by FARMAN, ANDY
Lt Col Chan had cobbled together some help for the embattled troops at Vormundberg, French Jaguars for Wild Weasel flak suppression, USAF A-10s to stick it to some tanks, and Greek F-16s which when coupled with the Spanish F/A-18s should keep the Flankers busy whilst breaking up the inbound strike.
She was tired, and in organising the combined sorties her eyes hadn’t left the screen in front of her, but they hadn’t been seeing what was occurring either as her mind had been focussed on the task at hand.
It took a second for her to realised the Spanish CAP was off the reservation and making a beeline for the Dessau stack.
“What the hell…”
The F/A-18s were east of the Elbe and hustling to close the range so they could use their Sidewinders when powerful airborne radar illuminated them. Ann-Marie saw straight away what had happened and cut into the link, over riding her own controller.
“Caballero’s and Cuchillo’s, abortabortabort…Parase detenerse…Emboscada, it’s an ambush…get the hell out of there, one of those ‘tankers’ is guiding SAMs.”
At other times the rich Latin tones of the senior flight commanders voice would probably have made her toes curl, but this was not ‘other times’. His voice was calm but he was not immediately complying with her instruction.
“Crystal Palace this is Caballero Zero One, their CAP ran away, we can take them.”
Upon her screen the symbols for ‘SAMs’ have appeared; the software classified all fourteen as SA-10s.
“It’s an ambush Caballero; the ‘tanker’ is guiding multiple SAMs!”
Her words were unnecessary; she saw the two flights split as they sought to break the radar locks on them.
To the northeast the ‘fleeing’ SU-27s reversed their course, hurrying back to their charges.
Ann-Marie watching helplessly as on her screen a pair of missile symbols closed with, and then merged with one of the Spanish Falcon’s, the symbols disappeared from her screen. She darted a glance at her subordinate, the controller who had agreed to the Spanish pilots request, and despite the impassive features she could see from his eyes how desperately he wished he could turn back time.
Only two of the Falcons made it back to the relative safety of friendly lines and the senior of the two requested a steer to a tanker, having used up so much fuel on afterburner. It was not the same voice from before.
Had she not already had the Greek F-16s heading that way she would have been forced to weaken the line defending 4 Corps, diverting dwindling assets to cover the ground troops in contact.
It had come to that point, where the loss of just a few flights of aircraft could mean disaster. The Soviet plan had not worked, the regiments heading for 4 Corps would still be intercepted, but not those bound for the front.
The stack at Dessau broke up, the various elements making for their targets and Ann-Marie called up the Greek F-16s, and explained that the Vormundberg CAP was gone and it was now up to them.
“Timothy, is there a problem?”
The Adjutant had been talking intently with Derek for several minutes, and the C.O’s words seemed to startle both men.
“Um, pardon?”
Pat hated it when officers of his seemed to be on a different page, but that had never before been the case with the young Captain.
“The MLRS request, is there a problem?”
The answer came from behind him though.
“Yes, sir.” He turned to face the newcomer.
“All MLRS are about to carry out deep strikes on divisions beyond this one we are currently in contact with. Reloading of all launchers will take up to three hours.”
All available anti-tank assets were tackling the Czech battalion moving on 4 Company and soon he was going to have to shift some of the Apache’s and Lynx in preparation of meeting the even larger threat JSTARS had detected.
Whilst Pat Reed was mulling over these problems his Adjutant thanked Derek. He didn’t know how or even when, he was going to have to break the news to the CO, but right this second was not the moment.
Pat came to a decision.
“Tim?”
His Adjutant sent the artilleryman back to his place before answering the CO.
“Yes, sir?”
“I want you to get onto the Argyll’s, pass them the message from JSTARS and ask them if their kind offer of earlier is still open, plus I want you to inform Mark Venables that I am moving his 2 Troop up in support of the right flank, and tell him why.”
On the reverse slope Major Venables Challenger had successfully traversed the side of the hill until it was directly behind the centre of 4 Company, but heavy shelling of that portion of the hilltop would have made their crossing back over a character building experience, but the shelling stopped abruptly.
