by FARMAN, ANDY
Today the PLAN Jiangwei class frigate Anqing was receiving radar data from a pair of FC-1s providing the CAP, and two fast gunboats, which accompanied her. A Haiqing class patrol boat held station five miles ahead and a second vessel, a smaller Haizhu class, kept pace five miles aft, allowing the frigate to engage without bring its radar out of standby and therefore revealing its own position.
The Anqing was cruising at an economic ten knots, twelve miles off the peninsular and in relatively calm seas when the data link failed. Her communications officer tried to raise both patrol boats first and then the aircraft, but when his hails received no response her captain ordered the radar to go active. In addition to the sea search and Eyeshield 2D air search radars the 6 cell HQ-61 SAM was put in active mode, the gun crews of the dual 100mm and all four dual 37mm mounts closed up and swung out to seaward. They heard their attacker and they saw it with the naked eye but the radar screens remained clear. The bat shaped aircraft was on the landward side and only a mile distant when it was seen, climbing to 1600 feet before rolling inverted and diving back toward the island. It had disappeared into the sea haze before the quickest 37mm crew could get a round off, and by then of course it was too late anyway to avoid the pair of laser guided 1000 pounder’s the aircraft had toss-lobbed there way.
At Edwin Andrew Airbase the American bomber force took to the air first, leaving the Philippines for the foreseeable future as they made full use of the gap in the picket. They were followed by four transports, two USAF C-5s and a pair of Royal Air Force C-130s which flew just a couple of hundred feet above the waves until well clear of the land and well beyond the radar coverage of the remaining Chinese pickets before the C-5s set course for Guam. The C-5s carried away the technicians, ground crews and essential stores that were needed to keep the B-1Bs, B-2s and the F-117A force in running order, the fuelling stop at the tiny atoll was just the first step on the journey home. The two Hercules from 47 Squadron took a different route, and headed for the nearest tanker serving the silo strike. Squadron Leader Dunn and Flight Lieutenant Braithwaite’s C-130 led the way, and they settled down to share the flying between them. They had a long way to go and at an average speed of 460mph it was going to take them a while to get there, so the ‘Loadies’, and the Royal Marines aboard for security, settled down too.
Russia.
There had been neither sight nor sound of a helicopter all day, and yet the runway was to remain covered until the last possible moment, and the troopers at stand-to in their fighting holes. The commander of the small unit was not about to let standards drop just because the job was nearly done. The militia were miles away and floundering, but in his experience it could take just one piece of bad luck to have the tables turn on them, so until the F-117X was away for the last time, he was keeping everything locked down tight. In his original thinking the airstrip would be abandoned within an hour of take-off, but Major Nunro had come to him with a request and an apologetic expression.
“The problem I have is that I’m not flying a USAF Nighthawk, and this aircraft doesn’t have the legs.”
“If it’s not a Nighthawk then what is it?” he had asked. “Looks like one to me.”
“It’s experimental and it still belongs to Lockheed-Martin, not the air force.”
He’d seen the humour.
“It’s a loaner?”
“Nighthawks are single crewed if you didn’t know, this one can do more than a pilot on his or her own can deal with, so a back seater was required but to accomplish that they had to lose an internal fuel tank.” The pilot had looked very apologetic.
“The short version is, we can reach the target and do the job, but flame out inside enemy territory. Or we can return here, and refuel before trying to get out.”
He had acquiesced of course, because they were too deep within the forest for the militia to hear an aircraft take off, and it was only for a few extra hours after all.
To the south west, the two men he had shadowing the militia reported that the current rate of advance was less than half a kilometre per hour, and the radio traffic they were intercepting didn’t indicate any surprises, but he wouldn’t let the men relax.
In its well camouflaged niche the aircraft sat like a dark, brooding thing awaiting the dark whilst its crew and Svetlana, dressed in flight suit purely for environmental practicality, sat about talking and waiting for the night to fall.
41” 28’ N, 171” 29’ E.
There was little to break the monotony of the endless routine that had been drilled into each and every crewman from the first day they had stepped foot across the threshold of submarine school. The only way was the Navy way, and there was a logical reason for that, the Navy way was quieter, quicker and safer, never mind that it turned the hands into automatons. No one aboard had felt fresh air on their face since before the start of the war, and although the captain had seen daylight it had only been through a periscope and the last occasion that had been raised was over two weeks before. There wasn’t a man aboard who did not miss their families and the outside world as much as they loathed the steel shell that they were forced to exist in. The enemy was out there and their submarine required only their chief executives order to attack and destroy them, but what was taking so long, they had been here for days now?
They were not party to the command-in-chief’s intentions, and did not know the orders were dependant on events elsewhere in the world, so they continued to tip toe in the dark so as not to alert the enemy as to their presence.
