by Andy Farman
Captain Hong knew that his own cabin was clear of any electronic surveillance by his own country’s or the Russians intelligence services.
The briefing took about three hours’ during that time the Russian listened intently and asked only pertinent questions, such as replacements for the lost aircraft. He was gratified to learn that even before the carriers had gone operational, the PLAN had implemented a training program for replacement pilots. Those joining would be better prepared than their predecessors had been. It was such a pleasant change from the former Admirals attitude, thought Hong. Now we can really show what we can do.
Leipzig: 0755hrs, same day.
When the brigade assigned the task of seizing the city had landed in the city’s park there had been no opposition at first. Only a few die-hard lovers who refused to let something as trivial as a war cool their ardour, had been witness to the first sticks of paratroopers landing. As was his habit, the colonel general led from the front and was the first man on the ground, quickly followed by his staff. The landing had remained unopposed for fifteen minutes until four carloads of civilian police had arrived. The police officers had been dispatched after a short, rather one-sided fire fight, but during that time Alontov’s second in command had been shot through the throat and died moments later. His aide had landed on railings and been impaled through his left foot, which reduced the number of officers on the division’s staff capable of commanding it to one, Alontov himself.
Headquarters for the 6th Guards Shock Army’s airborne division, was now situated in the sub-basement of the exclusive 18th century Kempinski Hotel Fürstenhof, where a modest single room would set you back just $265 a night, provided of course you left the mini bar alone and brought your own sandwiches.
The signals unit had set up its communications equipment as soon as they had moved in, but they had not powered it up until that morning when their cell phones went down. A major entered the particular catacomb that Colonel General Alontov and what remained of his operations staff were occupying and saluted.
“The building is now empty apart from ourselves, sir.”
“You do not approve Stefan… I let the staff and guests stay whilst we were free of the need to use radios. They were in no danger then but they are now. Eventually NATO will stop shelling the antennae farms when they work out where we really are and we will have to leave, in the meanwhile they will do their level best to reduce this place to brick dust. Do you really think that the presence of civilians above our heads would stop them?”
“They were rich and pampered sir.”
“Stefan, rich and pampered people need armies to fight their wars for them, if you go killing them off you will put us all out of work…now come here” he instructed, pointing to the wall map. “NATO are at the airport perimeter, so as was predicted, the Germans managed to forestall their withdrawal and so I have sent the signal to begin the next phase.” He turned to his artillery rep, who had his headset and microphone glued to his head.
“Colonel, what are your ammunition stats?”
The colonel did not have to refer to anything in front of him.
“Five hundred rounds per tube were delivered, that is half of what was planned for. We do not have enough for counter battery fire, but at the present rate of expenditure we will run out in less than twenty-four hours’. This damned NATO jamming is making it difficult for me to keep track, but that is my estimate sir. There was no resupply last night and if they do not get through again tonight then I hope our comrades in the north hurry the hell up, sir.”
Alontov tapped the map, his finger was beating a tattoo over the airports western edge.
“As you are aware, the attack by NATO at dawn rolled over the battalion at the autobahn junction before word could reach us here. They are now at the airport perimeter. We can survive without the airport; the air force can drop their palettes over the park, but the airport sits beside a principal supply route and the road into the north of this city. They can have the south, once the bridges across the canals are blown…but I need a maximum effort from your guns Colonel. I am taking half of the brigade from this city, all the armour we have, and I am going to push those enemy forces back and retake our old positions at the junction, and I need artillery to do that.”
The artillery rep nodded before turning back to what he was doing before and began giving preparatory orders.
“Colonel Ostrovich.” The brigade commander for the city's forces smiled at him from the corner of the room his staff was using.
“I know general, you are stealing half of my command and lending me the division… whilst you go and pretend to be eighteen again.”
“Correct my friend, the enemy effort has just about spent itself at the airport. They will be digging in and waiting for fresh troops, probably the other British mechanised brigade, which will be here tomorrow. We must ensure they commit that brigade, because once it is they will not be able to use it to reinforce the NATO line before Berlin, where the 2nd Shock Army and our Belorussian comrades will be heading quite soon.”
The brigade commander crossed the room and shook Alontov’s hand.
“9th Battalion is already mounted up as mobile reserve, I will take two 7th Battalion companies away from patrolling the streets and send them, plus their mortars to join you in thirty minutes….take care Serge, we aren’t bullet proof young lieutenants chasing mountain tribesmen anymore!” he added with a note of caution.
Serge clapped him on the shoulder before striding to the door, where one of his men held out weapons and equipment for him to don.
Contrary to the colonel generals beliefs, 3 (UK) Mechanised had not dug in to consolidate the ground they had taken. Whilst the Russian commander was still speaking, 2LI had hacked a six hundred metre wide gap in the airports perimeter defences, which the Guards and US Airborne exploited by racing through to seize part of the cargo handling and warehouse area.
