Lt Col Lorenzo Rapagnetta’s Ariete MBTs from the 32nd and 132nd Tank Regiments together numbered only slightly more than a soviet tank company mustered.
God help them all if the Romanian strength was an underestimation.
The order of march was the 5th Cavalry’s Recce Troop followed by the Puma equipped infantry company, the six tanks of the 32nd, the 132nd’s seven tanks. The big German built 155mm SP Howitzers and finally the ammunition train, armoured ambulance and combat engineers armoured recovery track, with his second-in-command in a Dardo infantry fighting vehicle bringing up the rear.
Lorenzo had considered commandeering the M-113 but quickly disregarded that idea. The older APCs, the boxy battle taxis, had been pensioned off gradually as their Dardo and Puma replacements were rolled off Iveco’s production lines at a pitifully slow rate. The specialist mortar, anti-tank, air defence and command versions had yet to appear owing to budgetary constraints. It frequently left the army with geriatric command and heavy weapons vehicles sat on their lonesome awaiting recovery or repair as the rest of the army disappeared into the distance. Lt Colonel Rapagnetta had elected to hop aboard the infantry company commander’s Puma instead.
Lorenzo was originally an infantryman before being posted to an armoured squadron on receiving his majority, and as such held to the wisdom of the footsore, ‘Never walk when you can ride.’ He had however declined to spend the journey in the commander’s position, his perforated Gortex defied his best efforts at repair and besides, it was nice to be out of the rain. All in all it was an invigorating experience after the snow and ice of the Elbe’s defence, and the rain and mud of the Flechtinger Höhenzug of course, to now be speeding along smooth tarmac and enjoying a heater’s warmth without worrying about thermal signatures.
Lorenzo’s plan was simply to drive hell for leather along the auto routes to Autobahn 2 which he would follow at speed to most quickly reinforce the US troops at the autobahn junction. Once there they would go-firm and his recce troop would sweep back towards the scene of the breakthrough and locate the enemy armour.
The Romanians had a head start on him even though they were moving across country, so he had little choice but make this non-tactical dash.
With luck though the enemy had simply run out of fuel, as that was being reported of other Soviet units.
“Colonnello?”
The infantry’s OC was bending down in the commander’s hatch.
“Si?”
“Active jamming on the 2/198th’s frequency, sir.”
There are several methods of interfering with radio communication, and obviously the so called ‘silent’ jamming is preferred as there is no immediate warning that it is taking place. Active jamming is cruder and also instantly recognized for what it is.
Lt Col Rapagnetta removed his helmet and slid the vehicles radio headset into place, listened for a moment and chuckled.
Someone with a sense of humour had tied down a microphones transmit switch and placed it before a speaker blaring out a Rap song.
“Rap is to music, what firing a handgun sideways is to marksmanship.” He opined. “But it serves as a declaration of intent here.”
“How so?”
“In Mississippi good music is considered to be a mournful song about how their dog died and their car broke down, not an out of key chant about how their ‘Ho’ was unfaithful. I can’t think how they could more greatly offend a country and western fan.” Lorenzo grinned, but then it faded. The time for joking was past, and it seemed SACEUR may have been correct.
“Order the recce troop to stop, switch off and report back with anything they hear. They are only about 10k from the junction, yes?”
Five kilometres ahead of the task force the recce vehicles pulled off the autobahn and onto one of the many purely functional truck stops that serve the German road system. The Lince drivers switched off and they listened.
The rain fell unrelentingly, drumming on the thin skins of the vehicles so the troop commander left his to walk a short distance away.
The rumble of battle to the north was all there was and he cursed the rain before turning back to the shelter of his Lince but he froze in mid stride. Whatever had caught his attention was not repeated for several moments but when it recurred he broke into a run, cursing again but not at the rain this time.
Pulling open his vehicle door he barked at his radio operator.
“Tell ‘Six’ I can hear main tank guns firing to the west!”
For only half an hour Lieutenant Franklin Stiles, acting CO of C Company, Second Battalion, 198th Armoured Regiment, had been asleep on the folded down seats along one side of the first sergeant’s M113 APC. His rest was disturbed by the tinny sound issuing from a radio headset and whatever it was it was not a message, and that fact crept into his subconscious and brought him to a state of reluctant wakefulness.
“What IS that godforsaken row?” he growled.
“It’s Rap, sir.” his sergeant’s APC driver responded.
“It’s two rabid cats, high on acid, perched on a transmit switch and screwing, is what it is.”
“Weren’t you ever young sir?”
“Another remark like that one and I promise you that you’ll never get any older, soldier.”
Lt Stiles swung his feet down and as he did so Sergeant Jeffries, the first sergeant, arrived, clunking up the rear ramp and squeezing through a blackout of groundsheets.
“I think we’re being jammed sir.” He stated. “I checked everyone and no one’s fat ass is sat on a handset, or fooling around on one either.”
“Drop down to the alternative.” Stiles instructed.
“I tried that already, and battalion too, but it’s the same story.”
Franklin reached for the company’s other means, a telephone handset connected to DEL, the German emergency military phone network.
Since the construction of the Inner German Border, the ‘Iron Curtain’ of Winston Churchill’s famous speech in 1945, the nations of Western Europe had wisely undertaken the creation of an alternative telephone system for military use in time of war. It is sort of hard to keep that kind of thing from the general populace though. In the frequent exercises held during the Cold War when the various units needed to tie in on the DEL, finding the hidden access points could cause headaches for newbies. The solution was always to ask a local.
“Wo ist die geheimnis telefon, where is the secret telephone?” would be the question to a passing Fräulein, farmer or Postbote.
“Where it always is, at the left side of the oak tree and dig down a half metre.”
Consequently it was not a secret from the Soviet Bloc intelligence services for very long.
The DEL handset was dead.
Whoever was jamming them needed a radio for each known channel, so there was a limit to what the enemy could achieve. The previous occupants of the location, 2RTR, had left behind a weirdly named DFC RANTS, the British version of their own communication equipment operating instructions, and he consulted it before changing his own sets channel to that of the RMP traffic post to the west of them. Rap music blared out of the earpieces.
It was not inconceivable that they were the victim of random, though deliberate, interference with their radio transmissions but Mrs. Stiles ‘didn’t raise no fool’.
“Stand the company to, and occupy the fighting positions Sergeant.”
“No evidence of anyone moving out there sir, but you are dead right, better to be safe than sorry.” Sergeant Jeffries ducked back out the way he had come to pass the word verbally.