“Negative on that range, request assistance from Charlie Nine-One, we've got a problem here.” Kozlowski tried to get his brain working again. “We have had a major on-board explosion and multiple systems failures. Afterburners are out and we're holding only 300 miles per hour. We're losing altitude. Request damage check.”
“Charlie Nine-One here, Shee-it Marisol what did you pull then it was like you stopped dead in mid-air. OK coming around for check underneath. Marisol don't know how to tell you this but your main wheels are down. Looks like you dropped your main undercarriage. Gearwell doors are gone and there's damage to the belly. Nosewheel is still up.”
“Range Administration here. Marisol, We show you as having lowered your undercarriage at over 1,200 miles per hour. We expect severe damage and undercarriage collapse if you try to land. Eject now, we will send helos to pick you up.”
“Negative Range Administration, if we do that we won't find out what went wrong. Anyway, we have a deal up here. We're bringing Marisol in.”
Marisol was shuddering badly as she limped back to Nellis, Charlie Nine-One hovering protectively around her. Oil pressure was sinking fast, Kozlowski had a feel something in the hydraulics had blown and started the problems off. The controls felt like they were set in concrete, there was barely enough movement to keep Marisol under control. If they had fuel stacking problems now, they'd have to eject. They didn't, although an initial effort to lower the nosewheel failed. Kozlowski deployed the Ram Air Turbine and used the backups to get it down.
The long Nellis runway was in front of him now, all he had to hope was that the undercarriage wasn't too badly damaged. There were fire trucks and crash vehicles already lined up. The problem was that the B-58, with its delta wing and unique flying characteristics, required a nose-high attitude on landing. The nose had to be about 12 degrees up on final landing approach. That made it difficult to see over the nose to keep the runway in view, something quite important when trying to land at over two hundred miles per hour with a screwed-up undercarriage.
Kozlowski guessed the sink rate was critical, too much and Marisol's damaged undercarriage would collapse. He kept the nose up on the way in, using aerodynamic braking to slow the aircraft down. Then, as the main wheels touched, he gently lowered the nose for the final rollout. Drag chute out, lift the nose a little and then come to a stop.
“Thanks Marisol. “
“Hey we had a deal you didn't bail on me so I didn't on you.” Marisol's voice was weak and shaking. “Oh Mike Tm hurt inside. Get me some help huh?”
The canopies were opening and crew stairs were in place. Two flight line engineers were lifting Dravar out of his seat, he seemed to have been concussed from the terrible slam when Marisol's undercarriage had dropped. A tow truck was already in place to get Marisol to the maintenance shop.
Maintenance Hangar, Nellis Air Force base, Nevada.
“Sir, we've found out what went wrong.” Kozlowski thought it was time, for eight hours he'd been bouncing off the walls waiting for Chief Gibson to report back. “It was hydraulic systems failure, at some point during the battle the primary system went out, probably from shock and the backup was overloaded. It failed and dropped the undercarriage.
“We need to replace the hydraulic system aft, the main gearcovers are gone, blown off, and there is skin damage under both wings. I'm sorry sir, you're out of Red Sun as of now, Marisol is going to in here for at least two weeks.”
General Declan patted him on the shoulder. “Don't worry son, you two have already made your mark here. By the time she's fixed, the Group will be back home, we're basing out of Bunker Hill, Indiana from now on. The 43rd is taking our place at Carswell. We've got a TDY detachment though. As soon as Marisol is repaired you'll be leading an element of four birds to base out of U Thapao in Thailand. Friendly visit.”
General Declan started to leave, then turned. “Oh, the Bayou Militia wants to take you and your crew out for a party tonight. They seem to have been quite impressed. Try not to do too much damage to Las Vegas.”
In Front of Sadovoye Ridge, Kalmykia, Russia
“Rejoice Defenders of the Russian Land!” Major Oleg Leskowitz Ulyanov bowed his head as the prayer echoed across the long line of T-10s. The crews stood in front of the heavy tanks, their heads bowed for the battle today was a sacred duty. More than sacred, it was a day of destiny. Today his heavy tank battalion would be part of the destruction of the last SS division. Once the SS had been the scourge of Europe, the terror of all who opposed tyranny but now, they were almost part of history. Almost, that was the rub. Today they would have to be sent into history. Today, Russia would finally wake from the long nightmare. Today was the day they would destroy SS-Wiking.
Behind him, there was a reminder that it would not be easy. There was a patch of fresh moss-green paint on the glacis plate of his tank as a stark lesson of that. The previous day, his unit had been advancing when they'd come across a ruined farmhouse sitting in the rolling grassland. In front of it was a BTR-40 armored car, burning with the bodies of its crew around it. Other parts of the recon platoon were also around it, some dead or wounded, some pinned down.
As he'd taken in the scene, he'd heard the vicious clang as an armor-piercing shot had bounced off his glacis plate. He'd backed up, spread his tanks out and they'd pummeled the building with fire from their 122 millimeter guns. They'd leveled the building, reduced it to rubble and silenced the anti-tank gun but the defenders had fought on until their position was stormed and silenced. The anti-tank gun had been an ancient 50 millimeter PaK, the defenders cooks from a field kitchen unit. There was a grim joke made about that, they'd had two guns, the PaK and a Goulash-Cannon. But the joke didn't change the fact that a few cooks with an obsolete anti-tank gun had held the advance up for the best part of an hour.
Prayers over, clouds of black smoke as the T-10s started their diesel engines. That would alert the Germans to what was coming. Infantry attacks started with a massed artillery barrage that shattered the defensive positions and stunned the Germans within them but that was not the pattern today. Instead, the attack was being lead by the heavy tanks that would push forward to unmask the enemy defenses.
Already in position were the SU-130 “Battleships”, so called because they were armed with a naval 130 millimeter gun coupled to a cross-hull range finder. The big gun had been designed for use on destroyers, but any hope of building a Russian Navy had long since faded. Instead, they'd been adapted as long-range anti-tank weapons. If German tanks appeared, the SU-130s would pick them off But, that wasn't likely. Not at first. The front line of the German defenses would be anti-tank guns supported by dug-in infantry. The guns would be positioned so that their fields of fire interlocked, any tank turning its heavy frontal armor to face one gun would expose its weaker sides to another. Only when the Russian tanks were entangled with the net of anti-tank guns would the German tanks attack and drive the Russian armor back.
There was an answer to that. As a battalion commander, Ulyanov had two artillery batteries dedicated to him. Both his company commanders had one more each. Each battery had a designated code word to activate its fire. In the sector ahead of his battalion, Ulyanov and his commanders had a series of preplanned impact points, sited in likely areas of German anti-tank nests. All Ulyanov had to do was give the code word for the battery then the one for the impact point and the shells would be on their way.