Colonel Mica Aaron, the 66th armor regiment commander (66th AR), sat in a chair outside of his command vehicle, taking a few minutes to eat an MRE before Commander’s call, the nightly meeting where he issued new orders and information from division down to his battalion commanders. His regiment had been the tip of the spear when the 2nd AD attacked the Russian lines. Twenty-four hours later, his regiment had entered the outskirts of Leipzig and had moved quickly through the downtown, making their way to the northern suburbs before settling in to a defensive position. Colonel Aaron immediately ordered his air defense units to fan out and set up their operations. He did not want to get his tanks mauled by Russian aircraft or helicopters. He had already lost one third of his tanks in the last twenty-four hours. He could not afford to lose any more, or his regiment would become combat ineffective.
One of the captains stepped away from his computer terminal inside the command vehicle and signaled for his boss’ attention. “Colonel Aaron, the Mayor of Leipzig is at the perimeter; he has asked to speak with you. He said he has some urgent information for you.”
Sighing and sort of grunting as he was forced to put his MRE down, Colonel Aaron turned towards his Captain and ordered, “Send him forward. This had better be good… he’s interrupting my dinner.” It had been nearly a day since he had had time to eat anything, and his body was starting to feel tired and worn out without fuel to keep him going. One can only survive on coffee for so long.
The Mayor of Leipzig was a short man; he approached Colonel Aaron and held his hand out to shake his. “Colonel, the people of Leipzig cannot thank you enough for liberating us from the Russians. I have some important intelligence to share; some of our police officers have spotted a Russian armored unit moving towards the eastern part of the city. So far they have counted twelve enemy tanks, but there could be more.” The mayor was eager to relay his information to the American soldier, hoping he was not too late to make a difference for his city.
Turning away from the mayor for a minute, Colonel Aaron directed his comrade, “Captain Tully, have the drones move towards the eastern part of the city. See if you can spot some Russian armored units. Also, get on the radio to the battalion in the local area and have them dispatch some tanks to investigate the area. I do not want enemy tanks to infiltrate our lines.” He turned back to the mayor to thank him for his information.
The mayor was then escorted back to his vehicle. Several soldiers followed him in an armored vehicle back to city hall; the squad would work as a liaison between the police, mayor’s office and the regiment to help relay potential threats to the regiment and to the division as a whole.
Captain McQueen was the commander of Alpha Company, one of the tank companies that was part of the 66th AR. He had just received orders for his company to move to the northeastern side of Leipzig to identify and engage what appeared to be a Russian company-sized unit of tanks and light armored vehicles. As they drove their tanks through the main streets of the outer suburbs of Leipzig, they eventually identified the enemy line. They were lying in ambush on the other side of a river, adjacent to a bridge. His company had not been seen yet, so he ordered his tankers to move in to the side streets as he attempted to find another way across the bridge, at a better angle from which to engage them. His sent word to the infantry platoon that was with him to dismount their vehicles and set up a perimeter around the area.
Over the next twenty minutes, his tanks filtered into various firing positions, each identifying a different target to engage. Just as he was about to give the order to fire, a Russian attack helicopter appeared out of nowhere and fired an anti-tank missile at one of his tanks. Before anyone could react, the helicopter ducked behind a building and the missile streaked away, heading towards the tank. Within a fraction of a second, the tank’s anti-projectile system activated, and fired a barrage of small tungsten balls in the direction of the missile. Fortunately for the tank crew, the missile was shredded before it could impact against them.
It was in that instant Captain McQueen ordered his tanks, “Open fire!” They quickly destroyed six enemy tanks and began to look for new targets.
Suddenly, four more Russian attack helicopters appeared and fired off a volley of four anti-tank missiles each. Now his six tanks had sixteen missiles heading towards them. McQueen quickly began to engage the helicopters with their railgun, hitting one of them and causing it to spit smoke and flame out of one of its engines. One of the infantrymen attached to his company emerged from the side of an alleyway and fired off a Stinger4 missile, hitting one of the helicopters and blowing it out of the sky. The remaining two helicopters quickly ducked for cover. The sixteen missiles continued to streak towards the tanks at lightning speed. The tanks’ anti-projectile systems began to go to work, throwing a wall of tungsten between them and the incoming missiles. Thirteen of the sixteen missiles were destroyed; however, the remaining three missiles impacted against three of McQueen’s tanks.
One tank survived relatively unscathed as the missile hit the front armor (which is the strongest part of the tank). Another tank was not so lucky, as the projectile landed near the roof and the entire vehicle exploded in a ball of flames. The third tank was hurt but not destroyed, sustaining minor damage to one of its tracks.
Then Russian infantry from across the river began to open fire on the Americans’ position with heavy and light machine gun fire. Several of the American infantrymen were hit by the initial volley, and screamed out for a medic. Captain McQueen quickly grabbed his radio. “This is Captain McQueen. We have encountered the Russian positions, and we are under fire by tanks, infantry and attack helicopters. I need the QRF to get over here now and bring a Medevac for my wounded soldiers!”
His battalion Commander responded, “Copy that McQueen. The QRF is in route to your position, and we are sending an ambulance to collect the wounded. Artillery support is available if needed.”
“Acknowledged,” replied McQueen. He quickly had his tanks move to a secondary position until additional help arrived; after they had reinforcements, they would try and attack the Russian unit on the other side of the bank again.
Every moment seemed like a century as they paused in anticipation. It took twenty minutes for the QRF and the ambulance to show up. Two of McQueen’s soldiers had died from their wounds, waiting for the ambulance. He was seething on the inside that a helicopter had not been available; had there been one, then his men might have survived.
The QRF was certainly something to be grateful for, however. It came equipped with six more Pershings and two platoons of infantry. They quickly formulated their new plan of attack; they would hit the other side of the river first with a barrage of smoke rounds, swiftly followed up with several high-explosive airburst rounds. Then they would have one of the infantry fighting vehicles race across the bridge, quickly accompanied by one of the Pershings. If the bridge did not blow up, then the rest of the Pershings would race across it to support the lead element.