ARMAGEDDON'S SONG (Volume 3) 'Fight Through' (50 page)

It was with horrified awe that 1CG’s commanding
officer regarded the sniper, but the staff sergeant was oblivious of the
attention, focused as he was on his next target.

Aghast at the way his anti-tank crews had been killed
to a man it took the lieutenant a moment to collect his thoughts and decide on
his next course of action. His most effective weapons were lying in the mud
between himself and the next position he had chosen, and clearly those weapons
must be recovered. Acutely aware of the attention of an enemy sniper on this
piece of the battlefield he raised his head above the level of the bank for one
brief look. No shot rang out and he was able to judge that the wind had been in
his face, so although he could not throw a smoke grenade as far as the first
crews launcher, someone in the infantry squad across the way, could.

Spread out along the bank, lying on their stomachs,
were the men he had designated the role of ammunition carriers, but even though
the nearest was only four feet behind him, when he looked back at them he had
to shout, loudly, to attract their attention as they seemed reluctant to make
eye contact with him.

“Men, make sure you’ve a hand free because we are
going to work in pairs.”

Glances were exchanged amongst the men but the young
officer continued unabated.

“We are going to have the cover of smoke, and as soon
as it has reached this bank you all follow me. When we get to the first sight
unit or launcher, the nearest two men grab it and carry on running. We will do
the same for all the sights and launchers, ok?”

After a moment’s hesitation one of the men spoke what
was on all of their minds.

“Well actually sir, that sniper is a bit bloody
deadly…is this really a good idea?”

The officer huffed in exasperation.

“I just said that we would have smoke cover, didn’t I?
He can’t shoot what he can’t see, so get set now because we go when the smoke
arrives.”

He gave quick instructions to the NCO in charge of the
rifle squad by radio and then readied himself, his fingers dug into the soft
earth for leverage and one knee drawn up as he stared fixedly up at the lip of
the bank.

Bill had lain for long moments with his sights on the
exact spot that he had last seen the leader/officer, his breathing was
controlled as Stef told him a smoke grenade had gone off upwind of his aiming
point. When the smoke appeared at the edge of his sight picture he took up the
first pressure on the trigger and allowed his last breath to slowly escape. He
was at the bottom of the breathing cycle as the man-made fog flowed across the
bank, and he gentle squeezed, firing without seeing a target and absorbing the
kick of the butt into his shoulder. Ejecting the spent case and jacking a fresh
round into the chamber he then remained perfectly still, allowing the sights to
settle back onto the same spot and waited.

It took over a minute for the grenades smoke to clear,
drifting eastwards with the breeze it thinned first to reveal the first two
crews with all their equipment, still lying in the mud where they had last been
seen. As the smoke cleared downwind it revealed a single motionless figure
slumped across the banks lip. Bill lay there for several minutes in the aim,
but none of the ammunition bearers appeared.

Pat was not witness to the demise of the Czech
officer, the first enemy vehicles had reached 3 Company’s forward positions and
were driving through 7 Platoon and 8 Platoon apparently unchallenged. The occupants
of the trenches were out of sight, awaiting the enemy fighting vehicles
presenting their most vulnerable side.

On the reverse slope a fire mission from 3 Companies
CP was received by 2 Section, Mortar Platoon, and was quickly converted into a
language the No. 1s understood.

“Charge three, elevation eleven zero
zero
, bearing seventeen thirty…two rounds smoke, normal
fire!”

A T-90, Four BTR-60s, two BTR-70s and a pair of T-72
tanks penetrated the platoon positions, driving through toward the ground held
by the in-depth platoon. From the firing ports along the sides of the BTRs the
troops inside the vehicles kept up a sustained barrage of small arms fire, but
there were no NATO troops visible.

Although Pat and the company commanders had covered
this eventuality at the O Groups, he still felt uneasy watching enemy fighting
vehicles traversing his lines uncontested. 

