Part 41 (1/2)
26.
Impressions
STENDAL, GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC.
The flight in was bad enough. They'd come in aboard a light bomber, racing in at low level to a military airport east of Berlin, no more than four staff members to an aircraft. All had arrived safely, but Alekseyev wondered how much of it was skill and how much luck. This airfield had clearly been visited by NATO aircraft recently and the General already had his doubts about what his colleagues in the Air Force had told him about their ability to control the sky even in daylight. From Berlin a helicopter took his party to CINC-West's forward command post outside Stendal. Alekseyev was the first senior officer to arrive at the underground bunker complex, and he did not like what he found. The staff officers present were too concerned with what the NATO forces were doing and not concerned enough with what the Red Army was supposed to be doing to them. The initiative had not been lost, but his first impression was that the danger was real. Alekseyev located the command operations officer and started a.s.sembling information on how the campaign was going. His commander arrived half an hour later, and immediately took Alekseyev into his office.
”Well, Pasha?”
”I have to see the front at once. We have three attacks under way. I need to see how they are going. The German counterattack at Hamburg was repulsed, again, but this time we lack the forces to exploit it. The northern area is currently in stalemate. Our deepest penetration to date is just over one hundred kilometers. The timetable has gone completely to h.e.l.l, losses are far higher than expected-on both sides, but worse for us. We have gravely underestimated the lethality of NATO ant.i.tank weapons. Our artillery has been unable to suppress them enough for our forces to achieve a major breakthrough. NATO air power is hurting us badly, especially at night. Reinforcements are not getting forward as well as we expected. We still have the initiative in most areas, but unless we achieve a breakthrough, that may not last more than another few days. We must find a weakness in NATO lines and launch a major coordinated attack soon.”
”The NATO situation?”
Alekseyev shrugged. ”Their forces are fully in the field. Further reinforcements are coming in from America, but from what our prisoners have told us, not so well as they expected. My impression is that they are stretched very thin in some areas, but we have not as yet identified a major area of weakness. If we can find one, and exploit it, I think we can rupture the front and stage a multidivisional breakout. They can't be strong everywhere. The German demand for forward defense compels the NATO forces to try and stop us everywhere. We made the same mistake in 1941. It cost us heavily. It must be doing the same to them.”
”How soon do you wish to visit the front?”
”Within the hour. I'll take Captain Sergetov with me-”
”The Party man's son? If he's hurt, Pasha . . .”
”He's an officer in the Soviet Army, whatever his father might be. I need him.”
”Very well. Keep me posted on where you are. Send the operations people in. We have to get control of this wh.o.r.ehouse.”
Alekseyev commandeered a new Mi-24 attack helicopter for his reconnaissance. Overhead, a flight of agile MiG-21 fighters guarded the General as the helicopter skimmed low over the treetops. He eschewed the seat, instead crouching by the windows to see what he could. A lifetime of military service had not prepared him for the destruction that lay on the landscape below him. It seemed that every road held a burned-out tank or truck. The major crossroads had gotten particularly severe attention from NATO air power. Here a bridge had been knocked out, and immediately behind it a company of tanks waiting its repair had been savaged. The charred remains of aircraft, vehicles, and men had transformed the neat, picturesque German countryside into a junkyard of high-technology weapons. As they crossed the border into West Germany, things only got worse. Each road had been fought for, each tiny village. He counted eleven smashed tanks outside one such village, and wondered how many others had been pulled off the battlefield for repair. The town itself was almost totally destroyed by artillery and resulting fires. He saw only one building that looked like it might be habitable. Five kilometers west, the same story was repeated, and Alekseyev realized that a whole regiment of tanks had been lost in a ten-kilometer advance down a single road. He began to see NATO equipment, a German attack helicopter identifiable only from the tail rotor that stuck out from the circle of ashes, a few tanks and infantry carriers. For both sides the proud vehicles manufactured at the greatest expense and skill were scattered on the landscape like trash thrown from a car window. The Soviets had more to expend, the General knew, but how many more?
The helicopter landed at the edge of a forest. Just within the treeline, Alekseyev saw, antiaircraft guns tracked them all the way to the ground. He and Sergetov jumped out, ducking under the still-turning main rotor as they ran into the trees. There they found a cl.u.s.ter of command vehicles.
