“Sir?”
“Inform Zero that there are significant breaches in the minefields.”
With the dawn that morning had come sniper fire but little else to concern Colonel Lužar or the men of the 43rd Motor Rifle Regiment. The sound of distant gunfire to the west had begun several hours before, reminding them that the war had passed them by for now, but then again no one was in any particular hurry to catch up with it. Only the youngest of the newly arrived recruits wanted to be in the thick of it, the remainder, especially the veterans, were content to remain at an ever increasing distance from the fighting.
In the late afternoon Lužar had been dozing, sitting at the commander’s position whilst his gunner kept watch. He was woken by his gunner informing him that one of the infantry platoon commanders on the extreme left had reported hearing faint sounds of automatic fire from the southwest and possibly explosions, the sounds had stopped as quickly as they had begun and so the colonel instructed that the message be passed on up to division, where it was received without enthusiasm. The colonel returned to his slumbers only to awoken again a half hour later by Division ordering him to detach one infantry company to the divisional reserve for ‘security duties’. Colonel Lužar was working out which company could be despatched and cause the least upheaval to the rest of the regiment as it filled in the gap, but division called again and requested a further company in addition to the first. It seemed to the colonel that he was the subject of a Candid Camera program when having decided on which companies would go, division changed their demand to that of a battalion. With a sigh he screwed up the notes he had made for the reshuffle of the rest of the regiments positions, and ordered his first battalion to prepare to move. His regiment had only three companies of tanks and only two of those were made up of main battle tanks. First battalions tank company were his PT-76 tanks, thinly armoured, under-gunned and getting long in the tooth, but he needed his heavier armour to deal with any counter attacks. He couldn’t think that anything else would be needed by the division to guard its roads and bridges, or at least that is what he thought until he had a query about fuel re-supply from the CO of his Third Battalion. None of his regiment had been visited by a fuel truck to top off their tanks since before the river crossing, and even on idle the engines consumed diesel greedily.
He suddenly had a bad feeling that the no show by the fuel trucks and the requests for him to detach troops were linked somehow.
In just under an hour following the first order to detach troops his First Battalion moved out. A minimal screen from Second Battalion had occupied key points in First’s positions, and an hour later the regiment’s shift of positions was complete. Lužar informed division and requested an ETA on refuelling, but the reply was so lacking in real information as to be worthy of a politician.
Following the airstrike’s the last remaining elements of 23rd Czech MRR had enjoyed a few kilometres of relatively trouble free motoring. Gator mines had halted a further five of their number but the aircraft had not returned and NATO artillery had left them alone, choosing to fire counter battery missions.
The ranks of armour were doing it differently this time; advancing in half companies whilst the remainder of that particular rank were in whatever cover was available, and ready to provide gunfire support.
2 Troop had the senior troop commander and he had been liaising with 3 Troop plus the surviving Apache and Lynx helicopters, dividing up the visible targets. When the leading enemy rank came within 3000m he depressed his radios send switch.
“Fire!”
The tank lurched as it sent a sabot round downrange and the extractors hummed, clearing the fumes of spent propellant that emitted from the breach as it reopen to accepted a fresh round and bag charges.
2 Troops commander had his eyes pressed against the rubber eyepiece of the commanders sight and when the gun smoke cleared from outside of his Chieftain he was gratified to see six clear victims, four tanks blowing themselves apart with the force of internal explosions, and two other tanks, a T-80 and a T-90 were stopped in their tracks with crewmen bailing out. The tank rounds had a far greater velocity than the helicopters TOW and Hellfire II missiles, so as he watched the glow of a missiles motor cut across his line of sight to strike a T-72, which vanished from view in the smoke and flame that accompanies a catastrophic kill.
By agreement they were only targeting the tanks, the enemy infantry fighting vehicles could be left for the time being, and it was only these lighter armoured vehicles of this half company that remained to go to ground and cover their comrades.
The second half company began leaving cover and many of its vehicles activated their smoke dischargers in an effort to remain hidden from the defenders.
2 Troops commander watched his own target disappear from view behind a smoke screen generated by white phosphorus. His eyes remained pressed to the sight as he switched to the thermal imaging facility and the T-72 reappeared in his sights, it’s hot and warm surfaces picking out the main battle tanks shape.
The Chieftain lurched once more but he did not have to wait for the smoke outside to clear this time, the thermal sight showed the shape of the T-72s turret replaced by a bright shapeless flare of light. He looked for another target and indicated it to his gunner, so caught up in the excitement of the action was the young lieutenant that it took a call on the intercom from his driver to remind him it was time to relocate to another firing position. The intended target received a stay of execution as the Chieftain reversed out of its firing position and headed for the next.
This position was in sight of another firing position for armour, one that a 3 Troop Challenger was just entering. The 2 Troop Chieftain was moved into place with practiced ease by its driver and immediately acquired another target, but before they opened fire the Chieftains turret was struck by something on the left rear, where no enemy was supposed to be.
The troop commander looked through the viewing blocks and saw debris still falling to the earth but it did not originate from them. Smoke shrouded their neighbour; the Challenger was missing two drive wheels and the track on the right side was hanging off, so whatever had struck his Chieftain had been in all probability an integral part of the 3 Troop vehicle. As he watched he could see the turret moving, the main gun following the movements of a target so the crew were apparently fine. The Challenger fired and then a second later it simply blew up.
“Shit…”
“Are we hit sir?” The gunner had removed his eyes from the sight to make the enquiry.
He ignored the question for a second, puzzling over what had destroyed the Challenger and reasoning that as the enemy tanks were not yet in range then a missile had to have been responsible, but their current opposition were thought to have nothing more advanced than the AT-3 Sagger and AT-4 Spiggot, both of which had a range of only 2000m.
“Look for missile launches.” He told his gunner. “Either on the ground or from a helicop…”
“Got it!” Cut off by his gunner he awaited the target indication, it followed a few heartbeats later once the laser rangefinder had locked down the distance to target.
“Target BMP-3, three thousand five hundred metres, extreme right hand burning tank…”
The troop commander saw the tank but not the BMP, so further indication must follow.
“Seen.”
“Go One o’clock from burning tank, a small clump of trees…”
He increased the magnification on the sight, seeing only natural foliage at first but then he saw it close to the left hand edge, hull down and half in shadow so how his gunner had seen it simply amazed him. He stopped the gunners target I.D with a simple.