Dougal squatted and peered at his wristwatch for several seconds before turning his head and speaking calmly to his platoon sergeant.
“You may want to put that down and take cover, Sergeant Blackmore, this could be close…” cupping his hands to his mouth he called out the warning. “..INCOMING!”
His sergeant blinked as if not recognising the confident young officer before him. Gone was the hapless and bumbling subaltern, dismissed forever with the first hostile shot.
The first belt of 81mm mortar rounds landed to the right rear of the second infantry company.
“Hello Five Zero Charlie, this is Six Nine, adjust fire, shift Left one zero zero, Down zero five zero, over!”
“Five Zero Charlie, wait…shot One Two Four, over!”
Again Dougal looked intently at the illuminated hands of his wristwatch as the second hand counted off twenty four and again shouted “Incoming!” with four seconds to spare.
With no warning whistle such as would accompany artillery rounds, the next belt was ‘on’ and devastating.
It did not land dead centre, it straddled the left flank platoon, blasting apart all of those on their feet at the time.
“Six Nine…adjust fire, shift Left zero five zero, Down zero five zero…”
Kneeling beside the body of the partially stripped Canadian corporal, the commander of the Russian 32nd MRD’s reconnaissance battalion listened to the sound of his gamble failing. So be it, he thought, it had been worth trying as they had found the four-man listening post asleep, so there had been the chance that the same weariness was affecting their main body. Taking a position by stealth was far more economic than the alternative.
Raising his glasses he watched the companies of infantry who had accompanied his men. They were caught out in the open by mortar fire that was being walked through them in a well-controlled manner.
“Well comrade, we try the old fashioned way instead, yes?” he said resignedly, addressing the infantry’s battalion commander.
To their rear, 120mm mortars fired their bedding-in rounds towards the woods as the officers returned to their respective command vehicles.
Dougal was peering cautiously over the lip of their trench, called in adjustments as if this were a table-top exercise on the Puff Range at RMCC Kingston with, as the name implies, puffs of talcum powder representing the fall-of-shot on a chicken wire and painted hessian mock-up of a landscape, instead of a real battlefield.
The enemy infantry had gone to ground; the only sensible option and the platoon’s sniping pair left the trench in the rear. Running forwards, on their feet due to the absence of incoming fire, and the bursting HE providing cover from view almost as effective as that of smoke. Even the PKs that had been suppressing the platoon’s ‘Gimpy’ SF were now silent.
Both snipers sprinted past Dougal and Sergeant Blackmore, intending to crawl the last few yards into cover.
Dougal was thrown backwards, the front wall of the trench he had been leaning against having physically jolted him off his feet.
The ground heaved; trees exploded sending wicked splinters a foot in length flying outwards, and the sound ruptured eardrums.
A small portion of the division’s mortars pounded the woods but the artillery merely laid on their guns and waited.
The Canadian’s mortar lines were unable to counter-battery fire the larger Russian 120mm tubes which were beyond their range.
ARTHUR, the brigade artillery’s back tracking radar followed the azimuth of the incoming rounds and provided a location for the enemy mortar line that was accurate to within ten feet. The operators were sceptical though as these mortarmen were top class, not some green or third rate unit so why hadn’t they scooted and a second mortar line taken over already? That was how the Russians worked, three, four and sometimes five mortar lines sharing the same fire mission, in turn they would drop three or four rounds per tube and be gone before the counter battery fire arrive. In that way the target received constant attention.
Whatever the reason for the Russian’s actions the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery’s M109s received the fire mission. The 155mm guns fired on it, but only a single round per gun.
The Russian counter battery was fast but it still hit an empty sack, whereas the air bursting 155mm rounds destroyed two tubes and killed or injured a dozen mortarmen.
The artillery’s game of dodge-ball had begun.
The Russian mortars fire stuttered and failed but fallen trees and amputated boughs lay tangled on the floor of the wood. In amongst that wreckage was Dougal Ferguson’s platoon.
Each man knows his number in his own section and the section commanders used this to call the roll.
Dougal had feared that the platoon had been wiped out. It was not as bad as that, but it was not good either.
Initially they had one dead, three wounded and four were missing. Two of the missing men were the snipers and a crater sat at the spot where Dougal had last seen them running forwards. The remaining pair had been inside their trench’s shelter bay, protected from airbursts and the shrapnel from tree bursts, but a near miss had collapsed the trench on top of them. Frantic digging had uncovered the soldiers but they were as dead as if it had been a direct hit, asphyxiated by the weight of earth as much as by the lack of oxygen.
When counting the listening patrol, which had to be presumed dead, the platoon had lost just over half its strength. The three wounded were passed back to the company sergeant major for transport to the brigades medical aid centre, but the dead were left where they had been found because the artillery and mortar fire began again, prepping for the next attack.
CHAPTER 4
The Recce Troop, 5th Cavalry Regiment of the Ariete Armoured Brigade led the way in their four-wheel Lince multi-role vehicles, speeding ahead of the task force.
Lt Col Lorenzo Rapagnetta had been given the task of finding and destroying the missing Romanians, the T-72 and T-90 MBTs along with their accompanying BTR-70 and BMP-2 IFVs. Pierre Allain had been clear and precise in the orders he had given, as he had also been with his explanation as to why the Ariete had been selected for the task. The ground they had been defending was more suited to an infantry heavy unit with howitzers for artillery support such as their northern neighbours, Britain’s ‘3 Para’ in the leg infantry role, and the 105mm light guns of 7 Parachute Regiment, Royal Horse Artillery on dedicated call. He was to leave the 11th Bersaglieri Regiment, two companies of the 5th Cavalry Regiment’s infantry and all but a battery of the 132nd Artillery Regiment. The remainder of the brigade, its thirteen surviving Ariete main battle tanks, an infantry company mounted in Puma AFVs, three PzH 2000 155mm SP howitzers and a recce element were to reinforce the Mississippi National Guardsmen of C Company, 2/198th Armored.
SACEUR, General Allain, was positive that the enemy force, possibly a tank battalion, was driving towards the nearest of the critical autobahns. By seizing Autobahns’ 2 and 39 where they met east of Brunswick, the Red Army would have fast transit routes to all of the Dutch and Belgian ports.
Lorenzo knew that SACEUR was aware of his brigade’s current state, and Lorenzo was also aware of the condition of the 2/198th. Both units had been in the thick of NATOs fight with the Soviet 10th Tank Army, fighting that numerically superior monster to a standstill only to have then been struck by the fresh Third Shock Army, which then forced the Elbe.