He turned to Pushkin. “I’ll leave you with Colonel Trusov so you can hand over command, but I will want you at headquarters by ten. I will be briefing the division. You will need to be there too, Colonel.”
“Sir.”
The two junior officers saluted and the General left them to complete a handover. Less than two hours to hand over a full Soviet tank regiment; not a small task.
“The General certainly has a lot of faith in his regiments.”
“He does, Pavel. Had the 62nd been at full strength, it would be you leading the attack tomorrow.”
“I see he left the bottle behind… do you mind?”
“Pavel, as a regimental commander, you are going to be an even bigger pain in the ass.”
Trusov topped up their glasses. “Here’s to luck, sir.”
“For once I am in agreement with you. The General knows it’s not going to be a walkover, so make sure your men are ready.”
“Za Vas!”
Chapter 11
The three tanks of Delta Troop, of Delta Squadron, The Royal Hussars had all returned to their positions on the eastern edge of the village of Rossing. They had pulled back, one at a time, across the River Leine to receive some minor maintenance and to refuel. Many were now fully camouflaged amongst the buildings of the West German village. One of the tanks was using a barn on the edge of the village, straw bales piled up in front to provide cover. A second tank had sheets of hessian, with pale orange bricks painted in the appropriate pattern. From a distance, the sheets of hessian genuinely looked like the wall of a building. Delta Squadron, designated Combat Team Delta, had two positions to defend: Rossing and Escherde. One troop was at the eastern tip of Rossing, at the junction of the minor road that came from the east, from the direction of Giesen, and met with the two roads that skirted the village of Rossing to the south-west and the north-west. Two of the tanks were dug in 300 metres further east on some higher ground, giving the two tanks a full 180-degree arc of fire out to three to five kilometres. A killing ground. A second troop was deployed in the northern sector of the village, giving the tanks a five-kilometre view out to Sarstedt in the north, Ahrbergen to the north-east, and Giesen to the east. Any Soviet armour or armoured infantry combat vehicles would have to cross four kilometres of relatively open ground; not a prospect they were going to relish. In Escherde, three kilometres south-east of Rossing, a third troop was north of the road that ran through the centre. The village straddled the road, the larger element to the south and slightly east. There sat the fourth troop. The two tanks of the squadron headquarters were two kilometres back along the road, in Heyersum. The Royal Hussars Battlegroup was all tanks. This gave the four combat teams high maneuverability to hit the enemy hard, withdrawing slowly, then dash back across the River Leine to act as 7th Armoured Brigade’s reserve. The other two Battlegroups, the 3rd Battalion, the Queen’s Regiment, and the 1st Royal Tank Regiment, had combined forces to form a Mechanised Infantry Battlegroup; the 3rd Battalion, the Queen’s Regiment, with two companies and a tank squadron, and the 1RTR Battlegroup with three tank squadrons and a mechanised infantry company.
Lieutenant Barrett had gathered his men around his troop tank to pass on the briefing he had received from the Squadron OC, Major Carrigan. He was sitting on the engine deck, his men gathered around him, sitting on the ground of the garden owned by the house they were now occupying. The occupants had left three hours ago, but not before making the tankers a hot drink and plying them with freshly cooked, hot food. The soldiers had eaten it with relish, stuffing down as much as they could, a reprieve from their tinned COMPO rations. The locals had even left food for the men, destroying the rest, wanting nothing to be left for the advancing Soviet army. Most of the villagers had now left the village, although a few insisted that they stayed with their homes, where they and their families had been since they were born. They wouldn’t leave now, not even for the Russians. The ones that did leave added to the problems for the NATO troops; columns of refugees clogged up the roads. West German Civilian and Military Politzei had to use force on occasions to make room for troops and supplies moving to the front, and injured soldiers being evacuated to the rear.
Barrett’s tank was positioned in between two houses. One of two dozer-blade mounted tanks of the squadron had pushed a mound of earth forward, creating a deep berm in front, just ahead of the houses. When the enemy attacked, all the Lieutenant would need to do was drive forward and he would have a 180-degree field of view out to the east, protected either side by the outer walls of the houses and a solid berm in front. Behind, further into the village, two additional prepared positions lay ready and waiting. After the last position was compromised, if they survived that long, they would cross the river to their new positions further back. He looked down at his men, cups of hot tea being passed around by the troop-sergeant, the BVs being kept topped up for that very purpose. A warm feeling passed through him, and he now looked upon them as family. Many a time he had been asked to intervene with a domestic issue that could potentially get out of control, or deal with a soldier who had spent too much money and was now being chased by the Sparkasse Bank for funds; a soldier who had family issues back home and needed to fly to the UK; or one that went out partying and let his behaviour get out of control and had been brought back to barracks by the German Politzei. There has always been a loose bond between an officer and his men. As the troop-sergeant had a foot in both camps, this bond was even more solid between him and the men of his troop. In these difficult times, the bond was now even tighter. It was driven partially by fear, fear of the unknown, fear that they would fail and let their comrades down, and fear of the enemy with their massed tank armies lined up against them. The small unit now recognised the importance of each other, the mutual dependence that was required if they were to function as an effective unit.
“I have just been updated by the OC, and it appears that the enemy is now en route to our location. I’m sure that doesn’t come as any surprise to you all.” Barrett smiled and the group laughed, a little nervously. “They have crossed the River Oker in force and are not stopping to regroup. It’s as if the devil himself is behind them.”
There was a short buzz of chatter which soon died down as the troopers wanted to know more about the situation and what was coming their way.
“That would be the KGB close behind them with pistols,” said Sergeant Glover as he passed a mug of tea up to his troop commander.
The group laughed, less nervously this time.
“Thank you, Sarn’t Glover. Our lads have put up a good fight, but they have been up against significantly superior forces. When I say superior, I mean in quantity, not necessarily quality. Four-div’s job has been to delay the enemy, not take them on in a head-to-head. That is our job.”
“Shit, sir,” spluttered a corporal, Commander of Delta-Four-Charlie. “That means they’ve gone about seventy Ks in two days?”
“It’s what we expected, Corporal Mason. We don’t want to squander the forces we have out there with pointless stands. We just want to slow them down. Blunt their attack. Then they come up against us, and we stop them dead in their tracks.” He had spouted that phrase numerous times. Did he believe it? He wasn’t sure. He understood the concept of defence in depth and only having forces to the fore to slow the enemy down, but just as the corporal had blurted out: seventy kilometres in forty-eight hours. He continued. Propaganda, he thought, or the truth. “Every kilometre they advance, we are inflicting casualties, forcing them to use up precious fuel and ammunition. Don’t forget, their supply lines are longer than ours.” Providing, he thought, they survive the Soviet air and missile strikes along with the Spetsnaz doing their best to destroy or disrupt their logistics.