Prologue.
9th November 1989. ‘Democracy protest broken up by troops.
Hundreds feared dead.’ – The Times.
According to reports coming out of West Germany, a pro-democracy demonstration on the East German side of the Berlin Wall was savagely broken up by East German, and Soviet troops, who had taken over when police, and border guards had failed to disperse the crowd.
From eyewitness reports from West German border guards, and personnel of the British, American, and French forces in West Berlin, the utmost violence was employed, including the use of firearms against unarmed demonstrators, hundreds of whom were said to have been killed.
The three Allied infantry brigades stationed in West Berlin have been put on full alert, all police leave in the western sector has been cancelled, and hospitals have been prepared to receive casualties.
So far there has been no comment from the East German, or Soviet Governments.
20th February 1991. ‘British Army returns from Gulf.’
-The Daily Telegraph.
After its triumphs in the Middle East the first units of the 1st (British) Armoured Division began to arrive back at its bases in West Germany yesterday.
Much praise has been heaped on British troops, for their bravery, and performance in battle.
Analysts have speculated that the Gulf War represents a watershed in world history, and that the effort to liberate Kuwait was only possible due to the thaw in relations between the Soviet Union, and the West.
1st August 1991. BBC World Service News.
‘It’s 0100 hours GMT.
‘This is Newsdesk from the World Service of the BBC.
‘Our top story tonight the Soviet Premier, Mikhail Gorbachev is said to be seriously ill in hospital after contracting a mystery disease while on holiday in the Ukraine.
‘The Soviet government has so far not made any statement on the Premier’s condition…’
12th July 1995. ‘Eurofighter continues on course.’
-Aircraft Illustrated.
Despite some earlier setbacks to the programme, the first flight of Eurofighter prototype DA.7 has marked a continued run of success in development for the aircraft.
The Royal Air Force now expects to take delivery of its first aircraft in January 2001, achieving an interim operational capability in December of that year.
- In the USA the F22 Raptor project has also continued to run to schedule, although the advanced fighter project is said to be slightly over budget.
13th November 1996. ‘News arms treaties signed.’
– The Independent.
In a historic meeting in Helsinki the President of the United States, and the Premier of the Soviet Union added their signatures to two new treaties on reduction of nuclear weapons.
The first, for strategic weapons, known as START III, pledges both sides to reduce its warhead, and delivery platforms by 50%.
The second, the Theatre Weapons Treaty, eliminates all remaining tactical, and intermediate nuclear weapons, such as those that might be used in a war in Europe.
2nd December 1997. ‘Government announces major shake-up of the army.’ – The Scotsman.
As part of the long-awaited Strategic Defence Review the government has announced that there will be the largest shake-up of the army since the late 1960s.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said that since the implementation of START III, and TWT, that the defence on Western Europe now increasingly lies with conventional forces, such as the army.
To continue to meet Britain’s commitments the army will be expanded by two armoured divisions, and a second corps HQ, two thirds of which will be made up of Territorial Army units, converted from the National Defence role.
To fill the gap created by this conversion process, the TA will also be expanded, as will the Home Service Force, which for the first time will become open to direct recruitment, rather than just being open to former soldiers.
A few hours after this announcement was made, the MoD (Procurement Executive) announced that it was extending orders for army equipment in anticipation of having to equip the new units.
8th December 1997. ‘Major expansion planned for navy’.
-The Guardian.
As a comoanion to its army expansion programme, the government has announced an increase to the size of the escort force of the Royal Navy, and the Fleet Air Arm.
The MoD has pledged to confirm orders for the outstanding Type 23 class frigates, Type 45 class destroyers, and start construction of a new class of large destroyers, known as the Type 46, believed to be an enlarged Type 45.
In parallel to this, a third carrier air group of Sea Harriers, and Merlin helicopters will be formed, to allow all of the navy’s Invincible class carriers to serve at once, should that be required.
2nd January 1998. ‘RAF to build on reserve scheme.’
-Air Forces Monthly.
Building on its already successful reserve aircrew scheme, the Royal Air Force has announced that it is to re-form several flying squadrons of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force, which had been disbanded in 1957.
The first four squadrons, which have been identified as being 600, 602, 603, and 616, will be equipped with the Tornado F.3, and be assigned to 11 Group.
Should the scheme prove successful, and the RAF is confident that it will bear fruit, then further squadrons will be reformed.
An RAF spokesman told AFM that the RAF hoped to re-form all of the RAuxAF squadrons disbanded in 1957.
4th January 1998. ‘Eurofighter flies into a Storm’.
-The Times.
In a move that is surely to gladden the hearts of those that wished for a better name than Eurofighter 2000 for NATO’s latest fighter, and one that will no doubt please the RAF, it has been revealed that the aircraft will be named the Typhoon, although it is understood that Tempest is being held in reserve.
14th July 1999. ‘France back in from the cold.’
-The Financial Times.
After spending over thirty years as a semi-detached member of the Atlantic Alliance, France has rejoined the military side of NATO.
The move has been timed to coincide with the celebrations of the alliance’s fiftieth anniversary.
The French are expected to take command of a new army group, and a tactical air force in southern Germany.
7th November 2000. ‘Powell wins election’.
-The Independent.
In a historical event the former Chairman of the American Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell, has been elected President of the United States, the first African American to hold that position.
Powell won a landslide against his opponent, former Vice President Al Gore, despite some problems with voting in Florida.
Powell’s victory has been attributed to the reputation he gained during the Gulf War, and to the series of scandals, which dogged the Clinton White House, coupled with a rather lacklustre campaign run by the ‘colourless’ Al Gore.
16th February 2003. ‘Trouble brews in Poland.’
-The Herald.
From reports coming out from behind the Iron Curtain it appears that dissent is again rearing its head within Poland, the last time being during the Solidarity crisis of 1981, when the Soviet Union nearly invaded.
There have been growing numbers of strikes, go slows, and public demonstrations, and civil disobedience, which Polish police, and troops have been reportedly increasingly reluctant to put down.
Experts on the Warsaw Pact have said that this is sure to cause anxiety in the Kremlin, and that the Soviet government is unlikely to allow the current situation to continue much longer.
Poland, and other Eastern European countries in the Warsaw Pact have been allowed a greater deal of freedom since 1989, but it is believed that the Soviet Union will not allow any of them to collapse into chaos, which it may fear Poland is on the brink of doing.
1st March 2003. ‘Britain has found her place’.
Editorial from The Scotsman.
There is a new spirit abroad in Scotland, and in Britain as a whole. It is the spirit of duty, and defence of one’s country.
The cause of this change in the outlook of the majority of Britons, some would say a regression to older ways, has come from two sources.
The first is the Soviet Union. Despite attempts for over ten years to treat with the Soviet Union as an ordinary civilised country, nothing has changed behind the Iron Curtain, in fact the contrary has taken place, the situation post 1991 has gotten worse.
Despite numerous Western overtures, the Soviet Union refuses to reform, and imprisons those who call for it.
Many on the left of the political spectrum in the West have finally begun to realise what many others knew for half a century, that Communism held no future for the human race.
These people have begun to realise, that for all its faults, Western democracy holds the best prospect for the future, and must be protected at all costs.
The second source of this change in attitudes had been the government’s reforms of the armed services.
A military career has become far more attractive these days, as has service in the reserve forces.
A recent survey has revealed that the largest proportion of the population in Scotland since the 1950s are serving in the armed forces, or the reserves.
Both sources have fed off each other to some extent, but they have proven to be beneficial to the country as a whole.
2nd March 2003. ‘Has our military build-up been provocative?’
Editorial from The Herald.
The short answer to this question is, perhaps surprisingly to some, ‘no’.
The military build-up by Britain in particular, and by NATO in general, can in no way be seen as provocative to the Soviet Union, and Warsaw Pact.
The armed forces of the USSR, and her allies still vastly outnumber those of NATO, so there is no conceivable way they could be seen by a sane person as a threat.
The build up of our military has not been driven by a desire to wage war on the USSR, but as a consequence of the elimination of the last tactical nuclear weapons in Europe (a very good thing).
For over half a century the defence of Western Europe lay in the hands of nuclear weapons, which kept conventional militaries small.
Now that nuclear weapons have been removed from the equation (apart from the large strategic ones) more conventional forces are needed to provide a credible defence.
It is not just those from the political right that have seen this need, even such critics of the government, such as Tony Benn, have said that the increase in conventional forces is welcome, and that they support it, since it is clearly defensive in nature.
However, in something that will not please the Thatcherites in the Conservative Party, it has been demonstrated that since the build-up began in 1998, increased defence spending has stimulated all areas of the economy, driving down unemployment, to the benefit of all.
Perhaps Keyensian economics are back.
***
3rd April 2005. Secure Section, British Embassy, Moscow.
Night was just falling as the head of station of the SIS group based in Moscow held a meeting with his staff to review the intelligence gathered over the last few days.
“So,” He asked. “What is the latest information from our contact in the Defence Ministry?
“He better be living up to his promises.
“I don’t know quite how we’re going to explain what we’ve been giving him in the expenses.”
The contact in the Soviet Defence Ministry had a weakness for lurid pornography, of the sort that was not available anywhere within the Soviet Union, a taste acquired during a stint at the Soviet embassy in Stockholm.
SIS had been smuggling in the best pornography that it could get its rather embarrassed hands on from Britain, Sweden, and America.
“Quite good, Chief.
“We’ve got quite a lot of material that both we, and our colleagues in Defence Intelligence, and at Brussels, are going to be interested in.
“Our man seems to have delivered us all the latest versions of Soviet war plans.
“There is one worrying development he has informed us of, however. It seems that the Kremlin has finally lost patience with Poland. We should expect Soviet troops to take control of the country within a month.”
“That is serious.” The Station Chief agreed. “An invasion, or even a Soviet backed coup could have serious repercussions, and I don’t like the idea of even a small part of the Soviet Army being mobilised.
“We’ll have this material sent to London in the diplomatic bag, on the first available flight tomorrow morning.
“You’d better reward our chap well. We don’t want him going over to the Yanks.
“I hear the Company have a contract with Hustler.”
The men, and women sitting around the table, chucked at the thought that the CIA had hooked up with that porn giant.
“It’s just a pity we can’t hook him up with the internet, Chief.
“He’d love that.”
“We’ll give it to him if we have to exfill him.” The Station Chief said with a wry grin on his face.
5th April. Whitehall, London.
The Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee took his seat at the head of the long table, it was getting late, and he would have preferred to have been in bed, but the crisis demanded that the meeting begun that morning continue.
Around him he could see the other members of the committee; all looking tired themselves; drawn from all of Britain’s intelligence gathering services, SIS, the Security Service, Defence Intelligence, and GCHQ, as well as liaison officers from the CIA, and NATO.
“Well gentlemen.” The Chairman said. “What are we going to recommend to the Prime Minister?”
“I think we should recommend that the country begin preparations for mobilisation.” The member from Defence Intelligence stated, clearly speaking for the others. “We could, for example bring forward the big NATO exercise by several weeks.”
“I don’t think that we should do anything too rash.” Another member replied, clearly a Foreign Office man. “However, what my military colleague says does make some sense.
“We are planning a big exercise, so it should not look like mobilisation.”
“We could also add a Home Defence element to it.” The Home Office man suggested.
“Yes.” The Chairman pondered. “At least we won’t end up with another Hard Rock, what with the Civil Defence reforms.
“Well gentlemen, I think it is clear what we will recommend to the P.M.
“The Soviet mobilisation in preparation for a possible invasion of Poland, is a serious potential threat to the security of this country, and to NATO, especially since it involves Soviet forces in East Germany, and Czechoslovakia.
“It would be all too easy for them to continue west if they wanted to.
“But what do our esteemed guests think?”
“The CIA concurs with your assessment, Mr. Chairman.
“We will be recommending the same to the President.”
“NATO intelligence agrees, Sir.” The NATO liaison officer, a Canadian, agreed.
6th April. 10 Downing Street.
The Prime Minister looked over the report from the JIC for a second time.
It did not make for comforting reading. If the intelligence assessment was correct, the Soviets were embarking on a major mobilisation, including Category B Divisions, which meant a call-up of reserves, in preparation to invade Poland.
There was little that Britain could do to aid Poland, and any diplomatic aid would be brushed off by the Polish communist government anyway, but the actions of the Soviets fed a sense of moral outrage in the Prime Minister.
How dare somebody treat the people of a country this way; they were only hoping for a better life after all.
He looked up and fixed the Permanent Secretary to the Cabinet Office with a steely gaze.
“I shall want to speak to Geoff, and to the CDS immediately.
“And I want to hold an extra Cabinet meeting this afternoon, and no leaks.”
“Yes, Prime Minister.” The Permanent Secretary agreed. “This is a most sensitive matter; I shall remind the other Permanent Secretaries of this fact.”
The Prime Minister nodded, and smiled at the suggestion that the civil servants would keep ‘their’ ministers on a leash.
There was some truth in ‘Yes, Minister’, and ‘Yes, Prime Minister’ after all.
T.A Centre, Elgin Street, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland.
“And that, boys, and girls, is how you disassemble, and re-assemble an SA-80 rifle.
“Now, let’s see if you can do it.” Sergeant William Bell, an NCO in the Home Service Force company based in Dunfermline, said.
Bell looked up at the young men, and women who made up the latest recruits to the company, sitting in front of him, each having a rifle in front of them.
He had been pleased to see that the new recruits were a bright bunch, eager to learn.
Bell and the company commander had already identified several as possible future NCOs.
To his satisfaction they were all disassembling the L85A2 rifles just as he had shown them and were even taking the time to check that the parts were clean before putting the rifles back together.
As part of the expansion of the Territorial Army, and Home Service Force, the Elgin Street T.A centre, Bothwell House, which had been the home to 231 Squadron of 153 (Highland) Artillery Support Regiment, Royal Logistics Corps, and a squadron of the Royal Engineers, had been handed over in its entirety to the Home Service force.
D (Dunfermline) Company, 7th (Fife) Battalion, The Black Watch (Home Service Force) to give the company its full title, had taken over the centre to store all of its equipment, and had installed an indoor firing range to allow the soldiers to practise their small arm skills. [1]
The RLC, and RE personnel, and the Dunfermline based detachment, B Squadron, of the Fife and Forfar Yeomanry (an armoured regiment assigned to one of the new armoured divisions), had moved out to a new site on the edge of the city, which had been built as a factory for a Korean electronics company.
“Well done everybody.” Bell said, once the recruits had finished their task. “Now many of you will have heard stories about the SA80, of its unreliability, and its propensity to fall to pieces.
“Now, without any BS, I want to assure you to have confidence in your rifle.
“The SA80 is a good weapon, especially the A2 model.”
““But Sergeant.” One of the recruits said. “The old one did fall to bits.”
“I’ve used ‘em both, Lorraine.” Bell replied. “And, yes, sometimes the A1 would fall apart, but many of the stories are somewhat exaggerated.
“However, if the SA80 was a car, it would be a Rover from the ‘80s – a good design, but somewhat poorly put together.”
The recruits chuckled at the comparison, although they were probably too young to really remember cars from the 1980s.
“Now, what can you tell me about the old Short, Magazine Lee-Enfield, Mark III?” Bell asked.
“The best bolt action rifle the army has ever used.” One recruit offered.
“One of the best weapons in its class.” Another added.
“Precisely.” Bell replied. “The L42 sniper rifles we have in this company are descendents of the SMLE.
“However, what is not often remembered is that the early SMLEs had a reputation of falling to bits, just like the SA-80, which is why I mention it.
“The best rifles do not often have the best of starts, the M16 was rather similar.
“The worst of the SA80’s problems lay with the MoD’s failure to adequately fund a programme to iron out the problems.
“We could have had the A2 many years ago, had the will been there.”
As Bell would often reflect, the Home Service Force was lucky to have the latest L85A2s, and not have to get by with the older A1, or even the older L1A1 SLR (which Bell had used during his time in the regular army), as it was at the bottom of the priority list, after the regulars, TA units assigned to BAOR, and the TA units assigned to Home Defence.
The company was also equipped with the L86A2 LSW, and L7 GPMG, but rather than being equipped with the L118 ‘Minimi’ light machine-gun, the HSF relied on the older, but still effective L4A4 ‘Bren’ gun.
For its secondary public order role, the HSF was also equipped with L1A1 66mm CS gas launchers, L67 baton guns, and similar riot gear as the police.
This was not really a role that the soldiers relished.
Guarding so called ‘key points’ against sabotage, or terrorist attack was one thing, being called upon to break up a protest, or tackle a riot, was another matter entirely.
7th April. Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers Europe, Mons, Belgium.
The apparent breaking crisis in Eastern Europe had brought General Paul Baker, SACEUR, and General Sir Thomas Alexander, deputy SACEUR, back early from leave.
A Dutch Colonel from NATO’s intelligence staff was briefing the two generals on the latest intelligence.
“What do we know about the latest situation in Poland?” Baker asked the briefer.
“Reports are sketchy, Sir.” The Colonel replied in accented English. “The last Western media organisations were expelled yesterday, so we’re pretty much replying on SIGNET intercepts.
“However, from what information we do have the wave of strikes, and protests seem to be spreading throughout the country.
“From what we’ve gathered, it seems to have been sparked by an attempt to form another independent trade union at the Gdansk shipyard, a sort of Solidarity mark two.”
“What are the Polish, and Soviet governments doing?” Baker asked.
“They seem to be in some chaos, Sir.” The Colonel stated. “The Polish government especially. They seem to be in almost a state of panic, since it appears that they cannot rely on the Police, or army to control the disturbances.
“The Soviet government is equally jumpy and seems to be putting a great deal of pressure on the Poles to deal with the problem.
“In the meantime, they are mobilising their Category A divisions in the Western USSR, and East Germany, and some of their Category B divisions.”
This news caught the attention of both generals.
“Bloody hell.” Alexander muttered.
A major Soviet, and Warsaw Pact mobilisation made him feel rather uncomfortable.
“What do you think is going to happen, Colonel?” Alexander asked.
“If the Poles can not solve the problems, the Soviets will move in, and deal with it themselves, with or without Polish governmental permission.
“If the later happens things could get rather interesting, to say the least.
“Unlike the Czech army in 1968, the Polish army is quite likely to resist any Soviet invasion.
“They would not stand much of a chance, but any resistance could destabilise the Warsaw Pact.
“What the Soviet Union really needs now is some sort of outside threat to unite the peoples of Eastern Europe.”
“That means us.” Alexander commented.
“I don’t like it, Tom. I think you’re right.” Baker agreed. “I’m damned glad that our exercise has been brought forward to the beginning of next month.
“As it is, the Soviets have a few weeks of mobilisation ahead of us.”
“I must say that any sort of Soviet mobilisation makes me rather uncomfortable.” Alexander replied. “It could be all too easy for them to keep rolling West, if they find a suitable pretext.”
***
[1] Other companies included G (Glenrothes) Company, K (Kirkcaldy), and C (Cupar) Company.
Prologue to Chapter 348
-
Bernard Woolley
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Prologue to Chapter 348
“Frankly, I had enjoyed the war… and why do people want peace if the war is so much fun?” - Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart
-
Bernard Woolley
- Posts: 995
- Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2022 4:06 pm
- Location: Earth
Chapter 1
9th April. RAF Wildenrath, West Germany.
Wildenrath was home to RAF Germany’s two air defence units, 19, and 92 Squadrons, both of which had been operating in Germany in this role for a generation. Having previously operated the Phantom FGR.2, and Lightning F.2A (at RAF Gutersloh) both squadrons now flew the Typhoon FGR.2.
As with their previous mounts, the squadrons, in rotation, provided two aircraft fully fuelled, and armed (known as the ‘Battle Flight) on Quick Reaction Alert twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, ready to intercept any Warsaw Pact aircraft that intruded into West German airspace.
The Typhoon had brought a welcome return to single seat fighters, but had also brought a secondary strike role, given the multi-role capabilities of the aircraft. Like the Wattisham wing back in Britain, however, the Wildenrath wing spent ninety percent of their training on air defence, while the Typhoon wing at Coltishall were split fifty-fifty (with 41(F) Squadron concentrating on tac reece), given that their task was to reinforce NATO’s flanks.
It was the early hours of the morning, and time for the ‘Battle Flight’ change over, as the Land Rover made its way from 19 Squadron’s protected crew facility to the QRA sheds, which sat at one end of the main runway.
Once the vehicle came to a halt Squadron Leader Paul Jackson, O.C B Flight, 19 Squadron, climbed out, carrying his ‘bone dome’ in his right hand, his other flight gear in his left.
“Come on, Bob.” He said to his wingman for the next few hours, Flight Lieutenant Robert Watt. “Can’t let these 92 Squadron blokes have all the fun.”
“Fun, Skipper?” Watt replied. “That’ll be a first, even for our esteemed colleagues.”
*
“Hold onto your wallets everybody, 19 Squadron is here!” Squadron Leader Harry Watson, O.C A Flight, 92 Squadron, said as Jackson and Watt entered the crew room.
“I doubt you’ve anything worth nicking, Harry, but it’s time some professional pilots took over.” Jackson replied.
The banter over, the two senior pilots got down to the serious task of handing over responsibility for the ‘Battle Flight.’
“Both of the jets are in tip top condition.” Watson told Jackson. “The engineers checked them out not…” He looked at his watch. “Not half an hour ago.”
“Normal weapons load?” Jackson asked.
“Yes, you’ve got the usual six Meteors, four ASRAAMs, and a full load for the gun.”
Both men smiled at that; neither ever expected to use the Typhoon’s 27mm Mauser cannon, but it was always nice to have it.
“Of course you’ve only got the one thousand litre centreline drop tank.” Watson continued. “You don’t really need the big ‘Hindenburger’ one, and a half thousand litre tanks this close to the IGB, and you get better performance without ‘em anyway.”
“Yeh, we’re not in 11 Group.
“If our Eastern neighbours ever decide to visit, we’ll need all the extra performance we can get.” Jackson replied.
Satisfied with the briefing, Jackson clicked on the requisite icon on the computer screen (all of the documentation relating to the Typhoon was ‘paperless’), officially taking over control of the ‘Battle Flight’.
“See you later, Harry.
“I hope you enjoy catching up on your beauty sleep, you need it.” Jackson said.
“Cheeky bugger.
“I’ll see you later, Paul, try not to break anything.”
10th April. Chequers Court, Buckinghamshire.
The Prime Minister’s official country residence, a Tudor mansion, lay at the foot of the rolling Chiltern Hills, a beautiful setting for any residence.
Different Prime Ministers used the place to a different extent, some treated it as if it was almost their own property, and spent as much time there as possible, others hardly used it.
The present holder of the post of First Lord of the Treasury fell more into the first category, though he had been careful not to appear to use it as if he owned the place, he had found it was a useful place to take his family, and as a place to have quiet meetings with other world leaders.
Today Chequers was holding a secret meeting between the PM, and the US President. Despite being a secret meeting, security was heavy. The local police force, Thames Valley Police, had provided a number of armed officers to protect the mansion (which they did anyway, but had provided extra for the meeting), while the force’s helicopter, a Eurocopter Squirrel 2, was patrolling the area.
The force’s Chief Constable had already complained to the Home Office about the cost of all this, which his force was expected to bear.
In addition to the police, the SAS had a team from the Counter Revolutionary Wing at Hereford on stand-by, while there were a few SAS four-man teams in Observation Posts on the edge of the grounds.
Despite the heavy security, the American President had brought a sizeable Secret Service contingent with him.
Even though the light was fading, and against the advice of their security experts, the PM, and the President had decided to take a stroll in the mansion’s grounds. A group of Special Branch, and Secret Service close protection officers were following at a discrete distance.
To provide heavier armed back up a number of police officers from Thames Valley’s tactical firearms unit, carrying Heckler und Koch G36 rifles, were posted around the gardens.
“As you know, Tony, this whole situation in Poland, and the fact that the Soviets appear to be mobilising their Category A Divisions, and sending warning orders to some Category B, and C Divisions as well, has us rather worried.” The President said.
“It has us rather worried too, Colin.” The PM replied. “On advice from the Chief of the Defence Staff, and from the JIC, we’re moving our reinforcement exercise, and the Home Defence Exercise forward.
“We’re recommending that the big NATO exercise, and REFORGER is also brought forward.”
“We’re doing that.” The President replied. “REFORGER will also be somewhat expanded this year, we’ll be shipping most of the army’s III Corps, and an extra couple of wings of the air force.
“The intelligence that you presented to our other allies has them convinced, so holding the exercise early should not be a problem.”
“Good, good.” The PM replied. “We have at least got to show the Soviets that we’re prepared, should they think of continuing west once their army is fully mobilised.”
The American President nodded in agreement.
“It must be a while since you’ve had a full Home Defence Exercise, Tony.” He observed.
“Yes, a good twenty-three years, I think.
“The fiasco Hard Rock was the last one I can remember.
“Thank God we passed a new Civil Protection Act, and swept away most of the stupid secrecy that the Home Office had insisted on since the end of the last war.
“Most of the local authorities should play along this time.
“Combined with the big air defence exercise due to start at the end of the week, it should be quite interesting.”
While both men were very concerned about NATO being prepared, and sending a message to Moscow, they had not really given much thought to what effect that the message would have in the Kremlin, the home of the professional paranoid, when it arrived.
12th April. Over the North Sea.
Wing Commander Ian Macalister, Commanding Officer of 54 Squadron, put his Typhoon into another lazy left hand turn.
Despite the apparent lack of urgency of Macalister, and his wingman, they were in fact tracking a flight of hostile aircraft crossing the North Sea at low level.
Flying radar silent (their highly capable CAPTOR radars were shut down), they were following the enemy via data passed by JTIDS from an 8 Squadron Sentry AEW.1.
It was rather unusual for 54 Squadron to be taking part in an air defence exercise, given that their wartime assignment was the reinforcement of NATO’s flanks (probably Norway). However, somebody obviously thought that they needed to brush up on their interception skills; something they might be called on to perform on the flanks, as the Typhoon was a so-called ‘swing role’ aircraft. Macalister did not mind the change in role. It was just as fun pretending to shoot other ‘planes down as it was to drop bombs on people.
Some miles to the west of the two Typhoons, just off the coast, were a pair of Tornado F.3s of 43 (Fighter) Squadron, and four Hawk T.2As of 79 (Reserve) Squadron, positioned to catch any aircraft that leaked past the Typhoons.
Macalister glanced at the MFD showing the radar data, the enemy were closing into engagement range, and still apparently unaware that there were any defending fighters in front of them. It was time. Macalister signalled to his wingman, and contacted the controlling Sentry.
“Magic 99, Lion flight engaging. Over.” Was his simple and short message.
“Roger, Lion flight.” The Fighter Controller aboard the AWACS aircraft replied.
Macalister pushed the throttle forward to full military power, the pair of EJ200 engines rapidly accelerating the Typhoon to just over the speed of sound, allowing the aircraft to ‘supercruise’.
What Macalister did not know was that the Sentry was also in the process of passing a warning to the enemy aircraft.
*
“Roger, Magic 99. Thanks for the ‘heads up’. Over.” Lieutenant Colonel Colin Reynolds, C.O of the 492nd Fighter Squadron, 48th Fighter Wing, replied.
Reynolds was leading a group of six F-15E ‘Strike Eagles’ in towards the British coast, intent on simulating an attack on a nuclear power station.
The presence of defending fighters made things that bit more difficult, but Reynolds was confident that he could get enough aircraft through to attack the target effectively, besides, his group of aircraft was not the only one due to come through in this area.
Suddenly Reynolds’ RWR began to bleep urgently; they had been locked on to by a fighter radar.
*
Since the MFD now showed that they were well within Meteor range, Macalister had energised his CAPTOR radar. It had quickly picked up the six American aircraft, and the Typhoon’s computer had prioritised targets.
“Select Meteor.
“Select target one.” Macalister told the aircraft.
“Meteor selected.
“Target one selected.” The aircraft told him in a rather attractive female voice.
Macalister pushed the pickle button twice, simulating the launch of two Meteor missiles.
“Fox Three!” He said over the radio.
“Fox Three!” His wingman added, after simulating his own missile launch.
Both pilots ‘fired’ one more missile, before turning away, hoping to deny the Eagles a Doppler lock, and hence avoiding any return fire, though they were, for the moment, beyond the range of even the AIM-120C-5 missile, and shutting down their CAPTOR radars.
*
The tone in Lt. Colonel Reynolds’ headphone became continuous, warning him of a missile launch; obviously the Eagle’s ECM gear had failed to break the radar lock. Given the high speed of the Meteor missile, about Mach 5, he had to act fast.
“Break! Break! Break!” He yelled over the radio.
The flight of six ‘Strike Eagles’ broke apart, each aircraft heading in a different direction.
“We’ve still got a missile coming after us, Skipper.” Reynolds’ Wizzo told him.
Reynolds put the F-15 into a spiralling dive, hoping to throw off the Meteor.
Had this been real this would probably not have worked, but for the purposes of further training, the RAIDS pods each aircraft carried, decided that two of the Meteors burned out before reaching their targets, allowing Reynolds, and one other Eagle to survive.
*
“Damn.” Wing Commander Macalister muttered as he watched two of the missile symbols disappeared before they could merge with the last two F-15s.
For some reason RAIDS consistently did this, not doubt to force some close in combat. Well, the Typhoon was more than capable of that.
Macalister brought his aircraft round hard, as he spotted the two Eagles skimming in low of the North Sea. Using his Helmet Mounted Sight, Macalister locked on to one of the F-15s, and fired a simulated ASRAAM.
“Fox Two!”
The two American aircraft broke formation, banking off to port, and starboard, as they realised that they were under attack. Both aircraft tried to turn the tables, but the superior manoeuvrability of the Typhoons prevented this from doing this, Macalister even managed a simulated ‘Fox Three’ gun kill.
*
“Damn it, Skipper, that Limey is stuck to our tail like glue!” Lt. Colonel Reynolds’ Wizzo yelled, as he looked back over his shoulder at the Typhoon threatening their aircraft.
Before Reynolds could reply he heard the ‘Fox Two’ call by Wing Commander Macalister.
“Aw, hell.” He said, on realising that in all likelihood they had been ‘shot down’ several times.
*
While the two Typhoons were concentrating on the Eagles, they missed a group of six Jaguar GR.3As belonging to 614 (County of Glamorgan) Squadron, an auxiliary unit, who had been following the Eagles.
The Tornados, and Hawks circling just over the coast, however, had noticed the approaching Jaguars.
Wing Commander Jack Foster, C.O 43 (Fighter) Squadron, had been watching the approaching Jaguars on his little radar repeater CRT display.
“Light ‘em up.” He told his back seater.
Squadron Leader George Wilkinson did as he was told, energising the Tornado’s AI-24 ‘Foxhunter’ radar. The radar locked onto the leading Jaguar, and a couple of seconds later, Foster pulled the trigger.
“Fox One!” He said, simulating an AMRAAM launch.
“Fox One!” Foster’s wingman added a moment later.
Foster had allocated the four Hawks to keep an eye out for any Jaguars that leaked past the Tornado’s AMRAAM shots; true to form RAIDS let a couple of Jaguars through.
The four Hawks converted onto the pair of Jaguars, turning hard, demonstrating the extra manoeuvrability that the ‘combat wing’, and more powerful Adour engine gave them over the old T.1A.
One Jaguar was ‘brought down’ by a snapshot kill from the 30mm Aden cannon of one Hawk. The other attempted to escape by engaging its afterburners, only succeeding in attracting several simulated ASRAAM shots.
Foster called back the rather too over enthusiastic Tactical Weapon Unit instructors flying the little jets. There were more targets out there somewhere, and still quite a few hours to go before the exercise ended for the day.
So far, 11 Group was winning it.
13th April. The Kremlin, Moscow, RSFSR.
For the first time in several hours the Defence Council of the Politburo had fallen silent.
They were all watching live television pictures of tanks, and other armoured vehicles on board transporters driving out of military bases, and being loaded onto ships.
‘…behind me you can see the Challenger 2 tanks, and the support vehicles of the 2nd County of London Yeomanry, a regiment more commonly known locally by its other name, the Westminster Dragoons, leaving their barracks for ports on the east coast, and onward shipment to West Germany.
‘All across Britain similar scenes are being enacted as the Territorial Army units of II Corps are mobilised to take part in the largest NATO exercise for a decade.
‘Coinciding with this major exercise on the Continent, the largest Home Defence exercise, and air defence exercise in almost twenty years is being held here in Britain.
‘The Ministry of Defence is reticent about why these series of exercises, originally to have taken place either separately, or later in the year, have been brought forward.
‘Defence analyst, Paul Badger, had this to say.’
The screen changed to an indoor scene of a man in a shirt and tie, sitting behind a desk.
‘Caption: Paul Badger, defence analyst.’
‘The timing of this series of exercises is very significant, coinciding, as it does, with a major mobilisation of Warsaw Pact forces, apparently against Poland, which is experiencing some internal problems at the moment.
‘The cynical might think that NATO is trying to send a message to the Soviet leadership that it is ready, and prepared for any eventuality.’
The screen cut back to the reporter, now standing outside a darkened army base in the rain.
‘The last vehicles of the Westminster Dragoons just left this base a few minutes ago, but I have seen members of what are believed to be the local Home Service Force entering the barracks, for what purpose, however, is unknown.
‘This is Brian Earl, BBC News at Ten, handing you back to Hugh in the studio…’
Somebody turned off the large screen television before the news could move onto trivial British domestic news.
“How dare they!” The General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union exploded with rage. “How dare the Imperialists try to dictate to us how to run our own affairs.
“We have not sought to tell the British how to run Northern Ireland, the Spanish the Basque country, or the French Algeria, when they had it.
“They should not tell us how to deal with Poland.”
“It’s a mobilisation, just as myself, and the Comrade Defence Minister suggested, Comrade General Secretary.” The Chairman of the KGB said calmly.
“And it is fairly certain that once the Imperialists have mobilised, that they will take action, after all, why mobilise if you do not intend to do something with one’s troops.” The Defence Minister said, adding weight to the statement of the Chairman of the KGB.
There was a derisive snort from the other end of the room.
The others looked, and saw that it came from the oldest member of the Defence Council, a retired general, who was old enough to have fought in the ‘Great Patriotic War’.
“Nonsense.
“The Westerners do not partake in pre-emptive warfare, even in the Gulf they were reacting to an invasion.
“Have you never thought to consider that they are merely reacting to the fact that we are mobilising all of our forces in Germany, our Category A Divisions, and some of our Category B Divisions in the Western Military Districts?
“We have them worried that we might invade them, that’s all.”
