'Advance to Contact' (Armageddon's Song)

by Andy Farman

  Canadian military policemen swung open the heavy doors of the ‘pumping station’, snow had fallen to a couple of inches deep on the ground and had coated the trees and bushes but the winter wonderland effect was marred by the smell of gun smoke and explosives. A figure clad all in white, stepping out of the tree line had the men taking cover. The lone figure had its arms outstretched and an MP-5, with a long sound suppresser at the business end, held reversed in its left hand.

  The challenge was made by the Captain commanding the close protection team, and satisfied with the strangers answer he called him forward into the building.

  Removing his helmet and white thermal head-over peered at the persons present until he saw the man he was looking for and recognition showed in his face.

  General Allain nodded his assent to a staff officer on the question of the egress route they would take and ordered the security company to begin a withdrawal, and took from him the report from Geilenkirchen AFB. Turning on his heel he strode over to the newcomer.

  “Major Thompson, how did it go?” he enquired in English.

  The squadron commander of G Squadron, 22 SAS took the hand proffered by SACUER and answered in perfect French. “Pretty good sir, they would have put up a stiff fight if we’d let them, but we had them zeroed in right from the off. They were dressed and equipped as Belgian paras, and I don’t think they were planning on taking any prisoners sir as they also had flame throwers, which are not surgical instruments in anyone’s book.”

  “Any casualties, any prisoners?”

  “Two of my Toms are walking wounded… we didn’t really give the opposition the chance as it wasn’t exactly a ‘prisoner friendly’ kind of ambush sir.” Major Thompson’s Squadron had spent the last nine days lying in wait for the Spetznaz team, dug into the side of the valley and its approaches. NATO had been fully aware that the enemy had acquired the plans for this bunker, from a KGB traitor they had on the books years before. It had been a reasonable assumption that a ploy of some kind would be used to get the supreme commander away from the safety of the bunker where Special Forces could capture or kill him, and so the SAS had lain in wait in anticipation.

  “I have another job for you major…Geilenkirchen AFB was overrun this morning and the facilities extensively damaged. The biggest loss was not the maintenance facilities and airframes, but the aircrews, operators and ground crews. A number escaped, but the enemy forces executed all but two of those who were captured. Those two survivors, a male and a female technician were both raped and had the thumbs of both hands cut off.”

  Major Thompson frowned.

  “Excuse me…did you say both were raped?”

  “That is correct. I am of course not advertising what took place, but no doubt word will spread nonetheless. All of the enemy force had withdrawn before a counter attack could be mounted, but I want you to attach one troop to tracking these animals down. I want to send a message back to Moscow, that if they are going to employ Balkan style terror tactics in complete contravention to the established rules of war, then they are seeding the wind!” He handed across a hand written operation order, which the British officer read before tucking it away inside his smock.

  “If you will excuse me now sir, we have to make tracks to our pick up point.” They shook hands once more and the major disappeared back into the trees. SACUER climbed inside a M113 command post vehicle and the convoy moved off, with the sounds of battle drawing nearer.

  Near Kinloss, Scotland: 0803hrs, same day.

  Pc Pell was dozing in a chair in the kitchen at the back of the house when the motion sensor alarm sounded; he rubbed the sleep from his eyes and looked at the monitors. The milkman had woken him half an hour before as he delivered the daily pintas, but this time he was expecting to see Stokesy, Constantine, and Scott coming down the footpath. They had been at the RAF station all yesterday and all through the night, waiting for word that the Nighthawk had arrived safely in Russia. However, the monitors showed a tanned man in his 30’s struggling with suitcases and carry-on bags, bringing up the rear behind an equally tanned woman of the same age, who was also straining to carry a pair of suitcases, trudging through the snow that accentuated their bronzed complexions. He checked the other monitors and found nothing untoward, so he clipped his MP-5 to its harness, adjusting it so that it hung below his right elbow by its butt clip, and slipped on a jacket. Cocking his Glock he approached the front door, where a key was now being tried in the lock without success.

