“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 division. 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 preplanned 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.