Mark Venables acknowledged the adjutants transmission as he stood in the open turret with an AAC Gazelle guiding them across the hilltop, a door gunner leaning out to point the way around the jumbled trunks. The brow of the hill was in sight but they could not yet see the action taking place, but the sound of the defenders fire was rising and he was anxious to get into a position to support.
Gripping the GPMG mount for balance he braced himself as their course took them down into yet another shell crater, and up the other side. Cresting the edge of the crater he could now see their way was clear, and he waved his thanks to the Gazelle, which moved off.
“Steady there Abbot, one hundred metres until the ground drops off.”
He ducked at the sound of an explosion to the right, glancing towards the source, seeing the wreckage of the helicopter hitting the ground, and then there was a roar as the Gazelle’s killer passed overhead. It happened so fast that the Major had no time even to think of using the gimpy, and then he was ducking down again, inside the turret as spent cases rained down upon them.
Lt Col Chan had passed the air raid warning to the brigade headquarters for the troops at Vormundberg, but it had not been passed to the people that it mattered most to in time.
The Flanker that had destroyed the British Army Air Corps Gazelle splashed an Apache immediately after, both machines falling to its 30mm cannon. It turned its nose skywards and exploded, hit by all three of a Starstreaks projectile’s. The Royal Artillery crew that had launched the high velocity missile died, their Stormer vehicle disintegrating under the 3000mph impact of a Kh-31P missile, the anti-radiation version of the Krypton anti-ship missile.
Venables fired the ten L-8 smoke grenades in the dischargers either side of the main gun. He now knew why the artillery barrage had ceased and he didn’t know what good the smoke would do but they were very exposed on top of the hill, so it couldn’t hurt.
“Hello all stations this is Zero, Air Red, Air Red, Air Red!”
The radios carried the very late air raid warning, which elicited a variety of retorts amongst the listeners but only one gave voice to his on the net
“No shit?”
A rather officious voice took exception to the tiny lapse in radio discipline.
“Hello unknown station this is Zero, say again callsign, over?”
Despite, or perhaps even because of the situation, the reply drew laughter.
“I’m sarcastic…..” said ‘Unknown Station’. “Not stupid.”
The Challenger reached the brow of the hill and was beginning down the incline when a large hand plucked at it, lifting the rear of the main battle tank as if it were a toy.
Ann-Marie Chan’s assumption that the type was a SU-25 would have been successfully challenged on technical grounds by an anorak speaking in a nasal monotone. It was in fact an SU-39, formerly a two-seat version of the SU-25 but with that rear seat removed to enable mid-air refuelling.
The ‘Frogfoot’ had its trial by fire during the Afghan War where it proved itself to be a reliable, close air support machine capable of absorbing a lot of punishment. Of a somewhat similar appearance to an Alpha Jet, it was the Red Air Force’s best ground attack aircraft.
Colonel Ilya Mor
imsky had not had the best of days, flying once to Belgium and back at first light, once to France and back in the late morning, and each time with half the ordnance load his aircraft was capable of carrying. This mission however, held the promise of actually putting enough ordnance in the right place to almost justify the risks and the losses amongst his pilots.
The plan that had got them to the battlefield without loss had been his, thrashed out over a secure radio link to an army officer who had sounded almost intelligent. Leaving the same battlefield without loss was another thing entirely, however. Despite the best efforts of the aircraft designated to carry the AS-11 and Kh-31P anti-radiation missiles they were still seeing missile launches from the ground. Frighteningly fast Starstreak missiles blotted three of his aircraft from the sky on the first pass, and heat seeking Stingers that his AAA suppression aircraft could not detect had brought down another two of his regiment so far.
The regiment had divided into separate flights and endeavoured to attack the targets the ground troops wanted taking out once those assigned to AAA suppression had cleared the way. Morimsky himself leading a flight of four, two pairs of aircraft with one to identify the targets in question and then to highlight by laser designation whilst it was attacked with 500kg LGBs.
