Final Storm (18 page)

A Soviet infantry squad, clad in bulky anti-chemical winter gear, burst forth from one of the BMP-2 armored personnel carriers that was traveling with the tank column. Moving clumsily in the heavy, protective clothing, the Soviets didn’t see the thin detonation wires of the M692 anti-personnel mines laid by the German artillery battery.

Their squad leader tripped the first mine.

Instantly, the explosive charge shot a lethal circle of metal fragments into the hapless Soviet soldiers, killing most of them, including the squad leader, whose legs were completely severed by the blast.

Wessel watched the scene through the powerful binoculars, quietly relaying new coordinates to the artillerymen in his battery, who in turn were adjusting the position of the M109’s big 155mm gun by slight degrees. At the same time, the other five artillery crews were coordinating their fire control with Wessel’s, each targeting a different section of the roadway that was now jammed with Soviet armor.

The young German officer took a deep breath and raised his arm once more, knowing that both his gunnery sergeant and radio operator were riveting their attention on his gloved hand, waiting for the signal.

Exhaling a cloud of vapor into the cold air, he dropped his hand and shouted the order to fire. The six big guns spoke with one, terrifying thunderclap that rolled into the sky. Puffs of black smoke emerged from their muzzles as the heavy M483 shells roared away toward the enemy.

At the precise moment, each warhead sprouted eighty-eight bomblets which rained down on the enemy armor and infantry. More than two thirds of these were anti-armor shape charges that landed on the tops of several Soviet tanks and detonated with a downward-directed explosion, blowing holes in the thin top armor and randomly killing crews with shrapnel and flames.

The rest were anti-personnel fragmentation bomblets, which exploded among the infantry who were dismounting from their BMP-2’s to clear the wreckage from the front of the column. The deadly metal shards tore through the crowded groups of Red soldiers, literally and horribly shredding them. The narrow roadway was quickly a mixture of blood and black smoke, columns of which were rising from the wrecks of burning tanks.

The shells continued to fall, creating a chaos which raged through the Soviet column. Wessel had given the order for independent fire to each artillery crew, as the billowing smoke and burning tanks made it difficult to identify individual targets. His own M109 self-propelled gun was continuing to pump shells into the forward end of the column, trying to disable more tanks in the crowded roadbed that cut through the deep forest.

But soon enough the Soviet armor began to fight back.

The T-80s’ 125mm main guns answered the shots as they tried to pinpoint the muzzle-flashes of the German artillery pieces. Shells began to whistle through the trees around Wessel’s position as the Soviet gunners searched for the range. A huge explosion behind him and to the right told Wessel that one of the enemy tanks had found part of his ammunition supply.

Then, from farther back in the Soviet column, several big self-propelled assault guns raised their 203mm barrels skyward. Though they were well behind the front end of the Soviet column, their range was being provided by the forward tank crews. Soon the huge projectiles were landing with deadly accuracy on the NATO positions.

Wessel saw two fixed gun emplacements explode under the heavy barrages, and reluctantly decided to give the order to withdraw. The remaining M109s could still drop back to safer positions and keep pouring indirect fire from longer range.

Wessel crisply relayed the order, but he would never know if it was carried out.

As he put down the radio handset, a Russian 203mm high-explosive shell struck the top of his Ml09 self-propelled artillery piece, piercing the thin armor before it exploded within the gun’s belly. A convulsive explosion shook the big tracked vehicle, lifting its thirty tons into the air as a firecracker would a tin can. Fire and shrapnel ripped through the crowded interior of the gun, setting everything inside aflame and exploding the stored ammo in a huge fireball that blew the barrel clear off the tracks and left jagged, charred edges of metal curling outward from the flaming hull.

Even before Wessel could utter a short prayer that he and his comrades would not have died in vain, he perished in the raging inferno along with his crew.

F
OR THE SECOND TIME
that day, the F-16s of the 16th took off, grouped up somewhere over central Spain and, as one, headed for the war zone.

During the flight, Hunter reviewed the main points of Jones’s briefing.

The 16th’s mission to aid Blue Dog Charlie seemed like a routine ground support operation—the kind they’d practiced endlessly back at Nellis.

