' The Longest Night ' & ' Crossing the Rubicon ': The Original Map Illustrated and Uncut Final Volume (Armageddon's Song) (14 page)

It was pandemonium, and panic increased further as the Sea Stallion’s cargo of 155mm artillery shells and bag charges began cooking-off in the flames.

The airfield’s Spanish air
defence platoon reacted positively, and achieved a faint but workable infrared lock on the stationary T-90 with a truck mounted Mistral sited at the north west corner of the airfield. It was a brave attempt but a 2.95kg charge and tungsten ball bearings may down a thin skinned aircraft but they barely scratched the Soviet tank’s armour plating. Before the crew could launch a third missile the tank’s commander had located their firing point and destroyed the launcher, the vehicle and the crew with a main gun round.

Autobahn 2.

East of the by now besieged Mississippi National Guardsmen of 198
th
Armoured Regiment at TP33, unfriendly eyes watched the Italian reconnaissance troop rejoin the autobahn and race towards the cutting below them.

“Let them pass, they are only glorified off-road jeeps.”

The ambushers stayed in cover until the sound of the engines were fading.
Two kilometres east of them an unusual roadblock was in place on the westbound carriageway in the form of the 155mm howitzer gun line and ammunition train. The support vehicles had all moved off the autobahn but were close by in a temporary harbour area, beneath the flyover outside the village of Uhry.

Lt Col Rapagnetta swapped vehicles and the remainder of the task force split into platoon packets with tactical spacing between each and continued on their way.

First infantry platoon of the 5
th
Cavalry floored the accelerators on their young commanders orders in an attempt to catch the recce troop and they quickly drew ahead of the main body, entering the tree lined cutting at 65mph where disc shaped MON-100 directional mines attached to the trees detonated.

As a dedicated anti-personnel mine the occupants with the Pumas were safe from the shrapnel, but not so the tyres or the vehicle commanders.

All four of the APCs were hit; clods of rubber from shredded tyres bounced away as steel wheel rims raised showers of sparks. The second Puma in the packet struck the central crash barrier and flipped onto its roof where it was t-boned by the third vehicle.

Second platoon came into view moments later and having braked hard and avoided entering the ambush site it lost the platoon commanders vehicle in a catastrophic explosion. The three survivors reversed at speed and avoided falling victim to Sagger missiles such had taken out their platoon headquarters.

With the first platoon APCs crippled and immobile it was easy work to finish off the vehicles with RPG-29 rocket grenades and cut down the survivors with small arms fire.

2km is no distance at all for most modern artillery but the time of flight was exceedingly long in relative terms. At maximum elevation the cutting was engaged by the PzH 2000 howitzers firing in burst mode, each gun firing three rounds in nine seconds, the first round was fused for air burst, the second for super-quick and the third for delay. As the rounds would fall vertically the ambushers would receive no warning.

Rock and earth were still falling as the task force approached the cutting again and an Ariete flattened a section of the central crash barrier to allow access to the eastbound lanes. One side of the cutting had collapsed, sliding onto the roadway. There was no living trace of the enemy who had been there.

TP 33, MSR ‘NUT’ (Up), Autobahn’s 2 & 39, east of Brunswick, Germany: 19 miles south-west of the Vormundberg.

The 11 tank fired but failed to kill its target despite a hit. It had already destroyed a BTR-70 from its current position and it now erred on the side of caution, changing position. The enemy’s explosive reactive panels were effective, and often as many as three rounds were required from the M1’s lighter 105mm main gun to secure a kill. The Javelins on the other hand had no trouble with single hit kills having been designed for that purpose. The missile had two shaped charges in tandem and even if the first’s energy was dissipated by striking an ERA panel, the second charge took care of business. 

A TOW missile left the ITV’s dual launcher in an upward arc, its operator expertly bringing it down to strike the top of the T-72’s turret that the 11 tank had targeted. The thinner armour was no challenge for the warhead and the turret parted company with the chassis.

The ITV’s commander looked for more targets, peering through his periscope he swung it to the right, recognizing a clutch of waving antennae’s as they passed through his vision so he swung back, lowered his angle of view and stared directly down a T-90’s barrel.

Franklin heard the ITV blow up, the seven remaining missiles in its storage racks blew also, adding to the destruction with their sympathetic detonation. A fireball rose above the fighting position it had occupied, and the twisted
aluminium hull began to burn.

The tanks and AFVs had appeared a few minutes after the infantry attack in the north had begun, with fewer tanks in number than the southern group, they were nevertheless dividing his fighting power.

13 fired to the south and missed, it reversed but received yet another hammer blow. The Soviet sabot screamed away into the night, a fast moving dot of light until it passed from view. The 13 tank had been struck twice now and survived, the crew should have been feeling lucky but no one was in a betting mood.

With the loss of the ITV and the 12 tank the company was reduced to 11, 13 and half a dozen Javelins for killing tanks. Pretty soon the enemy commander was going to figure out that the Americans were now covering three sides with only two M1s and a bunch of dismounts.

The force to the north was a mechanized company with a tank platoon in support. It was closing, moving in bounds across a wide front that prevented the defenders from concentrating their limited firepower.

Over to the south, five tanks and four BTR-70s had managed to work around until they had the eastern corner of the National Guard position flanked.

Had this been a table top exercise Franklin would have admired the coordination between the enemy tanks and Sagger teams. While one engaged his positions the other moved.

Franklin had no effective way of coordinating his own unit’s fire as that damn music was still foxing the airwaves.