  On taking over the premises, all the original locks had been replaced, and a Kevlar panel bolted to the inside of the door. Beside the door was a tiny monitor, which was receiving live feed from a palm-sized camera tucked into the ivy beside the door.

  Pell could see the couple looked tired, unhappy and their clothes were creased. The woman put down her cases, nagging the man at the same time to get the door open; his look of pained exasperation brought a grin to the police officers face.

  Holding the Glock in his right hand, Pell undid the locks and pulled the door open a foot, keeping the pistol out of sight. The tanned man looked up with shock on his face, from his position knelt on the doorstep where he had been attempting to look through the letterbox. The woman started also, stepping backwards with a startled “Oh!” and knocking over one of the milk bottles that toppled off the doorstep and broke with a smash.

  “Yes?” Pell asked the man. “Can I help you?”

  “Oh, do excuse us,” the tanned man replied, struggling to stand. “I didn’t know the place was being let right now…we are the McCardle’s, we own this house…and we have had the most horrendous time getting home from Saudi, what with the war and all.”

  Pell frowned.

  “I’m afraid the house has been leased by the MOD, to billet aircrews and the like…is there anywhere else you could stay?”

  “I really don’t know…darling?” turning to his wife.

  For just a moment the man's body masked the woman’s, and then he stepped swiftly to his right. Pell saw the woman was crouched in a gunfighter’s stance, both hands grasping a pistol that was aimed right at his face. The police officer had started to move, had started to shove closed the door when she fired.

  North of Magdeburg, Germany: 0823hrs, 11th April.

  NATO artillery and mortars were creating a barrier midway across the river that the Hungarians had to cross. The gunners knew that the chances of scoring a direct hit were not that high, but that the stovepipe shaped air intakes that the enemy vehicles attached when fording rivers were un-armoured. Air bursting shells holed the air intakes, and the waters made stormy by exploding ordnance swamped the engine decks. Water found its way into places where it was not wanted, and if enough of it got in then engines choked, spluttered and stalled. A half dozen from the first companies were already drifting down river, at the mercy of the current. A mechanic could have the machines in running order after just a short time, but right now they were useless, and not a danger to the defenders.

  Driving snow reduced unaided visibility for both sides, but the battalions principal tank killers, the Hussars Challengers and Chieftains thermal sights had no trouble see through the storm or the smoke being dropped by artillery or by the armours own smoke generators.

  The first two companies reached the ‘island’ and began climbing ashore

  “Target tank…range, three one five zero…eleven o’clock…PT-76, get it while it’s still climbing the bank.”

  Venables gunner had his eyes pressed against the padded sight and rotated the turret to the left, seeking out the target that had been indicated, and shouting. “On!” as he laid the gun on to the AFV climbing out of the river. “Firing!” The big Charm gun recoiled as it sent a tungsten steel sabot round across the canal, over the length of the island and into the lightly armoured belly of the tank. The effect was immediate, as hatches blew off and the vehicles forward motion came to a halt. “Reload, HE…lets save the Sabot’s for heavier armour…Target BTR, just left of the tank,
range same!”

  The loader slid the round into position and placed a bag charge behind it, closing the breach he stepped clear and slid the safety gate across firmly, ensuring it clicked home, if it had not been then the in-built safety device would have physically prevented the weapon from firing.

  “HE Loaded!”

  “Firing…good ‘it!…Load HE!”

  Major Venables left the gunner and loader to fight the tank whilst he himself monitored his Squadrons efforts. Aside from the Chieftain destroyed by the Spetznaz assault, a Challenger had been destroyed during the shelling, and another had a drive wheel and track blown off by a near miss, it could still fight but was immobilised and would require REME to remove it later for repair. His remaining tanks were firing and reloading, the turrets moving as the guns picked up the next target to appear in their assigned sector, and then they fired again.

  After fifteen minutes of continuous firing the, the riverbank was littered with the burning hulks of tanks and APCs; those crewmen and infantry that had bailed out of the knocked out vehicles were being picked off by the snipers, unless they found cover quickly and stayed there.

