The first of the Hip troop transports started to land, disgorging the airborne soldiers. Landing in angled lines of four, they touched down hard, the troops jumping out of the door immediately behind the cockpit, running at a crouch to get away from the helicopter before throwing themselves down, seeking out cover and any potential threat. Some of the Hips didn’t even touch the ground, but moved slowly at the hover while soldiers dropped to the ground. As soon as their passengers were dropped off, the Hips were in the air, flying east to refuel and pick up a second wave of airborne soldiers. As soon as they had cleared the ground and headed on a wide curve to clear the airspace, the big boys started to land. So far the landing operation had taken a little over five minutes, the British forces completely stunned by the continuing suppression attacks from the escorting helicopters. Two Chieftains moved into position to bring direct fire to bear on the landing area, anticipating the destruction of some of the helicopters and their troops through the use of High Explosive Squash Head (HESH) rounds.
The Hind-F, the latest attack helicopter in the Soviet’s armoury, hovered nearly 2,000 metres away. An AT-Spiral anti-tank missile flared at the helicopter’s wing tip launcher rails. The ten-kilogram high-explosive anti-tank warhead was guided to its target by its laser seeker, the weapons operator having illuminated the target with a laser designator. The first hit was unsuccessful, the Chobham armour protecting the crew, but a missile launched from a second Hind destroyed it. His companion triggered the smoke dischargers either side of the turret and, under a cloud of smoke, quickly reversed back into cover.
The fifty-four Hooks came in to land in waves, clouds of dust and debris blocking them from view as their powerful engines and rotor blades whipped the ground with enormous force. The flight required a sector of half a square kilometre as a landing area. With their two rear doors swung open, troops and vehicles were quickly offloaded. BMDs, BRDM-2 Sagger’s and two BRDM-2 SA-9s added to the force that was steadily building up. Within a matter of minutes, the second flight of Hooks were landing as the first flock of helicopters vacated, lifting off to return across the River Leine to pick up its second load.
Boykov’s Hip landed in amongst the Hooks, and he was soon gathering data on the disposition of his forces. He had a clear plan. One battalion of over 400 men and their thirty BMDs would secure the perimeter, providing protection for further flights that would be coming in. His four BRDM-2 scout vehicles would go west, seeking out the enemy so he could call in targets for his artillery when it arrived. His thirty D-30 122mm artillery guns would come in on the second wave. He had two priorities: disperse his men before the British started to bring down artillery fire, and ensure that small packets of soldiers, with the Strela-3 shoulder-launched SAM, designated SA-14 Gremlin by NATO, were spread throughout the area in readiness for the attack from the air that was bound to appear. His second battalion would strike east, hitting the British forces defending the River Leine from behind, and the third battalion would push west, blocking reinforcements and supplies getting to the NATO forces and opening a gap for 12GTD to pass through.
The local British Combat Team Commander, desperate to do something to interfere with the air assault, ordered four of his available Scimitars forward in an attempt to disrupt the Soviet airborne operation. At first, their 30mm RARDEN cannon had a massive impact. Moving in fast and close, they picked off helicopters, armour and airborne soldiers with ease, destroying four Hooks and one Hip that had malfunctioned and was still on the ground. Their victory was short-lived however as the Hind-Fs pounced, their 30mm cannons puncturing the reconnaissance vehicle’s armour, destroying two, before the remaining pair, popping smoke, fled the battlefield. All the time, the Combat Team Commander was bringing in more of his forces to try and box in the airborne force. Initially, just from the north and the west. As his was a mechanised combat team, with only one troop of tanks, now with only two Chieftains in support, he was finding it difficult to pin the enemy down, without actually having his own men ending up trapped and pinned down themselves. The Soviets were already deploying the ten ASU-85 assault guns that had been landed.
Boykov chattered on the radio as his BMD-KSh command vehicle bounced over the open farmland, the entire area a patchwork of cultivated fields. He needed to get his men organised. He probably had nearly 700 men on the ground already, but knew that, within thirty-minutes, he would loose his helicopter support. Hips were already flying back east, their weapons’ loads depleted and fuel running low. The Hind attack helicopters would not be far behind. The next wave, at least an hour away, would bring his artillery, the rest of his ASU-85 assault gun battalion, another BMD battalion, more BRDM-Saggers, and more SA-9s and additional supporting weapons, such as RPG-7s and the deadly AGS-17 grenade launchers.
Even with the BMD closed up, he heard the noise of the explosions as the British local force commander brought artillery fire down onto this rapidly expanding force. Although most of the Hooks had left, two of the slower ones were still on the ground. Although not destroyed, they were sufficiently damaged that they were unable to take off.
He would just have to take whatever the British threw at him, expand his perimeter, and complete his mission.
Chapter 32
There were three battles in progress; artillery, air and the ground battle. An artillery duel between the British and Soviet artillery, with both sides committing heavily to counter-battery fire. The consequence to the British Gunners, and the Soviet artillery, was the need to constantly move once they had fired, before they too became the target of the British and Soviet long-range guns. Even so, there were still enough Soviet weapons to pound the British forces between Schulenburg and Marienburg, and surface-to-surface missiles took their toll on the defenders. But the 10th GTD was not getting it all its own way. The British Gunners still found the time and resources to hit back at the Soviet tank formations advancing on the River Leine.
Outside of the artillery barrage area, and outside of the dense air-combat zone, missile smoke trails, from both sides, flew upwards at speed seeking out each other’s aircraft, as fighters and attack-aircraft flew into and out of the combat area. The number being launched by the Soviet forces was significantly higher, with SA-9s, SA-8s, SA-13s, SA-6s and SA-4s all joining in to provide a protective cap for the forces in the process of crossing the River Leine. Sometimes aircraft were shot down by their own side’s missiles, such was the density of the aircraft in the air and the number of missiles being launched. The Soviet air force was flying too high and too fast for the ineffectual British Blowpipe, and Rapier had so many targets that it couldn’t maintain a high enough rate of fire to do significant damage to the attacking aircraft.
Much higher up, Soviet and British, American and German fighters locked horns, both trying to get mastery of the skies, the sound of the aircraft’s afterburners often heard above the sound of the explosions below, such was the volume of aircraft being sucked into the battle along a fourteen-kilometre stretch of the River Leine. Losses were high on both sides, but at the moment it was stalemate. Good for the invading Soviet Army; bad for the defending NATO forces.