S/Sgt Vernon sprinted along the hard shoulder to where Simon was just rising to his knees in the shell scrape, a claymores clicker in one hand.
“Where the fuck did you get that?” Vernon asked.
He did not get an answer, but he did get to see Simon smiling for the first time.
What was left of the Landrover, and that wasn’t much, was scattered across all the lanes of both carriageways. The twisted chassis and engine block sat on perforated, burning tyres several feet from where the vehicle had been stopped. The skinned carcass of what had once been a man was draped over the central crash barrier.
The 1 Wessex sentries were wide eyed and hyper, still shocked at what had occurred. A vehicle had turned up and an officer had given the correct answer when challenged but his pointsman had still blown him away, quite literally.
Over on the airfield they were standing-to also, but not with the same sense of urgency.
What had happened, why was there no air raid warning?
With all the noise of the helicopter traffic no one noticed what was appearing out of the forest at the north east corner until the Romanian T-90s gunned their engines and charged at the wire mesh perimeter fence.
Three enemy tanks, externally clad in blocks of explosive reactive armour which gave them the appearance of scaly skinned monsters were here, behind the front lines?
The left-most T-90 struck a bar mine, a severed drive wheel flew high in the air, sections of amputated track spun away but no sooner had it ground to a halt its main gun elevated slightly and began to track its prey.
The crippled tank’s target was a slow moving CH-53 Sea Stallion with a full cargo net of underslung artillery ammunition. There had been no wave off broadcast from the tower, no warning from the ground, and although the large machine in its German army camouflage paint scheme was moving too quickly for an accurate shot with a standard main gun round, it was a sitting target for the 125mm, beam-riding 9M119M Refleks missile that the main gun fired in its direction.
Essentially an anti-tank missile that was fired like a shell, the Refleks flew down the beam of the tanks laser range finder to its target. Although it was unsuitable against fixed wing aircraft, it worked well against the slower rotary wing variety.
The missile struck the German Sea Stallion’s engine housing and detonated against main transmission, causing the heavy lift machine to immediately depart from controlled flight. It dropped like a stone with no hope of auto-rotation, falling the hundred feet onto the previously wrecked runway, landing directly upon its cargo net. The metal main rotors still rotated at a blur until they truck the tarmac and shattered, sending jagged sections for hundreds of metres in all directions. The small cluster of a half dozen airmen and women at the mobile canteen were sliced in two by a six metre length of rotor blade.
The Sea Stallions fuel tanks ruptured and the volatile contents ignited explosively.
The general reaction was initially one of shock, with ground crew, loaders and even the thirty strong Bundeswehr defence platoon left gawping instead of reacting for several vital seconds.
The control towers panoramic windows shattered into a hundred thousand shards of glass shrapnel and the roof blew off as the T-90 fired a second time.
Only now did they collectively realise the danger they were in.
Ground personnel scattered, seeking cover from the other two tanks that ploughed through the perimeter fence and without pause raced towards the flight line, machine guns and main armament firing.
It was pandemonium, and panic increased further as the Sea Stallion’s cargo of 155mm artillery shells and bag charges began cooking-off in the flames.
The airfield’s Spanish air defence platoon reacted positively, and achieved a faint but workable infrared lock on the stationary T-90 with a truck mounted Mistral sited at the north west corner of the airfield. It was a brave attempt but a 2.95kg charge and tungsten ball bearings may down a thin skinned aircraft but they barely scratched the Soviet tank’s armour plating. Before the crew could launch a third missile the tank’s commander had located their firing point and destroyed the launcher, the vehicle and the crew with a main gun round.
East of the by now besieged Mississippi National Guardsmen of 198th Armoured Regiment at TP33, unfriendly eyes watched the Italian reconnaissance troop rejoin the autobahn and race towards the cutting below them.
“Let them pass, they are only glorified off-road jeeps.”
The ambushers stayed in cover until the sound of the engines were fading.
Two kilometres east of them an unusual roadblock was in place on the westbound carriageway in the form of the 155mm howitzer gun line and ammunition train. The support vehicles had all moved off the autobahn but were close by in a temporary harbour area, beneath the flyover outside the village of Uhry.
Lt Col Rapagnetta swapped vehicles and the remainder of the task force split into platoon packets with tactical spacing between each and continued on their way.
First infantry platoon of the 5th Cavalry floored the accelerators on their young commanders orders in an attempt to catch the recce troop and they quickly drew ahead of the main body, entering the tree lined cutting at 65mph where disc shaped MON-100 directional mines attached to the trees detonated.
As a dedicated anti-personnel mine the occupants with the Pumas were safe from the shrapnel, but not so the tyres or the vehicle commanders.
All four of the APCs were hit; clods of rubber from shredded tyres bounced away as steel wheel rims raised showers of sparks. The second Puma in the packet struck the central crash barrier and flipped onto its roof where it was t-boned by the third vehicle.
Second platoon came into view moments later and having braked hard and avoided entering the ambush site it lost the platoon commanders vehicle in a catastrophic explosion. The three survivors reversed at speed and avoided falling victim to Sagger missiles such had taken out their platoon headquarters.
With the first platoon APCs crippled and immobile it was easy work to finish off the vehicles with RPG-29 rocket grenades and cut down the survivors with small arms fire.
2km is no distance at all for most modern artillery but the time of flight was exceedingly long in relative terms. At maximum elevation the cutting was engaged by the PzH 2000 howitzers firing in burst mode, each gun firing three rounds in nine seconds, the first round was fused for air burst, the second for super-quick and the third for delay. As the rounds would fall vertically the ambushers would receive no warning.
Rock and earth were still falling as the task force approached the cutting again and an Ariete flattened a section of the central crash barrier to allow access to the eastbound lanes. One side of the cutting had collapsed, sliding onto the roadway. There was no living trace of the enemy who had been there.
The 11 tank fired but failed to kill its target despite a hit. It had already destroyed a BTR-70 from its current position and it now erred on the side of caution, changing position. The enemy’s explosive reactive panels were effective, and often as many as three rounds were required from the M1’s lighter 105mm main gun to secure a kill. The Javelins on the other hand had no trouble with single hit kills having been designed for that purpose. The missile had two shaped charges in tandem and even if the first’s energy was dissipated by striking an ERA panel, the second charge took care of business.