Tide Of Fortune (Kirov Series Book 20)

by John Schettler

  He saw one of the massive ships, Baikal, make an emergency ballast drop, and he grinned, thinking his enemy had been caught by surprise. The other ship, Tunguska, was also drooling water from her nose, which he saw as a desperate attempt to get the ship pointed upwards for a rapid ascent.

  “By God! We’ve got the bastards! Order the whole damn division in and pound them. We’ll deal with those two battlecruisers after we’re finished.”

  The engines of his cruisers revved up to full power, and they surged ahead, closing the range to about 7000 Meters. They needed to get in to at least 4000 meter range for the recoilless rifles to be effective, but before they could do so, Captain Gorelki saw the top platforms of the big ship up front open fire. That was sheer desperation, he thought, for nothing bigger than a 76mm gun was typically mounted on a top gun platform, and it couldn’t reach his cruisers yet. He knew Tunguska carried longer range 105mm guns, but all of those would be dangling from the three gun gondolas under her belly, and well out of the action. He had about five seconds to gloat before he saw something come streaking in at his lead ship. It was just a single round, he thought, and it wasn’t likely to—

  The sudden explosion cut that thought off at the root, for something blasted into the heart of his leading airship, the Krasnodar, and then exploded with a shuddering roar.

  Karpov had lured those six airships in, deliberately lingering low to entice them to make this very maneuver. Then he shouted the code to his signalman, “Spearfish!” and the top platforms of Tunguska opened up with those modern day tank killing Koronet ATGMs, and they were all carrying 9M133F-3 thermobaric warheads, equivalent to 10 kilograms of TNT in explosive power. The resulting detonation was much more energetic and long lasting than a conventional warhead, as the round literally consumed all the oxygen in the air to fuel its fiery wrath. A single hit was going to wreak havoc on one of these airships.

  Karpov’s elder self had used his own self-styled thermobaric weapon to take down Big Red, and Orenburg with it. The fact that the missiles outranged the enemy recoilless rifles was carefully calculated. The helium filled gas in the big lifting bags was inert, and would not explode or burn, but helium was a very rare commodity, particularly in Orenburg. To compensate, the fleet had designed their airships in such a way that the centermost lifting bags would use hydrogen, and only those positioned near the outer shell of the ship contained the safer helium. So at the heart of most of these enemy ships was that Achilles heel, a highly explosive gas bag that could cause real trouble if detonated. That, and all the oxygen in the internal spaces allowing access for ladders and rigging, was the fuel that Karpov planned to ignite, along with all the oxygen canisters used at high elevation, and all the ammunition stored aboard those ships. He just needed the proper match, and the Koronet was the perfect choice.

  Karpov’s torpedoes struck each of those six airships, one after another, and in one thundering moment that would go down in this history as the ‘Rain of Fire,’ that entire airship division was doing a very good imitation of the Hindenburg disaster. The fires ignited ready ammo stores, engine fuel, bomb loads, high altitude oxygen canisters, and they burned everything living or dead with their all consuming fire. Within seconds, only the heavier duralumin skeleton of the ships could be seen, glowing red in places as they began to make their terrible plummeting descent. They were right above the line of troops they had just delivered, and now they came raining down upon them, a thunderous storm of twisted metal, searing hot debris and flame.

  Captain Gorelki stared in utter shock as he watched his cruisers ignite in that hot fire and fall, one after another. There went Krasnodar, and her sister ship Kurgan. Then the three S-Class cruisers fell to their fiery doom, Stavropol, Samarkand and Saran. Astana was the last to fall, another small A-Class cruiser. White with shock, he shouted to the helmsman to come about with all speed, his only thought now being escape. What in God’s name had hit those ships?

  Aboard Tunguska Bogrov gaped in utter amazement, watching one ship after another burn with that fierce yellow-white fire. He had seen Karpov immolate Big Red simply to get at the Orenburg, risking everything to try and take down the enemy flagship, and Volkov with it. But this was a terror the like of which he could never imagine. The fires seemed to be eating those ships alive, and he shuddered to imagine the fate of their crews, all dying in a holocaust that consumed the very oxygen in the air around them, asphyxiating any who might have avoided the searing fires.