11’s turret was moving, its main gun tracking a target visible to its thermal sights but not to Lt Franklin Stiles naked eyes. It fired, and a T-90 that had just popped out from behind a clump of trees to the west exploded. Franklin punched the air triumphantly as the M1 pulled back to change position. If they could just keep sniping in this fashion they could yet win the battle. A Sagger streaked in from the south and struck the Abrams raised rump as it reversed out of the hull down position. A flash of flame and the tank was concealed from view by black smoke. When the smoke cleared the tank was hung there at the top of the fighting positions ramp, smoke issuing from its wrecked engine pack through the small molten hole in its armour and the engine compartments air vents. The crew had not bailed out though, and with a squeal of sprockets the machine rolled forwards, back into the position it had just left. It was now a stationary hardpoint, or a static target depending on which way you looked at it. Its machine guns opened fire, attempting to drive off a platoon of approaching infantry who were using the ground with skill.

The second platoon squad at the eastern corner cut loose with their M-240 and M16s before scattering in the face of an approaching tank.

A pair of heavy machineguns tore in the earth about the northern squad’s holes, the fire was coming from two more MBTs, a T-72 and a T-90 that were just a hundred metres out
and closing fast. The fire was pinning the squad, preventing them from rising up and engaging them with their last Javelin. The enemy tanks task was made all the easier as the holes were illuminated by the flames from the burning ITV, as was the 13 tanks rear. The M1 was oblivious of its peril, engaging a target to the south and unaware it would in moments be in the sights of three main tank guns.

Franklin found himself frozen in place, like an unwitting spectator watching a car wreck about to happen. Which of the enemy tanks would destroy the company’s last serviceable M1?

The tank entering the defensive position from the east fired first, and the northern T-90 shuddered to a halt and caught fire. The T-72’s turret rounded on the newcomer even as that MBT’s gun came to bear. The T-72 fired before it could reload and it seemed to stagger but the round failed to penetrate and its own main gun stayed fixedly tracking. Now only fifty metres from the T-72 it fired, its round targeted on the turret ring. At that range it could not miss and the T-72 was struck at its most vulnerable spot, exploding in spectacular fashion.

Unaware that his jaw was hanging open in amazement Franklin’s instinct for self-preservation did kick in as he detected the sound of an approaching freight train. The open ground to the west lit up with strobe-like flashes as 155mm shells airburst over the Romanian infantry, but Franklin did not see it, he was doing his very best to stay flat against the muddy surface.

Tank guns were firing in the night but no one was firing on the position anymore. The strange tank halted and a hatch opened.

“Buona sera, Tenente...the cavalry, it has arrived!” declared Lt Col
Lorenzo Rapagnetta with a grin and a flourish.

TP 32, MSR ‘NUT’ (Up), Autobahn’s 2 & 391, north of Brunswick, Germany:

South of the autobahns traffic point the D Company Headquarters of 1 Wessex were quartered in the premises of a large and well known furniture department. Not for them the crib of mud, folding stretcher or camp bed of green canvas that had shrunk and defied reassembly. Each man and woman of company HQ reposed upon eco-friendly renewable pine, and beneath duvets of sustainable cotton.

It was not all beer and skittles though, they were again feeding from Compo rations and boil-in-the-bag Meals Rarely Edible as their appetites’ for Swedish meatballs with lingonberry jam had been tested to destruction. 

1 Wessex had joined 3(UK) Mechanised Brigade after the NATO armies hurried withdrawal from north of Berlin to south of the Elbe and Saale Rivers, following the invasion of Poland.

The part-time soldiers from Bournemouth and Poole in Dorsetshire had stepped from peaceful civilian life into a maelstrom at Magdeburg, but they had held until relieved even though D Company could no longer pass muster.

D Company was detached from the battalion and now had the task of securing the bridge and autobahn junction while replacements from the UK brought them back up to strength. They were not there yet and the battle for the Vormundberg was reaching critical mass. At dawn the company was to begin preparing defensive positions west of the Mitterland Canal for the US 4 Corps and ‘unspecified elements currently defending the Vormundberg’,  the company commander was stating during his O Group’s ‘Execution: General Outline’ section.

The company signals rep pressed him on that vague point.

“Sir, if I know which units are going where I can save us a lot of confusion later.” the Signals Platoon corporal waited with pencil poised.

“Whoever makes it out.” stated the company’s permanent staff instructor, unbidden from his seat at the back.

At the conclusion of the O Group the platoon commanders of 13, 14 and 15 platoons had gone into a huddle about the map board and their platoon sergeants had descended upon the CQMS, attempting to extract kit. It was always the way.

‘Radar’, the company clerk, entered the room with the report of gunfire and explosions north of the town. Jamming was preventing the company sergeant major from contacting any of the platoons or the Dutch tank troop in the next town to the south, along the autobahn 391. He had sent runners instead. That broke up the huddle and the scrum for replacement equipment, the platoon command elements hurrying away to rejoin their men and the company commander stepping outside to listen.

Despite the rain they all of them paused on the large and empty car park listening to machine gun fire and the crack of tank guns, and then there came the unmistakeable sound of armoured vehicles on the northbound off ramp of autobahn 391.

“They made good time!” the OC remarked as the first dark silhouettes of tanks came into view.

All three tanks opened fire with their machine guns before turning their attention to the company’s soft skinned vehicles parked along the store wall beneath camouflage nets, and once they were wrecked it was the building itself that received their main guns attentions.

Sweden’s flagship furniture outlet for Lower Saxony was in flames, the company and platoon command elements for D Company, 1 Wessex were all dead and the battle was only ten minutes old.

The runners did indeed make good time in reaching Wolfenbüttel to the south, and had they been despatched twenty seconds later they would have met a troop of enemy tanks joining the 391 from Bieinrode Strasse.

Wolfenbüttel was largely abandoned but far from in darkness. A Romanian 91
st
Tank Regiment’s troop of T-90s had arrived before the 1 Wessex runners and surprised the Dutch troops, destroying two unmanned Leopard 2s where they sat in berms upon the town centres small park.