Three grenades went off in rapid succession, one landing short of the platoon’s left hand trench but two landing inside it. Rudik, an eighteen-year-old from the suburbs of Minsk, the young man who had asked Johar about enemy artillery, lay outside the protection of the trench, blown there by the double grenade blasts. Rudik was screaming in a high pitch, both left limbs blown off and blood fountaining from severed arteries, of the other soldier who had shared the foxhole there was no sign.
Despite the open target, no fire from the Russians came near the maimed soldier but Sgt Topl heard jeers and laughter from the darkness.
The new flare burst to life above them and Topl took careful aim before firing a single shot, the young soldier’s screams immediately ceased and Topl adjusted his aim, going for all those Russians within range to have thrown the grenades.
Johar had been firing in short bursts; his weapon clicked on an empty chamber and he quickly changed mags. The Russians then grenaded another of his men's trenches, reducing opposing fire by another two weapons.
We’re getting ground up here and we need help, thought Johar as he called up the regimental CP on the radio with a sitrep and request for assistance.
The situation seemed about the same in the neighbouring platoons, the Russians had another two waiting in the wings to replace every man the Belarus hit, but for every Belarus killed it was one less weapon with which to stem the tide.
There was a pause in the Russian shellfire landing behind the Belarus front line as the Russians adjusted their fire with co-ordinates now supplied by the counter-battery radar crews who had backtracked the defenders fall of shot, to the artillery gun lines. Bad news for the gunners, but good news for Johar and the rest of the defenders on that side of the triangle as APCs from the reserve approached unhindered over freshly shelled ground and deployed their infantry loads. The fresh infantry added their fire to the line but it was the hellish roar and continuous streams of fire from two of the ZSUs that had accompanied them which was most telling. Employing their quad cannon in an anti-infantry role, the four streams of cannon shells looked like laser beams as they hosed the ground in front of the positions before moving on to targets further out. The effect on the Russian infantry was terrible to behold, men hit by the 23mm cannon shells disintegrated in football sized lumps, pieces of torso and amputated limbs spun off into the night. The Russian infantry tried going to ground, but folds of earth that could stop a bullet had no effect on cannon shells designed to punch through armour plate. The enemy infantry broke.
As the second flare dimmed and then went out, officers and NCOs shouted
“Cease fire!” at enthusiastic but inexperienced men who wasted rounds on the disappearing Russians.
The gunfire faded out everywhere, even from the artillery at the rear as it moved location. All that could be heard were the sounds of engines, from the rear and from the front as Johar and Topl scrambled out of their foxhole to check the men. They took ammunition boxes with them, replenishing depleted stocks as they went about it. Topl also sent one man from each foxhole out into the dark to strip the enemy dead of ammunition, grenades and any rations they may have. All along the line the other units did likewise, the occasional scream could be heard as they came across wounded men, who were treated to the same degree of mercy as the enemy had shown them, a bayonet or a rifle butt.
With a freight train sound in their passing, the Russian artillery rounds ended the temporary lull, impacting where just a short time ago the Belarus guns had stood. Johar and Topl looked over their shoulders at the flashes of impacting rounds before hurrying on. They had just finished handing out ammunition and counting heads when they heard automatic fire from the front. It wasn’t aimed at them and ricocheting tracers span into the air after striking the ground, indicating the intended targets were several hundred metres away.
“KGB troops!” Topl informed the officer. “You get shot for running away in the Red Army!” He laughed at the look on the pilot’s face. “We used to do the same in this army, when it too was part of the Red Army… come on, they won’t shoot them all, just enough to make an example. Let’s get back in our hole before the rest learn the error of their ways!”
The establishment of the platoon was supposed to be one officer and thirty-six men, two hours ago however it had stood at one and twenty-one. When Johar got back to their foxhole he reported to the company CP that it now stood at one and sixteen. There were no wounded, when only a head and shoulders are exposed above ground the majority of injuries are traumatic head wounds.
Near the village at the centre of the Belarus position, the defenders’ three remaining SP batteries completed their relocation and brought their guns around on new bearings and elevations, one fired a counter-battery mission whilst the other two concentrated on the armoured assault closing from two sides.
In their holes in the ground the defenders peered across the open ground into the darkness, officers tasked with watching for amphibious armour approaching from the far side of the lakes didn’t notice the twenty men emerging silently from beneath the surface.
The re-breather sets that the Spetznaz troopers wore did not emit tell-tale bubbles of exhaled air as aqua-lung gear did. The sets and flippers they wore were discarded close to the shore before the troopers even broke the surface and crawled ashore, pulling bundles after themselves and with weapons ready.
The ZSUs that had come to the assistance of Johar’s defence line withdrew to reload; the APCs collected their dismounts and pulled back too, leaving the infantry to prepare themselves for the next attack.
The stationary tanks wanted to start doing their jobs as soon as possible and called up the mortars for more para-illum; it took longer for the flare to illuminate the battlefield, igniting further away behind the enemy so as to silhouette them.
The moment the Belarus T-72s had targets that they could see, they began tracking the lead tanks, 800m away and closing.
The Russian T-80s were superior fighting vehicles in comparison to the Belorussian machines, but they relied on their thermal sights at night and the defending AFVs’ engines were idling, just batteries producing power for the radios, plus, they were hull down with engine decks below ground level.
Johar and Topl cursed and covered their ears when the T-72 behind them suddenly opened fire. The engines may not have given off clear heat signatures but the hot muzzle blasts told them where to look, and after just two rounds the Belarus tanks barrels glowed in the Russians thermal sights.
Another para-illum was put up to augment the one already up, and the Russian tanks began to return fire. Johar and Topl ducked again as the T-72 fired, the sound of its gun merged with that of a loud ripping sound in the air and the T-72’s turret rang like a bell as a Russian sabot round glanced off its side. A second sabot ploughed a furrow into the muddy ground beside the tank, which fired back at its attackers.
The approaching enemy armour was close enough now that the defenders could see infantry crouched on the engine decks behind the turrets of the tanks and jogging behind, using the vehicles' armoured bulk as cover. These infantry were the ones they had driven off a little while earlier, quadrupling the infantry already carried in the enemy MRR’s APCs.
Artillery began to land near Johar once more and they crawled into their shelter bay and huddled again on the mud floor.