That British moron Fuller had seemed to believe that tanks were invincible, invulnerable perpetual motion machines that could float over unfavorable terrain and keep going regardless of any need for resupply. The flaws in his work were so obvious it was hard to understand how he had been taken seriously by so many for so long. Finland had taught the Russians the error in Fuller's theories and the lesson had been reinforced by years of fighting along the Volga front.
That was the final problem. The attack had to be on the widest possible front. Hard-won experience had shown that an attack on a narrow front was doomed to failure; the Germans could react faster than any other army in the world and they had an eerie ability to assemble the shattered scraps of destroyed units into effective fighting forces. A thrust that was too narrow would simply be smothered by counter-attacks into its flanks.
Theorists might speak of an avalanche of tanks descending into the enemy rear to wreak havoc but realists knew it just wasn't going to happen. They understood the attack had to be on a wide front, pushing as hard as possible on the widest front possible, to create so many crises that the Germans would be overwhelmed by them. Either they would eventually be goaded into lashing out with a counter-attack that would bring them out of their fortifications or the pressure would eventually snap their forces like an elastic band breaking.
It worked, it was the way battles were always won, Fuller and his foolish nonsense to the contrary. There was a catch, here there was no broad front. There were just the two narrow strips leading to a water obstacle. In fact the Don-Volga line was probably the strongest natural defensive position in the world.
And that, Andrei Mikhailovich Taffkowski thought, was where his secret weapon came in. The Volga was uncrossable, everybody knew that. At 800 meters, it was too wide and too deep for pontoon bridging. By the time the engineers had built their pontoon bridge, the Germans would have assembled one of their scratch battlegroups and the Volga would run red with Russian blood again. But Andrei Mikhailovich Taffkowski had a secret weapon, one that had the strange initials PMP. Pomtommo Mostovoj Park.
Quite simply, the best pontoon bridge set in the world. A truck mounted system that cut the time needed to bridge a river to a small fraction of the original and over distances users of previous bridging systems would regard as inconceivable. The PMP was going to allow the Russian Army to do the impossible. The First Byelorussian Front was going to make an assault crossing of the Volga River.
Cockpit RB-58C “Marisol” Carswell AFB
“You never take me out anywhere. “
The voice was sulky and had a pronounced Hispanic accent, one that had developed since Marisol had first spoken to him. Kozlowski couldn't blame her for being frustrated. She and her sisters were a new type of aircraft, and, as with all new aircraft, there had been were problems that delayed crew training. He'd been scheduled to take Marisol up for the first time last week but the whole fleet had been grounded while the engineers hastened to find out why the fuel balancing system had failed to work, causing another Navy PB5Y to crash.
It didn't help matters that ground crews and maintenance troops were still learning how to service and fix these strange new planes. They lacked technical manuals, special tools and support equipment, and the RB-58C was sophisticated in ways ground crews of earlier aircraft hadn't even considered. The metal panels for example, were a lightweight honeycomb. Damage one and it had to be replaced using special high-precision jigs and tools.
“It’s OK Marisol. Take a look at your nosewheel. We're about ready to start engines and run our Power-ON checks. I'd say that things are going about right. No problems so far. That yellow tractor should be towing us out any minute now.”
Sure enough, there was a jolt as the tractor hooked up and, for the first time in a week, Marisol was towed out of her hangar into the sunshine. Even that was no guarantee that they would fly today, her last trip out had been back to the Convair facility for upgrades. The technical problems and their fixes had meant a constant stream of those. The 305th had 36 RB-58Cs on strength now and every one of them was different. Marisol was one of the earlier aircraft and the accumulated number of modifications had meant it would be quicker to take her back to the factory for an upgrade to the latest standard. Hopefully, that included a fix for the fuel problem, that's what today's flight was to test. That and to get Kozlowski's crew finally into the air.
But this was a real flight; Kozlowski heard the roar of the air turbine cart added to the noise already caused by the electrical generator parked beside Marisol's wingtip. A jumble of electrical cords, air hoses and interphone cables lay on the ramp. That had been another delay, it took a lot of equipment to support pre-flight and maintenance of a supersonic airplane and much of it simply wasn't available in the quantities required. “Time to button up guys” and his crew lowered their overhead canopies.
In the rear seat, Dravar started to read the checklist aloud, Kozlowski responding according to the prescribed manner as the dozens of items were called out. SAC was strong on procedure and doing things right. That was a legacy of when President LeMay had run SAC. It worked and what isn't broken doesn't need fixing.
While the checklist was being read a tall access stand had been wheeled up beside the forward fuselage and then moved away again. Soon one inboard engine started turning, as the starter cart fed high pressure air to the little turbine which in turn drove the main engine. The engine turned over faster and faster, and suddenly smoke and hot air rushed from the tail cone. In a few minutes all four engines were running. The roar was deafening. Chief Gibson chivvied the ground crew as they struggled to remove the maze of hoses, cords and equipment. Now, at long last, Marisol was running off internal power, for the first time she was truly alive.
Chief Gibson raised his hands and Kozlowski eased Marisol forward. The engines roared and she began to roll only to stop abruptly as he checked his brakes. Then, once more she began to move, with the crew chief using hand signals to guide the pilot onto the main taxiway and move toward the runway. The chief saluted smartly as he waved the plane clear of its parking spot. At the wide spot in the taxiway, just short of the active runway, the plane stopped. There, Kozlowski ran the engines to a higher power setting, his last check of all instruments, hydraulics, electrical and flight control systems before takeoff.
At that point, Kozlowski cut in the afterburners on all four engines. Flames shot out behind the plane for twenty feet or more as the extra thrust was added to accelerate the plane down the runway for takeoff. Slowly Marisol picked up speed and started accelerating down the runway. More than 8,000 feet would be needed before the nose began to lift. Then she climbed, up and away from the pavement, already going over 200 miles per hour at lift-off and gathering speed every second. Behind her a Convair owned F-102 chase plane slid into position to observe the test flight.
The plan was for Marisol to accelerate normally from subsonic cruise at Mach 0.91 to reach 600 knots and then climb to about 45,000 feet. If the ram air temperature permitted she could go to Mach 2.0. Below them, Kozlowski could see the long lines of B-36 and RB-36 bombers waiting to be scrapped; there were so many of them that the first wave of scrapping had actually caused a short-lived glut of aluminum on the metals market. Behind them the F-102 was already having problems keeping up with Marisol, the sluggish performance of the F-102 was a serious problem, but there was a new interceptor joining “NORAD, the F-106 that was supposed to handle that.