“As always, Comrade General.” Alekseyev smiled. “Come, Captain.”
Sergetov fell in behind his superior. Unlike during their previous front-line outing, both men wore protective body armor. The General carried only a sidearm to go along with his map case, but the captain was now officially a bodyguard in addition to a staff officer and had a small Czech submachine gun slung over his shoulder. He was a different man today, the captain saw. On Alekseyev’s first trip to the front, he’d been tentative, almost hesitant in manner—it hadn’t occurred to the younger man that, as senior as Alekseyev was, he had never seen combat before and had approached this gravest of contests with the same sort of apprehension as a new private. No longer. He had smelled the smoke. Now he knew how things worked or didn’t work. The change was remarkable. His father was right, Sergetov thought, he was a man to be reckoned with. They were joined in their helicopter by an Air Force colonel. The Mi-24 lifted off in darkness, its fighter escort overhead.
LAMMERSDORF, FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY
Not many people appreciated the importance of the videocassette recorder. A useful convenience for the home, to be sure, but not until a captain in the Royal Dutch Air Force had demonstrated a bright idea two years before had its battlefield utility been proven in secret exercises first in Germany, then in the Western United States.
NATO radar surveillance aircraft kept their customary positions high over the Rhein. The E-3A Sentry aircraft, better known as AWACS, and the smaller, lesser-known TR-1, flew their missions in boring circles or straight lines far behind the fighting front. They had similar but different functions. The AWACS was mainly concerned with air traffic. The TR-1, an upgraded version of the venerable U-2, looked for vehicles on the ground. Initially the TR-1 had been something of a failure. Because it tracked too many targets, many of them immobile radar reflectors set everywhere by the Soviets, the NATO commanders had been deluged with information that was too disordered to use. Then came the VCR. All the data relayed from the aircraft was recorded on videotape anyway since it was a convenient medium for data storage, but the VCRs built into the NATO system possessed only a few operating features. The Dutch captain thought to bring his personal machine into his office, and demonstrated how by using fast forward and fast reverse, the radar data could be used to show not only where things were going, but also where they had come from. Computer support made the task easier by eliminating items that moved no more than once every two hours—thus erasing the Russian radar lures—and there it was, a brand-new intelligence tool.
With several copies made of each tape, a staff of over a hundred intelligence and traffic-control experts examined the data round the clock. Some engaged in straight tactical intelligence. Others looked for patterns. A large number of trucks moving at night to and from front-line units could only mean shuttle runs to fuel and ammunition dumps. A number of vehicles breaking away from a divisional convoy and deploying in line parallel to the front meant artillery preparing for an attack. The real trick, they had learned, was to get the data to the forward commanders quickly enough so they could make use of it.
At Lammersdorf, a Belgian lieutenant was just finishing up a tape that was six hours old, and his report was sent by land line to the forward NATO commanders. At least three divisions had been moved north and south on Autobahn-7, he reported. The Soviets would attack at Bad Salzdetfurth in strength, sooner than expected. Immediately, reserve units from the Belgian, German, and American armies were rushed forward, and allied air units alerted for a major land action. Fighting in this sector had been vicious enough already. The German forces covering the area south of Hannover were at less than 50-percent strength, and the battle that had not yet begun was already a race, as both sides tried to get reserves to the point of attack before the other.
HOLLE, FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY
“Thirty minutes,” Alekseyev told Sergetov. Four motor-rifle divisions were on line, covering a front of less than twenty kilometers. Behind them a tank division waited to exploit the first breach in German lines. The objective was the town of Alfeld on the Leine River. The town commanded two roads being used by NATO to shuttle units and supplies north and south, and its capture would open a breach in the NATO lines, allowing the Soviet operational/maneuver groups to burst into NATO’s rear.
“Comrade General, how are things progressing in your opinion?” the captain asked quietly.
