He paused for breath; the map expanded outwards to show Europe. “Missile attacks were launched against almost every country in Europe — Switzerland was the only major exception — and they were far too successful. Following, there were riots and revolutions, even small insurgencies, in dozens of places across France, Spain and Germany, as well as the Netherlands and Denmark. You will remember that various figures in the intelligence services were warning that real trouble was brewing, and were ignored by the governments. These insurgences have caused great loss of life and have, worse, tied down various military units that should be engaging the Russian forces.
“The matter was made worse by Algeria, which launched an attack on the Standing Force in the Mediterranean Sea,” he said. “The Standing Force was more or less completely devastated by the attack, which we believe was actually carried out by Russian pilots, and only a handful of ships escaped to head to Gibraltar. The Rock itself came under heavy shelling from Morocco — the Moroccan Government has also taken the opportunity to recover Ceuta and Melilla, and we believe that Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera will also fall — and our ships were lucky to escape into the Atlantic. They’ve headed for Britain, including some other European ships, and we will give them what support we can.
“Algeria, in the meantime, has declared war on France and is sending troop transports over to France,” he concluded. “The French are fighting back savagely, but they have been shattered into individual units and the Algerians are trying hard to pour more petrol on the fire. As the French get their act together — if they do — the Algerians will have far less success, but we believe that the real threat is from Russia.”
He sat down, breathing hard. “The latest reports were that Warsaw had fallen and Denmark was on the verge of falling,” Erica said, tiredly. Langford made a mental note to remind her to get some sleep afterwards. “With the Russian positions all through the west of Poland and Denmark, we expect that Germany will quickly be invaded and what remains of the German forces driven back. We have been unable to make contact with the German authorities; the only European authorities we have heard from are the Dutch, who put their Royal Family on a boat and sent them here. From vague reports, Norway is also threatened with invasion; the Finns have been hit as well, but so far the Russians don’t seem to have pushed into Finnish territory. The victory will be won or lost in Europe.”
Langford shook his head slowly. He was familiar with vast battle plans, most of which were drawn up by amateurs and ‘clever’ — i.e. they would fail as soon as someone actually tried them in real life. Hitler’s grand plan for the invasion of Russia had run into problems almost as soon as it had begun… and yet it had come far too close to success for comfort. The American plan for the invasion of Iraq had worked fine, as far as it went, but even that had run into problems… and as for some of the lunatic plans people came up with to interfere in the Chinese Civil War…
“I see,” he said finally. The sheer scale of the Russian attack was terrifying. “What do you believe will happen next?”
It was Lieutenant Aaron Sargon who answered. “The Russians have secured the Baltic States almost without a fight,” he said. “They captured thousands of tons of shipping there and they’re pressing it into service, just as they are pressing into service thousands of civilian aircraft. That will complicate their logistics to some degree — they will have captured fuel, but there is no way to know just how much — but as they bring more of their own men into the battle, they will have the transport to land them in Denmark and work their way into Germany from two sides, or work their way around the coast to the Netherlands, Belgium and France.”
He scowled. “It would be a perfect target for submarines or aircraft if we could deploy them up there,” he said. “The Russian navy has moved several sub-hunters into the area and is deploying the transport convoys with some really heavy escorts. As for aircraft, they have deployed mobile air-search radars everywhere, and you can bet that they’ll be backed up by the latest ZSU missile launchers. With so much of our AWACS capability, even with the French…”
Langford held up a hand. “The French?”
Erica blinked. “You were sent an email about it,” she said. “A French AWACS landed in Dover; scared the shit out of the airport crew as they thought that it was Russian and it couldn’t get in contact with anyone on the ground. We barely saw it from the air before it came in to land; the radar network is shattered.” She smiled. “And there’s this plucky little French Lieutenant, barely twenty years old if he’s a day, trying to do his duty and give us all the records from his plane before he collapsed.”
She allowed her smile to fade. “We put them all to bed and dug up a reserve crew for the aircraft,” she said. “The French boy wants to talk to someone in authority as soon as possible.”
“I’ll see him,” Langford said. “Now…”
Sargon nodded. “We don’t have the capability anymore, if we ever did, to launch an air attack into the teeth of those defences,” he said. “A single stealth Eurofighter Tempest might get in there, but the damage it could do would be limited, and we have only one tanker left to support it; no ELINT aircraft any longer. We may get more aircraft coming out of Europe, but at the current state of play, I doubt it.”
He looked at the map. “I believe that the Russians will push into Germany as soon as they can,” he said. “That won’t be more than a few days at most. Once that happens, the remains of the defences will crumble and our units there will be trapped.”
Langford stroked his chin. “You do not believe that it can be held?”
“The Germans have been scattered, just like the Poles and the French and… well, us, except we don’t have more than a few dozen commandos running around on our soil to worry about,” Sargon said. “There’s no longer any coordination; I am certain that the German soldiers will fight, but they won’t be able to hold a defence line for long in the face of Russian firepower. As you know, all of the European militaries operate on a ‘just-in-time’ basis when it comes to supplies; the Russians hit the three main supply depots on the continent. The Americans say that the explosions set off the nuclear watching sensors.
“Bottom line, sir; they’re going to run out of ammunition,” he concluded. “I have no doubt that the Russians will push them before they can even begin to get production lines set up; as you know, ammunition production for the larger and more powerful weapons was always on a scanty basis. One of the factories for the Knife antitank missile, for example, is now behind enemy lines in Poland. It will take weeks, if we are lucky, to expand production and by then…”
“The Russians could be eating cheese and drinking Chateau Picard in Paris,” Langford said. “Can’t we hit their supply lines?”
Sargon shook his head. “With what? We don’t have the assets or the bases to launch such attacks from British soil… and with the situation on the ground becoming so nightmarish, we don’t have bases on the continent any more either. I believe that the only option we have is to recall all of our remaining units on European soil and attempt to get them to Britain before the Russians crush them.”