Chieftains (5 page)

There was an observation helicopter somewhere towards the north, and Browning was attempting to pick it out against the sky. He could hear the steady thrashing of its rotors. It sounded like one of the West German Heeresflieger BO 105s, heavier than the US Bell. The BO 105, on patrol along the frontier, would probably be armed with anti-tank missiles.

Browning suddenly saw what he first thought was a shooting star; a bright trail of light above the distant woods. With a tightening of his stomach muscles he realized the meteorite was travelling the wrong way, from earth skywards! The trail of light was joined by others, soundless from this distance.

The throb of the helicopter's rotors, now faint, was joined momentarily by a shrieking sound, followed almost instantaneously by a vivid white and orange explosion which balled out into the night as an expanding incandescent cloud, lighting the forest and open grassland beneath, and blinding Will Browning for a few seconds.

He felt tugging at his legs, and heard the anxious voice of Podini, Utah's gunner. 'What the hell was that?'

Before he could answer, the thunderous roar of the explosion reached the tank. He let his legs collapse, dropping into the interior and pulling the hatch closed above him. He could feel the heavy hull of the Abrams vibrating.

'What...'began Podini, again.

'Get your eyes to the night sights, and keep them there.' He was shouting. Hal Ginsborough the loader was somewhere in the darkness. 'Gins, load APF and stand-by.'

'There was a clank of metal as Ginsborough obeyed. 'Loaded.'

Podini called desperately, 'You want me to fire? I don't see a target, I don't see a target!'

'For Christ's sake don't fire...just prepare for action.'

The hull of the tank was vibrating again, and the thunder in the distance was continuous. There was a crackling in Browning's headphones. A voice, urgent. 'November Squadron, this is Godfather, affirm radio contact. Over.' There was interference on the wavelength – which Browning knew was jamming by some communications unit across the border. If it became too efficient then the short-range communication could be maintained by HF which was more difficult to block out, and the squadron had a wide choice of alternative wavelengths. There was a pause as the troop leaders made their answering calls, then the squadron captain again. 'Hullo November we have Daisy May...' Jesus! What a code name for full hostilities, thought Browning. 'November...prepare for incoming...'

Communication was lost in a tumult of sound that swelled around the Abrams; the mingled screams and howls of rockets, the whistling roar of howitzer shells. Browning peered, startled, through his periscope lenses. The sky was criss-crossed now by hundreds of white trails of fire. The woods beyond the frontier were alight with countless explosions. Mistakenly, for a moment he thought the barrage was solely that of the NATO artillery to the rear, but then the ground heaved and rippled. A blue-orange flash erupted a few meters to the left of the tank, hurling earth, tree branches and shrapnel skywards.

Metal splinters shrieked from the Abrams' hull.

FIVE

The first shells to touch NATO-defended soil were those of a battery of 152mm D-20s fired from eleven kilometers behind the East German frontier, the battery commander anticipating his orders by several seconds. His twenty guns began a steady rate of fire of four rounds a minute each. They were joined by several RM-70 missile batteries stationed beyond the second ridge of hills and closer to the border, their rockets launched in 'ripple' sequence from the forty muzzles on each vehicle. The intense barrage erupted along almost the entire east-west borders, from northern Germany to southern Austria, the town of Lübeck coming under an artillery blitzkrieg from the Soviet heavy 180mm S-23s with their rocket-assisted shells.

The NATO forces' response was immediate. The previous days had not been wasted. Satellites, air reconnaissance, the intelligence units working in the East German territory, ground radar and the pre-laid electronic sensors, had provided a vast quantity of information on the positioning of Warsaw. Pact troops and equipment. The pilots of the NATO air forces had been briefed and, rebriefed many times during the past hours in anticipation of imminent conflict, the artillery brigades closest to the border already knew of any concentrations of armour or mechanized infantry.

Although earlier defence plans had ruled that no NATO troops, vehicles, aircraft or projectiles should in any circumstances cross the West/East demarcation line, the enormous build-up of enemy war materials in the border areas, indicating the determination of a Sovkt invasion once it commenced, had forced the NATO military commanders to hastily revise their orders.

