ARMAGEDDON'S SONG (Volume 3) 'Fight Through'

by FARMAN, ANDY

  “Keep a good eye out for any signs of the marines pulling back, mate. This could all go to ratshit pretty damn quickly.”

  Bill kept his eye fixed to the telescopic sight.

  “There’s movement in the lane.”

  Stef crawled back to his place beside the staff sergeant and took up the Swiftscope, training it to where Bill had the rifle aimed.

  “You see a Landrover with stretchers along the back?” Bill said. “It’s just to the left of the farm.”

  Stef adjusted the point of view and then brought the vehicle into focus, watching it as it moved slowly down the lane.

  “Casevac run.” Stef muttered. “And it’s a Wimik, not a ‘Lanny’.”

  Anything on the lane was visible to their hide for only a hundred or so metres from the point where it appeared beside the farm, and after a short while the Wimik’s position was only identifiable owing to the vehicles radio antennae, sticking up above the lanes bordering hedgerow. They watched it for a few minutes because there was nothing else going on at the moment in their sphere of responsibility.

  “Why do they keep on stopping?” Bill asked after the antennae began whipping energetically back and forth, indicating the vehicle had stopped again. It had done so twice within the space of a hundred metres.

  “I dunno.” Stef was no wiser than his mate. “Maybe it’s knackered, or maybe there’s obstacles in the road that need shifting…and why are you asking me anyway, do I look like the fucking oracle?”

  Any answer, which may have been coming, was drowned out by the sound of three 240mm mortar rounds landing as one. Both snipers had been looking elsewhere at that precise moment, and on looking toward the source of the sound they found the view of the farm obscured by smoke and flying debris. When the smoke cleared, the farmhouse, barn and all the rest of the buildings had all but disappeared. The mortars had been fired from seven miles away and the rounds had landed within a foot of one another, square on the roof of the farmhouse, but to the casual observer it seemed that a single lucky, or unlucky, round had scored on another 40 Commando CP. Fractured stone, brick and splintered timbers were still landing far from the point where they had played there part in the farms structure as Stef called it in on the field telephone. Bill swung his weapon back toward the lane in time to see the last of the stretchers and the burdens upon them being passed across the hedgerow. So the vehicle had broken down then, he thought, and watched the half dozen stretcher bearers lift their loads and start toward the hill defended by the Coldstreamers. That wasn’t the marines pre-planned egress route but Bill didn’t know if casevac’s had to follow the same route.

  The first port of call for Arnie was 1 Company, to pass on the gospel according to Pat Reed and to look up his mate C/Sgt Osgood before the fight started. Directing his driver to park up in a ‘garage’, a prepared camouflaged area with camm nets thickening up the natural cover that vehicles could use without having to unravel and drape their own nets over whenever they stopped.

  1 Company’s stores had two locations, the main stores were well to the rear but a good stock of ammunition and munitions was in a bunker dug into a reverse slope two hundred metres from the company CP and covered with pine trunks before the earth was piled back on. Arnie headed for the hillside stores first and met the padre as he made his way through the trees; the padre was still doing the rounds, moving from trench to trench. The sound of battle nearby had instilled in some a renewed interest in things godly. The American paratrooper was moving downhill, whilst the British padre was heading up, having visited the Hussars in their hide positions and was now intent on speaking to the men in the forward positions. Arnie paused, stepping to one side and extending a helping hand to assist him over a particularly steep and muddy patch.

  “Thank you, sarn’t major.” The padre was flushed and breathing heavily.

  “When I left the infantry behind I left the concept of ‘infantry-fit’ behind too…I’m regretting that now.”

  Arnie grinned at the man. Sure, he could be a bore and a pain in the ass with his bible punching, singling an individual out for some one- to-one attention, and usually when you had just come off duty, but he was sincere and meant well or he’d be in a shelter bay already and not still wandering around above ground offering spiritual support. Arnie was thinking of something to say in reply, but both men heard the sound of an express train approaching from the east. The paratrooper was beaten to a handy dip in the ground by the padre, and both men pressed their faces into the mud as the sound got louder.

  “For what we are about to receive may the lord make us truly thankful!” said the padre with irony.