This statement brought a rebuke from the Defence Minister, a Marshal of the Soviet Union, who told the old general to not be so naïve about the West.
“We know.” He continued. “That the Imperialists have entered the final stage of Capitalism.
“During that stage they are very dangerous. They may strike out in a futile effort to save themselves.
“We must be prepared for that eventuality.”
While the Defence Minister was rebuking his older, and certainly wiser, colleague, the Chairman of the KGB leaned over to the General Secretary, and whispered conspiratorially in his ear.
“A foreign threat just may be what we need, Comrade.
“What better to pull the people together, and besides with the correlation of forces we will lose our chance fairly soon.
“I would suggest some sort of ultimatum to the West, one that they can not back down from without a great deal of loss of face.”
The General Secretary nodded in agreement.
“Comrade, Defence Minister, do you have an up to date plan for a pre-emptive strike on the Imperialists, should they force us to war?”
“Yes, Comrade, General Secretary.”
“Then I want you to begin to make preparations to implement it
“Comrade Foreign Minister, I want you to draw up a message to the NATO nations, calling on them to end their mobilisation.
“It must be bellicose, and contain demands that they can not accede to without loss of face.”
“Yes, Comrade, General Secretary.”
The old general murmured a few objections, but the younger men did not seem to want to listen, they were determined to have their war.
The Soviet leadership evidently seemed to have forgotten the heavy cost of victory in ‘The Great Patriotic War’, and of failure in Afghanistan.
They were about to plunge the world into another war.
A few hours later the British Secret Intelligence Service’s ‘contact’ in the Defence Ministry would know most of what was said in this meeting, and frantically pass it on to his handler.
Within twelve hours the leadership of NATO knew, and what started as an exercise turned into a frantic effort to mobilise their respective militaries.
***
Wildenrath was home to RAF Germany’s two air defence units, 19, and 92 Squadrons, both of which had been operating in Germany in this role for a generation. Having previously operated the Phantom FGR.2, and Lightning F.2A (at RAF Gutersloh) both squadrons now flew the Typhoon FGR.2.
As with their previous mounts, the squadrons, in rotation, provided two aircraft fully fuelled, and armed (known as the ‘Battle Flight) on Quick Reaction Alert twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, ready to intercept any Warsaw Pact aircraft that intruded into West German airspace.
The Typhoon had brought a welcome return to single seat fighters, but had also brought a secondary strike role, given the multi-role capabilities of the aircraft. Like the Wattisham wing back in Britain, however, the Wildenrath wing spent ninety percent of their training on air defence, while the Typhoon wing at Coltishall were split fifty-fifty (with 41(F) Squadron concentrating on tac reece), given that their task was to reinforce NATO’s flanks.
It was the early hours of the morning, and time for the ‘Battle Flight’ change over, as the Land Rover made its way from 19 Squadron’s protected crew facility to the QRA sheds, which sat at one end of the main runway.
Once the vehicle came to a halt Squadron Leader Paul Jackson, O.C B Flight, 19 Squadron, climbed out, carrying his ‘bone dome’ in his right hand, his other flight gear in his left.
“Come on, Bob.” He said to his wingman for the next few hours, Flight Lieutenant Robert Watt. “Can’t let these 92 Squadron blokes have all the fun.”
“Fun, Skipper?” Watt replied. “That’ll be a first, even for our esteemed colleagues.”
*
“Hold onto your wallets everybody, 19 Squadron is here!” Squadron Leader Harry Watson, O.C A Flight, 92 Squadron, said as Jackson and Watt entered the crew room.
“I doubt you’ve anything worth nicking, Harry, but it’s time some professional pilots took over.” Jackson replied.
The banter over, the two senior pilots got down to the serious task of handing over responsibility for the ‘Battle Flight.’
“Both of the jets are in tip top condition.” Watson told Jackson. “The engineers checked them out not…” He looked at his watch. “Not half an hour ago.”
“Normal weapons load?” Jackson asked.
“Yes, you’ve got the usual six Meteors, four ASRAAMs, and a full load for the gun.”
Both men smiled at that; neither ever expected to use the Typhoon’s 27mm Mauser cannon, but it was always nice to have it.
“Of course you’ve only got the one thousand litre centreline drop tank.” Watson continued. “You don’t really need the big ‘Hindenburger’ one, and a half thousand litre tanks this close to the IGB, and you get better performance without ‘em anyway.”
“Yeh, we’re not in 11 Group.
“If our Eastern neighbours ever decide to visit, we’ll need all the extra performance we can get.” Jackson replied.
Satisfied with the briefing, Jackson clicked on the requisite icon on the computer screen (all of the documentation relating to the Typhoon was ‘paperless’), officially taking over control of the ‘Battle Flight’.
“See you later, Harry.
“I hope you enjoy catching up on your beauty sleep, you need it.” Jackson said.
“Cheeky bugger.
“I’ll see you later, Paul, try not to break anything.”
10th April. Chequers Court, Buckinghamshire.
The Prime Minister’s official country residence, a Tudor mansion, lay at the foot of the rolling Chiltern Hills, a beautiful setting for any residence.
Different Prime Ministers used the place to a different extent, some treated it as if it was almost their own property, and spent as much time there as possible, others hardly used it.
The present holder of the post of First Lord of the Treasury fell more into the first category, though he had been careful not to appear to use it as if he owned the place, he had found it was a useful place to take his family, and as a place to have quiet meetings with other world leaders.
Today Chequers was holding a secret meeting between the PM, and the US President. Despite being a secret meeting, security was heavy. The local police force, Thames Valley Police, had provided a number of armed officers to protect the mansion (which they did anyway, but had provided extra for the meeting), while the force’s helicopter, a Eurocopter Squirrel 2, was patrolling the area.
The force’s Chief Constable had already complained to the Home Office about the cost of all this, which his force was expected to bear.
In addition to the police, the SAS had a team from the Counter Revolutionary Wing at Hereford on stand-by, while there were a few SAS four-man teams in Observation Posts on the edge of the grounds.
Despite the heavy security, the American President had brought a sizeable Secret Service contingent with him.
Even though the light was fading, and against the advice of their security experts, the PM, and the President had decided to take a stroll in the mansion’s grounds. A group of Special Branch, and Secret Service close protection officers were following at a discrete distance.
To provide heavier armed back up a number of police officers from Thames Valley’s tactical firearms unit, carrying Heckler und Koch G36 rifles, were posted around the gardens.
“As you know, Tony, this whole situation in Poland, and the fact that the Soviets appear to be mobilising their Category A Divisions, and sending warning orders to some Category B, and C Divisions as well, has us rather worried.” The President said.
“It has us rather worried too, Colin.” The PM replied. “On advice from the Chief of the Defence Staff, and from the JIC, we’re moving our reinforcement exercise, and the Home Defence Exercise forward.
“We’re recommending that the big NATO exercise, and REFORGER is also brought forward.”
“We’re doing that.” The President replied. “REFORGER will also be somewhat expanded this year, we’ll be shipping most of the army’s III Corps, and an extra couple of wings of the air force.
“The intelligence that you presented to our other allies has them convinced, so holding the exercise early should not be a problem.”
“Good, good.” The PM replied. “We have at least got to show the Soviets that we’re prepared, should they think of continuing west once their army is fully mobilised.”
The American President nodded in agreement.
“It must be a while since you’ve had a full Home Defence Exercise, Tony.” He observed.
“Yes, a good twenty-three years, I think.
“The fiasco Hard Rock was the last one I can remember.
“Thank God we passed a new Civil Protection Act, and swept away most of the stupid secrecy that the Home Office had insisted on since the end of the last war.
“Most of the local authorities should play along this time.
“Combined with the big air defence exercise due to start at the end of the week, it should be quite interesting.”
While both men were very concerned about NATO being prepared, and sending a message to Moscow, they had not really given much thought to what effect that the message would have in the Kremlin, the home of the professional paranoid, when it arrived.
12th April. Over the North Sea.
Wing Commander Ian Macalister, Commanding Officer of 54 Squadron, put his Typhoon into another lazy left hand turn.
Despite the apparent lack of urgency of Macalister, and his wingman, they were in fact tracking a flight of hostile aircraft crossing the North Sea at low level.
Flying radar silent (their highly capable CAPTOR radars were shut down), they were following the enemy via data passed by JTIDS from an 8 Squadron Sentry AEW.1.
It was rather unusual for 54 Squadron to be taking part in an air defence exercise, given that their wartime assignment was the reinforcement of NATO’s flanks (probably Norway). However, somebody obviously thought that they needed to brush up on their interception skills; something they might be called on to perform on the flanks, as the Typhoon was a so-called ‘swing role’ aircraft. Macalister did not mind the change in role. It was just as fun pretending to shoot other ‘planes down as it was to drop bombs on people.
Some miles to the west of the two Typhoons, just off the coast, were a pair of Tornado F.3s of 43 (Fighter) Squadron, and four Hawk T.2As of 79 (Reserve) Squadron, positioned to catch any aircraft that leaked past the Typhoons.
Macalister glanced at the MFD showing the radar data, the enemy were closing into engagement range, and still apparently unaware that there were any defending fighters in front of them. It was time. Macalister signalled to his wingman, and contacted the controlling Sentry.
“Magic 99, Lion flight engaging. Over.” Was his simple and short message.
“Roger, Lion flight.” The Fighter Controller aboard the AWACS aircraft replied.
Macalister pushed the throttle forward to full military power, the pair of EJ200 engines rapidly accelerating the Typhoon to just over the speed of sound, allowing the aircraft to ‘supercruise’.
What Macalister did not know was that the Sentry was also in the process of passing a warning to the enemy aircraft.
*
“Roger, Magic 99. Thanks for the ‘heads up’. Over.” Lieutenant Colonel Colin Reynolds, C.O of the 492nd Fighter Squadron, 48th Fighter Wing, replied.
Reynolds was leading a group of six F-15E ‘Strike Eagles’ in towards the British coast, intent on simulating an attack on a nuclear power station.
The presence of defending fighters made things that bit more difficult, but Reynolds was confident that he could get enough aircraft through to attack the target effectively, besides, his group of aircraft was not the only one due to come through in this area.
Suddenly Reynolds’ RWR began to bleep urgently; they had been locked on to by a fighter radar.
*
Since the MFD now showed that they were well within Meteor range, Macalister had energised his CAPTOR radar. It had quickly picked up the six American aircraft, and the Typhoon’s computer had prioritised targets.
“Select Meteor.
“Select target one.” Macalister told the aircraft.
“Meteor selected.
“Target one selected.” The aircraft told him in a rather attractive female voice.
Macalister pushed the pickle button twice, simulating the launch of two Meteor missiles.
“Fox Three!” He said over the radio.
“Fox Three!” His wingman added, after simulating his own missile launch.
Both pilots ‘fired’ one more missile, before turning away, hoping to deny the Eagles a Doppler lock, and hence avoiding any return fire, though they were, for the moment, beyond the range of even the AIM-120C-5 missile, and shutting down their CAPTOR radars.
*
The tone in Lt. Colonel Reynolds’ headphone became continuous, warning him of a missile launch; obviously the Eagle’s ECM gear had failed to break the radar lock. Given the high speed of the Meteor missile, about Mach 5, he had to act fast.
“Break! Break! Break!” He yelled over the radio.
The flight of six ‘Strike Eagles’ broke apart, each aircraft heading in a different direction.
“We’ve still got a missile coming after us, Skipper.” Reynolds’ Wizzo told him.
Reynolds put the F-15 into a spiralling dive, hoping to throw off the Meteor.
Had this been real this would probably not have worked, but for the purposes of further training, the RAIDS pods each aircraft carried, decided that two of the Meteors burned out before reaching their targets, allowing Reynolds, and one other Eagle to survive.
*
“Damn.” Wing Commander Macalister muttered as he watched two of the missile symbols disappeared before they could merge with the last two F-15s.
For some reason RAIDS consistently did this, not doubt to force some close in combat. Well, the Typhoon was more than capable of that.
Macalister brought his aircraft round hard, as he spotted the two Eagles skimming in low of the North Sea. Using his Helmet Mounted Sight, Macalister locked on to one of the F-15s, and fired a simulated ASRAAM.
“Fox Two!”
The two American aircraft broke formation, banking off to port, and starboard, as they realised that they were under attack. Both aircraft tried to turn the tables, but the superior manoeuvrability of the Typhoons prevented this from doing this, Macalister even managed a simulated ‘Fox Three’ gun kill.
*
“Damn it, Skipper, that Limey is stuck to our tail like glue!” Lt. Colonel Reynolds’ Wizzo yelled, as he looked back over his shoulder at the Typhoon threatening their aircraft.
Before Reynolds could reply he heard the ‘Fox Two’ call by Wing Commander Macalister.
“Aw, hell.” He said, on realising that in all likelihood they had been ‘shot down’ several times.
*
While the two Typhoons were concentrating on the Eagles, they missed a group of six Jaguar GR.3As belonging to 614 (County of Glamorgan) Squadron, an auxiliary unit, who had been following the Eagles.
The Tornados, and Hawks circling just over the coast, however, had noticed the approaching Jaguars.
Wing Commander Jack Foster, C.O 43 (Fighter) Squadron, had been watching the approaching Jaguars on his little radar repeater CRT display.
“Light ‘em up.” He told his back seater.
Squadron Leader George Wilkinson did as he was told, energising the Tornado’s AI-24 ‘Foxhunter’ radar. The radar locked onto the leading Jaguar, and a couple of seconds later, Foster pulled the trigger.
“Fox One!” He said, simulating an AMRAAM launch.
“Fox One!” Foster’s wingman added a moment later.
Foster had allocated the four Hawks to keep an eye out for any Jaguars that leaked past the Tornado’s AMRAAM shots; true to form RAIDS let a couple of Jaguars through.
The four Hawks converted onto the pair of Jaguars, turning hard, demonstrating the extra manoeuvrability that the ‘combat wing’, and more powerful Adour engine gave them over the old T.1A.
One Jaguar was ‘brought down’ by a snapshot kill from the 30mm Aden cannon of one Hawk. The other attempted to escape by engaging its afterburners, only succeeding in attracting several simulated ASRAAM shots.
Foster called back the rather too over enthusiastic Tactical Weapon Unit instructors flying the little jets. There were more targets out there somewhere, and still quite a few hours to go before the exercise ended for the day.
So far, 11 Group was winning it.
13th April. The Kremlin, Moscow, RSFSR.
For the first time in several hours the Defence Council of the Politburo had fallen silent.
They were all watching live television pictures of tanks, and other armoured vehicles on board transporters driving out of military bases, and being loaded onto ships.
‘…behind me you can see the Challenger 2 tanks, and the support vehicles of the 2nd County of London Yeomanry, a regiment more commonly known locally by its other name, the Westminster Dragoons, leaving their barracks for ports on the east coast, and onward shipment to West Germany.
‘All across Britain similar scenes are being enacted as the Territorial Army units of II Corps are mobilised to take part in the largest NATO exercise for a decade.
‘Coinciding with this major exercise on the Continent, the largest Home Defence exercise, and air defence exercise in almost twenty years is being held here in Britain.
‘The Ministry of Defence is reticent about why these series of exercises, originally to have taken place either separately, or later in the year, have been brought forward.
‘Defence analyst, Paul Badger, had this to say.’
The screen changed to an indoor scene of a man in a shirt and tie, sitting behind a desk.
‘Caption: Paul Badger, defence analyst.’
‘The timing of this series of exercises is very significant, coinciding, as it does, with a major mobilisation of Warsaw Pact forces, apparently against Poland, which is experiencing some internal problems at the moment.
‘The cynical might think that NATO is trying to send a message to the Soviet leadership that it is ready, and prepared for any eventuality.’
The screen cut back to the reporter, now standing outside a darkened army base in the rain.
‘The last vehicles of the Westminster Dragoons just left this base a few minutes ago, but I have seen members of what are believed to be the local Home Service Force entering the barracks, for what purpose, however, is unknown.
‘This is Brian Earl, BBC News at Ten, handing you back to Hugh in the studio…’
Somebody turned off the large screen television before the news could move onto trivial British domestic news.
“How dare they!” The General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union exploded with rage. “How dare the Imperialists try to dictate to us how to run our own affairs.
“We have not sought to tell the British how to run Northern Ireland, the Spanish the Basque country, or the French Algeria, when they had it.
“They should not tell us how to deal with Poland.”
“It’s a mobilisation, just as myself, and the Comrade Defence Minister suggested, Comrade General Secretary.” The Chairman of the KGB said calmly.
“And it is fairly certain that once the Imperialists have mobilised, that they will take action, after all, why mobilise if you do not intend to do something with one’s troops.” The Defence Minister said, adding weight to the statement of the Chairman of the KGB.
There was a derisive snort from the other end of the room.
The others looked, and saw that it came from the oldest member of the Defence Council, a retired general, who was old enough to have fought in the ‘Great Patriotic War’.
“Nonsense.
“The Westerners do not partake in pre-emptive warfare, even in the Gulf they were reacting to an invasion.
“Have you never thought to consider that they are merely reacting to the fact that we are mobilising all of our forces in Germany, our Category A Divisions, and some of our Category B Divisions in the Western Military Districts?
“We have them worried that we might invade them, that’s all.”
This statement brought a rebuke from the Defence Minister, a Marshal of the Soviet Union, who told the old general to not be so naïve about the West.
“We know.” He continued. “That the Imperialists have entered the final stage of Capitalism.
“During that stage they are very dangerous. They may strike out in a futile effort to save themselves.
“We must be prepared for that eventuality.”
While the Defence Minister was rebuking his older, and certainly wiser, colleague, the Chairman of the KGB leaned over to the General Secretary, and whispered conspiratorially in his ear.
“A foreign threat just may be what we need, Comrade.
“What better to pull the people together, and besides with the correlation of forces we will lose our chance fairly soon.
“I would suggest some sort of ultimatum to the West, one that they can not back down from without a great deal of loss of face.”
The General Secretary nodded in agreement.
“Comrade, Defence Minister, do you have an up to date plan for a pre-emptive strike on the Imperialists, should they force us to war?”
“Yes, Comrade, General Secretary.”
“Then I want you to begin to make preparations to implement it
“Comrade Foreign Minister, I want you to draw up a message to the NATO nations, calling on them to end their mobilisation.
“It must be bellicose, and contain demands that they can not accede to without loss of face.”
“Yes, Comrade, General Secretary.”
The old general murmured a few objections, but the younger men did not seem to want to listen, they were determined to have their war.
The Soviet leadership evidently seemed to have forgotten the heavy cost of victory in ‘The Great Patriotic War’, and of failure in Afghanistan.
They were about to plunge the world into another war.
A few hours later the British Secret Intelligence Service’s ‘contact’ in the Defence Ministry would know most of what was said in this meeting, and frantically pass it on to his handler.
Within twelve hours the leadership of NATO knew, and what started as an exercise turned into a frantic effort to mobilise their respective militaries.
***
“Frankly, I had enjoyed the war… and why do people want peace if the war is so much fun?” - Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart
-
Bernard Woolley
- Posts: 995
- Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2022 4:06 pm
- Location: Earth
Chapter 2
Chapter 2
*
14th April. Headquarters RAF Strike Command, RAF High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Johnson, RAF, Commander-in-Chief RAF Strike Command (despite mobilisation he had not yet taken up his NATO position as CINCUKAIR), took his seat as he waited for the briefing to begin.
Today’s briefing would be coming via video link from RAF Bentley Priory, Headquarters of 11 Group, the formation responsible for air defence of Great Britain, and the surrounding ocean area.
Johnson’s aide de camp, Flight Lieutenant Susan Jackson, sat down next to him, a large file in her hands.
“The latest reports from the air defence exercise, Sir.” She told him. “11 Group is doing well.
“And this is the latest regarding the continuing mobilisation of the auxiliaries, and the arrival of American units into our command area.”
“Thanks, Susan.” Johnson replied, taking the file.
Johnson had a quick glance over the reports from the air defence exercise, which looked rather encouraging. The fighter squadrons were racking up high scores, even with the artificial handicap of the rangeless instrumentation, which made things easier for the attackers. What aircraft were getting past the Combat Air Patrols were being shot down by Hawk T.2s on ‘point defence’ defence duty, or by ‘Broadsword’, and ‘Rapier’ SAM units.
The report on mobilisation of the reserves was encouraging; some auxiliary units, mainly those in 11 Group, but also a few in 1 Group, had already been mobilised for the air defence exercise; most were now reporting as being operational, very importantly this included all of the RAuxAF Regiment Field Squadrons assigned to airfield defence.
The report on USAF units arriving in Britain was of more concern.
Oh, the American wings, and squadrons were arriving on time, and there was an abundance of pre-stocked supplies for them, but there was beginning to be something of a problem of overcrowding, both at existing USAF bases (including those kept as war reserve bases, such as Fairford, and Wethersfield), and other RAF air stations, such as RAF Finningly, which were assigned as wartime operating locations.
So far, these bases had had to absorb the 1st, 4th, 23rd, 27th, and 49th Tactical Fighter Wings, and the 4th, and 380th Air Refuelling Wings.
Combined with the existing USAFE Wings based in Britain, this made for an unholy mess.
“Damn.” Johnson muttered to himself. “We’re going to have Yank ‘planes coming out of our ears very soon.
“How many of the allocated civilian airports are we using at the moment, Susan?”
“Five, Sir, including the three in Scotland that are also the bases for auxiliary squadrons.” She replied.
“I think we need to impress on those in the ‘Box’ that we need to start using the remaining eighteen, if we are going to cope with the influx of American aircraft, and if the balloon goes up, aircraft retreating from the Central Region.
“How about our forward operating locations?”
“We’ve got most of them up, and running, Sir.”
“Good.
“We also need to impress on our Lords, and Masters that we’re going to need the civilian helicopter fleet very soon, if we’re going to keep all these dispersed airfields operating.” Johnson added.
“Yes, Sir.” Jackson agreed. “At the moment the pre-positioned stocks are lasting well, and anything over and above that can travel by road.
“However, it is anybodies guess how things could change if war breaks out, and we may need re-supply quicker than can be carried out by road.”
Johnson turned back to the big flat screen TV monitor and noticed that the clock on it was counting down to the briefing time.
“Who is doing the briefing again today, Susan?” C-in-C Strike Command asked.
“Wing Commander Sarah Stapleton, Sir.”
“Ah, I know her, a very experienced officer. Commanded the F.3, and Typhoon OEUs, if I recall.
“She’s supposed to be the best fighter pilot in 11 Group.
“Isn’t she supposed to be engaged to whathisname, the CO of 43 Squadron?”
“Wing Commander Foster, Sir.” Jackson replied, again stunning Johnson with her encyclopaedic knowledge of every squadron commanding officer in Strike Command.
At the appointed time the image of Wing Commander Stapleton appeared on the screen.
“Good morning, Sir, Susan.” She said, her voice slightly tinny, the effect of the video link.
Despite being from York, Stapleton did not have a strong Yorkshire accent.
“Good morning, Sarah. How are you?” Johnson replied.
“Fine, thank you, Sir, though we’re all a bit busy.”
“I’ve had a look over the reports from the exercise, and I must say you seem to be doing very well.” He said.
“Thank you, Sir.
“It has been a very satisfying experience for us. It’s only the second time we’ve been able to fully exercise all of our auxiliary squadrons, and I think we’ve ironed out all the bugs that showed up last time.”
Stapleton paused for a moment before continuing.
“Sir, there is a rumour doing the rounds here that we’re moving from an exercise towards a real mobilisation.
“If its true, it will help us to plan better, and begin to disperse some of our assets.”
Air Chief Marshal Johnson did not say anything at once.
“Susan, this is supposed to be highly confidential, but you can tell Air Vice Marshal Hazel that this is the real thing.
“If he wants to start to disperse his assets, he may.”
“Thank you very much, Sir.” Stapleton replied. “I do hope that things calm down.
“We’re all pretty confident of our ability to stop attacks, but we’d rather not be tested for real.”
“I quite sympathise, Susan.
“None of us wants to be tested for real, not on the scale that this would be.”
Fife House, Glenrothes, Fife, Scotland.
Fife House was part of the complex of buildings that made up the administrative centre of Fife Council (the other main building, Rosthsey House, was the home of the Education Service). The buildings dated back to the 1960s; reflecting the architecture of the period, when Glenrothes had been built as one of a series of ‘New Towns’.
The construction of Glenrothes had coincided with one of the periods of local council reorganisations, in which the old Fife County Council, which had been based in the old county town of Cupar, had been replaced by the two tiers of regional, and district councils, with Fife Regional Council being based in Glenrothes, with three district councils under it.
Just over twenty-five years later everything had been overturned, again, the two-tier system giving way to single so called ‘unitary authorities’, such as Fife Council.
The Council’s Chief Executive; the head of the non-political side of the council; Tom Buchan, was in his office. It had been a busy couple of days for him, as the council rather reluctantly began its preparations to take part in the national Home Defence exercise, and now began to implement its emergency plans for real.
Today Buchan had spent most of the day on the phone. He had been called by an official from the department of the Scottish Executive that dealt with Civil Defence, to inform him that the government was issuing ‘Emergency Phase One (Warning Stand-by)’, the first part of the new Civil Emergencies Act (Scotland) 1999, which had greatly simplified civil defence, sweeping away much of the secrecy, was being issued, and would go public within forty-eight hours.
The civil servant from the Scottish Executive had also informed him that they National Emergency Volunteers (a volunteer civil defence organisation, formed in 1996, who had specifically avoided calling themselves the Civil Defence Corps.) was mobilising its personnel, and that they would be sending teams to pick up equipment, and assist his people in the implementation of the council’s emergency plans.
Buchan had also received calls from the staff of the two government ministers who had their constituencies in Fife, urging him not to drag his feet over the implementation of emergency plans.
His last, and potentially most worrying call had been from the Chief Constable, to inform him that even with military support, he would have trouble policing the demonstrations planned to be held simultaneously at the Maritime Headquarters at Pitreavie, and RAF Leuchars.
With what time he had not spent receiving calls, he had been briefing the council’s Convenor, the political head of the council, who chaired council meetings, about some of the measures that were being taken, and advising the Convenor to form a special ‘emergency committee’ formed of three to five councillors.
Finally getting a minute to himself, he pressed the intercom button to speak to his secretary.
“Phyllis, its Phase One.
“Could you call all the people on the list in the War Book, hen.
“And could you please call my wife and tell her that I might be a bit late home tonight.”
“Yes, Mr. Buchan.”
Headquarters, Fife Constabulary, Glenrothes.
Chief Constable Alistair McIntosh replaced the phone handset after he had finished speaking to Tom Buchan.
McIntosh was indeed worried about the overstretch that his force faced.
Fife Constabulary was the smallest force in Scotland, yet it faced formidable problems, if war were to break out.
Within the force’s policing area there were four major military facilities; RAF Leuchars, MHQ Pitreavie, the naval base, and dockyard at Rosyth, and the Royal Naval Armaments Depot at Crombie; and the Scotland North RGHQ bunker at Troy Wood, outside Anstruther, while the last was relatively secret, all of the others could become the focus of civil disturbance.
What he had not shared with Buchan were the reports that his Special Branch had been receiving, via the Security Service, that enemy agents, or sympathisers, might use these demonstrations to attack the facilities, or provoke riots.
They had also, through the Justice Ministry of the Scottish Executive, sent him the list of people who should be detained under the Emergency Powers Act, which would come into force when ‘Phase Two (Action)’ of the civil defence alert was issued; when war seem immanent; (the list included a councillor, why he had not told Buchan).
McIntosh had made it very clear to the head of Fife’s Special Branch that he was not to jump the gun and start detaining people willy-nilly. Until the Westminster Parliament passed the Emergency Powers Act, normal rules still applied.
Under ‘Phase One’, McIntosh had to start implementing a number of measures laid down in the War Book.
One of these measures was that he would now have to assign a couple of senior officers, an Assistant Chief Constable, and a Superintendent, to act as Police Liaison officers at the council’s Emergency Planning Centre (a new protected facility built under the car park at Fife House), and its Standby (the old EPC under the town house in Kirkcaldy). [1]
Of the other measures, three would immediately grab the attention of the public.
Firstly, as the force mobilised for war, all such qualified officers were required to carry firearms during the execution of their duty (it was also the duty of the Chief Constable to qualify more officers).
Secondly, it was the responsibility of the Police to test the communications, and warning equipment belonging to the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation; the public were certainly going to notice the testing of every air raid siren in Fife.
The third measure was one of the most onerous and would affect the public the most. It was the setting up of the Essential Service Route system.
All major roads in Britain were classified as Essential Service Routes.
In the lead-up to, and during wartime, they would be closed to all ‘non-essential traffic’ – basically military traffic, and vehicles carrying food, and fuel supplies.
The system would be phased in slowly at first, with only temporary closures, at least until hostilities broke out.
McIntosh could just imagine the congestion that closing the two major roads that ran through Fife, the M90, and A92, was going to cause.
It was going to make his Traffic Department even less popular than normal; perhaps, then, it was a good thing that many of them would now be issued with firearms.
There as one more measure that McIntosh would have to implement, the force’s own emergency command centre, a duplicate of the aboveground CAD room, built under the HQ, would have to be brought into operation, even if it was on a skeleton staff, as would the standby facilities in the three Division Areas: Western (based in Dunfermline), Central (based in Kirkcaldy), and Eastern (based in Cupar).
All in all, it was going to be a busy few days for Fife Constabulary.
Manod Quarry, near Blaenau Ffestiniog, North Wales.
The single security guard waited by the main gate, rain dripping from his cap, and yellow, fluorescent jacket, the ground below him a thin layer of mud over Welsh slate.
It was no exaggeration that he was utterly miserable and could not care less about anybody getting into the quarry.
In the distance, down the winding, narrow road, just visible through the drizzle, he could see the reason he was standing outside, instead of sitting in his nice little warm office, listening to the radio.
A group of army four-tonners could be seen grinding their way up the hill towards the quarry, labouring under the loads that they were carrying.
“Taking their bloody time, and me standing outside in the rain, too.” The security guard muttered.
Presently the lorries arrived, the lead one halting at the gate.
A small number of soldiers, wearing the stone-coloured berets of the Foot Guards (they were in fact men of the 1st Battalion, The Welsh Guards), jumped down from the vehicles, and secured the area.
A civilian, wearing a long green raincoat got out of the leading lorry, and approached the security guard.
“Is everything ready for the cargo?” He asked.
“Yes, Sir.
“Myself, and Daffyd, have checked over everything since you called. There’s not much else for us to do up here, you see.
“At least until now.”
“Excellent, let your colleague know we’re coming up.”
The raincoated civilian turned back to the soldiers.
“Right, you can take the vehicles up.
“Lieutenant, your men will be careful with the cargo, I hope.”
“Certainly, Sir.” The commander of the escort said. “Isn’t that right, lads?” He continued, before adding something in Welsh, which made the guardsmen chuckle.
This did not do anything to improve the confidence of the civilian, nor the members of his staff, waiting in the lorries.
TA Centre, Kirkcaldy, Fife.
As in Dunfermline the expansion of the Territorial Army had meant the construction of a new T.A Centre on the edge of town, in this case on a gap site between a supermarket, and a housing estate. Unlike in Dunfermline, the old TA centre, in Hunter Street in the middle of Kirkcaldy, had not been retained, and the site sold off to defray some of the costs of the new centre.
The new TA centre had become the new home of the existing units that were based in town, some of which had been expanded, and of newly formed units, including C Squadron, The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry, an armoured regiment equipped with the Challenger 2, part of the still relatively new 7th Armoured Division, and K Company 7th Battalion The Black Watch (HSF).
Since the NATO exercise had been brought forward, and now since it had become mobilisation, the TA centre had become the scene of much frantic activity, as the units based there prepared to leave for Germany.
The yeomanry did not keep their armoured vehicles on site, apart from a single Challenger, and a Sabre used for recruitment purposes, the centre being too small for that, but were due to pick up their tanks from pre-positioned equipment in Germany. In peacetime the regiment would use vehicles held by the RAC centre when doing their training.
Captain David Napier, the squadron second in command had been a very busy man over the last few days, as he worked on the preparations to deploy.
The squadron was now ready to leave and concentrate with the other squadrons at Edinburgh Airport.
He now had one last duty to perform, to say goodbye to his wife, an officer in the Home Service Force Company.
Saying goodbye was not going to be easy for either.
Armed Forces Emergency H.Q, Scotland, Craigiehall, Edinburgh.
Lieutenant General Sir Duncan Campbell, General Officer Commanding Scotland District, stepped into the ops room of his protected H.Q, a former Anti-Aircraft Operations Room.
The AAORs had been built in the 1950s for the army’s old Anti-Aircraft Command, to provide protected control centres for automated batteries of 5.25inch, and 3.7inch guns in a number of Gun Defended Areas (the Craigiehall AAOR controlled the guns in the Forth GDA). A.A Command had been disbanded in 1955, as being obsolete in modern war, and the well built, and strong AAORs turned over to other uses.
The Craigiehall AAOR was one of two protected AFEHQ facilities in Scotland; the other was at Inverbervie in Aberdeenshire, a former Chain Early Warning, CEW, radar station, with a substantial underground control centre, built as part of the ROTOR radar network. Inverbervie was intended to be the stand-by facility, should the Craigiehall bunker be destroyed.
With the proliferation of precision-guided munitions, Campbell knew that this was a very likely eventuality. Moreover, if the Soviets did drop ‘The Bomb’ then Craigiehall was too close to a number of targets to survive, even if it was not directly targeted.
“Well, ladies, and gentlemen.” Campbell said as he took his seat. “How is the mobilisation of the units based in my district coming along?”
“Almost complete, Sir.” His Chief of Staff replied. “The last few regular, and Territorial units assigned to BAOR are either on their way to airports for flights to Germany, or heading south to ports on the east coast.
“All of our National Defence Territorial units, and Home Service Force units have reported as being mobilised.
“All that remains, Sir, is to deploy them to their assigned locations.”
“We’re still quite limited as to what we can guard.
“Until a state of emergency is declared, we can only guard government property, but get the units moving to guard those that are on our patch.
“And I want our troops ready to go to the other locations as soon as we get the order.” Campbell replied.
15th April. NATO Situation Report.
‘FROM: SHAPE.
TO: All Major MNC, PNC.
SUBJECT: Mobilisation.
‘All in place forces in AFCENT are now operational, and in position.
‘Reinforcements are still arriving in the central region, HQ II (UK) Corps, and III (US) Corps now operational.
‘2nd (US) Armd, 1st (US) Inf (Mech), and 6th(UK) Armd Divs now operational, 7th (UK) Armd Div in process of becoming operational, expected to be ready 24 – 48 hours.
