“Apart from being shit scared, sir.”
“So you should be with Kokorev driving this bloody thing.”
“Thank you, sir,” called a distant voice, a Junior Sergeant (мла́дший сержа́нт), tucked away upfront, in the centre forward of the tank, just beneath the tank’s main gun.
“Sergeant Kokorev, we have every faith in you,” called Trusov. Although both of his crew were very junior to him, and often in the Soviet Army were treated badly by senior officers, spending lots of time confined in a tank had the effect of lowering the hierarchical barriers. They had both been with him for over a year, so the Lieutenant Colonel knew their strengths and weaknesses, and they his foibles. He had faith in their skills and they in his as a tank and battalion commander; something they would all need to call on over the coming hours, days or even weeks.
“Five minutes and we’ll pull forward about 100 metres; then stop and I’ll signal One Company to pass us.”
He looked at his Senior Sergeant in the dimly lit turret. “Ready?”
The gunner patted the chipped, yellow-painted auto-loader to his right. “Me and my comrade here won’t let you down, sir. He’s been behaving of late.”
Like the T-64 and the T-72, the T-80 had an auto-loader. The Korzhina auto-loading system, fed vertically from an ammunition carousel, did away with the requirement for a fourth member of the crew. But it wasn’t without its problems. Barsukov, however, seemed to have the knack of keeping the loader functional.
Trusov climbed back up into the top of the turret and checked the area around him. Apart from the engines that were still ticking over and the occasional sound of an accelerating gas-turbine engine as a T-80 manoeuvred left of the main column, all was quiet. His two companies, one each side, would be led to their locations by one of the recce soldiers, and, once in place, his battalion would be ready to advance. He checked his watch again: minutes to go.
The lieutenant received the signal from Headquarters and instructed his two Proporshchiks to carry out their respective tasks. The two warrant officers climbed down from the combat cabin. One went to turn on the missile batteries, the internal guidance system springing into life. The internal gyroscopes started to spin. It was 0355. Now the batteries had been initiated, the launch had to commence within the next fifteen minutes. They had plenty of time though: the launch was due in the next five minutes, giving them a buffer of ten. The other warrant officer checked over the physical state of the rocket. On completion, they returned to the combat cabin and waited, the lieutenant checking his watch frequently, his nerves starting to fray as a consequence of tiredness and the waiting.
The three men looked at each other but no one spoke. There was nothing to say that hadn’t already been said over the past few days. The initial part of the deployment had been done with some excitement. They were getting the opportunity to do what they had been trained for, week after week: firing one of the rockets for real. The two Proporshchiks were fairly well educated, or at least above that of the normal Soviet conscript. They had to be to carry out the more technical role required of them. They had talked to each other about the battle that was to come, out of earshot of the lieutenant, and the initial euphoria of operating in a wartime scenario was rapidly dissipating as they began to think through the consequences of what their country was about initiate. For the lieutenant, educated at the ‘Peter the Great Military Academy of the Strategic Missile Troops’, the realisation of the consequences of his country’s actions had sunk in much earlier: they were going to war with some of the most powerful nations in the world. Once their missile had been launched, they were committed. There would be no turning back.
A buzz from the consul in front of the lieutenant brought all of them back into focus. It was the signal to launch.
Twelve seconds: the launch sequence begins.
Ten seconds: the turbo pump begins to power up.
Eight seconds: the fuel is pumped into the rocket motor.
Six seconds: oxidiser is pumped into the rocket motor.
Four seconds: the rocket motor ignites.
Two seconds: at thirty per cent power, the rocket blasts into life.
Launch! The rocket engine switches to full power, like thunder, the TEL vibrating from the force of the thrust pressing down on the deflector plate, the stabiliser pads pressing into the earth, fighting back against the enormous 13,000 kilograms of thrust. A black, yellow and red cloud shoot out horizontally from the base of the rocket, a cloud engulfing the SCUD-B TEL as a fiery yellow flame blasts the rocket skyward.
The vehicle shook as it was buffeted by the power of the rocket’s engines as the R-17 missile climbed faster and faster, gathering speed until it could reach its maximum of over 5,000 kilometres per hour. Gathering more and more speed, it climbed in an arc, heading for its unsuspecting target. Close by, three other SCUD-B TELs released their R-17 missiles, four bright yellow streaks across a slowly lightening sky. Elsewhere, others were in flight, on a path to attack NATO targets in the West. Across the entire Soviet and NATO front, in the region of 200 R-17s were en route to cause mayhem and destruction.
The four graphite fins of the thrust nozzle adjusted themselves in minute movements as the inertial guidance system transmitted instructions to ensure it was on the right path and the rocket motor powered the missile to its intended target: the small village of Supplingenburg. Its sister missile was aimed at the same target. The other pair streaked towards Supplingen, further to the south. After a full minute, as the missile was not going the full extent of its full 300-kilometre range, explosive squibs shut off the flow of fuel and oxidiser, the engine losing power. At a height of close to sixty kilometres, the deadly missile and its warhead containing forty-two 122mm, high-explosive fragmentation submunitions fell silently, just the wind rushing past its sleek body and fins. Ready to deliver death and destruction on its target below.
Trusov jumped as the artillery barrage erupted behind him. Looking back, he could see the glow in the sky, even through the foliage of the trees, almost like a false dawn, as hundreds of artillery tubes fired their deadly shells and missiles overhead, their target the NATO forces that were waiting for them. The rumble grew into a crescendo as first the 152mm 2S3s fired salvo after salvo, joined by the 160mm mortars, 122mm 2S1s, over 600 tubes in total allocated to 10th Guards Tank Division’s breakthrough sector. Higher up, beneath a blanket of rapidly fading stars, Trusov could see streaks of light passing overhead, the image of the havoc and destruction they would cause making him shiver.
Barsukov popped his head out of the other turret hatch, unable to speak as his mouth gaped open as missile after missile and shell after shell streaked across the sky. The BM-27’s 220mm rockets, one after another, screamed from the eighteen vehicles, one leaving a multiple-rocket launcher system nearly every second, delivering their lethal cargo on top of the NATO troops still in the process of digging in. Two hundred and eighty-eight, each with a ninety-kilogram warhead, would swamp an area with explosives a square kilometre wide. Trusov and his gunner looked on in awe. A blanket of death was about to descend on an enemy that was waiting patiently for an attack they thought would probably never happen.