Three Kings (Kirov Series)

by John Schettler

  Rommel’s daring advance in December of 1940 had recovered all of Cyrenaica and drawn Hitler’s attention. At first he was surprised, as he had given Rommel orders to simply stop O’Connor and wait for reserves. But the Führer did not waste any anger over the fact that Rommel had pressed on under his own initiative, much to the chagrin and frustration of the Italians, who thought they were still in overall command in North Africa.

  “He has certainly stopped the British,” said Keitel. “Yet it is clear that Rommel has made true the old maxim first espoused by Napoleon: the best defense is a good offence. He’s driven O’Connor off, taken Benghazi, which will augment our supply deliveries by over 1200 tons per day. In this light, we can supply three divisions now, possibly even four. He’s taken Derna, another minor port, and invested the British fortress of Tobruk.”

  “He has not taken it?” Hitler gave Keitel a sharp glance, his dark eyes playing over the map.

  “He’s bypassed it for the time being, and pushed the British all the way back to Bardia, here my Führer.” Keitel indicated the place on the map. “The Italians have invested Tobruk with five infantry divisions.”

  “Then they will take it?”

  “Perhaps, but Rommel is making sure that the British will not be able to reinforce it by land.”

  “And what about Malta?”

  “That operation is well underway. Student has two regiments on the island now, and he is presently landing the third. Resistance is much lighter than we expected. I do not think we will need to commit the 1st Mountain Division as planned. Apparently the British had only a single brigade defending the island, and not the two brigades Canaris said he had identified. In another day we will have four regiments of Fallschirmjagers on Malta, and the entire 22nd Luftland Air Landing division in reserve.”

  “And the 1st Mountain Division? They performed admirably at Gibraltar. What do we do with them?”

  “We could send them over to the operation in Greece. These are experienced mountain troops.”

  “We have over 20 divisions there,” Hitler waved his hand, his eyes still fixed on the map, with that strange inner fire burning from a well of blackness. “The Greek Army won’t last another two weeks. Is that Rommel’s present position?”

  “Yes, my Führer. The British have not been able to stop him. He is now thinking he might kick them out of Bardia and Sollum, and possibly continue east. It appears OKW cannot stop him either.”

  Hitler smiled. The lines of the battle were advancing into Egypt now, well ahead of schedule. “I heard that man said he would give me the Suez canal in 90 days. I told him to take up a blocking position, but I did not think he would choose one so close to the Egyptian Border! He’s taken back all of Cyrenaica! Well, he has sixty days left to deliver on that promise about the canal. Can he do this, Keitel?”

  “Supplies must be wearing thin after a his long advance. Note how he has kept his troops well inland, away from the coast where the Royal Navy could become a factor.”

  “What of Operation Anvil?” That was the code name for the air/naval maneuvers now underway. Malta was the anvil, and the heavy squadrons of planes and ships were the hammers.

  “The Italians believe they can finish the job, though our Western Task Force out of Gibraltar has just rendezvoused with the French fleet from Toulon. The Royal Navy is coming out to challenge the Italians, just as we thought they would. They can match the Italians, and their experience at naval warfare may make all the difference, but we will make sure they do not succeed. Admiral Raeder has assured me of this. Lütjens is on the Hindenburg, moving east at this very moment. With any luck, we will soon find and destroy the last of the Royal Navy, and then you may have the pleasure of getting the good news that Hindenburg is shelling Alexandria!”

  Hitler laughed at that, clearly pleased. “I like this man, Rommel. And Raeder’s advice has proven well taken.” And Volkov’s advice as well, he thought. That man told me to send strong forces to North Africa… And why not? I have divisions sitting in Spain that are not needed there, strong troops that could be put to better use in Rommel’s able hands. Then he made one of those snap decisions taken in a moment of jubilation that would have dramatic effects on the outcome of the desert war in North Africa.

  “Give Rommel anything he needs, supplies, tanks, anything. In fact, you may send him the 1st Mountain Division if it is not needed on Malta. And start putting together more motorized infantry at once.”

