Harvey Black
The Blue Effect
Dedication
Dedicated to my four children Elaine, Lee, Darren and Annabelle
Maps
Preface
I hope you have enjoyed the first two novels in my Cold War series. As you are about to read The Blue Effect, I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for your support to date.
It is never easy to write about an alternative history. People quite naturally have their own opinion of how events might pan out, and they may well be right. But, this is just my opinion of what may have happened. Also, reference material is not always available, or is contradictory. I have attempted to be as accurate as possible, but in order to focus on writing and not getting bogged down in endless research, I have occasionally used my prerogative, as an author, to determine the direction of the story.
I have set out with the intention of entertaining my readers with a fast flowing, exciting read and I believe I have achieved that. I have added extra maps to support The Blue Effect, but should you like to have access to further maps, then please drop me a line at harvey.black_author@yahoo.com and I will endeavour to include them on my site at harveyblackauthor.org.
Chapter 1
Lieutenant Dean Russell ducked, tucking his head down deep inside the foxhole as another explosion boomed nearby, causing the ground to quake and showering him with clods of earth. He peered again over the top, seeing a Chieftain tank explode, an anti-tank missile rupturing the engine deck and sheering off the rear drive-sprocket. Another anti-tank missile, fired by a second Hind-D, struck the opposite rear side, propelling the armoured giant’s back end sideways, until it eventually came to a stop. The commander’s hatch flew open, smoke pouring from the turret and fighting compartment of the stricken tank, and the commander clambered out, his lower uniform tattered and smouldering. Sparks festooned the turret, and the tank commander flopped forward, his body jerking as if on puppet strings as round after round, fired by a deadly attack-helicopter, pierced his body.
The driver was next to attempt to escape the inferno boiling up inside. Initially, he had been relatively safe due to his position furthest away from the two deadly strikes, but it was a race against time before the Chieftain brewed up. He lifted himself up with his arms, threw his legs over onto the glacis and slid down, his headphones ripped off his head, taking his beret with it, the cable still connected inside. Dean watched as the driver dropped down from the tank and started to run towards the British lines, the run turning into a sprint, throwing his legs forward, pushing himself, arms pumping, fear and panic driving him faster and faster. Three hundred metres was a long way to run at that speed, and the soldier quickly tired.
Dean started to chant inside his head, the chant slowly becoming audible: “Run… run… run.”
The soldier started to stagger. Looking back over his shoulder, his eyes went wide with fear as flames shot up from what was once his home from home. A BMP-2 caught up with him, gunfire from the coaxial machine gun bracketing the fleeing driver with a swathe of fire. He flung his arms upwards, high into the air, bullets piercing his fragile body as the force of the blows hurled him forward, he was dead before he hit the ground. The BMP-2 heaved as a HESH round forced a scab of skin to break off inside the troop compartment, hot fragments puncturing the soft flesh of the Soviet infantrymen inside. A second strike, this time a sabot round, struck the now angled mechanised infantry combat vehicle with such force that it flipped it over onto its turret top. None of the crew would leave the now blazing vehicle.
One of the Hind-Ds was also ripped apart as a missile, fired from a Tracked Rapier brought to Coppenbrugge to support the fleeing NATO forces, scored a direct hit. The assault helicopter plummeted to the ground, crashing in front of a T-80, causing the tank to swerve sideways, a 14/20th King’s Hussars’ Chieftain taking advantage of the now exposed vulnerable side of the tank, and a sabot round punching a hole right through it.
The left side of Dean’s face suddenly felt hot as a Chieftain tank from Alpha Troop, 14/20th King’s Hussars, brewed up, hit simultaneously by two AT-5 Spandrel missiles fired from Soviet BMP-2s. He quickly put his hand up to his cheek, his neoprene NBC gloves partially protecting him from the fierce heat as the main battle tank was engulfed in flames. One of the crew could be heard screaming above the noise of the battle as he unsuccessfully attempted to escape the inferno inside.
Dean dropped to the floor of his hole again as the tank, the ammunition inside ignited by the heat, rocked again and again as a tumult of explosions took it through its final death throes. Between the cracks and thuds of exploding ordnance, firecracker-like sounds could be heard as the 7.62mm ammunition for the coaxial machine gun also succumbed.
Back up again, Dean held his SLR at the ready, two sharp cracks of gunfire in his right ear indicating that Colour Sergeant Rose was firing his SLR, hitting back. He too pulled his rifle into his shoulder and fired two shots at a Soviet airborne soldier advancing at less than 200 metres away. Both shots missed.
The Soviet soldier retained his life for a mere three seconds longer before a British Chieftain tank ran him down. This one was powering back in reverse, the commander choosing the superior protection of the front glacis and turret rather than exposing the rear of his tank to the enemy, just to gain greater speed. The tank crashed through a shallow berm that had once been protecting an infantry position. Its tracks tore up the ground, collapsing what had once been a rapidly dug foxhole, the dead soldier still within not caring. Once inside the British forward line that stretched from the high ground of Nesselberg in the north to Hohenstein in the south, with Coppenbrugge in the centre, the driver of Two-Two-Alpha, Bravo Troop, 14/20th King’s Hussars, spun the Chieftain slightly on the spot, ensuring they were lined up with the enemy. The barrel jerked as a sabot round left it, its deadly charge striking a BMD, the penetrator rod perforating the vehicle’s turret and knocking it out instantly.
Maverick anti-tank missiles struck two T-80s. A glowing orange mass, intermingled with white-hot gases and black fumes, engulfed the two machines, destroying them both, killing all inside. Then the pair of Harrier Jump Jets banked left, then right, to fly out of the danger area, swing round and come back in for a second attack.
“Zero-Bravo, Two-Two-Alpha. In position. Over.”
“Roger that. One-One and Three-Three moving now,” answered the Squadron Commander.