‘Advance units of US 3rd ACR, 1st Cav, 4th Inf (Mech), 5th Inf (Mech) Divs have arrived in region.
‘AFNORTH: UK/NL Amphibious Force, 5th (UK) Airborne Bde operational in Norway, elements 4th (US) MEB in place, will be operational next 48 – 72 hours.
‘UK Mobile Force is operational in BALTAP (Jutland).
‘AFSOUTH: All in place forces mobilised, and in position. Reinforcements on way…MFL.’
RAF North Coates, Lincolnshire.
Flight Lieutenant Bill Keegan, RAF Regiment, stopped the Land Rover as he drove round the air station perimeter.
The car was back again.
“See that blue Saab, Flight?” Keegan said to the Flight Sergeant sitting next to him.
“It’s that same one, Sir.” Flight Sergeant Richard Travis replied.
Keegan, and Travis were part of the RAF Regiment staff that provided security for RAF North Coates, and trained the non-regiment personnel in guard duties, and weapons handling.
The air station was a vital link in the United Kingdom’s air defences, being home to B Flight, 85 Squadron. The other flights were based at a number of other RAF Stations; A, and C Flights were at RAF West Raynham, D Flight at RAF Barkston Heath, E at RAF Wyton, and F Flight at RAF Wattisham.
85 Squadron was equipped with the still relatively new MBDA (originally BAe Dynamics) ‘Broadsword’ long range SAM, the long-awaited replacement for the old ‘Bloodhound’ Mk. II missile. Although the system was fully road mobile, and would deploy off station in war, the flights operated from main bases in peacetime, for ease of operation, and maintenance, and for the air defence exercise had operated from them.
At the moment 85 Squadron was preparing to deploy to a pre-surveyed off station site, although the Transport Erector Launchers were still operational at their present site; each TEL contained four ‘Broadsword’ missiles, which was a two-stage ramjet design, with a solid rocket boosted, capable of speeds up to Mach 5; which was why Keegan was concerned.
The last thing that B Flight needed was somebody revealing their off-station location, or even that they were getting ready to move.
“Could be an enthusiast.” Travis offered.
“Three days in a row at a missile base?
“No, I think that any enthusiast would have moved onto Marham to see the Canberras, or Wattisham to see the Typhoons.
“It’s either a journalist reporting on the transition to war, or…” Keegan left the other possibility hanging for a moment.
“Somebody from the other side, Sir.” Travis said, completing the sentence.
“Exactly.” Keegan confirmed.
He picked up the radio handset in the Land Rover.
“This is Squadron Leader Keegan. Our friend is back in the same place.
“Request that you contact the local plods and have them check out the car.
“Over.”
***
[1] Fife does have an EPC, but to the best of the author’s knowledge it is not a protected facility, nor is it under the car park at Fife House. In ‘War Plan UK’ Duncan Campbell suggested that the FRC EPC was in Kirkcaldy, from which the current author bases his supposition for its location under the Town House.
*
14th April. Headquarters RAF Strike Command, RAF High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Johnson, RAF, Commander-in-Chief RAF Strike Command (despite mobilisation he had not yet taken up his NATO position as CINCUKAIR), took his seat as he waited for the briefing to begin.
Today’s briefing would be coming via video link from RAF Bentley Priory, Headquarters of 11 Group, the formation responsible for air defence of Great Britain, and the surrounding ocean area.
Johnson’s aide de camp, Flight Lieutenant Susan Jackson, sat down next to him, a large file in her hands.
“The latest reports from the air defence exercise, Sir.” She told him. “11 Group is doing well.
“And this is the latest regarding the continuing mobilisation of the auxiliaries, and the arrival of American units into our command area.”
“Thanks, Susan.” Johnson replied, taking the file.
Johnson had a quick glance over the reports from the air defence exercise, which looked rather encouraging. The fighter squadrons were racking up high scores, even with the artificial handicap of the rangeless instrumentation, which made things easier for the attackers. What aircraft were getting past the Combat Air Patrols were being shot down by Hawk T.2s on ‘point defence’ defence duty, or by ‘Broadsword’, and ‘Rapier’ SAM units.
The report on mobilisation of the reserves was encouraging; some auxiliary units, mainly those in 11 Group, but also a few in 1 Group, had already been mobilised for the air defence exercise; most were now reporting as being operational, very importantly this included all of the RAuxAF Regiment Field Squadrons assigned to airfield defence.
The report on USAF units arriving in Britain was of more concern.
Oh, the American wings, and squadrons were arriving on time, and there was an abundance of pre-stocked supplies for them, but there was beginning to be something of a problem of overcrowding, both at existing USAF bases (including those kept as war reserve bases, such as Fairford, and Wethersfield), and other RAF air stations, such as RAF Finningly, which were assigned as wartime operating locations.
So far, these bases had had to absorb the 1st, 4th, 23rd, 27th, and 49th Tactical Fighter Wings, and the 4th, and 380th Air Refuelling Wings.
Combined with the existing USAFE Wings based in Britain, this made for an unholy mess.
“Damn.” Johnson muttered to himself. “We’re going to have Yank ‘planes coming out of our ears very soon.
“How many of the allocated civilian airports are we using at the moment, Susan?”
“Five, Sir, including the three in Scotland that are also the bases for auxiliary squadrons.” She replied.
“I think we need to impress on those in the ‘Box’ that we need to start using the remaining eighteen, if we are going to cope with the influx of American aircraft, and if the balloon goes up, aircraft retreating from the Central Region.
“How about our forward operating locations?”
“We’ve got most of them up, and running, Sir.”
“Good.
“We also need to impress on our Lords, and Masters that we’re going to need the civilian helicopter fleet very soon, if we’re going to keep all these dispersed airfields operating.” Johnson added.
“Yes, Sir.” Jackson agreed. “At the moment the pre-positioned stocks are lasting well, and anything over and above that can travel by road.
“However, it is anybodies guess how things could change if war breaks out, and we may need re-supply quicker than can be carried out by road.”
Johnson turned back to the big flat screen TV monitor and noticed that the clock on it was counting down to the briefing time.
“Who is doing the briefing again today, Susan?” C-in-C Strike Command asked.
“Wing Commander Sarah Stapleton, Sir.”
“Ah, I know her, a very experienced officer. Commanded the F.3, and Typhoon OEUs, if I recall.
“She’s supposed to be the best fighter pilot in 11 Group.
“Isn’t she supposed to be engaged to whathisname, the CO of 43 Squadron?”
“Wing Commander Foster, Sir.” Jackson replied, again stunning Johnson with her encyclopaedic knowledge of every squadron commanding officer in Strike Command.
At the appointed time the image of Wing Commander Stapleton appeared on the screen.
“Good morning, Sir, Susan.” She said, her voice slightly tinny, the effect of the video link.
Despite being from York, Stapleton did not have a strong Yorkshire accent.
“Good morning, Sarah. How are you?” Johnson replied.
“Fine, thank you, Sir, though we’re all a bit busy.”
“I’ve had a look over the reports from the exercise, and I must say you seem to be doing very well.” He said.
“Thank you, Sir.
“It has been a very satisfying experience for us. It’s only the second time we’ve been able to fully exercise all of our auxiliary squadrons, and I think we’ve ironed out all the bugs that showed up last time.”
Stapleton paused for a moment before continuing.
“Sir, there is a rumour doing the rounds here that we’re moving from an exercise towards a real mobilisation.
“If its true, it will help us to plan better, and begin to disperse some of our assets.”
Air Chief Marshal Johnson did not say anything at once.
“Susan, this is supposed to be highly confidential, but you can tell Air Vice Marshal Hazel that this is the real thing.
“If he wants to start to disperse his assets, he may.”
“Thank you very much, Sir.” Stapleton replied. “I do hope that things calm down.
“We’re all pretty confident of our ability to stop attacks, but we’d rather not be tested for real.”
“I quite sympathise, Susan.
“None of us wants to be tested for real, not on the scale that this would be.”
Fife House, Glenrothes, Fife, Scotland.
Fife House was part of the complex of buildings that made up the administrative centre of Fife Council (the other main building, Rosthsey House, was the home of the Education Service). The buildings dated back to the 1960s; reflecting the architecture of the period, when Glenrothes had been built as one of a series of ‘New Towns’.
The construction of Glenrothes had coincided with one of the periods of local council reorganisations, in which the old Fife County Council, which had been based in the old county town of Cupar, had been replaced by the two tiers of regional, and district councils, with Fife Regional Council being based in Glenrothes, with three district councils under it.
Just over twenty-five years later everything had been overturned, again, the two-tier system giving way to single so called ‘unitary authorities’, such as Fife Council.
The Council’s Chief Executive; the head of the non-political side of the council; Tom Buchan, was in his office. It had been a busy couple of days for him, as the council rather reluctantly began its preparations to take part in the national Home Defence exercise, and now began to implement its emergency plans for real.
Today Buchan had spent most of the day on the phone. He had been called by an official from the department of the Scottish Executive that dealt with Civil Defence, to inform him that the government was issuing ‘Emergency Phase One (Warning Stand-by)’, the first part of the new Civil Emergencies Act (Scotland) 1999, which had greatly simplified civil defence, sweeping away much of the secrecy, was being issued, and would go public within forty-eight hours.
The civil servant from the Scottish Executive had also informed him that they National Emergency Volunteers (a volunteer civil defence organisation, formed in 1996, who had specifically avoided calling themselves the Civil Defence Corps.) was mobilising its personnel, and that they would be sending teams to pick up equipment, and assist his people in the implementation of the council’s emergency plans.
Buchan had also received calls from the staff of the two government ministers who had their constituencies in Fife, urging him not to drag his feet over the implementation of emergency plans.
His last, and potentially most worrying call had been from the Chief Constable, to inform him that even with military support, he would have trouble policing the demonstrations planned to be held simultaneously at the Maritime Headquarters at Pitreavie, and RAF Leuchars.
With what time he had not spent receiving calls, he had been briefing the council’s Convenor, the political head of the council, who chaired council meetings, about some of the measures that were being taken, and advising the Convenor to form a special ‘emergency committee’ formed of three to five councillors.
Finally getting a minute to himself, he pressed the intercom button to speak to his secretary.
“Phyllis, its Phase One.
“Could you call all the people on the list in the War Book, hen.
“And could you please call my wife and tell her that I might be a bit late home tonight.”
“Yes, Mr. Buchan.”
Headquarters, Fife Constabulary, Glenrothes.
Chief Constable Alistair McIntosh replaced the phone handset after he had finished speaking to Tom Buchan.
McIntosh was indeed worried about the overstretch that his force faced.
Fife Constabulary was the smallest force in Scotland, yet it faced formidable problems, if war were to break out.
Within the force’s policing area there were four major military facilities; RAF Leuchars, MHQ Pitreavie, the naval base, and dockyard at Rosyth, and the Royal Naval Armaments Depot at Crombie; and the Scotland North RGHQ bunker at Troy Wood, outside Anstruther, while the last was relatively secret, all of the others could become the focus of civil disturbance.
What he had not shared with Buchan were the reports that his Special Branch had been receiving, via the Security Service, that enemy agents, or sympathisers, might use these demonstrations to attack the facilities, or provoke riots.
They had also, through the Justice Ministry of the Scottish Executive, sent him the list of people who should be detained under the Emergency Powers Act, which would come into force when ‘Phase Two (Action)’ of the civil defence alert was issued; when war seem immanent; (the list included a councillor, why he had not told Buchan).
McIntosh had made it very clear to the head of Fife’s Special Branch that he was not to jump the gun and start detaining people willy-nilly. Until the Westminster Parliament passed the Emergency Powers Act, normal rules still applied.
Under ‘Phase One’, McIntosh had to start implementing a number of measures laid down in the War Book.
One of these measures was that he would now have to assign a couple of senior officers, an Assistant Chief Constable, and a Superintendent, to act as Police Liaison officers at the council’s Emergency Planning Centre (a new protected facility built under the car park at Fife House), and its Standby (the old EPC under the town house in Kirkcaldy). [1]
Of the other measures, three would immediately grab the attention of the public.
Firstly, as the force mobilised for war, all such qualified officers were required to carry firearms during the execution of their duty (it was also the duty of the Chief Constable to qualify more officers).
Secondly, it was the responsibility of the Police to test the communications, and warning equipment belonging to the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation; the public were certainly going to notice the testing of every air raid siren in Fife.
The third measure was one of the most onerous and would affect the public the most. It was the setting up of the Essential Service Route system.
All major roads in Britain were classified as Essential Service Routes.
In the lead-up to, and during wartime, they would be closed to all ‘non-essential traffic’ – basically military traffic, and vehicles carrying food, and fuel supplies.
The system would be phased in slowly at first, with only temporary closures, at least until hostilities broke out.
McIntosh could just imagine the congestion that closing the two major roads that ran through Fife, the M90, and A92, was going to cause.
It was going to make his Traffic Department even less popular than normal; perhaps, then, it was a good thing that many of them would now be issued with firearms.
There as one more measure that McIntosh would have to implement, the force’s own emergency command centre, a duplicate of the aboveground CAD room, built under the HQ, would have to be brought into operation, even if it was on a skeleton staff, as would the standby facilities in the three Division Areas: Western (based in Dunfermline), Central (based in Kirkcaldy), and Eastern (based in Cupar).
All in all, it was going to be a busy few days for Fife Constabulary.
Manod Quarry, near Blaenau Ffestiniog, North Wales.
The single security guard waited by the main gate, rain dripping from his cap, and yellow, fluorescent jacket, the ground below him a thin layer of mud over Welsh slate.
It was no exaggeration that he was utterly miserable and could not care less about anybody getting into the quarry.
In the distance, down the winding, narrow road, just visible through the drizzle, he could see the reason he was standing outside, instead of sitting in his nice little warm office, listening to the radio.
A group of army four-tonners could be seen grinding their way up the hill towards the quarry, labouring under the loads that they were carrying.
“Taking their bloody time, and me standing outside in the rain, too.” The security guard muttered.
Presently the lorries arrived, the lead one halting at the gate.
A small number of soldiers, wearing the stone-coloured berets of the Foot Guards (they were in fact men of the 1st Battalion, The Welsh Guards), jumped down from the vehicles, and secured the area.
A civilian, wearing a long green raincoat got out of the leading lorry, and approached the security guard.
“Is everything ready for the cargo?” He asked.
“Yes, Sir.
“Myself, and Daffyd, have checked over everything since you called. There’s not much else for us to do up here, you see.
“At least until now.”
“Excellent, let your colleague know we’re coming up.”
The raincoated civilian turned back to the soldiers.
“Right, you can take the vehicles up.
“Lieutenant, your men will be careful with the cargo, I hope.”
“Certainly, Sir.” The commander of the escort said. “Isn’t that right, lads?” He continued, before adding something in Welsh, which made the guardsmen chuckle.
This did not do anything to improve the confidence of the civilian, nor the members of his staff, waiting in the lorries.
TA Centre, Kirkcaldy, Fife.
As in Dunfermline the expansion of the Territorial Army had meant the construction of a new T.A Centre on the edge of town, in this case on a gap site between a supermarket, and a housing estate. Unlike in Dunfermline, the old TA centre, in Hunter Street in the middle of Kirkcaldy, had not been retained, and the site sold off to defray some of the costs of the new centre.
The new TA centre had become the new home of the existing units that were based in town, some of which had been expanded, and of newly formed units, including C Squadron, The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry, an armoured regiment equipped with the Challenger 2, part of the still relatively new 7th Armoured Division, and K Company 7th Battalion The Black Watch (HSF).
Since the NATO exercise had been brought forward, and now since it had become mobilisation, the TA centre had become the scene of much frantic activity, as the units based there prepared to leave for Germany.
The yeomanry did not keep their armoured vehicles on site, apart from a single Challenger, and a Sabre used for recruitment purposes, the centre being too small for that, but were due to pick up their tanks from pre-positioned equipment in Germany. In peacetime the regiment would use vehicles held by the RAC centre when doing their training.
Captain David Napier, the squadron second in command had been a very busy man over the last few days, as he worked on the preparations to deploy.
The squadron was now ready to leave and concentrate with the other squadrons at Edinburgh Airport.
He now had one last duty to perform, to say goodbye to his wife, an officer in the Home Service Force Company.
Saying goodbye was not going to be easy for either.
Armed Forces Emergency H.Q, Scotland, Craigiehall, Edinburgh.
Lieutenant General Sir Duncan Campbell, General Officer Commanding Scotland District, stepped into the ops room of his protected H.Q, a former Anti-Aircraft Operations Room.
The AAORs had been built in the 1950s for the army’s old Anti-Aircraft Command, to provide protected control centres for automated batteries of 5.25inch, and 3.7inch guns in a number of Gun Defended Areas (the Craigiehall AAOR controlled the guns in the Forth GDA). A.A Command had been disbanded in 1955, as being obsolete in modern war, and the well built, and strong AAORs turned over to other uses.
The Craigiehall AAOR was one of two protected AFEHQ facilities in Scotland; the other was at Inverbervie in Aberdeenshire, a former Chain Early Warning, CEW, radar station, with a substantial underground control centre, built as part of the ROTOR radar network. Inverbervie was intended to be the stand-by facility, should the Craigiehall bunker be destroyed.
With the proliferation of precision-guided munitions, Campbell knew that this was a very likely eventuality. Moreover, if the Soviets did drop ‘The Bomb’ then Craigiehall was too close to a number of targets to survive, even if it was not directly targeted.
“Well, ladies, and gentlemen.” Campbell said as he took his seat. “How is the mobilisation of the units based in my district coming along?”
“Almost complete, Sir.” His Chief of Staff replied. “The last few regular, and Territorial units assigned to BAOR are either on their way to airports for flights to Germany, or heading south to ports on the east coast.
“All of our National Defence Territorial units, and Home Service Force units have reported as being mobilised.
“All that remains, Sir, is to deploy them to their assigned locations.”
“We’re still quite limited as to what we can guard.
“Until a state of emergency is declared, we can only guard government property, but get the units moving to guard those that are on our patch.
“And I want our troops ready to go to the other locations as soon as we get the order.” Campbell replied.
15th April. NATO Situation Report.
‘FROM: SHAPE.
TO: All Major MNC, PNC.
SUBJECT: Mobilisation.
‘All in place forces in AFCENT are now operational, and in position.
‘Reinforcements are still arriving in the central region, HQ II (UK) Corps, and III (US) Corps now operational.
‘2nd (US) Armd, 1st (US) Inf (Mech), and 6th(UK) Armd Divs now operational, 7th (UK) Armd Div in process of becoming operational, expected to be ready 24 – 48 hours.
‘Advance units of US 3rd ACR, 1st Cav, 4th Inf (Mech), 5th Inf (Mech) Divs have arrived in region.
‘AFNORTH: UK/NL Amphibious Force, 5th (UK) Airborne Bde operational in Norway, elements 4th (US) MEB in place, will be operational next 48 – 72 hours.
‘UK Mobile Force is operational in BALTAP (Jutland).
‘AFSOUTH: All in place forces mobilised, and in position. Reinforcements on way…MFL.’
RAF North Coates, Lincolnshire.
Flight Lieutenant Bill Keegan, RAF Regiment, stopped the Land Rover as he drove round the air station perimeter.
The car was back again.
“See that blue Saab, Flight?” Keegan said to the Flight Sergeant sitting next to him.
“It’s that same one, Sir.” Flight Sergeant Richard Travis replied.
Keegan, and Travis were part of the RAF Regiment staff that provided security for RAF North Coates, and trained the non-regiment personnel in guard duties, and weapons handling.
The air station was a vital link in the United Kingdom’s air defences, being home to B Flight, 85 Squadron. The other flights were based at a number of other RAF Stations; A, and C Flights were at RAF West Raynham, D Flight at RAF Barkston Heath, E at RAF Wyton, and F Flight at RAF Wattisham.
85 Squadron was equipped with the still relatively new MBDA (originally BAe Dynamics) ‘Broadsword’ long range SAM, the long-awaited replacement for the old ‘Bloodhound’ Mk. II missile. Although the system was fully road mobile, and would deploy off station in war, the flights operated from main bases in peacetime, for ease of operation, and maintenance, and for the air defence exercise had operated from them.
At the moment 85 Squadron was preparing to deploy to a pre-surveyed off station site, although the Transport Erector Launchers were still operational at their present site; each TEL contained four ‘Broadsword’ missiles, which was a two-stage ramjet design, with a solid rocket boosted, capable of speeds up to Mach 5; which was why Keegan was concerned.
The last thing that B Flight needed was somebody revealing their off-station location, or even that they were getting ready to move.
“Could be an enthusiast.” Travis offered.
“Three days in a row at a missile base?
“No, I think that any enthusiast would have moved onto Marham to see the Canberras, or Wattisham to see the Typhoons.
“It’s either a journalist reporting on the transition to war, or…” Keegan left the other possibility hanging for a moment.
“Somebody from the other side, Sir.” Travis said, completing the sentence.
“Exactly.” Keegan confirmed.
He picked up the radio handset in the Land Rover.
“This is Squadron Leader Keegan. Our friend is back in the same place.
“Request that you contact the local plods and have them check out the car.
“Over.”
***
[1] Fife does have an EPC, but to the best of the author’s knowledge it is not a protected facility, nor is it under the car park at Fife House. In ‘War Plan UK’ Duncan Campbell suggested that the FRC EPC was in Kirkcaldy, from which the current author bases his supposition for its location under the Town House.
“Frankly, I had enjoyed the war… and why do people want peace if the war is so much fun?” - Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart
-
Bernard Woolley
- Posts: 995
- Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2022 4:06 pm
- Location: Earth
Chapter 3
Chapter 3.
*
RAF Marham, Norfolk, England.
Marham; one of four RAF airfields in East Anglia, the others being Coltishall, Honnington, and Wattisham; had become the Royal Air Force’s ‘Centre of Excellence’ for aerial reconnaissance.
During the mid 1990s there had been some reshuffling of squadrons to achieve this. The Tornado GR.1 equipped 27, and 617 Squadrons had moved out, swapping around with 13 Squadron, which was equipped with the Tornado GR.1A, from RAF Honnington. Also moving out was 55 Squadron, on retiring its last Victor K.2s, standing up with ‘new’ Tristar KC.2s at Brize Norton.
New arrivals from RAF Wyton, which needed space for its expanded fleet of Nimrod R.4s, the Sentinel R.1, and RAuxAF units, included No.39 (1 PRU) Squadron, and the Joint School of Photo Interpretation. Marham also became the war base for the auxiliary squadron equipped with the Tornado GR.4A, 609 (West Riding of Yorkshire) Squadron.
The late nineties had proven to be something of a renaissance for the ageing, if not actually ancient Canberra PR.9. Recognising that they had an aircraft that was unrivalled in the world; except maybe by the American U-2S, and the ‘Dragon Lady’ was more expensive to operate, limited to fewer airfields, and did not quite match the quality of photographs produced by the Canberra; the RAF had sought to make as much use of the airframe as possible.
There was not enough money in the right budget to procure a replacement aircraft, but there was enough to give the ‘Old Lady’ a serious upgrade.
To keep her in the air longer, two long-standing wishes had been met.
Firstly, a fixed inflight refuelling probe, running back along the port side of the pilot’s cockpit to the main fuselage tanks, had been fitted. Secondly the Canberra had been given the capability to carry the Tornado ‘Hindenburger’ drop tanks under the wings.
To boost numbers the RAF had taken five aircraft out of storage at RAF St. Athan and had returned them to service. Moreover, the air force had searched high, and low for suitable PR.9 airframes that might be restored to flying condition, or act as a source of spares. One aircraft, XH170, had been in store at RAF Wyton, while another XH171, came from the RAF Museum, Cosford.
Two more airframes, XH166, and XH173, demonstrated that the RAF really was going ‘the extra mile’, coming, as they did, from the Aeronautics Museum, Santiago, Chile.
To take over some of the load of the valuable PR.9, two older PR.7s that were used for conversion, and continuation training, were equipped with basic (at least in comparison with the System III PR.9s, anyway) photo reece equipment, to allow them to take over the more mundane mapping/surveying duties, thus reducing the fatigue load on the PR.9s.
Today the Station Commander had brought all of the three regular squadron commanders, and the C.O of 609 (West Riding of Yorkshire) Squadron, while was in the process of moving to Marham, together for a briefing.
“So, gentlemen, we all know that the political situation in Europe is deteriorating fast.
“We are moving to a war footing, and our reserve forces are almost fully mobilised.” The Air Commodore said.
“HQ Strike Command need to know how many aircraft I can offer them, which is why you four are here.
“How about you, Bob, how many Canberrras can you give me?”
“I have eight jets in everyday use, plus another two in use reserves.” Wing Commander Bob Peck, C.O 39 (1 PRU) Squadron, replied. “I do have four more PR.9 airframes, but we use ‘em for spares, though I suppose we could restore them to operational service if we took the two PR.7s out of service and robbed the gate guard at Wyton.
“As I mentioned I do also have two PR.7s, and a couple of T.4s.
“However, I only have twelve crews, though six chaps from the auxiliaries are coming in, which will boost our numbers.”
“Good, because we already have taskings for you, Bob, lots of stuff along the IGB.” The Air Commodore replied.
“Oh, lovely.” Peck said, chuckling.
“Talking about auxiliaries, what can you bring to the party, Dave?” The Station Commander asked.
“Twelve aircraft, and eighteen crews, Sir.” Wing Commander David Harris, C.O 609 (West Riding of Yorkshire) Squadron, a bluff Yorkshireman, who was the oldest of the Tornado Squadron C.Os, said simply.
“He doesn’t muck about, does he?” Peck, the oldest of the group, as Canberra crews tended to be, observed, laughing.
“I’m not like them soft southerners, Bob, I don’t waste my time waffling.” Harris said to Peck, who was from Cumbria.
“Couple of comedians.” The Air Commodore observed. “How about you, Steve?”
“Thirteen aircraft at the moment, Sir, but I’m expecting a few more to arrive from St. Athan soon.” The C.O of II (AC) Squadron replied. “I’ve got twenty crews at the moment, and a couple of bods are due to arrive from the TWCU over the next couple of days.”
“It’s a pretty similar situation with us, Sir.” The C.O of No. 13 Squadron added. “Except that we’ve got one extra aircraft.
“Excellent, gentlemen, you should expect extra taskings over the next few days.
“Well, let’s all hope that the situation does not boil over.”
The A92 dual carriageway, near the Lochgelly junction.
P.C James Welsh hit the siren as his big BMW traffic car came up behind a red Ford Mondeo.
Welsh’s partner, Constable Caroline Prosser, reached down for the P.A handset.
“Please leave this road at the nearest exit.
“This road is now an Essential Service Route.” Her voice boomed out from the car’s loudspeakers.
The Mondeo did as it was told and left the A92 at the Lochgelly junction.
Welsh followed it up (much to the consternation of the driver) and parked at the top of the slip road. Part of Fife Constabulary Traffic Department’s tasks since the transition to war had begun was to clear the Essential Service Routes that ran through the policing area, and seal them off for the duration that they were required by the military.
Welsh, and Bell got out of the car, and began to set out bright orange cones, and ‘ROAD CLOSED’ signs on the four slip roads; it would have been easier to have sealed off the road at the roundabout next to the Andrews factory, but the road that crossed the dual carriageway at this point led to a minor B road that was not classed as an ESR.
Both officers found the Glock 17 automatics, and body armour that they were now wearing something of a hindrance in this task.
As they were finishing up, their personal radios crackled.
“All units, this is Bravo Delta.
“Just to warn you, UKWMO will begin testing the siren system in one minute. The test will last for fifteen minutes.”
A minute later the faint, and mournful wail of the nearest air raid siren, which sat atop the Town House in Lochgelly, less than mile away ‘as the crow flies’, could be heard.
“I hope we don’t have to hear that for real, Caroline.” Welsh observed.
“Too right, Jim, too right.” Prosser agreed.
RAF Gatow, West Berlin.
The No. 216 Squadron Tristar C.2A rolled to a halt on the visiting aircraft pan, parking next to a number of other aircraft, which included a pair of VC.10s, three Hercules C.4s, a Globemaster C.1, and two civil Boeing 757s.
Long lines of civilian dependents, from both the RAF, and the army’s Berlin Brigade stretched back to the terminal building, as they waited to be evacuated to the UK.
Squadron Leader Richard Taggart, RAF Regiment, descended the airstair onto the concrete pan, carrying his Bergen over one shoulder, and his rifle in the opposite hand. Taggart was leading a group of RAF Regiment troops, equivalent to two flights, who were specialists in airfield defence. Some were drawn from regular squadrons, while others came from the RAuxAF Regiment.
Neither they, nor the small RAF Regiment detachment at Gatow, had any real hope of defending the air station against serious attack, instead their task was to train all RAF personnel based at Gatow in airfield defence, with the Regiment men serving as the core.
To facilitate them in this task, the group contained a large proportion of experienced instructors, plus a large number of extra weapons, which included Javelin ATGW, LAW80s, L118 Minimis, GPMGs, a few L1A1 12.7mm Browning HMGs, 81mm, and 51mm mortars, and all the prerequisite ammunition.
The senior RAF Regiment officer at Gatow, Flight Lieutenant Andrew Carden, was waiting for Taggart on the concrete pan.
“Good morning, Sir, and welcome to RAF Gatow.
“Excuse me if I don’t salute, but in all likelihood, we’re being watched, and I don’t want the opposition to know that you’re a senior officer.”
“Good morning, Andy.” Taggart replied. “How are things here?”
“I’ve got about one hundred men of the regiment to guard the field, we’ve been busy over the last couple of days providing refresher training for the other personnel, but we’ve been hamstrung for lack of equipment, but that should change now.
“In defence we’ll have the assistance of the ground personnel from 8 Flight Army Air Corps. They’re all weapons trained, and experienced soldiers.”
“Good.” Taggart replied. “Considering the limitations you’ve faced; I think that you’ve got things well in hand.”
Smuts Barracks, West Berlin.
Major James Saunders, the O.C of D Squadron, 17th/21st Lancers, looked down from his office at the row of eighteen Challenger 2 tanks now being worked on by members of his squadron and REME personnel assigned to the barracks. From his vantage point he could see that the soldiers were bringing the tanks up to full Dorchester Level 2F (DL 2F), which added appliqué armour to the turret, hull, and side skirts, as well as bar armour to the hull and turret rear and sides to protect the tanks from RPG and other infantry anti-tank weapons. [1]
The addition of bar armour to the already formidable DL 2F was an innovation first introduced by the Berlin Armoured Squadron, like the strange disruptive urban camouflage which Chieftains and Challengers based in Berlin had worn, based on the idea that they were more likely to encounter infantry anti-tank weapons at close range, though, unlike the camouflage scheme, the rest of the army had also adopted the bar armour idea.
Bringing the tanks up to their war fighting configuration; to save wear and tear on West Berlin’s road infrastructure the extra armour was normally left off; reflected the fact that as the British Berlin Infantry Brigade, and its American, and French counterparts, had been brought to a heightened state of alert, due to the current crisis.
Saunders could sense that his squadron was nervous. This far away from West Germany they were very isolated, and little in the way of reinforcements could be expected. 1st Battalion The Royal Regiment of Wales had been due to be relieved by 3rd Battalion, The Queen’s Regiment. However, given the rise in tension, the Welsh battalion had been retained in West Berlin.
If war did break out then they would totally and utterly isolated, a small island in a hostile country. They were also all very worried about their families, but fortunately plans were well advanced to evacuate them via RAF Gatow, but Saunders did worry about whether it would begin in time.
The British Berlin Infantry Brigade itself was a mainly mechanised infantry force, unique within the British Army in that its infantry battalions were still mainly equipped with the FV432 (including the unique thirteen FV432 Rardens) [2], though two of the battalions had partially re-equipped with the wheeled Saxon APC, the decision being taken that no Warriors would be deployed to West Berlin. The brigade was also unique in that all of the ‘B’ vehicles, the soft skin support such as lorries etc, were provided by the West German government, as part of the post-war occupation agreement.
All three Allied brigades were essentially light infantry, the Americans also had a token tank company of M1A1s, and a single battery of six M109A6s, and the French had an armoured reconnaissance regiment to support its infantry.
Clearly the weakness of the Western garrisons, which in total amounted to a total of about 10,000 men, meant that they could not take aggressive action of any kind, and were strictly limited to defence.
Ranged against this were 100,000 troops of the Nationale Volksarmee, the East German Army, who were assigned to carry out ‘Operation Centre’, the capture of West Berlin. With the weakness of the Allied garrison, the NVA commander in charge of this operation confidently predicted that the western half of the divided city could be captured within 48 hours.
Given the Allied position, he was probably right.
17th April. MHQ, Pitreavie Castle, Dunfermline.
Pitreavie Castle was the headquarters of the Flag Officer Scotland, and Northern Ireland, and of the RAF’s Aeronautical Rescue Co-ordination Centre.
In wartime it became the H.Q of NATO’s North Atlantic Area, making it a very important installation indeed.
For that very reason, the organisers of today’s ‘peace march’ had chosen it as the destination of the march. For the more militant in the march, it was the opportunity to make a point by closing down the facility, and to show that they were angry that the implementation of the ESR system made the protest at RAF Leuchars impossible, and had prevented more people coming to the demonstration (police at the Forth Road, and Kincardine Bridges had stopped groups of protestors heading for the march, some of whom were anti-Soviet, intent on starting a fight with the ‘Reds’, though some had still managed to make the journey by train).
As an important H.Q, Pitreavie was guarded by Royal Marines from the Fleet Protection Group Royal Marines (FPGRM), along with some personnel from the MoD Police. Neither was really trained or equipped for public order duties, their focus being on anti-terrorist, and anti-sabotage duties.
To protect the facility from the crowd, Fife Constabulary had provided a serial of twenty officers in full riot gear, all they could spare from other duties, plus about another twenty accompanying the march itself. To provide them with assistance, should it be needed, a platoon from the Home Service Force, equipped like the police, with the addition of L1A1 66mm CS gas launchers, and L67 baton guns, were waiting within the grounds of Pitreavie.
Given the scale of the march Chief Constable McIntosh had requested assistance from both Lothian and Borders Police, and Strathclyde Police in the provision of some mounted officers.
Both forces had rejected the request, saying that they had public order issues of their own today; there was a march planned through the centre of Edinburgh, a rally in George Square in Glasgow, and a march to the Clyde Submarine Base, which would all tie up their mounted branch resources. In any case Lothian and Borders only had eight horses available, and Strathclyde twenty-four, barely enough to cover their own needs, never mind aid another force.
