by Andy Farman
The Su-37 Berkut or ‘Golden Eagle’, was designed in response to the USA’s stealthy generation of airframes and was of RAM, radar absorbent material, construction, nothing new there, except that the ordnance it carried was also stealthed and launched from two rotary bomb bays.
At 40,000’, 25 miles south of Leipzig the NATO JSTARS and AWACs played follow-the-leader, in a monotonous racecourse pattern with their intensely bored F-15C Eagle escorts in tow.
Major Caroline Nunro was one of the US Air Forces prime recruiting assets, adorning posters that stated women could be fighter pilots, or anything else they wanted to be, in the modern United States Air Force, and tonight she commanded the rear element. Caroline had turned down the opportunity to adorn the centrefold of the world’s most famous men’s magazine and the $750,000 cheque that went with it. The magazine had envisaged a strong visual image of Caroline stood in a flight suit, fists on hips, legs spaced apart and the distinctly non-regulation flight suit unzipped beyond the crotch, revealing that there was nothing fake about the blue-eyed blond jet jockey. Caroline knew she was a smart, shit-hot pilot but she did not need to undo the hard work she had put in overcoming the sexual prejudices of her male colleagues. Her logbook showed seven different types of aircraft she had flown since getting her wings, from the high tech but un-sexy F-117A to the USMC Harrier; she had fought to be where she now was, quite literally. A month before she had been placed on administrative suspension following an incident at a Washington charity ball. In dress uniform she had been dancing with a Senator who had allowed his pre-conceptions, and Champagne cocktails, to get the better of him.
“Honey,” he had whispered in her ear.
“Why risk your cute butt flying fighters when you could make a fortune, in perfect safety on your back?” He had emphasised the financial offer by dropping his hand from the between her shoulder blades to her ‘cute butt’. The reporters and photographers for the various papers, society pages had raced to file their stories and pictures, of Caroline’s right hook and her sprawling dance partner.
The Senators spin-doctors had moved fast and before midnight they were plugging a different version of events to both the media and the Pentagon, so by the next morning Caroline was facing charges of conduct unbecoming due to excess alcohol and by her propositioning him. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, was the exact quote from the Senators legal rep.
The Senator had always been a strong supporter of the Air Force, it came as no surprise to her that he had called in markers, and her investigators came on hostile and aggressive. A blood test took care of the drink allegation which was really only calculated to increase the size of the target area for the mudslinging.
During her interview the chief investigator had asked why she had punched the Senator, so she’d replied that her uniform’s, evening dress skirt was too restrictive to permit the permanent re-location of his testicles, a knuckle sandwich was the most she could manage, but thank you for asking anyway.
Although she did not know it, the president himself had been following the events and had seen details of a resulting FBI investigation into her private life. He knew the Senators reputation, not his public one but the one known by those in power. The middle-aged satyr had got his long overdue come-uppance and a message had been sent, ‘back off and let the story die of old age’, which was about a fortnight on the hill. He wasn’t going to stand by and let good officers career be wrecked. There was no indictment so the FBI buried the file and Caroline got to cool her heels for a while as punishment for losing her temper.
The incident had earned her a new nickname and she accepted it with glee, even though the air force aren’t into nicknames in the same way that the navy is, but as a flight commander and deputy squadron commander, it put her mark on her subordinates too.
With the radar set to standby, not generating any energy, Caroline’s flight of four covering the JSTARS had nothing to do but be ready for the AWACs, five miles ahead to alert them of any trouble.
To the south, the twelve Su-37s split, with two flights of four turning north and the remainder going single, heading for the first targets on their lists.
At 0139hrs precisely, the Russian advanced fighter-bombers began launching their ordnance without once switching on their own radars. A satellite down-feed was passing them data from ground stations within Germany itself; radar information hacked from civilian, air traffic control radars. The first targets were the AWACs and JSTARS above them; the second were the civilian radars themselves, along with a number of military ones. The data was in turn passed to the air-air missiles, guiding them toward their targets without radiating a single erg of radar energy.
Last but not least were ground targets of strategic importance, such as the Hauptbahnhof, Leipzig’s railway station beside Willy-Brandt-Platz in the centre of the city, and the autobahn junction where the Nuremberg to Berlin route joined the east/west A14, northwest of Leipzig/Halle airport.
Major Nunro’s life was saved purely because she had a stiff neck and was turning it from side to side when she saw the tell-tale fiery trail of approaching missiles.
“Smoke in the air…Prize Fighters break!” she called out on the general frequency of all the aircraft engaged with her, as she broke left towards the missiles, rolling inverted and pulling back on the yoke, vertically jinking to break lock. The manoeuvre wasn’t quite a wasted exercise as none of the weapons was as yet guiding, but a second later they were, sent active by the aircraft that had launched them and Caroline was heading in the most survivable direction when that happened.
The huge K-99 missiles ramjets were already driving them along at an economic Mach 2.4 from their launch point 130 miles distant. On acquiring the targets for themselves they accelerated to Mach 4.2. The missile headed her way didn’t have her name on it, just her initials, as its proximity fuse set off the warhead eight feet from her tail pipes. She was in burner and headed earthwards when the missile went off behind her and she dragged the throttles to the rear as the engines turned to expensive scrap. Glancing at her airspeed she saw she was travelling far too fast to eject safely and pulled back on the stick, extending speed brakes as she did so.
