Initiative (The Red Gambit Series Book 6)

by Colin Gee

  The external stabiliser springs had been carried away, and the shock wave had done other damage to the gun mount.

  Parker immediately knew the right thing to do.

  “Shit! Abandon tank!”

  Needing no second invitation, the four survivors bailed out.

  Four became three as Rogers, the loader, took a bullet in the back of the head and dropped lifeless on the engine grilles.

  The IS-IIIs were in the ascendency, and another of Parker’s tanks erupted in a storm of orange and red.

  Parker checked his remaining two men, one of whom was wounded, one of which was terrified out of his skin.

  Leaving Dewey in charge, the blood-covered Major Parker sprinted to the nearest tank and dropped in behind it, liberating the handset to the squawk box.

  On the inside of the tank, the young Lieutenant was wholly glad to receive orders to withdraw, and lost no time in passing the instructions to the survivors.

  Parker moved away and watched as the remnants of his mobile force worked their way backwards… still engaging… still fighting... face to the enemy.

  He nodded in silent praise at the way the three tanks worked as a team. Pulling out his Colt automatic, he ran back to where he had left his two crewmen, but found the position empty.

  A quick scan revealed no clue as to their whereabouts, but he had other fish to fry in any case.

  The sound of aero engines made him look skyward, and he was rewarded with the sight of the returning aircraft, who immediately renewed their attack on the Soviet positions, including the IS-IIIs who now started to suffer casualties.

  Leaping from rubble to rubble, hole to hole, he moved closer to the nearest surviving disabled Super Pershing, intent on organising the resistance or salvaging what he could of the unit, whichever needed to be done.

  Gauging the distance to the rear of the disabled tank, Parker made the final sprint and flopped onto the ground in its shadow.

  Underneath him, a Type 43 Riegel bar mine sensed the pressure. Normally it would not have been enough to detonate, Parker’s weight being less than the designated one hundred and eighty kilos down force.

  However, that did not matter to the unstable mine.

  Four kilos of TNT exploded in an instant, spreading parts of Parker over the rear of the Pershing, and numerous points beyond.

  1030 hrs, Monday, 15th July 1946, Fulda, Germany.

  Yatzhin, dismounted from his tank, watched in a rage as his second and third companies withdrew in disarray.

  His rage was not aimed at his poor soldiers, who had given all they could, but at the Allied airmen, who once again had saved the day for his enemy.

  He swivelled his binoculars and exercised a studied calm as he noted the smoking ruins of all but four of the IS-IIIs, most destroyed by the enemy aircraft that continued to circle the battlefield.

  Just to confirm his recollections of the swift but merciless air attack, he sought out the blackened and smoking hole on the side of Height 424, the site of the sole success against the fliers who had plagued his command.

  A single Thunderbolt had succumbed to his AA defence, and had driven straight into the hillside.

  Yatzhin dropped the binoculars to his chest and took a deep breath to clear his mind.

  His orders had been discharged, and the enemy assaults on the two key heights had been repulsed, the Cossacks on Height 424 having recaptured the high ground when the tanks in the valley had started to withdraw.

  However, he had lost the majority of his command in the process, and a second push by any substantial enemy force would carry them through and beyond his positions in a matter of a few moments.

  The US artillery started up again, harrying his withdrawing tanks, as well as bringing discomfort to the cavalrymen repairing their positions on Height 424.

  He envied the matériel available to his enemy, his own supply situation tenuous at best, at worst a nothingness that forecast solely disaster for the Red Army.

  Yatzhin snorted, totally without humour, assuring himself that the only reason he would have a full load of ammunition on his tank was that he now had less tanks to supply.

  “Blyad.”

  “Comrade Mayor?”

  “Nothing, Comrade Praporshchik, nothing.”

  “Right, pack up and prepare to move back. I’m returning to my tank.”

  Neither he, nor the Praporshchik, or the rest of the headquarters group heard it.

  None the less, it was very real.