  There was a heartless evil to the attack, and he cast a wary glance at Karpov, seeing the other man standing there, with just the hint of a grin on his face. In one fell blow, the odds in the sky had shifted dramatically. There were now only another ten airships left in the Orenburg fleet, and when all the Siberian ships arrived, they would have eleven, with bigger and better ships, though none of that really mattered now.

  Just as he fired that nuclear tipped MOS-III at the Mississippi battlegroup, Karpov had no qualms whatsoever in applying the most lethal weapon he had received from his elder brother, thermobaric fire. He realized he could have single handedly destroyed Volkov’s entire fleet with Tunguska alone. There were four more enemy airships higher up, coming in from the west, but their dazed Captains had seen what just happened, and were staring in disbelief. Some thought the better of this rush into battle, and one already had his ship in a wide turn, looking for safer skies.

  Karpov looked over at Tyrenkov, his eyes dark and unfeeling, yet carrying the hint of a taunt. “You were just instructing me on the necessity of elevation in an airship duel. What you have just witnessed might best be described as beating my enemy at his own game. Yes, he wanted to come in above me and put those rifles onto me, but I had a weapon that could trump anything on those ships, and out range their guns. What you have just seen is the result of a little backbone, a little deception, and three parts things you would never understand. Remember Tyrenkov, I am a man who has seen days you could not imagine.” He turned to Bogrov now with another order. “Take the ship up to 5000 meters. No need to vent emergency ballast. As you can see, we are no longer in any immediate danger. Signal Baikal to follow.”

  To Colonel Sumarov on the ground, the ‘Rain of Fire’ fell all around his forward positions. He had taken a great risk trying to leap frog those assault companies over the outer defensive line, but by God, what hell on earth could have destroyed all those airships like that? His attack had progressed swiftly, coming up on the road that would approach the center of Ilanskiy from the southeast. It was there that the airships fell, and now he looked to see the massive shapes of Tunguska and Baikal riding the smoke and char of his fleet’s demise, their gondola’s bright with fire as all those 105mm guns began to open up on his ground troops.

  To make matters worse, the blocking teams east of the town had failed to prevent enemy reinforcements from arriving. A battalion of engineers from the Siberian 89th Sappers arrived by truck, and behind them came another battalion of tanks. Thankfully, he had seven 47mm AT guns positioned on that flank, but they had little infantry support.

  He was on the radio, trying to determine what had happened to the two lead assault battalions. They had pushed very near the outskirts of the town, just a few kilometers south of the objective railway inn. But he could hear the boom of artillery, the pop of mortars firing, and a lot of machinegun fire. Three more battalions were on a line to the south, now engaged by troops the enemy had rushed to the scene, and equally matched. He was holding his own battalion down near the river as a reserve, and the division’s third regiment was farther west, coming up on the outer defense line from that direction.

  From the sound of the frantic radio calls, and the awful wreckage on the ground, it now appeared that the navy was pulling out and consolidating its remaining airships to the west. The next hour would decide the battle, he knew, and things did not look good. He could throw his last reserve battalion in to try and regain the momentum of his ground assault, but something told him this whole operation was goi
ng to be a futile waste of good men, just like the last one.

  I told them we needed the shock of the entire Air Landing Division in a swift, surprise attack, but it could not be done. Taking that airfield at Kansk took time, and getting here from there took even longer. Now the enemy is ready for us, with everything they had defending Ilanskiy, which is most likely two full regiments, with reinforcements already beginning to come in on my flank. This is going to be another disaster, but if I pull out, and somehow manage to get my men back to that airfield, what then? I’m a dead man either way as I see things. If I pull out now, Volkov will put a bullet through my head if I manage to make it home. So I’m going to attack, and push with everything I have left.