Fife Constabulary, however, had been quite lucky in that it now benefited from an army programme begun back in 1995. In that year the army had intended to disband its last non-ceremonial horsed unit, the Royal Military Police Mounted Troop, which had been used for patrolling intractable areas of army land, such as ranges, and through the camp at Aldershot, but which now faced replacement by all-terrain motorbikes. However, somebody at the MoD realised that in the army’s wartime Home Defence tasks, it was missing one vital tool in its public order arsenal – an equivalent to the Police Mounted Branch.
The RMP Mounted Troop had been expanded to squadron size (though it retained its name), and formed the basis for an RMP Mounted Regiment, mainly made up of TA personnel. The ‘Redcaps’ recruited to this regiment underwent the same rigorous training as their police counterparts (as did the equestrian recruits) and trained alongside the police mounted branches.
By 1999 a squadron from the regiment had been provided to each military district (one troop in each squadron was made up of regular personnel, the others of TA personnel). A troop from the Scotland District squadron, based at Redford Barracks in Edinburgh, had been provided to assist the police in covering today’s march.
Sergeant James Connor, RM, stood a few yards behind the line of police, and troops, but in front of the guard post. His men were busily finishing off a temporary barrier across the access road, in case any protestors broke through the police line.
Connor was not a happy man. He felt that the marines were spread too thinly around the perimeter of the H.Q. If there was a major breakthrough in the police, and army line there was the potential for a disaster.
Sergeant Bell was also less than happy (it was his platoon that was aiding the police). This was not why his troops, both ex-regular, and direct entry, had signed up for the Home Service Force.
“The boys, and girls aren’t too happy, Boss.” He said to the platoon’s O.C.
“I know, Bill.” Lieutenant James Grove, another ex-regular, who once upon a time had been an RSM in the Black Watch, replied. “I can’t say I’m too happy about it either.
“This is no job for soldiers.
“Have you kept the blokes with the baton guns out of sight?”
“Of course, Boss.
“I picked the four best shots in the platoon to carry them.” Bell told him.
“Good, I hope we don’t have to use them.
“If we’re really lucky the polis will be able to control the crowd without our help.
East of Hamburg, Federal Republic of Germany.
Major Ian Anderson, the Second-in-Command of The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards (Carabiniers and Greys), was sitting atop the turret of his Challenger 2 MBT, eating a bacon, and egg ‘banjo’, the first relatively hot meal he had had in a couple of days, and drinking a cup of lukewarm tea out of a plastic mug.
“Excuse me, Sir.” A corporal from regimental H.Q said, interrupting his ‘meal’. “The Colonel wants to see you.”
“Right, I’m just coming.” Anderson replied.
Anderson drained the last of his tea in one go, deciding to eat the rest of his ‘banjo’ on the way to RHQ.
“Ah, Ian. Good to see you’ve got yourself something to eat.” Lieutenant Colonel Richard Stevenson said as Anderson arrived at RHQ, a collection of Sultan Armoured Command Vehicles, with tents draped over the space between them.
Stevenson’s own Challenger was parked a short distance away, its crew performing some routine maintenance.
“I’ve got a little job for you.” Stevenson continued.
“Why have I got the feeling I’m not going to like this, Sir?” Anderson replied.
“Don’t be such a pessimist, Ian.” Stevenson said, a wry smile on his face. “I haven’t told you what it is yet.
“Brigade has just informed me that a group of defence correspondents, who were originally here to cover the exercise, are on their way here.
“Apparently somebody at Army Group wants them to see a forward unit.
“We’ve to extend them the fullest co-operation.”
“You want me to look after them, don’t you, Sir?” Anderson said, rather convinced that his first reaction had been right.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Which of our squadron groups do you want me to inflict them on, Sir?” Anderson asked.
“Oh, I think they’d like to see our guests from the Black Watch, and Major Carter could do with some extra experience in dealing with the media.” Stevenson said, smiling.
As part of the formation of ‘Battlegroups’, the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards had swapped one of their armoured squadrons for A Company, 1st Battalion The Black Watch, commanded by Major Roger Carter.
Both regiments had been rather pleased that they both happened to be in 7th Armoured Brigade at the same time.
It was, after all, far easier working with a fellow Scottish Regiment.
Presently, the group of correspondents arrived in couple of lorries.
Although they were a disparate bunch, Anderson noted that they were all wearing sensible footwear, and carried the army’s standard NBC equipment, just in case, they were being led by a short, female captain.
“Captain Ailsa Currie, Sir, army media operations.” She introduced herself.
Anderson detected a Scottish accent in her voice and guessed that she was possibly a mobilised TA officer.
“Major Anderson, pleased to meet you, Captain.
“What part of Scotland are you from?”
“Perth, Sir.” She informed him.
“If you don’t mind me saying, Captain, you don’t seem like a public relations type.” Anderson observed.
“That’s all right, Sir.
“I joined my university OTC, and ended up in my local yeomanry regiment, The Scottish Horse, after I graduated.
“Somebody at TA H.Q obviously decided that my skills lay more in this area.” Currie replied.
“I see.” Anderson said. “Always good to meet a fellow cavalryman.
“I think we have something good lined up for this lot.
“I’m going to take you forward to visit our infantry company from the Black Watch.”
“Sounds interesting, I’ll let them know what to expect.”
*
Major Roger Carter was sitting in the commander’s seat in the turret of his command Warrior, eating some curry out of a mess tin, still unaware that his day was about to be rudely interrupted.
As part of creating a ‘Company Group’ within the ‘Battlegroup’ Carter had given up two platoons of his company and had gained two troops of Challengers in return.
“Looks like a bunch of defence correspondents coming up, Sir.” CSM David Bender, who was sitting in the rear of the Warrior, observed.
“What?” Carter exclaimed, turning round in the turret, spotting the group of correspondents approaching, being led by Major Anderson, and another officer, who he did not recognise, but who he assumed was a public relations officer.
“Bugger it.” He muttered.
***
1) The bar armour idea was actually introduced after operational experience in Operation Telic. See Dunstan, Simon, ‘Challenger 2 Main Battle Tank 1987 – 2006’, p.20.
2) These 13 APCs were fitted with the same turret, and 30mm cannon as the Sabre, and the CVR (W) Fox.
*
RAF Marham, Norfolk, England.
Marham; one of four RAF airfields in East Anglia, the others being Coltishall, Honnington, and Wattisham; had become the Royal Air Force’s ‘Centre of Excellence’ for aerial reconnaissance.
During the mid 1990s there had been some reshuffling of squadrons to achieve this. The Tornado GR.1 equipped 27, and 617 Squadrons had moved out, swapping around with 13 Squadron, which was equipped with the Tornado GR.1A, from RAF Honnington. Also moving out was 55 Squadron, on retiring its last Victor K.2s, standing up with ‘new’ Tristar KC.2s at Brize Norton.
New arrivals from RAF Wyton, which needed space for its expanded fleet of Nimrod R.4s, the Sentinel R.1, and RAuxAF units, included No.39 (1 PRU) Squadron, and the Joint School of Photo Interpretation. Marham also became the war base for the auxiliary squadron equipped with the Tornado GR.4A, 609 (West Riding of Yorkshire) Squadron.
The late nineties had proven to be something of a renaissance for the ageing, if not actually ancient Canberra PR.9. Recognising that they had an aircraft that was unrivalled in the world; except maybe by the American U-2S, and the ‘Dragon Lady’ was more expensive to operate, limited to fewer airfields, and did not quite match the quality of photographs produced by the Canberra; the RAF had sought to make as much use of the airframe as possible.
There was not enough money in the right budget to procure a replacement aircraft, but there was enough to give the ‘Old Lady’ a serious upgrade.
To keep her in the air longer, two long-standing wishes had been met.
Firstly, a fixed inflight refuelling probe, running back along the port side of the pilot’s cockpit to the main fuselage tanks, had been fitted. Secondly the Canberra had been given the capability to carry the Tornado ‘Hindenburger’ drop tanks under the wings.
To boost numbers the RAF had taken five aircraft out of storage at RAF St. Athan and had returned them to service. Moreover, the air force had searched high, and low for suitable PR.9 airframes that might be restored to flying condition, or act as a source of spares. One aircraft, XH170, had been in store at RAF Wyton, while another XH171, came from the RAF Museum, Cosford.
Two more airframes, XH166, and XH173, demonstrated that the RAF really was going ‘the extra mile’, coming, as they did, from the Aeronautics Museum, Santiago, Chile.
To take over some of the load of the valuable PR.9, two older PR.7s that were used for conversion, and continuation training, were equipped with basic (at least in comparison with the System III PR.9s, anyway) photo reece equipment, to allow them to take over the more mundane mapping/surveying duties, thus reducing the fatigue load on the PR.9s.
Today the Station Commander had brought all of the three regular squadron commanders, and the C.O of 609 (West Riding of Yorkshire) Squadron, while was in the process of moving to Marham, together for a briefing.
“So, gentlemen, we all know that the political situation in Europe is deteriorating fast.
“We are moving to a war footing, and our reserve forces are almost fully mobilised.” The Air Commodore said.
“HQ Strike Command need to know how many aircraft I can offer them, which is why you four are here.
“How about you, Bob, how many Canberrras can you give me?”
“I have eight jets in everyday use, plus another two in use reserves.” Wing Commander Bob Peck, C.O 39 (1 PRU) Squadron, replied. “I do have four more PR.9 airframes, but we use ‘em for spares, though I suppose we could restore them to operational service if we took the two PR.7s out of service and robbed the gate guard at Wyton.
“As I mentioned I do also have two PR.7s, and a couple of T.4s.
“However, I only have twelve crews, though six chaps from the auxiliaries are coming in, which will boost our numbers.”
“Good, because we already have taskings for you, Bob, lots of stuff along the IGB.” The Air Commodore replied.
“Oh, lovely.” Peck said, chuckling.
“Talking about auxiliaries, what can you bring to the party, Dave?” The Station Commander asked.
“Twelve aircraft, and eighteen crews, Sir.” Wing Commander David Harris, C.O 609 (West Riding of Yorkshire) Squadron, a bluff Yorkshireman, who was the oldest of the Tornado Squadron C.Os, said simply.
“He doesn’t muck about, does he?” Peck, the oldest of the group, as Canberra crews tended to be, observed, laughing.
“I’m not like them soft southerners, Bob, I don’t waste my time waffling.” Harris said to Peck, who was from Cumbria.
“Couple of comedians.” The Air Commodore observed. “How about you, Steve?”
“Thirteen aircraft at the moment, Sir, but I’m expecting a few more to arrive from St. Athan soon.” The C.O of II (AC) Squadron replied. “I’ve got twenty crews at the moment, and a couple of bods are due to arrive from the TWCU over the next couple of days.”
“It’s a pretty similar situation with us, Sir.” The C.O of No. 13 Squadron added. “Except that we’ve got one extra aircraft.
“Excellent, gentlemen, you should expect extra taskings over the next few days.
“Well, let’s all hope that the situation does not boil over.”
The A92 dual carriageway, near the Lochgelly junction.
P.C James Welsh hit the siren as his big BMW traffic car came up behind a red Ford Mondeo.
Welsh’s partner, Constable Caroline Prosser, reached down for the P.A handset.
“Please leave this road at the nearest exit.
“This road is now an Essential Service Route.” Her voice boomed out from the car’s loudspeakers.
The Mondeo did as it was told and left the A92 at the Lochgelly junction.
Welsh followed it up (much to the consternation of the driver) and parked at the top of the slip road. Part of Fife Constabulary Traffic Department’s tasks since the transition to war had begun was to clear the Essential Service Routes that ran through the policing area, and seal them off for the duration that they were required by the military.
Welsh, and Bell got out of the car, and began to set out bright orange cones, and ‘ROAD CLOSED’ signs on the four slip roads; it would have been easier to have sealed off the road at the roundabout next to the Andrews factory, but the road that crossed the dual carriageway at this point led to a minor B road that was not classed as an ESR.
Both officers found the Glock 17 automatics, and body armour that they were now wearing something of a hindrance in this task.
As they were finishing up, their personal radios crackled.
“All units, this is Bravo Delta.
“Just to warn you, UKWMO will begin testing the siren system in one minute. The test will last for fifteen minutes.”
A minute later the faint, and mournful wail of the nearest air raid siren, which sat atop the Town House in Lochgelly, less than mile away ‘as the crow flies’, could be heard.
“I hope we don’t have to hear that for real, Caroline.” Welsh observed.
“Too right, Jim, too right.” Prosser agreed.
RAF Gatow, West Berlin.
The No. 216 Squadron Tristar C.2A rolled to a halt on the visiting aircraft pan, parking next to a number of other aircraft, which included a pair of VC.10s, three Hercules C.4s, a Globemaster C.1, and two civil Boeing 757s.
Long lines of civilian dependents, from both the RAF, and the army’s Berlin Brigade stretched back to the terminal building, as they waited to be evacuated to the UK.
Squadron Leader Richard Taggart, RAF Regiment, descended the airstair onto the concrete pan, carrying his Bergen over one shoulder, and his rifle in the opposite hand. Taggart was leading a group of RAF Regiment troops, equivalent to two flights, who were specialists in airfield defence. Some were drawn from regular squadrons, while others came from the RAuxAF Regiment.
Neither they, nor the small RAF Regiment detachment at Gatow, had any real hope of defending the air station against serious attack, instead their task was to train all RAF personnel based at Gatow in airfield defence, with the Regiment men serving as the core.
To facilitate them in this task, the group contained a large proportion of experienced instructors, plus a large number of extra weapons, which included Javelin ATGW, LAW80s, L118 Minimis, GPMGs, a few L1A1 12.7mm Browning HMGs, 81mm, and 51mm mortars, and all the prerequisite ammunition.
The senior RAF Regiment officer at Gatow, Flight Lieutenant Andrew Carden, was waiting for Taggart on the concrete pan.
“Good morning, Sir, and welcome to RAF Gatow.
“Excuse me if I don’t salute, but in all likelihood, we’re being watched, and I don’t want the opposition to know that you’re a senior officer.”
“Good morning, Andy.” Taggart replied. “How are things here?”
“I’ve got about one hundred men of the regiment to guard the field, we’ve been busy over the last couple of days providing refresher training for the other personnel, but we’ve been hamstrung for lack of equipment, but that should change now.
“In defence we’ll have the assistance of the ground personnel from 8 Flight Army Air Corps. They’re all weapons trained, and experienced soldiers.”
“Good.” Taggart replied. “Considering the limitations you’ve faced; I think that you’ve got things well in hand.”
Smuts Barracks, West Berlin.
Major James Saunders, the O.C of D Squadron, 17th/21st Lancers, looked down from his office at the row of eighteen Challenger 2 tanks now being worked on by members of his squadron and REME personnel assigned to the barracks. From his vantage point he could see that the soldiers were bringing the tanks up to full Dorchester Level 2F (DL 2F), which added appliqué armour to the turret, hull, and side skirts, as well as bar armour to the hull and turret rear and sides to protect the tanks from RPG and other infantry anti-tank weapons. [1]
The addition of bar armour to the already formidable DL 2F was an innovation first introduced by the Berlin Armoured Squadron, like the strange disruptive urban camouflage which Chieftains and Challengers based in Berlin had worn, based on the idea that they were more likely to encounter infantry anti-tank weapons at close range, though, unlike the camouflage scheme, the rest of the army had also adopted the bar armour idea.
Bringing the tanks up to their war fighting configuration; to save wear and tear on West Berlin’s road infrastructure the extra armour was normally left off; reflected the fact that as the British Berlin Infantry Brigade, and its American, and French counterparts, had been brought to a heightened state of alert, due to the current crisis.
Saunders could sense that his squadron was nervous. This far away from West Germany they were very isolated, and little in the way of reinforcements could be expected. 1st Battalion The Royal Regiment of Wales had been due to be relieved by 3rd Battalion, The Queen’s Regiment. However, given the rise in tension, the Welsh battalion had been retained in West Berlin.
If war did break out then they would totally and utterly isolated, a small island in a hostile country. They were also all very worried about their families, but fortunately plans were well advanced to evacuate them via RAF Gatow, but Saunders did worry about whether it would begin in time.
The British Berlin Infantry Brigade itself was a mainly mechanised infantry force, unique within the British Army in that its infantry battalions were still mainly equipped with the FV432 (including the unique thirteen FV432 Rardens) [2], though two of the battalions had partially re-equipped with the wheeled Saxon APC, the decision being taken that no Warriors would be deployed to West Berlin. The brigade was also unique in that all of the ‘B’ vehicles, the soft skin support such as lorries etc, were provided by the West German government, as part of the post-war occupation agreement.
All three Allied brigades were essentially light infantry, the Americans also had a token tank company of M1A1s, and a single battery of six M109A6s, and the French had an armoured reconnaissance regiment to support its infantry.
Clearly the weakness of the Western garrisons, which in total amounted to a total of about 10,000 men, meant that they could not take aggressive action of any kind, and were strictly limited to defence.
Ranged against this were 100,000 troops of the Nationale Volksarmee, the East German Army, who were assigned to carry out ‘Operation Centre’, the capture of West Berlin. With the weakness of the Allied garrison, the NVA commander in charge of this operation confidently predicted that the western half of the divided city could be captured within 48 hours.
Given the Allied position, he was probably right.
17th April. MHQ, Pitreavie Castle, Dunfermline.
Pitreavie Castle was the headquarters of the Flag Officer Scotland, and Northern Ireland, and of the RAF’s Aeronautical Rescue Co-ordination Centre.
In wartime it became the H.Q of NATO’s North Atlantic Area, making it a very important installation indeed.
For that very reason, the organisers of today’s ‘peace march’ had chosen it as the destination of the march. For the more militant in the march, it was the opportunity to make a point by closing down the facility, and to show that they were angry that the implementation of the ESR system made the protest at RAF Leuchars impossible, and had prevented more people coming to the demonstration (police at the Forth Road, and Kincardine Bridges had stopped groups of protestors heading for the march, some of whom were anti-Soviet, intent on starting a fight with the ‘Reds’, though some had still managed to make the journey by train).
As an important H.Q, Pitreavie was guarded by Royal Marines from the Fleet Protection Group Royal Marines (FPGRM), along with some personnel from the MoD Police. Neither was really trained or equipped for public order duties, their focus being on anti-terrorist, and anti-sabotage duties.
To protect the facility from the crowd, Fife Constabulary had provided a serial of twenty officers in full riot gear, all they could spare from other duties, plus about another twenty accompanying the march itself. To provide them with assistance, should it be needed, a platoon from the Home Service Force, equipped like the police, with the addition of L1A1 66mm CS gas launchers, and L67 baton guns, were waiting within the grounds of Pitreavie.
Given the scale of the march Chief Constable McIntosh had requested assistance from both Lothian and Borders Police, and Strathclyde Police in the provision of some mounted officers.
Both forces had rejected the request, saying that they had public order issues of their own today; there was a march planned through the centre of Edinburgh, a rally in George Square in Glasgow, and a march to the Clyde Submarine Base, which would all tie up their mounted branch resources. In any case Lothian and Borders only had eight horses available, and Strathclyde twenty-four, barely enough to cover their own needs, never mind aid another force.
Fife Constabulary, however, had been quite lucky in that it now benefited from an army programme begun back in 1995. In that year the army had intended to disband its last non-ceremonial horsed unit, the Royal Military Police Mounted Troop, which had been used for patrolling intractable areas of army land, such as ranges, and through the camp at Aldershot, but which now faced replacement by all-terrain motorbikes. However, somebody at the MoD realised that in the army’s wartime Home Defence tasks, it was missing one vital tool in its public order arsenal – an equivalent to the Police Mounted Branch.
The RMP Mounted Troop had been expanded to squadron size (though it retained its name), and formed the basis for an RMP Mounted Regiment, mainly made up of TA personnel. The ‘Redcaps’ recruited to this regiment underwent the same rigorous training as their police counterparts (as did the equestrian recruits) and trained alongside the police mounted branches.
By 1999 a squadron from the regiment had been provided to each military district (one troop in each squadron was made up of regular personnel, the others of TA personnel). A troop from the Scotland District squadron, based at Redford Barracks in Edinburgh, had been provided to assist the police in covering today’s march.
Sergeant James Connor, RM, stood a few yards behind the line of police, and troops, but in front of the guard post. His men were busily finishing off a temporary barrier across the access road, in case any protestors broke through the police line.
Connor was not a happy man. He felt that the marines were spread too thinly around the perimeter of the H.Q. If there was a major breakthrough in the police, and army line there was the potential for a disaster.
Sergeant Bell was also less than happy (it was his platoon that was aiding the police). This was not why his troops, both ex-regular, and direct entry, had signed up for the Home Service Force.
“The boys, and girls aren’t too happy, Boss.” He said to the platoon’s O.C.
“I know, Bill.” Lieutenant James Grove, another ex-regular, who once upon a time had been an RSM in the Black Watch, replied. “I can’t say I’m too happy about it either.
“This is no job for soldiers.
“Have you kept the blokes with the baton guns out of sight?”
“Of course, Boss.
“I picked the four best shots in the platoon to carry them.” Bell told him.
“Good, I hope we don’t have to use them.
“If we’re really lucky the polis will be able to control the crowd without our help.
East of Hamburg, Federal Republic of Germany.
Major Ian Anderson, the Second-in-Command of The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards (Carabiniers and Greys), was sitting atop the turret of his Challenger 2 MBT, eating a bacon, and egg ‘banjo’, the first relatively hot meal he had had in a couple of days, and drinking a cup of lukewarm tea out of a plastic mug.
“Excuse me, Sir.” A corporal from regimental H.Q said, interrupting his ‘meal’. “The Colonel wants to see you.”
“Right, I’m just coming.” Anderson replied.
Anderson drained the last of his tea in one go, deciding to eat the rest of his ‘banjo’ on the way to RHQ.
“Ah, Ian. Good to see you’ve got yourself something to eat.” Lieutenant Colonel Richard Stevenson said as Anderson arrived at RHQ, a collection of Sultan Armoured Command Vehicles, with tents draped over the space between them.
Stevenson’s own Challenger was parked a short distance away, its crew performing some routine maintenance.
“I’ve got a little job for you.” Stevenson continued.
“Why have I got the feeling I’m not going to like this, Sir?” Anderson replied.
“Don’t be such a pessimist, Ian.” Stevenson said, a wry smile on his face. “I haven’t told you what it is yet.
“Brigade has just informed me that a group of defence correspondents, who were originally here to cover the exercise, are on their way here.
“Apparently somebody at Army Group wants them to see a forward unit.
“We’ve to extend them the fullest co-operation.”
“You want me to look after them, don’t you, Sir?” Anderson said, rather convinced that his first reaction had been right.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Which of our squadron groups do you want me to inflict them on, Sir?” Anderson asked.
“Oh, I think they’d like to see our guests from the Black Watch, and Major Carter could do with some extra experience in dealing with the media.” Stevenson said, smiling.
As part of the formation of ‘Battlegroups’, the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards had swapped one of their armoured squadrons for A Company, 1st Battalion The Black Watch, commanded by Major Roger Carter.
Both regiments had been rather pleased that they both happened to be in 7th Armoured Brigade at the same time.
It was, after all, far easier working with a fellow Scottish Regiment.
Presently, the group of correspondents arrived in couple of lorries.
Although they were a disparate bunch, Anderson noted that they were all wearing sensible footwear, and carried the army’s standard NBC equipment, just in case, they were being led by a short, female captain.
“Captain Ailsa Currie, Sir, army media operations.” She introduced herself.
Anderson detected a Scottish accent in her voice and guessed that she was possibly a mobilised TA officer.
“Major Anderson, pleased to meet you, Captain.
“What part of Scotland are you from?”
“Perth, Sir.” She informed him.
“If you don’t mind me saying, Captain, you don’t seem like a public relations type.” Anderson observed.
“That’s all right, Sir.
“I joined my university OTC, and ended up in my local yeomanry regiment, The Scottish Horse, after I graduated.
“Somebody at TA H.Q obviously decided that my skills lay more in this area.” Currie replied.
“I see.” Anderson said. “Always good to meet a fellow cavalryman.
“I think we have something good lined up for this lot.
“I’m going to take you forward to visit our infantry company from the Black Watch.”
“Sounds interesting, I’ll let them know what to expect.”
*
Major Roger Carter was sitting in the commander’s seat in the turret of his command Warrior, eating some curry out of a mess tin, still unaware that his day was about to be rudely interrupted.
As part of creating a ‘Company Group’ within the ‘Battlegroup’ Carter had given up two platoons of his company and had gained two troops of Challengers in return.
“Looks like a bunch of defence correspondents coming up, Sir.” CSM David Bender, who was sitting in the rear of the Warrior, observed.
“What?” Carter exclaimed, turning round in the turret, spotting the group of correspondents approaching, being led by Major Anderson, and another officer, who he did not recognise, but who he assumed was a public relations officer.
“Bugger it.” He muttered.
***
1) The bar armour idea was actually introduced after operational experience in Operation Telic. See Dunstan, Simon, ‘Challenger 2 Main Battle Tank 1987 – 2006’, p.20.
2) These 13 APCs were fitted with the same turret, and 30mm cannon as the Sabre, and the CVR (W) Fox.
“Frankly, I had enjoyed the war… and why do people want peace if the war is so much fun?” - Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart
-
Bernard Woolley
- Posts: 995
- Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2022 4:06 pm
- Location: Earth
Chapter 4
Chapter 4.
*
MHQ, Pitreavie Castle, Dunfermline.
The crowd of protestors were still not visible, but the police officers, and HSF troops could hear their chants, and the sounds of whistles, and horns, as the march approached from the north.
Sergeant Bell walked between the two lines of his platoon, inspecting each man, and woman as he went.
A few were visibly nervous, sweat pouring down their faces below their visored helmets, or breathing heavily.
“It’s Okay. Just relax.” Bell said to them as he passed, trying to keep them calm.
Bell guessed that the rest, even the ‘old sweats’ like himself, were feeling fear, everybody did. Anybody who said they were not scared before going into action was either a liar, or a psychopath.
Bell could feel his fear in the pit of his stomach. Like all experienced soldiers, he pushed his fear down, intending to use it, rather than let it control him.
First the large banners came into view, followed by the leading marchers, and escorting police officers. The marchers were a disparate bunch; some carried banners declaring themselves to be members of the ‘Scottish Socialist Party’, or the ‘Stop the War Coalition’, both well known hard left groups, but others seemed to come from across the political spectrum and were made up of people genuinely worried about the consequences of a war between NATO, and the Warsaw Pact.
“There are enough of them, Bill.” Corporal Jacobs observed.
Before Bell could reply, Lieutenant Grove appeared, his radioman, Lance-Corporal Small, in tow.
“We’ve got a problem, lads.
“There’s a group of anti-Soviet protestors coming over by train, rent-a-mob for the most part, by the looks of things.
“Apparently, they were a bit miffed at having their coach stopped at the road bridge, so got on a train at Dalmeny, after doing over a bunch of British Transport Police who tried to stop them.
“The polis missed them at North Queensferry, and they’ll be arriving at Rosyth Halt in about ten minutes, the train driver is going slowly.
“We’ve been asked to assist the police in detaining them.”
Sergeant Bell took a sharp intake of breath when he heard the news; Rosyth Halt was only a few hundred meters away, over the other side of a roundabout.
Allowing this rival group to get anywhere near the march could be disastrous.
“Sergeant, I want you to take ten men, and assist the polis down at the station.
“You’ll be joined by a few lads from 3 Platoon, who were down at the dockyard.” Grove said.
“Right, Sir.
“I’ll leave Corporal Jacobs here to act as platoon commander, and I’ll take Lance-Corporal Honeyman with me.” Bell replied.
Bell turned back to the platoon.
“Right, boys, and girls, I need ten volunteers for a special job.
“You, you, you…”
ITN Lunchtime News.
‘In an exclusive report ITN has received pictures from inside Poland, which show the true situation inside that troubled country.
“The pictures were gained at considerable personal risk by a Polish journalist, who smuggled the film out to Denmark.
“These scenes may cause some views distress.’
The film showed a number of scenes of peaceful protests being attacked by Polish police, with some violence. Others showed troops, apparently Soviet, firing at a group of Polish protestors destroying a Soviet cultural centre.
That shot had earlier shown Polish troops standing by, while the protestors wrecked the building.
‘In a related development the Foreign Office, in an unprecedented action, has released the full text of a diplomatic note sent to all NATO governments.
‘The note demanded that NATO cease its current exercise, which it called a ‘provocative mobilisation’, and demanded that NATO nations stay out of internal Soviet affairs, thought to be a reference to expected Soviet intervention in Poland.
‘In a statement to the House of Commons, the Prime Minister said that the NATO Council of Ministers had voted to reject the note, and that they called on the Soviet Union to end its mobilisation of reserves, and not to intervene in the internal affairs of another sovereign nation.
‘So far the Soviet reaction to this message is not known.
‘In home news the Home Office has issued the ‘Emergency Phase One (Warning Stand-by)’ civil defence alert, indicating perhaps how seriously the government takes the current crisis in Eastern Europe.
‘In other news today, David…’
HMS Minotaur, the Norwegian Sea.
Captain Richard Ford kept a close eye on the distance between his cruiser, and the RFA Wave Ruler, as the Minotaur took on fuel, and munitions.
HMS Minotaur was the fourth ship of the Tiger (Type 46) class of cruisers, an enlarged Type 45, the principle differences between the two classes being that the Type 46’s hull had been lengthened to allow an extra VLS aft, and the ship was equipped with superior command, and control facilities to allow it to co-ordinate the air defence of a group, or act as a flagship.
Minotaur was the senior air defence escort of the NATO ASW Striking Force (a group mainly made up of Royal Navy warships), whose task it was to support the almost exclusively American Striking Fleet Atlantic. At the centre of the group were the carriers HMS Ark Royal, the flagship, and HMS Invincible, both packed with Sea Harriers, Merlins, and Sea Kings.
Given that they were supposed to be sailing into the very back yard of the Soviet Union in their hunt for submarines, and would only have the most distant support from the big American carriers, or from land-based fighters in Norway, the force had a very dangerous job, which was why it was blessed with four Type 46s (Minotaur, Tiger, Centurion, and Royalist), and six Type 45s (Daring, Dauntless, Diamond, Dragon, Defender, and Duncan, almost half of the entire class).
As well as these modern ships, the group also enjoyed the protection of a few older Batch 2, and Batch 3 Type 42 destroyers.
However, the real strength of the escort force came from the Royal Navy Type 22, and 23 frigates, and the Canadian Halifax class frigates, and various French and Dutch warships that were dedicated to Anti-Submarine Warfare, which formed the backbone of the ASW Striking Force.
They, along with the Merlins from the two carriers, would, hopefully, be doing most of the work if shooting broke out.
Captain Ford briefly allowed himself to turn away from the current evolution and look up. Above the collection of warships, and auxiliaries, was a single Royal Air Force Nimrod MRA.4, circling the perimeter. It would be with them for a few more hours before a P-3 Orion of the Royal Norwegian Air Force took over.
For now, a succession of land-based ASW aircraft would support the group, but within a couple of days they would be operating under airspace too dangerous for such slow and lumbering aircraft to operate in. Ford turned back to the refuelling evolution, knowing that it was nearly done.
“That’s us topped up, Sir.” The Officer Of the Watch reported.
“Very good.
“Standby to execute breakaway manoeuvre.” Ford ordered.
“Signal Wave Ruler regarding our intensions and thank her for filling us up.”
“Aye, aye, Sir.”
Minotaur released the hoses that stretched across the gap between her and the tanker and began to slowly accelerate away.
Aft, the frigate HMS Richmond was waiting for her turn to take on fuel.
RFA Wave Ruler was set for a very busy day, refuelling two escorts at a time, as she was currently doing.
However, after the high speed run up from Rosyth, where most of the force had assembled, it was a very necessary task.
Near the Inner German Border.
Lieutenant John O’Donnell, O.C, 3 Platoon, A (Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers) Company, 4th (V) Battalion, The Royal Irish Rangers (North Irish Militia), crawled through the muddy German field, as he approached the forward position of his platoon.
The forward sections had taken up position in a drainage ditch, which although unfortunately meant that they were rather wet, it also made it less likely that the Soviets would locate their position. Slightly to the rear of the section, was their reason for being there – three Javelin anti-tank missile posts (the two Royal Irish Rangers battalions had recently swapped their older Milan missiles for the newer American designed Javelin), part of a section of the battalion’s anti-tank platoon. 3 Platoon was in place forward of the posts to protect them from infantry attack, allowing them to get on with their job – killing tanks.
The 4th Royal Irish Rangers, and several other battlegroups of mechanised infantry, and light armour, were part of the covering forces for 1 (UK) Corps, intended to absorb, and slow down any initial Soviet attacks.
Such forward positions had earned them various nicknames, such as ‘the VC club’, and ‘speed bumps’.
Lieutenant O’Donnell slid down into the drainage ditch (fortunately there had not been too much rain over the last month, so it was muddy, rather than full of water) just as one of the section commanders, Corporal Sean Patrick McCool, was finishing telling a joke.
“… ‘Now what was it you said you had become?’ The father says.
“ ‘The girl, crying, replied, “Sniff... A prostitute Dad! . Sniff, sniff …”’
“ ‘Oh! Be Jesus! - You scared me half to death, girl! I thought you said "a
Protestant”. Come here and give your old man a hug!’”
The section, who were almost all Protestants to a man, laughed heartily at the joke.
“Good one, Corp.” One of the Catholics said. “Have you got any more?”
“There’s too much morale here!” Lieutenant O’Donnell said after letting McCool finish the joke.
The section laughed again at O’Donnell’s standard joke when he found his men in good spirits.
“Have you seen much, Corporal?” O’Donnell asked, instantly switching to more serious matters.
“Not a great deal, Sir.
“Mainly East German border guards, and the like.” McCool replied.
“Tell him about the BDRMs, Corp.” One of the privates interrupted.
“I’m getting to that, Driscoll.” McCool said. “As Private Driscoll said, Sir, we spotted a platoon of them BDRM armoured car things half an hour ago.
“Looked like they were scouting out their side of the border.
“We’re in a good position to keep an eye on them here, Sir.” McCool continued. “A good field of fire for the Minimis, and for the Gimpy, Browning, and Javelin blokes from D Company.”
Lieutenant O’Donnell looked forward from the drainage ditch towards the ground between them and the border. Corporal McCool was right – in the right circumstances that ground would become a killing field.
“Certainly is, Corporal.” O’Donnell agreed.
“Now is everybody clear on the procedures to call down artillery, or air support, should it be needed?”
The section all nodded their heads in agreement.
“Good.
“One other bit of information that I want to pass onto you.