“Ask me in a few hours,” the General answered. The river valley to his rear was yet another wasteland of men and arms. They were only thirty kilometers from the border—and the Red Army’s tanks had been expected to reach Holle in only two days. Alekseyev frowned, wondering what staff genius had come up with that timetable. Again the human factor had been overlooked. The morale and fighting spirit of the Germans was like nothing he had ever seen. He remembered his father’s stories of the battles across the Ukraine and Poland, but he had never quite believed them. He believed them now. The Germans contested every lump of dirt in their country like wolves defending their cubs, retreating only when they were forced to, counterattacking at every opportunity, draining the blood from the advancing Russian units as they brought every weapon they had to bear.
Soviet doctrine had predicted heavy losses. The battle of movement could be achieved only by costly frontal assault which first had to blast a hole in the front lines—but the NATO armies were denying that hole to the Soviets. Their sophisticated weapons, firing from safe, prepared positions, were ripping through each attack wave. Their aircraft attacks in the Soviet rear sapped the strength of units before they could be committed to decisive battle and played hob with artillery support despite the most careful deceptive measures.
The Red Army was moving forward, Alekseyev reminded himself, and NATO was paying its own price. Their reserves were also being thinned out. The German forces were not using their mobility as Alekseyev would have, too often tying themselves to geographic locations instead of fighting the Soviet forces on the move. Of course, the General thought, they didn’t have very much terrain to trade for time. He checked his watch.
A sheet of flame rose from the forests below him as Russian artillery began its preparatory bombardment. Next came the multiple-rocket launchers, and the morning sky was alight with streaks of fire. Alekseyev turned his binoculars downrange. In a few seconds he saw the orange-white explosions of the rounds as they impacted on NATO lines. He was too far from the fighting front to see any detail, but an area that had to be many kilometers across, lit up like the neon signs so popular in the West. There was a roar overhead, and the General saw the leading elements of the ground-attack fighters racing to the front.
“Thank you, Comrade General,” Alekseyev breathed. He counted at least thirty Sukhoi and MiG fighter-bombers, all hugging the ground as they headed toward the battle line. His face crinkled into a determined smile as he walked into the command bunker.
“The lead elements are moving now,” a colonel announced. On a table made of rough planks laid across sawhorses, grease pencil marks were made on the tactical maps. Red arrows began their march toward a series of blue lines. The plotters were all lieutenants, and each wore a telephone headset linked to a specific regimental headquarters. The officers connected to reserve units stood away from the table, puffing on their cigarettes as they watched the march of the arrows. Behind them the commander of 8th Guards Army stood quietly, watching his plan of attack unfold.
“Meeting moderate resistance. Enemy artillery and tank fire is being encountered,” a lieutenant said.
Explosions rocked the command bunker. Two kilometers away, a flight of German Phantoms had just torn into a battalion of mobile guns.
“Enemy fighters overhead,” the air defense officer said belatedly. A few eyes looked apprehensively up at the log ceiling of the bunker. Alekseyev’s didn’t join them. A NATO smart-bomb would kill them all in a blink. Much as he enjoyed his post as deputy commander of the theater, he wished himself back to the days when he had commanded a fighting divisi
on. Here he was only an observer, and he felt the need to have the reins in his own two hands.
“Artillery reports heavy counterbattery fire and air attacks. Our missiles are engaging enemy aircraft in the 57th Motor-Rifle Division’s rear area,” the air defense officer went on. “Heavy air activity over the front.”
“Our fighters are engaging NATO aircraft,” the Frontal Aviation officer reported. He looked up angrily. “Friendly SAMs are shooting down our fighters!”
“Air Defense Officer!” Alekseyev shouted. “Tell your units to identify their targets!”
“We have fifty aircraft over the front. We can handle the NATO fighters alone!” the aviator insisted.
“Tell all SAM batteries to hold fire on all targets above one thousand meters,” Alekseyev ordered. He had discussed this with his Frontal Aviation commander the night before. The MiG pilots were to stay high after making their own attack runs, leaving the missile and gun batteries free to engage only those NATO aircraft that were an immediate threat to ground units. Why were his own planes getting hit?