  Colonel Lužar ordered his remaining companies to remain below the riverbank, out of sight of the NATO defenders. His first two companies had been picked off piecemeal, but if the remainder crossed the bank en-masse, they would deny the defenders the easy pickings of before. Calling up his artillery rep he requested suppressing fire on the ground beyond the canal, the destruction of the canal sides would have to wait.

  A Royal Artillery Phoenix, twelve miles to the enemies rear was watching another battalion of armour move up. Its operator’s attention was drawn to the lead tank, obviously the commanders’ vehicles owing to the mass of antennae it sported. He had noted it five minutes before, but the tank had now broken away from the column to approach a small wood. As he watched, the tank pulled up beside the edge of the trees and a man approached from under the sheltering boughs. Impressive shoulder boards declared the rank of the approaching man as being a senior staff officer, the operator called over his supervisor who watched for a moment and then picked up a field telephone.

  Only two MLRS launchers remained under brigade control, the remainder had been diverted south to assist in holding the line, the brigade commander agreed with his intelligence rep that they were in a position to remove the Hungarians of two critical factors necessary for a successful assault.

  The reply Colonel Lužar received for his request was mixed good news and bad, he was berated for dallying instead of pressing home the assault but promised his artillery fire-mission once it finished firing its present tasks, provided they press on immediately. He gave the order to advance and six companies worth of engines changed from idling to a roar as they clawed their way out of the river.

  Confronted with an almost solid wall of armour emerging into view, Lt Col Reed ordered his anti-tank platoon to engage along with the Hussars MBTs, and Milan wire guided missiles sped towards the attackers along with tank rounds.

  Colonel Lužar’s PT-76 was one of the last to leave the waters of the Elbe, climbing the bank to the left, and slightly behind a BTR-80. As the neighbouring APC reached the apex of the bank, gravity took over and the front end of the vehicle dropped level, it started to move forward and then stopped dead, as if it had run into a brick wall. The rear doors to the troop compartment flew opened and men tumbled out, one man’s protective outer clothing was burning and he threw himself down into the snow, rolling frantically to put out the flames, unseating his respirator as he did so. His desperate efforts to put out the flames ceased and the soldiers body began to jerk and spasm like an epileptic in the throes of a fit before becoming very still.

  Lužar’s own tank completed the risky manoeuvre, and the Colonel braced himself as the amphibious tank came down with a thump onto its forward drive sprockets. A Chieftains gunner had fired a moment too late, and the round that was meant for the command tanks soft underbelly met the angled armour of the forward glacis plate instead. Lužar thought a giant had struck the tank with a sledgehammer, he ducked instinctively and his driver yelled out in fright.

  “Shut up!” he shouted at the man. “Get us forward man…drive, drive!”

  With a jerk the tank started forward, weaving around to the left to avoid the APC and its ready racks of cannon ammunition, which was now beginning to burn.

  To the east of the Elbe, the Hungarian combat engineers and bridging units allowed their ZSU-23-4 air defence vehicles and a company of APCs to begin the advance to the river, and then moved off themselves. Although the sounds of battle could not yet reach them, the rising columns of smoke and the bright flashes of NATO tank cannon’s more than indicated to them that the fight for the western bank was far from won yet.

  In the armoured cabs of two vehicles in the rear areas of NATOs lines, Royal Artillery gunners fed in information onto the consoles before them and the launchers rose to the specified elevations, turning as they did so to the required bearings. Smoke from the rocket exhausts filled the small woods the vehicles sat in like a thick fog, rolling out beyond the extremities and settling like a blanket in the cold air. The rockets reached their apogee and descended above the countryside to the east of the river Elbe, discharging the submunitions they carried as they went.

  Over the wood the MLRS rockets submunitions were small bomblets, but the rockets targeted on an area closer to the river, released submunitions known as Skeet, small discs that spun about like Frisbees as they flew diagonally across the targeted area, slowly losing height. Whenever a Skeet over-flew a vehicle, small sensors detected the metal surface and the submunition exploded, sending a plug of white hot copper, created by the explosion, downwards into the object.

