ARMAGEDDON'S SONG (Volume 3) 'Fight Through' (47 page)

2 Troops commander had his eyes pressed against the
rubber eyepiece of the commanders sight and when the gun smoke cleared from
outside of his Chieftain he was gratified to see six clear victims, four tanks
blowing themselves apart with the force of internal explosions, and two other
tanks, a T-80 and a T-90 were stopped in their tracks with crewmen bailing out.
The tank rounds had a far greater velocity than the helicopters TOW and Hellfire
II missiles, so as he watched the glow
of a missiles
motor cut across his line of sight to strike a T-72, which vanished from view
in the smoke and flame that accompanies a catastrophic kill. 

By agreement they were only targeting the tanks, the
enemy infantry fighting vehicles could be left for the time being, and it was
only these lighter armoured vehicles of this half company that remained to go
to ground and cover their comrades.

The second half company began leaving cover and many
of its vehicles activated their smoke dischargers in an effort to remain hidden
from the defenders.

2 Troops commander watched his own target disappear
from view behind a smoke screen generated by white phosphorus. His eyes
remained pressed to the sight as he switched to the thermal imaging facility
and the T-72 reappeared in his sights, it’s hot and warm surfaces picking out
the main battle tanks shape.

The Chieftain lurched once more but he did not have to
wait for the smoke outside to clear this time, the thermal sight showed the
shape of the T-72s turret replaced by a bright shapeless flare of light. He
looked for another target and indicated it to his gunner, so caught up in the
excitement of the action was the young lieutenant that it took a call on the
intercom from his driver to remind him it was time to relocate to another
firing position. The intended target received a stay of execution as the
Chieftain reversed out of its firing position and headed for the next.

This position was in sight of another firing position
for armour, one that a 3 Troop Challenger was just entering. The 2 Troop
Chieftain was moved into place with practiced ease by its driver and
immediately acquired another target, but before they opened fire the Chieftains
turret was struck by something on the left rear, where no enemy was supposed to
be.

The troop commander looked through the viewing blocks
and saw debris still falling to the earth but it did not originate from them.
Smoke shrouded their neighbour; the Challenger was missing two drive wheels and
the track on the right side was hanging off, so whatever had struck his
Chieftain had been in all probability an integral part of the 3 Troop vehicle.
As he watched he could see the turret moving, the main gun following the
movements of a target so the crew were apparently fine. The Challenger fired
and then a second later it simply blew up.

“
Shit
…”

“Are we hit sir?” The gunner had removed his eyes from
the sight to make the enquiry.

He ignored the question for a second, puzzling over
what had destroyed the Challenger and reasoning that as the enemy tanks were
not yet in range then a missile had to have been responsible, but their current
opposition were thought to have nothing more advanced than the AT-3 Sagger and
AT-4
Spiggot
, both of which had a range of only 2000m.

“Look for missile launches.” He told his gunner.
“Either on the ground or from a
helicop
…”

“Got it!”
Cut off by his
gunner he awaited the target indication, it followed a few heartbeats later
once the laser rangefinder had locked down the distance to target.

“Target BMP-3, three thousand five hundred metres,
extreme right hand burning tank…”

The troop commander saw the tank but not the BMP, so
further indication must follow.

“Seen.”

“Go One o’clock from burning tank, a small clump of
trees…”

He increased the magnification on the sight, seeing
only natural foliage at first but then he saw it close to the left hand edge,
hull down and half in shadow so how his gunner had seen it simply amazed him.
He stopped the gunners target I.D with a simple.

“Identified!”

A sabot already sat inside the 120mm main gun and he
ordered a reload with HESH because the heavy tungsten steel round didn’t have
the range of the shaped charge round.

As he watched, the BMP launched a further AT-15 beam-riding
missile at another NATO vehicle that its infrared laser was illuminating.

“Firing!”
Again the jolt as
the main gun fired.

The BMPs gunner had not had the benefit of any live
firing practice and it had taken two of the precious missiles to destroy the
first Challenger, he was now determinedly keeping the cross hairs on a second
Challenger but the arrival of the HESH round ruined his aim.

“Shit…ineffective hit,
reload
HESH!” something had carried the round just slightly off target to strike the
top of the BMP a glancing blow and ricochet off.

The AT-15 that was in flight continued to follow the
guidance of the infrared beam, flying into the hillside where the cross hairs
had ended up when the gunner flinched.

Angered at having missed, the BMPs commander did not
do the sensible thing in bugging out, but looked instead for their attacker.
The gun smoke was still apparent and the muzzle of the older Chieftain was a
black hole that in his magnified sight seemed to be pointing right between his
eyes, tendrils of smoke still leaching from it in the breeze.

It was a race and the Czech vehicle still had two
missiles sat on turret-mounted rails before they had to reload.

“
Hesh
loaded!”

“Firing…!” The recoil threw the big guns breach back
into the interior where it opened to accept another round.

2 Troops commander blinked to clear sweat that had run
down his forehead and into his eyes, when they refocused he saw the Czech had
already launched, the missiles exhaust fogged the sight picture.

“Driver, reverse!”       

The Czech BMP commander cursed as he saw the British
tank start to move backwards, but then the missile struck and the tank juddered
to a halt. The Czech officer punched the air.

It was the last conscious act he ever made.

