Grand Alliance (Kirov Series) (23 page)

“Good
enough, Hans. You aiming to get a third Iron Cross this morning?”

Kummel
smiled. He had three medals already pinned to his uniform, two Iron Crosses and
a Panzer Assault Badge for work in Poland and France. Yes, he thought. A third cross
is good luck for me, and bad luck for the British. He saw the beginning of the
little artillery duel, three rounds on either side, and then heard the whine of
heavy shells coming in, which surprised him. He looked to see the small hill
where the Commander of 5th Light had been observing. It erupted in smoke and
fire and he saw what looked to be a heavy gun tossed up into the air with the
power of the explosions.

“Those
are big guns!” he shouted to Kruschinski. “At least 150mm! I would not want to
be on that hill.”

More
rounds came, seeming to walk westward along the German line now, right through
the Pakfront that had been set up there to cover the wadi approach. It was
difficult to see what was happening, but he saw at least one big 88 flak gun
blasted onto its side. How the British could have registered that fire so
accurately amazed him.

What he
did not see that morning was the battery of AS-90 Braveheart self propelled
155mm howitzers, well behind the advancing British force. With shells that
could range anywhere from 25 to as far as 40 kilometers, all it needed was a
good target call, and that had been provided by spotters using lasers to tag
the hilltop. The position of the spotting vehicle was seen on the digital
screen of the firing Bravehearts, which then knew that the target was 3000
meters beyond that, and with precise coordinates on the digital map. The
hilltop had been a known terrain feature, and a bad choice for Streich and his
small battery of 150s.

Lieutenant
Reeves had also done his work and he was out on the left flank, about 5
kilometers from the German Pakfront he had seen on his thermal imaging systems.
Now he was painting the suspected gun positions with a pulse coded laser. The
Bravehearts picked up the signal, and gunners loaded the new Excalibur Laser
Guided Rounds, programming them to the same code. When fired, the rounds would
activate a seeker as they approached the target, and fins would deploy to allow
the round to guide itself to the spot being lazed. It was not as accurate as
GPS guided munitions, but there were no satellite links, and it was good enough
on a cloudless morning like this. Reeves’ artillery call would take out three
88s before their crews ever sighted the enemy.

The
artillery was the opening round of the battle, and only the first of many
shocking surprises for the Germans that day. Kummel was restless, his head and
shoulders jutting up from the open top hatch, his eyes squinting through a pair
of field glasses as he watched the incoming fire.

“Come
on, Kruschinski, we had better get moving before that artillery finds us too!”

His
company was behind and to the left of the 8th MG Battalion from 5th Light
Division, and he gave the order for his 18 Panzer IIIGs to move out. He would
be the unseen counterattack emerging from the gloaming of the rising sun to the
east, staying on low ground so as not to be silhouetted. If the British
attacked true to form, they would send in their tanks first, followed later by
infantry in small carriers from their support battalions. These were the prey
he had his mind set on, and if he swung deep enough, he might also find this
enemy artillery as well. He knew where it might be, given the typical range of
a British 25 pounder, but could not know that he was very wrong about that
guess. Kruschinski kicked the tank forward, and Kummel radioed his company to
follow.

* * *

Lieutenant
William Bowers watched the artillery fire come in to
silence the hilltop battery and then engage suspected gun positions on his
left. His Sabre had the wadi limited approach that led right up to that hill, a
narrow channel that the enemy obviously thought was well protected from direct
attack by armor. He radioed back and told the Mercian Battalion to hold in
place, but to be ready with infantry on his call. Then he gave the order to
move out.

The
tanks broke column and spread out in lines, three abreast, five lines deep.
Behind them a company of the Mercian infantry in their Warrior IFVs waited on
call. The next three rounds to come in were smoke, giving his force a thin mask
to make their approach, an advantage he hadn’t called for and really did not
need. It had been designed to frustrate the optics and thermals of enemy T-72s,
but that beast was not their enemy today—not if Lieutenant Reeves had his head
screwed on right that morning. Instead Bowers would end up facing the best guns
the German army had for killing tanks, bar none, the weapon that would make a
legend for itself here in this very desert, the dual purpose 88.