“We’ve got a squadron of light armour, Sabres, Strikers, and Spartans to be exact, providing us with support.
“I thought that you might like to know that the particular group of ‘Donkey Wallopers’ supporting us is The North Irish Horse.”
The infantry was usually dismissive of their colleagues from the Royal Armoured Corps, but this time seemed rather pleased that a squadron of yeomanry from the same part of the world was providing them with support.
Rosyth Halt, Rosyth.
Sergeant Bell could see the ScotRail Sprinter slowly approaching the rail halt, the driver deliberately going slowly to give the security services time to assemble.
The anti-Soviet protestors (really ‘rent-a-mob’) were going to get a nasty shock. Lining the northbound platform were six extremely angry, and rather large British Transport Police officers, ready to get their own back for what had happened to their colleagues at Dalmeny, and eighteen HSF soldiers, in full riot gear. [1]
The train ground to a halt, its breaks squealing, and its doors opened.
The crowd of thugs swarmed onto the platform (somehow, they had missed the reception committee), clearly all hyped up for a clash with the ‘peace protestors’. They suddenly stopped on seeing the troops, and police waiting for them. Their first reaction was to try, and re-board the train, but the doors had closed behind them, and the train began to pull out of the halt.
“Right, gentlemen, you are all under arrest on suspicion of assaulting a police officer, and for breaking sundry railway related laws.
“You can come quietly, or you can speak to our colleagues from the army.” The senior BTP officer, a sergeant, informed them.
The HSF troops emphasised his words by tapping their long wooden batons against their legs. Under the circumstances the thugs made the only real choice available to them, they gave in.
Each thug’s hands were secured with a plastic tie, and they were marched up the stairs to road level, where they were bundled, none too gently, into the back of a pair of waiting Fife Constabulary police vans.
“Sergent!” Bell’s radioman said. “We’re needed back up at the cordon. The crowd is getting ugly.”
“Right.” Bell replied. He turned to the corporal in charge of the eight men from 3 Platoon. “Can you handle this lot?”
“Sure.
“Give us a shout if you need a hand.” He replied.
“Thanks.
“Right come on lads!”
ITN News at Ten.
‘Protest rallies were held across the country today in the centre of most big cities, and at numerous military, and government facilities.
‘Most were good-natured, and few arrests were made; however, at a few there were ugly scenes of violence that called for assistance from troops.
‘At the NATO Maritime HQ at Pitreavie, in Scotland, troops, and police were forced to employ CS gas, and so called ‘bean bag’ rounds to prevent elements within the crowd from storming the facility.
‘The Chief Constable of Fife Police has condemned the violence, and praised the actions of his officers, and of the supporting Territorial Army troops, especially Lieutenant James Grove, who was able to calm the crowd, and prevent further violence.
‘Tonight’s other main story has been the signing of Queen’s Order Two, which is part of the mobilisation process.
‘For details on this development we now go over to out correspondent, James Marshall, who is outside the Ministry of Defence.
‘James.’
The view changed to a reporter standing outside the MoD Main building.
‘A statement issued by the MoD about half an hour ago stated, “In consultation with the Secretary of State, Her Majesty has signed Queen’s Order Two.”’
‘What does this development mean, James?’ The presenter in the studio asked.
‘Well, Trevor, issuing Queen’s Order Two formalises the call out order already sent out by the MoD, under the Reserve Forces Acts of 1996, and 1998, but allows the government to keep the reservists at their posts indefinitely.
‘It also calls out reserve personnel not covered by those acts, for example soldiers on the long-term reserve, who presently have no training liability, service pensioners up to age 55, and service university units – the Officers Training Corps, University Air Squadrons, and University RN Units.
‘Even some cadet force personnel can be called out by this order.’
‘So, James, this basically means that Britain is mobilising her remaining reserves of military manpower.’
‘That’s exactly right, Trevor.
‘Most of these forces on their own do not have that much military power, but they can help with guard duties, and provide casualty replacements to forward units should war break out.’
‘Thank you very much, James.
‘In other news today an Emergency Powers Act began its accelerated passage through the House of Commons…’
19th April. HM Naval Base Portsmouth, Hampshire.
Captain William Yoxall, RNR, stepped down into the small launch that would take him out to his new ship.
It had been a while since Yoxall had held a sea command, having retired from the active list three years ago, to become the commanding officer of an RNR division. The only real sea time he had got in these years had been as a guest aboard some of the 10th MCM Flotilla’s River class minesweepers, and Sandown class minehunters.
“Good morning, Sir.” Commander David Carter, RN, the Senior Naval Officer, and now First Officer, of the ship he was to take command of, said as Yoxall stepped down into the launch.
“Good morning, David.” Yoxall replied. “How are the preparations for sailing coming along?”
“Very well, Sir.
“We received our last draft of sailors today, mainly reservists, like yourself, Sir, so our company is now up to strength.
“There’s still a few bits of the ship to clean up before we sail, but we should be ready on time.”
As the launch moved out across the harbour, threading its way through all the other ships, large and small, Captain Yoxall took the time to study his new command.
“She looks in good enough condition, anyway.” He observed. “That refit last year must have done her some good.”
“Yes, Sir.” Carter agreed. “We received the latest electronic gear, and some new radar then.”
As the launch got nearer to his ship, Yoxall could see her pennant number for the first time – D23 – and that she was still wearing the pennant of the Rear Admiral in command of the standby squadron (that would change soon, he would be switching his flag to the Sea Cadet Training Ship, ex-Kent, the last remaining ‘County’ class DDG left in Royal Navy service).
“I know what you’re thinking, Sir.” Commander Carter said. “Admiralty orders were for all pennant numbers to be painted out.
“I do apologise, Sir, we just haven’t had time to get round to it.”
“That’s all right. It not as if she isn’t distinctive.” Yoxall replied. “What I was actually thinking was that I’m going to miss the cab I had aboard Edinburgh, my last ship.
“What I want to know is how the naval architects back then were able to design a ship that is twenty-two meters longer than a Type 42 Batch 3, but yet has no helicopter hanger.” He continued.
“I assume it was because the Ikara system, forward, meant that the Sea Dart launcher had to be aft.” Carter replied.
“That was a great success.” Yoxall commented sarcastically. “I’d rather have a Lynx, or even a Wasp, than that Ikara monstrosity. All it could carry was a torpedo.
“At least a cab can carry depth charges, or anti-ship missiles, like the Sea Skua.
“And I’d like to see somebody board a ship using an Ikara.
“All it has left us with a big space between the Mark Eight, and the superstructure.”
Finally, the launch came alongside the ship they had been discussing, the sole Type 82 class destroyer, HMS Bristol, and Captain William Yoxall, RNR, assumed his new role.
20th April. NATO Situation Report.
‘FROM: SHAPE.
TO: All Major MNC, PNC.
SUBJECT: Update to Sitrep 15/03/05.
‘7th (UK) Armd Div, now fully operational.
‘US 3rd ACR, 1st Cav, 4th Inf (Mech), 5th Inf (Mech) Divs now operational, III (US) Corps moving to assembly areas.
‘Advance units of III Corps independent bdes arriving in AFCENT AOR.
‘AFNORTH: 4th(US) MEB operational. Further USMC and Canadian bdes on way.
‘Advance units 9th (US) Mech Div arriving in BALTAP (Jutland) AOR.
‘AFSOUTH: AMF(L), and AMF(A) operational. Advance units 24th Mech Div arriving in Thrace. 194th Armd Bde (Sep), and 197th Inf Bde (Mech) (sep) have arrived Turkey. Will be operational in 48 hours aprox.
‘MFL…’
‘EMERGENCY URGENT: Intel suggests that WarPact forces may begin hostile operations in next 24 – 48 hours.
‘All units to go to full alert immediately.
‘SACEUR sends.’
0030 hours 22nd April. HQ NORTHAG, Reindahlen.
In peacetime the headquarters at Reindahlen was that of the British Army of the Rhine, and of RAF Germany. On mobilisation it became, until the HQs moved out to the field anyway, the headquarters of both the Northern Army Group, and the 2nd Allied Tactical Air Force.
The majority of the HQ personnel of both HQs had already moved out to locations in the field, leaving only a small party to finish up running down the site.
General Sir David Horne, Commander NORTHAG (and C-in-C BAOR), was still in his office, collecting a few more items before flying out to HQ NORTHAG (Forward).
His last meeting had been last night with his British commanders, Lieutenant General John O’Connor, GOC, I Corps, Lieutenant General Harry Allinson, GOC, II Corps, and Acting Lieutenant General David Richardson, GOC British Support Command (BRSC).
All three had been confident, and upbeat. They had all of their assigned forces in place, and had enough munitions, and supplies to conduct operations, at least initially.
Horne’s aide was standing by the window, watching a group of military policemen, from the mixed Provost unit that guarded the HQ.
“I wish those MPs were a bit more alert, Sir.” He observed.
“I shouldn’t worry about them two much, they’re quite good at their job.” Horne replied as he crossed to his desk, in an alcove in the L shaped office, to pick up a file.
The lights in the office flickered, and died.
Horne looked up in annoyance. That had been happening all week; no doubt German ‘peace protestors’ had set fire to another sub-station.
Reindahlen’s own emergency generators should switch on in a moment.
They did not.
The aide suddenly became aware of a figure standing in the doorway just over his shoulder.
He turned, and saw a figure in camouflage gear, armed with an AKS-74U.
“Russian!” The aide yelled, diving for his Browning Hi-Power pistol, which was lying on the table next to his S10 respirator. He never made it.
The room was filled with the deafening sound of gunfire, as the Soviet Spetsnaz commando fired a three round burst into the British officer.
General Horne immediately knew that he would not have enough time to draw his own sidearm, however there was an L85A2 rifle lying on the desk in front of him.
He snatched it up, flicking the selector to ‘A’, and fired off a long burst of about twenty rounds at the doorway.
The commando was hit by about six 5.56mm SS109 rounds, the remaining bullets splintering the wooden doorframe, and went down.
Horne moved forward, cautiously, to check his aide. The Lieutenant was alive, but badly wounded. The Soviet commando was dead.
Another Spetsnaz soldier came into view at the end of the corridor.
Horne fired a short one-second burst into him, sending the commando flying back against the wall in a spray of blood.
Horne retreated back into his office, pulling his aide into cover, and changing the magazine on his rifle.
Outside he could now hear the sound of gunfire, grenade explosions, and the sound of soldiers crying out in pain as they were shot.
General Horne decided that it was best to wait for relief to come to him, rather than venture out into the chaos outside, besides he had every confidence in Lieutenant Colonel Forester, RMP, the commander of the multi-national Provost unit, in defeating this attack.
What was clear was that the Third World War had begun.
***
[1] The BTP is Britain’s national police service for the railways. Information about the BTP can be found here.
*
MHQ, Pitreavie Castle, Dunfermline.
The crowd of protestors were still not visible, but the police officers, and HSF troops could hear their chants, and the sounds of whistles, and horns, as the march approached from the north.
Sergeant Bell walked between the two lines of his platoon, inspecting each man, and woman as he went.
A few were visibly nervous, sweat pouring down their faces below their visored helmets, or breathing heavily.
“It’s Okay. Just relax.” Bell said to them as he passed, trying to keep them calm.
Bell guessed that the rest, even the ‘old sweats’ like himself, were feeling fear, everybody did. Anybody who said they were not scared before going into action was either a liar, or a psychopath.
Bell could feel his fear in the pit of his stomach. Like all experienced soldiers, he pushed his fear down, intending to use it, rather than let it control him.
First the large banners came into view, followed by the leading marchers, and escorting police officers. The marchers were a disparate bunch; some carried banners declaring themselves to be members of the ‘Scottish Socialist Party’, or the ‘Stop the War Coalition’, both well known hard left groups, but others seemed to come from across the political spectrum and were made up of people genuinely worried about the consequences of a war between NATO, and the Warsaw Pact.
“There are enough of them, Bill.” Corporal Jacobs observed.
Before Bell could reply, Lieutenant Grove appeared, his radioman, Lance-Corporal Small, in tow.
“We’ve got a problem, lads.
“There’s a group of anti-Soviet protestors coming over by train, rent-a-mob for the most part, by the looks of things.
“Apparently, they were a bit miffed at having their coach stopped at the road bridge, so got on a train at Dalmeny, after doing over a bunch of British Transport Police who tried to stop them.
“The polis missed them at North Queensferry, and they’ll be arriving at Rosyth Halt in about ten minutes, the train driver is going slowly.
“We’ve been asked to assist the police in detaining them.”
Sergeant Bell took a sharp intake of breath when he heard the news; Rosyth Halt was only a few hundred meters away, over the other side of a roundabout.
Allowing this rival group to get anywhere near the march could be disastrous.
“Sergeant, I want you to take ten men, and assist the polis down at the station.
“You’ll be joined by a few lads from 3 Platoon, who were down at the dockyard.” Grove said.
“Right, Sir.
“I’ll leave Corporal Jacobs here to act as platoon commander, and I’ll take Lance-Corporal Honeyman with me.” Bell replied.
Bell turned back to the platoon.
“Right, boys, and girls, I need ten volunteers for a special job.
“You, you, you…”
ITN Lunchtime News.
‘In an exclusive report ITN has received pictures from inside Poland, which show the true situation inside that troubled country.
“The pictures were gained at considerable personal risk by a Polish journalist, who smuggled the film out to Denmark.
“These scenes may cause some views distress.’
The film showed a number of scenes of peaceful protests being attacked by Polish police, with some violence. Others showed troops, apparently Soviet, firing at a group of Polish protestors destroying a Soviet cultural centre.
That shot had earlier shown Polish troops standing by, while the protestors wrecked the building.
‘In a related development the Foreign Office, in an unprecedented action, has released the full text of a diplomatic note sent to all NATO governments.
‘The note demanded that NATO cease its current exercise, which it called a ‘provocative mobilisation’, and demanded that NATO nations stay out of internal Soviet affairs, thought to be a reference to expected Soviet intervention in Poland.
‘In a statement to the House of Commons, the Prime Minister said that the NATO Council of Ministers had voted to reject the note, and that they called on the Soviet Union to end its mobilisation of reserves, and not to intervene in the internal affairs of another sovereign nation.
‘So far the Soviet reaction to this message is not known.
‘In home news the Home Office has issued the ‘Emergency Phase One (Warning Stand-by)’ civil defence alert, indicating perhaps how seriously the government takes the current crisis in Eastern Europe.
‘In other news today, David…’
HMS Minotaur, the Norwegian Sea.
Captain Richard Ford kept a close eye on the distance between his cruiser, and the RFA Wave Ruler, as the Minotaur took on fuel, and munitions.
HMS Minotaur was the fourth ship of the Tiger (Type 46) class of cruisers, an enlarged Type 45, the principle differences between the two classes being that the Type 46’s hull had been lengthened to allow an extra VLS aft, and the ship was equipped with superior command, and control facilities to allow it to co-ordinate the air defence of a group, or act as a flagship.
Minotaur was the senior air defence escort of the NATO ASW Striking Force (a group mainly made up of Royal Navy warships), whose task it was to support the almost exclusively American Striking Fleet Atlantic. At the centre of the group were the carriers HMS Ark Royal, the flagship, and HMS Invincible, both packed with Sea Harriers, Merlins, and Sea Kings.
Given that they were supposed to be sailing into the very back yard of the Soviet Union in their hunt for submarines, and would only have the most distant support from the big American carriers, or from land-based fighters in Norway, the force had a very dangerous job, which was why it was blessed with four Type 46s (Minotaur, Tiger, Centurion, and Royalist), and six Type 45s (Daring, Dauntless, Diamond, Dragon, Defender, and Duncan, almost half of the entire class).
As well as these modern ships, the group also enjoyed the protection of a few older Batch 2, and Batch 3 Type 42 destroyers.
However, the real strength of the escort force came from the Royal Navy Type 22, and 23 frigates, and the Canadian Halifax class frigates, and various French and Dutch warships that were dedicated to Anti-Submarine Warfare, which formed the backbone of the ASW Striking Force.
They, along with the Merlins from the two carriers, would, hopefully, be doing most of the work if shooting broke out.
Captain Ford briefly allowed himself to turn away from the current evolution and look up. Above the collection of warships, and auxiliaries, was a single Royal Air Force Nimrod MRA.4, circling the perimeter. It would be with them for a few more hours before a P-3 Orion of the Royal Norwegian Air Force took over.
For now, a succession of land-based ASW aircraft would support the group, but within a couple of days they would be operating under airspace too dangerous for such slow and lumbering aircraft to operate in. Ford turned back to the refuelling evolution, knowing that it was nearly done.
“That’s us topped up, Sir.” The Officer Of the Watch reported.
“Very good.
“Standby to execute breakaway manoeuvre.” Ford ordered.
“Signal Wave Ruler regarding our intensions and thank her for filling us up.”
“Aye, aye, Sir.”
Minotaur released the hoses that stretched across the gap between her and the tanker and began to slowly accelerate away.
Aft, the frigate HMS Richmond was waiting for her turn to take on fuel.
RFA Wave Ruler was set for a very busy day, refuelling two escorts at a time, as she was currently doing.
However, after the high speed run up from Rosyth, where most of the force had assembled, it was a very necessary task.
Near the Inner German Border.
Lieutenant John O’Donnell, O.C, 3 Platoon, A (Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers) Company, 4th (V) Battalion, The Royal Irish Rangers (North Irish Militia), crawled through the muddy German field, as he approached the forward position of his platoon.
The forward sections had taken up position in a drainage ditch, which although unfortunately meant that they were rather wet, it also made it less likely that the Soviets would locate their position. Slightly to the rear of the section, was their reason for being there – three Javelin anti-tank missile posts (the two Royal Irish Rangers battalions had recently swapped their older Milan missiles for the newer American designed Javelin), part of a section of the battalion’s anti-tank platoon. 3 Platoon was in place forward of the posts to protect them from infantry attack, allowing them to get on with their job – killing tanks.
The 4th Royal Irish Rangers, and several other battlegroups of mechanised infantry, and light armour, were part of the covering forces for 1 (UK) Corps, intended to absorb, and slow down any initial Soviet attacks.
Such forward positions had earned them various nicknames, such as ‘the VC club’, and ‘speed bumps’.
Lieutenant O’Donnell slid down into the drainage ditch (fortunately there had not been too much rain over the last month, so it was muddy, rather than full of water) just as one of the section commanders, Corporal Sean Patrick McCool, was finishing telling a joke.
“… ‘Now what was it you said you had become?’ The father says.
“ ‘The girl, crying, replied, “Sniff... A prostitute Dad! . Sniff, sniff …”’
“ ‘Oh! Be Jesus! - You scared me half to death, girl! I thought you said "a
Protestant”. Come here and give your old man a hug!’”
The section, who were almost all Protestants to a man, laughed heartily at the joke.
“Good one, Corp.” One of the Catholics said. “Have you got any more?”
“There’s too much morale here!” Lieutenant O’Donnell said after letting McCool finish the joke.
The section laughed again at O’Donnell’s standard joke when he found his men in good spirits.
“Have you seen much, Corporal?” O’Donnell asked, instantly switching to more serious matters.
“Not a great deal, Sir.
“Mainly East German border guards, and the like.” McCool replied.
“Tell him about the BDRMs, Corp.” One of the privates interrupted.
“I’m getting to that, Driscoll.” McCool said. “As Private Driscoll said, Sir, we spotted a platoon of them BDRM armoured car things half an hour ago.
“Looked like they were scouting out their side of the border.
“We’re in a good position to keep an eye on them here, Sir.” McCool continued. “A good field of fire for the Minimis, and for the Gimpy, Browning, and Javelin blokes from D Company.”
Lieutenant O’Donnell looked forward from the drainage ditch towards the ground between them and the border. Corporal McCool was right – in the right circumstances that ground would become a killing field.
“Certainly is, Corporal.” O’Donnell agreed.
“Now is everybody clear on the procedures to call down artillery, or air support, should it be needed?”
The section all nodded their heads in agreement.
“Good.
“One other bit of information that I want to pass onto you.
“We’ve got a squadron of light armour, Sabres, Strikers, and Spartans to be exact, providing us with support.
“I thought that you might like to know that the particular group of ‘Donkey Wallopers’ supporting us is The North Irish Horse.”
The infantry was usually dismissive of their colleagues from the Royal Armoured Corps, but this time seemed rather pleased that a squadron of yeomanry from the same part of the world was providing them with support.
Rosyth Halt, Rosyth.
Sergeant Bell could see the ScotRail Sprinter slowly approaching the rail halt, the driver deliberately going slowly to give the security services time to assemble.
The anti-Soviet protestors (really ‘rent-a-mob’) were going to get a nasty shock. Lining the northbound platform were six extremely angry, and rather large British Transport Police officers, ready to get their own back for what had happened to their colleagues at Dalmeny, and eighteen HSF soldiers, in full riot gear. [1]
The train ground to a halt, its breaks squealing, and its doors opened.
The crowd of thugs swarmed onto the platform (somehow, they had missed the reception committee), clearly all hyped up for a clash with the ‘peace protestors’. They suddenly stopped on seeing the troops, and police waiting for them. Their first reaction was to try, and re-board the train, but the doors had closed behind them, and the train began to pull out of the halt.
“Right, gentlemen, you are all under arrest on suspicion of assaulting a police officer, and for breaking sundry railway related laws.
“You can come quietly, or you can speak to our colleagues from the army.” The senior BTP officer, a sergeant, informed them.
The HSF troops emphasised his words by tapping their long wooden batons against their legs. Under the circumstances the thugs made the only real choice available to them, they gave in.
Each thug’s hands were secured with a plastic tie, and they were marched up the stairs to road level, where they were bundled, none too gently, into the back of a pair of waiting Fife Constabulary police vans.
“Sergent!” Bell’s radioman said. “We’re needed back up at the cordon. The crowd is getting ugly.”
“Right.” Bell replied. He turned to the corporal in charge of the eight men from 3 Platoon. “Can you handle this lot?”
“Sure.
“Give us a shout if you need a hand.” He replied.
“Thanks.
“Right come on lads!”
ITN News at Ten.
‘Protest rallies were held across the country today in the centre of most big cities, and at numerous military, and government facilities.
‘Most were good-natured, and few arrests were made; however, at a few there were ugly scenes of violence that called for assistance from troops.
‘At the NATO Maritime HQ at Pitreavie, in Scotland, troops, and police were forced to employ CS gas, and so called ‘bean bag’ rounds to prevent elements within the crowd from storming the facility.
‘The Chief Constable of Fife Police has condemned the violence, and praised the actions of his officers, and of the supporting Territorial Army troops, especially Lieutenant James Grove, who was able to calm the crowd, and prevent further violence.
‘Tonight’s other main story has been the signing of Queen’s Order Two, which is part of the mobilisation process.
‘For details on this development we now go over to out correspondent, James Marshall, who is outside the Ministry of Defence.
‘James.’
The view changed to a reporter standing outside the MoD Main building.
‘A statement issued by the MoD about half an hour ago stated, “In consultation with the Secretary of State, Her Majesty has signed Queen’s Order Two.”’
‘What does this development mean, James?’ The presenter in the studio asked.
‘Well, Trevor, issuing Queen’s Order Two formalises the call out order already sent out by the MoD, under the Reserve Forces Acts of 1996, and 1998, but allows the government to keep the reservists at their posts indefinitely.
‘It also calls out reserve personnel not covered by those acts, for example soldiers on the long-term reserve, who presently have no training liability, service pensioners up to age 55, and service university units – the Officers Training Corps, University Air Squadrons, and University RN Units.
‘Even some cadet force personnel can be called out by this order.’
‘So, James, this basically means that Britain is mobilising her remaining reserves of military manpower.’
‘That’s exactly right, Trevor.
‘Most of these forces on their own do not have that much military power, but they can help with guard duties, and provide casualty replacements to forward units should war break out.’
‘Thank you very much, James.
‘In other news today an Emergency Powers Act began its accelerated passage through the House of Commons…’
19th April. HM Naval Base Portsmouth, Hampshire.
Captain William Yoxall, RNR, stepped down into the small launch that would take him out to his new ship.
It had been a while since Yoxall had held a sea command, having retired from the active list three years ago, to become the commanding officer of an RNR division. The only real sea time he had got in these years had been as a guest aboard some of the 10th MCM Flotilla’s River class minesweepers, and Sandown class minehunters.
“Good morning, Sir.” Commander David Carter, RN, the Senior Naval Officer, and now First Officer, of the ship he was to take command of, said as Yoxall stepped down into the launch.
“Good morning, David.” Yoxall replied. “How are the preparations for sailing coming along?”
“Very well, Sir.
“We received our last draft of sailors today, mainly reservists, like yourself, Sir, so our company is now up to strength.
“There’s still a few bits of the ship to clean up before we sail, but we should be ready on time.”
As the launch moved out across the harbour, threading its way through all the other ships, large and small, Captain Yoxall took the time to study his new command.
“She looks in good enough condition, anyway.” He observed. “That refit last year must have done her some good.”
“Yes, Sir.” Carter agreed. “We received the latest electronic gear, and some new radar then.”
As the launch got nearer to his ship, Yoxall could see her pennant number for the first time – D23 – and that she was still wearing the pennant of the Rear Admiral in command of the standby squadron (that would change soon, he would be switching his flag to the Sea Cadet Training Ship, ex-Kent, the last remaining ‘County’ class DDG left in Royal Navy service).
“I know what you’re thinking, Sir.” Commander Carter said. “Admiralty orders were for all pennant numbers to be painted out.
“I do apologise, Sir, we just haven’t had time to get round to it.”
“That’s all right. It not as if she isn’t distinctive.” Yoxall replied. “What I was actually thinking was that I’m going to miss the cab I had aboard Edinburgh, my last ship.
“What I want to know is how the naval architects back then were able to design a ship that is twenty-two meters longer than a Type 42 Batch 3, but yet has no helicopter hanger.” He continued.
“I assume it was because the Ikara system, forward, meant that the Sea Dart launcher had to be aft.” Carter replied.
“That was a great success.” Yoxall commented sarcastically. “I’d rather have a Lynx, or even a Wasp, than that Ikara monstrosity. All it could carry was a torpedo.
“At least a cab can carry depth charges, or anti-ship missiles, like the Sea Skua.
“And I’d like to see somebody board a ship using an Ikara.
“All it has left us with a big space between the Mark Eight, and the superstructure.”
Finally, the launch came alongside the ship they had been discussing, the sole Type 82 class destroyer, HMS Bristol, and Captain William Yoxall, RNR, assumed his new role.
20th April. NATO Situation Report.
‘FROM: SHAPE.
TO: All Major MNC, PNC.
SUBJECT: Update to Sitrep 15/03/05.
‘7th (UK) Armd Div, now fully operational.
‘US 3rd ACR, 1st Cav, 4th Inf (Mech), 5th Inf (Mech) Divs now operational, III (US) Corps moving to assembly areas.
‘Advance units of III Corps independent bdes arriving in AFCENT AOR.
‘AFNORTH: 4th(US) MEB operational. Further USMC and Canadian bdes on way.
‘Advance units 9th (US) Mech Div arriving in BALTAP (Jutland) AOR.
‘AFSOUTH: AMF(L), and AMF(A) operational. Advance units 24th Mech Div arriving in Thrace. 194th Armd Bde (Sep), and 197th Inf Bde (Mech) (sep) have arrived Turkey. Will be operational in 48 hours aprox.
‘MFL…’
‘EMERGENCY URGENT: Intel suggests that WarPact forces may begin hostile operations in next 24 – 48 hours.
‘All units to go to full alert immediately.
‘SACEUR sends.’
0030 hours 22nd April. HQ NORTHAG, Reindahlen.
In peacetime the headquarters at Reindahlen was that of the British Army of the Rhine, and of RAF Germany. On mobilisation it became, until the HQs moved out to the field anyway, the headquarters of both the Northern Army Group, and the 2nd Allied Tactical Air Force.
The majority of the HQ personnel of both HQs had already moved out to locations in the field, leaving only a small party to finish up running down the site.
General Sir David Horne, Commander NORTHAG (and C-in-C BAOR), was still in his office, collecting a few more items before flying out to HQ NORTHAG (Forward).
His last meeting had been last night with his British commanders, Lieutenant General John O’Connor, GOC, I Corps, Lieutenant General Harry Allinson, GOC, II Corps, and Acting Lieutenant General David Richardson, GOC British Support Command (BRSC).
All three had been confident, and upbeat. They had all of their assigned forces in place, and had enough munitions, and supplies to conduct operations, at least initially.
Horne’s aide was standing by the window, watching a group of military policemen, from the mixed Provost unit that guarded the HQ.
“I wish those MPs were a bit more alert, Sir.” He observed.
“I shouldn’t worry about them two much, they’re quite good at their job.” Horne replied as he crossed to his desk, in an alcove in the L shaped office, to pick up a file.
The lights in the office flickered, and died.
Horne looked up in annoyance. That had been happening all week; no doubt German ‘peace protestors’ had set fire to another sub-station.
Reindahlen’s own emergency generators should switch on in a moment.
They did not.
The aide suddenly became aware of a figure standing in the doorway just over his shoulder.
He turned, and saw a figure in camouflage gear, armed with an AKS-74U.
“Russian!” The aide yelled, diving for his Browning Hi-Power pistol, which was lying on the table next to his S10 respirator. He never made it.
The room was filled with the deafening sound of gunfire, as the Soviet Spetsnaz commando fired a three round burst into the British officer.
General Horne immediately knew that he would not have enough time to draw his own sidearm, however there was an L85A2 rifle lying on the desk in front of him.
He snatched it up, flicking the selector to ‘A’, and fired off a long burst of about twenty rounds at the doorway.
The commando was hit by about six 5.56mm SS109 rounds, the remaining bullets splintering the wooden doorframe, and went down.
Horne moved forward, cautiously, to check his aide. The Lieutenant was alive, but badly wounded. The Soviet commando was dead.
Another Spetsnaz soldier came into view at the end of the corridor.
Horne fired a short one-second burst into him, sending the commando flying back against the wall in a spray of blood.
Horne retreated back into his office, pulling his aide into cover, and changing the magazine on his rifle.
Outside he could now hear the sound of gunfire, grenade explosions, and the sound of soldiers crying out in pain as they were shot.
General Horne decided that it was best to wait for relief to come to him, rather than venture out into the chaos outside, besides he had every confidence in Lieutenant Colonel Forester, RMP, the commander of the multi-national Provost unit, in defeating this attack.
What was clear was that the Third World War had begun.
***
[1] The BTP is Britain’s national police service for the railways. Information about the BTP can be found here.
“Frankly, I had enjoyed the war… and why do people want peace if the war is so much fun?” - Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart
-
Bernard Woolley
- Posts: 995
- Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2022 4:06 pm
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Chapter 5
Chapter 5
*
0031 Hours, 22nd April. Off Ailsa Craig, the Firth of Clyde.
A major Royal Navy seabed recovery operation was underway. Two days ago, the Soviet carrier, Kiev, escorted by two Krivak class frigates, had passed through the North Channel, after a port visit to Cork, and Dublin. Acoustic sensors had detected two submarines with the group. They had apparently planted a number of sonar sensors in the Firth of Clyde, on the route that SSNs, and the Vanguard class SSBNs based at Faslane would have to take.
The minehunters Inverness, and Shoreham had examined them, and declared that they were not mines. Therefore, the Seabed Operations Vessel, HMS Challenger, had been brought in to recover them.
Escorting Challenger was the OPV HMS Forth, one of the Tyne class; these were powerful coastal combatants, intended in wartime to escort supply convoys across the North Sea to Europe, and to combat Soviet fast attack craft that might come out of the Baltic. Equipped with powerful marine diesels, the six ships of the Tyne class were capable of speeds of 35 knots, and in wartime were armed with a 76mm (a 30mm in peacetime) cannon, eight Harpoons, and a pair of STWS-3 twin torpedo tubes for Stingray ASW torpedoes. There was also space on the stern to allow a helicopter up to the size of a Merlin to land on, or for some sort of container with extra equipment to be loaded.
A Soviet AGI trawler had turned up quite quickly, when the operation had begun two days ago, and was now being marked by the old ‘Island’ class OPV, HMS Orkney, who with two of her sisters, Shetland, and Anglesey, had been modified with new more powerful diesels, and classified electronic gear (the new engines were needed as much to provide power for the new monitoring gear, as much as to give the ships extra speed). They had reappeared in the fleet sporting a few extra aerials, but retained their old 40mm Bofors gun, for self-defence. With her sensitive gear, Orkney was there to monitor the transmissions from the AGI (in essence listening to them, listening to us).
Also keeping a close eye on the AGI was the former Oil Rig support vessel, HMS Sentinel, now used for ‘marking’ Soviet vessels off Northern Ireland (she, and the old River class MCMV Humber, had followed the Kiev group).
She was armed with a pair of 40mm guns, both of which were manned.
The senior RN officer present had decided to make life hard for the AGI. Two Merlin HM.1s of 819 NAS, from HMS Gannet (RNAS Prestwick), were circling the Soviet ship at low altitude, keeping her illuminated by powerful NiteSun searchlights. The captain of Forth had also taken his ship in rather close to the AGI, to show the Soviet crew that she was indeed in her full ‘war fit’.
The first examples of the Soviet sonar sensors had been placed aboard a Sea King HC.4 and flown ashore for detailed examination at the naval research establishment, the NCRE, at Pitreavie (just up the road from the MHQ).
Shortly after it left, Challenger recovered the last sensor, and the ship began to finish up operations. Suddenly the ship was shaken by a large explosion, which lit up the early morning darkness, and started a major fire. It was later determined that the sensor was in fact a disguised command detonated mine.
HMS Orkney reported that she had detected the sort of radio signal consistent with a command detonation from the AGI. She immediately trained her 40mm gun on the Soviet ship, and demanded that she heave to, and prepare to be boarded. The AGI refused and began to leave the scene.
The captains of Orkney, and Sentinel decided that their first duty was to assist the Challenger, and leave the AGI to the Forth; besides, the Soviet ship was faster than they were.
The incensed captain of HMS Forth ordered two shots to be fired across the bows of the AGI. The Soviet vessel ignored both shots, and continued to try, and escape, increasing speed. Forth’s captain was just in the process of debating whether to open fire on the AGI, when a signal from MHQ Pitreavie arrived.
‘COMMENCE HOSTILITIES AGAINST WARSAW PACT FORCES.’
“Stop that damned pirate!” Forth’s captain ordered.
The Forth’s 76mm cannon barked twice, but this time both shells slammed into the AGI’s hull and exploded. Rather unexpectedly, the AGI blew up violently a few seconds later. It was later discovered that she had been carrying a number of small mines.