”Welcome, Comrade General,” said a dirty-faced Red Army colonel.
”Where is the divisional commander?”
”I'm in command. The General was killed day before yesterday by enemy artillery fire. We have to move the CP twice a day. They are becoming very skilled at locating us.”
”Your situation?” Alekseyev asked curtly.
”The men are tired, but they can still fight. We are not getting sufficient air support, and the NATO fighters give us no rest at night. We have about half our nominal combat strength, except in artillery. That's down to a third. The Americans have just changed tactics on us. Now, instead of attacking the leading tank formations, they are sending their aircraft after our guns first. We were badly hurt last night. Just as we were launching a regimental attack, four of their ground-attack fighters nearly wiped out a battalion of mobile guns. The attack failed.”
”What about concealment!” Alekseyev demanded.
”Ask the devil's mother why it doesn't work,” the colonel shot back. ”Their radar aircraft can evidently track vehicles on the ground-we've tried jamming, we've tried lures. Sometimes it works, but sometimes not. The division command post has been attacked twice. My regiments are commanded by majors, my battalions by captains. NATO tactics are to go for the unit commanders, and the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds are good at it. Every time we approach a village, my tanks have to fight through a swarm of missiles. We've tried rockets and artillery to suppress them, but you can't take the time to blast every building in sight-we'd never get anywhere.”
”What do you need?”
”Air support and lots of it. Get me the support to smash through what's opposing me, and I'll give you your d.a.m.ned breakout!” Ten kilometers behind the front, a tank division was waiting for this very unit to rupture the front-but how could it exploit a breakthrough that was never made?
”Your supply situation?”
”Could be better, but we're getting enough forward to supply what we have left-not enough to support an intact division.”
”What are you doing now?”
”We launch a two-regiment attack just over an hour from now. Another village, named Bieben. We estimate enemy strength as two understrength battalions of infantry, supported by tanks and artillery. The village commands a crossroads we need. Same one we tried to get last night. This a.s.sault should work. Do you wish to observe?”
”Yes.”
”Then we'd better get you forward. Forget the helicopter unless you want to die. Besides”-the colonel smiled-”I can use it to support the attack. I'll give you an infantry carrier to get you forward. It will be dangerous up there, Comrade General,” the colonel warned.
”Fine. You can protect us. When do we leave?”
USS PHARRIS.
The calm sea meant that Pharris was back on port-and-starboard steaming. Half the crew was always on duty as the frigate held her station north of the convoy. The towed sonar was streamed aft, and the helicopter sat ready on the flight deck, its crew dozing in the hangar. Morris slept also, snoring away in his leather bridge chair, to the amus.e.m.e.nt of his crewmen. So, officers did it, too. The crew accommodations often sounded like a convention of chainsaws.
”Captain, message from CINCLANTFLT.”
Morris looked up at the yeoman and signed for the message form. An eastbound convoy one hundred fifty miles north of them was under attack. He walked back to the chart table to check distances. The submarines there were not a threat to him. That was that. He had his own concerns, and his world had shrunk to include them only. Another forty hours to Norfolk, where they would refuel, replace expended ordnance, and sail again within twenty-four hours.
”What the h.e.l.l's that?” a sailor said loudly. He pointed to a low-lying trail of white smoke.
”That's a missile,” answered the officer of the deck. ”General quarters! Captain, that was a cruise missile southbound a mile ahead of us.”
Morris snapped upright in his seat and blinked his eyes clear. ”Signal the convoy. Energize the radar. Fire the chaff.” Morris ran to the ladder to CIC. The s.h.i.+p's alarm was sounding its strident note before he got there. Aft, two Super-RBOC chaff rockets leaped into the sky and exploded, surrounding the frigate with a cloud of aluminum foil.
”I count five inbounds,” a radar operator was saying. ”One's heading toward us. Bearing zero-zero-eight, range seven miles, speed five hundred knots.”
”Bridge, come right full rudder to zero-zero-eight.” the tactical action officer ordered. ”Stand by to fire off more chaff. Air action forward, weapons free.”