  The shell had been fired by an M43 Self-propelled gun, sporting a heavy M115 8” howitzer.

  It was the first shot the unit had fired that day, and the most effective.

  The two hundred pound shell struck directly on Yatzhin’s command tank, sending vicious pieces of sharp metal in all directions.

  The Major felt as if he had been kicked in the belly, but his attention was mainly drawn to the Praporshchik, who simply fell into four large loosely connected pieces, as shards of metal scythed through his body.

  The screams and wails of those hit by life-taking metal filled his senses.

  A wall of flame washed over him as his smashed tank and crew were immolated before his eyes.

  The shock wave lifted him up and sent him flying backwards, smashing through something that could only have been another human being, before he came to rest in a bush thirty yards from where he had been standing.

  Still he felt no pain, but he was fascinated by the silver-grey entrails that spread from his riven stomach back down the path he had just been thrown.

  His belly had been sliced open, as neat and precise as if done by a top surgeon, allowing his stomach and organs to come tumbling out and drag in the earth.

  His back started to protest first, a number of teeth and parts of a jawbone buried in his kidney area, pieces of the young radio operator he had smashed into during his rearward flight.

  And then, like a tidal wave, the pain came and robbed him of his senses.

  Yatzhin screamed…

  …and screamed…

  …and screamed…

  He was still screaming when the medical detail recovered his intestines, washed them clean with water, before bagging them as best they could, and carrying the hideously wounded officer away.

  What happened at Fulda, and around Lehnerz and Niesig, was a microcosm of the American front.

  A battle that produced nothing but dead and maimed men, smashed equipment, expenditure of supplies, and little to show for it militarily, save for a few feet of ground, one way or the other.

  In just over an hour of combat, forty-eight tanks, six anti-tank guns, twenty-nine assorted vehicles, and one aircraft had been destroyed or put out of action.

  Combined casualties amounted to six hundred and seventy dead, with a similar number wounded.

  The Soviet plan to inflict casualties upon the Americans was working, as the US generals knew only too well.

  The Red Army’s own casualties were horrendous, but the USSR did not suffer from the diseases of freedom and democracy, as Stalin was want to put it.

  Despite the losses, Fulda was insignificant in the greater run of things, or so it seemed, because one particular loss proved to be the catalyst for significant events in the American capital.

  Some weeks later, well after the battle, the family of Sergeant Art Dewey received the confirmation that he had been killed in action, his remains, and those of Priest, eventually found amongst the smashed rubble of Lehnerz.

  They were one of many families that received such notifications in the month of August 1946.

  The difference was that Arthur Lawrence Dewey was the son of Thomas Edmund Dewey, Governor of New York and the defeated Republican presidential candidate in the ’44 election, a man who was an established anti-intervention politician, a man now in mourning, and a man supplied with the full facts of the pointless nature of his son’s death in front of Height 424 near Fulda.

  A man who developed a thirst for retribution, and a specific
idea on how it could be achieved.

  And so it was that a relatively unimportant battle became a pivotal point in the European War or, more accurately, the political war at home.

  1123 hrs, Wednesday, 17th July 1946, Magdeburg, Germany.

  Lieutenant Colonel Konstantin Djorov listened impassively to the instructions of his air controller.

  Returned from his test pilot role to command of 2nd Guards Special Fighter Regiment, he now led the most capable fighter unit in the Red Air Force and, if things went as was hoped, he would shortly have an opportunity to lead them into combat for the first time in their new guise.

  The 2nd, or to give it’s the full honorifics, 2nd Guards Special Red Banner Order of Suvorov Fighter Aviation Regiment, comprised two groups of aircraft, amounting to forty-seven craft in total.

  Four companies of jet fighters, two of ex-German Me 262s, and two of MiG-9s, were lurking high above the city of Magdeburg, favouring a position slightly to the south-west.

  Waiting…

  1125 hrs, Wednesday, 17th July 1946, approaching Magdeburg, Germany.