The F-16 itself was better than average at close air support. But for this mission, the 16th’s primary concern would be to provide air cover for a flight of A-10A Thunderbolts. It was the ’Bolts mission to destroy Soviet armor as the recently reactivated airplane had been designed and built specifically for that purpose.

What was definitely
not
routine was Jones’s revelation that a B-52G Stratofortress would be joining them while the mission was in progress. Its payload was classified, the general had explained, but …

“When you guys hear that bomber crew call out for ‘Copperhead strike,’” he had told them, “make damn sure you clear the battle area immediately—and I mean a good three-mile clearance.”

Hunter had guessed that Copperhead had something to do with a new anti-armor weapon, but he kept his speculation to himself. If Jones had wanted them to know, he’d have explained it in the briefing.

He filed the codeword away in his mind and continued his mental preparation for the mission.

US Army Colonel Keith LaRochelle looked through his field glasses again, peering at the black column of smoke rising up from the eastern horizon.

Burning tanks, he thought. He could almost
smell
them.

Climbing up through the hatch of his own Abrams M1A1 tank, he reviewed the defensive positions his unit—the 1/32 Armored Battalion of the US Army Armored Cav—had just taken up a few hours ago.

On either side, his squad of armored beasts lay in their defiladed lairs, silent but alert, waiting for the enemy.

Just north of his position were the Leopard IIs of the German Sixth Panzer Division, dug into the soil of their homeland, awaiting the desperate battle with the invading Soviets.

LaRochelle didn’t pause for longer than a moment to consider the possibility that in the upcoming German-Soviet face-off, perhaps, among the two armored armies, were men whose grandfathers had faced each other in the Second World War at places like Kursk or Stalingrad.

No, he was not in the mood for historical irony today. The armored spearhead of the Red Army was driving relentlessly forward, apparently straight toward his position. His last intelligence report indicated that he would soon be facing an enemy tank column containing at least sixty times the armored vehicles that he and the defending Germans could muster at the point of attack.

It was by no choice that he and his men were part of the rear guard action. The Germans were defending their homeland—he and his men were just simply following orders.

Their line of defense was an open field about 60 kilometers east of Frankfurt, close by a bend in the Main River. As overall commander of the allied force, LaRochelle had arranged the tanks in a ragged crescent arching around the edges of the field.

The deployment was thin at some points, but at least his tanks would have some cover. They would need every advantage that their technology and tactics could offer them against the oncoming Soviets and their superior numbers. Before the war broke out, NATO critics often said that the West didn’t need to match the Red Army weapon-for-weapon because their quality would triumph over the Soviet quantity. LaRochelle knew, however, that in an armored clash like this, quantity had a quality all its own.

As was always the case, he heard the approaching tanks before he saw them. Their incessant clanking and grinding forewarned of their appearance like the dragging chain of an intruding ghost—an army of intruding ghosts.

It won’t be long now, he thought.

He theorized that the unit of German self-propelled guns that had dug in five klicks from his present position had slowed up the Soviets as planned, and bloodied them in the process. But he also knew that the German artillerymen were most likely wiped out for their effort and that their action—just like this one—had been nothing less than suicidal.

With this dire thought in mind, LaRochelle slid through the Abram’s open top hatch and pulled it shut behind him, dogging the heavy hatch cover. Whatever else happened, he and his crew would be inside the belly of their armored beast for the duration.

The American officer had eased his tank up against a shallow rock formation at the edge of a stand of trees. The gray, flat shapes rose just high enough to allow the long 120mm barrel of his tank to rest almost on top of the table-like slab. The granitelike mass would protect them against almost anything but a direct hit.

He now turned his attention toward the battlefield before him.

As the TC (Tank Commander), LaRochelle was in charge of target acquisition. Five minutes later, his first target came into range.

It was a Soviet tank platoon—three T-80s—moving across the vast field at high speed in a wedge at his 11 o’clock. Obviously a scouting unit from the main column, the trio of tanks were approximately one and a half kilometers away.

