“God, do you think we’ll ever get used to this bloody racket?” Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Yezhov, battalion commander of one of the BMD assault battalions of the 108th Airborne Regiment, laughed.
“You love it really,” his regimental commander, Boykov, shouted back.
“This isn’t going to be like Afghanistan, sir.”
Boykov thought for a moment, thinking through what was likely to be expected from his unit. A veteran of Afghanistan, he was no stranger to battle and had certainly seen men mortally wounded or killed outright in some of the actions he had led. “It won’t.” He laughed. “Too bloody wet and cold for a start. Make sure you have your waterproofs.”
They sat down on a battery-powered truck that was used to move small items of cargo about the airport.
“With fifteen air assault brigades and the other divisions vying for assets, it’s going to put a bit of a strain on our air force.”
“I’ve just been talking to an air force colonel. They are already commandeering aircraft,” Colonel Viktor Boykov responded.
Yezhov stood up. “We don’t want bloody civilians flying us into battle.”
Boykov pulled him back down. “Sit down, Stani. They’ll use the taxi drivers for routine stuff. We’ll have military pilots for what we need to do.”
“Thank God for that. If they had to help us to destroy the enemy’s nuclear capability, destroy or neutralise their surface-to-air missile sites, disrupt logistics and lines of communication, they’d shit themselves.”
Boykov burst into laughter, joined by his junior officer, a member of the ground staff looking at them strangely as he walked past.
“Have you any inkling, sir, any idea what target they have us lined up for?”
“Until it kicks off, they won’t really know themselves. I wouldn’t be surprised if we were used to support an OMG.”
“Oh, a chancy one then.” Yezhov smiled. “We take the ground, and sit and wait for them to turn up.”
“When you joined with me, Stani, you never said you wanted it easy.”
“It certainly hasn’t been that. So, what’s next?”
“I want to run through some options with my senior officers. Go over some maps of our likely target areas and walk through a few scenarios.”
“Makes sense, sir.”
“Glad you think so!” Boykov shouted back as one of the large Mi-6 Hooks came in to land close by.
“Dry runs?”
“Yes, match units up to their aircraft, talk with the pilots, and agree a loading schedule for the BMDs.”
“A pretty heavy workload.”
“You’re right again, Stani.” The colonel smiled. “I think we should swap roles.” He stood up. “Come on, let’s get some breakfast then pull the lads together, and you can start to earn your high wages.”
Chapter 23
The heavily camouflaged FV107 Scimitar eased forward gently, just poking its nose out of the treeline, the Jaguar J-60 engine, capable of taking the armoured reconnaissance vehicle to a top speed of eighty-kilometres per hour, purring gently. Its latent power obvious, impatient to do what it was best at, it was pushing the Scimitar along at speed.
The light tank was deliberately camouflaged, breaking up its telltale shape, helping it blend in with its surrounding environment. Scrim netting had been draped over its bulk, the crew making sure it didn’t interfere with the movement of the turret or any of the other vital pieces of equipment that were required for the reconnaissance tank to operate effectively. Additional foliage, that matched their immediate surroundings, had been added, placed at strategic points, pushed into the netting or lashed to the sides, to break up the tank’s obvious profile. The crew were satisfied that they merged well with their surroundings. It could give them the edge, delaying the time when the enemy could spot them, potentially saving their lives. Thermal imaging devices would be a different matter, but not all of the Soviet armour was fitted with it. If they were fitted with thermal imaging systems, they would soon pick out the heat of the engine at the front and the three crew members: the driver, gunner and commander in the turret.
It was 0600 and their orders were to sit there and watch and wait. Lieutenant Nicholas Campbell studied the 1:25,000 topographical map as best he could, checking the features marked on the map with those on the ground in front of him. They were sitting on a raised piece of ground on the south-eastern edge of a forest about half a kilometre north-west of the small village of Supplingenburg. Behind them, the forest stretched back for about five-kilometres. On their left arc, about a two kilometres away, was the village of Barmke. Three-kilometres to their east was Emmerstedt on the outskirts of Helmstedt, right on the Inner German Border. On their right arc was the village of Supplingenburg; in front of them a patchwork of cultivated fields, some sewn with potatoes and kelp, others with yellow corn. Much of it had been harvested as a consequence of the good weather that had just been experienced in West Germany. A second Scimitar of Lieutenant Campbell’s troop was further north, providing an overwatch as their troop commander had moved into position. Two further Scimitars were about two hundred metres behind the forward two, ready to provide cover if the two tanks were bounced and had to withdraw quickly. His troop was a small element of 4 Armoured Division, on the leading edge of the covering force.
As the covering force for 1 British Corps, 4 Armoured Division had an important role to play. In fact, its role was crucial to the defence of 1 BR Corps’ sector of responsibility. With three brigades, one armoured and two mechanised, it had been assigned a eighty-kilometre wide front to defend: a massive task for such a small force. A division would normally only be expected to defend a front of thirty to fifty-kilometres but, for a covering force, this could be extended up to ninety. 4 Div had to cover an area that started just below Wolfsburg in the north to Bad Harzburg in the south, its task to delay any attack long enough to allow the bulk of 1 BR Corps to get into their wartime locations, dig in and prepare to hold off the potentially unstoppable force that would be rolling towards them. Lieutenant Campbell’s troop was an inherent part of that covering force. 20th Armoured Brigade was moving into position between the south of Wolfsburg and north of Konigslutter, and 11th Mechanised Infantry Brigade had the province between Konigslutter and east of Wolfenbuttel. The third brigade in the division, 33rd Mechanised Infantry Brigade, covered the rest of the sector to the south. Two hundred and twenty-four tanks and less than 3,000 infantry was not a particularly powerful force to hold back the Soviet steamroller that could be heading their way. A couple of hundred Chieftain tanks against 3 Shock Army’s 1,300 T-80s and T-64s seemed an unfair match. Following 3SA, there would be the Soviet’s second strategic echelon, equally as powerful. 20th Armoured and 11th Mechanised Brigade had a key area to defend. Any advancing Soviet force would have to negotiate the large town of Braunschweig. Located in Lower Saxony, with a population of a quarter of a million people, it was a sizeable barrier to a straightforward advance. Their options were limited. Go straight through the town, clearly a poor option. Bogging down their infantry units in house-to-house fighting, restricting the movement of their main battle tanks, this route was patently not an option for a speedy advance. Bypassing the town to the north and south was the obvious route to take. To the north, they had relatively open ground and could take advantage of the Route-E3 autobahn that ran between Braunschweig to the south and Wolfsburg to the north. 20th Armoured Brigade had been given the mission to protect that route, its two armoured regiments, with their 114 tanks between them, more suited to the relatively open ground. They had the means to move around the battlefield quickly and block the path of the Soviet advance. Their task though was not to hold but to delay — but delay the enemy long enough to force their units to break out of their route of march and deploy. Long enough so they could inflict some major damage on the battalions or regiments they would come up against, blunt their attack, dent their confidence, test their command and control, and make them hesitant. Buy some time for the Corps. The more time available for the main body of the British forces in Germany to get in position, to dig in, build up their defences, stockpile their ammunition, the better. And, just as important, buy time for reinforcements to arrive from Britain, particularly the 2nd Infantry Division.