The captain ordered the vessel up toward the surface, so that the floating antennae to be streamed. It was a daily occurrence, listening for the order to attack and at first there had been an air of expectation whenever they had done this, but that however had palled with the passage of time.
At 100 feet the vessel had levelled off and 1800 metres of antennae cable had been streamed, but unlike past occasions a bell sounded in the control room this time to announce high priority incoming traffic.
The captain and the executive officer wore solemn expressions after reading the received signal, and accompanied the weapons officer to his panel where they supervised the input of amended targeting data, adding Davao and Melbourne to their existing strike package of Pearl Harbor, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Guam.
Aboard the USS San Juan, 7500m behind, they listened to the Chinese boomer reel in the antennae and return to her patrol depth.
CHAPTER 6
Germany.
One mile to the rear of his forward companies, the regimental commander of the Czech 23rd MRR was feeling a whole lot more optimistic than he had twelve hours before. It had been expected that his regiment would lose anywhere from 20% to 60% of its strength in successfully attacking the British marines in their current defensive positions. The combat between his unit and that of the Britisher’s was also expected to be a long, drawn out affair, and it was probably more to do with the time element than concern for the fighting men’s welfare that had prompted the Russians to present him with the services of one of their Spetznaz units. The units commander had not looked the most terribly enthusiastic of warriors when he had been shown into the regimental commanders presence, but they were apparently quite recently returned from operations on the other side of the line and may have felt entitled to some rest. Despite his mistrust of special operations he had to take his hat off to the Spetznaz major and his handful of men, wearing the clothing and equipment of freshly dead Royal Marines they had infiltrated the Commando position in a captured vehicle and pinpointed high value targets for the artillery. They had wrought havoc with the marine units command and control before moving on, and without doubt saving the 23rd MRR, men, equipment, and above all time.
In the attack on the marines position he had so far only committed two tank and three APC companies, he still had one complete battalion and two more tank companies waiting in the wings. The first British positions were already under his control, including a slightly wooded rise, the control
of which allowed them access to the marines left flank. An attack on that rise should have prompted reinforcement and priority of fire the second it looked to be in danger of being successful, but no increase in shellfire, airstrike’s or fresh troops had been evident due to the destruction of the chains of command. His men had killed the marines in their holes before occupying the position, and he was now ready to roll forward along the marines flank prior to making a sharp right and rolling up the entire position.
The snipers were ready to vacate the hide as soon as the marines began to appear in the lane were it topped the crest ahead of them. So far they had seen only the casevac party, but neither man doubted that it could be too long before the Commando began to withdraw, with its forward companies beginning a reverse leapfrog, giving ground but always with two companies covering as the other pair moved. That was the way things were done, and nobody had told them to expect anything else.
Stef saw movement on the crest first, two hundred metres left of the lane where a handful of men, some plainly wounded, forced a way through the hedgerow there, hacking at it with machetes to widen a gap and then dragging the wounded through it. More men appeared, this time in the lane, and then the men at the hedgerow were joined by two Scimitars of the Blue’s & Royal's, reversing into view whilst firing three round bursts back the way they had come. A pair of men each dragged a wounded marine towards the Guards lines, leaving a gun group and three riflemen to fight a rear-guard action alongside the light armour, which had now reversed over the hedgerow. It was a short, one-sided defence and both Bill and Stef watched open mouthed as the four marines and the wounded on the reverse slope were cut down by automatic fire, coming not from the front, but from the sunken lane. What they had assumed to be Royal Marines of 40 Commando withdrawing were in fact Soviet dismounted infantry using the cover of the lane to get as close as possible to the next line of defence.
“Why weren’t the trees dropped across the lane, I thought they’d been wired to blow, Stef?”
“Fuck knows, mate!” Stef grabbed the field telephone receiver once again, to warn the CP.
The troops in the lane switched their attention to the tiny knot of resistance beside the hedgerow, but it was not until two of the marines had been hit that the remainder realised that they had been flanked, but from their position on the crest the tankers were able to look down the slope and into the lane. A Scimitars turret traversed to the right and it opened fire, its 30mm cannon creating carnage in the narrow confines of the lane, which was now seething with Soviet infantry.
The response from the lane was sudden and swift, a Sagger left a thin trail of dirty exhaust as it flew across the intervening space to strike the light tank squarely on the rear of the engine compartment, the Scimitar’s cannon immediately fell silent and the vehicle began to burn without any of the crew bailing out.
The surviving marines used the smoke of the burning armoured vehicle as cover to make for a ditch running down the opposite side of the field to the lane, but the surviving Scimitar moved only to place its burning cousin between itself and the lane, gaining some protection at least to its exposed rear. Neither of the snipers could see what the lightly armoured vehicle was engaging, but its commander clearly felt that whatever it was, it was a more serious threat than even the enemy troops at his back. The Scimitar continued to engage the enemy in the dead ground beyond the hedgerow, but moments later it was struck by a main tank round and exploded in spectacular fashion, only its tracks remained.
