When the lead division’s headquarters went off the air the Corps headquarters dispatched a flight of helicopters to investigate. With a key link in the chain removed the formation that was already engaged had no access to artillery fire support or close air support. The plan had been to assault and overrun the NATO forces on the promontory before driving between the flanking units, just to its rear, and then splitting to drive north and south, rolling them up and creating a gap for the main manoeuvre unit. That unit was a tank division equipped with the best and the latest equipment available to them. Plan B was to drive either side with two more divisions in order to achieve the desired breakthrough.
The division’s towed artillery assets had taken 77 % losses in just five minutes of bombardment by NATO, the SP, self-propelled guns crews had the protection of armour, they lost 46 %. The towed artillery had more surviving equipment than they had crews, airburst, ground burst AP munitions and bodies don’t mix well.
The Staff officer who arrived at the remains of the divisional CP spent little time there, there was no point. 100 % casualties had been inflicted on men and equipment. It took only another ten minutes touring the divisions area by helicopter for him to report that the division was combat ineffective owing to the destruction of the command and artillery support elements. After making his report he contacted the four regimental commanders, only one was in contact and the two motor rifle regiments on its flank and the tank regiment in reserve were still in cover, awaiting orders. He called up the lead regiment again for a full sitrep and Colonel Eskiva decided he had no choice but to inform him of his change of axis and the reason. The Staff officer accepted Eskiva’s decision without question, if he assumed the late div commander had ok’d it he made no comment. On his next call to the corps HQ he recommended that the next division, five miles back take over command and control of the present attacks tank and motor rifle regiments. It would need to move up rapidly, giving priority of road movement to its artillery units whilst the air force pull out all the stops in close air support to make up for the currently absent artillery support.
The Staff officer then directed the pilots to take them west, toward the battlefield so that he could observe the attack first hand. The corps commander accepted his subordinate’s recommendations, the man was a talented soldier, and destined for higher things and his commander did not question his judgement.
Colonel Eskiva’s regiment was taking casualties from the high ground, initially from tank guns but now anti-tank missiles were starting to be used against him also as his company columns finished forming behind the plough tanks.
Most of his tanks were T-72s and T-90s, cheap export versions of the superior T-80. Whereas the Russians had stolen the self-stabilising gun and Chobham armour from the British, by way of taking apart a Shah tank and copying it, after the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, it was the best tank in the inventory. The T-90 was an under-powered MBT, lacking the armour and reliable main tank gun of the T-80, but the gun was self-stabilising.
Dismounting some of his Sagger, ATGW, anti-tank, guided weapons crews and 120mm mortars, he used them and a company of T-90s to concentrate on fire suppression. The tanks would stay on the move, thereby providing harder targets for the British whilst the Mortar and Sagger crews fired from cover.
He expected the enemy air force to appear at any time and he withdrew half of his AA vehicles, those with IR targeting capabilities back to the tree line, where they could fire from cover. His ace in the hole was six ZSU-2S62S6 Tungushkas, if NATO feared the ZSU-23-4 and 57-2, then they would loathe these. The vehicle’s had passive radar guidance and IR tracking for its twin 30mm cannons and 8 SA-10 anti-aircraft missiles.
After 300m without a single mine going off, the colonel was considering on taking a gamble when artillery started to burst around the head of the regiment, seeking to knock out the tanks with the mine ploughs. That decided it for him, he ordered his companies to bypass the plough tanks and proceed straight ahead for another 1000m before wheeling right and making for their original intended crossing point on the river where they would revert to the plan as first briefed. He looked up at the sky for NATO aircraft before ducking swiftly into the turret as one of his escorting tanks blew up after being hit by a sabot round fire from the hill. He looked briefly at the map with its carefully marked minefields and tossed it out of the open hatch, he knew what NATO had done and he now had to close with them, get too close for them to be able to use their artillery and air power.
Coming in from the northeast were five Czech Air Force, Su-17M4 Fitters that had survived an ambush by NATO fighters. The elderly but still effective aircraft were more suited to bombing than dog fighting, and at the moment they were hungry for payback for their seven comrades, swatted from the sky by NATO. The aircraft hugged the ground, trusting in their terrain following radar as they wove their way along undulating valleys towards the battle. Overhead, the clouds were moving in also, thick and threatening with the promise of heavy rain. By the time the Sukhois reached the scene of the conflict, they would have masked the moon for the rest of the night.
When the positions were first being prepared, Lt Col Hupperd-Lowe had ordered three sets of landlines laid between the battalion CP and his companies CPs. It had seriously pissed off his signals platoon who had the time consuming and backbreaking task of line laying between the locations, not once but three times. The CO was well aware that the enemy would be listening for radio transmissions, for their intelligence content, frequencies and to DF, radio direction find the source of the transmissions. He needed to communicate at all time and the field telephone was the most secure method.
He had lost contact with 1 Company, on the right after two hours’ of solid bombardment by the massed artillery across the way. There were lines bypassing each company CP, creating a network with built in redundancy, should a CP be taken out. He had ordered a signaller to contact them via 2 Company but they had no joy there either.
The silencing of the enemy guns had given him the first chance in four hours’ to see what had happened to his beloved battalion and he judged it safe to break radio silence, 1 Company CP was alive, well and still in business.
The snipers report had instigated the local NBC testing and once the result was arrived at he left the battalion in the hands of the 2 i/c and took an infantry section from the defence platoon with him as he went forward.
Both rifle companies had already moved men up, to the forward slopes where they could put direct fire down on anyone wishing to force a river crossing. The CO went there first, to judge the morale and resolve of the Guardsmen and he was in for a rude shock, plenty still had fight in them but there were faces he knew well, that were missing. He counted himself fortunate that only seven were too shocked to fight, he dealt with them firmly but kindly, he had been well to the rear, away from the most intense shelling, he was not going to judge a man for failing what he himself had not yet endured.
The Tanks and artillery were already striking at the Czech regiment across the river when he made his way to 2 Company’s CP, his stop was brief because the company commander had his own fight coming up, so after encouraging words he left them to it.
1 Company had its signallers out looking for the breaks in the landlines and their OC wanted them fixed PDQ before the enemy artillery started again. Guardsman Morgan was not the world’s greatest soldier, granted that he could talk a good fight, looked good in his ‘glory order’, bearskin, scarlet tunic, tweeds, etc. and always looked busy when he was being watched, but he became a signaller to avoid getting shot at as frequently as he would do in a rifle company.