The first aircraft into enemy airspace were a USAF squadron of uprated F-11 1s, each with a full pay-load of 31,000lbs of explosives. Coming in from the air base at Zweibrücken to the west, snaking a way through the mountainous country, and crossing the borders only a little higher than the maximum trajectory of the shells of the heavy artillery, they launched a fierce attack on the headquarters of a Soviet mechanized rifle brigade at Wernigerode. Swinging north to bring themselves back across allied territory, two were destroyed by SA-3 Goa surface-to-air-missiles stationed close inside the East German border; the wreckage of the aircraft spiralled down unnoticed in the heavy concentrations of artillery fire across the dense woodland of the plain.

The West German Heeresflieger were in action within minutes of the landing of the first shells and rockets. Nine of their ATGW-armed Wiesels attacked a forward concentration of Russian assault armour to the east of Dannenberg.

The strength of the Soviet artillery barrage had taken a number of senior NATO officers by surprise. Many had come to believe that the effectiveness of artillery prior to ground attack was merely psychological and the Warsaw Pact countries were unlikely to waste time and ammunition by such tactics. They had thought the first signs of hostility would be the forward movement of enemy armour. The depth and power of the artillery fire caused some momentary concern until the pattern of the barrage became more obvious. The Soviet artillery, both gun and missile, were concentrating on the blanketing of known NATO positions, fortunately mostly unoccupied by the defending forces. Barracks and garrisons within range of the Soviet weapons were destroyed within the first, few minutes of the barrage. Sites which had been used in training exercises over the past ten years were all covered, as were many of the more obvious defensive situations facing the frontier. Casualties in the forward combat units of the NATO armies were minimal, though there were many amongst the unevacuated maintenance and civilian staffs of the garrisons, and in villages of the border areas.

A short break in the artillery barrage in the Helmstedt region east of Braunschweig heralded the entry of the Soviet air forces into the initial stages of the attack. A squadron of Mikoyan/Gurevich MiG-28s, the latest versions of the Flogger, swept across the borders at little more than tree-top height. They were picked up by NATO radar and, as they reached the plain to the east of Hannover, came under fire from three missile batteries deployed for defence of the city. At the same time, a formation of Antanov AN-22s, some of the largest aircraft in the world, made an attempt to deliver a diversionary paratroop attack west of Braunschweig. All eight aircraft were destroyed by a patrol of RAF-piloted Rockwell XFV-12s, vectored on to the troop carriers by the computer-linked radar. The Soviet aircraft, with low maximum speeds, were defenceless against the air-to-air missiles of the XFV-12s, powering in from the north in excess of a thousand miles an hour. Over eight hundred Soviet paratroopers were killed while still inside the aircraft. None reached the ground alive.

In several areas in the northernmost sectors of CENTAG, the first troops of the Soviet invasion forces were landed successfully on NATO soil from Hind-H helicopters and quickly formed into assault groups, aided by transport carried in by Mi-10s and Mi-14s of the 16th Frontal Aviation Army. The deepest penetration, and the largest number of men landed, was in the Fulva valley south-east of Melsungen, where heavy fighting resulted from almost immediate encounters with a NATO armoured reconnaissance unit of the Federal Republic Heer, mounted in their Spahpanzer 2 Luchs with 20mm Rh202 cannons and MG3 machine guns.

SIX

Sergeant Morgan Davis in Bravo Two heard his troop leader's voice on the radio for only a few seconds before the first of the countless explosions that followed. Lieutenant Sidworth had sounded breathless, excited: 'Hullo Bravo, this is Nine, deploy to battle positions...' Christ, thought Davis, we're already deployed, what...Sidworth corrected his orders. 'Hullo Bravo, this is Nine, deploy to battle situation, cancel...'The remainder of his words were lost in an eruption of sound that made Sergeant Davis flinch involuntarily, then duck lower in the fighting compartment. He swung his legs from the breech of the gun down the floor, feeling his boot catch Gunner Inkester on the side of his head. Inkester swore, loudly. The Chieftain bucked as the ground beneath it moved. The sounds Davis had encountered on the exercise ranges were nothing to those that now surrounded the Chieftain. He heard someone cursing in the HF, shouted conversation, then silence in the earphones. The Chieftain was pitched forward on its suspension by an explosion somewhere close to the rear of the tank. Another on the right made the hull ring and Davis's ears throb with the shock.