  Taken slightly aback, Arnie chuckled

  “Amen.” and then the ground heaved.

  The rounds had landed upon the hills top, shattering the trunks of trees and cleaving deep craters in the earth, but otherwise doing no harm.

  The padre raised his head to listen; canting it to one side for a few seconds, if the belt had been to ‘fire for effect’ then more rounds would be following them in now.

  “Ranging rounds, so they must be doing better than expected against the marines, sarn’t major, and now they are thinking about us.” He climbed to his feet.

  “I’m thinking the Reds will be here in an hour or so, and that means they’ll be stonking this hill in earnest a lot sooner than that!”

  It was an ironic scene, the Man of God telling the professional soldier what was happening in the battle.

  The Padre’s first taste of incoming artillery had been as a buckshee Guardsman during the Falklands War back in 1982, but it hadn’t been his last by a long shot. Arnie Moore, on the other hand, had seen his own share of conflict but until Magdeburg he had not been on the receiving end of medium and heavy guns, which made the padre the resident expert. Looking at his watch the RSM was troubled. It had been just a little over two hours since the Soviet’s had hit the protective mine field to the front of the marine’s positions, and 40 Commando’s CO had been confident on holding for up to twelve hours, six at the very least. The Royal Marine’s weren’t some pussy, amateur outfit, he had served alongside them in Afghanistan and Iraq, and if they were about to be overrun, or pushed off the position early it wasn’t due to bad soldiering or a lack of guts.

  He cast a quick glance downhill towards Oz’s stores before turning and following the padre back uphill. Social calls would have to wait.

  The stretcher bearing party had passed through the Battery from 29 Commando Regiment, Royal Artillery, uphill into the trees and out of view from the hide who’s occupants could hear the sound of combat from over the rise the farm buildings had occupied, in the dead ground beyond. In the last forty minutes the sound of small arms had increased, and shortly after that the sound of main tank guns could be discerned. The Royal Marines, unlike the USMC, have no armour of their own. Two Troops of Scimitar light tanks on attachment from the Blue’s & Royals were the nearest thing they had, the Scimitars 30mm Rarden cannon was ineffective against medium or heavy armour but it could defeat APCs.

  The marines had twice the number of Milan’s that an infantry battalion carried and they constituted the units principle tank killer, reaching out 2000m at their extreme range. The 94mm LAW is meant to take over from the Milan when the targets reach 400m, which is the Milan’s minimum engagement range; however the troops had found that opening fire with the LAW at anything above 150m was a waste of ammunition if the target was moving.

  The artillery had ensured that the Milan teams had their work cut out, they fired a high percentage of shells fused for airburst and whereas these had no effect on troops in shelter bays with decent top cover, they were designed for use against troops in firing bays. Had the Milan teams had a free hand then they could in theory have destroyed eighty enemy AFVs between the minefield and the Milan’s own minimum engagement range, but only twenty three of the lead assault battalions vehicles were stopped by the guided weapons.

  Channelling the enemy into the prepared killi
ng zone had met with only limited success. Engineer vehicles had bridged the vehicle ditch in several places, allowing the mine ploughs to clear paths through the narrowest parts of the minefield. Rather than having a target rich environment of fighting vehicles sat stationary behind mine ploughs destroyed by Milan, those anti-tank teams that were not being kept in the bottom of their holes by constant airbursts had found ranks of mine ploughs confronting them. In the 12.5 seconds it took the weapons to reach maximum range the Soviet artillery spotters were targeting the launch site and a hundred square metres of real estate around the firing points for some serious attention in case the missile launcher had been remote sited. They had the quantity of weapons to achieve their aim, and consequently fewer than a dozen mine ploughs and combat engineer vehicles were destroyed. Too often the anti-tank gunners had fired and were guiding the missile home when they were hit by shrapnel or just forced to take cover, even.

  The LAW gunners weren’t troubled by the Soviet artillery in the same way that the Milan crews had been, because as someone had once said, ‘It’s considered bad form to shell your own troops’. The AFVs were too close to the marine’s positions and so the gunners switched from H.E to smoke. The LAW isn’t equipped with thermal sights and that fact, coupled with the burning particles of white phosphorus that produced the smoke, reduced the ability of the lightweight weapons gunners to engage.

