Able Sentry

by John Schettler

  As for the British “division” that would be sent on this mission, it would not be one of the regular army divisions, for there were only two worth the name, the 1st and 3rd. Of those, only 3rd Division was truly combat ready, with heavy arms, equipment, and vehicles suitable for serious land combat operations. For that reason, it had already been tasked as Britain’s contribution to the Able Fire plan. To solve the problem, British planners decided to take one brigade from the 3rd Division, which had two Armored Brigades and two “Strike” Mechanized Brigades. These were structured with a recon battalion, an armored battalion, and two mech infantry battalions in AFV’s. That force was to be the main overland strike element.

  The British plan involved a bold insertion of airborne and special forces deep into the southern deserts, seizing the Oasis sites at Al Jaghbub, (also spelled Jarabub or Giarabub) and Siwa. Those sites would then be used as forward support bases for the main land element, which would land not in Egypt, but in Libya at the port of Tobruk. That operation would be covered by Home Fleet, which would include the air assets of the carrier Queen Elizabeth in case Egypt thought to interfere.

  Torn by an internal civil war, Libya was a nation the British thought they could easily handle, and by landing there, the Egyptian Army could not bother them. The British contingent would then move south through Libya unmolested on the roads from Tobruk to Jaghbub, a movement of 175 miles, linking up with the first airborne element. From there it was only 25 miles to Malfa Spring on the Egyptian border, and another 60 miles to link up with the second airborne element at Siwa. The move to Qarah and the Sultan Apache site was then another 50 miles. No operation on this scale had been undertaken by the British Army since WWII, particularly the air assault element, which would move an entire brigade 200 miles by helicopter.

  The man chosen to lead this operation was one who was quite familiar with the ground—in another life—Brigadier General Jacob “Jake” Kinlan, commander of the Strike Brigade. In the darkest corners of British intelligence, Kinlan was known as a man who had died before he was even born! It was known that he had, indeed, been sent to Sultan Apache in the year 2020, but in another alternate history. That alone was more than most could stomach, and only a very few men alive in Britain were privy to all the details of what had happened. This appearance of his force in the Egyptian desert of WWII had been a godsend for General Wavell as he struggled to contain and halt the whirlwind advance of Rommel. Just when it seemed that the Germans might break through to Alexandria and the Nile Delta, something came out of the southern desert to strike the wily German General’s right flank at what became known as the Battle of Bir el Khamsa.

  Here, in this history, Kinlan had not been sent to Sultan Apache, as there had been no trouble with operations there until Egypt seized the place, lock, stock and oil barrel. So there was a secret mindfulness of what Kinlan had done there, known only to a very few within British intelligence. A nuclear missile aimed at Sultan Apache in the year 2021 had been the driving energy that rent open the time itself, and sent Kinlan back some 80 years to the deserts of WWII.

  Something about that confounding event was being echoed in their own time with this plan, or so they came to feel on one level. Kinlan’s operation at Sultan Apache seemed to have a gravity all of its own, and the planners had penciled in his brigade as the chosen land element of this plan, quite unaware of the irony inherent in that choice. In fact, not one of them even knew the slightest thing that Kinlan and his men had done. The secret history of the brigade’s operations was covered up after the war, with the full weight of the Crown.

  During that long desert campaign, his brigade had operated independently, seldom even getting anywhere near regular British Army formations. If anyone got curious, it was said that Britain had a new tank, very hush hush, with a blistering reprisal for any man who revealed or even talked about that wartime secret. Some remembered seeing dark massive shapes in the desert, racing through the blowing smoke and sand in the haze of combat, and those memories made for some tall tales back home after the war. But very few ever really knew who Kinlan was, and where his amazing brigade had come from. Photographs were forbidden, all records seized after the war, and the brigade itself had come to meet a strange fate—oddly, right there at Tobruk. The men in those steel chariots who had been sent like Arthurian Knights with the blinding energy of atomic fire, would make their exit the same way they had come.