Through his binoculars 23
^rd
MRRs commander saw the BMP being struck by the British tanks round and
disintegrate in one catastrophic explosion. That particular BMP-3 had been with
a Russian unit originally but had been knocked out during one of the abortive
attempts to force a crossing of the Elbe. A sabot had gone through the front
armour decapitating the driver and passing below the turret, where having then
taken off the commander’s legs it had travelled down the length of the troop
compartment and exited by punching a hole in the rear troop door. A small
electrical fire had been started in the driver’s instrument panel through which
it had passed; filling the vehicle with acrid smoke and the survivors had
abandoned the vehicle fearing an explosion was imminent. The fire had petered
out and for whatever reason the Russians had not recovered it, but a Czech
armoured recovery vehicle had, towing it back to their own mobile repair shop
where it had been patched up. The BMP-3s AT-15 Khrizantema missile system had
been far in advance of anything on the Czech inventory, so the vehicles
identifying numbers had been changed on the off chance someone may recognise it
and ask for it back.

No more of the advanced and long range beam riding
missile systems remained on 23
^rd
MRRs strength, but the regimental commander allowed
that in this attack they had at least trimmed the defending tanks numbers,
something his recent predecessor had failed to do.

The British tanks had been concentrating on his own
MBTs as they were the greater threat, but that had allowed the APCs and
Infantry Fighting Vehicles to close to a range where they could use their wire
guided anti-tank weapons to support the outclassed tanks. AT-3 Sagger and AT-4
Spiggot’s were leaving their launch rails and forcing the defenders to change
firing positions after each shot, this in turn was allowing the tanks to close
to a point where the covering half companies had a sporting chance at actually
hitting something. Greater artillery and close air support would not have gone
amiss but both had become haphazard and he was getting the run around when he
asked why.

Chobham armour had not been used in the protection of
the Chieftain family of main battle tanks, and the AT-15 carried not just one
shaped charge warhead, but two set in tandem. It was designed to defeat armour
1000mm thick even if plates of ERA, explosive reactive armour for deflecting
the blast, covered the steel. The missile had struck the 56-ton vehicle in the
last moment before the troop commanders Chieftain could have reversed from
view. The impact and detonation lifted both gunner and commander from their
seats, and only the loaders helmet saved him from a fractured skull when he was
slammed upwards into the roof of the turret. A wave of stifling heat
accompanied the darkness as all electrical power failed and thick smoke poured
through a rent in the bulkhead between the drivers and main crew’s
compartments. The troop commander couldn’t breathe in the choking atmosphere
and it was terrifying how quickly hot gasses had replaced the oxygen.

He fought against panic as he used touch to find the
hatch, groping his way upwards and forcing his jaws to remain closed unless his
mouth fill with soot as his nose already had. He threw open his hatch and
crawled out into the open, his exposed skin turned dark grey by just that short
exposure to the smoke. That same smoke was pouring from the open hatch as if it
was chimney, but allowing
himself
just one deep breath
he leant back inside, reaching around until his hand found his gunner and locked
onto a bicep, assisting him upwards. As he helped him out of the commander’s
hatch, the loaders hatch opened and the trooper who had fulfilled that function
rolled from it and slid off the turret. The first sign of an interior fire
announced itself as glowing embers within the smoke plumes issuing from both
hatches. The driver’s hatch had been blown out of its mountings by the missile
and flames were already leaping from the opening. There was no chance at all
that the driver could still be alive and so the survivors scrambled clear
before the fire found the stacked bag charges in the storage bins.

Major Venables sat atop the turret of the damaged
Challenger IIE, the radio jack plugged into his helmet so he could listen in on
the battle. News of the loss of two of his tanks and five of his men were borne
without a visible flicker, but a heavy hand had laid itself on his heart. War
fighting was not war gaming, the dead were just dead and there had been little
that was glorious in the manner of their passing, but they were his men and
they had stood their ground when lesser men would have run, they deserved a
better outcome.

A REME fitter with an acetylene torch and another with
a pry bar were close to freeing the turret but once that was achieved they
still had to take on a full load of ammunition before returning to the
fray. 

They weren’t the only heavy armour unit using this
workshop; Mark could see two other MBTs being worked on beneath camouflage
netting. One was
a
Mk 10 Chieftain from the mothball
facility, and the other was a Challenger but it too was a battlefield
replacement. It lacked the boxy armoured barbette housing for the thermal
imaging unit above the main gun, and the turret was lopsided, higher on the
commander’s side than the loaders which typed it as
a
Mk 1. Its original owners had been the 17
^th
/21
^st
Lancers; another proud regiment consigned to the
history books.

Neither had battle damage, they were here because both
had been subjected to minimal maintenance in the underground storage facility
at Bicester, and machinery does not like being idle.

He looked around for crewmen to ask who they were for
but failed to see any. The pry bar wielder provided the answer.
“Replacements sir, for your regiments C Squadron.
Transporters dropped them off this afternoon and we’ve been changing the engine
packs, but the crews for them didn’t turn up.” The young soldier gave a shrug
before carrying on.

“I heard they got taken out by an airstrike just down
the road…shit happens, eh sir?”

Yes, Mark Venables had to agree with that one, but he
had more immediate concerns that took priority over talking philosophy.

“Have they sent anyone else?”

“No sir, no spare crew left to send.”

Venables had some men without tanks although not enough
to make up a complete crew, but unfortunately that would probably change. A
quick call had 2 Troops Sunray and his men heading back toward the REME
workshop. He called up C Squadrons commander, they were not yet in action and
he had no one to collect the two machines so he raised no objections. By the
time that was complete, so were the repairs and the Challenger II headed off to
reload.