Thirty thousand feet over the Rhein, two NATO E-3A radar aircraft fought for their lives. A determined Soviet attack was under way, two regiments of MiG-23 interceptors rocketing through the sky toward them. The on-board controllers were calling for help. This both distracted them from countering the attack, and stripped fighters from other missions. Heedless of their own safety, the Russians came west at over a thousand miles per hour with heavy jamming support. American F-15 Eagles and French Mirage jets converged on the threat, filling the sky with missiles. It was not enough. When the MiGs got to within sixty miles, the AWACS aircraft shut down their radars and dove for the ground to evade the attack. The NATO fighters over Bad Salzdetfurth were on their own. For the first time the Soviets had achieved air superiority over a major battlefield.
“Hundred-forty-third Guards Rifle Regiment reports they have broken through German lines,” a lieutenant said. He didn’t look up, but extended the arrow for which he was responsible. “Enemy units retreating in disarray.”
“Hundred-forty-fifth Guards checking in,” reported the plotting officer next to him. “The first line of German resistance has collapsed. Proceeding south along the axis of the rail line . . . enemy units are on the run. They are not regrouping, not attempting to turn.”
The general commanding 8th Guards Army gave Alekseyev a triumphant look. “Get that tank division moving!”
The two understrength German brigades covering this sector had suffered too much, been called upon to stop too many attacks. Their men spent, their weapons depleted, they had no choice but to run from the enemy, hoping to form a new line in the woods behind Highway 243. At Hackenstedt, four kilometers away, 20th Guards Tank Division started moving down the road. Its three hundred T-80 main battle tanks, supported by several hundred more infantry assault carriers, spread left and right of the secondary road and formed its attack formation in columns of regiments. The 20th Tanks was the operation/maneuver group for 8th Guards Army. Since the war had begun, the Soviet Army had been trying to break one of these powerful units into the NATO rear. It was now possible.
“Well done, Comrade General,” Alekseyev said. The plotting table showed a general breakthrough. Three of the four attacking motor-rifle divisions had broken through the German lines.
The MiGs succeeded in killing one of the AWACS aircraft and three Eagle fighters, at the price of nineteen of their own, in a furious air battle that lasted fifteen minutes. The surviving AWACS was back at altitude now, eighty miles behind the Rhein, and its radar operators were working to reestablish control of the air battle over central Germany as the MiGs ran for home through a cloud of NATO surface-to-air missiles. At murderous cost they had accomplished a mission for which they had not even been briefed.
But this was only the beginning. Now that the initial attack had succeeded, the most difficult part of the battle was under way. The generals and colonels commanding the attack had to move their units forward rapidly, careful to keep the formations intact as they leapfrogged their artillery southwest to provide continuous support for the advancing regiments. The tank division had the highest priority. It had to hit the next set of German lines only minutes behind the motor-rifle troops, in order to reach Alfeld before nightfall. Units of the field police established pre-planned traffic-control points, and directed units down roads whose marker signs had been removed by the Germans—of course. The process was not as easy as might have been expected. Units were not intact. Some commanders were dead, vehicles had broken down, and damaged roads slowed traffic well below normal rates of advance.
For their part the German troops were trying to reorganize. Rear-guard units lingered behind every turn in the road, pausing to loose their antitank missiles at the hard-charging Soviet advance guard, which took a particularly heavy toll of unit commanders. Allied aircraft were reorganizing also, and low-level attack fighters began to engage the Soviet units in the open.
Behind the sundered battle line a German tank brigade rolled into Alfeld, with a Belgian motorized regiment ten minutes behind. The Germans proceeded northeast on the main road, watched by citizens who had just been ordered to evacuate their homes.
FASLANE, SCOTLAND
“No luck, eh?” asked Todd Simms, commander of USS Boston.
