Grand Alliance (Kirov Series) (19 page)

He
called back to the main artillery group. Well behind him and set up to provide
suppressive fires that he would be calling in. If the British were planning one
of their little tank charges, they’ll get a dose of that artillery first, he
thought. Then the 88s will settle the matter, and I’ll order my tanks to swing
left and hit their flank. This should be over in an hour.

There
was a long, thin desert track that ran to the left of a sinuous wadi that
rooted its way down from the hill he was on. That would serve as a nice
anti-tank ditch for anything they send up that road, and it was well covered by
another hill designated 198, where four 88s had been positioned. So they’ll
have to move to their right, away from that wadi, under fire from my 88s the
whole time. He smiled. All these years in Egypt and the British still couldn’t
read a map! There was no way they could push armor up that road and live to
tell about it. The wadi funneled the track toward an old dry well site called
Qabr el Shubaki on his map, and a crumbled stone tomb marked the place. His men
had scouted it the previous evening when he first got the order to re-deploy
here from that irascible braggart, Rommel.

To the left
of the tomb from his perspective, there was a sharp rise that pointed directly
at his position. That would hinder tank movement in that direction as well.
They’ll have to flow around either side if it, and won’t be able to support one
another as they do so. Once they do flow around it, they’ll be right in front
of my infantry position, nice stony ground that will slow them down about 1500
meters out.

The
sound of vehicles came to him on the cool morning air now, a faint, distant
rumble that was growing in strength and power with each passing moment. They’re
coming, he thought, looking at his watch. Another ten minutes and we should be
able to make out the lead vehicles.

“Pass
the word to the artillery,” he said to the Leutnant commanding the small
battery he had posted here. “Your guns start the show. In ten minutes I want
you to start spotting rounds on either side of that ridge. See? The main
battalions will fire for effect on my command.”

They
were coming.

Tanks.

Other
vehicles were behind them, but nothing that he had seen the British use before.
What are they? Matildas? He could not quite see in the dust and ruddy red light
of the dawn. They were moving fast… too fast for Matildas, but too big to be
anything else.

He
looked at his watch again.

* * *

The
leading tanks of 3rd Sabre, Scotts Dragoon Guards, 15
Challenger IIs, had been ordered to move ahead when Reeves reported his long
range imaging had identified a considerable force ahead, many gun positions, in
a line stretching several kilometers!

It had
to be the bloody Egyptian Army this time, thought 1st Lieutenant William Bowers
in the lead Challenger II, and he made his report… But with German mercenaries
fighting with them? How did they know we would be making this march to Mersa
Matruh? How could they have found us here, and deployed like this so
efficiently? It wasn’t like the Egyptian Army at all. They had not shown this
kind of aggressive pluck for many months.

Then
the uncomfortable alternative he had been avoiding asserted itself. He had been
in on the briefing with General Kinlan, yet found it all too much to swallow. Now
Reeves was reporting gun emplacements, infantry, even artillery setting up for
a fight. What if these weren’t mercenaries, he thought? What if they’re the
real thing?

He
decided to try and get more confirmation, got on the radio, and keyed Reeves
call sign. “Sabre One to Royal Lance. Do you copy? Over.”

“Royal
Lance here. Copy your signal Sabre One.”

“What’s
the story on that position out there Johnny? Have we got rag heads, rabble, or
the Kaiser’s brood?”

“Wrong
war, Bill,”
Reeves familiar voice
returned.
“You’re looking at 88 millimeter AT guns on your left, good
infantry screen. Better let the RHA in on this one before you lead in the
Mercian Battalion. That 88 is not anything to trifle with.”

“Didn’t
know the bloody Egyptian Army was using those,” said Bowers, fishing. There was
a long pause, then Reeves came back again.

“Didn’t
expect that either,”
he said.
“But
seeing is believing. You heard what the General said same as I did. Let’s leave
it at that.”

“Good
enough Johnny. Bowers out.”

Well,
let’s see what they want to do when I move my Sabre up. If they have these guns
they will be dug in to either side of that hill. I’d better call for the RHA to
shake things up first like Reeves says. But after that I think my Challengers
can fill out the dance card easily enough. That wadi is a nice little obstacle
on my left. It funnels the attack right at the base of that hill. Once I get
round that, those AT guns will have a good field of fire at us. Then again,
I’ll have the same, and I can move and fire on the go. So let’s drop a few
rounds to see what happens. The last thing those fellows out there expect is
for me to come gunning up the side of that wadi—so that is exactly what I’m
going to do!

He tapped
his driver’s shoulder to stop his Sabre, and put in a call for three rounds of
artillery, warning fire. Usually that had been enough to send any irregular
force scrambling for their SUVs and hi-tailing it into the desert, and he
watched as the first 155s came in, deliberately short, right in front of the
hill… one… two… three…

The
Desert Rats had just thrown their hat into the ring, and Bowers waited,
watching his optics screen closely for signs of retrograde movement that he
expected. What he got instead was somewhat of a surprise. The enemy, whoever
they were out there, answered those opening three rounds with three of their
own, right across that sharp ridge that pointed at the enemy position. Streich
and his three 150s had answered the challenge.

He got
on the radio and reported to Kinlan at Brigade HQ as ordered. “Sir,” he said,
the surprise evident in his voice. “They’re answering with artillery.”

“Very
well, Lieutenant. Hold your position. The RHA will be clearing its throat in
another minute. Standby.”

Well to
the rear, the self-propelled guns of the Royal Horse Artillery were about to
increase the tempo and send in a full salvo. Bowers was attached to lead in the
Mercian Battalion on this flank, and they had sixteen AS-90s in support. The
fireworks were about to begin.