  “We are presently forming a new division, the 90th Schnell. The French made good on their promise and they will deliver the trucks to Tripoli as planned.

  “Then they are good for something after all,” Hitler jibed. “One new motorized division will not be sufficient. What about the Grossdeutschland Regiment that was used at Gibraltar?”

  “It has been reforming as a full motorized division in Spain, my Führer.”

  “Yes, I was also going to order it to the buildup on the new front we will form near the Ukraine frontier, but this battle in North Africa is looking very interesting now. Once we finish off Greece, only Turkey separates our forces from those of Ivan Volkov. Can our armies in the Balkans subdue Turkey?”

  “We are presently war gaming that very question, my Führer.”

  “If the results are satisfactory, then move Grossdeutschland to Italy. From there we can send it to Rommel as another strong motorized reinforcement. Feed a good fire, Keitel. I am not yet ready to smash Sergei Kirov’s Soviet Russia. All things in time. If we can link up with Volkov and the Orenburg Federation, that will make Kirov think twice about his advance into the Caucasus. In the meantime, feed a fire. Support Rommel with everything you have. Send someone over there to see what he needs. Who is a good man for the job?”

  “General Paulus is available.”

  “Good. Send Paulus. Tell him to report on Rommel’s condition, intentions, and timetable. Have him work up a list of everything needed to take the Suez canal in sixty days time. That is the real prize. If we take the canal we have all but knocked the British right out of this war. And at the moment, there is nothing but a few demoralized Commonwealth divisions and the empty desert between Rommel and Cairo! Raeder was correct. I would have to commit over fifty divisions in Russia to get this far, and here this Rommel has brought us to a place where we have the English on the ropes, and with what, two divisions? Send him more! Build that force up to a full Korps, as quickly as possible, Keitel. Fan those flames.”

  Hitler’s assessment was largely correct, and he might be forgiven for having overlooked one other odd report that had found its way into the intelligence stream that day. It was from the Italian garrison at Giarabub, and they seemed to be concerned that the British were sending heavy reinforcements to the Siwa Oasis, perhaps intending to attack their own position, or execute a deep flanking maneuver to surprise Rommel. Keitel mentioned it in passing, but Hitler brushed the matter off.

  “The Italians,” he said shaking his head. “They are afraid of their own shadow. What could the British possibly have to send that far south to Siwa? It is 230 kilometers from their positions near Bardia and Sollum. Why would they do this when they can barely hold the main coastal road?”

  “The report indicated that troops bearing the insignia of the British 7th Armored had been spotted, mostly artillery supporting the light Australian patrols snooping around Giarabub.”

  “7th Armored?”

  “That was the division the British used to make their bold offensive last month. It almost single handedly destroyed the entire Italian 10th Army. Yet all our intelligence indicates it is still reforming at Alexandria. The British are also bringing up the 2nd New Zealand Division. Apparently they have decided not to attempt a reinforcement of Greece.”

  “In that they are very wise,” said Hitler. “They would have simply thrown those troops away.” Now Hitler’s eyes darkened, a cloud of worry there. “I was told that we have intercepted a message indicating General O’Connor is no longer commanding the British
withdrawal.”

  “That is correct.”

  “So the rat has fled the sinking ship, eh? What will the newspapers say about the man now that our Rommel is stealing the headlines?” He thought again. “Well, could this 7th Armored Division possibly be ready this soon? Might this man, O’Connor be planning another of his bold offensives?”

  “Highly unlikely, my Führer. Not from that deep southern flank. And if he did throw the 7th Armored Division that far south, how could the British keep it supplied?”

  Hitler nodded. “Very well,” he said. “But move those units to North Africa as soon as possible. Move Grossdeutschland to Italy, no matter what your war games tell you about Turkey. Cut the orders today.”

  It was one of those impulsive decisions that Hitler was noted for over the course of the war. He never concerned himself with logistics, except in the grandest scheme of things as he set his mind on getting control of oil and resources. How his armies would actually extract and use those resources was not his concern.