The fire aboard Challenger was eventually brought under control, but the ship was severely damaged. The tugs Forceful, and Pointer came out to tow the stricken ship into Faslane.
By destroying the AGI, HMS Forth had earned herself a place in history as being the first Royal Navy ship to engage the enemy in the Third World War.
0040 hours. HQ NORTHAG.
“General, Sir, are you there?” A voice called out.
General Horne brought up his rifle, ever cautious.
“Whose there?
“Advance and be recognised!”
“Military Police, General!” Came a female voice that Horne recognised as belonging to the second in command of the Provost Company.
“Come in, Major!” Horne shouted, getting to his feet, but still keeping his rifle trained on the door.
The RMP Major, followed by two more RMP lance corporals, with a Dutch, and Belgian MP covering the corridor, entered the office. They all looked haggard and were filthy. The Major, who normally took a pride in her appearance, had her hair dangling down below her helmet, and looked exhausted. The two lance corporals, well built, stocky men, looked worse, and appeared that they had just gone several rounds with a heavyweight boxer.
“What’s the situation?” Horne asked.
“Total chaos, Sir.
“We got hit by Spetsnaz paratroops, came in on the back of a major air raid.
“Luckily they’re well spread out, but they caught us by surprise, and we’ve lost about a quarter of our force.”
“Where’s Colonel Forrester?”
“Dead, Sir.
“They put an RPG into company HQ, took out a lot of people, the Colonel included.
“I’m in charge now.”
Horne saw a single tear run down the Major’s dirt encrusted left cheek.
He knew that both she, and Forrester had been friends. She had recently attended Forrester’s wedding.
“Okay, Major. I know you’ll do a good job.
“I trust you’ve asked for reinforcements?”
“Yes, Sir. We have troops from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders flying in right now.
“Those choppers will fly you, and the remaining members of staff from NORTHAG out to the forward HQ.
“We can’t have you getting under our feet here.”
“What about my aide?” Horne asked.
“Medics will take care of him. They’re on their way up now.
“We have to go now, Sir.” She turned to the other MPs. “Right, let’s move.”
The scene outside was like something from Dante’s Inferno.
A number of buildings, including the base post office, directly opposite the main HQ building, were ablaze.
Horne could also see a large fire amongst the trees off in the distance.
“That’s the Yank PX, Sir.” One of the RMP lance corporals said, on seeing the General look in that direction.
Here, and there were dead bodies, lying where they had been shot.
Some wore the uniform of the Spetsnaz, but too many wore the various uniforms of NATO MPs, and other military personnel.
Off in the distance the sound of approaching helicopters could be heard.
“This way, Sir.
“Follow me!” The Major yelled, pausing to fire a few rounds from her rifle at some shadowy figures in the middle distance.
The Belgian MP dropped to his knees and laid down covering fire from his FNC rifle as the other three MPs manoeuvred against the threat to the landing zone.
Suddenly four Lynx AH.9s landed on the playing field in front of them.
Heavily armed troops from 1st Battalion The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders pilled out, and charged towards the enemy, bayonets fixed, yelling like madmen.
Horne, and a few other staff officers were bundled aboard the Lynxes, which took off imediatley.
Once airborne, Horne could see that what he had seen on the ground looked even worse.
Much of the base, including the married quarters, and school (he thanked God that the civilian dependents had been evacuated) were burning out of control.
“We should be at your tac HQ in about ten minutes, Sir!” The sergeant flying the Lynx shouted back.
“Thank you, Sergeant.” Horne replied.
‘What a way to start a war.’ He thought.
Near the Inner German Border.
Lieutenant O’Donnell crouched down at the bottom of the foxhole that served as his platoon Command Post as Soviet shells fell like rain.
The S10 respirator, and NBC suit that he was wearing made him feel claustrophobic, and separated from the other man in the foxhole, his radioman.
‘WEE! WEE! WEE! WEE!’ A shrill alarm started to sound.
“Christ on a crutch!” The radioman exclaimed as he recognised the sound.
“GAS! GAS! GAS!” The shout went up throughout the platoon’s positions.
O’Donnell grabbed the Bowman radio’s handset.
“Hello, Sunray, this is Charlie One, One, Actual.
“We are under gas attack, repeat, we are under gas attack! Over!”
A few hundred meters to the rear Captain Antony Blake, of The North Irish Horse, watched the intense bombardment of the infantry from the relative safety of the turret of his Sabre light reconnaissance vehicle. Blake was the second in command of D Squadron, The North Irish Horse, and had driven forward to the position held by the three Sabres of 10 Troop to see the situation for himself.
“They’re coming, Sir.” His gunner, who was scanning the ground in front of the light tank with his thermal sight, reported.
As part of the CVR (T) Life Extension Programme, all Sabres, and Scimitars had been fitted with a new thermal sight, and, equally welcome, had received a laser range finder and they had also had their old Jaguar petrol engine replaced with a Cummins BTA 5.9 diesel.
Blake turned his attention to where his gunner had indicated. He could make out Soviet armoured vehicles moving towards them through the darkness, occasionally lit up by an explosion. This would be the enemy’s reconnaissance screen. Unfortunately for them they would soon be finding the minefield that the Royal Engineers had laid a couple of days ago, a mixture of anti-tank Bar Mines, and Canadian made Elsie anti-personnel mines, which were especially unpleasant, as their largely plastic construction made them undetectable to mine detectors.
A flash suddenly light up the night as one of the infantry Javelin teams engaged a Soviet BRM, the reece version of the BMP-3. The BRM exploded in a mass of flames as the missile, which was intended to destroy much larger MBTs, struck it.
Blake overheard in his headphones the Squadron’s Guided Weapons Troop, which were equipped with Swingfire firing Strikers, ask permission to engage, and heard a voice that he recognised as being that of Major Pallister himself tell them to hold fire until they spotted tanks. More, and more explosions lit up the darkness, as Soviet vehicles, and soldiers found the minefield the hard way.
Those that were left bunched into the gaps, left purposely by the engineers, which made them perfect targets for anti-tank missiles. 4 Royal Irish’s Javelin platoon had a field day with this target rich environment.
“T-80 with mine plough!” Blake’s gunner suddenly yelled.
The Guided Weapons troop had obviously also spotted this tank, as one of the Strikers engaged the T-80 with a Swingfire missile.
Once upon a time the gunner would have had to steer the big missile with a fiddly little joystick, and there were almost as many misses as hits, even in peacetime conditions. However, in the early 1990s Swingfire had been upgraded with a SACLOS system. All the gunner had to do now was to keep the sight on target, and the missile would do the rest.
Which it did.
The big HEAT warhead on the Swingfire turned the mineplough equipped T-80 into a passable imitation of a volcano.
North of Rasdorf, West Germany.
‘BOOM!’
Lieutenant Colonel John Ward, C.O of 2nd ‘Eaglehorse’ Squadron, the 11th ‘Blackhorse’ Armored Cavalry Regiment, awoke with a start as the shell went off rather close to his M4 command vehicle. His first thought was not about the fact that hostilities had obviously commenced, but that he had fallen asleep, and almost as bad, nobody had seen fit to wake him.
‘BOOM!’
‘Yes, that was artillery.’ Ward thought.
“What the hell’s going on?” He demanded to know. “And who the hell let me fall asleep?”
“Looks like World War Three has kicked off, Sir.” One of the other soldiers in the M4 reported.
Nobody was brave enough to answer the second question.
Lieutenant Colonel glanced up at the IVIS display in front of him, still irritated that he had fallen asleep. The screen showed that the forward troops of his squadron had already sighted the enemy. The IVIS system meant that there was no radio traffic to listen in to, which Ward rather missed, but conversely it gave nothing for the enemy to use to locate them.
Along the FEBA the M1A2 Abrams, and M3A3 Bradleys, assisted by the AH-64D Apaches of the 4th Squadron, had had begun to engage the advancing Soviet T-80s, and BMP-3s. As NATO armour crewmen had long been trained, the cavalrymen were giving priority to targeting command tanks, anti-aircraft vehicles, and those equipped with mineploughs. The 120mm, and 25mm shells, and TOW, and Hellfire missiles tore into the advancing Soviet vehicles, as they bunched up in the gaps in the minefields.
The Soviets halted, and attempted to return fire, but they were not yet within effective range, and they were outclassed in terms of fire control equipment, and just made themselves even more effective targets. The Americans continued to exchange fire with the Soviets (rather a one-way exchange) for a few more minutes before they began to displace rearwards to their secondary positions.
Several T-80s opened fire at the now exposed Abrams, and Bradleys, with AT-8 ‘Songster’ anti-tank missiles as they pulled back. Two Abrams, and three Bradleys were hit; the Abrams continued to move, relatively unaffected, but one of the Bradleys burst into flames, the second was disabled, its crew were never seen again as the vehicle was overrun by the advancing Soviet units.
The third Bradley was lucky, its extra armour saved it from severe damage, and it kept moving, though its crew had one hell of a headache. Once the American vehicles had reached their new positions, they again opened a murderous fire on the Soviet vehicles.
For the moment the 11th ‘Blackhorse’ Armored Cavalry Regiment was doing its job, delaying the invading Soviet army. For every hour the Soviets were delayed was an hour bought for NATO’s armies, but as the crews of the two Bradleys had found out, it was being bought at a price.
The battle of West Germany had begun with the battle of a group of hills known as ‘The Three Sisters’.
0033 hours. HMS Ark Royal, the Norwegian Sea.
‘KABOOM!’
Captain Alistair Taggart, RN, the commanding officer of the carrier, was sitting in his chair on the bridge when the explosion lit up the night.
He looked round in surprise and saw a sight that reminded him of the destruction of HMS Antelope in San Carlos Bay.
“My God!” Taggart murmured, as he watched the explosion begin to subside.
Whatever ship had been hit; it had been big.
“Who was that?” Taggart asked, as he recovered from his initial shock.
“Looks like the position is that of Fort William, Sir.” The Officer Of the Watch said, grimly.
“Christ, she was filled to the brim with missiles, and fuel.” Taggart replied.
“Action stations!” He yelled, realising that there was undoubtedly a Soviet submarine about somewhere.
“Get the alert Merlin Julliets airborne now!” Taggart ordered.
A deck below, Rear Admiral Stuart Thompson, the Commander ASW Striking Force, had also seen the explosion. To lose one of the group’s Fort Victoria class AORs was a hard blow, especially as the massive explosion made it look as if none of the crew had survived.
“Captain Taggart has ordered the alert Merlins to be launched, Sir.” Thompson’s Chief of Staff reported.
“Good, signal Invincible, order her to launch her own alert Merlins, if she hasn’t done so already.
“I want someone to get that damned submarine.” Thompson ordered.
0034 hours. HMS Astute, the Barents Sea.
The SSN had been trailing a Soviet Oscar class SSGN for several hours now, but since hostilities had not yet broken out, as far as Astute was concerned anyway, she could not engage. Nevertheless, her captain, Commander Len Simpson had ordered that two Spearfish torpedoes should be loaded into the submarine’s tubes, and that a firing solution on the Oscar, which had, so far, not detected Astute, should be maintained.
“Control room, radio room.
“ELF message coming in.”
“I’m on my way.” Simpson replied.
Normally the Extremely Low Frequecy messages were used to instruct a submarine to come to periscope depth to receive more detailed orders than could be sent via the ELF system (though it would be used to send EAM messages to SSBNs, if that need ever arose).
Simpson made his way to the boat’s radio room, where the message had arrived. It was brutally simple and was exactly the same message that had been sent to all NATO warships, wherever they were.
‘COMMENCE HOSTILITIES AGAINST WARSAW PACT FORCES.’
Simpson picked up the handset in the radio room.
“Control room, this is the captain.
“Do we still have a solution on that Oscar?”
“Yes, Sir, an excellent one. Why do you…?” The Officer Of the Watch replied.
“Flood tubes one, and three and fire, now!” Simpson ordered, interrupting.
The control room crew might have been slightly surprised by this order, but they guessed what the ELF message must have contained, and rapidly moved to carry it out. The big Soviet submarine had not yet heard the quiet British hunter-killer, that had been stalking her, but she did hear Astute flooding two of her torpedo tubes and opening the outer doors.
The big Oscar class submarine began to take evasive action, diving rapidly, and turning away from the threat. She also fired a single torpedo back down the bearing that she had heard the Spearfish being fired from. However, it was too late, far too late. Once out of the tubes the pair of big Spearfish torpedoes rapidly accelerated up to 65 knots, covering the distance between the two submarines in less than a minute. The Oscar might have survived one torpedo hit, but she had no hope against two.
The sonar operators in Astute heard the sound of the single Soviet torpedo coming towards them.
“Control room, Sonar!
“Torpedo in the water!”
“Launch decoys!” Simpson ordered. “Hard a starboard!”
Simpson was waiting to see if the Soviet torpedo was tracking before he ordered any further evasive action, as he did not want to cut the guidance wires on the Spearfish. Unlike most other submarines, Astute (and all other Royal Navy submarines for that matter) could accelerate quickly to get out of danger without causing any cavitation, as they were fitted with a pump jet propulsor.
‘WHANG!’
‘WHANG!’
“Control room, sonar. That was our fish hitting the target.
“We’re picking up break-up noises. That Oscar is headed for the bottom.”
“And that torpedo?” Simpson asked.
“Enemy fish is going into search mode…it hasn’t detected us…fish is circling.
“The fish has run out of fuel and is sinking…we’re safe.”
The tension in the control room evaporated, as everybody realised that they were safe, for now. The Astute had just scored the first kill by a Royal Navy submarine since 1982, and the first kill against another submarine since the Second World War.
The first few minutes of the war had been marked by both triumph, and tragedy for the Royal Navy. Which of the two would be the recurrent pattern was yet to be decided.
****
*
0031 Hours, 22nd April. Off Ailsa Craig, the Firth of Clyde.
A major Royal Navy seabed recovery operation was underway. Two days ago, the Soviet carrier, Kiev, escorted by two Krivak class frigates, had passed through the North Channel, after a port visit to Cork, and Dublin. Acoustic sensors had detected two submarines with the group. They had apparently planted a number of sonar sensors in the Firth of Clyde, on the route that SSNs, and the Vanguard class SSBNs based at Faslane would have to take.
The minehunters Inverness, and Shoreham had examined them, and declared that they were not mines. Therefore, the Seabed Operations Vessel, HMS Challenger, had been brought in to recover them.
Escorting Challenger was the OPV HMS Forth, one of the Tyne class; these were powerful coastal combatants, intended in wartime to escort supply convoys across the North Sea to Europe, and to combat Soviet fast attack craft that might come out of the Baltic. Equipped with powerful marine diesels, the six ships of the Tyne class were capable of speeds of 35 knots, and in wartime were armed with a 76mm (a 30mm in peacetime) cannon, eight Harpoons, and a pair of STWS-3 twin torpedo tubes for Stingray ASW torpedoes. There was also space on the stern to allow a helicopter up to the size of a Merlin to land on, or for some sort of container with extra equipment to be loaded.
A Soviet AGI trawler had turned up quite quickly, when the operation had begun two days ago, and was now being marked by the old ‘Island’ class OPV, HMS Orkney, who with two of her sisters, Shetland, and Anglesey, had been modified with new more powerful diesels, and classified electronic gear (the new engines were needed as much to provide power for the new monitoring gear, as much as to give the ships extra speed). They had reappeared in the fleet sporting a few extra aerials, but retained their old 40mm Bofors gun, for self-defence. With her sensitive gear, Orkney was there to monitor the transmissions from the AGI (in essence listening to them, listening to us).
Also keeping a close eye on the AGI was the former Oil Rig support vessel, HMS Sentinel, now used for ‘marking’ Soviet vessels off Northern Ireland (she, and the old River class MCMV Humber, had followed the Kiev group).
She was armed with a pair of 40mm guns, both of which were manned.
The senior RN officer present had decided to make life hard for the AGI. Two Merlin HM.1s of 819 NAS, from HMS Gannet (RNAS Prestwick), were circling the Soviet ship at low altitude, keeping her illuminated by powerful NiteSun searchlights. The captain of Forth had also taken his ship in rather close to the AGI, to show the Soviet crew that she was indeed in her full ‘war fit’.
The first examples of the Soviet sonar sensors had been placed aboard a Sea King HC.4 and flown ashore for detailed examination at the naval research establishment, the NCRE, at Pitreavie (just up the road from the MHQ).
Shortly after it left, Challenger recovered the last sensor, and the ship began to finish up operations. Suddenly the ship was shaken by a large explosion, which lit up the early morning darkness, and started a major fire. It was later determined that the sensor was in fact a disguised command detonated mine.
HMS Orkney reported that she had detected the sort of radio signal consistent with a command detonation from the AGI. She immediately trained her 40mm gun on the Soviet ship, and demanded that she heave to, and prepare to be boarded. The AGI refused and began to leave the scene.
The captains of Orkney, and Sentinel decided that their first duty was to assist the Challenger, and leave the AGI to the Forth; besides, the Soviet ship was faster than they were.
The incensed captain of HMS Forth ordered two shots to be fired across the bows of the AGI. The Soviet vessel ignored both shots, and continued to try, and escape, increasing speed. Forth’s captain was just in the process of debating whether to open fire on the AGI, when a signal from MHQ Pitreavie arrived.
‘COMMENCE HOSTILITIES AGAINST WARSAW PACT FORCES.’
“Stop that damned pirate!” Forth’s captain ordered.
The Forth’s 76mm cannon barked twice, but this time both shells slammed into the AGI’s hull and exploded. Rather unexpectedly, the AGI blew up violently a few seconds later. It was later discovered that she had been carrying a number of small mines.
The fire aboard Challenger was eventually brought under control, but the ship was severely damaged. The tugs Forceful, and Pointer came out to tow the stricken ship into Faslane.
By destroying the AGI, HMS Forth had earned herself a place in history as being the first Royal Navy ship to engage the enemy in the Third World War.
0040 hours. HQ NORTHAG.
“General, Sir, are you there?” A voice called out.
General Horne brought up his rifle, ever cautious.
“Whose there?
“Advance and be recognised!”
“Military Police, General!” Came a female voice that Horne recognised as belonging to the second in command of the Provost Company.
“Come in, Major!” Horne shouted, getting to his feet, but still keeping his rifle trained on the door.
The RMP Major, followed by two more RMP lance corporals, with a Dutch, and Belgian MP covering the corridor, entered the office. They all looked haggard and were filthy. The Major, who normally took a pride in her appearance, had her hair dangling down below her helmet, and looked exhausted. The two lance corporals, well built, stocky men, looked worse, and appeared that they had just gone several rounds with a heavyweight boxer.
“What’s the situation?” Horne asked.
“Total chaos, Sir.
“We got hit by Spetsnaz paratroops, came in on the back of a major air raid.
“Luckily they’re well spread out, but they caught us by surprise, and we’ve lost about a quarter of our force.”
“Where’s Colonel Forrester?”
“Dead, Sir.
“They put an RPG into company HQ, took out a lot of people, the Colonel included.
“I’m in charge now.”
Horne saw a single tear run down the Major’s dirt encrusted left cheek.
He knew that both she, and Forrester had been friends. She had recently attended Forrester’s wedding.
“Okay, Major. I know you’ll do a good job.
“I trust you’ve asked for reinforcements?”
“Yes, Sir. We have troops from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders flying in right now.
“Those choppers will fly you, and the remaining members of staff from NORTHAG out to the forward HQ.
“We can’t have you getting under our feet here.”
“What about my aide?” Horne asked.
“Medics will take care of him. They’re on their way up now.
“We have to go now, Sir.” She turned to the other MPs. “Right, let’s move.”
The scene outside was like something from Dante’s Inferno.
A number of buildings, including the base post office, directly opposite the main HQ building, were ablaze.
Horne could also see a large fire amongst the trees off in the distance.
“That’s the Yank PX, Sir.” One of the RMP lance corporals said, on seeing the General look in that direction.
Here, and there were dead bodies, lying where they had been shot.
Some wore the uniform of the Spetsnaz, but too many wore the various uniforms of NATO MPs, and other military personnel.
Off in the distance the sound of approaching helicopters could be heard.
“This way, Sir.
“Follow me!” The Major yelled, pausing to fire a few rounds from her rifle at some shadowy figures in the middle distance.
The Belgian MP dropped to his knees and laid down covering fire from his FNC rifle as the other three MPs manoeuvred against the threat to the landing zone.
Suddenly four Lynx AH.9s landed on the playing field in front of them.
Heavily armed troops from 1st Battalion The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders pilled out, and charged towards the enemy, bayonets fixed, yelling like madmen.
Horne, and a few other staff officers were bundled aboard the Lynxes, which took off imediatley.
Once airborne, Horne could see that what he had seen on the ground looked even worse.
Much of the base, including the married quarters, and school (he thanked God that the civilian dependents had been evacuated) were burning out of control.
“We should be at your tac HQ in about ten minutes, Sir!” The sergeant flying the Lynx shouted back.
“Thank you, Sergeant.” Horne replied.
‘What a way to start a war.’ He thought.
Near the Inner German Border.
Lieutenant O’Donnell crouched down at the bottom of the foxhole that served as his platoon Command Post as Soviet shells fell like rain.
The S10 respirator, and NBC suit that he was wearing made him feel claustrophobic, and separated from the other man in the foxhole, his radioman.
‘WEE! WEE! WEE! WEE!’ A shrill alarm started to sound.
“Christ on a crutch!” The radioman exclaimed as he recognised the sound.
“GAS! GAS! GAS!” The shout went up throughout the platoon’s positions.
O’Donnell grabbed the Bowman radio’s handset.
“Hello, Sunray, this is Charlie One, One, Actual.
“We are under gas attack, repeat, we are under gas attack! Over!”
A few hundred meters to the rear Captain Antony Blake, of The North Irish Horse, watched the intense bombardment of the infantry from the relative safety of the turret of his Sabre light reconnaissance vehicle. Blake was the second in command of D Squadron, The North Irish Horse, and had driven forward to the position held by the three Sabres of 10 Troop to see the situation for himself.
“They’re coming, Sir.” His gunner, who was scanning the ground in front of the light tank with his thermal sight, reported.
As part of the CVR (T) Life Extension Programme, all Sabres, and Scimitars had been fitted with a new thermal sight, and, equally welcome, had received a laser range finder and they had also had their old Jaguar petrol engine replaced with a Cummins BTA 5.9 diesel.
Blake turned his attention to where his gunner had indicated. He could make out Soviet armoured vehicles moving towards them through the darkness, occasionally lit up by an explosion. This would be the enemy’s reconnaissance screen. Unfortunately for them they would soon be finding the minefield that the Royal Engineers had laid a couple of days ago, a mixture of anti-tank Bar Mines, and Canadian made Elsie anti-personnel mines, which were especially unpleasant, as their largely plastic construction made them undetectable to mine detectors.
A flash suddenly light up the night as one of the infantry Javelin teams engaged a Soviet BRM, the reece version of the BMP-3. The BRM exploded in a mass of flames as the missile, which was intended to destroy much larger MBTs, struck it.
Blake overheard in his headphones the Squadron’s Guided Weapons Troop, which were equipped with Swingfire firing Strikers, ask permission to engage, and heard a voice that he recognised as being that of Major Pallister himself tell them to hold fire until they spotted tanks. More, and more explosions lit up the darkness, as Soviet vehicles, and soldiers found the minefield the hard way.
Those that were left bunched into the gaps, left purposely by the engineers, which made them perfect targets for anti-tank missiles. 4 Royal Irish’s Javelin platoon had a field day with this target rich environment.
“T-80 with mine plough!” Blake’s gunner suddenly yelled.
The Guided Weapons troop had obviously also spotted this tank, as one of the Strikers engaged the T-80 with a Swingfire missile.
Once upon a time the gunner would have had to steer the big missile with a fiddly little joystick, and there were almost as many misses as hits, even in peacetime conditions. However, in the early 1990s Swingfire had been upgraded with a SACLOS system. All the gunner had to do now was to keep the sight on target, and the missile would do the rest.
Which it did.
The big HEAT warhead on the Swingfire turned the mineplough equipped T-80 into a passable imitation of a volcano.
North of Rasdorf, West Germany.
‘BOOM!’
Lieutenant Colonel John Ward, C.O of 2nd ‘Eaglehorse’ Squadron, the 11th ‘Blackhorse’ Armored Cavalry Regiment, awoke with a start as the shell went off rather close to his M4 command vehicle. His first thought was not about the fact that hostilities had obviously commenced, but that he had fallen asleep, and almost as bad, nobody had seen fit to wake him.
‘BOOM!’
‘Yes, that was artillery.’ Ward thought.
“What the hell’s going on?” He demanded to know. “And who the hell let me fall asleep?”
“Looks like World War Three has kicked off, Sir.” One of the other soldiers in the M4 reported.
Nobody was brave enough to answer the second question.
Lieutenant Colonel glanced up at the IVIS display in front of him, still irritated that he had fallen asleep. The screen showed that the forward troops of his squadron had already sighted the enemy. The IVIS system meant that there was no radio traffic to listen in to, which Ward rather missed, but conversely it gave nothing for the enemy to use to locate them.
Along the FEBA the M1A2 Abrams, and M3A3 Bradleys, assisted by the AH-64D Apaches of the 4th Squadron, had had begun to engage the advancing Soviet T-80s, and BMP-3s. As NATO armour crewmen had long been trained, the cavalrymen were giving priority to targeting command tanks, anti-aircraft vehicles, and those equipped with mineploughs. The 120mm, and 25mm shells, and TOW, and Hellfire missiles tore into the advancing Soviet vehicles, as they bunched up in the gaps in the minefields.
The Soviets halted, and attempted to return fire, but they were not yet within effective range, and they were outclassed in terms of fire control equipment, and just made themselves even more effective targets. The Americans continued to exchange fire with the Soviets (rather a one-way exchange) for a few more minutes before they began to displace rearwards to their secondary positions.
Several T-80s opened fire at the now exposed Abrams, and Bradleys, with AT-8 ‘Songster’ anti-tank missiles as they pulled back. Two Abrams, and three Bradleys were hit; the Abrams continued to move, relatively unaffected, but one of the Bradleys burst into flames, the second was disabled, its crew were never seen again as the vehicle was overrun by the advancing Soviet units.
The third Bradley was lucky, its extra armour saved it from severe damage, and it kept moving, though its crew had one hell of a headache. Once the American vehicles had reached their new positions, they again opened a murderous fire on the Soviet vehicles.
For the moment the 11th ‘Blackhorse’ Armored Cavalry Regiment was doing its job, delaying the invading Soviet army. For every hour the Soviets were delayed was an hour bought for NATO’s armies, but as the crews of the two Bradleys had found out, it was being bought at a price.
The battle of West Germany had begun with the battle of a group of hills known as ‘The Three Sisters’.
0033 hours. HMS Ark Royal, the Norwegian Sea.
‘KABOOM!’
Captain Alistair Taggart, RN, the commanding officer of the carrier, was sitting in his chair on the bridge when the explosion lit up the night.
He looked round in surprise and saw a sight that reminded him of the destruction of HMS Antelope in San Carlos Bay.
“My God!” Taggart murmured, as he watched the explosion begin to subside.
Whatever ship had been hit; it had been big.
“Who was that?” Taggart asked, as he recovered from his initial shock.
“Looks like the position is that of Fort William, Sir.” The Officer Of the Watch said, grimly.
“Christ, she was filled to the brim with missiles, and fuel.” Taggart replied.
“Action stations!” He yelled, realising that there was undoubtedly a Soviet submarine about somewhere.
“Get the alert Merlin Julliets airborne now!” Taggart ordered.
A deck below, Rear Admiral Stuart Thompson, the Commander ASW Striking Force, had also seen the explosion. To lose one of the group’s Fort Victoria class AORs was a hard blow, especially as the massive explosion made it look as if none of the crew had survived.
“Captain Taggart has ordered the alert Merlins to be launched, Sir.” Thompson’s Chief of Staff reported.
“Good, signal Invincible, order her to launch her own alert Merlins, if she hasn’t done so already.
“I want someone to get that damned submarine.” Thompson ordered.
0034 hours. HMS Astute, the Barents Sea.
The SSN had been trailing a Soviet Oscar class SSGN for several hours now, but since hostilities had not yet broken out, as far as Astute was concerned anyway, she could not engage. Nevertheless, her captain, Commander Len Simpson had ordered that two Spearfish torpedoes should be loaded into the submarine’s tubes, and that a firing solution on the Oscar, which had, so far, not detected Astute, should be maintained.
“Control room, radio room.
“ELF message coming in.”
“I’m on my way.” Simpson replied.
Normally the Extremely Low Frequecy messages were used to instruct a submarine to come to periscope depth to receive more detailed orders than could be sent via the ELF system (though it would be used to send EAM messages to SSBNs, if that need ever arose).
Simpson made his way to the boat’s radio room, where the message had arrived. It was brutally simple and was exactly the same message that had been sent to all NATO warships, wherever they were.
‘COMMENCE HOSTILITIES AGAINST WARSAW PACT FORCES.’
Simpson picked up the handset in the radio room.
“Control room, this is the captain.
“Do we still have a solution on that Oscar?”
“Yes, Sir, an excellent one. Why do you…?” The Officer Of the Watch replied.
“Flood tubes one, and three and fire, now!” Simpson ordered, interrupting.
The control room crew might have been slightly surprised by this order, but they guessed what the ELF message must have contained, and rapidly moved to carry it out. The big Soviet submarine had not yet heard the quiet British hunter-killer, that had been stalking her, but she did hear Astute flooding two of her torpedo tubes and opening the outer doors.
The big Oscar class submarine began to take evasive action, diving rapidly, and turning away from the threat. She also fired a single torpedo back down the bearing that she had heard the Spearfish being fired from. However, it was too late, far too late. Once out of the tubes the pair of big Spearfish torpedoes rapidly accelerated up to 65 knots, covering the distance between the two submarines in less than a minute. The Oscar might have survived one torpedo hit, but she had no hope against two.
The sonar operators in Astute heard the sound of the single Soviet torpedo coming towards them.
“Control room, Sonar!
“Torpedo in the water!”
“Launch decoys!” Simpson ordered. “Hard a starboard!”
Simpson was waiting to see if the Soviet torpedo was tracking before he ordered any further evasive action, as he did not want to cut the guidance wires on the Spearfish. Unlike most other submarines, Astute (and all other Royal Navy submarines for that matter) could accelerate quickly to get out of danger without causing any cavitation, as they were fitted with a pump jet propulsor.
‘WHANG!’
‘WHANG!’
“Control room, sonar. That was our fish hitting the target.
“We’re picking up break-up noises. That Oscar is headed for the bottom.”
“And that torpedo?” Simpson asked.
“Enemy fish is going into search mode…it hasn’t detected us…fish is circling.
“The fish has run out of fuel and is sinking…we’re safe.”
The tension in the control room evaporated, as everybody realised that they were safe, for now. The Astute had just scored the first kill by a Royal Navy submarine since 1982, and the first kill against another submarine since the Second World War.
The first few minutes of the war had been marked by both triumph, and tragedy for the Royal Navy. Which of the two would be the recurrent pattern was yet to be decided.
****
“Frankly, I had enjoyed the war… and why do people want peace if the war is so much fun?” - Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart
-
Bernard Woolley
- Posts: 995
- Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2022 4:06 pm
- Location: Earth
Chapter 6
Chapter 6
*
0046 hours. 22nd April. BBC News 24.
News 24 was in the middle of one of its discussion programmes; predictably discussing the crisis in Eastern Europe, when the screen went black for a moment, and when it returned showed an image of the newsreader instead.
“We’re interrupting that particular edition of Hard Talk because we are receiving reports from Supreme Allied Headquarters in Belgium that NATO forces have been fired upon by those of the Warsaw Pact...’
The newsreader paused for a second and touched his earpiece.
‘In fact, we’ve just received a wire report from Supreme Allied Headquarters that Warsaw Pact forces have in fact invaded West Germany…I must stress that at this point these reports are unconfirmed.
‘However, we have just received a report via videophone from James Hayes, who is embedded with the headquarters of the British First Corps.
‘His report was made under army reporting restrictions.’
The screen switched to a slightly grainy, and jumpy view of a figure wearing an NBC suit, being illuminated by a single light from the camera.
A few other figures, in NBC gear, could be seen moving about in the background.
‘A few minutes ago, reports from forward units, in place along the border with East Germany, started to flood in, indicating that they were under massive attack by Warsaw Pact forces.
‘At the same time, it appears that a major air attack was launched against NATO facilities in West Germany, and above our heads it would appear that the NATO air forces are fighting a vicious battle with the Warsaw Pact for the control of the skies.
‘As you can see, we are wearing chemical protection suits, partly as a precaution, and partly because at least one forward unit has reported that it has come under gas attack…at this stage, however, that remains unconfirmed.
‘Earlier in the day, I spoke to the commander of 1 (British) Corps, Lieutenant General John O’Connor, to ask him how ready his troops were.’
The screen again changed, this time to a daylight shot of the general in his main command tent.
‘Oh, I think we are about as ready as we can be.’ O’Connor said to the camera.
‘All of my assigned forces have taken up their positions, and I believe that we are well placed to resist any Warsaw Pact attack.’
‘Can you explain a bit more of your strategy, General?’
‘Well, for obvious operational reasons I can’t go into details, but my objective, as the Duke of Wellington might have put it, is to defeat the enemy.
‘However, I’ll show you the basics on this map.’
Lt. General O’Connor got up and crossed to a large-scale map of 1 Corps’ sector, pinned to a board. It was conspicuously devoid of unit markers.
‘All along the border we have lightly equipped troops, which we have as what we call a ‘Covering Force.’ He said indicating with the fingers of his right hand.
‘They have a hard job, as it is their task to absorb, and slow the initial Soviet attack, and to make them actually fight to enter West German territory.
‘Further back from the border are our main heavy armoured forces, who will form the main resistance to any attack.’
‘So, you are suggesting that your ‘Covering Force’ will be abandoned if there is an attack?’
‘As I said, they have a very hard job, but no, we would not abandon them.
‘If we can get them get them out, we will do all we can to do so.’ Lieutenant General O’Connor replied.
The camera view switched back to the reporter in the NBC suit.
‘Since the Warsaw Pact has attacked, we can only now suppose that these ‘Covering Forces’ are now fighting for their lives against overwhelming odds, something that the British Army has a long, and proud tradition of.
‘Twice before in the last hundred years the British Army, always a relatively small force at the beginning of the war, has stood up to the forces of tyranny, and has come out successful.
‘It looks like it is time for the army to do so once again.
‘This is John Hayes reporting for the BBC, at 1 Corps Forward Headquarters.’
The view returned to the studio.
