Caroline was too busy to see the destruction of the JSTARS and AWACs or that of five other escorts, as she sought to glide her crippled fighter homewards. She was trying to work out if a dead stick landing were possible when she saw another damaged F-15 tumbling past her about 700m away, its pilot already having quite the machine. She gave up any thought of saving her aircraft when a second missile slammed into the pilot-less Eagle, so checking that her speed was below 400 knots she punched out also.
If NATO thought that the operation had been to solely aid the Russians Czech allies on the Wesernitz, they were only partly correct.
The French/Canadian general had lost real-time intelligence at a critical point in the land battle, as well as his primary aerial command and control platform but he had allowed for a premature withdrawal to the next line if need be. He still had troops arriving at the front from the rest of Europe via air, road and rail, he believed he had a rope on it still. He would have been less confident if he had known that those three supply and reinforcement routes were about to be chopped off short of their present terminus.
With radars knocked out or switched off in that corner of Germany, Colonel General Serge Alontov sat back in the cockpit jump-seat of the Il-76 Transport aircraft that led the air armada toward its target. He had personally planned this operation, although not a Spetznaz mission he did have one of his own two company strong units aboard this aircraft. The other company was already on the ground and in action, having entered Germany a month before in varied guises. The remainder of the airborne division of the 6th Guards Army rode the other Il-76 aircraft that followed his own. The tenth aircraft held a young English speaking Senior Lieutenant of paratroops who was now wondering if he should not have taken up his cousins offer to remain in England.
NATO anti-aircraft sites around the city of Leipzig, and security forces at the airport came under attack from Russian Special Forces within minutes of the attacks by the Su-37s on the ground radar and early warning assets in the air. For the most part the attacks were successful, certainly at the airport the commandos made short work of the missile sites but the ground troops charged with guarding the facility had back up on hand. A battalion of the 82nd Airborne had arrived from the states a half an hour before on the way east to act as infantry in the battle near the border. The Russians were wiped to a man but the airborne soldiers carried only their personal weapons and six magazines of ammunition apiece.
The Russian airborne division numbered six thousand in three brigades, which dropped on separate DZs. The brigade with the hardest task dropped on the airport, its job being to secure it before putting blocking forces at the
Autobahn junction that had been heavily cratered by the airstrike, and into the town of Schkeuditz.
The second brigade dropped several miles south of the airport and just beyond the Elster-Saale Kanal, denying access to the city from the west whilst the colonel general dropped with the last brigade into the Rosental, the city of Leipzig’s park.
By dawn a stranglehold would in place around NATOs supply line where it was most needed and handing a dilemma to the commanders and politicians. Whether to carry on fighting with the enemy at the back door until forces could be diverted to clear them out, or whether to pull back beyond the city of Leipzig, handing them the northeast of Germany on a plate.
Despite the best efforts of tank and infantryman, the Guards had first been forced from the advance slope positions, by the weight of the numbers opposing them. The enemy artillery was back on line and was being used to snuff out the British Foot Guards strong points, one by one.
The Czech, 5th Tank Regiment had completed its move to the river over an hour before but the enemy still held the crest of the hill that overlooked it, having been pushed back up the hill by the infantry. The tanks were stalled until the arrival of bridging equipment, which was now in the process of throwing three ribbon bridges across to the western bank under the protective guns of the tank regiment. They were receiving 81mm-mortar fire but nothing more substantial; their enemy had run out of Milan anti-tank rounds and NLAW weapons some time before.
Calling up his quick reaction force, Major Sinclair ordered CSM Probert to relocate in order to cover a fighting withdrawal by the rifle companies. He then pulled back all the surviving Milan crews attached to 1 and 2 Company, with the exception of the section covering the road. Those pulled back went to the harbour area of the battalions Warrior AFVs, a point midway between the crest and the juncture of 2LI and 1 Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders positions; this was at the rear of his depth company, 3 Company.
Over to the north, in the fortified buildings near the blown bridge, the 1 Company platoon had been receiving artillery rounds, however this only made their positions harder for an enemy to assault. The old buildings had deep stone cellars and these provided ideal cover from the worst of the fire. Enemy infantry had attempted to force the river at the ford on three occasions; they needed to dig out the Guardsmen in order to clear the dead APCs blocking the approach before they could put armour across. The platoon was isolated from the rest of the battalion by more than just distance, their last surviving radio had been destroyed an hour before and only the landline link to the battalion CP remained.
Major Sinclair had to work out a set of orders, and issue them over the fragmented communications system in order to extract what remained of his Battalion as a fighting force. The CO had forsaken the FV-435, command vehicle for a hole dug by the Royal Engineers and roofed over with the trunks of pine trees, which themselves had two layers of filled sandbags atop them, the ‘435’ was at the vehicle harbour. Inside the CP, illumination was provided by ‘kero’, kerosene lamps, which hissed a continual fine spray of kerosene onto their wicks. Although it was a headquarters, it lacked the bulky paraphernalia a higher headquarters might sport, there were no power cables, nothing bulky, all radios were on battery power, as were the phones and laptop computers. There was nothing there that could not be picked up and carried away relatively easily. At this moment everything not vital had been removed to vehicles or was packed and ready. Major Sinclair intended for the two forward rifle companies to withdraw past CSM Probert’s QRF, before covering the CSMs men as they fell back to 3 Company’s lines. The three Challengers that had thrown tracks had now been recovered and tracks replaced, they were however empty of ammunition, so were now loading up.
The young lieutenant who commanded the Hussars was directed to cover the withdrawal of the remnants of 1 and 2 Company, plus the four Challengers that had 'replened' earlier, there had been five, but one was currently burning brightly on the crest. Picking up a radio handset he glanced around the CP and saw the RSM looking very grim as he listened to the sitreps, situation reports, coming in.
“Sarn’t Major, get 3 Platoons Warriors moving to the old barn a klick behind their present position. I’m going to order them out now and they can RV there.” A klick, being one kilometre.
Grabbing his personal weapon and Bergen, the RSM departed the CP with the full intention of misinterpreting the order to mean his personally going with the APCs, toward the fighting.
After three minutes of fruitless tries to contact 3 Platoon, the major was in the process of giving his orders to 1 and 2 Company to begin a fighting withdrawal, after which he would order out 3 Platoon, his extreme left flank sub unit by landline.