  The loss of 40 Commando’s command post so early on had robbed the unit of its practiced and experienced, dedicated artillery and close air support systems before the Soviet’s had finished softening up their intended victim. The Commando units forward air controller, artillery rep and their staff’s, died when a single and frighteningly accurate salvo of heavy artillery scored a direct hit on the CP. Bravo Company’s commander assumed control but he had neither the staff nor the radios to take over the role of the CO and fulfil the duties the former CP had achieved so well. He delegated the passing of artillery requests to Alpha Company CP, and Charlie Company the air support liaison role, but Alpha and Charlie were over two kilometres apart and liaison between the two became disjointed.

  To the front of Bravo Company an entirely natural feature was causing the enemy fighting vehicles coming their way to bunch up. A section of stream with particularly high banks on one side, and a dense stand of Sycamore trees on the other were spoiling the combat spacing between vehicles as they were forced to close up in order to get past.

  Charlie Company CP received an airstrike request from a Section Commander and Alpha Company passed on a fire mission from a Troop Commander. Neither CP told the other about it, and so it was that a pair of RAF Tornado’s arrived over the bottle neck that was thick with enemy APCs and Tanks at the same time as a full battery’s worth of improved munitions discharging Skeet submunitions. The leading Tornado was hit by a submunition and exploded in mid-air whilst the second aircraft sucked debris from the leader into an air intake, and trailing smoke and fire it made it to the brigade’s rear area where both crewmen ejected safely. From then on the NATO air force’s insisted on double checking with the artillery before accepting missions from 40 Commando, and the ensuing delays were the cause of missed opportunities.

  No amount of digging could have reduced the casualties amongst the Royal Marines in their trenches; the Red Army had built its armoured warfare tactics around the use of massed artillery and used it without compassion, the Royal Marines were being thinned out and NATO artillery’s counter battery fire was wholly inadequate.

  The frequency of calls from the battalion CP was evidence enough that they were concerned about events in the marines sector.

  “We could do with an answering machine.” Big Stef replaced the handset again and checked the progress of the brew he was preparing. The water in a mess tin was boiling away nicely and he took it from small stove to transfer to a mug but the ground bucked beneath him and half the water was lost.

  “What…!”

  The ground heaved again and he dropped the mess tin, holding on to the walls of the hide for balance.

  “It’s the gun line.” Bill had been taken by surprise with the first explosion and had swung his weapon from the crest by the sunken lane, around to the dead ground by the copse. He watched the effects of a second round scoring a direct hit on a gun's ammunition supply; it obliterated the howitzer, its tractor unit and its crew.

  Stef crawled back into place beside Bill, peering through his scope. A third round landed, and it also struck the stacked rounds to the rear of one of the howitzers.

  “Three rounds and three hits.” Bill observed.

  “Bloody good shooting!”

  “Good shooting, my arse!” Stef swung around the Swift Scope, looking for likely spots.

  “Start looking for spotters mate, you can bet yer left bollock those rounds were laser guided!”

  Stef informed the CP and the information was passed to the forward positions, where the Guardsmen and Paratroopers watched their fronts for the spotters and their laser designators. One by one the howitzers were destroyed but no one got the faintest sniff as to the spotter’s whereabouts despite dividing up the ground between them and scrutinising all possible hide sites. There was nothing to suggest the enemy spotter could be anywhere except to the front of the battalion lines, and why would you look over your shoulder to check if the designator was being used from within your own lines, anyway?

  Philippines.

  The invasion of the Philippines by the armed forces of the People’s Republic of China was proving to be a slow business. Thus far Cebu, Bohol, Negros, Siquijor and Palawan were the only islands of any size to have been taken. The largest islands of the archipelago, Luzon, Leyte and Mindanao where still being fiercely contested by the regular forces and Chinese losses were far and above those expected during the planning stage.

