If the enemy took the quick route bypassing Muhlsdorf, or using it to flank the forested hill that dominated the highway, then the RAF and MLRS would have a field day. If however, they came through Lohmen, the town to the Battalion’s east and chose to fight through Muhlsdorf to gain the western bank there, 2 Company and the Hussars would have a fight and a half on their hands.
CSM Colin Probert had arrived in the Battalion to find he was still a fifth wheel, as was Stevie Osgood. The battalion had its full quota of WO2s and sergeants, but the CO recognised that only the best infantrymen are chosen to instruct at Brecon, so he had Colin commanding the battalion spares, now numbering forty-six, as a QRF, quick reaction force.
At this moment in time Colin had a slight problem, thirty-three of his oversized ‘platoon’ were reservists, the longest had been out of the Army seven years but whereas most were knuckling down with varying degrees of determination, there was a hard core of malcontents. It was the job of the section commanders to change the ways of these born again civilians, and they had the support of the platoon sergeants and platoon commanders in making it happen.
On the day that the Arab terrorists bombed Washington, Colin was summoned to an ‘O’ Group with the CO, he entered the COs FV 435 armoured command vehicle having unloaded his weapons outside. As a common sense rule, salutes and ‘pulling the feet in’ are dispensed with when the battalion is in its tactical role, you do not point out the officers for enemy snipers… unless of course the man is a total wanker! Colin knew the CO from when he himself had been a Buckshee Guardsman and the CO his platoon commander.
“Take a pew Sarn’t Major, I have a task for you.” He said as Colin stooped to enter the cramped space.
Colin got out his notebook and made ready, the CO had a map ready on the board beside him.
“At about lunchtime the first enemy units crossed the border into Germany, as expected these are recce troops and elements have advanced to within sight of Lohmen to our east. The snipers from Recce Platoon have been watching a BRM-1K recce vehicle and its crew in the woods north of Lohmen.”
Colin had a nasty feeling he knew where this was leading, if the vehicle and crew were bothersome the CO could have it taken out by a variety of means, without the PBI, poor bloody infantry, having to go anywhere near it. Colin knew the BRM-1K was the reconnaissance variant of the BMP, a good piece of kit but getting on a bit. It had a PSNR-5K Battlefield Surveillance Radar, NATO code-named it a ‘TALL MIKE’ radar, mounted in the rear part of the turret. The vehicle also has an IMP mine detector, DKRM-1 laser rangefinder and ARRS-1 location device. It was the battlefield radar and the ARRS-1, which would be of concern to Colin, if he had guessed what the CO wanted. The radar would pick them up if they stalked it, and if they knocked it out the ARRS-1 would alert the enemy main force immediately when it was destroyed. They could be dropping artillery down the back of his neck within minutes.
The CO finished his lead up with.
“There is an officer with it, at present the vehicle is cammed up in the wood somewhere and the crew in OPs.” Pointing out exactly where on the map, the CO told him.
“The officer is about here, two men with him. It’s the furthest OP from the wood so its radar may not be covering them.” He had said ‘may not’ because there was some debate as to what ranges the TALL MIKE radar had.
Preliminaries dispensed with; Lt Col Hupperd-Lowe launched into his ‘Orders’ proper.
HMS Hood had just received its ‘weapons free’ ROE via its trailing antennae, the captain informed the crew that they were now at a state of war with China, Russia and the former Warsaw Pact states that had re-joined the old Soviet fold. The news of the pre-positioned nuclear mines by North Cape had come as a blow to many, they had mates aboard the two missing RN submarines and some had wives who were friends with wives of the missing men. Devonport was going to be a very sad place.
Hood was now ordered to attack all enemy shipping, with enemy warships as priority targets. She already had tabs on the only two known carriers and her captain could think of no better way of avenging their shipmates.
As the Kuznetsov Group had steamed north, hugging the coastline, the Hood’s captain had trailed along southeast of them and still undetected within the picket boat sonar screen and where he had sea room if the unexpected occurred. It was a wise choice, because when the Kuznetsov had come about and slowed he had not had to sprint out of the way, making unnecessary noise. The Kuznetsov’s move had been a mystery until their hydrophones had detected the Mao Group coming down from the north.
Hood also heard the Russian Oscar and St Petersburg class submarines when they turned and the Irkutsk had come up to snorkel depth, using her diesels fed with air through the snorkel. She had charged her batteries and sprinted south with her missile boat charge, Admiral Dumlev.
Hood had reported all these events to Whale Island and Hawaii; she was now beginning her stalk of the carriers. The captain had ordered one Harpoon anti-shipping cruise missile loaded and the remaining tubes assigned the 60knot Spearfish torpedoes, which he intended using to start his attack, creeping them in at first at low speed from an oblique angle. Once the tubes were reloaded it would be with the UGM-84, 0.8 Mach speed Harpoons. They would be loosed as a salvo and the action would be repeated with a second salvo of Harpoons, before reloading with one Harpoon and the remainder of its 533mm tubes with the Spearfish once more.
The problem with using Harpoons was that if they were spotted as they broke the surface, they gave away the position of the submarine. The Hood’s captain intended approaching from the north and launching his Spearfish southeast, letting them run at low speed, once abeam the enemy ships he would turn them west, still closing at slow speed until the weapons electronic brains acquired targets, he would wait as long as he dared before accelerating them in at 70 knots. He knew that the ASW screen would detect them at some point, he just hoped that all eyes would be looking anywhere but north when he launched his Harpoon salvo.
Further south, the Prince of Wales Group, alerted by the Hood’s message had turned east and was still at EMCON but the RN Lynx, Merlin’s and USN Seahawk ASW helicopters, were ranging ahead and on the flanks, in passive sonar operations. The Prince of Wales FA/2 Sea Harriers were still on deck alert, configured for air defence despite an appeal by the pilots to fly an anti-shipping strike against the enemy carriers. The nine RN Fleet Air Arm Sea Harriers were no match for the Mao’s and Kuznetsov’s combined air groups.
To seaward of the combined carrier groups, the Akula class attack submarine Gegarin had earlier come close to the surface, using the picket’s cover to raise her ESM mast to sniff the airwaves for anything of interest. She had remained on this listening watch for three hours’ and had caught the Hood’s scent as she transmitted a burst transmission. It wasn’t much but it had sent the Akula off on a fresh hunt.
CHAPTER 4
High above eastern Germany a USAF E-3 Sentry AWACS inscribed its racetrack upon the heavens. A few miles away a Northrop Grumman E-8 (JSTARS), joint surveillance target attack radar system, was flying a similar pattern. Inside the aircraft the two crews had differing tasks, the AWACS was the airborne control for several inter-linked missions, the NATO air superiority fighters battle, ‘Wild Weasel’ SAM suppression and anti-armour missions that were about to commence. In the E-8, the operators were split between two operations. The aircraft incorporated a Norden multi-mode radar in its forward fuselage that was operating in synthetic-aperture- radar mode, (SAR), in order to identify vehicles and buildings. The radar flicked over to doppler mode every so often, in order to track moving targets. The E-8 operators were busy identifying black hats and white hats; the Belorussians being the white. The E-8 had come on station ten hours’ before when distinguishing the two forces had been a simpler task.