Danny Gray, her wingman, was also in burner when his aircraft was hit, shrapnel tearing a hole in the joint where fuselage meets left vertical stabiliser. Danny did not kill his speed as Caroline had done because his engines were still good to go so he continued to accelerate. The increasing stress acting on the damaged stabiliser snapped it off when he was travelling at over twice the speed of sound, and the aircraft began to spin around its own axis. Fighting the blackness that threatened to overcome his senses Danny thought he had done well to punch out, but the sense of achievement was fleeting. His seat flung him out into a vortex of opposing forces, which dislocated his arms and legs and snapped his neck like a twig.
Caroline was too busy to see the destruction of the JSTARS and AWACs or that of five other escorts, as she sought to glide her crippled fighter homewards. She was trying to work out if a dead stick landing were possible when she saw another damaged F-15 tumbling past her about 700m away, its pilot already having quite the machine. She gave up any thought of saving her aircraft when a second missile slammed into the pilot-less Eagle, so checking that her speed was below 400 knots she punched out also.
If NATO thought that the operation had been to solely aid the Russians Czech allies on the Wesernitz, they were only partly correct.
The French/Canadian general had lost real-time intelligence at a critical point in the land battle, as well as his primary aerial command and control platform but he had allowed for a premature withdrawal to the next line if need be. He still had troops arriving at the front from the rest of Europe via air, road and rail, he believed he had a rope on it still. He would have been less confident if he had known that those three supply and reinforcement routes were about to be chopped off short of their present terminus.
With radars knocked out or switched off in that corner
of Germany, Colonel General Serge Alontov sat back in the cockpit jump-seat of the Il-76 Transport aircraft that led the air armada toward its target. He had personally planned this operation, although not a Spetznaz mission he did have one of his own two company strong units aboard this aircraft. The other company was already on the ground and in action, having entered Germany a month before in varied guises. The remainder of the airborne division of the 6th Guards Army rode the other Il-76 aircraft that followed his own. The tenth aircraft held a young English speaking Senior Lieutenant of paratroops who was now wondering if he should not have taken up his cousins offer to remain in England.
NATO anti-aircraft sites around the city of Leipzig, and security forces at the airport came under attack from Russian Special Forces within minutes of the attacks by the Su-37s on the ground radar and early warning assets in the air. For the most part the attacks were successful, certainly at the airport the commandos made short work of the missile sites but the ground troops charged with guarding the facility had back up on hand. A battalion of the 82nd Airborne had arrived from the states a half an hour before on the way east to act as infantry in the battle near the border. The Russians were wiped to a man but the airborne soldiers carried only their personal weapons and six magazines of ammunition apiece.
The Russian airborne division numbered six thousand in three brigades, which dropped on separate DZs. The brigade with the hardest task dropped on the airport, its job being to secure it before putting blocking forces at the
Autobahn junction that had been heavily cratered by the airstrike, and into the town of Schkeuditz.
The second brigade dropped several miles south of the airport and just beyond the Elster-Saale Kanal, denying access to the city from the west whilst the colonel general dropped with the last brigade into the Rosental, the city of Leipzig’s park.
By dawn a stranglehold would in place around NATOs supply line where it was most needed and handing a dilemma to the commanders and politicians. Whether to carry on fighting with the enemy at the back door until forces could be diverted to clear them out, or whether to pull back beyond the city of Leipzig, handing them the northeast of Germany on a plate.
West of the Wesernitz, Germany: 0449hrs, same day.
Despite the best efforts of tank and infantryman, the Guards had first been forced from the advance slope positions, by the weight of the numbers opposing them. The enemy artillery was back on line and was being used to snuff out the British Foot Guards strong points, one by one.
The Czech, 5th Tank Regiment had completed its move to the river over an hour before but the enemy still held the crest of the hill that overlooked it, having been pushed back up the hill by the infantry. The tanks were stalled until the arrival of bridging equipment, which was now in the process of throwing three ribbon bridges across to the western bank under the protective guns of the tank regiment. They were receiving 81mm-mortar fire but nothing more substantial; their enemy had run out of Milan anti-tank rounds and NLAW weapons some time before.
Calling up his quick reaction force, Major Sinclair ordered CSM Probert to relocate in order to cover a fighting withdrawal by the rifle companies. He then pulled back all the surviving Milan crews attached to 1 and 2 Company, with the exception of the section covering the road. Those pulled back went to the harbour area of the battalions Warrior AFVs, a point midway between the crest and the juncture of 2LI and 1 Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders positions; this was at the rear of his depth company, 3 Company.
Over to the north, in the fortified buildings near the blown bridge, the 1 Company platoon had been receiving artillery rounds, however this only made their positions harder for an enemy to assault. The old buildings had deep stone cellars and these provided ideal cover from the worst of the fire. Enemy infantry had attempted to force the river at the ford on three occasions; they needed to dig out the Guardsmen in order to clear the dead APCs blocking the approach before they could put armour across. The platoon was isolated from the rest of the battalion by more than just distance, their last surviving radio had been destroyed an hour before and only the landline link to the battalion CP remained.
