Childers looked at the LT. “This doesn’t look good, Sir. I’m not sure what is going on, but my money says those are Russian and American aircraft shooting at each other up there.”
Lieutenant Taylor responded cautiously. “I think you are right, Sergeant. Tell everyone to get ready to engage those Russian vehicles, should they head our direction,” he said nervously, his eyes searching the woods around their position.
“I hope the armor unit that is supporting us is getting close,” thought Taylor. “If those Russian tanks move towards us, we are going to be in real trouble.”
Childers just nodded. The LT was right; they needed to stay frosty now and be ready for anything. Speaking into his headset, Childers announced, “Everyone listen up. It looks like there is some sort of air battle going on above us. That means hostilities have probably started. We knew this was a possibility, and we’ve trained for this. Everyone knows what to do. We have enough firepower with us to kick the teeth out of those Russians in that village. If and when they do cross the demarcation line and head towards us, I want you all to start calling out your targets. Make sure you are not shooting at the same vehicles!” He was trying to fire the platoon up.
“From what we are seeing from the drone feed, it looks like we will probably have about a company, maybe a battalion-sized element heading our way, if those other units follow this one,” Childers continued. “The rest of those tanks and armored vehicles are heading further up north… So, here is what we are going to do. TOW gunners, make sure to focus on the tanks. Javelin crews, focus on the BMPs and BTRs. My Stinger operators, be ready in case those helicopters head our way. Most importantly, remember your training. We’ll get through this together and we’ll kick the crap out of these guys! Hooah!” he yelled.
“Hooah!” came the reply. Everyone in the platoon was filled with adrenaline as they shouted the Army slogan together.
The soldiers in the platoon began to ready their crew. They all hoped that the Russians had not spotted them in this thicket of trees yet. The Raven scout drone spotted the BMPs, BTRs and tanks starting to head towards the village and the demarcation line; it would not be long until they were in range of their anti-tank missiles now.
Ten nervous minutes passed before the first Russian vehicle crossed the demarcation line at the edge of a small village named Pyriatyn. They let the vehicles continue to pass and get closer to their position. They wanted as much of the column out of the village as possible before they called in the artillery strike and began to engage them with their TOWs.
Lieutenant Taylor was getting antsy; he wanted to launch the attack right then. Childers reminded him, “We need the vehicles to move a bit closer, so that they are in range of our TOWs. The enemy needs to get within 2,000 meters of us.”
Slowly, painfully, they waited and watched. Then, when the middle of the column reached 2,000 feet away, Childers turned to Taylor and nodded. “It’s time,” he affirmed.
Lt. Taylor depressed his talk button. “TOW gunners, engage the tanks now,” he ordered. In a mere second, a loud popping noise could be heard, then a whoosh as four TOWs rushed out of the midst of the thicket of trees that they had been hiding in. They streaked quickly towards their intended targets, four T-90 main battle tanks.
Sergeant Childers signaled to his artillery forward observers, “Start raining death on the enemy.”
The forward observers began to call in multiple artillery strikes to their battalion of self-propelled 155mm Paladins. One of the sergeants gave him a quick thumbs-up to let him know the mission had been received. “It won’t be long now until the rounds start to land and really plaster the Russians,” Sergeant Childers thought.
Just after the TOWs left the tree line, the four Javelin crews fired off their missiles at the lead group of BMPs and BTR Infantry Fighting Vehicles.
The Russians reacted quickly; within a few seconds of the TOWs being fired, several of their tanks turned their turrets towards the tree line to engage the Strykers. Just as they were about to fire, the TOWs began to hit them, blowing several turrets right off the chasses of the vehicles. Then the Javelins found their marks, and three BMPs and one BTR blew up in a blaze of flaming glory.
The crews of the Stryker vehicles began to reload the TOW launchers as fast as they could, and so did the Javelin crews. One of the T-90s that had not been destroyed fired at the tree line, hitting one of the Stryker vehicles; it promptly exploded, throwing one of the crew members from the vehicle several feet away. Several of the BMPs then began to rake the tree line with 30mm and 100mm cannon rounds from their main guns. Tree limbs, branches, and bushes simply began to burst, throwing bark and chunks of trees in every direction at the soldiers below and around them.
One of the Stryker vehicles had their TOW launcher reloaded and fired off both missiles almost immediately. The missiles streaked across the field towards two more of the Russian tanks, which were now racing towards the tree line, firing their main guns. One of the Light Armored Tactical Vehicles (LATVs) took a direct hit, exploding and throwing shrapnel everywhere. One of the Javelin missile crews hit another BMP, just as the gunner of the same BMP killed them with a fiery blast from their 100mm gun.
Then, Childers heard the artillery come flying over their head, impacting all around the remaining Russian tanks and infantry fighting vehicles. The artillery guys were yelling in their handsets, “Hey, Gun Bunnies — keep it coming!”
“We are plastering the Russians,” thought Luke.
As the artillery continued to land, the remaining Russian force fell back to the village they had just left to get away from the artillery. The forward observers continued to walk the artillery in towards the village, making sure the Russians found no safety, even in falling back to a populated village.
Lieutenant Taylor yelled over the radio, “Cease fire! Stop firing on that village, there could be civilians in there!” The forward observers who were with the platoon radioed back for the battalion to check-fire, which is how the artillerymen say ceasefire. It took a few minutes for all the soldiers to stop shooting and for the artillery barrage to end. Once it had, and the smoke began to clear, they saw the absolute carnage their platoon had just inflicted on the Russians. They had nearly wiped out what was probably a company-sized armored unit, along with their support vehicles and troops. When they looked further back at the village, they saw that most of the little township was a smoking ruin.
Several additional armored vehicles and tanks were burning in the village, strung across the various roads and side streets. They all felt a little better about plastering the village once they saw that they had also killed a lot of Russians. Sergeant Childers put his binoculars back in his pocket; he had seen enough.
“Listen up everyone!” he yelled. “Grab our dead and wounded and get back in the vehicles. We are getting out of here NOW!” He picked himself off the ground and began running up to the various positions where his soldiers were dug in, encouraging them to grab their gear and get in the vehicles.
Lieutenant Taylor walked up to Sergeant Childers and put his hand on his shoulder to grab his attention. “Hey, we just stopped them. Why are we falling back now?” he asked, not fully understanding the logic in his platoon sergeant’s decision or the urgency in trying to get everyone loaded up, along with their wounded and their equipment.
Childers paused for a second, like a father who is trying to have patience as he answers a question from his teenage son. “Sir, we just plastered the Russians. They are either going to call in artillery on our position or an airstrike. In either case, we can’t stay here. We need to fall back to our secondary position and see if headquarters wants us to link up with the rest of the Troop or what they want us to do.”