  The Brigade had been assembling deep behind the front lines at Tobruk, when there came a tremendous explosion. It would take many years before the British really learned that it had been another atomic weapon aimed at Tobruk in 2021, in the history Kinlan had come from, and enough of its searing wrath had penetrated the veils of time to destroy Kinlan’s entire brigade.

  The Grand Knight was gone, as suddenly as he had come, yet through his able service to the Crown, Britain had rolled back Rommel’s advance and had him on the run. Of that entire force, only one small group, just a few of the amazing tanks and APC’s Kinlan brought to WWII, had survived intact. That group had been led by a Lieutenant Reeves, who was spirited away to the Isle of Wight where the British would study those few remaining vehicles in great detail. So it was no mystery to those in the know, that the British army of 2025 fielded a tank that called the Challenger II.

  As for Reeves, he served in the British army as the war went on, promoted to a Colonel as he landed at Calais, and fighting to the end of the conflict. Almost no one knew who he really was, and after the war, he joined his comrades in the brigade in a quiet death that also happened before he was ever born. Amazingly, the history of this time did see both men born again, Kinlan, Reeves, and all the rest who had perished at Tobruk. Now, it was only fitting and right that they would be the ones assigned to this daring operation, one that would take them by familiar paths to their old garrison site at Sultan Apache.

  Time’s errant finger drew these strange circles in the sand, as if finishing some great bewildering loop, and tying off the fate of Kinlan and his brigade in this time. In another telling of these events, the same men had instead died in Europe, in the war of 2021 against the Russian Army in the Baltic States. But that war had never been fought here. In 2025, Kinlan, Sims, Reeves, and all the rest were alive and well, and with this operation, they were going back to Tobruk.

  As the US President read through the addendum covering this plan, he could not help but be impressed with its audacity. The British have real pluck, he thought. Can they pull this off? What if they get into trouble in the middle of nowhere? Yet the more he thought of it, the more he came to feel that the Egyptian Army probably had very few troops deep in that desert. Somehow, and without knowing any of the real secrets attached to Kinlan’s name, the President still felt Mother Time tapping on his shoulder. He was going to approve the entire plan, Able Sentry, Able Fire, and even give his well-wishing blessing to this addendum, an operation the British were calling Just Resolve. Now all he had to do was get the approval of Congress.

  * * *

  The British Army of 2025 was a small but highly professional and capable force. It consisted of just three divisions, only two of which were combat ready for deployments overseas. It also had a number of independent brigades

  In this operation for the push east into Iraq, the British were sending the most powerful division they had, the 3rd, which consisted of the Strike Brigade, 12th Armored Brigade and 20th Armored Infantry Brigade. It also had a fourth brigade, an experimental expeditionary group based out of Warminster, and this was the ground element tapped for Just Resolve. It had the Royal Lancers battalion, the Royal Dragoon Guards Armored Battalion, 1st Scots Guards Mech Battalion and the 4th Royal Scots Mech battalion. The rest of the Division was to be involved in the Able Fire plan.

  The rapid response airborne element of the plan was given to the 16th Air Assault Brigade, the largest infantry brigade in the army with 6,200 troops. It had three Parachute infantry battalions, and a Gurkha battalion, with attached recon, eng
ineer, and artillery support, and three helicopter aviation regiments. The brigade was dubbed the 16th by combining the numerals of the two most famous Airborne Divisions from World War Two, the 1st and 6th Paras. It was a fast, highly mobile, and effective fighting force, and was backed by AH-64 attack helicopters. Yet not everyone on the planning team was satisfied with the plan, and it would soon need some changes….

  * * *

  “Why so glum, Lieutenant,” said Colonel Staunton, senior officer on the British planning staff. “You look like you have reservations.”

  Lieutenant Jones did have some trepidation over this plan, as it seemed a long way to go for such a small force, and he thought they might be biting off just a little more than they could chew.

  “You’ve got a good ground element for getting there quickly,” Staunton went on, “fast, and with some punch if the need arises.”