  At twenty thousand feet, the 20th Schwerekampfstaffel of the DRL’s 8th Schwerekampfgruppe was approaching its assigned target, the fifteen US-manufactured B32 Dominator bombers in perfect formation and untroubled by the modest flak that was thrown at them.

  Two Jagdstaffels of late model ME-109K fighters flew above them, waiting for any Soviet interceptor response.

  Behind the first wave came the second, a mish-mash of British four-engine heavy bomber aircraft, from the Vickers Windsor, Short Stirling, to the Handley-Page Halifax. The 22nd Schwerekampfstaffel brought another nineteen bombers to the party.

  A further two squadrons of fighters shepherded their charges on the approach run to the Magdeburg rail yards, the target for today’s modest raid.

  The DRL bombers reached Aschersleben, and turned hard to port, lining up their approach on a north-north-east course, to bring them directly down the line of the recently repaired marshalling yards.

  Soviet flak was virtually now virtually non-existent and no aircraft were lost from home base to a point east of Sülzetal… where an easy mission suddenly became a bloodbath of monumental proportions.

  1133 hrs, Wednesday, 17th July 1946, skies above Sülzetal, Germany.

  “Attack pattern one. Dive, dive, dive!”

  Lieutenant Colonel Djorov led his group of MiG-9s directly into a frontal attack on the approaching bomber formation, closing from above at an incredible speed, despite throttling back to gain more ‘time on target’ for his weapons, one 37mm and two 23mm cannons.

  Despite his skills and experience, Djorov only managed the briefest of bursts before he was through and past the first wave of bombers.

  His followers also failed to exact the price of their surprise attack, although one of the Dominators gradually fell from height, its flight deck flayed by shells and occupied only by warm meat.

  The DRL protective fighters, ME-109Ks of the 5th Jagdgruppe, swarmed down, angry at being caught unawares and keen to protect their charges, and found themselves suddenly fighting for their lives as the Me-262 group, led by Oligrevin, the Regiment’s 2IC, fell upon them with gusto.

  With more time on the 262, the Soviet pilots judged their ambush better, and four of the 190s came apart under the concentrated fire of the cannon each ‘Schwalbe’ carried.

  Two others fell away smoking, with no more aggressive intent, each pilot concentrating on just staying airborne.

  The MiGs came back round in a wide arc, bleeding off more speed.

  Djorov lined himself up on a Dominator, its rear defensive .50cal machine guns already spouting tracer in an effort to put him off his approach.

  The veteran pilot eased his jet fighter into position and judged his burst to perfection.

  Shells chewed into the starboard wing and fuselage with dramatic effect.

  Whilst the spar did not fail completely, the damage was such that it bent. The right wing kinked upwards, ensuring that the large aircraft transformed from an aerodynamic beauty into a useless piece of spiraling metal within seconds.

  The crew screamed their lives out as the aircraft’s G-forces ensured they rode it all the way into their native soil below.

  Above, Djorov flicked into another attack line and managed a half-second burst at another target, before his speed carried him away from the increasingly desperate German airmen.

  His flight sent another four Dominators falling from the sky, their heavy cannon shells doing murderous work with flesh and metal alike.

  One MiG flew through a cone of defensive fire and simply exploded in mid-air, no piece larger than a manhole cover surviving to drop to the ground.

  Behind the leading flight, the DRL Me-109s and Red Air Force 262s fought in isolation, the defensive fighters with nothing to do but fight to preserve their own lives, the Soviet Schwalbes intent solely on their own mission of destroying the escort.

  Five destroyed Dominators became nine, as Djorov led his men in for a side attack.

  Whilst Djorov learned that the larger silhouette was an easier target, he also learned the hard way that it unmasked more guns, as the pass ensured two more of his aircraft were lost, one in a huge fireball that left an orange and black rainbow as it fell away, and the other simply stopped flying through a storm of heavy bullets, its wounded pilot trusting to his silk to return safely to terra firma.

