Team Yankee: a novel of World War III (20 page)

"Yeah. We did. Have you been in radio contact with anyone else in the Team?"

"Yes, sir. The XO. He's up on Hill 214 with the rest of the Team. That's where we're headed now."

Bannon felt as if someone had just removed a stone from the top of his heart. There still was a Team Yankee! Right now it didn't matter that it had lost so much. It didn't matter that they were in the wrong place. All that mattered was that there was at least something left. He hadn't pissed away the whole Team.

The crew of 66 mounted the PCs. Bannon boarded Polgar's track and stood up in the troop hatch behind the TC as they rolled out and headed for Hill 214. The PCs continued to hug the tree line until they were just across from the woods of Hill 214. Then the PCs dashed across the open area into the eastern side of the trees on Hill 214. After wandering cautiously through the forest, they came up to the four remaining tanks of the Team.

The four tanks were deployed along the tree line overlooking Arnsdorf, just as they should have been deployed to support the attack of D company. As the PCs came to a halt about fifty meters to the rear of the tanks, Bannon saw Uleski dismount one of the tanks in the center. Even at that

Ondistance, he could see that Uleski was injured. Polgar and Bannon dismounted and met him halfway.

The XO had his right arm in a sling and splint. He saluted with his left hand and asked if anyone else was coming. Bannon replied that he had had no contact with battalion since moving out of the assembly area and was hoping Uleski had some news. Uleski shook his head and informed him that the battalion frequency was being jammed, making contact impossible. He had been trying to work through the jamming but had gotten nothing. Bannon and Uleski turned to Polgar and asked if he had made any contact with battalion before coming up to Hill 214. His reply was also negative. So, to the best of their knowledge, battalion had no idea where the Team was and what it was doing.

For that matter, Bannon didn't know for sure what was going on either. His next priority was an update on what had happened after the tanks had left Objective LOG, and what the enemy situation was. The three of them sat down in a circle, though Uleski had some difficulty doing so because of his arm. He then described how the four tanks had continued onto Hill 214 as Bannon had ordered. Once they had cleared the woods and the artillery fire on LOG, Uleski noticed 66 was gone. When attempts to contact 66 failed, Uleski closed up the remaining tanks, contacted the Mech Platoon, ordered them to follow up when they could, and pushed on.

The four tanks under the XO reached Hill 214 without further contact and began to sweep through the Objective. As the tanks crested the hill, they ran right into the middle of a Soviet artillery battery of towed guns preparing to move. The Soviet gunners were totally surprised.

Since the tanks were still rolling and less than two hundred meters away, Uleski charged through the battery's position, destroying the guns and their prime movers as well as cutting down those Soviet gunners that were not quick enough to get away. Apparently, not many of the Soviets were able to make good their escape. After having watched so many of the vehicles in Team Yankee get hit, the tankers went on a killing frenzy, literally running down and over fleeing Russians. Everyone fired whatever weapon he could as they hunted the Soviet gunners down, sometimes one at a time.

Uleski related how he had watched four Russians run into the nearest house in Arnsdorf with a tank hot on their heels. The last man in closed the door as if that would keep the tank out.

The pursuing tank drove up to the house, rammed its main gun through the door, and fired a HEAT round. This started a fire, and the tank backed up a few meters and waited. When two Russians came out, the tank cut them down. As he told this story, Bob Uleskifs face was without emotion. His eyes were set in a steady gaze that went through Bannon as though he were reviewing the scenes he was describing in his mind's eye. His voice betrayed no regret or disgust. Three days of war had done much to harden this man. As Bannon watched Uleskifs face and listened to his story, he wondered how much, if at all, he had done to stop the killing spree.

Uleski paused for a moment after finishing his report on the action against the battery and then continued. After the tanks were finished, they withdrew up the hill and occupied the positions they were currently in. There were several minor wounds that had required tending, of which his was the most serious. Ammo had been counted and was being redistributed.

Main gun rounds were the most critical problem. Each of the four tanks now had less than ten rounds of SABOT and six rounds of HEAT on board. If and when the Soviets got serious about counterattacking, the Team would quickly run out.

