From what he knew of NATO doctrine, the enemy troops would be hampered by chemical warfare clothing, unlike his own troops. The stocks of chemical warfare shells were limited, many had been destroyed in the post Warsaw Pact period.
Of all the varied types of chemical agents, they all fall into two categories, which can be selected by the commander on the ground. ‘Persistent’, which linger and deny use of territory to an enemy, and ‘Non-persistent’, this last type dissipates rapidly but inflicts casualties initially and causes the enemy to suit up, restricting their efficiency. This was the category they had used in the opening barrage and he doubted that the British had unmasked since then, quite frankly he didn’t blame them.
The lack of counter-battery fire worried him too, no doubt NATO had supply problems and limited stocks since the wall had come down, but he thought that they should have made some effort. The same went for their air forces, apart from their attack helicopters; he had seen nothing, no attempt at air superiority or reconnaissance. He had mentioned this to the divisional commander and been told not to look a gift horse in the mouth.
One by one, his companies and attached units reported in that they were on the start lines and he picked up his handset whilst watching the luminous second hand of his watch.
“All stations… go, go, go!”
It took some bottle to drive into the heavier barrage around the forward fighting positions and Major Darcy’s worry was that they would not be able to get hull-down again because of fallen trees across the revetment.
That however was not the problem, but a large tree had fallen at the far end and would prevent them depressing the 120mm main tank gun fully.
Although he would have been prepared to leave the tank to shift obstacles himself, he was not going to call up Engineers to risk themselves in blasting the thing for him. They could not attach tow cables and drag it clear without exposing themselves totally, to enemy fire.
“Corporal Varney, have we got Sabot loaded?” he asked his loader.
“Yes boss, why?”
“There is a damn great tree blocking the far end of the firing position.” He gave it a second or two of thought. “Driver, reverse… ” to the loader he said.
“Load HE, let’s try and shift it.”
The Challenger II has three types of armament, a 7.62mm pintle mounted machine-gun is the smallest. To the left of the main armament is an American, Boeing 7.62mm Chain Gun and the main armament is the British Aerospace L30, 120mm rifled Charm 1, gun. Space for ammunition is always a limiting factor for a tank. Britain had foregone the inclusion of smoke rounds years before and also the conventional ‘cannon shell’ with its propellant encased in metal, usually brass. ‘Bag charges’, propellant contained in fabric, allowed more economic expenditure inasmuch as a single bag would be sufficient in propelling the round in shorter range engagements. It allowed the tank to carry 50 main gun rounds as opposed the US M1 Abrahms 36 if it carried only HESH, high explosive squash head and conventional APFSDS, armour piercing, fin stabilised, discarding sabot rounds which struck the target with a heavy tungsten dart rather than an explosive warhead. Today they carried only 45 rounds, as their load included the expensive DU rounds with its higher length to diameter aspect ratio and metal propellant case, at 36” long it took up a lot of space.
As ordered, Stott removed the tungsten sabot round and replaced it with a HESH round which although referred to as ‘HE’ by the tankies, tank crews, was an anti-armour round. Its explosive charge was smaller than that of artillery HE rounds, as it was in the form of a shaped charge, however it would have to do for now.
“Anyone remember if there are any of our positions nearby?” Darcy asked.
Darcy did not want to injure or add to his own sides danger, they had all visited the fighting positions on foot, for ease of recognition once the muck started flying, but none of the crew ever imagined that it would resemble the present moonscape.
He received negative replies, no one could tell and he could recognise little himself through the viewing blocks.
“HE loaded!” Corporal Stott called out.
Darcy peered ahead, judging for safe distance. Here goes, he told himself as the barrel depressed.
The 22nd (Czech) Motor Rifle Regiment had advanced in good order toward the river below the wooded hill to the north of the town of Lohmen. His right edge of the advance ran along the highway, a forest was the other side of that. Colonel Eskiva, was no farmer, he had no idea what crops were being crushed beneath the tracks and wheels of his regiment. Hedgerows, many hundreds of years old were being destroyed, splintered and crushed as the AFVs advanced. Eskiva was stood upright in his turret, as were all the vehicle commanders in the absence of fire from the British positions. His tanks had communications far inferior to that of NATOs but the reason for using flags as a form of signalling at this moment was security.
NATO had secure encrypted messaging systems, a high-tech email for its passing orders and short-range encrypted radio communications for performing manoeuvres such as this, denying an enemy any electronic warning of their coming. The moon was out tonight, and the flashes from detonating munitions on the wooded slopes ahead looked surreal.
Two loud explosions sounded above the noise of their own artillery’s bombardment and then were joined by secondary explosions as a BTR-80s 30mm and 7.62mm ammunition cooked off. Bringing his scope up he saw a T-72 missing a road wheel and its right track, a full two hundred metres away the APC was self-destructing as its 30mm cannon ammunition exploded in the inferno that had engulfed it, and its occupants.
Eskiva looked down to check his map, this was supposed to be a clear route forward; the mine fields marked by their recce troops were being skirted. He looked up and cursed as more mines went off as his vehicles crossed over them. There was a tearing sound overhead which caused him to look to look up, recognising the sound of many projectiles, travelling east instead of west.
“What the hell else can go wrong?” he said to himself.
In their hide beneath the railway line, Big Stef had been on the gun when the Czech armour had appeared in the distance. Isolated as they were from the rest of the battalion, masking up with the onset of the enemy barrage had increased their sense of vulnerability; they had only each other to rely on, truly on their own. Both snipers had been feeling the effects of nerves since the morning when the Yeomanry and their own recce platoon had returned to friendly lines. They knew how many friendlies were roaming out toward the enemy, the number of vehicles and the troops in them. It had been sobering to watch them return, damaged, without their full complement or with obvious wounded aboard. Some had returned on foot, usually singly or in pairs, but the numbers had been less than had sallied forth several days before. Right until the point that the enemy AFVs had appeared out of the distance, Freddie and Big Stef had hoped to see stragglers whom they knew, but they were disappointed.
They broke radio silence for the first time in three days to give the heads up. Freddie had their Swiftscope spotting telescope to his eye while he sent the contact report. Big Steph had gripped the L96A1 firmly as he used the Schmidt and Bender 6 x 42 telescopic sight to assist in accurately assessing the size of the opposition. Had it been darker he would have replaced the sight with a nightscope, but the magnification was sufficient for their purposes right now. For the past several hours’ the ground had vibrated with the shells and rockets that hammered the positions behind them but that was forgotten now as they watched the enemy vanguard draw near.