The enemy forces arrayed against them had the upper hand in MBTs but a fair proportion were the modern T-90s, these were stop-gap tanks, of the same basic design as a T-80 but inferior in quality to that tank, essentially a cheap export model from Russia.
The Belarus generals had no option but to trust NATO and so they watched the enemy and waited.
All natural barriers such as rivers cause traffic jams, the advance slows as the obstacle is negotiated. These can leave assets vulnerable to enemy air and artillery attack, so field police are kept busy organising ‘harbour areas’, where the vehicles and units can be dispersed in relative safety.
The E-8 JSTARS had been watching and plotting the positions of these sites, suspected headquarters, repair shops and artillery gun-lines.
The enemy was not totally unaware of NATOs intelligence gathering abilities; they created AA traps of areas seeded with radar reflectors that had smouldering barrels of petrol soaked earth beside the reflectors, providing an IR signature to go with the radar return. These areas had AAA plotted up nearby to close the traps. In turn the JSTARS intelligence gatherers knew that there was a possibility of such traps being set, it was a mind game of second guessing the other guy and trying to sort the wheat from the chaff.
Major Johar Kegin regained consciousness in considerable discomfort, as he hung from his parachute in the darkness. His left shoulder was causing him a lot of pain and when he ran his right hand over it, it had not felt right, his best guess was that had been dislocated. He had other aches and pains too, certainly some cracked ribs and his neck hurt, probably whiplash.
There was precious little he could achieve from where he now was, suspended in some trees and he could not even see the ground in the dark.
He managed to snap of a twig from a nearby branch of the tree he was hung up in. He dropped it into the dark but could not hear it land, the helmet he wore did not help matters but he was loathe to take it off one handed unless he dropped it, he might need it to prevent further injury getting to the ground.
The only sounds were from the west, high explosives in the distance. He knew which way to go even without looking at his tiny survival compass.
In the escape and evasion lessons he had attended over the years, it had been stressed that it was preferable to get on the ground and evade rather than hang from a tree expecting to be rescued. You were more likely to be used for bayonet or target practice as you swung helpless in the breeze. Johar tried to swing himself closer to the bole of the nearest tree, he managed it but could not hold on to it with one arm. There was nothing else for it, he would have to hope the ground below was soft and just drop down.
As he prepared to undo his harness he remember a story about an American pilot in Vietnam, the man had been in a similar predicament and had dropped ten feet onto bamboo which impaled him through the groin. He winced at the thought, squeezing his thighs and buttocks together, he closed his eyes tight and undid the harness.
The silence of the wood was broken by a short, high-pitched scream of shock, then silence returned.
With the virtual destruction of the Belarus air force and NATOs non-return to the battlefields skies, Russia’s A-50 AWAC returned. It was twelve miles further to the rear than before and had six Mig-31 Foxhounds as escort.
The long range jamming over Germany prevented its using its radar to the full but the operators were fairly relaxed. The optimum time for NATO to strike and help the Belorussians had passed, if they hadn’t come back then, they probably wouldn’t come back at all, for now anyway.
Several hours’ before, the USAF 49th Fighter Wing had launched ¾ of its strength from RAF Luchars in Scotland. Major Dewar RM, was walking away from a RAF Hercules, chatting with Flight Lieutenant Michelle Braithwaite and Squadron Leader Stewart Dunn. They had stopped to watch the USAF aircraft lift off into the dusk. “Weird looking things aren’t they?” he’d remarked. As the engine sounds faded, he’d turned to look at the body bags being carried past from the ‘Herc’ and followed them to the transport.
Johar Kegin had managed to strap his left arm across his chest using shrouds cut from his parachute. That had been an easy task following the discovery that he had been suspended from the trees all of four inches above the earth. After bracing himself for a probable bone-breaking fall, the virtually immediate landing had almost made him pee himself with the shock.
He had kept his flight helmet on for the first mile of his walk westwards, he had decided when setting off that it may add protection when he reached the battlefield proper. Johar did not like being on the ground in a tactical situation, being in the infantry was a thought that made him shudder. He’d been in a hole in the ground and gone tired, cold, wet and hungry before, it had been the worst seven days of his life, that portion of his basic training.
After a mile he realised that he couldn’t hear clearly and had taken it off. All the crews who had launched that day wore life preservers, despite being miles from the sea. They wore them because they had not known what the future held or where they would end up operating. Johar kept his on, it was green rather yellow and may help him cross the river with his disabled arm. The tiny inflatable dinghy had been abandoned in the woods, he did not have much of an opinion about the ground troops of any army, but he thought even a dumb infantryman would think a bright orange object floating on the water would look strange. For protection he had his service automatic, not being a great shot, barely re-qualifying each year he nonetheless gripped it tightly and just hoped he didn’t shoot himself in the foot. After a short distance he decided he wasn’t sure it was such a good idea having it on display, in case the enemy saw him first, so he applied the safety and put it in his pocket.
The occasional impact of artillery had gotten louder as he had drawn closer to the river. He stayed off the roads and tracks; they all had enemy traffic on them anyway, as he grew more and more cautious, the closer he came to the river.
Eventually he could tell he was close, despite the dark and the blackout in force by the enemy. He could make out the edge of the woods, the land beyond was slightly lighter than here under the canopy of the trees. Despite his caution he managed to trip over something and landed hard, drawing blood from his lower lip as he bit down, fighting not to cry out in pain.
He groped around and touched something that not only was soft to the touch but also clothed. It wasn’t that which had tripped him, it had been another body. He found himself crawling over more bodies and would have been none the wiser as to their identities if a destroyed tank nearby had not provided additional illumination, the flickering flames that had all but consumed it had found a fresh source of fuel and flared up.
He recognised the squadron patch on the flight suit of a corpse near his hand and that of another draped across it; the dead men were from different squadrons. Amongst the dead were soldiers too, loyal Belarus troops captured in the shattered defensive positions across the river and recce troops captured on this side.
Before the fire died down Johar had counted over fifty corpses but there were many more, the enemy had resorted to the old Red Army doctrine, not wasting resources on human rights or prisoners.
The battlefield crop of captured personnel had been gathered together here and executed, probably by machine gunning if the wounds were anything to go by.
Johar used the light of the burning tank to have a look out beyond the wood.
To the right was a self-propelled anti-aircraft vehicle, a large sensor dish and missile tubes pointing west. To his front were two BTR armoured personnel carriers with Russian Field police around them. Because of the location of the field police, their proximity to his dead comrades, he knew that they must have been involved in the murder of the prisoners.