  Keitel might explain the difficulties of supplying troops in the desert, the limits of daily tonnage they might get through the few good ports they had at Tripoli and Benghazi, but Hitler did not wish to hear any of that. He simply wanted divisions moved about, and what the Führer wanted, he almost always got. In this case, however, Hitler’s impulsive order to reinforce Rommel was to prove very timely, for the Western Desert was about to have visitors, with weapons and capabilities the Führer could only dream about now.

  The Italians had been both right and wrong with their report from Giarabub. There was a small detachment from the 7th Royal Horse Artillery that had just arrived at Siwa, the artillery that had been requested by Colonel Fergusson for his attack on Giarabub. He had also requested tanks, but what he would actually get was beyond his wildest imagining. Something was blowing in from the heart of the sandstorm that had bedeviled the area the last 24 hours. Something wholly unexpected even now slipping through a crack in this broken world to arrive at this fateful hour in the lonesome, wild deserts of a forsaken land.

  The instant Troyak saw that odd glow in the sky his instincts for battle served him well. “Marines! Battle order!” He shouted, and his men reacted with the same ardor, weapons in hand, with troops fanning out in a wide perimeter forward of the KA-40. One man was setting up an 82mm mortar to the rear, another lowering the auto grenade launcher to its tripod mount. Still others had taken up positions behind any cover they could find, with riflemen darting behind some large rocks while other men with the RPG-30s looked for a depression where they could get a good field of fire on anything advancing on their position.

  Popski stood there for a brief moment, eyes puckered, hearing a strange growl coming from the south, out of the heart of the high plateau they were on. There was a sudden, foreboding wind, blowing opposite the direction of the storm, and it gave him a shiver, a cold wind that raised his hackles, as though he were standing at the edge of infinity and about to slip over.

  Who could be up here, he wondered? Could the Italians have patrols this far out? Now he clearly heard the sound of advancing vehicles, but they did not sound like anything he had heard before. They were certainly not those jeeps from the Long Range Desert Patrol he had talked about, and the Aussie Cavalry unit had forsaken its light tanks and reorganized in trucks for this deployment.

  There was a heavy growl to the engine sound, deep and menacing. Might this be the armor that Fergusson and his Aussie detachment had requested? Perhaps the Desert Rats had managed to get a battalion of tanks fit for duty, but how would they get them here so soon? They would have had to go by rail out past the rocky hill country beyond Al Fayum and Birkat Karun. From there they could have taken the long desert road through Aweina and Zabu. He had scouted it himself on his last trip out to Siwa, but why would they climb up here? The oasis country was well south and west, in the low depression. Were they lost?

  Yet there was no mistaking the sound now. The telltale rattle of tank tracks could be heard above the low growl, and he could see dark shapes emerging from the chilling wind. Something big was out there, something with power behind it, and now instinct compelled him to move, joining the Russian Marines in a desperate search for any cover he could find.

  Chapter 26

  In the year 2020, with the energy crisis deepening after renewed fighting in the Ukraine had severed natural gas pipelines feeding a hungry Europe, oil prospecting efforts reached a fever pitch. All the world’s great fields had already edged over the top of the oil peak depletion curve and now were in steady decline. The United States had been blasting and squeezing shale oil and gas from the Green River and Bakken shales in the US, but the oil was deep underground, embedded in the rock and difficult and expensive to extract. Aside from the new superfield at Kashagan in the Caspian Basin, there had been little in the way of good old fashioned light sweet crude found for many decades…. until the year 2020.

  An oil man on a safari road trip from Mersa Matruh to Siwa had stopped and wandered off the desert road in an isolated area at the southern tip of the dreadful Qattara Depression, and he saw something in the rocks there that prompted him to return with a survey team to take another look. British Petroleum soon followed up on his survey by quietly negotiating further exploration rights in the region, promising a cash starved Egypt a substantial royalty on any significant finds. The discovery that would be known as the “Great Sultan of the Desert” would rock the oil world when BP finally announced that they had used new deep lateral drilling techniques to locate a massive field of both oil and gas, with reserves expected to exceed 70 billion barrels, the size and scale of Saudi Arabia’s renowned Ghawar field, now fitfully soaked by water infusion to force out its remaining oil, and in rapid depletion.