“None,” McCafferty confirmed. Even the trip into Faslane had been unlucky. The guard ship for the safe-transit corridor, HMS Osiris, had gotten into attack position without their having detected her. Had that Brit diesel sub been a Russian, McCafferty could very well be dead now. “We had our big chance against that amphibious group. Things were going perfect, y’know? The Russians had their sonobuoy lines out, and we beat them clean, just about had our targets lined up for the missile attack—I figured we’d hit with our missiles first, then go in with torpedoes—”
“Sounds good to me,” Simms agreed.
“And somebody else launches his own torpedo attack. Screwed everything up. We lofted three Harpoons, but a helo saw us do it, and, bingo! we had the bastards all over us.” McCafferty pulled open the door to the Officers Club. “I need a drink!”
“Hell, yes!” Simms laughed. “Everything looks better after a few beers. Hey, that sort of thing happens. Luck changes, Danny.” Simms leaned over the bar. “Two strong ones.”
“As you say, Commander.” A white-coated steward drew two mugs of warm, dark beer. Simms picked up the bill and led his friend to a corner booth. There was some sort of small party going on at the far end of the room.
“Danny, for crying out loud, let up on yourself. Not your fault that Ivan didn’t send you any targets, is it?”
McCafferty took a long pull on his mug. Two miles away Chicago was reprovisioning. They’d be in port for two days. Boston and another 688-class sub were tied to the same quay, with another pair due in later today. They were to be outfitted for a special mission, but they didn’t yet know what it was. In the meantime, the officers and crewmen were using their modicum of free time to breathe fresh air and unwind. “You’re right, Todd, right as ever.”
“Good. Have some pretzels. Looks like quite a shindig over there. How about we wander over?” Simms lifted his beer and walked to the end of the room.
They found a gathering of submarine officers, which was not a surprise, but the center of attention was. He was a Norwegian captain, a blond man of about thirty who clearly hadn’t been sober for several hours. As soon as he drained one jar of beer, a Royal Navy commander handed him another.
“I must find the man who save us!” the Norwegian insisted loudly and drunkenly.
“What gives?” Simms asked. Introductions were exchanged. The Royal Navy officer was captain of HMS Oberon.
“This is the chappie who blasted Kirov all the way back to Murmansk,” he said. “He tells the story about every ten minutes. About time for him to begin again.”
“Son of a bitch,” McCafferty said. This was the guy who had sunk his target! Sure enough, the Norw
egian began speaking again.
“We make our approach slowly. They come right”—he belched—“to us, and we creep very slow. I put periscope up, and there he is! Four thousand meters, twenty knots, he will pass within five hundred meters starboard.” The beer mug swept toward the floor. “Down periscope! Arne—where are you, Arne? Oh, is drunk at table. Arne is weapons officer. He set to fire four torpedoes. Type thirty-seven, American torpedoes.” He gestured at the two American officers who had just joined the crowd.
Four Mark-37s! McCafferty winced at the thought. That could ruin your whole day.
“Kirov is very close now. Up periscope! Course same, speed same, distance now two thousand meters—I shoot! One! Two! Three! Four! Reload and dive deep.”
“You’re the guy who ruined my approach!” McCafferty shouted.
The Norwegian almost appeared sober for a moment. “Who are you?”
“Dan McCafferty, USS Chicago.”
“You were there?”
“Yes.”
“You shoot missiles?”
“Yes.”
“Hero!” The Norwegian submarine commander ran to McCafferty, almost knocking him down as he wrapped the American in a crushing bear hug. “You save my men! You save my ship!”
“What the hell is this?” Simms asked.
“Oh, introductions,” said a Royal Navy captain. “Captain Bjorn Johannsen of His Norwegian Majesty’s submarine Kobben. Captain Daniel McCafferty of USS Chicago.”
“After we shoot Kirov, they come around us like wolves. Kirov blow up—”
“Four fish? I believe it,” Simms agreed.
“Russians come to us with cruiser, two destroyers,” Johannsen continued, now quite sober. “We, ah, evade, go deep, but they find us and fire their RBU rockets—many, many rockets. Most far, some close. We reload and I shoot at cruiser.”