“OPFOR commander,” Stern asked, “what’s your assessment of the battle?”
The man in the mock Soviet uniform read the numbers and looked at the ground. “We followed our doctrine, did what we were supposed to do, and they took advantage of that.” He paused. “Simply put, they surprised us, then they hammered us.” The American colonel with Soviet insignia smiled. “But now they must defend their gains.”
“Colonel Guterman?”
“We saw the key terrain, took it and held it, then used the forces we had and the ground to our best advantage.”
“How well do you think you followed your own doctrine?”
“Our doctrine offers guidelines, to be sure. One may say we were not in total agreement with those guidelines, yet our plan was simple, aggressive, and its execution consistent with our doctrine’s principles. Our doctrine tells us to aggressively execute the unexpected. The key to its success is possession of key terrain — and achieving decisive surprise. I think my worthy opponent will agree that this battle was an example of such doctrine.”
The OPFOR commander snorted, but he still looked at the ground. “Had more forces been available to me,” Guterman said, “I would have continued the attack and encircled the enemy.”
Stern pointed to a rough circle of small hills in the distance. “I think you’ll all agree the decisive terrain in this battle was that hill complex.”
“It was the pivot point of the battle,” Guterman interjected.
“If we had taken and held it, things would have been much different,” said the OPFOR commander. “That little bowl was the key.”
In his Bradley, Alexander Stern remembered the words he’d used to close that day’s AAR:
Thank you, OPFOR commander. Thank you, Colonel Guterman. Your efforts here today have made us all better soldiers. The battle has taught your troops and my controller teams some important lessons about attack and defense, about leadership. Now, gentlemen, I believe we had best leave. We have another mission. That concludes this AAR.
Stern looked up. The cloudless desert sky was gone, replaced by the dull European overcast.
“Let’s go, Eads. Get back up with them.”
Just before the Bradley bumped across country, he drew a grease-pencil circle around the Burbenheim Bowl and two counterattack arrows across the flats spilling off the Alterkoop Mountains. Alex Stern reached for the radio. Minutes later his two Bradley battalions fell in one behind the other. The brigade’s two tank battalions slowed their advance into the neck, falling behind as Stern had ordered. There’s some risk in this, he thought; I’m leaving the infantry’s flank wide open. Deliberately, but open nonetheless. To put a unit in there will weaken something else. He looked over the status board for some piece he had forgotten to play, but all the battalions were committed and what remained of the Cav was forward of the brigade, sending him critical information on the enemy’s moves. The only thing uncommitted is that composite antitank company of ITVs, he thought, and it’s not enough. But it’s all I have. Between bumps he sketched out a position for them, then radioed Middletown.
“Three, this is Six. Take charge of the AT company and occupy the following position along Autobahn 5, orienting fires into the open area generally northwest. Grids follow…”
It began just as Cooper had predicted, the scouts sending in hurried, broken reports of enemy columns, then the rumble and crash of artillery. Stern’s stomach rumbled too. He glanced at his watch. Just before noon — when did he last have something other than cold coffee? No time now, maybe later. The check marks on his map told him the lead enemy columns — the scouts said they were almost all Marders with only a few tanks mixed in — were less than two kilometers from their side of the bowl. His battalions’ Bradleys were racing past him down the autobahn, then veering off onto side roads. Their lead companies must be about the same distance away, he thought. Better get up there where I can do some good. He hit the intercom switch.
“Eads, follow those tracks off the autobahn. Go about three kilometers, then get off the road and use the terrain. We’re about to get into a shooting match.”
“Roger that, Sir. Uh, Sir, you know how to use that chain gun?” “Ah, no.”
“Then would you mind hanging back a little bit and just using the radio, Sir? I heard about what you did with the S3’s tank, but this thing ain’t got near as thick a skin as a tank does. We sure do make a mighty fine target with all them antennas for those radios of yours.”
“I need to be where I can see what’s happening.”
“Roger that. But how about if’n I teach you to use that gun later, and for now you just let somebody else do the shootin’? I’ll take you where you want to go and keep our heads down.”
“Deal. Get us there. Just make sure you know the route back. We’ll be doubling back later, and when we do there won’t be any time for a wrong turn.”
“No sweat, Sir. A country road is a country road.”
The Burbenheim Bowl was just that, a low area ringed by wooded hills. One set bordered the Burbenheim metroplex; the other major hill mass was more than a mile long and ran parallel to Autobahn 5. If you stood on the hill behind Sintzen, the farm village sitting almost in the southern corner of the bowl, you could see the farmland spread out before you for almost a mile and a half before it ran into the hills on the other side. At the foot of those hills — if you looked almost due north — lay Sintzen’s sister village of Daldorf.
Stern’s Bradley battalions — one behind the other — came from the southwest to seize Daldorf and secure the hills behind it.
Riding in their Marders, the two German infantry battalions approached from the northeast with orders from Guterman to come abreast and attack south and take Sintzen and the hills around it.
Neither force wanted to cross the open ground across the middle of the bowl. Instead, they dropped off their tanks in support positions in the towns. The infantry, still mounted, stuck to the woods.
They met in the middle.
“Please, please, bitte, bitte, let us in.” The soldiers pounded on the farmhouse door. “These men are hurt badly.”
The gray-haired woman answered the knocks and cries and opened the door. In front of her she saw a horrible sight. Two American soldiers stood smeared with blood and gore, and their two comrades who supported them wore looks that would melt even the hardest of hearts.
“Please, bitte, you must give us a place to let our comrades rest.”
The messages on the radio and television were specific and direct. Stay at home, avoid all contact with foreigners, report any unusual movement and activity. “I… I cannot help you.” She started to shut the door, but one of the Americans held it open with his hand.
“But you must. Can’t you see that?” His German was broken, but understandable. “These men are dying, they need a place to lie down.”
“No. I must not. Go away.”
The one American with a rifle swung it up and pointed it at her. “You will help us, you will let us in. Now open this door so that these men may have a place to rest.” She noticed that the third, who did not seem so badly wounded, had red streaks down his jacket.
She swung the door wide to get out of his line of fire. The Ameri-
cans carried their casualties in and laid them down — one on the couch, another in a chair — in her living room. Seemingly oblivious to her, they kneeled by their wounded friends.