  The new BP concern promised a much needed boon to energy reserves for the West, and a reinvigoration of the tired Old Man of the Middle East, Egypt. The initial development phase, designated Sultan-A, or Sultan Apache, proved very promising. Yet once again, the oil and gas the developed West so desperately needed, was lost in the heartland of a desolate and forbidding desert, and a land populated by resentful Arabic cultures that had been radicalized over many years of dissention and conflict. Situated half way between the Oasis of Siwa and the smaller Qara Oasis to the northwest, high atop a prominent rocky outcrop, the oil engineers of British Petroleum staked out their claim and began intensive development. Soon there was a thriving encampment in the midst of nowhere, with barracks and facilities to support several hundred oil workers, engineers and some of their families.

  When Berber militias near Siwa became a problem for Egypt, the Egyptian Army deployed a mechanized force to the area, but the tactic soon backfired. With the central government weak, and power falling to the Army, the forces sent to Siwa simply joined the rebel forces, compounding their mischief now that they had heavy AFVs and tanks. The BP oil men watched nervously from behind the miles of chain link fences surrounding the site, topped with barbed wire, but it was a thin defense.

  Then, in October of 2020, the renegade force launched a daring raid on the site. It resulted in the massacre of over fifty oil workers, with many more taken as hostages, and the wanton destruction of valuable drilling rigs and other equipment. Great Britain appealed to the Egyptians to intervene with troops loyal to the government, but the on again off again ‘revolution’ in Egypt saw the current central authority collapse as it had done so many times before.

  It was then that Great Britain decided to take matters into its own hands, in true American fashion, and dispatched its formidable 7th Armored Brigade to Egypt to secure the Sultan Apache oil concern and protect the lives of British citizens and property of the Crown.

  No strangers to the desert, the Brigade still bore the insignia that had become world famous under the banner of the British 7th Armored Division. The unit had fought in the bitter conflicts in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan, all other operations aimed at securing the safety of oil reserves, and was well experie
nced in the art and trial of desert warfare. After military reforms it had lightened up considerably in its force structure, becoming largely a motorized infantry brigade when serving in Afghanistan. While there it patrolled in light armored trucks like the Mastiff, Wolfhound and Husky, but for this deployment the British Army wisely decided to return the unit to its former glory as a fully armored force.

  There had been much debate and budget wrangling over how to equip a new mechanized force for the Army 2020 program. Many vehicles had been tested and considered, Germany’s Boxer, The Swiss built Piranha V, and finally the French VCBI Armored Infantry Combat Vehicle, which eventually was purchased by the British until they could come up with something better. It could serve well as an infantry AFV with a modular “DRAGAR” turret, mounting a 25mm NATO autocannon and a coaxial 7.62mm machinegun. An eight wheeled vehicle, the VCBI had decent armor for its class at 14.5mm, a speed of 100KPH and a range of 750 kilometers. It was perfect for a fast scouting role.

  The British renamed it the “Dragon” after its turret design, and purchased enough to outfit a squadron of the 12th Royal Lancers as a Recce unit. Two older infantry units that had served in the 7th Brigade in the past were recalled, the 3rd Mercian Battalion and the Highlanders Battalion. They were both still using the well tried upgraded Desert Warrior IFV, a tracked vehicle that was designed to keep up with the best British tanks at 75KPH. These units had been upgraded to the new 40mm main gun, and had a little more secondary armament with two 7.62mm guns, one a chain gun, and the other a standard MG. Some were fitted with the deadly American made TOW anti-tank missile for added defense against enemy tanks.

  The real power of the brigade was in the tank battalion sent to deal with the armor in the renegade Egyptian unit. The Royal Scotts Dragoon Guards were called, fielding 45 of the superb Challenger 2 main battle tanks. The unit had been slated to be gelded and down scaled to a light cavalry force in the Army 2020 plan, but this had not yet happened, and thankfully so. Britain needed some muscle now, and the Dragoons were still there to provide it.