  The highest ranking German bomber officer called off the attack, and the Dominators turned to port, closing in even tighter for self-defense, whilst their radio operators screamed for support, for anyone… anything close by that could come and save them from massacre.

  Djorov turned his flight’s attentions to the other enemy heavy formation, bringing his men around the fighter melee and into another frontal attack.

  The results were better and, despite the loss of two more of his aircraft, four bombers went down hard, with another two smoking badly and falling out of formation.

  As agreed previously, Oligrevin had detached some of his fighters to deal with any escort that the second wave might have, and these 262s found themselves embroiled in a fight with 262s of the DRL, only the third such encounter recorded in the new war.

  From the euphoria of fighting and destroying the outclassed ME-109s, the Soviet pilots suddenly found themselves in the situation of fighting pilots with more experience than them in their aircraft, and with jets that were better maintained, fueled, and conditioned. They had barreled headfirst into the 200th ZBV Jagdgeschwader, a squadron of elite German pilots with more jet fighting experience than any other such group in the world. Jet tangled with jet, but the DRL pilots had the upper hand from the start.

  Djorov kept his MiGs focused on the bombers, but instinctively understood that he had little time before the yellow-nosed aircraft overcame his cover and started to attack his unit.

  He also understood that he would be outclassed, but applied himself to the task of bringing down the enemy bombers, rather than contemplate what was to come.

  Olegrevin was fighting for his life and could spare little time for the niceties.

  “Yaguar-krasny-odin, Yaguar-belyy-dva, they’re all over us…we can’t cover you.”

  He instinctively thumbed the firing button as a shape flashed across his nose from left to right.

  “Mudaks!”

  He missed, which was fortunate, as the white and red tail of a friendly aircraft became apparent.

  “MUDAKS!”

  However, he held his line and managed to land a few shells on target, the pursuing DRL aircraft taking vital damage in its port turbojet, causing it to spin away, out of the fight.

  He also missed Djorov’s reply as his cannons roared again, missing an enemy aircraft adorned with the evidence of scores of kills, its evasive manoeuvre seemingly well beyond his own understanding of the 262’s abilities.

  ‘Blyad! This one’s a real ace!’

  Olegrevin turned as tight as he dared, intent on tr
ying his hand again, but the enemy pilot guessed his intent and performed a sudden climb and tight turn, accompanied by a loss of forward momentum that defied the laws of physics, a manoeuvre that took him unawares. It was almost as if the ace deliberately stalled his aircraft to drop off speed in an instant.

  The Russian overshot and found himself the hunted.

  Rolling to the right, he dropped his starboard wing and did a roll around, coming back upright in a left-handed dive.

  A fluffy cloud proved a momentary haven, and Olegrevin pulled up as hard as he dared, with right stick and pedal, intent on turning the tables on his enemy.

  …Which enemy was still on his tail.

  ‘Mudaks! Job tvoju mat!’

  Tracers flashed past his cockpit, close enough that he felt he could lean out and catch the deadly cannon shells in his hat.

  He spun away, using his right hand turn to advantage, feeling the forces push him hard back into his seat.

  Johannes Steinhoff, commander of JG200, had one hundred and eighty-eight victories to his name, and was perturbed that number one-eight-nine was proving so difficult.

  From the kill markings on the enemy jet, the man was clearly an experienced pilot, but such was Steinhoff’s confidence and self-belief that he had expected to down the Soviet airman with much less of a fight.

  His last burst had missed, although it must have shaved the Schwalbe’s cockpit.

  The red and white tailed jet threw itself into a breakneck right diving spin.

  Fate took a hand, and Steinhoff had to shift his stick to the left rapidly, as two enemy aircraft closed in on a collision course.

  “Scheisse!”

  Narrowly missing the leading enemy, he swung around in a long port turn His eyes sought out his worthy opponent, but failed to find him.

  Another target suggested itself, and Steinhoff flicked back into the vertical and pulled on the stick, walking his shells from tail to nose.