As Wulf looked at the video feed from the drone, he saw an enemy company, possibly a battalion-sized element. “Where’s its parent unit?” he wondered. “That’s what we need to find.”
He turned to face his operations officer, Stabshauptmann Manfred Hoffman. “What air assets do we have available?” he asked. “Let’s see if we can’t vector some fighters in to hit them first, and then we can send the Panzers in to finish them off. Also, I want some drones to trace the road that column came from — I suspect there is a larger enemy unit further back. We need to see what else is out there.”
Stabshauptmann Manfred Hoffman was the senior captain and staff officer in Oberstleutnant Wulf’s battalion. He’d been assigned to be Wulf’s executive officer and lead the staff functions for the battalion because not only was he a superb staff officer, but he understood battalion and brigade level tactics as well. His only flaw was his temper, which had gotten the better of him on a couple of occasions. When he had been a company officer, he’d struck a soldier for insubordination, and then just as the war had broken out, he’d punched a superior officer when he’d failed to inform him of a pending air attack during the opening hours of the war in Ukraine. Had it not been for the war with Russia, and the fact that Germany had been attacked hard during the first week of the war, he would have been charged and served prison time, or at least been kicked out of the Army. As it was, his unit had fought with distinction in Ukraine with the Ukrainian and American Armies. While not all had been forgiven, his superiors had given him a chance to redeem himself by mentoring a young up-and-coming star in the German Army.
Stabshauptmann Hoffman nodded at Wulf’s suggestion and looked at one of the whiteboards they had set up, which listed the available air assets and was updated every fifteen minutes by an Air Force LNO, a sergeant who was responsible for coordinating any requests for air support. Scanning the board, Hoffman saw there were two pairs of German Tornadoes, a pair of Norwegian F-16s, and four German Tiger attack helicopters available at that moment.
Getting the attention of the Air Force LNO, Hoffman ordered, “Sergeant, find out which of those aircraft can attack the Russian column, and have them do it immediately. Tell our helicopters that once the Air Force hits them, we have a mission for them.”
Ten minutes went by as the drone continued to observe the enemy force, advancing ever closer to the American flank. Wulf had warned the Americans the Russian unit was coming and informed them that they had air assets inbound to deal with them. It felt like hours waiting for the fighters to get in position. However, in mere moments, the two Norwegian F-16s swooped in fast, releasing a series of CBU-100 cluster bombs and destroying a number of the enemy vehicles. The survivors from the attack scattered their formation.
As the F-16s pulled away, Wulf watched half a dozen smoke contrails fly up after them. One of the F-16s fired off a number of flares, which succeeded in luring a few of the enemy missiles toward them as they successfully escaped. The second F-16 tried to do the same; however, one of the enemy missiles blew past the decoys and detonated near the tail of the aircraft, causing the back half of the fighter to blow apart. Seconds later, the entire plane exploded before the pilot had a chance to eject.
The Air Force sergeant coordinating the mission for them muttered a few curse words to himself. Then he picked up the radio receiver and began to make contact with the attack helicopters to let them know it was their turn to go in and finish off the enemy column. He also wanted to warn them that the enemy had a lot of MANPADs with them and was not afraid to use them.
A few minutes later, the drone that was providing overwatch footage for them spotted the attack helicopters moving in at just above treetop level. In pairs of two, they carefully made use of the terrain around them, moving behind a copse of trees or hiding behind a barn or other structure when needed.
Stabshauptmann Hoffman had their drone pilot talk directly with the helicopters, relaying what the drone was seeing and explaining where the helicopters were in relationship to the armored vehicles. Just as the attack helicopters were zeroing in for their attack, a pair of MiG-29 Fulcrums zoomed in out of nowhere, obliterating two of the helicopters in a spectacular fireball with air-to-air missiles before they even knew what happened. The MiGs banked hard and climbed in altitude as they headed toward the city of St. Petersburg, obviously looking for their next target of opportunity.
The Air Force sergeant pounded his fist on the table, letting loose a string of foul obscenities. Hoffman walked up to him, placing his hand on his shoulder. “It’s not your fault, Sergeant. People die, and aircraft get destroyed. It’s just the nature of war. Put it behind you and move on to the next objective. Everyone has a job to do, and we’re counting on you,” he said in a soft voice.
Looking up at the Stabshauptmann, the sergeant nodded as he wiped a tear from the side of his face. “You’re right, Captain. Thank you for understanding. Do you want me to try and get another air strike to hit that enemy column?”
“No, order our other helicopters to retreat back to base. We’ll send the Panzers in now to deal with what’s left of the enemy,” he ordered.
Then he turned to one of his other sergeants and ordered the tanks in. The four Leopard IIs and eight Pumas should be more than enough to finish off what was left of the Russian force.
The next twenty-four hours turned into an on-again, off-again battle of small company-sized elements of Russian forces as they tried to test Wulf’s battalion, searching for a weak spot they could exploit. Once the Allies secured St. Petersburg, the entire force would shift in his direction as they looked to begin their long march on Moscow to bring this war to an end.
The two Stryker vehicles moved steadily down Novosibirskaya Street toward the intersection some two hundred meters away. A squad of soldiers moved slowly, carefully, on the flanks of each of the two vehicles, making sure they were never too far away from a covered position. The ground beneath them had a few centimeters of snow on it from earlier in the morning that the sun had not yet melted.
In the rear of the platoon formation, Command Sergeant Major Childers was talking with Second Lieutenant Drake, the new platoon leader for Second Platoon. As Childers was in the middle of getting a status update from Drake, the lead vehicle was suddenly hit by an antitank rocket and blew up. Hot shrapnel was thrown into the squad of soldiers nearby. There was a loud roar as heavy machine guns opened fire on the remaining soldiers, who had been dazed by the explosion. Seconds after the gunfire started, an RPG sailed out of one of the fourth-floor windows, narrowly missing the second Stryker vehicle as it flew right over top of it and blew apart a small civilian vehicle abandoned along the sidewalk.
Childers and the other soldiers of Nemesis Troop scrambled for cover and returned fire. He watched as one of the soldiers near him set up his M203 grenade launcher and aimed for the window that had been used to launch an RPG at them. They watched as the 40mm fragmentation grenade sailed right into the intended window, detonating inside.
“Hopefully, that just killed those enemy soldiers,” Childers thought. That would make one less window firing at them.
The trooper reloaded his M203, but before he could fire it again, a single shot rang out from several hundred meters down the road, exploding the trooper’s head like a dropped watermelon. His body crumpled to the ground.
Another soldier, who had been manning one of the platoon’s heavy machine guns, the M240G, brought his weapon to bear on the location he suspected the enemy sniper was firing from and unloaded on the façade of the building. One of the enemy machine gunners returned fire, forcing the American soldier to duck for cover or get riddled with bullets. The remaining Stryker vehicle backed up down the road they had just turned down, while the turret gunner laid suppressive fire so the remaining soldiers could fall back.