He pushed himself upright in the turret and gazed through the episcope. The sky was bright with fire and the searing trails of rockets, the ground pocked by explosions that briefly illuminated drifting clouds of smoke. There were flames leaping above the trees somewhere two hundred meters to the right, along the troop's position. It looked like a diesel-fuel fire, perhaps one of the Chieftains brewing-up. Davis hoped the crew had had time to bale out.

He didn't want to use the HF so switched back to the tank's Tannoy system. 'Inkester!' The metallic voice was loud in the compartment. He felt movement against his legs. 'Keep your eyes to the sights, lad. DeeJay, you okay down there?'

He heard DeeJay Hewett's voice, distantly. 'Fucking stroll-on!'

'Check your equipment.' The HF interrupted him, and, outside the barrage had diminished briefly. He heard Lieutenant Sidworth the Bravo troop leader checking the tanks.

'Hullo Charlie Bravo all stations, this is Nine, come in, over.'

Davis answered. 'Charlie Bravo Two roger, out.'

Sidworth called again. 'Hullo Charlie Bravo Three, this is Nine, come in, over.'

There was no reply for a few seconds and then Corporal Sealey of Charlie Bravo Four interrupted on the wavelength. 'Nine, this is Charlie Bravo Four. Three is brewed, sir. We saw it. Direct hit. Over.'

God, there were troop casualties already! A few moments of war, and men, friends, began to die! It was unreal, terrifying, but Davis admired the cool way Sealey had made his report; the man had only recently been promoted, and David had helped with a recommendation.

'Hullo Charlie Bravo Four, this is Nine. Any survivors?'

'No survivors, Nine. Instant flare-out.'

'Nine, roger. Out.'

No survivors. Instant flare-out. Four names to go on the first day's casualty list. Four dead, but how many affected? There would be wives, parents, children! One bloody armour-piercing shell in the first half hour of a war! Although Davis had been trained for many years to expect death in battle, it was hard to accept it when it happened. It suddenly made him aware of the illusion of protection the tank's puny armour gave to its crew. Men measured the strength of steel against their own flesh, it was a cruel deception!

The barrage returned suddenly, and for a moment Davis wondered if Soviet sensors had reacted to the troop's HF transmissions. The dawn sky had lightened and he could view the open landscape below him. With horror he saw shell explosions, like an advancing tidal wave on a beach sweeping up the lower slopes of the hill, tearing aside trees and shrubs, building a terrifying wall of flame, smoke and hurtling debris. Before he could even react the explosions were upon them, around them. He ducked his head between his arms as the Chieftain was smashed sideways, tilted fifteen degrees to the left. The metal of the hull felt alive, shuddering, vibrating...and then there was an eerie silence. Davis could hear the rasping of his own breath. Something warm trickled down his chin. He wiped at it with his hand. It was saliva.

DeeJay called through the intercom: 'Are we hit?'

Davis tried to see through the lenses of the episcope, but some of the glass blocks were crazed, restricting his arc of visibility. He swore to himself. The lenses were a weakness which had been known for a number of years; somewhere a bloody desk-bound civil servant who was never going to have to rely on them for his life had probably jammed the funds needed to have the unit redesigned and replaced.

'What's going on, Sarge?' Inkester was peering up at him, his eyes wide in the dim light.

'Nothing. Keep your eyes front, lad,' Davis answered bluntly. He refused to acknowledge the fear he had experienced at the thought of fighting partially blinded.