The smoke began to land beyond the platoon positions;
it was not a thick screen, not as thick as the screen used earlier to cause the
pile-up at the sunken lane, but enough to provide some cover to 7 and 8
Platoons 94mm men.

Shrewd US Paratroopers and British Guardsmen threw
smoke, adding a little more cover before they stood up in their firing bays,
exposing their backs to the second line of Soviet vehicles.

Sixteen men stood and lifted the bulky weapons onto
their shoulders, two were cut down almost immediately by automatic fire coming
from firing ports in the BTRs rear troop doors, and one was decapitated by a
23mm cannon shell from the approaching second line.

It had proved difficult for the section and platoon
commanders to coordinate and as such there was some duplication effort.

A single 94mm anti-tank round was quite able to
destroy a BTR, as indeed the manufacturers claimed it was all that was required
to kill any modern main battle tank, but experience had taught the men who used
the weapons to fire in salvo’s of at least two rockets be sure of knocking out
even a T-72.

Both T-72s were hit several times and left stopped and
burning, as were five of the BTRs, but the T-90 was hit only once by a hastily
aimed shot that hit a track and brought it to a jerky halt without killing it.
The surviving BTR-70 was completely overlooked, which gave its commander an
insight into their predicament. The infantry section de-bussed, coming out
fighting and taking cover in shell craters, of which there was no shortage.

For a few minutes there was an island of resistance
within the battalion lines, formed by the BTR, its infantry section, and the crippled
tank. Like a proud old bull surrounded by a pride of lions the Czech’s kept the
British and Americans at bay for a time, but it couldn’t last.

Milan rounds fired from 9 Platoon positions, 3
Company’s in-depth platoon, took out the both the BTR and the tank whilst 51mm
light   mortars and L79 grenade launchers pummelled the Czech
infantrymen with HE. Shell craters do not offer the same protection as a well
dug trench and when 9 Platoon men came forward they found no resistance, just
three wounded men and seven very dead ones.

Mark Venables Challenger crested the hill in time to
see the second line of Czech vehicles make the same error as the first line.

Keeping infantry inside vehicles only works if your
enemy very obligingly present themselves to be shot at from the vehicles ports.

The 23
^rd
MRRs commander watched his second line enter the NATO
positions and then smoke obscured his view. On the radio he heard the same
shouts of alarm as had come from his leading element, the hammer of automatic
weapons drowning out the words and then they too went off the air.

They were under the guns of the NATO tanks now, the
Chieftains and Challengers on the hillside above them no longer had any living
targets to engage but his regiment now consisted of ten tanks, nineteen BTRs
and a handful of AAA vehicles, and that included his own command group
vehicles. Not enough to punch their way through the NATO troops holding the
high ground between themselves and the autobahns but enough to perhaps
establish a foothold, a crack in the NATO line that others could widen.

The NATO troops in the forward trenches were now
firing directly at the approaching vehicles, the 94mm LAWs and Milan’s killing
a T-80 and a further three BTRs.

Taking up his radio handset again he ordered his
infantry to debus at 100m from the trenches and fight through the first
positions on foot, the tanks and BTRs would provide the gunfire support.

His own tank was travelling behind a T-90 and he
ordered them to speed up and close the gap with the last of his regiment, and
the T-90 duly accelerated but then came to a crashing halt amid a welter of
smoke and flame. The commander’s driver swerved to avoid it, and they
themselves were hit on top of the engine deck by a TOW missile fired from a
Lynx helicopter. The commander was thrown sideways, the force of the impact
smashing his face into the RT set and he saw stars for a moment. His gunner
brought him back to reality, shaking his shoulders and shouting that they had
to get out. His face felt strange and he caught sight of his reflection in the
glass covering the radios dials. His nose had a crooked look about it and the
lower half of his face was scarlet and shiny with blood. He reached up and
threw open the hatch, pulling himself half way out when they were hit again,
this time on the turret. He screamed with the incredible pain as he was
engulfed in a column of flame that propelled him out of the stricken tank and
flinging him twelve feet from it, right in the path of his command groups fast
moving ZSU-23-4.

