' The Longest Night ' & ' Crossing the Rubicon ': The Original Map Illustrated and Uncut Final Volume (Armageddon's Song) (21 page)

“What is the betting they only had enough fuel for the tanks, not the grunt buses?”

“Air Red!…Air Red!”
the radio blared.

To the rear, the battalions Royal Artillery air
defence launched a trio of Starstreak missiles at the approaching threat, and the battalions own dedicated air defence troops stood-to with Stingers.

Two regiments of SU-25 ‘Frogfoot’ aircraft had been assigned the sorties to deliver the underslung ordnance at two locations. No precision bombing was required; however, the munitions required these ground attack aircraft release at a greater altitude than the pilots felt safe with.

The close air support squadrons had each begun the day with fifteen airframes apiece, but with each regiment, or wing, sortieing forty eight aircraft against the US 4 Corps. By midday they were still sending four dozen aircraft up, but only by using the squadron’s spares.

It was midnight now; the losses of the day had reduced the regiments to an average thirty aircraft available to continue the
attack, although ground crews worked furiously to repair damaged machines back at the airfields.

A change in orders, a complete change of load-out, and all direct from the High Command apparently. It had delayed the take-off before bombing-up could commence. They were now late as a result and had to burn precious fuel in an attempt to make up the time. 

They came from the north east, with the wind behind them, and the approach of both regiments divided up the defender’s assets although one of the regiments had the Vormundberg as its secondary, not primary target.

Flares and chaff were discharged by the lead squadrons which dived towards the earth to evade without pressing home with their ordnance loads.

AAA has a habit of frequently relocating, as that is the surest means of their survival, and none of the firing points matched those of the previous day’s attacks.

The foremost flights of the second regiment were engaged upon dedicated ‘Wild Weasel’, AAA suppression. Having now identified anti- aircraft units all along the Vormundberg they began launching anti-radar missiles, and looking for target’s for cluster bomb munitions.

French, Dutch, British and US units south of the hamlet of Vormund were the focus of the air effort, and weapons flew both ways between the attackers and the defenders, long and medium range missiles passing each other in the sky.

Steve Veneer waited for a green light to appear in his sights and fired immediately, the Stinger launched with its accompanying smoke and audible signature, flying true, and straight into a Frogfoot’s port side engine intake.
Neither Steve nor Andy Troper saw the aircraft hit, they were back below ground inside the shelter bay.

The pilot ejected, leaving the aircraft as it became a fireball and lost consciousness in the blast, falling to earth with his burning parachute trailing behind.

Unnoticed almost, twenty aircraft performed pop-up manoeuvres, tossing half of their ordnance in the direction of the long hill. The weapons did not fall all the way; altimeter fuses triggered them at five hundred feet above ground.

The flashes of the air bursting bombs were eclipsed by falling artillery shells and mortar rounds. Two attackers fell to the air defences and a third aircraft limped home, trailing smoke.

British chemists at ICI in 1952 had discovered a new organophosphate and it was initially marketed two years later as a pesticide under the trade name of Amiton. Obviously ICI were unaware of the full extent of the chemicals effects upon the human nervous system at that time. Inhalation and contact with the skin was extremely hazardous to health as even a 10mg drop on exposed skin would be quickly absorbed by the body. Muscular twitching, running nose, vomiting and a tightening of the chest soon followed before paralysis of the diaphragm muscles caused death by asphyxia.  Too toxic for safe use, Amiton was withdrawn from the market but the genie was out of the bottle now. The Ministry of
Defence began research on Amiton at its chemical weapons research facility at Porton Down. Once weaponised, Amiton was renamed ‘VX’ and assigned the code name
Purple Possum
to keep its existence hidden from the rest of the world.

But nothing remains a secret for long.

NAIAD, an easier acronym to say in a hurry than Nerve Agent Immobilised enzyme
 Alarm and
Detector, began to sound as the warheads contents, now falling in aerosol form, triggered the alarms. But for the rain the VX would have been carried upon the wind for the entire length of the Vormundberg.

NAIAD, and its equivalent’s in other NATO units screeched, one-colour chemical detector paper turned blue, Stef and Bill’s M8 paper turned yellow. Only the persistent, lingering nerve agents of the ‘V’ family of poison weapons caused the paper to do that.

The air raid was over as quickly as it had begun, three multi-million ruble aircraft had become fiercely burning wreckage scattered over the German countryside, an elderly Chaparral had been struck by an anti-radiation missile, and Rapier launcher fell to cluster munitions whilst artillery spotters called in the fires on the sites of three shoulder fired launches.

The sniping pair passed on a brief Chem-Rep to the battalion CP and got back to the task of observing and reporting, awaiting the battalions coordinated response.

It was not long in coming.

“Sir, Company Sarn’t Major Hornsby is asking for permission fire. He has a stack of fire missions for his mort…”

Pat Reed cut the
signaller off in mid-sentence.
“When CSM Hornsby was Lance Sarn’t Hornsby he knew what a TOT shoot was.” The commanding officer snapped. “Tell him to do as he was damn well briefed to do or he’ll be a full screw once more!”

Those who heard the exchange paused to glance at one another at the out of character show of temper.