Nikoli Bordenko and a section of his men sprinted between buildings and drew fire from the bonded warehouse. Nikoli cursed as a tiny splinter of sharp concrete struck him below the left cheekbone and drew blood. The man beside him made a sound a like a punctured football being kicked, and dropped lifeless to the tarmac. The fallen man’s body tripped the soldier behind, who regained his feet and dived the last few feet to the safety of the buildings sold wall. The high velocity rounds passed them with high-pitched cracking sounds, or scarred and pitted the concrete and tarmac around them, kicking up shards of stone. The ricochets made humming sounds as the misshapen bullets spun away with a whine, the sounds of their passing diminishing with distance.
Now that the Russian paratroopers were no longer in view of the warehouse, the firing slackened off but did not die out completely.
The soldier who had stumbled was swearing as he examined the damage, a round had sliced open the back of his camouflaged trousers leaving a six-inch vertical rent. His left buttock was reddened around a long, shallow gash in the soft flesh, and he pulled apart the edges of the ripped cloth to view the injury.
“Shit, shit, shit!” Nikoli reached over and tugged at the underwear that was also exposed. The small, American flag and happy face design on the boxer shorts drew laughter from the rest of the soldiers. “Sergeant, I told you not to go into that wrecked gift shop yesterday, looting is a serious offence…and the Fashion Police around here would seem to have a licence to kill!” he told the injured man with a grin.
“Well fuck-you-very-much for your concern sir, but someone just gave me an instant third buttock!”
“Look on the positive side, sarge…” another paratrooper added.
“It is an extra vent for all that bullshit you’re full of.”
“Just for that you sodding gobby Georgian, you can find us a way into this building…preferably without me getting shot at again!”
To a civilian, it may have seemed callous that they were laughing and joking just moments after a messmate had died. However, the laughter was partly nervous release
and the dead man was not forgotten, because they would grieve for him silently once the adrenaline had settled and the fighting was done.
Three hundred metres away in the bonded warehouse, Colin Probert was handing out captured AKM-74 assault rifles and ammunition to his men.
“Use these until the ammunition runs out, save your own until then. Remember…single, aimed shots only, if anyone goes Audie Murphy on me he’ll catch my boot up his arse!” They had used a lot of ammunition and most of their grenades taking the place and needed to take advantage of whatever supplies were at hand. The enemy would counter-attack, probably sooner rather than later so bricks were being removed in the walls to allow them to engage the enemy and eliminate the number of blind spots about the place. Just removing bricks is not enough, a high velocity round will go straight through brickwork, with the exception of the SA-80s ammunition of course, and they needed to add some protection around the loops in the walls.
The Light Infantry’s breakthrough had been unexpected, and there had been a scramble to get men aboard AFVs and through the breach. Only four Warriors had reached the buildings before heavy mortar and artillery fire had isolated them here. They had lost five men dead and six wounded clearing out the Russians who had been here and in the building site behind, which left six US 82nd troopers including their RSM, and twenty-one Guardsmen to hold on until the cavalry arrived.
In the time that the enemy had held the building, they had obviously helped themselves to some of its contents and the new occupants had thoughts along the same lines. When Arnie Moore and Colin had returned after gathering up the AKMs, they found British and Americans alike hurriedly doing up flaps on bergens.
“I’m not going to say anything,” Colin had begun.
“…so long as you can still carry your kit…without ditching any of your own equipment and without getting pissed.” By which he meant drunk rather than angry. However at that point there had been a shuffling sound and Guardsman Robertson and the other Tyneside ladies’ man, Aldridge, came huffing and puffing into view carrying an enormous boxed, widescreen television set, which according to the packaging came complete with a Surround Sound system, DVD, Blu Ray and Video. They’d frozen when they saw the two warrant officers looking directly at them.
“And just what may I ask, are you going to do with that thing?”
Both young soldiers spoke at once.
“It’s for me Mam…its ‘er birthday next week.” stammered Aldridge.
“It’s for me Granny, she’s an ‘undred t’morrer!”
Arnie Moore had chucked away to himself.
“Boy Colin, you sure do bring up your boys to look after the lady folk!” but Colin’s face showed no such amusement.
“Put it back where you found it, and do it now!” However, once they had shuffled and puffed back out of sight he’d allowed a big grin to spread across his face.
“When I joined the Second Battalion, 2CG, it was away in Cyprus and I got stuck on the rear party at Chelsea. The boys were in the thick of it as UN Peacekeepers, dug in on Nicosia airport between the Greek National Guard and the Turkish Paras. In the middle of the battalions territory was the bonded warehouse. I remember going to the docks at Southampton with the rest of the rear party to collect the heavy kit that wasn’t airlifted back by Herc’. We didn’t have Milan’s then, the anti-tanks were equipped with the 120mm ‘Combat’ a recoilless anti-tank gun, and damn great things they were. There were two customs officers stood with their backs to us on the edge of the dock, chatting away to each other and having a fag…that’s a cigarette mate, not someone who is light in the loafers. Anyway, a Combat was lowered onto the quayside in nets, and we were getting it unravelled, ready to hook up to a ‘rover, but the muzzle cap came off, and that barrel was stuffed with fags, camera lenses, bottles of Uzo and single malt that started to slide out. We were shovelling that stuff back in like men possessed, and the whole time those two customs men were just ten feet away.”
“The spoils of war, eh?” Arnie smiled.