Pat Reed watched the enemy vehicles brake to a halt
and disgorge infantry, catching the defenders on the hop as they had again
taken refuge in the shelter bays in the expectation of the next line of enemy
following the same tactics as the previous ones. The Czech’s grenaded three of
the trenches, all which were sited to dominate an area of dead ground before
the guardsmen and paratroopers realised their error. The Czech’s thereby had a
toehold to work from. By chance rather than by design the Czechs had their
first success in 8 Platoons territory, which slightly overlooked the
neighbouring positions in 7 Platoon.

Ownership of the dead ground allowed the Czechs to
corral their remaining vehicles in relative safety, tucked out of sight away
from 3 Company’s anti-tank assets.

The platoon commander of 8 Platoon led a hastily put
together counter attack to regain the three trenches, less than five minutes
later, and shot through both legs, his platoon sergeant dragged him back to his
trench, unceremoniously towing him over the muddy ground by the yoke of his
webbing as high velocity rounds cracked past them.

From his viewing point Pat watched the action, his
stomach knotting at the sight of the bodies left in the open, which highlighted
the attacks failure.

3 Company’s commander immediately ordered another
counter attack, this time by 9 Platoon with 8 and 7 providing the fire support,
but before it could get started the Czechs expanded on their success by
attacking and taking a further four of the 8 Platoon fighting positions. 

When the 3 Company counter attack did go in it got off
to a bad start because the Czechs were now using the captured positions to fire
down onto 7 Platoon, so in effect 9 Platoon had only a sections worth of fire
support coming from what was left of 8 Platoon.

The Czechs brought forward two of their remaining
tanks and a trio of BTRs firing at ranges of less than a hundred and fifty
metres at the skirmishing 9 Platoon. The attack was defeated; worse, it had
inflicted losses upon 3 Company that brought its ability to hold its remaining
territory into serious doubt.

Sergeant Higgins crawled forward and tapped his
commanding officer on the shoulder, pointing off to the left and right where
the first of the Romanian regiments were now only 600m from the forward NATO
positions on Vormundberg’s lower slopes and just encountering the largely
intact minefields before the Light Infantry and the Highlanders positions. The
exhaust trails of anti-tank missiles crisscrossed the battlefield and balls of flame
marked their terminus. The Soviet tanks fired on the move and Pat could see the
glaring differences between the T-80 and T-90 tanks as opposed to the T-72 when
they fired. The self-stabilising guns of the newer tanks pointing unwaveringly
at targets despite the rollercoaster drive, and the more numerous, elderly
T-72s who’s fire had to be for effect only, anything to give the plough tanks a
better chance at clearing paths through the minefields.

Lowering his binoculars he edged himself forward out
of the shell crater and downhill a few yards in order to get a better look at
the ground between 9 Platoon and the piece of hillside he was laying on. It was
clear to him that any further attempt to retake the captured positions would be
to reinforce defeat, the remnants of 8 Platoon had to pull back and merge with
9 Platoon, and with that done they must provide covering fire that 7 Platoon
could withdraw under to then establish a fresh position just in front of 3
Company’s CP. He did not have to offer advice though; the company commander
gave Major Popham a sitrep before requesting artillery pound on the lost
positions as additional cover for 7 and 8 Platoon’s withdrawal. It took less
than a minute for Zero to call up Three Nine with the result of his request;
time of arrival of the first round would be eighteen seconds from the time of
the present transmission.

When Pats ears picked up the drone of approaching
shells he raised his binoculars, resting on his elbows and stared at the
intended target area, but the drone changed to the nerve-jarring shriek that
informed those that heard it that they were the target. The ground leapt
beneath him, pummelling the air from his lungs again and again and he was aware
that he was screaming out loud with fear. One shell, landing closer than the
rest, lifted him and deposited in a heap further down the hillside. The world
suddenly became silent and even the debris from the still falling shells was
landing noiselessly all around him.