  “Yes sir,” said Jones, “but it is a good distance, and through fairly wild country. We can get in, of that I have no doubt. It’s getting back out that worries me. The roads south will take us very near the Egyptian border, and what if they were to cross over and cut the force off? And what about Tobruk? You can’t honestly think that the single battalion we’re sending in the first wave to secure the docks will be able to hold the place once the Strike Brigade lands and moves out to the south. What if the Egyptians were to cross at Sollum and push right on up to Tobruk? It’s only 80 miles, sir.”

  “Yes, but don’t forget that we’ll have good air cover. Queen Elizabeth will stand off the harbor, and we’ll have Typhoon squadrons on Crete. If the Egyptians want to run those 80 miles under the pounding the RAF can give them, they’re welcome to try.”

  “But what if they do try, sir. And what if they get through? No disrespect to 40 Commando, but that battalion is too small to anchor this whole operation at Tobruk. There could be other threats as well.”

  “You expect trouble from the Libyans?”

  “We have to account for that in the planning, sir. The Libyans may not be able to stop the landing at Tobruk, as they probably won’t even see it coming. We’ll have complete surprise, but come dawn, things could look different. Yes, the country is in turmoil with all the infighting down there, but the central government does have an army, and I don’t think they’ll take kindly to us simply borrowing Tobruk for this operation. They could be ordered in to kick us out. 40 Commando can take the place, but can they hold it? I don’t think so, sir.”

  “I see your point. Tobruk is both the entry point, and the exit if we’re to rescue those oil crews and get them safely home. Our government will certainly give them assurances that we mean no permanent occupation. That said, it will have to be held, and with enough force to dissuade the Libyans from interfering. Suppose we put in a light infantry brigade from 1st Division? Let me see… 7th and 51st are too big… 4th is training up with too many new recruits. That leaves the 11th Brigade. It’s just the right size, four battalions, and with a core of solid veteran troops. Would that fill the bill?”

  “Yes sir, I should think so. With four infantry battalions at Tobruk, we should be able to hold it. That would also free up 40 Commando to watch the road south.”

  “Good thinking, Lieutenant… Yes, good thinking. Not much to spare on armor, but I’ll make the recommendation and see if we can get hold of the 11th Brigade. In fact, I’ll insist on it. Any further reservations?”

  “Only that the 11th Brigade lacks armor support, sir.”

  “Not sure if we can mend that, but I’ll mention it. Anything else?”

  “No sir, assuming our intelligence is good. It has the Egyptian 222 Air Mobile Brigade at Siwa and the Sultan Apache site, and I think the Strike Brigade can handle them. Yet they have an entire corps available further east, 3rd Mech Division and the 36th Independent Armored Brigade. That’s all down south near Al Minya, sir. And what about the Alexandria garrison? They had the entire 2nd Mech Division there, with a full armored brigade deployed at Mersa Matruh. I’m just a little nervous about it, even if we do put 11th Infantry Brigade in at Tobruk.”

  “Their Ramses III is an old shoe,” said the Colonel. “That’s a modified T-55 they bought from the Soviets decades ago. The Israeli Merkava’s have been handling them well enough.”

  “Yes sir, but they are tanks….”

  “Well, if we can’t pull another armored battalion out of our hats, which isn’t likely, then we’ll just have to see about providing adequate ATGM support for 11th Brigade. That should do the trick.”

  In our time, the Egyptian Army had a good deal more than those old Ramses tanks. Their present inventory includes 1360 M1 Abrams tanks, 500 Russian T-90’s, 1900 M60 Patton tanks, 500 older Soviet era T-62’s, and they have an order in for 500 of the new Russian Armatas. Here, in these altered states, the hostile relationship between the US and Egypt removed all the M1’s and Pattons, so the Egyptians simply acquired a T-55 and T-62 prototype from the Soviets, and then used them to domestically manufacture upgraded versions, dubbed Ramses III and Ramses V. In later years, the Soviets declined Egyptian offers to buy their T-90 or Armata.