  He ordered his men up, personally leading the attack against that engineer battalion that had come in, and it was thick, close quarters fighting for the next half hour. The men fought bravely, but it was soon clear that would not be enough to get through. When Orenburg’s airship Captains withdrew west, their presence at Kansk weighed heavily on that battle. All the bridges over the Kan river were blown, and it was found that the freeze was not deep enough to get over that barrier easily. Any Siberian troops arriving from the West would need to plan a cross river assault, or take and rebuild one of those bridges. The assault teams had also destroyed all the mooring towers, airship fuel and munitions depots, and they still controlled the southern airfield, where the last of the German JU-52s had just taken off on their final return leg to Orenburg. Hitler had given his pilots specific orders. They were to deliver those troops, make one additional supply drop, and then get those planes out of there.

  Now the absence of enemy airships near Ilanskiy meant that the Siberians had total air superiority there. Karpov was personally selecting ground targets, using his 105mm guns and also dropping bombs on companies of enemy troops trying to group for attack. He sent Abakan and Angara further east to scout the approaches to the outer defense line there, and they soon reported no sign of enemy activity. So this was it, he thought. This is the main attack. If I stop them here, this whole operation fails, and then we can get over to Kansk at our leisure.

  He gave orders that all the troops of the 40th Rifle Regiment holding the fortified line to the west of the town should pull out and move to support the 11th Guards, which had borne the brunt of the enemy attack from the south. Now he would match the enemy on the ground man for man, and he knew that they would need much more force than they seemed to have to really push through. Volkov wasn’t going to get his railway inn that day, and he would also be lucky to save the rest of his airships. As the situation on the ground appeared favorable, he turned his thoughts to the remainder of the enemy fleet.

  They thought to make this a little Pearl Harbor, he mused. Well, I have quickly made it into a battle more like Midway. The loss of those six airships had to sting, and now they will think twice every time they approach one of my ships, never knowing if that fiery death will strike them. Fear was now a new weapon in his quiver, and he knew exactly how to use it.

  “Give me an update from my Oko panel team,” he ordered. Tyrenkov was quick to fetch the information, telling him that all ten contacts remained to the west, five over the main road and rail lines into Kansk, and five more hovering around that airfield. He decided to move west, ordering all his available airships to move to 5000 meters and form one group. He had Tunguska, Baikal, Narva and Riga close in hand, with Abakan and Angara about ten kilometers to the west. His other ships, Irkutsk and Novosibirsk, would be on the scene soon, though he was informed that the southern division would be another two hours, fighting a stiff headwind as they came north.

  “We attack with the six ships we have,” he said calmly. “Our initial objective will be that concentration of ships near the airfield. Once we establish air superiority there, we have cut their jugular. This attack will fail.”

  Tyrenkov looked at him with newfound respect now, and an equal measure of caution. He was, indeed, every bit as formidable and dangerous as his counterpart, and not an unknowing clone that he would have to shepherd and nursemaid along. He seemed to grasp the tactics required here instinctively, but was it this man who made the difference here, or those terrible weapons he employed?

  Something told him the two came part and parcel. That is why the elder Karpov was so set on gaining control of that ship. These are men from another time, and their weapons are as terrible as that future they came from. With them, they are invincible in a situation like this, but those weapons are not a limitless resource. Every time they are used, these men grow that much weaker. Oh, they may be skilled warriors, clever, devious, but I have all those talents as well. So as this war progresses, and they ply their war craft here, they will grow weaker….

  Karpov would lead his six airships west, but the moment they were spotted, all the ships hovering over the airfield revved up their engines and began to run. Karpov considered firing off his last two Koronet missiles at them as they fled, but decided he would be better served to hold those valuable munitions in hand for some future emergency.

