Four shore batteries protecting the ASW helicopter base engaged the northern attackers with the NASAMS, surface-to-air version of the US AIM-120L. The Floggers’ low-level attack plan went out the window as they discharged flares, chaff bundles and went ballistic to escape the mountain edged confines of the fjord.
For the aircraft going after the more southerly targets, they infringed Swedish sovereignty by over-flying that country. The Swedes were not best pleased; their SAM batteries engaged the high flying fighters whilst their CAPs of Jas-39 Gripen’s got stuck-in amongst the fighter-bombers.
Russia had made a habit of violating Swedish territory over the years, and the Swedes had responded with diplomatic notes. The Russians had been betting that in a shooting war, the Swedes would not even put pen to paper.
For the first time since 1814, Sweden was at war.
With a massive air battle developing over Scandinavia, three of Russia’s S37s headed west on a heading of 220’, a course that would intercept the AWAC and JSTARS. The E-3 Sentry could not see them with its radars but it was watching them anyway via the E-8 JSTARS FLIR, forward looking infrared. The E-8 had no enemy vehicles to track, but in the cold northern climate its FLIR, which helped distinguish between dummy targets and the real thing, was watching three warm tracks appear over the horizon at sea level.
The Charles De Gaulle launched her Dassault, Rafale M and Super Etendards. The Rafale M was gradually replacing the ageing Dassault Super Etendard, but the carrier still carried eight and these aircraft hugged the wave tops as they raced east, seeking the Russian surface warfare vessels. Two pairs of Rafales were vectored onto the S37s whilst the remainder sat on deck alert or remained on CAP.
Sgt Ramsey was pulling his sleeping bag from his Bergen, when the marine he had relinquished the telescope to hissed an urgent
“Sarn’t!”
Around the perimeter of the airfield, all trees and brush had been cleared away to a distance of 400m, heading across this security zone now; Eight BTR-80s were making their way toward the hill where the marines lay. Ramsey was not a great believer in coincidence; he had a bad feeling in his gut as he looked east towards the horizon. In the next half hour the first traces of dawn would be appearing, he now planned to be well on the way to the Norwegian border by the time it was light.
“Pack up… leave your maggot Harris, we’ve been pinged!”
In under two minutes the OP was abandoned, Harris had unzipped his sleeping bag, pulled on his fighting order, picked up his M-16 and followed the rest out, leaving his sleeping bag as instructed. The team barely paused as they retrieved the four Claymore mines that had covered the front, flank and rear of their position. The ‘IRIS’ set and sensors, their infrared picket fence, were left behind with the camouflage net and thermal screen, time was of the essence, the equipment wasn’t.
The M-16 was the weapon of preference for the SBS; it was light and easy to handle. Its 5.56 round lacked the stopping power of heavier ammunition but it was ‘soldier proof’, hard to bend. The M-16 is in service worldwide, and a proven piece of equipment.
Once they had cover from view from the approaching APCs they broke into a jog until they had reached the far side of the hill, and once there the sergeant slowed the pace slightly to that of a forced march. The enemy were probably planning on surrounding the hill before combing it with a ring of troops that closed in on the summit like a noose; he wanted to get clear of the area before that happened.
Their boots squelched in the mud as he removed the tactical palmtop from inside his smock and reconnected the lead to the satcom transmitter strapped about his waist. Once the green ‘link established’ light illuminated he pressed two keys, the first being for the pre-programmed ‘Compromised/Bugging out’ message, and the second for the direction they were heading, 0’ magnetic.
Whilst they were still high enough to see beyond the fir trees that started half way up the hill and marched off some two miles northwards, the marine with their thermal scanner had a look for any sources that would indicate a threat.
The thermal scanner did not detect the BTR or the twelve Russian security troops; there were far too many trees in the way for their thermal images to register. The BTR was parked in a hollow, the engine was silent and the crew was making up the numbers in the three snap ambushes that were in place on paths coming off the hill.
When the marines were about two thirds of the way down, the noise of engines reached them, the sound drifting through the pine trees. If they slowed to a tactical pace they would be caught inside the cordon the enemy was obviously intent on putting in, but if they carried on at this pace they stood a real chance of walking into a kill zone. Sergeant Ramsey did not like feeling like being a grouse being driven by beaters, the birds ran into gun line every time.
Ramsey ordered Harris, the point man, off the animal trail they were following, they would keep it about 50m to their left, and although it would mean they travelled more slowly it would also lower the risks of them running into an ambush.
The damp pine needle floor cut the noise that they made but it was more tiring feeling their way between the trees, ducking under low boughs rather than create a racket by pushing through and past them.
Harris was ducking under a low branch when he froze, before snapping his M-16 into his hip and aiming at something that Sgt Ramsey, twenty feet behind, could not see. There was a burst of firing, both from the marine and from somewhere else, and the young marine dropped dead in his tracks.
The method for dealing with an ambush is simple, the situation may not be survivable but the anti-ambush drill is there none the same. At the first burst of firing the remaining marines charged through the trees at where they believed the enemy were, screaming like banshees and firing as they went. Shock value is the purpose of the drill, turning on an enemy who has the advantage, making him get his head down and with luck giving him some brown adrenaline in his pants for good measure whilst stealing the initiative from him.
The four Russian security troops in the ambush had taken up position in the undergrowth some 40m from the trail, and had the foresight to place one of their number facing the rear. It was this man that the marine had found himself eyeball to eyeball with at a range of just ten feet. The rear protection man and the marine killed one another with their first rounds, the sudden firing from behind them taking the remainder by surprise.
Ramsey was firing from the hip as he came through behind the Russian ambushers, his rounds had been fired blind but once past the tree beside his dead marine he saw the remaining Russians awkwardly training their weapons around. Ramsey hit the ground as his two other marines burst into view, and aware that he had only a few rounds left in the existing magazine, he selected single shot before double-tapping the centre man in the centre of his chest as that man squirmed on his back trying to bring his AK to bear. The roar of gunfire was over in a second, two more Russians lay dead whilst a third clutched at the line of holes across his bloodied belly and screamed in agony. Just a glance at the position of the wounds told the tale of irreparable damage to liver and spleen leading to a lingering and agonised death, a single shot stopped the screams a moment later.
Another marine was down; shot through the face, chest and throat his heels drummed on the forest floor momentarily before his body spasmed and suddenly relaxed.