“Identified!”
A sabot already sat inside the 120mm main gun and he ordered a reload with HESH because the heavy tungsten steel round didn’t have the range of the shaped charge round.
As he watched, the BMP launched a further AT-15 beam-riding missile at another NATO vehicle that its infrared laser was illuminating.
“Firing!” Again the jolt as the main gun fired.
The BMPs gunner had not had the benefit of any live firing practice and it had taken two of the precious missiles to destroy the first Challenger, he was now determinedly keeping the cross hairs on a second Challenger but the arrival of the HESH round ruined his aim.
“Shit…ineffective hit, reload HESH!” something had carried the round just slightly off target to strike the top of the BMP a glancing blow and ricochet off.
The AT-15 that was in flight continued to follow the guidance of the infrared beam, flying into the hillside where the cross hairs had ended up when the gunner flinched.
Angered at having missed, the BMPs commander did not do the sensible thing in bugging out, but looked instead for their attacker. The gun smoke was still apparent and the muzzle of the older Chieftain was a black hole that in his magnified sight seemed to be pointing right between his eyes, tendrils of smoke still leaching from it in the breeze.
It was a race and the Czech vehicle still had two missiles sat on turret-mounted rails before they had to reload.
“Hesh loaded!”
“Firing…!” The recoil threw the big guns breach back into the interior where it opened to accept another round.
2 Troops commander blinked to clear sweat that had run down his forehead and into his eyes, when they refocused he saw the Czech had already launched, the missiles exhaust fogged the sight picture.
“Driver, reverse!”
The Czech BMP commander cursed as he saw the British tank start to move backwards, but then the missile struck and the tank juddered to a halt. The Czech officer punched the air.
It was the last conscious act he ever made.
Through his binoculars 23rd MRRs commander saw the BMP being struck by the British tanks round and disintegrate in one catastrophic explosion. That particular BMP-3 had been with a Russian unit originally but had been knocked out during one of the abortive attempts to force a crossing of the Elbe. A sabot had gone through the front armour decapitating the driver and passing below the turret, where having then taken off the commander’s legs it had travelled down the length of the troop compartment and exited by punching a hole in the rear troop door. A small electrical fire had been started in the driver’s instrument panel through which it had passed; filling the vehicle with acrid smoke and the survivors had abandoned the vehicle fearing an explosion was imminent. The fire had petered out and for whatever reason the Russians had not recovered it, but a Czech armoured recovery vehicle had, towing it back to their own mobile repair shop where it had been patched up. The BMP-3s AT-15 Khrizantema missile system had been far in advance of anything on the Czech inventory, so the vehicles identifying numbers had been changed on the off chance someone may recognise it and ask for it back.
No more of the advanced and long range beam riding missile systems remained on 23rd MRRs strength, but the regimental commander allowed that in this attack they had at least trimmed the defending tanks numbers, something his recent predecessor had failed to do.
The British tanks had been concentrating on his own MBTs as they were the greater threat, but that had allowed the APCs and Infantry Fighting Vehicles to close to a range where they could use their wire guided anti-tank weapons to support the outclassed tanks. AT-3 Sagger and AT-4 Spiggot’s were leaving their launch rails and forcing the defenders to change firing positions after each shot, this in turn was allowing the tanks to close to a point where the covering half companies had a sporting chance at actually hitting something. Greater artillery and close air support would not have gone amiss but both had become haphazard and he was getting the run around when he asked why.
Chobham armour had not been used in the protection of the Chieftain family of main battle tanks, and the AT-15 carried not just one shaped charge warhead, but two set in tandem. It was designed to defeat armour 1000mm thick even if plates of ERA, explosive reactive armour for deflecting the blast, covered the steel. The missile had struck the 56-ton vehicle in the last moment before the troop commanders Chieftain could have reversed from view. The impact and detonation lifted both gunner and commander from their seats, and only the loaders helmet saved him from a fractured skull when he was slammed upwards into the roof of the turret. A wave of stifling heat accompanied the darkness as all electrical power failed and thick smoke poured through a rent in the bulkhead between the drivers and main crew’s compartments. The troop commander couldn’t breathe in the choking atmosphere and it was terrifying how quickly hot gasses had replaced the oxygen.
He fought against panic as he used touch to find the hatch, groping his way upwards and forcing his jaws to remain closed unless his mouth fill with soot as his nose already had. He threw open his hatch and crawled out into the open, his exposed skin turned dark grey by just that short exposure to the smoke. That same smoke was pouring from the open hatch as if it was chimney, but allowing himself just one deep breath he leant back inside, reaching around until his hand found his gunner and locked onto a bicep, assisting him upwards. As he helped him out of the commander’s hatch, the loaders hatch opened and the trooper who had fulfilled that function rolled from it and slid off the turret. The first sign of an interior fire announced itself as glowing embers within the smoke plumes issuing from both hatches. The driver’s hatch had been blown out of its mountings by the missile and flames were already leaping from the opening. There was no chance at all that the driver could still be alive and so the survivors scrambled clear before the fire found the stacked bag charges in the storage bins.
Major Venables sat atop the turret of the damaged Challenger IIE, the radio jack plugged into his helmet so he could listen in on the battle. News of the loss of two of his tanks and five of his men were borne without a visible flicker, but a heavy hand had laid itself on his heart. War fighting was not war gaming, the dead were just dead and there had been little that was glorious in the manner of their passing, but they were his men and they had stood their ground when lesser men would have run, they deserved a better outcome.
A REME fitter with an acetylene torch and another with a pry bar were close to freeing the turret but once that was achieved they still had to take on a full load of ammunition before returning to the fray.
They weren’t the only heavy armour unit using this workshop; Mark could see two other MBTs being worked on beneath camouflage netting. One was a Mk 10 Chieftain from the mothball facility, and the other was a Challenger but it too was a battlefield replacement. It lacked the boxy armoured barbette housing for the thermal imaging unit above the main gun, and the turret was lopsided, higher on the commander’s side than the loaders which typed it as a Mk 1. Its original owners had been the 17th/21st Lancers; another proud regiment consigned to the history books.
Neither had battle damage, they were here because both had been subjected to minimal maintenance in the underground storage facility at Bicester, and machinery does not like being idle.
He looked around for crewmen to ask who they were for but failed to see any. The pry bar wielder provided the answer. “Replacements sir, for your regiments C Squadron. Transporters dropped them off this afternoon and we’ve been changing the engine packs, but the crews for them didn’t turn up.” The young soldier gave a shrug before carrying on.