  So the British revised the plan to consider these other possible threats raised by the young Lieutenant Jones. The airmobile force would seize the distant objectives, the Strike Brigade would race to provide support, and the 11th Infantry Brigade would hold the fort at Tobruk until the 500 British Nationals could be extracted.

  Two days after that initial briefing by the Joint Chiefs, the President gave the go ahead that would send an armada of transport and sealift ships from US east coast ports across the Atlantic. They were escorted by a heavy surface action group for air defense, though the USS Eisenhower was not yet ready for support operations. That job would go to the Truman Carrier Strike Group that had first responded to the outbreak of fighting in the Med, as it had stayed there, operating off Crete to make sure no further hostile naval units were lurking in the many ports along that long North African coast, intent on mischief. The big sealift was also well escorted by a squadron of Virginia Class Subs to guard against the undersea threat.

  It would be met by the Royal Navy Task Force built around Queen Elizabeth as it approached Gibraltar, and enjoy local air cover for the transit to the Eastern Med. This plan had been organizing and loading all through December. By the time it was set in motion late in the year, it had the powerful US 1st Armored Division, a BCT of 1st Cavalry Division, and both the 3rd and 4th heavy Mech Infantry Divisions. The 101st Airborne was the tip of the spear.

  Part V

  Chariots of Fire

  “You can't plow a field simply by turning it over in your mind.”

  ― Gordon B. Hinckley

  Chapter 13

  The thing about plans that made them messy was that at some point, you had to put them in motion. It was at that point that any of a hundred things you may have overlooked might present themselves, and as Field Marshal Helmuth Karl Bernard Graf von Moltke first put it: “No plan of operations reaches with any certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy's main force.”

  As the convoy moved it grew larger yet, carrying the British brigades. Once in the Med, it would be joined by the French flotilla bringing their 7th Armored Brigade, and the Italian flotilla carrying the Ariete Armored Brigade. The German 21st Panzer Brigade had also gone by rail to Marseilles, and was embarked with the French Contingent. While not as big as the NATO army that had liberated the Baltic States in the war in 2021, it was nonetheless the largest maritime movement of military forces seen on earth since the Normandy invasion in 1944.

  Everything was heading for Israel, seen the moment it went to sea by Chinese satellites. Their proxy war involving Iran and Iraq had stunned the world, shutting down commerce and oil to Europe and the United States, but the West had steel, and it was bringing it. These heavily armored units were meant for the attack, and the Chinese wasted little time warning their client states, Egypt, Iraq, and Iran.

  In late December, the Egyptian Army bega
n to move more forces across the Suez Canal into their zone of control on the Sinai Peninsula, though it never occurred to them that part of the force then at sea was planning to storm ashore at Tobruk and drive all the way into central Egypt to reclaim the valuable Sultan Apache Oil Fields, and rescue those 500 British nationals. The mobilization of active brigades in the Army of Israel had turned their eyes east towards the Sinai DMZ, and as the new year dawned, both Egypt and Israel would be preparing to square off in that barren landscape. The prize, now well-guarded behind the Egyptian front, was the Suez Canal.

  The Israeli government, while a staunch ally of the United States, was nonetheless uneasy about the proposal that they should storm the Suez. That was no small matter, as Egypt had the largest army in the Middle East, after Iraq.

  “You are asking us to send our sons and daughters into the Sinai, and for what?” said the Israeli Prime Minister. “To keep the price of gasoline low in Europe and America?”

  “Mister Prime Minister,” said the US Ambassador. “We are deeply grateful that you have even gone so far as to allow us to use your ports and airfields. Now I am not a military man, but I have been well briefed, and I know that we are asking a great deal. The problem is that we have two birds to kill here, Iraq and Egypt, and we can’t do both with the coalition forces presently bound for your shores. I can say it no other way—we need you. We need the Israeli Army, and I am fully aware of the sacrifice we are asking you to make here. Yet if you commit to this operation, I am authorized to tell you that Israel will have the full backing of the United States, and to the point where we will send our own armed forces into battle right alongside your people.”