Major Sinclair had to work out a set of orders, and issue them over the fragmented communications system in order to extract what remained of his Battalion as a fighting force. The CO had forsaken the FV-435, command vehicle for a hole dug by the Royal Engineers and roofed over with the trunks of pine trees, which themselves had two layers of filled sandbags atop them, the ‘435’ was at the vehicle harbour. Inside the CP, illumination was provided by ‘kero’, kerosene lamps, which hissed a continual fine spray of kerosene onto their wicks. Although it was a headquarters, it lacked the bulky paraphernalia a higher headquarters might sport, there were no power cables, nothing bulky, all radios were on battery power, as were the phones and laptop computers. There was nothing there that could not be picked up and carried away relatively easily. At this moment everything not vital had been removed to vehicles or was packed and ready. Major Sinclair intended for the two forward rifle companies to withdraw past CSM Probert’s QRF, before covering the CSMs men as they fell back to 3 Company’s lines. The three Challengers that had thrown tracks had now been recovered and tracks replaced, they were however empty of ammunition, so were now loading up.
The young lieutenant who commanded the Hussars was directed to cover the withdrawal of the remnants of 1 and 2 Company, plus the four Challengers that had 'replened' earlier, there had been five, but one was currently burning brightly on the crest. Picking up a radio handset he glanced around the CP and saw the RSM looking very grim as he listened to the sitreps, situation reports, coming in.
“Sarn’t Major, get 3 Platoons Warriors moving to the old barn a klick behind their present position. I’m going to order them out now and they can RV there.” A klick, being one kilometre.
Grabbing his personal weapon and Bergen, the RSM departed the CP with the full intention of misinterpreting the order to mean his personally going with the APCs, toward the fighting.
After three minutes of fruitless tries to contact 3 Platoon, the major was in the process of giving his orders to 1 and 2 Company to begin a fighting withdrawal, after which he would order out 3 Platoon, his extreme left flank sub unit by landline.
He heard something screaming toward them, along with everyone else in the CP his eyes were on the log ceiling, as the massive 240mm mortar round arrived.
Colin had split the QRF into two teams of two Warriors and their sections, with Oz commanding one half. He took his two vehicles south with the intention of covering 2 Company whilst Oz covered 1 Company and was on the road when he heard the Czech mortar round pass over head and detonate way off to his right. Despite the distance, landing as it had beyond 3 Company, the explosion sounded like a freight train hitting buffers at full pelt.
Enjoying his role as a commander of troops, the Czech staff officer had ordered the Hokum’s pilot across the plain towards the river where he could better control the 22nd Motor Rifle as it fought on the slopes of the hill. He had been witness to the total destruction of the 21st Motor Rifle Regiment before it had been able to fire a single round at the British to the south-west. He was worried that the same thing would happen to the 23rd MRR, stalled to the north, and the 5th Tank Regiment, which sat behind his own temporary command, providing fire support to clear the enemy so engineers could put a bridge over to the western bank.
The Blowpipe section of 1 Company had temporarily abandoned their launcher on several occasions to fight again as riflemen in pushing off Czech infantry who had got to within 150m of the crest. None of the light support weapons were in action anymore, having overheated repeatedly and been cooled by the battlefield expedient of urinating on the barrels, eventually the breaches had warped. The makers recommended that the weapons be allowed to cool naturally, which reflected how little they knew about the required function of their product. Every available rifle was therefore needed to repel the enemy thrusts.
Guar
dsman Troper and L/Cpl Veneer returned to the shell crater that served as their firing position and retrieved the Shorts Blowpipe VSRADM, very short ranged, air defence missile. They had enjoyed little success with the weapon so far; its 3000m maximum range and relatively slow speed ruled it out as a counter for fast jets. They had fired ten missiles and received only abuse from the riflemen nearby, who weren’t exactly ecstatic about having them as neighbours in the first place. AAA of any kind are priority targets for an enemy seeking battlefield air superiority over an opponent. The lack of fan mail from the other trenches had pissed off Guardsman Troper, the big man from Lancashire had stood up at one point, the missile he had just fired went wild after a promising start, chasing a Su-25 before deciding to boldly go where no 11kg missile had gone before, straight upwards into the clouds.
“You’s cunts should be grateful we're here, highly trained specialists we are…CO himself said so!”
A clod of earth flying out of the darkness indicated their peers vote of no-confidence, hitting Troper on the helmet where soil and grit added to his misery as it trickled down his neck into his clothing. “Take yer specialisation back to London, ya fuckin’ foreigner!” yelled the unseen thrower. The Coldstream Guards recruit from Yorkshire and the north-east of England, but there are exceptions, Guardsman Troper being a case in point.
“It’s Lancashire…and don’t think I don’t recognise your voice, Arkwright…I’ll have you later!”
As they now sat in the shell crater, the occupants of another trench spotted the two-seater attack helicopter across the river.
“Oye, you!” one shouted.