Its killer emerged into view from out of the dead ground, the T-72s main gun moving from side to side as it searched for another target. The marine gained the ditch but not quickly enough to avoid being seen by the T-72s driver who altered course once the hedgerow had been negotiated, placing the armoured vehicles right hand track into the ditch and accelerating. Mud and grass, gauged out of the ditch's bottom flew into the air in the tanks wake, but then Bill vomited as he saw the airborne detritus turn red.
“It’s time to go!” Stef pulled the ends of the D10 cable from the field telephones terminals and stuffed the instrument inside his Bergan beside the Swiftscope. More tanks were appearing on the crest and Bill wiped his mouth on a sleeve before crawling backwards away from the firing loop.
“We need to get a rift on, or those bastards will be using us to line their wheel arches too.”
The ‘door’ to the hide was removed by Stef who emerged into the daylight before reaching back to haul out their Bergans, and once Bill had joined him they kept low and began to follow a pre-planned route, although indirect, that made use of the best available cover back to their lines.
Arnie Moore, assisted by the Padre, guided the Warrior into a natural fold in the ground that gave the vehicle total cover from view from the front, and yet by moving forward just ten feet it would be in a hull-down position and able to engage. He had noticed this spot several days before, it was too narrow to accommodate a Challenger II or the older Chieftain’s that the attached tank squadron had, but from this spot a Warrior could cover the steeply sided stream that separated this battalion from its neighbour on the left. Both units had of course sited positions to cover the possible chink in the proverbial armour, but Arnie could visualise those positions being swamped before any reinforcement could take place.
On the whole he thought Pat Reed had worked marvels in motivating tired men into achieving the level of defence that they had. It had been the commanding officer whom had seen the potential of making men spend time with picks and shovels on the slope between 3 Company’s platoon and the company positions. The hillside on the right of the battalion line was steeper than on the left, and with a lot of sweat and blisters the men had managed to make it damn near impassable to all but tracked vehicles with very, very skilled drivers. Anyone advancing beyond the bounds of 9 Platoon would find the gradient suddenly becoming quite severe and the natural routes blocked by the simple expedient of placing several pine trunks on their sides between two trees; on the uphill side of course. The trees braced the stacked trunks, which could not be easily bulldozed aside owing to earth that had been piled behind and hard packed. Beyond these obstructions the drivers would discover where the earth had come from, the troops had crudely quarried six to ten feet in depth in a band along the side of the hill. It wasn’t much but it would probably mean the infantry having to debus and hoof it uphill whilst the fighting vehicles tried to find another way around.
It had been impractical to attempt the same over by 1 Company; the slope was too shallow so mines had been planted where they could be the most use.
With the Warrior in position there was nothing to do but wait, and the RSM felt the need for a mug of good Java, but he’d have to make do with British Army freeze dried coffee granules instead.
“Do you have time for a coffee, Padre?” Arnie commented, but he did not receive a reply. The Padre was squinting off to one side at a thicket a hundred or so metres away.
“Padre?”
“Sorry sarn’t major, I thought I saw a stretcher being carried into some bushes.” The battalion aid station and casualty collection point was in the opposite direction to the one the bearers he was sure he had seen had been heading.
Arnie was unaware that any of the battalion had yet been injured and said as much, but the Padre apparently was not so sure.
“It will only take me a moment to check, RSM.”
Arnie was going tell his loader to grab a first aid kit and accompany the Padre, but he was already striding purposefully away and Ptarmigan was carrying the news that 40 Commando had been overrun. Arnie glanced after the retreating back before shrugging; he and his crew had more urgent work to be getting on with, but he told his loader to keep an eye out for the Padre from the commander’s position, and then got busy himself.
The Spetznaz major had spent an hour and a half looking for a position such as the one he was now in, with line of sight to not two, but three prime targets, a company CP, an ammunition resupply point, and the enemy
battalions principle command post. This spot was also sufficiently divorced from the enemy defensive positions as to be safe from all but an unlucky round from his own side’s artillery, but they would not of course tempt fate and his six remaining men were hacking at the ground with entrenching tools. The only fly in the ointment was a nearby enemy fighting vehicle that had since turned up, and although he and his men carried only small arms and grenades, he had the means to make it disappear permanently if it did not move on. All in all, the major considered that he and his men had done quite enough for one war and the time was approaching for them to sit the rest of this one out. After the next three targets were taken out their communications gear was going to ‘malfunction’, and he had no intention of putting his ass in harm’s way again. With continental Europe in Soviet hands there would be a period of chaos, where an intelligent man with a touch of ruthlessness could set himself up in business before the forces of law and order again appeared. Food shortages would be the most obvious of the woes about to befall the western Europeans, but the major had sufficient contacts in the army supply services to ensure sufficient stocks. After all wars, food becomes a more important currency than even gold, for a while at least.