Part
VI

Lessons of
War

“Experience is a hard teacher
because she gives the test first,
the lesson afterward.”

―
Vernon Law

Chapter 16

Aboard
Argos Fire
Captain MacRae noted the initial Russian
attack with some interest. Their IFF coding, received from the Russian
technicians, was enough to tell him what they had fired.

“Four
of their P-900s,” he said to Dean, “The same damn missiles that put
Princess
Irene
under the Black Sea.”

In
spite of their newly forged pact with the Russians, he still harbored some
resentment and bitterness over that attack. He knew his tankers were fair
maritime targets, and that the war was firing up in all the world’s key energy
centers. They knew the risks when they first pointed their bows north to the
Bosphorus. The Black Sea had been a Russian lake for decades. He expected
opposition, and was not surprised when it came on the missiles that struck
Princess
Irene
, but that didn’t make things any easier.

Is that
why you said nothing of your Aster-30 missiles, he asked himself. This Grand
Alliance we’ve put together here will take some getting used to. The Russian
Admiral seemed accommodating, a fair man, but the business end of his
battlecruiser was just as deadly as ever. Dean soon informed him that the
Russians had scored four hits.

“Batting
1000,” he said. “Well let’s see if we can do the same.” By agreement they had
decided to each commit four missiles to the initial barrage, with the Russians
beginning. “Now we’ll show them what our
Gealbhans
can do. Let the
sparrows fly, ladies and gentlemen. Four missiles, just like our Russian
friends.”

The
GB-7 was a new design, produced by Fairchild’s company, and meant to be an
upgrade to the British
Sea Eagle
missile.
It was a hypersonic sea
skimmer much like the deadly Russian
Sunburn
missile, and it put the
fire into the ship’s name to be sure. The missiles deployed from vertical silos
that emerged when the covering deck panels opened like two large trap doors.
Then the missiles fired, one canister of four, leaving MacRae another 20
missiles under the forward deck. He would have had more, but expended a number
of missiles during the fighting in the Black Sea.

The results would be much the
same. All the missiles found targets, with a hit on each of the three leading
battleships, and one on the heavy cruiser
Pola
, which had taken up a
position forward of
Conte Cavour
.
Argos Fire
was also batting a
thousand, in a numbers game that was to be particularly one sided. The Italians
saw the missiles coming, but this time no one with eyes could believe they were
planes. This was something else, and rumors spread through the Italian fleet as
fast as the fire was spreading through
Conte Cavour
. The battleship lost
several boilers when secondary explosions below decks stoked the burning coals.
The third hit by a Mach 3 missile blasting into her superstructure had given
the ship a hard shudder, and it was steering off the line, speed falling off
and in no condition to serve in the vanguard of the fleet.

MacRae waited, as per previous
arrangement. They wanted to see if the Italians would still have the stomach
for a fight after taking eight hits from an enemy no man among them had even
laid eyes on.

* * *

Aboard
Littorio
,
Admiral Iachino watched with growing dismay. Those were not British planes.
Every report he was now receiving was describing the attackers as a kind of
lightning quick rocket weapon. His lead battleship division had taken a fearful
pounding, but there was no sign of any enemy ship on his horizon. How could the
British have such weapons, and how could they see his fleet to even use them?

Now he dimly recalled the odd
rumors of the German engagement in the north above Iceland. He had heard
something about naval rocketry, but had given it little mind. Could this be
what he was facing here? What else? The Greeks were certainly not out there
shooting these amazing new weapons at his battleships. The question now was
what could he do about it?

Iachino signaled Bergamini aboard
Cailo Duilio
for a status report. The ship was fighting bad fires in
several places, but the encouraging report was that none of the magazines had
been threatened, at least not yet, and all her guns were unharmed. He learned
the same from the Captain of the
Andrea Doria
, which had only taken one
hit, on the starboard side aft of the two stacks, and very near the secondary
mast. The gun directors there had taken some damage, but the main turret was
unharmed.

 So we still have all our guns,
thought Iachino, making a fateful decision. He considered waiting. He could
report this attack to the other Axis fleets and see what they advised, but
Italy had been bailed out of one action after another in the war, and hounded
by the British in damn near every engagement. They’ve chased us out of the Horn
of Africa, and destroyed the Tenth Army in Egypt and Libya, but not here.
There’s nothing wrong with our guns, if these rockets can find us, then the
enemy must be very close. Perhaps they are using a submarine to spot for these
new weapons. We shall see.

He gave the order to increase to
battle speed, in spite of a protest from Bergamini, who claimed it would make
it much more difficult to control his fires. But Iachino persisted, determined
to get the enemy out there under his guns. As soon as we darken their horizon,
I’ll show them what my 15-inch guns can do.

Or so he thought….

* * *

Admiral
Volsky had to
decide what to do. He still had 28 SSMs, but this was only his first major
engagement here. How long might this war go on? He knew the answer to that even
as he posed the question. Italy would fight until Sicily was invaded and
occupied in mid-1943, more than two long years away. Those 28 missiles
represented overwhelming power at this moment. If he had followed common
Russian Naval doctrine, he would have sent in a barrage of at least twenty
SSMs, putting serious damage on an equal number of ships.

That would break them, he
thought, and then all I have to do is live with all those dead souls out there,
and hope my last eight missiles will get me safely through this war.
Kirov
would still be a threat, but a fast burning one after a salvo of that
magnitude. Then what would we be once those last teeth were pulled—a toothless
shark on the high seas, with little more than a bad reputation to throw at the
enemy.