Tracing his fingers across the map to a point not far from their current location, he ordered, “Let’s reposition here. This places us roughly 60 miles from the three damaged ships, and 72 miles from the rest of the convoy. If we launch a barrage of twenty missiles at those damaged ships, we should be able to sink them. We can launch the remainder of our missiles at the rest of the convoy. The Americans only have five escort ships left that can engage our missiles, so more of them should get through this time.”
One of the weapons officers asserted, “I know this is risky, but I believe we should raise our targeting radar mast before we launch. This way we can get a positive lock on the critical ships in the convoy and then target our remaining missiles to attack them.”
Captain Popov also raised an eyebrow at the suggestion. “Please elaborate,” he asked.
“Captain. The convoy has four large medium-speed roll-on/roll-off ships, which are most likely transporting main battle tanks and other heavily-armored vehicles to Europe. I recommend that we focus a large number of our missiles at these ships. They also have several large dry cargo transport ships with the fleet, along with two additional Wasp class amphibious assault ships. My point is, there are a lot of cargo ships and freighters in the convoy, but some of them are a lot more valuable than others. It is my recommendation that we focus our attack on the high value ones Captain,” the young targeting officer explained.
As the Captain and the XO listened to him talk, they could see his idea had merit. They could not stop the convoy. With the loss of both Akulas, this was probably going to be their best chance at hurting NATO. They were not likely to get replacements for the two Akulas that were lost. Most of the fleet’s submarines were in the North Sea, preventing the Americans from moving a carrier battle group into the Baltic Sea.
The Captain nodded his head in agreement.
“OK. We’ll move forward with your plan. How long will you need the radar operational to identify, and target the specific ships you mentioned?” asked Popov, hoping they would not need it up very long. Once they activated their radar, the Americans would be able to zero in on them quickly.
“Operating in conjunction with the RORSAT, we shouldn’t need more than one pass. Once the coordinates are locked in, the RORSAT will help guide them to the targets,” the targeting officer said with confidence.
The group of officers smiled at the thought of being able to sink a few more ships.
More Bad News
General James Cotton was not having a good day. The Navy had just given him a report on a second attack against the NATO convoy six hours ago. There was no way around it-it was appalling. A Russian Oscar II nuclear-powered cruise missile submarine had delivered yet another devastating attack against a desperately needed supply convoy. Not only had the Essex (a Wasp class Marine Amphibious assault ship) been lost, they lost two of the four roll-on, roll-off transports and two additional heavy transports. The loss of the sailors and Marines was bad enough, but the equipment loss would hurt them more.
General Cotton walked into the operations center to discuss the equipment and manpower issues with his operations staff and several officers from the supply and logistics group. As he sat down, a steward brought a fresh pot of coffee to the table, along with several mugs. The steward kindly poured the General a cup of piping hot coffee as the others joined him at the table.
Cotton daydreamed for a moment over his mug of java as he waited for everyone to file in. Once everyone was seated, he was jolted back to reality, and without even the usual pleasantries he blurted out, “How bad are these losses from the convoy going to be? What exactly did we lose?”
An American naval officer from the US Navy Military Sealift Command (who managed the logistics and supply aspect of Reforger) spoke up to answer this question. “The roll-on, roll-off ships that sunk were carrying a mix of Abrams battle tanks and self-propelled artillery guns, equipment that is typically too heavy to transport by air. We lost an entire battalion of Paladin artillery guns, and two battalions of main battle tanks. Intermixed with those armored vehicles was another 60 Stryker vehicles.”
Groans from the other officers filled the room.
“And the freighters? What did we lose when they went down?” General Cotton asked, wanting to get all the bad news upfront.
The naval officer shuffled through a few papers to find the one he was looking for. “The freighters we lost were transporting roughly 132,000 tons of munitions and 43,000 tons of MREs and other military equipment. It was roughly about 38 % of the munitions and 26 % of the MREs and other military equipment the convoy was transporting that we lost.”
The naval officer continued to be the bearer of bad news. “Then, there is the loss of the Essex; 346 Marines and 124 sailors were killed when the torpedoes hit. Roughly twice that number were injured. We ultimately lost the ship entirely. One of the other Amphibious assault ships sustained two missile hits, which killed another 160 sailors and Marines. It also destroyed nearly half of their helicopters when one of the missiles detonated inside the hanger deck. If those missiles had been the older Shipwreck missiles, the convoy probably would have lost a few more ships.”
General Cotton pondered the bad news. “These are some tough losses, but not insurmountable. The Navy is already hard at work getting Convoy Bravo ready to sail from New York Harbor in a few more days, and that convoy was going to be more heavily guarded than the last one.”
“OK, there is nothing we can do about the convoy,” Cotton said. “So, let’s focus on the other tasks at hand. What is the status of the counter-attack? Are we still on schedule?”
A Dutch officer responded to General Cotton’s question. “The German 1st Panzer Division arrived last night and moved to the jump points this morning. The French 3rd Armored Division will arrive tomorrow, and should be ready to join the offensive if we achieve a breakthrough-otherwise, they are going to act as the reserve force.”
A British general asked, “What does that bring our troop count to, with the French division?”
The Dutch officer looked at the unit strengths and did some quick addition. “It brings the NATO troop levels to roughly 68,000 troops, with another 53,000 Ukrainian soldiers.”
“What do we want to do with the units that broke out of Kiev?” asked the same British general. “There are around 7,600 NATO troops that made it out of the city, and roughly 19,000 Ukrainians. Nearly all those units are at 40 % or less troop strength though. How do you want to use them, General Cotton?”
General Cotton thought about that for a minute. “I want those units to return back to Germany to regroup and reequip. They’ve been fighting nearly non-stop since the start of the war almost six weeks ago. They need to be taken off the line for a while and allowed some time to rest.”
Cotton turned to his operations officer and added, “When those units get back to Germany. I want every soldier and officer given a seven-day pass of R&R. These men need to rest and decompress so we can get them ready for combat again. Make sure promotions and awards are handled, and give them top priority for replacements coming in from the US. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Sir. I’ll see to the orders myself,” the colonel answered with a smile, assuring the boss it would be handled. These guys were heroes in the eyes of the NATO leadership, and they planned on making sure everyone knew it, too. The NATO member states needed a poster child for victory, and it had been determined the group that broke out of the Kiev pocket was going to be it.