One of the targets the ground forces wanted neutralising was described by them as a Milan anti-tank crew beside a large tree on the hillside, but despite providing a ten figure map reference his laser partner could not identify it. It was a long hillside with a lot of trees on it and few features to get their bearings from. Eventually the voice on the ground had a tank fire a smoke round at the spot they wanted attacking and a laser was aimed at that point.
Not only the attacking armour had targets for them, artillery spotters and the crews of the Soviet helicopters had targets they believed were best dealt with by the SU-39s. Consequently it was not just 1CG that was to receive their best efforts, but 2REP, 2LI and the Argyll’s also.
Once the lasing aircraft had identified the targets the flak suppression elements attacked and the strike aircraft waited a few moments before beginning their runs.
Morimsky had come straight across the valley, east to west and thirty seven seconds behind the AAA suppression sortie, and all he needed to do was follow a line projected onto his HUD until the automated weapon release system pickled off the ordnance. With his right hand he held the aircraft steady at 400 feet as the thumb of his left hand rose and fell on the counter-measures switches, discharging flares and chaff from the wingtip pods.
The first thing he’d noticed was the amount of smoke in the valley, and then he was passing above a trail of destruction as if some child had thrown a tantrum with his toys, smashing and scattering them. The trail ended at a line of stationary vehicles some eight hundred metres from the first visible NATO foxhole, rendered immobile by the mines that had blown off sections of track and then destroyed by tank rounds or missiles. The attack was stalling and unless a serious cull of the enemy anti-tank units took place it would never progress.
One of the AAA suppressors had already fallen; with its tail blown off it had crashed into the forested slopes of Vormundberg, whilst a second was limping home on one engine.
His aircraft rose as a bomb fell away and he banked hard right to follow the side of the hill, wincing as he saw an SU-27, one of their escorts, exploded by a missile.
The lasing aircraft reported the bomb he had released had detonated exactly on the illumination but there had been no secondary explosions, which led the Colonel to correctly assume they had attacked a remoted firing point and not the crew. He extended the air brakes by twelve degrees before reversing direction, having seen the whirling rotors of two British helicopters hovering just above the hilltop, and the turn brought down his speed even more.
Although he carried two AA8 Aphid missiles, one under each wing, he selected the belly mounted 30mm cannon and used the rudder pedals to line up on the first target. He fired a half second burst and saw fragments of perspex glint in the sun as the rounds struck home. He had kept the pipper of the gun sight on the engines above the cargo deck but the helicopter, a Lynx, was turning towards him and the cockpit bore the brunt. It immediately fell the short distance to the ground but he did not see it impact, he was already using the opposite rudder to bring the nose into line with an Apache gunship. His burst was high and he saw the cannon rounds hitting the ground beyond it, throwing clods of earth skywards and there was no time to adjust his aim.
Morimsky overshot and banked left, craning his neck as he did so to see if the Apache was still in sight but it wasn’t. What he did see though were smoke grenades going off, drawing his eyes to a tank he had not noticed before.
He called his lasing partner but the man had kept his eye on the boss and already the British Challenger was being illuminated.
Selecting another 500kg laser guided bomb, Col Morimsky pulled back on the stick, gaining another 500 feet before turning back. The tank was moving towards the brow of the hill, half concealed by smoke but it was as good as dead. The Colonel had nothing against the men who were manning the vehicle but he had a job to do and as such he chose not to notice the figure stood in the commander’s hatch, so to him the fighting vehicle was nothing more than some robot.
He heard the pilot of the aircraft illuminating the target shout, the airwaves carried a half formed word, which he could not recognise but the alarm in the voice was clear. The laser illumination ceased and Morimsky de-selected automatic release of the weapon, turning instead to manual at the precise moment something struck his aircraft hard. He cursed loudly because the impact startled him into inadvertently releasing the weapon.