‘To recap, less than half an hour ago Warsaw Pact forces launched an attack against NATO forces in West Germany.
‘So far there has been no statement from any NATO, or the Soviet government…we are just getting a report from the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation that a major air raid has been detected heading for the United Kingdom.
‘Members of the public are advised to stay indoors, and that sirens will be sounded in areas under threat.
‘It is emphasised that this is not a nuclear missile attack, but a conventional raid by bomber aircraft.’
U.K Region Air Defence Operations Centre, RAF High Wycombe.
Air Chief Marshal Johnson hurried down the stairs to his underground bunker.
News had just come in that a NATO ‘Sentry’ over northern Norway had picked up a large group of Soviet aircraft taking off from the Kola Peninsula.
“What’s the latest, Susan?” Johnson asked his aide.
“The Soviet strike is only a few minutes away from the Norwegian border, Sir.
“The Norwegians are moving in more fighters, they wanted to be the first to engage, but there are some of 1 Group’s Typhoons moving to assist.” Flight Lieutenant Jackson replied. “We’ve been in contact with Stanmore, Air Vice Marshal Hazel is concerned, so he’s brought his fighters to full alert.”
“Sounds serious, Susan, but I’m glad John has done the right thing.
“Any attack on the air defences of Northern Norway could be an attempt to clear a way through to the UKADR, as well as support for the ground invasion of Norway.
“I’d expect to see Backfires coming in behind this tactical strike.
“There’s bound to be a strike coming from the Baltic too, it’s what I’d do if I were trying to overcome the I-UKADGE.”
The two officers hurried into the operations room, just in time to hear a radio call from the AWACS over Northern Norway to the northern SOC in Norway.
“Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! This is Sentry two-five. We are under attack by enemy aircraft!”
“The Soviets blew through the Sentry’s escort, Sir.” The duty controller reported. “Hit them with overwhelming strength. It was an anti-AWACS strike, not a tactical strike as we thought.”
“Damn it.
“COMNORTH Norway should have had our Typhoons covering that AWACS, not Norwegian F-16s.
“The Meteor missiles might have made a difference, but there’s nothing we can do about it, it was COMAFNORTH’s call, not mine.” Johnson raged, annoyed that the assets that he had sent to AFNORTH, had apparently been misused.
“Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” Sentry two-five called again. “We are under missile attack…”
The rest of the call was drowned out by the sound of alarmed shouts, and blaring alarms. Once voice could be heard yelling that that they could not break missile lock.
There was a muffled crunch, and the radio went silent.
The assembled RAF personnel looked grimly at each other, knowing what had happened.
A second later another call came in from an RAF Sentry AEW.1 over the North Sea.
“This is Magic 8-9.
“We’ve got hostile aircraft approaching from the Baltic.
“We’re directing the fighters already airborne to intercept.”
Johnson picked up the direct line to 11 Group Headquarters at Bentley Priory.
HQ 11 Group. RAF Bentley Priory, Stanmore, Middlesex.
“Stanmore.” Wing Commander Sara Stapleton, the duty controller at the Standby Air Defence Operations Centre, said as she answered the phone.
“This is Air Chief Marshal Johnson, get me Air Vice Marshal Hazel.”
“Yes, Sir, right away.” Stapleton replied.
She signalled to Hazel, who was across the room to pick up the phone.
Air Vice Marshal John Hazel, Air Officer Commanding 11 Group, picked up the phone in front of him.
“Hazel.” He said simply.
“John, this is Air Chief Marshal Johnson.
“I need you to get your reserve fighters up now.
“The Russians are taking apart Norway, and there’s a major strike coming in from the Baltic.”
“I’ve been monitoring the situation, Sir, I’ve just sent the orders myself.
“The reserve fighters should be taking off about now, Sir, my SAM units are also on alert.”
“Thanks, John, you’ve anticipated me as always.” Johnson replied.
RAF Leuchars, Fife Scotland.
Wing Commander Jack Foster was sitting in the crew alert room, along with his navigator, Squadron Leader George Wilkinson, and three other Tornado crews from 43 (Fighter) Squadron.
He was just turning the page of his newspaper when the alert klaxon sounded.
Foster, and the other three aircrew jumped to their feet, gabbing their ‘bone domes’ and sprinting to the Hardened Aircraft Shelters containing their Tornado F-3s.
As Foster approached the HAS containing his aircraft, he heard the alarm that warned personnel that the doors were opening.
He rushed through the opening gap with Wilkinson close on his heels.
The ground crew had already prepared the aircraft, so Foster only needed to do a perfunctory walk around check.
While he carried this out, Wilkinson boarded the Tornado and began to turn on the aircraft’s systems.
His checks done, Foster climbed up into the forward cockpit.
He strapped himself in with the assistance of an Aircraftsman from the ground crew.
“Good luck, Sir.” The Aircraftsman said before he withdrew.
“Thanks, I’ll try not to let you blokes down.” Foster replied.
The Wing Commander closed the canopy and signalled to the ground crew that he was about to start the aircraft’s two RB.199 Mk.104 turbofans.
They retreated to a safe distance, and Foster started first the port engine, and then the starboard engine, before he released the brakes, and allowed the Tornado to begin to taxi out of the HAS. Looking to his left he could see his wingman’s aircraft emerging from the neighbouring HAS.
Once Foster reached the end of the runway he pushed the throttle fully forward, and engaged reheat.The Tornado accelerated slowly at first, but then began to race down the runway, followed by its wing ‘plane, and the two other Tornados.
The beginning of what would later be known as the Second Battle of Britain had started.
Near the Inner German Border.
The 4th (V) Royal Irish Rangers were still under fire from both artillery, and heavy mortars, both from 160mm, and 240mm mortars, firing VT shells.
The gas detector had stopped screaming, as it had been blasted to smithereens by a mortar bomb.
Lieutenant O’Donnell peered through the gap between overhead cover of his C.P, and the lip of the foxhole.
The Soviet armour, being led by infantrymen were getting closer, they were almost through the minefield, having taken severe losses to do so.
His platoon had begun to open fire on the advancing Soviet infantry, cutting down dozens with their Minimis, LSWs, and rifles.
The GPMGs of the battalion’s machine-gun platoon, and the heavy Brownings from the Manoeuvre Support Company were also carrying out a great execution.
However, their ‘one in three’ tracer fire marked them out for the accompanying BMP-3s, which opened fire on what infantry positions they could see with their 30mm co-axial guns, destroying them one by one.
*
To the rear, Captain Blake could see that the infantry was in the process of being overrun. He knew that if they were to extract themselves, they would need all the support they could get.
“Gunner, engage those BMPs.” Blake ordered.
The gunner selected the nearest BMP, lased it, and opened fire with a short burst of three 30mm shells.
*
Lieutenant O’Donnell flinched as the burst of 30mm shells flashed over his position. However, he knew that this meant that The North Irish Horse was supporting them.
“We might just make it.” He said to his radioman.
The private began to reply, but he was interrupted.
‘BLAM!’
A mortar shell had exploded less than a meter away from the C.P. One of the logs forming part of the overhead cover snapped in half, crashing down into the foxhole below, crushing the Bowman radio, and the radioman.
‘BLAM!’
A second mortar bomb brought down the rest of the overhead cover down on O’Donnell. Everything for him went black.
*
“All North Irish Horse units pull back.” A message crackled in Blake’s headphones. “Repeat pull back. Over.”
“But the infantry is being overrun. They need our support. Over.” Blake protested over the radio.
“Pull back now, Captain.” The voice of Major Pallister said.
Blake looked to either side of his Sabre and could see that the three Sabres of 10 Troop were already pulling back.
“Sir?” The gunner asked.
“But, Sir, the infantry. Over.” Captain Blake protested again.
“Now, Captain Blake.
“The infantry has received orders to pull back if they can.”
“Roger that.
“I’m pulling back now. Over.”
Blake felt guilty about leaving the infantry apparently to their fate, but he had his orders, and besides he would not do much good getting himself, and his two crew killed.
Over Hanover.
Squadron Leader Paul Jackson pulled his Typhoon round in a hard left-hand turn, as he converted onto a flight of four (it had been eight) Su-27 ‘Flankers’ that were flying in support of a strike of Su-24 ‘Fencers’.
Jackson, and his wingman, Flight Lieutenant Watt, had shut down their CAPTOR radars, and were tracking the Soviet aircraft via data-linked information from a NATO E-3 over the Rhine. Once they got in close, they would track the ‘Flankers’ with their PIRATE combined Infra Red Search and Tracking, and FLIR system. The PIRATE system was already tracking the four ‘Flankers’, and as Jackson closed, it switched to tracking one of the aircraft.
“Select ASRAAM.” He told the aircraft.
A moment later Jackson heard a continuous tone in his headphones, telling him that the missile had lock.
“Fox Two.” He said as he fired.
The ASRAAM streaked off the Typhoon’s pylon, heading for its target.
The ‘Flanker’ in question began to take evasive action, pumping out decoy flares.
However, Jackson saw none of this, as he had already targeted, and fired on another ‘Flanker’ before he, and his wingman had turned away from what had been a moment before a formation of four Su-27s and was now a collection of aluminium fragments heading for the ground.
Both Typhoons had more important things to do, like hunting the following strike of Su-24 ‘Fencers’.
SHAPE (Forward), south of Mons, Belgium.
“Well, tell me the worst.” General Paul Baker said, as he entered the trailer that served as his main command post.
“We’re facing an attack all along the IGB, Sir.” His Chief of Staff told him. “In massive strength; this is clearly the real deal.
“We’ve also received reports from HQ AFNORTH, and AFSOUTH that they are coming under attack from Warsaw Pact forces.”
The CoS turned to pick up another report.
“Military attaches in Vienna, and Belgrade have reported that Warsaw Pact forces have move into both Austria, and Yugoslavia.
“The Austrians had mobilised, as we have, and were not caught unawares.
“The Soviets won’t find them an easy prospect.
“The Yugoslavs are a different matter.
“The Federal Army was not mobilised, and it even looks like they are assisting the Soviets to pass through their territory.”
“Hm, not good.” Baker replied. “How about the situation in AFCENT?”
“Too early to tell, Sir.
“The initial clashes between the enemy, and our covering forces are still taking place, once those are over, we’ll know better, Sir.
“However there has been a report of at least one British unit coming under gas attack.”
“What?” General Sir Thomas Alexander, who was also present exclaimed.
“Can I ask which unit?”
“The 4th Royal Irish Rangers, Sir.
“The battlegroup HQ reported that one of its platoons was under gas attack.” The Chief of Staff replied.
“Have any other units, or facilities reported coming under gas attack?” Baker asked.
The Chief of Staff shook his head.
“No, Sir.
“No other units have reported that.
“However, we are having difficulty contacting some forward units.”
“Then it’s an unconfirmed report. It could easily be a faulty gas detector.
“Disregard it for now.” Baker told him.
Another staff officer stuck his head into the trailer.
“COMAAFCE on the secure line for you, Sir.”
“Thank you, Captain.” SACEUR replied.
General Baker picked up the handset in front of him.
“Hello, Rick, how are things your end?”
“Pretty busy, Sir.” The Commander Allied Air Forces Central Europe replied.
“We’re fighting the biggest air battles since the last war right now.
“As I’m sure you know, Sir, I’m having to defend against a major Warsaw Pact push against my air bases, and our ground facilities, while also getting aircraft airborne to support the army, and carry the battle to the enemy.”
“Can you launch ‘NIGHTHAWK’?” Baker asked.
“I’ve already got it underway, Sir.
“The first aircraft should be approaching their targets in about…twenty minutes.”
“Okay, Rick, thank you.
“I’ll let you get on.” Baker said before hanging up.
No sooner had he put the handset down, when it buzzed.
“Baker, here.”
“SACLANT for you, Sir.”
“Very, well, put him through.”
“Hello, Paul, how are you?” Admiral Donald Ramsey, USN, Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic, said brightly.
“Rushed, Don.
“What can I do for you?”
“I need to borrow some of your assets in Norway, and the UK for ‘HAMMER’.” The Admiral replied.
“You’ve got them, anything that will help my reinforcement convoys.
“Go direct to CINCUKAIR, or COMAFNORTH, if you need anything else.” Baker told Ramsey.
“Thank you, Paul, I appreciate it.
“My own assets are in place; all I needed was to borrow a few from you.
“If all goes well you should be seeing the results of ‘HAMMER’ pretty soon.”
RAF Lakenheath, Suffolk.
About an hour ago the F-117A ‘Nighthawks’ of the 49th Tactical Fighter Wing had taken off from the East Anglian base, heading for targets in East Germany. Now the second phase of NATO’s airborne counterattack was getting underway.
The F-15s of the 48th Tactical Fighter Wing, which was made up of three squadrons of F-15E ‘Strike Eagles’, and one of F-15Cs; a similar wing was based at RAF Upper Heyford, but it only had two F-15E squadrons, and a single F-15C squadron; were beginning to taxi towards the operational runway.
Lieutenant Colonel Colin Reynolds, Commanding Officer of the 492nd Tactical Fighter Squadron, and his WSO reviewed their weapons load.
While the F-117As had been carrying the latest JDAM bombs, the F-15Es were armed with the older but still effective GBU-27A ‘Paveway III’ Laser Guided Bomb, plus a pair of AMRAAMs, and AIM-9X ‘Sidewinders’ for self-defence. Satisfied that all was well, Reynolds began to taxi towards the runway, leading the aircraft of the 492nd TFS.
While the British based F-15Es, F-111s, and RAF Tornados were taking off an hour after the ‘Nighthawks’, the NATO strike aircraft based on the continent would be taking off even later.
Over the Inner German Border.
Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Cox, C.O of the 22nd Tactical Fighter Squadron, turned his F-22A ‘Raptor’ east. He turned off the aircraft’s APG-77 radar, although it was a Low Probability of Intercept radar, Cox did not want his target to have any chance of detecting him, or his wingman.
The 22nd Tactical Fighter Squadron, and the rest of the 36th Tactical Fighter Wing had a special job tonight. It was their job to destroy the Airborne Early Warning, and Control A-50 ‘Mainstay’s’ flying over East Germany.
While the ‘Nighthawks’, and ‘Raptors’ were invisible to the ‘Mainstays’, the Tornados, ‘Strike Eagles’, Mirages, and other NATO strike aircraft were not, and the ‘stealthy’ aircraft could not carry out this operation alone.
Lt. Colonel Cox continued to follow the course indicated by the information coming in via datalink from a NATO ‘Sentry’ over the Rhine.
Knowing that he was now in range, Cox illuminated his APG-77.
It picked up the ‘Mainstay’ at once and locked on.
“Fox One.” Cox said, as he fired the first of two AMRAAMs at the A-50.
His wingman also fired a pair of missiles at the two Su-27s escorting the ‘Mainstay.’ The two AMRAAMs targeted on the A-50 made short work of the converted cargo aircraft. The first missile blew the ‘Mainstay’s’ tail off, sending the ‘plane into an uncontrollable spin. The second missile hit the aircraft just on the join between the port wing, and the fuselage, blowing it off.
The AEW aircraft fell to the ground with all of the grace of a dropped sheaf of paper, soon joined by the remains of its escorts.
HMS Bristol, the Solent.
It was a new experience being at action stations on the Solent, even for the experienced Captain Yoxall. It was certainly not normal procedure to sail in these waters with two live Sea Dart Mod.3 missiles on the rails.
Bristol had been assigned as the senior ship of a newly formed escort group, made up of her, the frigates HMS Boxer (newly out of a reconstruction that had brought her up to full Batch 3 standard), and HMS Andromeda (also newly out of reserve), the large corvette HMS Loch Lomond, and the two smaller corvettes HMS Alnwick Castle, and HMS Hurst Castle. The Canadian frigate HMCS Halifax had also been assigned to the group, but she was still in the Western Approaches, racing to effect a rendezvous with the rest of the group.
Captain Yoxall had also been informed that a number of other NATO ASW ships would be assigned to his group on a temporary basis, depending on the level of threat to the convoys he would be escorting.
Convoys…now that was the nub of the problem… at the moment there were no convoys at sea. All that Captain Yoxall had been ordered to do was to take his group to sea (probably to avoid any possible air attack on Portsmouth).
Captain Yoxall looked at the plot in the in the Ops Room. It was confused.
The Type 1022 air search radar was picking up dozens of targets, evidently aircraft carrying reinforcements to Europe. The surface plot was not much better, the Channel was full of ships, RFAs, and requisitioned cross Channel ferries carrying equipment, and munitions, and others carrying British holiday makers back to the UK.
Yoxall was glad that they were not having to defend against Soviet attacks in such crowded, and confined waters.
***
*
0046 hours. 22nd April. BBC News 24.
News 24 was in the middle of one of its discussion programmes; predictably discussing the crisis in Eastern Europe, when the screen went black for a moment, and when it returned showed an image of the newsreader instead.
“We’re interrupting that particular edition of Hard Talk because we are receiving reports from Supreme Allied Headquarters in Belgium that NATO forces have been fired upon by those of the Warsaw Pact...’
The newsreader paused for a second and touched his earpiece.
‘In fact, we’ve just received a wire report from Supreme Allied Headquarters that Warsaw Pact forces have in fact invaded West Germany…I must stress that at this point these reports are unconfirmed.
‘However, we have just received a report via videophone from James Hayes, who is embedded with the headquarters of the British First Corps.
‘His report was made under army reporting restrictions.’
The screen switched to a slightly grainy, and jumpy view of a figure wearing an NBC suit, being illuminated by a single light from the camera.
A few other figures, in NBC gear, could be seen moving about in the background.
‘A few minutes ago, reports from forward units, in place along the border with East Germany, started to flood in, indicating that they were under massive attack by Warsaw Pact forces.
‘At the same time, it appears that a major air attack was launched against NATO facilities in West Germany, and above our heads it would appear that the NATO air forces are fighting a vicious battle with the Warsaw Pact for the control of the skies.
‘As you can see, we are wearing chemical protection suits, partly as a precaution, and partly because at least one forward unit has reported that it has come under gas attack…at this stage, however, that remains unconfirmed.
‘Earlier in the day, I spoke to the commander of 1 (British) Corps, Lieutenant General John O’Connor, to ask him how ready his troops were.’
The screen again changed, this time to a daylight shot of the general in his main command tent.
‘Oh, I think we are about as ready as we can be.’ O’Connor said to the camera.
‘All of my assigned forces have taken up their positions, and I believe that we are well placed to resist any Warsaw Pact attack.’
‘Can you explain a bit more of your strategy, General?’
‘Well, for obvious operational reasons I can’t go into details, but my objective, as the Duke of Wellington might have put it, is to defeat the enemy.
‘However, I’ll show you the basics on this map.’
Lt. General O’Connor got up and crossed to a large-scale map of 1 Corps’ sector, pinned to a board. It was conspicuously devoid of unit markers.
‘All along the border we have lightly equipped troops, which we have as what we call a ‘Covering Force.’ He said indicating with the fingers of his right hand.
‘They have a hard job, as it is their task to absorb, and slow the initial Soviet attack, and to make them actually fight to enter West German territory.
‘Further back from the border are our main heavy armoured forces, who will form the main resistance to any attack.’
‘So, you are suggesting that your ‘Covering Force’ will be abandoned if there is an attack?’
‘As I said, they have a very hard job, but no, we would not abandon them.
‘If we can get them get them out, we will do all we can to do so.’ Lieutenant General O’Connor replied.
The camera view switched back to the reporter in the NBC suit.
‘Since the Warsaw Pact has attacked, we can only now suppose that these ‘Covering Forces’ are now fighting for their lives against overwhelming odds, something that the British Army has a long, and proud tradition of.
‘Twice before in the last hundred years the British Army, always a relatively small force at the beginning of the war, has stood up to the forces of tyranny, and has come out successful.
‘It looks like it is time for the army to do so once again.
‘This is John Hayes reporting for the BBC, at 1 Corps Forward Headquarters.’
The view returned to the studio.
‘To recap, less than half an hour ago Warsaw Pact forces launched an attack against NATO forces in West Germany.
‘So far there has been no statement from any NATO, or the Soviet government…we are just getting a report from the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation that a major air raid has been detected heading for the United Kingdom.
‘Members of the public are advised to stay indoors, and that sirens will be sounded in areas under threat.
‘It is emphasised that this is not a nuclear missile attack, but a conventional raid by bomber aircraft.’
U.K Region Air Defence Operations Centre, RAF High Wycombe.
Air Chief Marshal Johnson hurried down the stairs to his underground bunker.
News had just come in that a NATO ‘Sentry’ over northern Norway had picked up a large group of Soviet aircraft taking off from the Kola Peninsula.
“What’s the latest, Susan?” Johnson asked his aide.
“The Soviet strike is only a few minutes away from the Norwegian border, Sir.
“The Norwegians are moving in more fighters, they wanted to be the first to engage, but there are some of 1 Group’s Typhoons moving to assist.” Flight Lieutenant Jackson replied. “We’ve been in contact with Stanmore, Air Vice Marshal Hazel is concerned, so he’s brought his fighters to full alert.”
“Sounds serious, Susan, but I’m glad John has done the right thing.
“Any attack on the air defences of Northern Norway could be an attempt to clear a way through to the UKADR, as well as support for the ground invasion of Norway.
“I’d expect to see Backfires coming in behind this tactical strike.
“There’s bound to be a strike coming from the Baltic too, it’s what I’d do if I were trying to overcome the I-UKADGE.”
The two officers hurried into the operations room, just in time to hear a radio call from the AWACS over Northern Norway to the northern SOC in Norway.
“Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! This is Sentry two-five. We are under attack by enemy aircraft!”
“The Soviets blew through the Sentry’s escort, Sir.” The duty controller reported. “Hit them with overwhelming strength. It was an anti-AWACS strike, not a tactical strike as we thought.”
“Damn it.
“COMNORTH Norway should have had our Typhoons covering that AWACS, not Norwegian F-16s.
“The Meteor missiles might have made a difference, but there’s nothing we can do about it, it was COMAFNORTH’s call, not mine.” Johnson raged, annoyed that the assets that he had sent to AFNORTH, had apparently been misused.
“Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” Sentry two-five called again. “We are under missile attack…”
The rest of the call was drowned out by the sound of alarmed shouts, and blaring alarms. Once voice could be heard yelling that that they could not break missile lock.
There was a muffled crunch, and the radio went silent.
The assembled RAF personnel looked grimly at each other, knowing what had happened.
A second later another call came in from an RAF Sentry AEW.1 over the North Sea.
“This is Magic 8-9.
“We’ve got hostile aircraft approaching from the Baltic.
“We’re directing the fighters already airborne to intercept.”
Johnson picked up the direct line to 11 Group Headquarters at Bentley Priory.
HQ 11 Group. RAF Bentley Priory, Stanmore, Middlesex.
“Stanmore.” Wing Commander Sara Stapleton, the duty controller at the Standby Air Defence Operations Centre, said as she answered the phone.
“This is Air Chief Marshal Johnson, get me Air Vice Marshal Hazel.”
“Yes, Sir, right away.” Stapleton replied.
She signalled to Hazel, who was across the room to pick up the phone.
Air Vice Marshal John Hazel, Air Officer Commanding 11 Group, picked up the phone in front of him.
“Hazel.” He said simply.
“John, this is Air Chief Marshal Johnson.
“I need you to get your reserve fighters up now.
“The Russians are taking apart Norway, and there’s a major strike coming in from the Baltic.”
“I’ve been monitoring the situation, Sir, I’ve just sent the orders myself.
“The reserve fighters should be taking off about now, Sir, my SAM units are also on alert.”
“Thanks, John, you’ve anticipated me as always.” Johnson replied.
RAF Leuchars, Fife Scotland.
Wing Commander Jack Foster was sitting in the crew alert room, along with his navigator, Squadron Leader George Wilkinson, and three other Tornado crews from 43 (Fighter) Squadron.
He was just turning the page of his newspaper when the alert klaxon sounded.
Foster, and the other three aircrew jumped to their feet, gabbing their ‘bone domes’ and sprinting to the Hardened Aircraft Shelters containing their Tornado F-3s.
As Foster approached the HAS containing his aircraft, he heard the alarm that warned personnel that the doors were opening.
He rushed through the opening gap with Wilkinson close on his heels.
The ground crew had already prepared the aircraft, so Foster only needed to do a perfunctory walk around check.
While he carried this out, Wilkinson boarded the Tornado and began to turn on the aircraft’s systems.
His checks done, Foster climbed up into the forward cockpit.
He strapped himself in with the assistance of an Aircraftsman from the ground crew.
“Good luck, Sir.” The Aircraftsman said before he withdrew.
“Thanks, I’ll try not to let you blokes down.” Foster replied.
The Wing Commander closed the canopy and signalled to the ground crew that he was about to start the aircraft’s two RB.199 Mk.104 turbofans.
They retreated to a safe distance, and Foster started first the port engine, and then the starboard engine, before he released the brakes, and allowed the Tornado to begin to taxi out of the HAS. Looking to his left he could see his wingman’s aircraft emerging from the neighbouring HAS.
Once Foster reached the end of the runway he pushed the throttle fully forward, and engaged reheat.The Tornado accelerated slowly at first, but then began to race down the runway, followed by its wing ‘plane, and the two other Tornados.
The beginning of what would later be known as the Second Battle of Britain had started.
Near the Inner German Border.
The 4th (V) Royal Irish Rangers were still under fire from both artillery, and heavy mortars, both from 160mm, and 240mm mortars, firing VT shells.
The gas detector had stopped screaming, as it had been blasted to smithereens by a mortar bomb.
Lieutenant O’Donnell peered through the gap between overhead cover of his C.P, and the lip of the foxhole.
The Soviet armour, being led by infantrymen were getting closer, they were almost through the minefield, having taken severe losses to do so.
His platoon had begun to open fire on the advancing Soviet infantry, cutting down dozens with their Minimis, LSWs, and rifles.
The GPMGs of the battalion’s machine-gun platoon, and the heavy Brownings from the Manoeuvre Support Company were also carrying out a great execution.
However, their ‘one in three’ tracer fire marked them out for the accompanying BMP-3s, which opened fire on what infantry positions they could see with their 30mm co-axial guns, destroying them one by one.
*
To the rear, Captain Blake could see that the infantry was in the process of being overrun. He knew that if they were to extract themselves, they would need all the support they could get.
“Gunner, engage those BMPs.” Blake ordered.
The gunner selected the nearest BMP, lased it, and opened fire with a short burst of three 30mm shells.
*
Lieutenant O’Donnell flinched as the burst of 30mm shells flashed over his position. However, he knew that this meant that The North Irish Horse was supporting them.
“We might just make it.” He said to his radioman.
The private began to reply, but he was interrupted.
‘BLAM!’
A mortar shell had exploded less than a meter away from the C.P. One of the logs forming part of the overhead cover snapped in half, crashing down into the foxhole below, crushing the Bowman radio, and the radioman.
‘BLAM!’
A second mortar bomb brought down the rest of the overhead cover down on O’Donnell. Everything for him went black.
*
“All North Irish Horse units pull back.” A message crackled in Blake’s headphones. “Repeat pull back. Over.”
“But the infantry is being overrun. They need our support. Over.” Blake protested over the radio.
“Pull back now, Captain.” The voice of Major Pallister said.
Blake looked to either side of his Sabre and could see that the three Sabres of 10 Troop were already pulling back.
“Sir?” The gunner asked.
“But, Sir, the infantry. Over.” Captain Blake protested again.
“Now, Captain Blake.
“The infantry has received orders to pull back if they can.”
“Roger that.
“I’m pulling back now. Over.”
Blake felt guilty about leaving the infantry apparently to their fate, but he had his orders, and besides he would not do much good getting himself, and his two crew killed.
Over Hanover.
Squadron Leader Paul Jackson pulled his Typhoon round in a hard left-hand turn, as he converted onto a flight of four (it had been eight) Su-27 ‘Flankers’ that were flying in support of a strike of Su-24 ‘Fencers’.
Jackson, and his wingman, Flight Lieutenant Watt, had shut down their CAPTOR radars, and were tracking the Soviet aircraft via data-linked information from a NATO E-3 over the Rhine. Once they got in close, they would track the ‘Flankers’ with their PIRATE combined Infra Red Search and Tracking, and FLIR system. The PIRATE system was already tracking the four ‘Flankers’, and as Jackson closed, it switched to tracking one of the aircraft.
“Select ASRAAM.” He told the aircraft.
A moment later Jackson heard a continuous tone in his headphones, telling him that the missile had lock.
“Fox Two.” He said as he fired.
The ASRAAM streaked off the Typhoon’s pylon, heading for its target.
The ‘Flanker’ in question began to take evasive action, pumping out decoy flares.
However, Jackson saw none of this, as he had already targeted, and fired on another ‘Flanker’ before he, and his wingman had turned away from what had been a moment before a formation of four Su-27s and was now a collection of aluminium fragments heading for the ground.
Both Typhoons had more important things to do, like hunting the following strike of Su-24 ‘Fencers’.
SHAPE (Forward), south of Mons, Belgium.
“Well, tell me the worst.” General Paul Baker said, as he entered the trailer that served as his main command post.
“We’re facing an attack all along the IGB, Sir.” His Chief of Staff told him. “In massive strength; this is clearly the real deal.
“We’ve also received reports from HQ AFNORTH, and AFSOUTH that they are coming under attack from Warsaw Pact forces.”
The CoS turned to pick up another report.
“Military attaches in Vienna, and Belgrade have reported that Warsaw Pact forces have move into both Austria, and Yugoslavia.
“The Austrians had mobilised, as we have, and were not caught unawares.
“The Soviets won’t find them an easy prospect.
“The Yugoslavs are a different matter.
“The Federal Army was not mobilised, and it even looks like they are assisting the Soviets to pass through their territory.”
“Hm, not good.” Baker replied. “How about the situation in AFCENT?”
“Too early to tell, Sir.
“The initial clashes between the enemy, and our covering forces are still taking place, once those are over, we’ll know better, Sir.
“However there has been a report of at least one British unit coming under gas attack.”
“What?” General Sir Thomas Alexander, who was also present exclaimed.
“Can I ask which unit?”
“The 4th Royal Irish Rangers, Sir.
“The battlegroup HQ reported that one of its platoons was under gas attack.” The Chief of Staff replied.
“Have any other units, or facilities reported coming under gas attack?” Baker asked.
The Chief of Staff shook his head.
“No, Sir.
“No other units have reported that.
“However, we are having difficulty contacting some forward units.”
“Then it’s an unconfirmed report. It could easily be a faulty gas detector.
“Disregard it for now.” Baker told him.
Another staff officer stuck his head into the trailer.
“COMAAFCE on the secure line for you, Sir.”
“Thank you, Captain.” SACEUR replied.
General Baker picked up the handset in front of him.
“Hello, Rick, how are things your end?”
“Pretty busy, Sir.” The Commander Allied Air Forces Central Europe replied.
“We’re fighting the biggest air battles since the last war right now.
“As I’m sure you know, Sir, I’m having to defend against a major Warsaw Pact push against my air bases, and our ground facilities, while also getting aircraft airborne to support the army, and carry the battle to the enemy.”
“Can you launch ‘NIGHTHAWK’?” Baker asked.
“I’ve already got it underway, Sir.
“The first aircraft should be approaching their targets in about…twenty minutes.”
“Okay, Rick, thank you.
“I’ll let you get on.” Baker said before hanging up.
No sooner had he put the handset down, when it buzzed.
“Baker, here.”
“SACLANT for you, Sir.”
“Very, well, put him through.”
“Hello, Paul, how are you?” Admiral Donald Ramsey, USN, Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic, said brightly.
“Rushed, Don.
“What can I do for you?”
“I need to borrow some of your assets in Norway, and the UK for ‘HAMMER’.” The Admiral replied.
“You’ve got them, anything that will help my reinforcement convoys.
“Go direct to CINCUKAIR, or COMAFNORTH, if you need anything else.” Baker told Ramsey.
“Thank you, Paul, I appreciate it.
“My own assets are in place; all I needed was to borrow a few from you.
“If all goes well you should be seeing the results of ‘HAMMER’ pretty soon.”
RAF Lakenheath, Suffolk.
About an hour ago the F-117A ‘Nighthawks’ of the 49th Tactical Fighter Wing had taken off from the East Anglian base, heading for targets in East Germany. Now the second phase of NATO’s airborne counterattack was getting underway.
The F-15s of the 48th Tactical Fighter Wing, which was made up of three squadrons of F-15E ‘Strike Eagles’, and one of F-15Cs; a similar wing was based at RAF Upper Heyford, but it only had two F-15E squadrons, and a single F-15C squadron; were beginning to taxi towards the operational runway.
Lieutenant Colonel Colin Reynolds, Commanding Officer of the 492nd Tactical Fighter Squadron, and his WSO reviewed their weapons load.
While the F-117As had been carrying the latest JDAM bombs, the F-15Es were armed with the older but still effective GBU-27A ‘Paveway III’ Laser Guided Bomb, plus a pair of AMRAAMs, and AIM-9X ‘Sidewinders’ for self-defence. Satisfied that all was well, Reynolds began to taxi towards the runway, leading the aircraft of the 492nd TFS.
While the British based F-15Es, F-111s, and RAF Tornados were taking off an hour after the ‘Nighthawks’, the NATO strike aircraft based on the continent would be taking off even later.
Over the Inner German Border.
Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Cox, C.O of the 22nd Tactical Fighter Squadron, turned his F-22A ‘Raptor’ east. He turned off the aircraft’s APG-77 radar, although it was a Low Probability of Intercept radar, Cox did not want his target to have any chance of detecting him, or his wingman.
The 22nd Tactical Fighter Squadron, and the rest of the 36th Tactical Fighter Wing had a special job tonight. It was their job to destroy the Airborne Early Warning, and Control A-50 ‘Mainstay’s’ flying over East Germany.
While the ‘Nighthawks’, and ‘Raptors’ were invisible to the ‘Mainstays’, the Tornados, ‘Strike Eagles’, Mirages, and other NATO strike aircraft were not, and the ‘stealthy’ aircraft could not carry out this operation alone.
Lt. Colonel Cox continued to follow the course indicated by the information coming in via datalink from a NATO ‘Sentry’ over the Rhine.
Knowing that he was now in range, Cox illuminated his APG-77.
It picked up the ‘Mainstay’ at once and locked on.
“Fox One.” Cox said, as he fired the first of two AMRAAMs at the A-50.
His wingman also fired a pair of missiles at the two Su-27s escorting the ‘Mainstay.’ The two AMRAAMs targeted on the A-50 made short work of the converted cargo aircraft. The first missile blew the ‘Mainstay’s’ tail off, sending the ‘plane into an uncontrollable spin. The second missile hit the aircraft just on the join between the port wing, and the fuselage, blowing it off.