The personnel side was better, but not much. The dead and missing included Unger and his entire FIST team, Sergeant Pierson and the 34 tank, as well as Lieutenant Harding, wounded on LOG. That left the XO with the 55 tank, Garger with 31, Sergeant First Class Hebrock with 24 and Staff Sergeant Rhoads with 22. The tanks had nineteen men, including the crew of 66. Polgar had big 23 track with Staff Sergeant Flurer and 2nd Squad and the 24

track with Staff Sergeant Jefferson and the 3rd Squad. Each infantry squad had the driver, track commander, and six men, giving the Mech Platoon seventeen men. Team Yankee was now down to four tanks, two PCs, two Dragons, and thirty-five men.

The enemy had not yet reacted to the loss of Hill 214. After destroying the artillery battery, the tanks had had no contact with the Russians. It was, however, only a matter of time. The presence of Team Yankee on Hill 214 or in the area had to be known. Why else would the three tanks that 66 had encountered have been pulled out from the front and sent back to the rear in the middle of a battle? Bannon doubted that the Soviets knew how much, or how little, was on 214. His guess was that they would send in a small element first to locate the Team, discover their size and composition, and pin them. Once they had done that, the Soviets would strike and strike hard. It was the way they did business.

While Uleski and Polgar gathered up the Team leadership, all the track commanders this time, Bannon pondered their options. They could withdraw. As there had been no contact with battalion since the attack had begun and there was little prospect of achieving contact now, withdrawal would be acceptable. Team Yankee was obviously incapable of performing a Team-sized mission because of its losses. Ammunition was becoming critically low and Bannon had no idea when or even if battalion would link up. Although Polgar had informed him that LOG had been cleared, it could have been reoccupied by the Soviets. Only Harding and a few wounded had been left to hold that hill while they waited for Team Bravo to move up. That had not yet occurred when Polgar had left. To stand on Hill 214 and attempt to continue, knowing full well that the Soviets would be back, made no sense. But neither did a simple withdrawal. While there was almost no hope of holding Hill 214 against a powerful counterattack with the Team's current strength, there was no guarantee that the Russians would, or could, counterattack in strength. There was the possibility that they were in just as bad shape as the Team and could not counterattack. They might have pushed everyone forward and left no one to reinforce the flanks. The fact that the three T-62 tanks had to be pulled off the front to reinforce the rear hinted at this. To withdraw and learn later that there had been no

threat would

ensure that the deaths of the men in Team Yankee had been in vain. There was also the chance that the rest of the battalion would finally make it up and continue with the mission. It would be humiliating to be in the process of withdrawing against an imagined foe and run head-on into the rest of the battalion as it advanced up to Hill 214. Not that pride and humiliation were of prime concern to Bannon right now. It was just that such an occurrence was as likely, given his lack of information, as anything else. Besides, the order to seize Hill 214 was still in effect. It was decided, then. Team Yankee had taken this hill and was going to keep it until ordered elsewhere or thrown off. Bannon began to appreciate the old philosophy that once soldiers had paid for a piece of ground with the blood of their comrades, the value of that land became greater and transcended what cold logic would otherwise calculate. For Team Yankee, this ground was important. They would hold.

Now that it was decided, he had to determine how to hold Hill 214. With four tanks and two PCs, they could hold four to five hundred meters of front. But the Team was on its own and had to worry about its flanks and rear, not just the front. The Soviets might try a frontal attack once, but they would not do it twice. Besides, they might try holding the Team's attention to the front while maneuvering infantry through the woods to hit them in the rear. Flank and rear security were therefore critical.

Lt. Col. Yuri Potecknov prepared to execute his new mission in the exact, scientific manner that he had been taught and had used in Afghanistan. It was a simple mission and well within the capabilities of his unit. A small probing attack by some American tanks had penetrated the thin security screen on the Army's flank and was threatening a critical town named Arnsdorf. Colonel Potecknov was to wipe out the enemy force and restore the security screen.

While Potecknov was unhappy that his motorized rifle battalion was being diverted from the main effort of the

army, he rationalized that it was for the better. His troops were still untried by battle. They had followed around in reserve for the last three days, awaiting the chance to pour through a breach in the American lines that never came. By sweeping up the enemy force at Arnsdorf, the colonel could blood his troops. The cheap victory would help instill some confidence in the battalion and allow him to see how well his officers performed under fire. This would be nothing more than a live-fire exercise with a few targets that fired back.

