"Colonel, I am afraid that even if Front was willing to increase its allocation of ammunition, which it will not do, it does not have the means to deliver it to us. As it is, attacks against supply columns have taken terrible toll of the trucks we have for resupply. Air resupply will be increased for some critical commodities, but bulk shipments of fuel and ammunition will still have to come over the roads. To relieve pressure on the supply system, STAVKA intends to delay the movement of the 17th Combined Arms Army south behind us. Even they understand the need to keep our lines of communication clear and supplies flowing."
"Roads," the chief interrupted. "Roads that require continuous guarding and siphon off combat troops from the front. On one hand the 17th CAA would help by guarding those roads, and on the other they would block them with their own units and supply columns. Either way, we suffer."
"When I mentioned that, the Front Commander merely remarked that we have yet to use a fraction of our men at the front, making the argument for commitment of parts of the 17th CAA or an increase in ammunition resupply weak."
"Perhaps the Front Commander would change his tune if he had been here when we stormed this miserable excuse of a city." The chief stopped for a moment. Ignoring his own advice, he went to the window and looked out.
Without turning to face Sulvina, he continued. "What news of the other fronts?"
"In the east, Mashhad has fallen, but only after a bloody fight. The 89th Motorized Rifle Division is hung up around Birjand. Because they need the road that runs through it and the airfield for resupply, they have comsnenced a siege of that city. The bridgeheads along the Caspian continue to build up, but, as with us, forward progress is slow. The Elburz Mountains they face are far more formidable than the ones we have to deal with. And in the west, our good allies the Iraqis attacked, as planned, and lost ground, as expected, without tying down any appreciable Iranian forces, as hoped."
Still looking out the window, the chief asked, "And the Americans? What about them?"
"STAVKA is less sure about the Americans' intentions than it used to be.
There is now an airborne brigade in Egypt, with more on the way. A Marine brigade is being flown into Diego Garcia. Air Force units have also been reported in Egypt. Naval activity in the Arabian Sea has increased, and the addition of a carrier group is expected."
In a monotone, the chief asked, "How long before the Americans enter Iran?"
"Two weeks at the earliest, probably four at the outside."
The chief of staff thought about that. He turned to Sulvina. "And when that happens, my friend, we will have a whole new war to fight before we finish the first."
The pinging of the sonar on the hull of the submarine was clearly audible to the commander, Captain Vladimir Gudkov, and the crew. They had been found again. For the third time in sixteen hours the Soviet Oscar-class submarine had failed to penetrate the escort screen of the carrier battle group. A series of orders resulted in a rapid dive and several sharp turns as the submarine attempted to break contact.
The men in the control room looked to their captain. In the eyes of all of them Gudkov could see the same sense of frustration that was accentuated by fatigue. The cruise from Cam Rahn Bay in Vietnam to their patrol station in the Arabian Sea had been routine. Even their patrol had been routine until the captain opened his special orders on the twenty-fourth of May. After that, they played the same cat-and-mouse game with U.S. Navy ships in the area they had always played, but now they did so in deadly earnest. The threat of war brought new meaning to their games.
Daily the submarine, named the Iskra-Russian for "spark"-raised its antenna at a prearranged time to receive the code word that would tell the captain when to initiate hostilities and against whom. When the hard-copy orders had been written, the Red Navy did not know who, for sure, would be involved and when. To cover all contingencies, each potential enemy was given a color code word. "Black," for example, meant the United States Navy. "Blue" was for the Royal Navy. "Green" was for the French, and so on.
All Moscow had to do was send a simple message with the appropriate code word or words, and all ships on station would commence attacks against the nation's warships and shipping at 0600 hours the next morning. To ensure that there were no errors and that commanders knew their communication systems were functional, code word "White," which meant "Continue peacetime patrol routines," was transmitted daily when there were to be no hostile acts the next day.
The Oscar-class submarine had received its White signal as usual, and continued its peacetime mission, which was to maintain contact with the carrier battle group operating in the Arabian Sea and place itself close enough to the American carrier to be able to strike it. The American escort ships, however, were keeping the Oscar-class boat from doing that. In order to strike, the submarine had to get close without being detected. Each time it was found, the submarine had to break contact, back away from the escorts, and try from a different angle.
Each attempt was time-consuming and wearing on the nerves. The crew knew that whenever the Americans found them, they could kill them with ease. Therefore every discovery was treated as a defeat.
The submarine continued to swerve and change depth in rapid and random patterns in an effort to break contact. As it was doing so, the captain decided to stop any further attempts until his crew could get some sleep.
He didn't want to push them too much before hostilities. In the first place, there was always the chance that someone, on either side, just might get too excited and, in the heat of the moment, make a mistake and push a button too soon. In the second place, he and his crew needed all the rest they could get while they could. When war came, he wanted his men able to push the right buttons at the right time.
While the submarine wiggled and bobbed in an effort to lose itself in the dark, cold depths of the Arabian Sea, the pursuing destroyer escort commander pushed his crew in an equally determined effort to maintain contact.
Thus ended another day of "peace."
Chapter 4
Duty is the sublime st word in our language. Do your duty in all things.
You cannot do more. You should never wish to do less.
Fort Hood, Texas 1445 Hours, 3 June (2045 Hours, 3 June, GMT) The two target panels rose up and locked into place. The crew of the MI tank, however, did not see them until the control-tower personnel set off, by remote control, at the target locations, explosives known as the hostile simulators. The flash and the puff of smoke from the simulators brought an immediate reaction from the crew.
Slewing the turret toward the targets by using his control handle, the tank commander began to issue his fire command. "Gunner, Sabot. Two tanks-left tank."
With his eye to the primary sight, the gunner searched until he saw the targets while his right hand danced across the face of the primary sight's control panel, arming the main gun, switching the ammo-select lever to SABOT and coming to rest on the magnification level. Without bothering to key the intercom, he yelled, "Identified!" as soon as the targets came into his field of vision. He then switched his sight to a higher magnification and began to track his first target.
The commander let go of his control and turned to watch just as the loader finished arming the main gun, moved out of its path of recoil, and in his turn announced, Up.,The tank commander shouted, "Fire!"
It was now up to the gunner and the driver. As the driver strove to maintain steady speed and course, the gunner laid the gun sight onto the center mass of the target. When he had a good sight picture, he hit the laser range-finder thumb switch. Before he could remove his thumb from the switch, the range readout appeared at the bottom of the sight. A quick mental comparison of the size of the target and the indicated range showed that the range was about right. Satisfied, the gunner re laid onto the center mass of the target, yelled, "On the waaay," and squeezed the trigger on his right control handle.