‘Options for change,’ the innocuous name for a massive reduction in Britain’s armed forces, had gone almost hand in hand with the new weapons and tactics. Someone, probably a politician had thought that the countries enemies wouldn’t notice how small the army now was if the troops fired their weapons more frequently. Anyway, that was Colin’s cynical opinion.
“The same goes for water and rations, never count on a replen, and husband what you have, as you may not get anymore.”
This afternoon the patrol was inspected for loose equipment, anything on them that rattled or reflected the light, and weapons of course. He’d done a full weapon inspection in the morning; part of the daily routine that started with the stand-to before dawn and ended once the sun had risen. Dusk and dawn are favourite times to attack your enemy because the half-light confuses human eyes, makes it harder to distinguish objects or judge distance.
In the British army the dawn stand-to is followed by personal administration, washing and shaving, removing the previous days camm cream and applying new. The soldiers then feed themselves before taking it in turns to strip and clean weapons. The usual rule is two to a trench, one man’s weapons is good to go whilst his oppo cleans his own, that way half are ready to fight whilst the others weapons are reassembled hurriedly if it comes to a ruck.
The morning inspection also took in the comms cord that ran from trench to trench, allowing the silent passing of signals without betraying positions to the enemy. 24 hours’ a day, sleeping or awake, one man per trench would have the cord attached to his wrist. The signalling system was simple, because there was only one signal sent, and that was the rapid tugging on the cord that meant ‘stand-to’. On receipt the message would be passed to the next trench along. All other messages were passed verbally, by NCOs crawling from trench to trench.
The patrol where informed of their individual tasks and the whole bunch numbered from one to twenty, with Colin being ‘1’ as the commander of the fighting patrol. He designated two navigators, those who would memorise the features of the map and steer the patrol along the compass bearings they marched on. The two pacers he next chose would gauge the distance, human tripometers if you will. He sent them both to walk the 100m he had already measured out, in tactical night fashion, the slow and careful paces known as Ghost walking. They needed to know how many paces they walked per hundred metres. Colin issued them palm sized, thumb operated mechanical counters which they would depress with every pace they took on the patrol and inform the navigators when they had covered the distance for each leg.
The fire support group under Oz had the most kit to carry, two NLAW single shot, 94mm anti-tank weapons would provide their only protection from armour. Two M203 grenade launchers, two LSWs and two gimpys, on permanent loan from the Yeomanry QMs surplus stocks without their knowledge, half-inched by Oz the previous day. Colin would have liked some means of air defence whilst they were out from under the friendly AA umbrella, but their loads heavy enough as it was.
His own snatch squad was armed with SA80s, all they carried as additional kit were nylon ‘plasticuffs’ similar to that electricians used for strapping cables together, and fabric backed black masking tape, to gag and blindfold the prisoner or prisoners.
With the preliminaries sorted out he led them to the model, which he used as a tool whilst giving his orders, the model was the picture that was worth a thousand words and more informative than a map. After each phase had been explained he would pause to ask questions, in confirmation that the information was getting home. Once done, there then came the daylight rehearsal, a walk-thru-talk-thru of how they would move, go into RVs, rendezvous points, divide and reform at the FRV.
‘Action’s On’ is a very important feature of both the O Group, and the rehearsal’s; it covered the expected, the unexpected and the worst-case scenarios.
Colin and Oz were quite vocal at times during the daylight rehearsal, slapping down on bad practice and sloppy fieldcraft before the men were released to eat before returning for a night rehearsal after which they would move out.
Oz joined Colin who had an old ½ pint metal mug resting on two blunt, fire blackened 6” nails over the tiny solid fuel cooker before him. Without asking, Oz dumped the contents of a small tin of stew in on top of whatever Colin had already put in. The rations they were issued were the boil in the bag variety but both had their own small private stock of shop bought food. Oz was just lightening the load of what he would have to carry that night. They shared their food, ate with the same utensils and took turns cooking when they were tactical, it was the buddy-buddy system, not the height of hygiene but it saved on the housework.
As with anything that was done by good soldiers in the field, nothing was left out of their kit that wasn’t in immediate use, everything was stowed away in pouches and the straps done up tight. If you have to move, fight or bug-out in an instant, your kit is already packed and ready to go.
After stirring in some obligatory curry powder, both men produced their ‘racing spoons’, sharpened on one side to replace the need of a knife and they both tucked in, eating from the one mug. Neither man spoke as they ate.
The washing up of the mug was combined with a beverage to wash down the meal, water was splashed into the dirty mug and brought to the boil before powdered coffee, sugar and powdered ‘non-dairy whitener’, the poor man’s ‘Marvel’ were added. The coffee had a delicate bouquet and after taste of curried chicken and beef stew, but it all went down the same way.
Colin knocked out the still burning remnants of solid fuel tablet from the flimsy, folding stove. A splash of coffee quenched the flames and using a twig he hung the stove from a branch to cool rapidly before the fragments of now cooled fuel tablets were scooped into a small bag for reuse at a later date.
With the coffee finished the mug was packed away in Colin’s webbing and the empty tins stamped flat, a turf was lifted and the tins buried beneath it.
The last item on the agenda was personal camm for the patrol, face, neck, ears, throat, hands and wrists as far as mid forearm. The skin got the Brecon treatment, a complete covering of dark, grey brown camm cream to eliminate reflective surfaces. Dark green camm cream was added in patches and streaks to break up the shape. Black elastic about the arms and legs, prevented billowing material brushing against undergrowth and then they were ready to go. Carrying their bergens, webbing fighting order and weapons, they headed for their Warrior APCs and the night rehearsal before the trip to the FLOT, forward line of troops.
Despite the artillery and air forces best efforts, tanks took the west bank and APCs using their amphibious capabilities to ford it and fight through the remaining resistance. Forming a bridgehead they prevented direct interference with the engineer and bridging units as they constructed prefabricated ribbon bridges along the front.
The Belarus army had preserved its T-64, T-72 and the few T-80 MBTs in order to contain and counter attack in precisely these circumstances; however they were reliant on friendly air keeping the enemy fighter-bombers and tank killer helicopters of their backs. Their enemy now had total air superiority over the battlefield after their trap had reduced the Belarus air to twenty-seven fixed and thirteen rotary wing combat aircraft, all battle damaged to various extents.
The Belorussians pleaded with NATO for immediate air support to cover their counter attack but NATO had other ideas. NATO prevailed on the Belorussians to delay the counter strike; help was coming but not quite yet.