“This is Reaper 6. We copy. One round HE… grid….” acknowledged the voice from the Fire Direction Control (FDC) vehicle, which coordinated all of the fire missions for the battalion.
“Shot out…” confirmed the FDC a minute later. This meant that the round was on its way.
“Splash,” said the FDC, thirty seconds later. The artillery round was now less than five seconds away from impact.
“Splash out,” replied Sergeant Trellis, watching the area where the round should impact.
BOOM! The round landed exactly where they wanted, a couple hundred yards in front of the enemy advance.
“Round right on target. Fire for effect. WP, three rounds out,” said Trellis, calling in the next round of artillery fire. White phosphorus (WP) rounds were designed to ignite in an airburst about a hundred feet above their intended target; they would force the enemy tank commanders to duck back inside their tanks and button them up, in order to avoid getting burned by the WP in the air. The effect of this attack would be that the enemy commanders would not be able to see and identify targets as easily.
“Reaper 6, targets hit. Adjust fire. Drop 500 meters, adjust 200 meters to the right… fire three rounds HE ground impact out,” said Trellis. This new artillery strike he was calling in was closer to the Bravo Troops’ position.
“Sergeant Trellis, we need to move. That’s three firing missions in this position,” advised PFC Ye. He quickly moved to the driver’s side door and opened it, climbing in.
“You are right. Let’s ditch this taco stand before the Russians throw a few rounds our direction,” Trellis responded as he quickly moved around to the passenger seat. Just as he was closing the door, they heard a loud whistling noise, and before either of them could react, three artillery rounds exploded near their vehicle, shredding it with shrapnel and instantly killing the two of them.
LTC Lewis watched on the monitor as the Russians continued to advance. He was surprised to see them continue to rush forward despite the horrific losses they were taking. Nearly an entire tank battalion had been wiped out in the first five minutes of the engagement, and a second and then third tank battalion took their place. The Russians were trying to overwhelm the American tanks by rushing as many of their own tanks and IFVs as possible.
Suddenly, the radio in LTC Lewis’s helmet came alive, and he saw an image of Colonel Aaron. “Lewis, it looks like the Russians are about to break through Alpha Troop’s position. I’m calling in additional artillery and I’m going to see if we can’t get a few Razorbacks as well. I need you to guide Delta Troop into Alpha’s position and plug that hole,” Colonel Aaron ordered.
“Roger that Sir. We just sent a couple of drones to Alpha’s position, so it shouldn’t be a problem,” Lewis responded, signaling for one of the staff officers to send a message to Delta Troop to tell them to move forward. In the meantime, they revved up their own tank to join the fray.
Colonel Aaron had held one of his tank company’s back as a mobile reserve force in order to plug up any holes in their defensive line. Now it was time to call in an artillery strike. Colonel Aaron signaled for his FIST officer (Fire Support Team). The FIST officer’s job was to coordinate artillery missions for the Regiment from his own artillery battalion along with the Forward Observers assigned to the various Troops. After losing several forward observers, the FIST Liaison Officer (LNO) immediately called in an Arrowhead strike.
Essentially the Arrowheads were “smart” munitions, meaning they could be fired in the general vicinity of the enemy, and as the round would complete its arc heading back towards the objective, it would begin to identify specific targets. In milliseconds, the round would distinguish between a tank and an IFV, and would automatically target the tank unless it were programmed to do otherwise. It would even calculate which of the surrounding tanks had the least amount of armor and move to attack that tank first. As the round neared the target, it would detonate the first shape charge, which would hit the top of the turret or engine compartment. This first charge was meant to activate the tank’s reactive armor, leaving a hole where it once was; then the second shape charge would fire into the newly created gap in the reactive armor and punch right through the turret into the crew compartment. This entire process would happen within milliseconds, with devastating effectiveness.
As soon as the artillery battalion fired off a three-round barrage, they quickly began to move to their next firing position. Russian counter-battery fire started to land where they had just been. Knowing that the Americans may have moved quickly, the Russians began to saturate the area with artillery fire, finding one of the self-propelled artillery vehicles and destroying it and two other support vehicles. The constant counter-battery fire from the Russians was making it incredibly difficult for the American artillerymen to support the tanks and infantry who were fighting tooth and nail on the frontlines.
After eight hours of fighting near Brandenburg, the Americans had to withdraw and cross the Elbe River, where they would make their next stand. Colonel Aaron’s brigade had started the battle with 192 Pershings; so far they had lost 49. However, his brigade had destroyed 492 T14s and 590 T15 IFVs. They had effectively destroyed two entire Russian brigades while sustaining a casualty rate of 25 %.
The UK’s 16th Air Assault Brigade (AAB) was Britain’s rapid response unit, much like the American 82nd Airborne Division. The 16th AAB was rushed to the Elbe River once it became clear that the Americans were going to have to retreat across it. They had been held in reserve in case this situation became a reality, and now it had. Their objective was to provide maneuver and fire support to the armored and mechanized infantry units as they moved across the various bridges and pontoon bridges before the engineers dropped them.
Sergeant Michael Stonebridge was a sniper with the reconnaissance section of the Pathfinder group. His spotter, Corporal Brent Scott, had been assigned an over watch position several hundred meters behind one of the bridgeheads. Their objective was to take out enemy infantry as they approached the area, or call in what they were seeing to their higher headquarters.
They positioned themselves under their ghillie suits (special sniper suits designed to camouflage these soldiers with the grass in the surrounding area, to the point that they would be virtually invisible while still). They began to deploy their spotting scope and their L115A3 sniper rifle. The L115 fired a .338 cartridge and had an effective range of 2,000 meters. For their operation, they had a 25x scope with a suppressor to help reduce the muzzle flash of their rifle when it was fired.
As they laid prone in their fighting position, they could hear the rumble of the battle move closer and closer to their position until they spotted the first sign of the American units retreating. At first, it was a collection of ambulances carrying the wounded; then came a battalion of self-propelled artillery, who quickly fired off a barrage of rounds once they crossed the river before scurrying behind the 16th AAB’s position. Then came several battalions’ worth of light and mechanized infantry; the soldiers looked exhausted and beat up, but determined to continue fighting. They immediately took up defensive positions all along the shoreline and began to prepare for the next assault. The final group to cross the bridges were the heavy armor units. Nearly four dozen Pershing MBTs made it across the river before the remaining Pershings still on the enemy side of the bank began to return fire and engage the advancing Russian units. Slowly and steadily, they all made it across the river before the engineers blew the bridges apart just as Russian Infantry Fighting Vehicles and other armored vehicles appeared at the outskirts of the city.