As
Bowers advanced, his gunner had not seen a smaller gun position at the base of
the hill and off to the right. It was there that Streich had placed a Pak 50
and two smaller 37mm AT guns in defilade within the wadi. The guns were below
the ground level the tanks were using, and therefore not seen on the thermal
imaging system until the crews suddenly pushed them forward to the edge of the
wadi and began firing. The first indication Bowers had of their presence was a
small clink against his frontal armor—a sound that was much more than an errant
stone kicked up by the grinding tank tracks.

“I
think we just took a small caliber round,” he said, though the tank showed no
signs of any damage. “Gunner, track left.”

The big
turret, nearly the length of the entire tank, rotated fifteen degrees left and
saw the guns. Another muzzle flash marked the position, soon followed by a dull
clink as yet another round struck the tank. “Target marked!”

“Shoot!”

The HESH
L31 was the first round to be fired by the Royal Scotts Dragoons. It was a thin
cased shell with plastic explosives inside that splayed out on the target and
were ignited milliseconds later. Useful against fortifications, the man who had
first developed the idea, the British engineer Charles Dennistoun Burney, was
probably working on the project even now, along with other ideas he spawned for
gliding torpedoes and bombs, and recoilless rifles that came to be known as
“Burney Guns.” He might be gratified to know the terrible form and shape his
ideas would take in the 21st Century, and to learn his HESH round had struck
the first real blow by ground forces in the battle that was now beginning. The
Pak 50 was immolated, the shrapnel from the explosion also taking out the gun
crew of a nearby 37mm gun.

“All
tanks on the left—watch that wadi for enemy gun positions. Give it some gas!”
His tank surged ahead, two others increasing speed to follow as the Dragoons
charged forward. Two groups of three would sweep to the left of the hill, two
more groups would break off to the right, and the last three tanks would remain
in reserve to support either flank.

“Whatever
that was, it didn’t bother us much,” said Bowers.

The 37
and 50mm AT guns were utterly useless, as the Germans quickly found out. Bowers’
tanks took out six gun positions without so much as a paint scratch from the
initial defensive line Streich had set up. If he had been alive to see what was
happening, Streich would have immediately had the sense to get his men out of
harm’s way, but he was dead, struck down by that first thunderous barrage from
the Desert Bravehearts that pounded his hilltop position with six heavy rounds.

It was
Bowers on the left who would face the 88s. His tanks rounded the hill, their
khaki paint schemes blending in perfectly to the chalky terrain around them.
The ground dipped slightly, then rose, and when he hit that higher elevation
his tank was immediately struck by a much more powerful round. The noise and
concussion told them something much bigger had taken up the fight, the Germans’
one hope to stave off this terrible new enemy.

The
resounding hit was the first bold challenge, the business end of the German
defensive line, weakened by the British artillery, but still potent, with nine
88s still ready for action. The battle had begun, but this was an enemy far
more powerful than any tank the Germans had ever faced, or ever would face, in
this war. It was an order of magnitude beyond even the very best German tank
that would emerge from the cauldron of this terrible conflict, the dreadful
Königstiger.

Throughout
its combat history to that time, fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Egypt,
not
a single Challenger II had ever been lost in combat to enemy fire! A Challenger
II tank could sit faced off by forty medium German tanks of this era and
methodically destroy every one of them while the enemy fired away in utter
futility. The Germans could fire round after round against that laminate
Chobham armor, and do no harm whatsoever.

But German doctrine never
intended to allow for such a duel. Instead they would now pit the dread 88
against this new foe, the most powerful anti-tank gun they would field in the
war. It could penetrate 200mm of armor at near point blank range, less at this
range of just over two kilometers when the Germans fired. That was more than enough
to deal with the best British tank, the stolid Matilda with 70mm frontal armor,
but this was not a Matilda.