The explosions were now distant; the roar of shells and the howls of missiles had ceased. Davis unhitched his headphones and pulled on his respirator before cautiously opening his hatch. It was possible there was gas outside. He moved quickly, pushing himself from the cupola. The air was thick with smoke. He thought he could smell cordite and burning diesel, but knew it was only imagination; the mask filtered out all scent. He jumped hurriedly to the ground and found himself sliding down the side of a deep crater beneath the left track. He shouted with pain as something stabbed through his gloves into the palm of his hand. The shell crater was lined with red-hot pieces of sharp metal, and the ground was steaming around him. He scrambled out. A large calibre shell had exploded less than two meters from the side of the Chieftain, and the vehicle's weight had caused the excavated ground to collapse. A little closer and they would have been irretrievably bogged- down...closer still, dead! Sergeant Davis's mouth felt dry. In the lower section of woods he heard the unmistakable sound of Swingfire anti-tank missiles. Whatever their targets, they had to be within the Swingfire's 4000 meter range...close. He could imagine the chunky missiles, shedding their casing as they left the launchers, wire-guided by their operators through separation sights towards enemy tanks or vehicles. It would be tanks...assault tanks first, then the armoured personnel carriers, the Soviet infantry combat vehicles.

He clambered back into the Chieftain. The smoke was already thinning above the scrub and visibility was now beyond a hundred meters and increasing rapidly. He hooked the earphones over his cowl. 'DeeJay, back out slowly...carefully.'

'Hullo Charlie Bravo Two, this is Nine. Hold your position, over.' Lieutenant Sidworth was keeping a close ear to the conversations of his troop.

'Charlie Bravo Nine, this is Bravo Two. Sorry the ground beneath us is unsafe. We have to move, out.'

'Charlie Bravo Two, roger, out.'

Davis felt the Chieftain shudder as it settled more, drifting gently sideways as DeeJay gunned the engine. He called 'Steady...' through the HF, then switched on the Tannoy again. 'DeeJay, you've a bloody great hole right under your left track. Take her back dead straight.' The Chieftain shuddered as DeeJay rammed her into reverse, and then eased his boot down on the accelerator. It wasn't easy to move a Chieftain smoothly, but DeeJay had always claimed he could make Bravo Two feel like a Mercedes 250 SL if he wanted. He eased the tank delicately backwards. The stern slipped again, rocked and dipped. DeeJay pushed his foot down hard and the engine surged responsively. The left track skidded, then gripped. With a heave Bravo Two straightened then leapt back three meters, levelling as it did so.

'Steady,' shouted Davis. DeeJay let the revs drop and reversed the Chieftain another five meters before manoeuvring it parallel to its former position. 'Bring the bow up a fraction...more...okay, kill it. You satisfied, Inkester?' he asked the gunner.

'Yes, Sar'n.'

Eric Shadwell, the loader, called, 'There's something wrong with the Clansman, I've lost the troop net.'

'Jesus, why now?' swore Davis, then remembered he was still speaking through the Tannoy. He switched it off. 'Then get it re-netted...and move, laddie.' The last thing he wanted to happen now was to lose communication with the rest of the troop. Everything seemed to be happening too quickly, and he knew how dangerously mistakes could compound.

Shadwell was twisting at the controls of the radio set, then yelled: 'It's okay...I think it's okay.'

Davis spoke into it: 'Charlie Bravo Nine, this is Charlie Bravo Two, Manoeuvre completed successfully. Over.' He ducked into the turret and slammed close the hatch.

Sidworth's acknowledgement was laconic. 'Roger Charlie Bravo Two...' Then there was a break and Sidworth said, 'Here we go, Bravo. Watch for the command tank...wait as long as you can...out.'

The last black fog columns of the HE explosions were drifting clear of the plain and joining td form a rising grey curtain when dark smoke grenades began bursting.

Davis saw the enemy armour. He had expected perhaps a single squadron, edging cautiously into the fields of the plain in the direction Sidworth had indicated. But far below him were row upon row of Soviet tanks, sixty or seventy, already crossing the misty corridor of ploughed ground that with its barbed wire had constituted the frontier. As his fear magnified them, for a moment they appeared as invincible monsters far greater in size, far more heavily armed than anything he had ever imagined. Where was the minefield? Could nothing stop them? What were the NATO gunners doing? Why weren't they firing? A minefield was only any good when covered by artillery. Davis controlled his growing sense of panic. Fear could take away a man's reason, make him commit fatal errors. He had a lot to live for...Hedda, the twins,...their future...his own. His hands were trembling, so he gripped the turret controls more tightly. Work to the book, he told himself. Take it easy and stay calm. Don't forget the lessons, the hundreds of hours of practice. Trust Bravo Two, she's a good tank. He took several deep slow breaths, then forced himself to concentrate on the terrifying landscape ahead.

