On the other hand, the head of the Russian advance was closing on SS Wiking's position. He'd thought it was SS-Wiking that would have to move and get pounded by the Sturmoviks but it wasn't going to be that way. The Russian advance was orientated south of Sadovoye and that would bring their lead tank army head-on into SS-Wiking's existing positions. There was going to be a tank battle there, one that would be worthy of the history books. The tanks of SS-Wiking were preparing positions, backed up by anti-tank guns.
They were using the hills for cover so the Russian armor would have to roll over open country towards them. Whatever happened, however much the battle deserved that recognition, it still wouldn't make those history books. Even if it did make it, it would be only as a footnote. His little country and its fight to survive were little more than a footnote itself, a small residue of unfinished business from World War Two. He knew well that most of the world regarded him as a little more than a bandit, a pretentious local warlord. Model knew it and resented it. Why should he be condemned so cavalierly when nobody condemned the Americans who had burned an entire country to death?
Model kept staring at the map. If SS-Wiking couldn't stop the avalanche of Russian armor, where to go? What to do? There were two options open. Most of his army was in the North, he could try and form a defense position south of the Don Line using the existing fortifications as one frontier and doing what he could with the other. But that was just buying time. He couldn't build new fortifications, his port would be gone, his oil supply gone. The Russians would pause, gather their forces and strike again. And he would be isolated, the rump he could secure in the North would be cut off from the sea, from any hope of help.
The other option would be to head south. He could take the infantry divisions out of Walthersburg and strip the Don Line. Those units could move more easily than the heavy armor, they weren't road-bound. Who knew? XXXXVIIth Panzer Corps might be able to make it out as well. Even if they couldn't, if the air attacks were too heavy, they could be the rearguard for the retreating infantry. If they could retreat south, down towards Chechnya and Georgia, they could hold out in the mountains. And his back would be towards friendly territory, Iran. When everything finally fell apart, he and the survivors could get out to there.
Or perhaps swing more towards the Black Sea? Reform behind the Kuban river, with the mountains guarding his flanks. Northern flank at Novorossisk, southern at Sokhumi. He'd have his back to the sea but he'd have two small ports for supplies and a small oil supply. Even if the Russians caved his front in again, he and his people could get out by sea to Turkey. And he had another card to play. If Walthersburg fell, no be truthful, when Walthersburg fell, he'd lose his chemical factories, the ones that supplied him with Sarin and Tabun. The supply was at Proletarsk now, along with the specialists needed to use it. That was a key card, it needed to be protected. It had to be shifted. If the supplies were shifted to Armavit, it would be easy to shift to wherever he decided to make his final stand.
Because it was going to have to be one of the two southern options. The northern option was a death sentence. The armored units would have to do what they could. Buy time for the rest of the Army to get out of the trap. But that was a move that could wait. The critical issue now was whether SS-Wiking could hold the Russians. If they could, it opened up new options.
On Board USS Skipjack SSN-585, At Sea, Pacific Ocean.
Not for the first time, Captain Donald Runken felt that he would cheerfully kill his father. It simply was not fair that parents should indulge their twisted sense of humors at the expense of their children. At school he'd been the “Drunken Student” who'd become the “Drunken Sailor” when he'd enlisted. In fact “What Shall We Do With A Drunken Sailor' had been the anthem of his Academy class. He still winced whenever he heard it. Which seemed to be often. As a young lieutenant, his first love had been Daisy Garfield. She'd turned him down because she didn't want to spend the rest of her life as “The Drunken Wife”. Now, he was technically, Captain Donald Runken, Officer Commanding USS Skipjack, the US Navy's latest, fastest and most deadly submarine. In reality (except to his face), he was the “Drunken Submariner”. Killing his father was too quick, he ought to torture him a little first.
That would have to wait though. He had a mission to perform, one that would require skill, deviousness and total sobriety. He slipped that in just before anybody else could. As far as the world was concerned, he was taking Skipjack out for one more in a series of her interminable machinery and handling trials. It wasn't just that she was nuclear-powered, Nautilus, Seawolf and the Skate class had proved that technology. She did have a new reactor design, the S5W, but it was an incremental improvement on the earlier ones. It gave a bit more power and it had a lot longer core life than the ones in Nautilus and Skate.
It was her hull design that was different, the earlier SSNs had modified diesel-electric hulls but Skipjack had the new “body of revolution” design that made her handle underwater in ways that resembled aircraft rather than older submarines. She was truly capable of maneuvering in three dimensions. The crew were having to explore all the operational implications of that maneuverability.
That wasn't the task at hand now though. That would exploit another one of Skipjack's revolutionary capabilities. The same hull form that made her so agile underwater made her a pig on the surface. Capable of 16 knots in theory, more like 12 in any sort of sea. Slower than most diesel-electrics. However, there was a profound truth about the nuclear submarines that was slowly percolating through the fleet and awing those who thought about it. Nuclear-powered submarines didn't have to surface. They left port, dived and that was it until they returned home. If they returned home. How they handled on the surface was irrelevant, they were never there. What mattered was how they handled underwater. There, Skipjack had no equal. She'd topped out at 35 knots on her full-power trials and her nuclear powerplant meant she could hold that speed for unprecedented times. She would be doing so now, a speed run across the Pacific.
Runken flipped to his orders. There was a Chipanese task group at sea, its position was known but he had to intercept and tail it. He had to report its exact position daily to Clark Field where the information would be passed to VPB-33. The Batwings were a PB5Y group. The catch was the Chipanese task group was split into three smaller forces and he was supposed to track all three and keep the Batwings aware of what was happening. And, he wasn't to be detected in the process. That, he thought, was going to be a challenge. The Chipanese force was in three sections, a battleship group out front, a troop convoy in the middle and an aircraft carrier group bringing up the rear.
There was a second half to the orders. There was an Australian troop convoy on its way to Rangoon and the Chipanese were thought to have intentions of stopping it. His orders noted that the Freedom of the Seas and Freedom of “Navigation were vital American national interests and he was required to act in defense of those interests. If the Chipanese attempted to interfere with the Australian convoy, then they were to be stopped from doing so. VPB-33 would handle the battleships, Skipjack would handle the carrier group. They'd co-ordinate on scene.