“Gunner!—Sabot!—Three tanks at one and half clicks, eleven o’clock!—left tank first!” LaRochelle shouted, grasping his turret override handle and slewing the big turret to the left.

“Identified!” the young gunner called back in reply, seeing the Soviet tank appear in his thermal Imaging Sight (TIS), glowing brightly against the background color of phosphorescent green.

LaRochelle immediately released the override. The third man in the turret, the loader, slammed a 120-millimeter sabot armor-penetrating round into the breech, yelling excitedly as he threw forward the gun-safety switch.

“Round up, sir!”

It was the same routine they performed endlessly in training. But as this was the real thing, apprehension hung heavy in the cramped turret. The gunner manipulated his Cadillacs—the big control yokes that bore the Cadillac-Gage inscription were the primary turret rotation control handles—and centered the Soviet tank in the crosshairs of the TIS reticle. He pressed the range-finder button with his thumb, activating the M-1’s laser sighting fire control system.

Meanwhile, the loader had pressed against a bar switch with his left knee, sliding open the blast door to the ammo compartment at the rear of the turret. He reached up for another round lying snugly in the stowage rack. Grasping, twisting, and pulling the retaining handle with one fluid motion, the loader slid the bullet-like round out of its stowage tube and into his arms. Firmly cradling the round, he pressed the knee-switch again, and the blast door slid shut. The entire process took perhaps three seconds.

The gunner peered into the rangefinder sight again, in time to see the number “1450” appear below the TIS reticle, indicating the distance to the target in meters.

“Round ready, sir!”

“Gun ready, sir!”

“
Fire!
” LaRochelle’s voice rang in the crew’s earphones.

Scarcely was the word out of his mouth when the gunner responded.

“
On
the way!” he hollered, squeezing the trigger-like firing switches on the Cadillacs. Instantly the turret reverberated with a dull thud as the gun breech jerked backward, absorbing the recoil.

Watching intently through the eyepiece of his TIS extension, LaRochelle saw the speeding shell heading right for the left side enemy tank, in the process shedding the shoe-like bushing that held the armor-penetrating rod in the center of the cartridge. A second later the Soviet tank disappeared behind a brilliant flash, followed by a shower of sparks as the round hit home.

The pyrophoric effect of the M-829 round’s depleted-uranium penetrator turned the T-80’s turret into an instantaneous inferno. The stricken vehicle lurched to a stop, giant blowtorches of flame shooting out of its blown-open hatches as its stowed ammunition began to ignite.

“Hit!” the American officer yelled out, almost unconsciously adding: “Jesus, we actually hit the Goddamn thing …”

Meanwhile, the cartridge-case stub of the spent round fell out of the breechlock and into a bag dangling below. The tank was filled with the acrid smell of the round’s burnt gases. Still the loader was ready, anticipating the next shot as he shoved the new round into the still-smoking breech and threw the safety-switch with a yell.

“Round up!” He then turned back to the ammo compartment to begin the whole reloading process again.

“Next target!” LaRochelle shouted exultantly, watching as another shell from his wingman’s tank blew up the rightmost enemy tank.

“Next tank—fire and adjust!” he announced.

Taking out the last of the three Soviet scout tanks was now totally in the hands of the gunner-loader team. Their confidence boosted by the first-shot, first-hit, the pair of American enlisted men fired the next shell with ruthless efficiency, blowing the T-80’s engine to bits in just under 40 seconds.

LaRochelle was already searching out new targets. Scanning through the split-shaped vision blocks ringing his turret cupola, he saw a Soviet BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicle behind a low earthen berm. Prone Soviet infantrymen were clustered in front of the vehicle. Two of the infantrymen were kneeling; one was holding an RPG-16 anti-tank rocket launcher.

It took LaRochelle a moment to realize the enemy soldiers were aiming the missile directly at him….

“
Damn
,” he hissed.

Frantically, he twisted the turret’s override controls, at the same instant yelling: “Gunner-HEAT-RPG squad!” into the intercom.

“Round up!” The loader screamed as he whipped an M830 HEAT—high-explosive anti-tank—round into the breech. As the turret slewed right, the gunner bellowed his acknowledgment and switched the main gun selector switch to COAX.