Pat Reed intended on giving 3 Company exclusive call on the battalions 81mm mortars, initially at least, whilst using the artillery to carry out counter-battery shoots and then switch fires to pound on the larger force once it was halfway to the battalions position. This final NATO line did have close air support on call, but even with the extra help it was limited.
SACEUR knew that the French 8th Armoured and Canadian 2nd Mechanised Brigades’ would need all the help they could get once they put in their counter-attacks against the Soviet bridgeheads, so he was preserving ground attack capable airframes for that moment, which left mainly tank hunting Lynx and Apache helicopters, with just a few flights of fixed wing ground attack aircraft, available to the blocking force.
The Royal Artillery rep called 1CG’s CO over and showed him the current download from the Phoenix, showing tanks and APCs beyond the rise in the newly conquered ground, filing into the sunken lane and heading towards Vormundberg. Pat estimated their strength to be between two and three companies worth.
The UAV operator steered the machine north, where at first the only vehicles to be seen were the burning hulks of the 40 Commando soft skinned Wimik’s and the Blue’s & Royals Scimitars, before passing over massed armour that was already formed up and ready to go. His FAC, Forward Air Controller, was also watching the downloaded images, and sipping at a mug of beef beverage with an air of apparent calm about him, however Pat could see in the man’s eyes that he was really loitering with intent, staving off impatience as he waited for the CO to call on the services of himself and his troops. A signaller passed Pat a slip of paper and waited silently as he read the content; 2 REP was now under attack from a force of tanks with BMPs in support, but Pat had expected as much.
The attack on the French paratroopers was merely a supporting attack, one designed to prevent them using their Milan’s to fire into the flank of the Soviet attack at extreme range, effectively denying 1CG any help from that quarter. It was solid military tactics and Pat knew that it was only a matter of time before his neighbours, the Argyll’s and the Light Infantrymen, received similar attention, isolating his unit from help as the main attack clashed with his forward companies and tried to drive over them.
The air battle above the Soviet armoured vanguard had proved debilitating to both sides and the sky was, for the moment, relatively clear as both sides refuelled and rearmed. Pat ordered the artillery to begin counter-battery fire so that his own men could emerge from their shelter bays and prepare to receive the enemy. His FAC dropped all pretence of nonchalance and hurried back to his proper place within the CP once Pat had told him what he wanted the available ‘air’ to do.
In fields and woodland clearings to the rear of the fighting a host of British Army Air Corps Lynx and Apache helicopters had been waiting with rotors already turning, and they now lifted off and headed toward the fighting.
The barrage impacting on 3 and 4 Companies slackened once the British 155mm rounds began finding the Soviet gun lines. It gave the men a breather and allowed them to collect their wits and their weapons, and then to leave the shelter bays of their trenches.
Although artillery was still impacting on the forward positions it was at a greatly reduced volume. Artillery rounds criss-crossed the air above the trenches as the gunners of both sides sought to make the other duck. It was a duel that the NATO artillery could never win decisively due to the Soviet’s numerical superiority, but it served the purpose that Pat desired.
L/Cpl Veneer and Guardsmen Troper had put a lot of effort into the construction of their position, sandbags lined the firing bay as insurance against cave-ins caused by the Stingers back blast, but many of these were now leeching earth from rents where they had been peppered with slivers of shrapnel by Soviet artillery rounds bursting overhead.
Troper had neglected to put everything under cover once rounds had begun incoming, so consequently his tin mug and brew making kit had vanished, scattered into the undergrowth by one or more near miss.
“Bluddy ‘ell…them fucker’s ‘ave ram-raided us!”
No sympathetic words were forthcoming from his partner, who was listening to his PRC 349 and had a hand held up for silence.
Troper had a hangdog expression, but a thought occurred to him and he instantly brightened up.
“I suppose it could be worse, we’ve still got your brew kit, haven’t we!”
“No, I still have my brew kit…if you want some you can buy a mug’s worth off me for two fags.”
An indignant Troper levelled an accusing, and somewhat grubby, finger at his oppo.
“You jack bastard, you don’t even bleedin’ well smoke!”
“’Course I don’t, filthy sodding habit.” Veneer paused to listen again at the earpiece but no one was yet speaking to them.
“When was the last time we had a NAAFI run, eh? The smokers are gasping and will pay a quid for a coffin nail, so every fag you give me I’m selling on.”
He stuck a finger in his free ear to drown out the expletives aimed at him, and acknowledged in turn the radio message aimed specifically at the battalions air defence contingent.
“Stop whinging, you wanker…our choppers are coming forward, but we’ve to hold fire on all fixed wing stuff until informed.” He pulled a launcher and a pair of reloads from the storage bay and then noticed a trio of green painted faces topped by US pattern Kevlar helmets peering at them over the lip of a fighting position to the left and slightly downhill. He stopped what he was doing and stared back at them, but no one said anything so after a few moments he involuntarily looked over his shoulder to see if they were looking at someone else before looking back.
“What?”
The painted faces looked at one another as if telepathically electing a spokesperson; the one on the right lost.
“Erm…yuze guys ain’t thinkin’ of lightin’ one of them things off, is ya?”
“What?”
The spokesman from the former colonies and his mates waited for a more substantial reply.
In exasperation the young lance corporal responded.
“We’re the air defence detachment for this company, wot the fuck do yer think we’re goin’ to do?”
“We expect ya to walk three hundred paces in any direction but this one, before you let one off.” It was a different spokesman, but the message was the same, not welcome.
“If ya fire that thing, every motherfucker with a gun will be shootin’ it in this direction, they hate triple A.”
L/Cpl Veneer gave brief consideration to reasoned argument, but logical debate had never been a strong point of his and so he settled for giving the neighbours two raised fingers instead. The rigid digits seemed to tempt fate because suddenly there were aircraft a hundred feet above them and everyone dived for cover before noting they were outbound rather than incoming.
The trio of RAF Tornado’s passing overhead belonged to 617 Squadron, one of the most famous units of the old Bomber Command, which despite its maritime strike role had left its home base at RAF Lossiemouth two days before hostilities had commenced, flying to Gutersloh with fifteen Tornado GR4s and had been in the thick of it ever since. Three of its five remaining airframes passed a hundred feet above the heads of the dug in Guardsmen and Paratroopers, loosing off high-speed anti-radiation missiles before breaking hard to the north. They lacked the numbers to either intimidate in a major way or eliminate the AAA, and a mixture of quad 23mm and SA-9s rose from the massed armour and followed earnestly in the wake of the departing aircraft. The squadrons remaining pair of aircraft arrived on scene at that juncture, coming in fast from the southwest and adding eight more HARM’s to the twelve already in flight.