“Ask Stephanski and Gaddom how far they are from the sunken lane?” Pat demanded, leaning forwards with both sets of knuckles, clad in rubber NBC gloves, bearing his weight on the map table.

The artillery rep had heard the snipers reporting infantry unprotected by their fighting vehicles and addressed the CO.

“Sir, with regard to the infantry now being in the open, perhaps we should amend the fire plan to include airburst instead of super-quick fusing?”

“The fusing is fine as is.” Pat responded, without looking up.

“But sir….”

“You let me worry about fighting this battle young Captain, and you concern yourself with making sure your gunners hit what we tell them, understood?”

Having been put firmly in his place, the artilleryman was turning to return to the RA’s corner of the CP when Pat spoke again.

“The lead battalion of tanks is of more concern to me right now but the mortars are wasted on heavy armour so switch them to the second echelon .”

Final Assault 1

“Yes sir.” He turned to go again.

“Oh and Captain.”

“Sir?”

“Mix WP with the mortar fire mission.” Pat instructed.

The artillery rep was well aware that the rules of war forbade the use of white phosphorus as a weapon against infantry, but they forbade the use of VX also, did they not?

“Yes Colonel, right away.”

Bill watched the battalion of armour come on, untroubled by so much as a stray round, despite the slower than normal speed.

They had killed a lot of this regiment the previous day, but now they were back, reinforced with armour if not troops. Instead of three infantry battalions and one tank battalion, 23
rd
now consisted of two infantry and two tank battalions, albeit it all were below strength they still outnumbered the battalion of British Guards and US Paratroopers who they considered the weak link.

“

Fifty seven armoured vehicles, AAA tracks, self-propelled anti-tank guided weapons launchers and of course main battle tanks along with its remaining infantry. The 23
rd
Motor Rifle Regiment was driving towards less than five hundred guardsmen, paratroopers and a half dozen tanks.

They had been 1CG’s first opponents in this war, months previously, on the hill above the Wesernitz river.

Barely more than a hundred guardsmen who had been on that particular hillside remained with the battalion now. Half of the original battalion had died on the Wesernitz in that first battle. Lt Col Huppert-Lowe, the then CO, and his rover group had perished in the flames of napalm hell as he attempted to restore command and control with 1 Company. The battalion CP had been destroyed soon afterwards by a random, lone 240mm mortar round. All communications and coordination had been lost and just two rifle companies, with part of Support Company, had fought their way out. The remainder, both the prisoners and wounded, the 23
rd
had bayoneted or shot.

Certain elements of the media, none of whom had been present, had shamelessly capitalised on the battle in order to  sell copies. A photograph of the battalion on ceremonial duties, the red plumes in their bearskins photo-shopped into yellow, had adorned the front page below the headline ‘They Ran!’ The stain on their honour had remained with them, bolstered of late by the
Defence Minister as it suited the needs of her own agenda.

Few survivors of the Wesernitz were watching now, the remainder huddled in their water-logged shelter bays as their positions were
pummelled by artillery and mortar fire.

The Soviet artillery west of the Elbe had received only a limited resupply via helicopter, a trickle in comparison to their needs and it had been husbanded on the orders of General Borodovsky, the Front Commander. It was stockpiled in case 77
th
Tank and 32
nd
MRD could not reopen the logistical supply lines before the US and Canadians of 4 Corps arrived. But in the last hour had come word that Borodovsky had been replaced, as had all the leadership at High Command apparently. Every effort must now be made to overturn this final obstacle NATO had placed in their path, and drive to the coast. 4 Corps could be brushed aside before it could transition into a defensive posture. Success, not excuses, was all that the High Command wanted. Everyone was expendable.

Within the lane the remains of that first attack had new additions lying on top and here and there it was possible to use the burnt out fighting machines as a bridge, otherwise the armour had to negotiate the lanes steep sides.

“That’s fifty metres, as near as dammit.”  Bill observed.

“Wait until they crowd up.” Stef grunted, his voice muffled by the respirator.

The previous day had seen carnage along this section of the lane during the very first attack by the Red Army upon the Vormundberg hillside. Pat Reed had called in smoke, not HE, blinding the lead ranks which had driven full pelt through the hedgerow bordering the sunken lane. No anti-tank ditch could have worked so well.

The tanks now slowed.

British Army Air Corps Apache attack helicopters and Danish Lynx singled out the Zeus and Gaskin anti-aircraft vehicles for attention.

Pat Reed listened to Lance Sergeant Stephanski confirm the lead tank battalion was bunching up before the
sunken lane.

He gave the order to open fire himself, raising the microphone.

“All stations address group Hotel Zulu…start killing those bastards.”

The 105s fired first, followed by the battalion’s mortars. The Milan, TOW and Hellfire missiles came next, and finally the 120mm rifled L11A5 and L30 guns of the Challengers and Chieftain 10s.

In the ideal Timed on Target world, each shell, each missile, each round would arrive at once, but it was close enough that they arrived within a two second time span.

Mark Venables had the
commander’s tank of the left hand company dead to rights and the Challenger II rocked backwards on its sprockets when he fired. It was a killing hit and he released his override, allowing his gunner to fight the tank whilst he fought what remained of his squadron.