The AEW aircraft fell to the ground with all of the grace of a dropped sheaf of paper, soon joined by the remains of its escorts.
HMS Bristol, the Solent.
It was a new experience being at action stations on the Solent, even for the experienced Captain Yoxall. It was certainly not normal procedure to sail in these waters with two live Sea Dart Mod.3 missiles on the rails.
Bristol had been assigned as the senior ship of a newly formed escort group, made up of her, the frigates HMS Boxer (newly out of a reconstruction that had brought her up to full Batch 3 standard), and HMS Andromeda (also newly out of reserve), the large corvette HMS Loch Lomond, and the two smaller corvettes HMS Alnwick Castle, and HMS Hurst Castle. The Canadian frigate HMCS Halifax had also been assigned to the group, but she was still in the Western Approaches, racing to effect a rendezvous with the rest of the group.
Captain Yoxall had also been informed that a number of other NATO ASW ships would be assigned to his group on a temporary basis, depending on the level of threat to the convoys he would be escorting.
Convoys…now that was the nub of the problem… at the moment there were no convoys at sea. All that Captain Yoxall had been ordered to do was to take his group to sea (probably to avoid any possible air attack on Portsmouth).
Captain Yoxall looked at the plot in the in the Ops Room. It was confused.
The Type 1022 air search radar was picking up dozens of targets, evidently aircraft carrying reinforcements to Europe. The surface plot was not much better, the Channel was full of ships, RFAs, and requisitioned cross Channel ferries carrying equipment, and munitions, and others carrying British holiday makers back to the UK.
Yoxall was glad that they were not having to defend against Soviet attacks in such crowded, and confined waters.
***
“Frankly, I had enjoyed the war… and why do people want peace if the war is so much fun?” - Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart
-
Bernard Woolley
- Posts: 995
- Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2022 4:06 pm
- Location: Earth
Chapter 7
Chapter 7
*
Over East Germany.
Lieutenant Colonel Colin Reynolds armed his bombs as he neared his target, a bridge over the river Elbe, near Hohenroarthe.
The Eagle’s ECM gear wasn’t picking up any SAM radars.
That meant that the ‘Nighthawks’ has done their initial job.
“Target’s being lased, Skipper.” His WSO said over the intercom.
“Roger that.
“Certainly makes our job easier.” Reynolds replied.
The aircraft’s weapons computer calculated that the Eagle had reached the optimum point for weapons release and dropped the three GBU-27As.
Reynolds pushed the pickle button anyway to ensure a clean separation.
The three bombs struck the bridge within half a meter of each other, demolishing the northern span.
Seconds later three bombs from Reynolds’ wingman completed the destruction of the bridge.
The pilot of the orbiting ‘Nighthawk’, who had been lasing the bridge, switched his laser from the former site of the bridge to the bridging equipment stockpiled next to the bridge (rather foolishly he thought), to indicate it to the next two Eagles, which were carrying a full load of cluster bombs.
Over the Bay of Biscay.
“Coming up on IP, Skipper.”
“Roger that, Plot Nav.” Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Hoover, C.O of the 62nd Bombardment Squadron, 2nd Bombardment Wing, replied.
The B-52J bombers of the 2nd Bombardment Wing had an important part to play in ‘Operation NIGHTHAWK’. Their task was to launch AGM-86 Air Launched Cruise Missiles at a number of fixed, and semi-fixed targets, such as airfields, headquarters, and SAM sites (especially the more advanced SAMs, such as the S-300, and S-400).
The timing of launching their missiles was very critical, to avoid conflicting with NATO strike aircraft. If all went well, they would arrive between waves of aircraft.
Hoover reached down to arm the twelve AGM-86s that his ‘Buff’ was carrying.
“Weapons away!”
Hoover watched as the first ALCM streaked away from the bomber.
The other ‘Stratofortresses’ had also begun to launch, firing over two hundred ALCMs at targets in Eastern Europe.
USS Miami, the Barents Sea.
The captain of USS Miami checked his watch; it was almost time.
“All stop, bring us up to periscope depth.” He ordered.
Once Miami had reached periscope depth, she raised a radio mast to get targeting information for her Tomahawk cruise missiles. Having been up for less than half a minute, the mast was lowered to escape detection.
The captain looked at the digital clock, and then down at his watch again.
He waited until the clock read 00:00 before giving the order.
“Flood VLS tubes one through twelve, flood, and fire torpedo tubes one through three.
“Reload the torpedo tubes, and repeat.”
The boat rocked as twelve Tomahawks launched out of the Vertical Launch Tubes, then followed by three out of the torpedo tubes, followed by three more.
“Right, take us down two hundred meters.
“All ahead one third.
“Let’s get the hell out of here.”
The process that had just happened aboard Miami had also taken place aboard several other 688I, and Flight II Los Angeles class attack submarines positioned in the Barents Sea.
Hundreds of cruise missiles were now headed for the Soviet coast. Once they crossed the coast, the split up into small groups, and began to head for their targets.
‘Operation HAMMER’ was underway.
Over West Germany, southeast of Hanover.
Flight Lieutenant Mark Robinson, a pilot in IX (Bomber) Squadron, was flying the number three Tornado GR.4, in a flight of four aircraft.
The RAF had decided to take a rather different approach to destroying the bridges over the river Elbe. Rather than arming their aircraft with laser guided bombs, which would necessitate them getting close to any surviving SAM launchers, they had armed their aircraft with MBDA ‘Storm Shadow’ cruise missiles.
“Approaching launch co-ordinates, Mark.” His navigator said.
“Right.
“We’ll follow the lead of Jim, and Mike.” Robinson replied.
Robinson watched the lead aircraft, his finger resting on the pickle button.
As the leading Tornado launched its two missiles, Robinson fired. The two ‘Storm Shadows’ dropped clear of the Tornado’s fuselage and boosted away. The eight ‘Storm Shadows’ dropped down to low level and split up into two groups. Since their targets were a pair of bridges, the missiles used the Elbe as a navigational marker.
Robinson turned his aircraft back towards RAF Bruggen.
As well as being a highly trained strike squadron, IX (B) Squadron was also one of the RAF’s SEAD trained units, and when their aircraft returned to Bruggen, they would be loaded up with a full load of four ALARM missiles and would go out searching for SAM radars.
*
As the first group of four ‘Storm Shadows’ reached their target, they popped up, noting that the target loaded into their memories was visible on their Infrared seekers. Seconds later they slammed into the bridge’s four supports. Each missile penetrated for a few meters before their 2,000lb warheads detonated. The bridge supports disintegrated under this kind of assault, and the bridge, and the T-80s, T-90s, and BMPs on it collapsed into the river.
By destroying or damaging most of the bridges over the river Elbe, and much of the Warsaw Pact bridging equipment, NATO had ensured that the initial Soviet attack would be without its second echelon, and many of its specialist units.
The initial battle for West Germany would therefore be fought on almost equal terms.
USS Theodore Roosevelt, the G-I-UK Gap.
Vice Admiral Robert Clancy, Commander of the US 2nd Fleet, and now Commander NATO Strike Fleet Atlantic, was standing on the flag bridge of the nuclear-powered carrier, watching the comings, and goings of the ship’s air wing.
As he watched a pair of A-6F Intruder IIs took off, climbing away from the flight deck, at full throttle. Seconds after they cleared the deck, a pair of F/A-18E ‘Super Hornets’ landed on, while the next aircraft due to take off, a pair of F-14D Tomcats, were being prepared for take off.
Looking further away he could see the Roosevelt’s sister ship, USS George Washington, about three miles away. The Washington was the second carrier of the group, the third being USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Two more carriers, USS Harry S. Truman, and USS Enterprise, were racing north to rendezvous with the main group before it sailed north into the Norwegian, and Barents Seas, to carry out its three main tasks.
The first of these was to attack Soviet military installations in the Kola Peninsula. The second was to provide support to NATO forces in Norway. The third was to assist NATO reinforcement convoys by providing an irresistible target to the Soviet navy (its Naval Aviation Backfires, surface attack groups, and submarines), thereby diverting assets that might otherwise be attacking these convoys.
Vice Admiral Clancy turned, as his Chief of Staff, Captain Mike Turner, joined him on the flag bridge.
“Sir, I thought you’d like to know that one of our Hawkeyes has just picked up the Truman/Enterprise group.
“They should be with us within a few hours.
“We’ve also copied some FLASH traffic.
“The ASW group got hit by a sub attack about twenty minutes ago, they lost a Fort Victoria class AOR with all hands.”
“Damn.” Clancy exclaimed.
“What’s the complement of one of those things?”
“About two hundred, and eighty, depending on whether they are carrying helicopters, or not.”
“Dear God.
“Did they get the sub?”
Turner nodded.
“They sure did.
“They took it down with about five helicopters. That sub is fish food.
“We’ve also copied a signal from SACLANT that ‘Operation HAMMER’ is underway.
“What is that, if I may ask, Sir?”
“You may ask, Mike, and I guess since you aren’t going anywhere, I might as well tell you.
“HAMMER is an attack by sub, and air launched cruise missiles on the Soviet Backfire bases in the Kola Peninsula.
“Should make our job easier and help out the convoys.”
Turner didn’t answer at once, as he contemplated the possible impact of this operation.
“Sounds quite ambitious, Sir.
“I hope it comes off.”
Over Northern Norway.
Wing Commander James Schofield, Commanding Officer 12 (Bomber) Squadron, made one last check of his aircraft’s systems as it approached the launch point for its four ‘Storm Shadow’ missiles.
Schofield was leading a group of elderly, but upgraded Blackburn Buccaneer S.2Bs, taking some time off from their normal task of maritime strike, to join Tornados from 27, 45, and 617 Squadrons, which were taking part in ‘Operation HAMMER’.
“Just passing the IP, Skipper.” The navigator, Squadron Leader Stuart Maconie, said.
“Right.” Schofield replied.
He reached down, and armed the four missiles, before pushing the pickle button.
“Magnum!
“Magnum!” He announced over the radio.
As Schofield turned his aircraft away, a chirping tone sounded in his earphones, warning him that a fighter radar was illuminating his aircraft.
He took the Buccaneer down to extreme low level and pushed the throttle to full military power. The Buccaneer might be one of the oldest strike aircraft in service with any NATO air force, but it was still among the fastest in the world at low level. Any Soviet fighter would have to work hard to catch the group of 12 Squadron Buccaneers.
*
“This is Sentry two-two, we have some trade for you.” The voice in Wing Commander Macalister’s headphones said.
“I have them on my screen, thanks, two-two. Over.” Macalister replied.
He glanced down at the screen. Both targets were moving fast, apparently trying to intercept the now fleeing strike aircraft. For some reason the Sentry’s AN/APY-2 radar, which was supplying the information via JTIDS, was having a little trouble maintaining track on these targets, which meant that they could be only one thing – the Mig.37s.
These aircraft were what Typhoon pilots had nightmares about. They were the most advanced aircraft that the other side had, supposedly as good as the Typhoons, and Rafales of NATO’s European air forces.
Thankfully, intelligence said that there were relatively few of these advanced fighters, mainly used on air defence duties (frontal aviation seemed to prefer the cheaper, but almost as advanced Su-27M/35).
“Okay, Lion flight.” Macalister told the other three Typhoons. “Looks like we have a flight of ‘Flatpacks’ on our hands.
“Go to combat spread, and full military thrust.
“If we’re lucky, they’ll be concentrating on our mud moving mates.”
0055 hours, 22nd April. Cheyenne Mountain AFB, Colorado.
Cheyenne Mountain Air Force base was the headquarters of the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD), a joint US-Canadian organization; it was also the home of US Space Command (the tri-service organization that included components of AF Space Command, Navy Space Command, and Army Space Command)
General James Garner, USAF, CINCSPACE, CINCNORAD, and CINCAFSPACE, looked with some dissatisfaction, at the big board, displaying both NATO satellites (in blue), and Soviet satellites (in red).
A few new Soviet satellites had been launched a short time ago (just before the attack in Europe had been launched), and they appeared to be manoeuvring into orbits that coincided with some of his ‘Key Hole’ reconnaissance satellites.
“Yes, Sir.” Garner said into the phone he was holding, “They do appear to be Soviet ASATs.
“No, Sir, the annex to START III means that they have nothing to hit our highflying birds, like the MILSTARS, or GPS.
“They are a threat to our low flying birds, however.
“All means necessary, Sir, very good.”
Garner hung up. He turned to his Chief of Staff.
“We’ve been given the order to defend our space assets ‘by all means necessary’.
“Get the word out to our satellite drivers that they may manoeuvre their birds as necessary to protect them, and get the word out to McChord, and Langley.
“I want as many of those Soviet ASATs as they can manage, and all of their satellites that we can reach, gone.”
Garner looked up at the big screen again. All the billions spent on SDI, and all he had to defend his assets were F-15 launched ASAT missiles, and a few land based missiles, still under test.
‘So much for ‘Star Wars’. He thought.
The ‘War in Space’ was going to be a much more primitive affair than most people had imagined.
Royal Scots Dragoon Guard battlegroup, northeast of Hanover.
Lieutenant Tom ‘Sherman’ Potter scanned the battlefield in front of his Challenger 2 through his independent sight.
So far, he could not see anything.
Lieutenant Potter was the Officer Commanding 3 Troop, A Squadron, of The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards. His troop, and 5 Troop from B Squadron, had been attached to A Company, 1st Battalion, The Black Watch.
A short time ago, overloaded FV430s, and Saxons, and Sabres, Strikers, and Spartans from the covering force, all showing signs of the heavy fighting they had experienced, had passed the positions of the company group that Potter’s troop was now part of. Only the enemy was in front of them now.
Just then the first Soviet T-80s (with a few T-90s mixed in) accompanied by BMP-3s appeared in the distance, advancing remorselessly on the British positions. A few Soviet vehicles lurched to a halt, as they ran afoul of a minefield of AT-2 mines, laid by a battery of MLRS, or were attacked by Army Air Corps Apache AH.1s.
The leading Soviet armoured vehicles were just getting into range of the Challenger’s L30 120mm guns. Potter found the sort of target he was looking for – a T-90 with extra aerials.
“Gunner, target command tank.
“Load sabot!” He barked.
“Identified!” The gunner replied, indicating that he had seen the target.
“Loaded!” The loader yelled, telling the gunner that the 120mm APDSFS round, and the separate rigid propellant charge was loaded, and that he was clear of the breech.
“Lasing, now.” The gunner said.
There was a whine as the laser range finder warmed up and illuminated the target.
“Fire!” Potter ordered.
“Firing now!”
‘BOOM’.
The 120mm gun thundered, spitting out a CHARM 3 DU sabot round at the unfortunate T-90. The sabot hit the Soviet tank on the turret ring, and penetrated a microsecond later. The ammunition on board the T-90 exploded a second later, hurling the turret high into the air.
Lieutenant Potter didn’t see this, however, he was already searching for another target.
“Gunner, target T-80!
“Load sabot!”
*
Major Anderson watched the developing engagement from the turret of his own Challenger 2, with a growing sense of satisfaction. The SCOTS DG’s fast firing Challengers were cutting the Soviet tanks to ribbons, without them even getting off a shot in return, while the Warrior, and infantry Javelin teams were blasting the BMPs to pieces.
“Excuse me, Boss.” Anderson’s gunner, Sergeant John Gibb, said. “Can we have a go at them?”
“Why not.
“If you see something interesting, Sergeant, you have my permission to shoot at it.” Anderson replied.
Gibb scanned the battlefield, until he saw ‘something interesting’, a Soviet SA-19 ‘Tunguska’ self propelled SAM, and AAA vehicle.
“Load HESH!” He told the loader.
“Loaded!”
“Lasing, now!
“Firing now!”
Anderson ducked back into the turret to avoid the blast of the gun, and all of dust it would kick up.
When he emerged again, the SA-19 was a burning wreck.
“Nice shot, Sergeant.
“I’m sure the Crabs will appreciate that.”
Over East Germany.
No doubt Squadron Leader Richard Jameson, the O.C of A Flight, IV (Army Co-operation) Squadron would have appreciated the elimination of the SA-19 had he and his wingman been flying CAS, but the two Harrier GR.9As were flying a Battlefield Air Interdiction sortie.
Their target was a large fuel depot that NATO reconnaissance aircraft had identified in the run up to hostilities.
Each aircraft was armed with six Brimstone missiles, on the two outboard pylons, so that they could engage the depot’s air defences, and five RBL-755 cluster bombs on the four remaining pylons, and centreline hardpoint, as well as a pair of ASRAAM missiles for self-defence, and a pair of 30mm Aden cannons. With its FLIR system, and the pilot’s NVGs, the Harrier was very much at home in the dark and was very suited to this operation.
Both Harriers’ Zeus ECM system had already picked up the radar emissions of the SAM, and gun defences of the fuel depot, and had loaded them into the aircraft’s weapons computer.
It was time to fire.
Jameson and his wingman fired off their Brimstones in quick succession, before altering course to arrive over the depot from a different direction from the missiles.
Presently the depot came into sight, handily marked by the burning air defence vehicles.
Jameson, and his wingman released the cluster bombs within seconds of each other, as they passed over the centre of the depot.
The night’s sky was light up, and the two Harriers buffeted, as the stored fuel exploded like a huge bomb.
Suddenly an alarm went off in Jameson’s headphones, a fighter radar had just illuminated them.
Because the Harrier’s wings were made of composite material, it was a difficult target to lock onto from above, as the two East German Mig-29s were now trying to do.
There task was made all the more difficult as the advanced Zeus system of the Harriers began to jam their radars with dozens of ‘spoof’ targets, also following their frequency changes as quickly as they made them.
The two Harriers made good their escape at low level, while the two ‘Fulcrum’ pilots, their radar screens reduced to an un-interpretable mess, decided to look for targets elsewhere.
The first few hours of World War Three had been hard for NATO, they had taken severe losses among the covering forces along the border, and they were fighting an intense battle in the air.
However, ‘NIGHTHAWK’, and ‘HAMMER’ were in the process of demonstrating to the Soviets just what well directed air power could achieve, and the Soviet ground forces that had met the main NATO armoured forces were suffering severe losses.
NATO had won the initial battles of the war, but could they repeat the pattern in the longer term?
***
*
Over East Germany.
Lieutenant Colonel Colin Reynolds armed his bombs as he neared his target, a bridge over the river Elbe, near Hohenroarthe.
The Eagle’s ECM gear wasn’t picking up any SAM radars.
That meant that the ‘Nighthawks’ has done their initial job.
“Target’s being lased, Skipper.” His WSO said over the intercom.
“Roger that.
“Certainly makes our job easier.” Reynolds replied.
The aircraft’s weapons computer calculated that the Eagle had reached the optimum point for weapons release and dropped the three GBU-27As.
Reynolds pushed the pickle button anyway to ensure a clean separation.
The three bombs struck the bridge within half a meter of each other, demolishing the northern span.
Seconds later three bombs from Reynolds’ wingman completed the destruction of the bridge.
The pilot of the orbiting ‘Nighthawk’, who had been lasing the bridge, switched his laser from the former site of the bridge to the bridging equipment stockpiled next to the bridge (rather foolishly he thought), to indicate it to the next two Eagles, which were carrying a full load of cluster bombs.
Over the Bay of Biscay.
“Coming up on IP, Skipper.”
“Roger that, Plot Nav.” Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Hoover, C.O of the 62nd Bombardment Squadron, 2nd Bombardment Wing, replied.
The B-52J bombers of the 2nd Bombardment Wing had an important part to play in ‘Operation NIGHTHAWK’. Their task was to launch AGM-86 Air Launched Cruise Missiles at a number of fixed, and semi-fixed targets, such as airfields, headquarters, and SAM sites (especially the more advanced SAMs, such as the S-300, and S-400).
The timing of launching their missiles was very critical, to avoid conflicting with NATO strike aircraft. If all went well, they would arrive between waves of aircraft.
Hoover reached down to arm the twelve AGM-86s that his ‘Buff’ was carrying.
“Weapons away!”
Hoover watched as the first ALCM streaked away from the bomber.
The other ‘Stratofortresses’ had also begun to launch, firing over two hundred ALCMs at targets in Eastern Europe.
USS Miami, the Barents Sea.
The captain of USS Miami checked his watch; it was almost time.
“All stop, bring us up to periscope depth.” He ordered.
Once Miami had reached periscope depth, she raised a radio mast to get targeting information for her Tomahawk cruise missiles. Having been up for less than half a minute, the mast was lowered to escape detection.
The captain looked at the digital clock, and then down at his watch again.
He waited until the clock read 00:00 before giving the order.
“Flood VLS tubes one through twelve, flood, and fire torpedo tubes one through three.
“Reload the torpedo tubes, and repeat.”
The boat rocked as twelve Tomahawks launched out of the Vertical Launch Tubes, then followed by three out of the torpedo tubes, followed by three more.
“Right, take us down two hundred meters.
“All ahead one third.
“Let’s get the hell out of here.”
The process that had just happened aboard Miami had also taken place aboard several other 688I, and Flight II Los Angeles class attack submarines positioned in the Barents Sea.
Hundreds of cruise missiles were now headed for the Soviet coast. Once they crossed the coast, the split up into small groups, and began to head for their targets.
‘Operation HAMMER’ was underway.
Over West Germany, southeast of Hanover.
Flight Lieutenant Mark Robinson, a pilot in IX (Bomber) Squadron, was flying the number three Tornado GR.4, in a flight of four aircraft.
The RAF had decided to take a rather different approach to destroying the bridges over the river Elbe. Rather than arming their aircraft with laser guided bombs, which would necessitate them getting close to any surviving SAM launchers, they had armed their aircraft with MBDA ‘Storm Shadow’ cruise missiles.
“Approaching launch co-ordinates, Mark.” His navigator said.
“Right.
“We’ll follow the lead of Jim, and Mike.” Robinson replied.
Robinson watched the lead aircraft, his finger resting on the pickle button.
As the leading Tornado launched its two missiles, Robinson fired. The two ‘Storm Shadows’ dropped clear of the Tornado’s fuselage and boosted away. The eight ‘Storm Shadows’ dropped down to low level and split up into two groups. Since their targets were a pair of bridges, the missiles used the Elbe as a navigational marker.
Robinson turned his aircraft back towards RAF Bruggen.
As well as being a highly trained strike squadron, IX (B) Squadron was also one of the RAF’s SEAD trained units, and when their aircraft returned to Bruggen, they would be loaded up with a full load of four ALARM missiles and would go out searching for SAM radars.
*
As the first group of four ‘Storm Shadows’ reached their target, they popped up, noting that the target loaded into their memories was visible on their Infrared seekers. Seconds later they slammed into the bridge’s four supports. Each missile penetrated for a few meters before their 2,000lb warheads detonated. The bridge supports disintegrated under this kind of assault, and the bridge, and the T-80s, T-90s, and BMPs on it collapsed into the river.
By destroying or damaging most of the bridges over the river Elbe, and much of the Warsaw Pact bridging equipment, NATO had ensured that the initial Soviet attack would be without its second echelon, and many of its specialist units.
The initial battle for West Germany would therefore be fought on almost equal terms.
USS Theodore Roosevelt, the G-I-UK Gap.
Vice Admiral Robert Clancy, Commander of the US 2nd Fleet, and now Commander NATO Strike Fleet Atlantic, was standing on the flag bridge of the nuclear-powered carrier, watching the comings, and goings of the ship’s air wing.
As he watched a pair of A-6F Intruder IIs took off, climbing away from the flight deck, at full throttle. Seconds after they cleared the deck, a pair of F/A-18E ‘Super Hornets’ landed on, while the next aircraft due to take off, a pair of F-14D Tomcats, were being prepared for take off.
Looking further away he could see the Roosevelt’s sister ship, USS George Washington, about three miles away. The Washington was the second carrier of the group, the third being USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Two more carriers, USS Harry S. Truman, and USS Enterprise, were racing north to rendezvous with the main group before it sailed north into the Norwegian, and Barents Seas, to carry out its three main tasks.
The first of these was to attack Soviet military installations in the Kola Peninsula. The second was to provide support to NATO forces in Norway. The third was to assist NATO reinforcement convoys by providing an irresistible target to the Soviet navy (its Naval Aviation Backfires, surface attack groups, and submarines), thereby diverting assets that might otherwise be attacking these convoys.
Vice Admiral Clancy turned, as his Chief of Staff, Captain Mike Turner, joined him on the flag bridge.
“Sir, I thought you’d like to know that one of our Hawkeyes has just picked up the Truman/Enterprise group.
“They should be with us within a few hours.
“We’ve also copied some FLASH traffic.
“The ASW group got hit by a sub attack about twenty minutes ago, they lost a Fort Victoria class AOR with all hands.”
“Damn.” Clancy exclaimed.
“What’s the complement of one of those things?”
“About two hundred, and eighty, depending on whether they are carrying helicopters, or not.”
“Dear God.
“Did they get the sub?”
Turner nodded.
“They sure did.
“They took it down with about five helicopters. That sub is fish food.
“We’ve also copied a signal from SACLANT that ‘Operation HAMMER’ is underway.
“What is that, if I may ask, Sir?”
“You may ask, Mike, and I guess since you aren’t going anywhere, I might as well tell you.
“HAMMER is an attack by sub, and air launched cruise missiles on the Soviet Backfire bases in the Kola Peninsula.
“Should make our job easier and help out the convoys.”
Turner didn’t answer at once, as he contemplated the possible impact of this operation.
“Sounds quite ambitious, Sir.
“I hope it comes off.”
Over Northern Norway.
Wing Commander James Schofield, Commanding Officer 12 (Bomber) Squadron, made one last check of his aircraft’s systems as it approached the launch point for its four ‘Storm Shadow’ missiles.
Schofield was leading a group of elderly, but upgraded Blackburn Buccaneer S.2Bs, taking some time off from their normal task of maritime strike, to join Tornados from 27, 45, and 617 Squadrons, which were taking part in ‘Operation HAMMER’.
“Just passing the IP, Skipper.” The navigator, Squadron Leader Stuart Maconie, said.
“Right.” Schofield replied.
He reached down, and armed the four missiles, before pushing the pickle button.
“Magnum!
“Magnum!” He announced over the radio.
As Schofield turned his aircraft away, a chirping tone sounded in his earphones, warning him that a fighter radar was illuminating his aircraft.
He took the Buccaneer down to extreme low level and pushed the throttle to full military power. The Buccaneer might be one of the oldest strike aircraft in service with any NATO air force, but it was still among the fastest in the world at low level. Any Soviet fighter would have to work hard to catch the group of 12 Squadron Buccaneers.
*
“This is Sentry two-two, we have some trade for you.” The voice in Wing Commander Macalister’s headphones said.
“I have them on my screen, thanks, two-two. Over.” Macalister replied.
He glanced down at the screen. Both targets were moving fast, apparently trying to intercept the now fleeing strike aircraft. For some reason the Sentry’s AN/APY-2 radar, which was supplying the information via JTIDS, was having a little trouble maintaining track on these targets, which meant that they could be only one thing – the Mig.37s.
These aircraft were what Typhoon pilots had nightmares about. They were the most advanced aircraft that the other side had, supposedly as good as the Typhoons, and Rafales of NATO’s European air forces.
Thankfully, intelligence said that there were relatively few of these advanced fighters, mainly used on air defence duties (frontal aviation seemed to prefer the cheaper, but almost as advanced Su-27M/35).
“Okay, Lion flight.” Macalister told the other three Typhoons. “Looks like we have a flight of ‘Flatpacks’ on our hands.
“Go to combat spread, and full military thrust.
“If we’re lucky, they’ll be concentrating on our mud moving mates.”
0055 hours, 22nd April. Cheyenne Mountain AFB, Colorado.
Cheyenne Mountain Air Force base was the headquarters of the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD), a joint US-Canadian organization; it was also the home of US Space Command (the tri-service organization that included components of AF Space Command, Navy Space Command, and Army Space Command)
General James Garner, USAF, CINCSPACE, CINCNORAD, and CINCAFSPACE, looked with some dissatisfaction, at the big board, displaying both NATO satellites (in blue), and Soviet satellites (in red).
A few new Soviet satellites had been launched a short time ago (just before the attack in Europe had been launched), and they appeared to be manoeuvring into orbits that coincided with some of his ‘Key Hole’ reconnaissance satellites.
“Yes, Sir.” Garner said into the phone he was holding, “They do appear to be Soviet ASATs.
“No, Sir, the annex to START III means that they have nothing to hit our highflying birds, like the MILSTARS, or GPS.
“They are a threat to our low flying birds, however.
“All means necessary, Sir, very good.”
Garner hung up. He turned to his Chief of Staff.
“We’ve been given the order to defend our space assets ‘by all means necessary’.
“Get the word out to our satellite drivers that they may manoeuvre their birds as necessary to protect them, and get the word out to McChord, and Langley.
“I want as many of those Soviet ASATs as they can manage, and all of their satellites that we can reach, gone.”
Garner looked up at the big screen again. All the billions spent on SDI, and all he had to defend his assets were F-15 launched ASAT missiles, and a few land based missiles, still under test.
‘So much for ‘Star Wars’. He thought.
The ‘War in Space’ was going to be a much more primitive affair than most people had imagined.
Royal Scots Dragoon Guard battlegroup, northeast of Hanover.
Lieutenant Tom ‘Sherman’ Potter scanned the battlefield in front of his Challenger 2 through his independent sight.
So far, he could not see anything.
Lieutenant Potter was the Officer Commanding 3 Troop, A Squadron, of The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards. His troop, and 5 Troop from B Squadron, had been attached to A Company, 1st Battalion, The Black Watch.
A short time ago, overloaded FV430s, and Saxons, and Sabres, Strikers, and Spartans from the covering force, all showing signs of the heavy fighting they had experienced, had passed the positions of the company group that Potter’s troop was now part of. Only the enemy was in front of them now.
Just then the first Soviet T-80s (with a few T-90s mixed in) accompanied by BMP-3s appeared in the distance, advancing remorselessly on the British positions. A few Soviet vehicles lurched to a halt, as they ran afoul of a minefield of AT-2 mines, laid by a battery of MLRS, or were attacked by Army Air Corps Apache AH.1s.
The leading Soviet armoured vehicles were just getting into range of the Challenger’s L30 120mm guns. Potter found the sort of target he was looking for – a T-90 with extra aerials.
“Gunner, target command tank.
“Load sabot!” He barked.
“Identified!” The gunner replied, indicating that he had seen the target.
“Loaded!” The loader yelled, telling the gunner that the 120mm APDSFS round, and the separate rigid propellant charge was loaded, and that he was clear of the breech.
“Lasing, now.” The gunner said.
There was a whine as the laser range finder warmed up and illuminated the target.
“Fire!” Potter ordered.
“Firing now!”
‘BOOM’.
The 120mm gun thundered, spitting out a CHARM 3 DU sabot round at the unfortunate T-90. The sabot hit the Soviet tank on the turret ring, and penetrated a microsecond later. The ammunition on board the T-90 exploded a second later, hurling the turret high into the air.
Lieutenant Potter didn’t see this, however, he was already searching for another target.
“Gunner, target T-80!
“Load sabot!”
*
Major Anderson watched the developing engagement from the turret of his own Challenger 2, with a growing sense of satisfaction. The SCOTS DG’s fast firing Challengers were cutting the Soviet tanks to ribbons, without them even getting off a shot in return, while the Warrior, and infantry Javelin teams were blasting the BMPs to pieces.
“Excuse me, Boss.” Anderson’s gunner, Sergeant John Gibb, said. “Can we have a go at them?”
“Why not.
“If you see something interesting, Sergeant, you have my permission to shoot at it.” Anderson replied.
Gibb scanned the battlefield, until he saw ‘something interesting’, a Soviet SA-19 ‘Tunguska’ self propelled SAM, and AAA vehicle.
“Load HESH!” He told the loader.
“Loaded!”
“Lasing, now!
“Firing now!”
Anderson ducked back into the turret to avoid the blast of the gun, and all of dust it would kick up.
When he emerged again, the SA-19 was a burning wreck.
“Nice shot, Sergeant.
“I’m sure the Crabs will appreciate that.”
Over East Germany.
No doubt Squadron Leader Richard Jameson, the O.C of A Flight, IV (Army Co-operation) Squadron would have appreciated the elimination of the SA-19 had he and his wingman been flying CAS, but the two Harrier GR.9As were flying a Battlefield Air Interdiction sortie.
Their target was a large fuel depot that NATO reconnaissance aircraft had identified in the run up to hostilities.
Each aircraft was armed with six Brimstone missiles, on the two outboard pylons, so that they could engage the depot’s air defences, and five RBL-755 cluster bombs on the four remaining pylons, and centreline hardpoint, as well as a pair of ASRAAM missiles for self-defence, and a pair of 30mm Aden cannons. With its FLIR system, and the pilot’s NVGs, the Harrier was very much at home in the dark and was very suited to this operation.
Both Harriers’ Zeus ECM system had already picked up the radar emissions of the SAM, and gun defences of the fuel depot, and had loaded them into the aircraft’s weapons computer.
It was time to fire.
Jameson and his wingman fired off their Brimstones in quick succession, before altering course to arrive over the depot from a different direction from the missiles.
Presently the depot came into sight, handily marked by the burning air defence vehicles.
Jameson, and his wingman released the cluster bombs within seconds of each other, as they passed over the centre of the depot.
The night’s sky was light up, and the two Harriers buffeted, as the stored fuel exploded like a huge bomb.
Suddenly an alarm went off in Jameson’s headphones, a fighter radar had just illuminated them.
Because the Harrier’s wings were made of composite material, it was a difficult target to lock onto from above, as the two East German Mig-29s were now trying to do.
There task was made all the more difficult as the advanced Zeus system of the Harriers began to jam their radars with dozens of ‘spoof’ targets, also following their frequency changes as quickly as they made them.
The two Harriers made good their escape at low level, while the two ‘Fulcrum’ pilots, their radar screens reduced to an un-interpretable mess, decided to look for targets elsewhere.
The first few hours of World War Three had been hard for NATO, they had taken severe losses among the covering forces along the border, and they were fighting an intense battle in the air.
However, ‘NIGHTHAWK’, and ‘HAMMER’ were in the process of demonstrating to the Soviets just what well directed air power could achieve, and the Soviet ground forces that had met the main NATO armoured forces were suffering severe losses.
NATO had won the initial battles of the war, but could they repeat the pattern in the longer term?
***
“Frankly, I had enjoyed the war… and why do people want peace if the war is so much fun?” - Lieutenant General Sir Adrian Carton de Wiart