  The PRC had amassed a huge army since the Second World War and had spent the previous decade modernising it, to the extent that they could drive their armoured forces like a vast steel encased carpet over any of their neighbour’s borders, swamping all resistance with ease. The problem they had with the Philippines was that it was not a single landmass, but rather a cluster of over a thousand islands, mostly hilly or mountainous and covered in forest or jungle over a high percentage of their area, and they did not lend themselves favourably to armoured warfare. There were no freeways, motorways or autobahns, there were just roads that were generally inadequate for normal peacetime use and easily put out of action. The Chinese needed leg infantry who knew how to fight in the jungle clad peaks that the home team found so easy to defend, and although China did have such troops, they did not have anywhere near enough of them. They had tried using armoured tactics on Luzon and for their troubles were now stopped dead in their tracks halfway across, and a similar situation existed on Leyte where the commander of the invasion forces had unwisely asked Beijing for permission to delay the landings on Mindanao, and instead use the troops earmarked for there to complete the job on Luzon and Leyte first.

  The new commander of the Sixth Army had been briefed to keep moving forwards always, and had moved his headquarters, rather than his units, a half kilometre nearer the front within hours of taking over. The Political Commissar believed this was a sound tactical move for some odd reason, and reported it as such to his superiors. The real reason for the new commander’s decision was simply that his predecessor had been buried in too shallow a hole, upwind of the headquarters.

  Guerrilla forces on all of the islands were sapping Sixth Army of manpower and equipment, as ‘conquered’ islands demonstrated that they were far from pacified. Forces that were sorely needed on Leyte, Luzon and Mindanao were instead being tied down patrolling or guarding against guerrilla attacks.

  Air power was one area where the PRC should have had the upper hand, especially as their opponents had a tiny air force with which to challenge them for air superiority. U.S made Stinger missiles in the hands of both the Regular Filipino troops, and the Guerrilla’s, were having t
he same effect on the morale of the Chinese aviators as they had wrought on Warsaw Pact pilots in Afghanistan two decades before.

  The fixed wing assets of the tiny but professional Philippines Air Force existed only upon Mindanao, where its two squadrons of F-5Es, a half dozen ancient and only recently reactivated F-8H Crusaders, Agusta S-211s and piston engined T-28D Trojans were backed up by a trio of Taiwanese F-16Cs. The Filipino’s had these precious assets spread about the islands fourteen suitable fields and the United States had provided enough Patriot systems to make a serious attempt at destroying the Filipino air force, a very costly business. As it was though, the PAF rarely sent these aircraft into harm’s way, and the Chinese assumption was that logistical problems were the cause of this. The PAF’s helicopter fleet on the other hand, was not restricted to Mindanao, and was supporting both regular and irregular forces on the islands. The machines use of small clearings as bases and the pilot’s intimate knowledge of the ground made them singularly difficult to deal with. The AGM-114C Hellfire missiles carried by the Filipino aircraft had originally been bought to deal with an invader who used armour in support of infantry operations, the aircrews had never dreamt of having such a target rich environment, and between them and the terrain they had managed to halt the Chinese ground forces for the time being.

  Considering the sizes of the forces involved such a situation could only be temporary. In terms of numbers, the strength of the regular forces defending the islands was 160,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen, whereas the invading PLA Sixth Army had twice that number in infantry alone. It was only a matter of time before the commanders returned the infantry to their roots by getting them out of the vehicles in order to continue the invasion on foot. In the meantime the Chinese controlled the waters around the Philippines as well as the air approaches and this prevented any resupply in quantity of any of the staples of a fighting forces life. The general staff of the Philippines armed forces knew that with current ammunition expenditure rates, within a month the Chinese would quite literally have more troops than the Filipinos had bullets to shoot them with. Patrolling warships and combat air patrols enjoyed a free-fire zone around the islands, and frequently attacked without warning any vessel larger than a rowing boat. The islands were under siege and only once had that been quite obviously breached, the previous week, and probably by aircraft that had destroyed the CAP south of the Zamboanga peninsula. The commander Sixth Army was not concerned by such occasional breaches, after all, how much could an aircraft carry? Certainly not enough to make a difference, but he had directed the navy to place an air defence frigate off the peninsular anyway in order to strengthen the picket there.