“Damn good shooting,” said Bowers
to his gunner.

“Got them on thermals, sir. Shall
I return the favor?”

“Please do. No sense scratching
up this beast any more than we have to.”

 The Challenger II had armor
composed of exotic materials, composite ceramics, carbon nanotubes, boron and
silicon carbides, aluminum, titanium and syndite, a synthetic diamond
composite. Protection levels were calculated against both Kinetic Energy
Penetrators, and High Explosive rounds. The frontal armor of a Challenger II
had protection levels against KE or HEAT rounds of at least 600mm of standard
RHA armor, the type any WWII tank might use. In places, that protection level
exceeded 1000mm, and on the heavy turret armor that had so awed O’Connor when
he first set his hand on it, this protection rose to an astounding 1250mm
against KE penetrators and 1980mm against HEAT rounds!

During operations in Iraq,
incidents occurred where a Challenger II had been ambushed and hit by as many
as
seventy
RPGs, weapons that actually had far more penetration power
than the German 88s, and yet the tank survived with only minor damage and was
back in operation six hours later. No one inside was killed or wounded. In
fact, the only instance of a Challenger II destroyed in combat had occurred in
a friendly fire incident where one tank mistakenly targeted another at near
point blank range, and the shell went in through an open hatch. It was a beast
that could only be killed by its own kind.

In short, the Challenger II was
completely impervious to destruction by any anti-tank weapon that would ever be
developed in WWII. Period. The enemy might get a lucky hit and damage the
tracks, but do little else, and tactical deployments could prevent track hits
easily enough. There were places on the tank that were more vulnerable to good
hits. The flank and rear were not as well protected, but Bowers instinctively
sensed this, and gave an order to back up so his tracks would be just below the
elevation he had scaled. Then he squared his frontal armor off to the enemy and
began lighting up targets. His tank was effectively “hull down” where its
tracks were below the sight lines of the enemy guns while its imposing armored
turret remained above to engage. And when these Desert Rats attacked, they
would ravage their enemy completely.

The gunner had good thermals on
the German Pakfront now, and the big 120mm gun began to fire. One, two, then a
third 88 battery was blasted away, and the remaining gunners, astounded to see
their rounds glancing harmlessly off the enemy tank, had the good sense to run
their rigging drill, gun the hauler’s engines, and begin a hasty retreat to the
rear. Only seven of the twelve guns would survive. Bowers tank had single
handedly defeated Rommel’s heavy flak company, meant to anchor this end of the
German line and stop any attack through this defile cold. The defense here
broken, he would now lead his 15 Challengers forward to a position where they
could begin ravaging the German infantry positions of the 5th Machine Gun
Battalion.

The call came out—infantry!

“Sabre one to Ruby Red. Ready on
that short order. The main course has been served. Bring out the Bubble and squeak.”

“Copy that, Sabre One. Bubble
& squeak it is!”

Bubble and squeak was a
traditional English dish made with the leftover vegetables from a full roast
dinner. It was mixed with potatoes and fried up, named for the sound of the
dish frying in the pan, which would bubble and squeak. But in this case it was
meant to indicate a second course, the leftovers after the Challengers had
eliminated the primary long range AT threat to the Warriors. It was the handle
Bowers had assigned to 1st Company, the Mercian Battalion, waiting to be
served.

Old habits were well ingrained.
Bowers had defeated the enemy’s long range gun defenses, but now he had open
ground, at least two kilometers, to cross. There could be infantry dug in
anywhere out there with fistfuls of RPGs. Reeves might have told him not to
worry about that. The Germans had no effective man held anti-tank weapon at
this stage of the war, but Bowers radioed back to his supporting Warrior
company in any case, calling up the IFVs. His tanks had two MGs each, but the
Warriors had that nice upgraded 40mm Bofors autocannon, and it would provide
superb suppressive fire on infantry positions while he determined what else was
in front of him.