  As for Ivan Volkov, when he received the news of this third disaster at Ilanskiy, he sat in complete silence. There was no upwelling of rage, though he made a mental note to personally shoot the Captains of each airship that returned. As for the troops he had sent, they were all as good as dead as far as he was concerned, grist in the mill. Later that night, he sent for a serving woman in his sleeping chambers, and when he had finished, he put his hands around her neck and choked her to death, quietly cursing Karpov and the Siberians as he did so.

  The Germans were in Moscow, but he could not take one stinking hamlet with the full might of his entire airship fleet, and that with another full division landed by those German planes. His operation had failed, and now he would have to go to Hitler with something from his archives to tell him it had actually succeeded, some little blueprint or weapon diagram that Germany might be able to build in the 1940s. He would say it had been retrieved from the secret enemy design site at Kansk, which he destroyed.

  There was one other thing that did not fail to escape his notice as all the reports came in. A name was on the airwaves in the battle chatter, the name of the man he had grown to both fear and despise these last months—Karpov. It was clear from those reports that he was on the scene, for the Siberian flagship, Tunguska, was also spotted in action over Ilanskiy. Yet all his intelligence network had indicated Karpov was on his ship again, and that ship was in the Pacific. Could he have made a rendezvous with Tunguska, and then raced home to his precious railway inn to foil this attack? How could he have known I was planning this? How could he have appeared here so quickly when he was supposedly thousands of miles away at sea? Something was very strange in all of this, and he resolved to find out exactly what it was.

  Part IX

  Audacity

  “The first quality that is needed is audacity.”

  —Winston Churchill

  Chapter 25

  Admiral Raeder knew all along that they had wasted a supreme opportunity after the successful conclusion of Operation Felix. At that moment, well before the onset of Operation Barbarossa, they should have allocated any forces necessary to ensure the occupation of the Cape Verde and Canary Islands. With the Mediterranean closed, those vital outposts stood right astride Britain’s last lifeline to Egypt. Now he met with Luftwaffe Chief Hermann Goering for the final planning to redress that oversight, and the two men seldom saw eye to eye.

  “It was your doing, Admiral,” huffed Goering, his corpulent presence seeming offensive to Raeder, his attitude always overbearing and self-serving. “I cannot be expected to seize islands with my elite Falschirmjaegers if you cannot guarantee me naval support. These fiascos in the Atlantic were the end of those plans. Had your forces shown more skill and backbone, they might already be sitting at anchor in the Grand Harbor.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Raeder. “So we have both made promises we could not keep—or have you forgotten that you told the
Führer you would assure him air superiority over England? So do not disparage the Navy. My ships have fought well. This new enemy weaponry has been most difficult, and I believe there are a few missing Stuka pilots that would attest to that fact. These rockets were a technology we failed to fully appreciate.”

  “We are working on that,” said Goering. “there are already test models for a new anti-ship guided bomb, which is something you will be very pleased to hear. We are calling it Fritz at the moment, Project X, and it is controlled by radio signals. We can guide it directly to the target from our naval attack bombers. You will see. This is only the beginning. The British may have stolen a march on us, but we will catch up quickly enough.”

  “It wasn’t the British, Herr Goering. It was the Russians.”

  “I have heard that same story,” said Goering. “Do you seriously believe it? The Russians? What would they know about missile technology?”

  “Enough to sink my aircraft carrier,” said Raeder dejectedly. “Which reminds me—we will need more modified Stukas with arrestor hooks installed to meet the new carrier building program.”

  “Building program? I thought Peter Strasser was the only other ship authorized to proceed.”

  “True,” said Raeder. “The only other ship above 15,000 tons. I still have authorization to continue with our destroyer program, but as for the aircraft carriers, I should have said conversion program. There were several good hulls left from Plan Z, and it would be a waste to simply scrap them. It took me some time, but I managed to persuade Hitler as to the necessity of having fleet air support at sea. And your Stukas and Messerschmitts can be thanked for that. I will need more of the latter as well, the 109Ts.”

  “Do not worry, Admiral. If you can build your ships, I can deliver those planes and pilots. I am told we have a budding new Ace in your service.”