Von Seelow frowned. Madness, indeed. Abandoning maneuver warfare in favor of a straight slugging match to take a single geographical objective violated the three basic tenets of German Army doctrine — mobility, agility, and flexibility. Attrition warfare wasted lives, supplies, and time. It was also unnecessary.
With half their army still tied down watching their eastern border, the Poles could not possibly be strong everywhere. Throwing six EurCon divisions squarely at their main line of defense was foolish. His worst fears were coming to life. Frantic to win a quick victory before the war escalated further, the Confederation’s political leaders were starting to grasp at straws.
He lowered his binoculars and turned his head toward Bremer. “So we attack as planned?”
The colonel nodded silently, too frustrated to speak out loud. Both of them had urged another end run around the Polish troops blocking the Sroda Slaska road. But General Montagne, unwilling to accept further delay, had ordered a full brigade attack on the enemy positions instead. And Leibnitz, their division commander, still seemed unable or unwilling to contradict his French superior.
The barrage lifted suddenly, leaving an unearthly quiet in its place. But the silence did not last long.
Twelve PAH-1 attack helicopters swept low overhead, flying in line as they approached the woods at high speed. Fiery-white flares streamed out behind each helo. It was a wise precaution.
Several white smoke trails arced up out of the shell-torn and splintered trees. The Poles were firing hand-held SAMs at the German helicopters — either American-supplied Stingers or Soviet-made SA-14s. Von Seelow held his breath, watching the missiles curve toward their targets.
The SAMs missed, decoyed by the falling flares.
And the PAH-1s opened fire, volleying hundreds of unguided, spin-stabilized rockets. From a distance, they looked like swarms of glowing sparks lancing down into the trees. Brown clouds of rocket exhaust coiled beneath the helicopters, caught in their rotor downwash. Explosions crackled through the woods.
Still trailing flares, the German helos veered west and lost altitude, heading for their own lines with their skids only meters above the ground.
Perfectly timed by a forward air controller, the next attack came in right on their heels. Four swept-wing Tornado attack jets screamed north along the edge of the woods. Thousand-pound bombs tumbled off their wing and fuselage racks — twelve from each plane.
The Tornados were turning away when a Polish ZSU-234 antiaircraft gun hammered them — spraying 23mm tracer rounds across their flight path. Staggered by multiple hits, one of the German jets rolled over and nose-dived into the ground. It exploded in a rolling, tumbling ball of flame. The other three howled past von Seelow and Bremer and disappeared.
The edge of the woods seemed to dissolve in a rippling series of blinding white flashes.
When the afterimages stopped dancing in front of Willi’s eyes, he could see flames and black smoke rising from the treeline. There were burning Polish tanks and APCs in there. He nodded to Bremer. “That was the last air strike, sir.”
“Right.” The colonel wriggled backward until he was below the rise. Then he clambered to his feet and jogged toward the little cluster of command vehicles in the hollow, already shouting the orders that would set the 19th Panzer-grenadier’s battalions in motion.
Von Seelow swiveled his head, watching clusters of armored vehicles break from cover and rumble toward the shattered patch of woods. Forty long-gunned Leopard 2s led the attack. Marder APCs crammed with infantry followed several hundred meters behind the tanks.
Shells began bursting inside the trees, churning the smoking earth. The German artillery batteries would “shoot in” the assault — firing until the Leopards and panzergrenadiers were almost on top of the enemy’s defensive positions.
Willi von Seelow glanced at the setting sun and shook his head in dismay. Although he was sure the brigade’s attack was powerful enough to shove the Poles out of the woods and back another few kilometers toward Wroclaw, he knew it wouldn’t tear a lasting hole in the Polish lines. It was too late for that. Disentangling the intermingled panzer and panzer-grenadier battalions, evacuating their casualties, and refueling and rearming their surviving vehicles would take hours — especially in the confused darkness under the trees.
The German and French offensive was bogging down, blunting itself in a series of head-to-head clashes with an increasingly experienced and prepared enemy.
Flashes pulsed in the black early morning sky. The Germans were shelling the Polish battalions forming a new line just west of the city.
Major General Jerzy Novachik stood in the tall grass beside the two-lane road, watching the remnants of one of his battle groups limp by. Every vehicle showed signs of damage — scarred by shell fragments and blackened by flame. Ambulances interspersed with the retreating Bradleys and M1s carried the worst of the wounded toward Wroclaw’s hospitals. Other injured men, still able to fight or just too stubborn to quit, stayed with their comrades. A third of those who had gone into battle were dead — trapped in burned-out tanks or torn apart in smoking shell craters.
More tanks and fighting vehicles lumbered past the stumbling, weaving column, heading for the front.
These gallant soldiers had held the enemy long enough for reinforcements to show up. Other units of Novachik’s division were coming in piecemeal — delayed by EurCon air attacks and the refugees flooding all northern and eastern roads out of Wroclaw. Each new force joined the battle as soon as it arrived.
The general’s bushy eyebrows came together as he frowned. His troops were slowing the enemy advance, but they couldn’t stop it. There were too many German and too many French tanks and guns pouring across the frontier. Trying to hold them back with three battered Polish divisions was like trying to hold back the tide with a few schoolchildren armed with buckets and shovels.
EurCon’s growing air superiority only made things worse.
Novachik had watched French and German warplanes and helicopters bombing and strafing his men all day — working back and forth along his lines with apparent impunity. Where the hell, he wondered bitterly, was his nation’s own vaunted air force?
“Porucznik! Porucznik!
Lieutenant! Lieutenant!”
Someone was shaking Tadeusz Wojcik’s shoulder, dragging him out of a soft, warm blackness. Awareness came flooding back, like the memory of a particularly bad nightmare. He realized he had been asleep in the pilot’s quarters and that it was time to get up for another mission. The voice was still speaking, but it took him several seconds to decode the orderly’s Polish.
He had to think for a moment before he could even say “Dziekuje,” or “thank you.” Normally his Polish was very good, but right now he was just too groggy. Even speaking coherent English would have been a chore. After five days of three or even four combat missions a day, four hours’ crew rest didn’t refresh him — it barely took the edge off his fatigue.
The corporal took a moment to make sure the porucznik, or first lieutenant, was fully awake, then went on to his next victim.
Tad’s watch read 3:04, but he resolutely dragged himself out of bed. He had a mission scheduled for this morning. Right now, just moving took an effort. Sitting in an ejection seat and flying at high g-levels day after day had given him a sore back and behind. Lying deep in sleep for four hours allowed everything to stiffen up, so that now on waking he felt like he’d been beaten up.