  As with most ideas that look good on paper the Skeets had there drawbacks, some vehicles were missed completely, whereas others were targeted by several Skeet even after the vehicle had been destroyed, wasting their effort because they could not distinguish between the living and the dead. The plugs of molten metal entered armour, and blisters formed the other side, bursting into the interior. Where they met un-armoured metal they burnt through several layers, or in the case of the cab roofs of tractor units, they burnt through the occupants as well. Vehicles carrying 25m sections of prefabricated bridge, enough for three entire ribbon bridges were left burning on the autobahn hard shoulder, whilst in the fields either side, the engineers and infantry BTR-80s and ZSU-23-4s streamed smoke and flame whilst blowing themselves apart as on-board ammunition cooked off.

  The loss of highly skilled personnel was almost as serious as the loss of the transport and equipment, but the commander of the engineer company did not give up, he still had some bridging sections and enough engineers left to supervise their assembly into one operational bridge.

  75% of the infantrymen escorting them had died in their vehicles when the Skeet had struck, so he could not call on them for muscle. He called up his own commander at Division, but they were inexplicably off the air, so he tried the nearest infantry unit and they sent over fifty men to act as unskilled labour.

  Back on the island, Lužar’s promised artillery support had failed to materialise and his calls to divisional headquarters were met with hash, the sound of white noise. His tanks and APCs were being whittled down by the tanks and anti-tank missiles, this created more cover for the remainder as they took up positions in the lee of burning wrecks. Infantry anti-tank teams dismounted from their vehicles and began engaging the NATO armour with Sagger wire guided missiles, but this only gave the American paratroops and Coldstream Guardsmen something worthwhile to shoot at. The combined small arms and 81mm mortars annihilated the Sagger crews or drove them to find cover in which they sensibly stayed. The TP-76 tanks did not have self-stabilising guns, they had to stop in order to fire accurately and suitable cover for them to do this from behind was in short supply. The Milan crews had merely to leave their trenches and change position in order to engage those Hungarian tanks that were i
n those rare spots.

  With his battalions slowly being killed and being unable to hit back effectively, all Lužar could was to skin his knuckles as he punched the side of the turret in frustration.

  The engineers were again on the move, braving the artillery fire but the lead vehicles reached the riverbank without further loss. The commander jumped from his BTR shouting and cajoling his remaining engineers and organising the pressed infantrymen into working parties. A pair of his specialised BTRs reached the ‘island’, unreeling heavy cable as they went, and explosive driven piles were fired into the earth of the sloping banks on both sides, as anchors for the cables that they managed to secure to them before both vehicles were knocked out. The next stage was to get the first boat-like floating pontoons into the river and attached between the cables, once that was achieved then the first section of bridge could be laid between pontoons. Further sections would be attached behind it, and gradually the first section would be fed across the river, 25 metres at a time until it reached the far bank. The engineer was running from group to group, ensuring all was well when the first pontoon was being wrestled into place. Men were straining against ropes as they fought to keep the pontoon from being swept away by the current, until the cables could be slipped into runners on either end of the pontoon. His equipment had been designed and built in the 1940’s, and under the many layers of paint it bore the markings of the US Army Corps of Engineers, its original owners before being sold off as war surplus. Later versions had powered pontoons that not only motored the pontoon into position, but the propellers were directional so as to assist with the creeping progress of the bridge, as it slowly spanned the designated waterway. This bridging unit had none of the modern niceties, and as he was shouting orders to one of the groups he saw the anchor-man of one of his pontoon party’s slip on the snow covered ground and let go of the end of the rope. With one of their number absent, the rest of the men on the rope began to lose the battle against the current and the pontoon left its stationary position and began pulling the men towards the river’s edge. The engineer knew that once the leading man reached the edge he would let go of the rope and a chain reaction would occur, leading to the inevitable loss of the precious pontoon.