The smoke screen was becoming denser but he could still see the advancing Russian tanks. They had already suffered heavy casualties. Several were burning in the ploughed strip of land that was freshly pitted with craters. In the woods beyond, more smoke, obviously from oil and fuel fires, was wreathing above the trees. He tried to identify the enemy vehicles. Some, at the head of the attack formation, were the new T-80s fitted with mine-clearing ploughs, but he recognized T-72s and the earlier T-62s It looked as if the Soviet division was using every available piece of armour it could find to add weight to their thrust.

Part of the battle group's Swingfire battery was concealed in a shallow gulley skirting a thin plantation of larches. From his position well above them on the ridge of high ground, Davis could see their vehicles, and even a few of the men. They were less than three thousand meters from the first wave of Soviet tanks, and had either survived the storm of the barrage, or been moved quickly into position under cover of the smoke. He watched two of their missiles leave the launchers almost simultaneously. He was unable to follow their course, but one of the leading T-80s disappeared in an inverted cone of fire, and a second later there was explosion at ground level beside a T-72, which slewed sideways as it shed a track.

There were two Soviet Hind-F gunships swinging across the border woodland, and Davis heard himself shout an impossible warning to the crews of the Swingfires. The two aircraft came in at little more than a hundred feet, ominous dark vultures hovering above the ATGWs. One of the vehicle's gunners must have seen them for there was a burst of fire from the GPMG on his cupola, and the helicopter on the right jinked, then steadied. There was flame beneath its stubby wings and momentarily Davis thought it had been hit, then the flame left the gunship as a pair of rockets traced downwards. They struck the slab side of one of the FV 438s simultaneously, bracketing the maintenance hatch. Davis saw the vehicle explode into fragments, its wreckage hurled high into the air by the force of the detonation. A second pair of 'Spirals' had left the other Hind, and one of the two remaining FV-438s received a direct hit to the rear of the cupola. The third, its tracks racing, was hurtling in reverse through the thin woods almost as though it were out of control, the pines flattening beneath it, smashing out of its path. It jerked to a stop, and as it did so one of its Swingfire missiles left the launcher, ricochetted from the ground a hundred meters along its path, and then exploded above the woods. Davis could feel the terror of the men within the vehicle. Its tracks churned again, failing initially to get traction, then it spun briefly as the driver desperately sought a route through the trees that would lead him to deeper cover. The first of the gunships hovered above and behind the vehicle, its pilot taking time to give 'his gunner a clear shot. It seemed to Davis that the gunship was toying with the FV-438, a hawk suspended above its prey. He saw white trails from its missiles, then the smoke of their explosions hid the destruction of the remaining Swingfire vehicle. But the Hind-F had remained stationary too long and at too low an altitude. One of the battle group's reconnaissance Scimitars on the lower slopes of the woods had watched the destruction of the FV-438s, its gunner following the movements of the second helicopter through the sights of the Scimitar's Rarden 30mm cannon; the temptation when the gunship remained stationary at point-blank range, and within the elevation of his cannon, was irresistible. A four-round burst of armour piercing special explosive Hispano shells tore through the fusilage. Three failed to explode against the light materials of the aircraft's body, but the fourth struck the port turboshaft, Mowing away the upper part of the engines and the complete rotor assembly. Davis swore jubilantly as the aircraft plunged nose first into the ground and instantly caught fire. There could be no survivors in the inferno of blazing fuel and detonating ammunition. He felt a sharp pain in his mouth, and tasted blood. In the excitement of the past minutes he had bitten through the inner part of his lower lip. Davis's war was only forty-six minutes old.