He did not try to see how close the bomb had come to his target, the smell of fuel had seeped through into his mask and the needle of the engine temperature gauge for his starboard engine was climbing rapidly. He shut down the engine but found that something was causing a lot of drag on the right side of his aircraft; far more than a dead engine would cause, and only by keeping constant pressure on the left rudder was he able to correct the yaw the drag was inducing.
Things got markedly worse a second later when he was hit again as he overflew the French legionnaires, a wall of small arms fire rose to greet him but he heard only one audible impact. It was no louder than a loose chip flying up off a road makes when it hits the bodywork of a car, but his instrument panel and radio died, the needles sinking to zero and their illuminating lamps cutting out.
He made it past the NATO units to open countryside, heading back towards the Elbe but without a compass he was uncertain of the heading. Turning his head he tried to pick out a recognisable landmark but instead he saw the fins of a Stinger missile protruding from the starboard engine housing just behind where he was sat. After the initial shock of seeing the unexploded weapon he shook his head in wonder.
“How lucky can a guy get?”
He obviously could not tempt fate much longer and he was going to have to eject before the Stingers warhead decided to go off. Removing his feet from the rudder pedals and reached down for the ejector seat firing handle between his lower legs, but froze when he saw about two inches of fuel sloshing about in the foot well. The voids in the fuselage behind him were probably also awash with the highly inflammable liquid, and the rockets that would throw the seat clear would ignite the jet fuel which would set off the unexploded warhead.
Colonel Morimsky took back all he had said about being lucky and abandoned all ideas of leaving the aircraft in flight, looking instead for somewhere flat to put the machine down on.
He was still west of the Elbe but in territory the advancing ground forces had already passed through so every road would eventually be carrying logistical support convoys. He need not have to walk too far before finding a ride on an empty truck heading back towards the river. It was a mainly wooded area though and that was troublesome, because he had no way of knowing when his remaining engine was going to flame out for lack of fuel.
Ju
st as he was starting to think he would never find somewhere to put down he saw a long clearing ahead, and he brought his damaged machine down lower, overflying it as he looked for obstacles. It looked clear as well as being a decent length so he circled around, jettisoning his remaining ordnance over the trees and spotting an east/west running road about two kilometres south. Easy walking distance provided he could get down in one piece.
Once he was lined up he jettisoned the cockpit canopy, tightened the straps holding him to his seat, and began the approach for a wheels up landing.
The SU-39 could glide, but without knowing the full extent of the damage to his aircraft he couldn’t afford to shut down his remaining engine, in case it was the only system left that was providing power for the avionics. It would be ironic, he thought if in order to avoid burning he shut down the engine and crashed, because there was no electrical power to move the control surfaces.
The approach was straightforward and he cleared the treetops at the end of the clearing by a foot and throttled back, bringing the engine to idle without shutting it down. He flared, allowing the last of the flying speed to bleed off and then lowered the nose to avoid the tail catching and smashing the belly against the earth. Despite all that he was thrown violently forward against the seat straps when the aluminium belly met the earth, and the vibration, the bone shaking, jarring, seemed to go on forever.
The careering journey across the clearing ended as the crippled aircraft came to a halt, brought up against a bank of earth and a few moments later its pilot emerged without bothering to shut the remaining engine down, rolling out of the open cockpit and hurriedly regaining his feet before running a hundred or so metres and flinging himself to the ground behind an old fallen tree trunk near the edge of the clearing.
The sound of the aircrafts single operational engine carried beyond the clearing and through the trees, a noise as alien and invasive as the stinking fumes it gave off. Smoke leaked into the air from the battered fuselage but after a few minutes that had reduced to little more than whisp’s. There was no fire, no explosion, and the pilot’s still helmeted head emerged from behind a tuft of grass, peering at the noisy aircraft for long minutes. It did not seem fitting to leave the aircraft here with its jet engine still turning over, it had saved his life and it was only respectful that he showed his appreciation of that fact. He slowly regained his feet and after a few seconds hesitation he walked back to the aircraft, unaware that he was in the crosshairs of several gun sights.