“We don’t get combat pay in this man’s army, so I reckon I can turn a blind eye to a small amount of wealth re-distribution!”
Back in the present, a group of Russian paratroopers had run behind a nearby building, leaving one of their number lying motionless in plain view after the defenders opened up on them.
“Hurry up with that stuff!” The 82nd’s RSM shouted at the two teams he’d detailed off, to utilise forklifts in fetching bags of cement from the building site. The cement bags were being stacked like sandbags inside the warehouse around the firing loops, which the 82nd men called ‘forting up’, whilst the Brits called it sangar building.
There had been an unusual lull in the firing, which the Warrant Officers took as ominous. ‘Someone’s planning something nasty, I can bloody feel to it. Make sure you people get some top cover on those things, all kinds of shit is going to be falling on our heads otherwise.”
Three of the Warriors were in the building site, taking advantage of the additional protection afforded by stacked piles of building materials. The drivers and Rarden gunners had cammed up the vehicles by leaning sheets of plasterboard against the vehicles. From there they could cover the rear of the warehouse whilst the fourth Warrior was parked between stacked aircraft luggage containers at the side of the building, its barrel peeking between the stacks. The AFVs had been ordered not to open fire or reveal their presence unless it was an emergency, because no one else had appeared from the NATO lines to support them, and neither Moore nor Probert thought much of the ‘last man, last bullet’ option. If it got too hot, they would bug out, and it would be quicker and safer to ride back to friendly lines aboard the AFVs than it was to try running across 700m of flat, open ground.
Colin had tried to get some friendly air, mortars or artillery on line for when they needed it, but no one had made them any promises.
On the roof of the maintenance shed opposite the warehouse, three of Nikoli’s paratroopers had finished prying loose bricks with their bayonets and now had firing loops from which to fire down into the tiny NATO enclave. Down below, their comrades had done the same.
Nikoli himself was calling in a mortar fire mission on the warehouse, emphasising to the MFC, mortar fire controller on the other end, that he and his men were only 300m from the intended target. He wanted the first ‘belt’ of mortar rounds to be ‘over’ rather than ‘under’ when they landed. His other two sections were in the building they had left previously, and they would emerge and flank the right side of the warehouse once the mortars had the range. He cursed as NATOs white noise swamped the airwaves, and consulted a list before changing to the next frequency shown, once there he re-established contact with the mortars.
Hobbling up, his sergeant carefully lowered himself down onto a toolbox, taking care to rest just the right buttock on the hard surface.
“Are we set yet, sir?”
“Six minutes,” he replied and swung the short-range radio onto his back.
“Get them under cover in case those fools can’t shoot straight…call them down from the roof too, once the fires adjusted they can go back up.”
The next few minutes were a flurry of activity as drain covers were removed and the Russians, with the exception of Nikoli, took cover. The young lieutenant had to be in a position to observe the fall of shot, something that could not be achieved from below ground.
He could clearly hear the mortar rounds pass overhead and heard them exploding somewhere but couldn’t locate the fall of shot, there were too many buildings obstructing his view. The only thing to do was to ask them to repeat the shoot with smoke rounds this time and when they came in he spotted the smoke way off to the left and it took five adjustments before the warehouse was straddled.
“Right boys, get to work!” he shouted to the section that scrambled out of their holes and began firing through the loops they had made in the walls. The metal staircase rang with the sounds of three pairs of boots hurrying up to the roof. O
nce he heard them firing up above he changed frequencies and listened for a moment before shaking his head in frustration. The next frequency on his list was also being jammed so he changed for a second time, and ordered the remaining sections to begin their flanking attack.
By the time Colonel General Alontov arrived at the airport, one side of the bonded warehouse had collapsed outwards, dropping a portion of the roof into the building, but the defenders had beaten off the sustained efforts of the platoon of paratroopers under Nikoli’s command. Two Guardsmen and an 82nd Trooper had been killed, whilst four more had been injured by enemy fire or falling building materials, the injured were all now aboard the Warriors. They had prevented the Russians from flanking them and left seven enemy paratroopers dead from the attempt.
Ammunition was beginning to worry Arnie Moore, despite his constantly controlling the fire being put down. As is the normal practice, the troops had been numbered off for ease of command and control; he had a voice saving device in his hand in the form of a compressed air operated rape alarm. The high pitched shriek of the alarm was audible even to the machine gunners in mid burst, and they would cease-fire and listen out for his commands.
“Even numbers…go on!” After about thirty seconds he would depress the top of the alarm again and order the odd numbers to continue, and thus far they had managed to conserve ammunition as well as they could and keep the remaining Russians heads down.
Colin had confined himself to the radio, trying to drum up some support of the physical kind, i.e., troops to help them enlarge their foothold within the airport perimeter. The mortar fire coming in on they had ceased abruptly when an A-10 Thunderbolt wasted the enemy mortar line responsible, but that had been chance, rather than Colin’s doing.
“Hello Sunray Three One, this is Zulu Three One Alpha, over.” The ‘Zulu’ denoted a vehicle empty of its troops; in this case it was the Warrior at the corner of the building, which was calling him up.