the 82nd Airborne had arrived. With them were two companies of Bradleys from the 24th Infantry along with two platoons with eight M-1 tanks. The airborne soldiers and their cohorts had been headed east to reinforce the 3rd Infantry’s lines, but they’d been recalled. With refugees clogging every inch of roadway, it had taken the battalion over five hours to cover the sixty miles to Ramstein. The burgundy berets had driven through Ramstein’s front gate at two thirty. They were there to ensure that the beleaguered airmen could maintain their fragile hold on the base. Minus one thousand of their countrymen and all of their armored cars and antitank missiles, there was no way Ramstein’s survivors could withstand a second determined Russian attack on their own.