With Team Yankee's leadership assembled, Bannon went over their current situation, how they were going to hold Hill 214 and what he expected the enemy to do. There wasn't a lot to work with. What they did have had to be stretched to cover threats from any direction. The result was not the soundest plan he had ever made. It violated just about every tactical principle. But, given the situation and time, it was the best he could do. Once the orders were out, the Team began to deploy and dig in. The tanks still constituted their major firepower. Initially, they would fight from their present positions-for now, they were pulled into hide positions. A two-man outpost was established at the tree line to watch to the northwest.

From that position, the tanks were prepared to defend against an attack from Arnsdorf. They also would be prepared to occupy two other positions. The first was on the eastern side of the woods covering the open space between Hill 214 and a wooded lot to the southeast. A Soviet commander could use the lot as a staging area and rush across the open area onto Hill 214. The second position was on the crest of Hill 214 facing south. The Soviet commander might decide to seal off the Team's routes of escape and reinforcement, then hit it from that direction. The Mech Platoon was broken up into three elements. The two rifle squads dismounted and established an ambush along a north-south trail that ran through the center of the woods north of Hill 214. This protected the Team from a dismounted attack from the north through the woods, provided the Soviet commander used the trail to guide on.

The two PCs with only the drivers and track commanders under Uleski established an outpost on the crest of Hill 214 watching to the south. The third element was a two-man OP

on the east side of the woods watching the southeast wooded lot. Bannon hoped that if the Soviets came from the south or from the east, the two OPs would be able to give the tanks sufficient warning and time to switch to the alternate positions.

It was the attack through the woods from the north that was, to Bannon, the greatest threat.

Polgar had a total of thirteen men to cover that area. This number included Folk and Kelp as there were no vacant positions on the tanks. The distance from the west edge to the east edge of the wooded lot was just a little over one thousand meters. With two men per foxhole and ten meters between foxholes, the most Polgar could cover was sixty meters. That left a very large gap on either side that the Soviet commander could move whole companies through, if he knew where they were. In all likelihood, however, a commander conducting a night attack through unfamiliar woods would stick to or near the trail for no other reason than to maintain orientation. If that happened, Polgar was ready and waiting with one of their Dragons, two M60 machine guns, two grenade launchers, and the riflemen. To provide an additional edge, antitank and antipersonnel mines were deployed to the front and flanks of the infantry positions. Command and control of the Team was simplified. First, there wasn't that much to command or control. Second, all radios were put on the company net. Bannon took over the XO's tank and stayed with the tanks. With his arm injured, Uleski could not fight 55. Besides, Bannon wanted someone dependable with the PCs covering the south. After the run-in with the T-62s in the morning, he was paranoid about the southern side of Hill 214.

The OP

in front of the tanks had a sound-powered phone running back to 55 so that the men at the OP could pass information back to the tanks. The OP on the east side was also using sound-powered phones to maintain contact. Their phone line ran back to Polgar who in turn maintained contact with Bannon via a portable PRC-77 radio on the Team net. With the exception of Polgar, who

had to run his dismounted infantry using voice commands, everyone in the Team could contact everyone else.

The afternoon passed in a strange and unnerving silence. The distant rumble of artillery hitting someone else far away had become so routine that unless an effort was made, it wasn't noticed anymore. Everyone was nervous and on edge. At the slightest sound or movement out of the ordinary the men would stop work and grab their weapons. Since the war had begun no one in the Team had had much of a chance for a decent, uninterrupted sleep. In the last thirty-six hours, no one had had more than two hours of sleep. While it was noticeable on everyone, this lack of sleep had its most telling effect on the leaders. Bannon found that he had to repeat orders two or three times. When the orders were being issued for the defense of Hill 214, one of the tank commanders had fallen asleep. Once, while Uleski was telling of his preparations, he stopped in mid-sentence, unable to remember what he intended to say next. The only way Bannon kept going was by constantly moving around. Even then, he sometimes had to stop and try hard to remember what it was he had been doing. The Team could not go on like this for another twenty-four hours. By tomorrow, Bannon thought, they would be at the end of their ability to endure and function.