*
D+31
2016 hours GMT. Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Federal Agents Greg Murphy and Martina Royce ducked under the police tape that blocked access to the street containing the apartment that had been raided by the State Protection Group. Getting to the site had been a bit of a trial; Sydney was chock full of police and army Vehicle Check Points and simply flashing AFP warrant cards did not result in being waved through. No, NSW Police officers still wanted to check on their identities. Most of the soldiers had come from war-raised local defence formations made up of older reservists. It had not done a lot for Murphy’s confidence in them that many were armed with Lee-Enfield No.1 rifles.
“G’day, Greg, Martina. Glad you could make it.” Detective Sergeant Jack Christey, NSW Police said, shaking hands with both Federal Agents. “Think you know my partner, Detective Senior Constable Alex St. Clare. “Follow me.”
“Was a bloody nightmare getting here, Greg.” Murphy replied, as he set off with Christey. “What’s rescue doing here, by the way?”
Murphy had spotted a couple of NSW officers in the distinct white overalls. His question was effectively answered a moment later when he saw that they were helping another officer take off a bomb suit.
“We’ll check with them that the scene is secure.” Christey declared. “Hey, Kathy, how was it?”
The Police Rescue and Bomb Squad officer turned around. Pausing for a moment to hand her helmet off to another officer.
“Nothing too major.” Sergeant Kathy Orland replied. “They had some ammo for that handgun and few shotgun shells, but no shotgun. No explosives either.”
“Thanks, Kathy.” Christey replied. “This is Agent Murphy and Royce, AFP.”
“Not much left for you to see!” Orland said laughing. “Not after the SPG have finished with it. Shot the place to pieces!”
“That’s certainly something I want to chat with them about, Sergeant Orland.” Christey replied. “I used to work around here with the drugs squad many years ago. Rescue helped us access a few buildings. Knew Inspector Bill Adams quite well. Who’s in charge of your unit these days?”
“Inspector McClintock.”
Murphy laughed and looked at Royce for a moment before replying to Orland.
“They made bloody Mickey McClintock an Inspector! Bloody hell!” He looked back at Royce. “Martina, if you’d have asked me the last person I would expect to accept promotion it would be Mickey.”
“He’s the Rescue guy you used to go drinking with?” Royce asked.
“Absolutely. Man could really put it away.” He turned back to Orland. “Give Mickey my regards. By the way, I’ve worked with a naval commander who is the spit of you. Sorry if that sounds odd.”
“Maxine ‘Knocker’ White?” Orland asked.
Murphy nodded.
“My younger sister…well, twin actually.” She said with a smile. “I was born ten minutes ahead of her. She got married; I didn’t. Think I made the best choice!” She added with a shrug.
*
“Jeeze, they did a number on this place!” Agent Royce exclaimed on entering the apartment.
The room where the KGB cell had been gathered had been riddled with bullets. Multiple shafts of light speared through the holes. The forensic team had finished up and the bodies removed, but the dark brown stains were still visible on the carpet, along with blood spatter on the walls.
“I do have one question, Jack.” Murphy said. “Why did SPG do this rather than TAG East? We were probably lucky these guys didn’t have a bloody arsenal!”
“Time apparently, Greg.” Christey replied. “TAG East was alerted and, on its way, but the SPG got the word to go in before they arrived.”
“Some of the SPG guys recently got back from Canberra.” St. Clare commented. “Reckon they wanted to get some payback.”
Murphy and Royce took a look around the apartment, trying to see if earlier searches had missed anything. However, the NSW Police had been very thorough.
“Well, looks like you guys have been very thorough. Find anything of interest.”
“We found their one-time pad with the message to go after that defector the Poms had in town.” St. Clare said. “Their computer is away to the IT geeks.”
“Hopefully they’ll be able to pull something useful out of it.” Christey added. “Some SPG gorilla decided that it deserved a shotgun blast.”
“Looked at him the wrong way, did it?” Royce wondered.
“Yeah.” St. Clare agreed. “A highly dangerous P.C, you know what they’re like.”
“In times gone, I’d have asked for it to be transferred to us.” Murphey said. “However, our best IT geeks were in Canberra…” His voice trailed off. “However, ASIO should be able to help. They were smart enough to disperse some of their best people and departments. Just wish we had been.”
2031 hours GMT. Dienststelle Marienthal, BRD.
The West German cabinet, all but a handful of ministers dispersed across the country and even in neighbouring NATO countries, along with the Joint Committee, were putting the final touches on a change in the West German Basic Law that would enact truly universal conscription and the corresponding amendment to the Military Conscription Law.
Gerhard Schröder, looking somewhat less haggard and stressed than he had in the days directly after the invasion form the East, looked at his defence minister, Peter Struck.
“Peter, could you summarize what we have been hammering out over the past four weeks or so?”
Struck harrumphed to clear his throat and took a quick look over the notes he had been taking. “Right, so, Article 12a paragraph one is going to be changed from ‘Men who have attained the age of eighteen’ to ‘All German citizens’ and so on and so forth. Paragraph four is going to be amended to say that all German citizens of military age not conscripted into the armed forces can be conscripted for service as medical auxiliary or general auxiliary personnel, the latter basically meaning they would be employed as manual labourers, such as creating field fortifications, clearing rubble in bombed cities and suchlike. [1]
“That should also take care of any conscientious or not so conscientious objectors.”
Struck’s view of objectors to military service had dimmed somewhat since the start of the Polish Crisis and the outbreak of war.
“We are also going to add that service as a medical or general auxiliary can NOT be conscientiously objected to. Complete denial of service is going to land those people in the slammer. The usual exceptions like THW, professional fire brigades, police et cetera of course still apply.
“Any questions so far? No? Good.”
“The Military Service Law is to be amended to make sure that women are kept out of the combat arms and special forces. The Israelis’ experiences with women in frontline units support that females simply do not have the raw physical power and endurance to cope with the demands inherent in being a combat soldier. [2]
“Support services are going to be open completely, same as all non-infantry and special forces career paths in the navy and Luftwaffe, including combat pilots and aircrew as well as duty on submarines.
“The gal who sued at the European Court for Human Rights four years ago and whose case was dismissed was actually basically correct, male-only military conscription is a violation of Article 3 of the Basic Law, equality before the law, but those were different times. [3]
“By the way, having young and healthy and fit young people of both genders confined in tight quarters for any amount of time is going to create, well, events of a sexual nature. My ministry is going to amend the current Sexuality Directive to only prohibit sexual acts while on duty and vertically in the same chain of command, with no regard to sexual orientation. We are not going to weigh the military down with pursuing nonsensical disciplinary actions for doing what is basically dictated by human nature. [4]
“All amendments and directives will be duly published as soon as the amendments are enacted.”
He looked around the physically present ministers and representatives and the faces of the dispersed lawmakers on his computer screen.
“This concludes my summary. Gerd?” He gestured to the Chancellor who started the remote vote. A few seconds later, the results were in.
“Regarding the proposed amendment to the Basic Law please put in your vote electronically…” He waited for the vote to be concluded. “Vote is 87 percent in favour and twelve percent abstentions, one percent against. This means the amendment to the Basic Law has passed.”
The amendment of the Military Service Law went through with a comparable comfortable margin. The results would be announced via open media as it was felt the Federal Legislation Paper in which new laws, or their amendments were announced was unavailable in wide parts of the Federal Republic of Germany. After the termination of the Case of Defence, the new legislation would have to be approved by the reconstituted two legislative chambers as well as the Constitutional Court.
2046 hours GMT. Near Heidelberg, FRG.
The grenade explosion sent the group of US infantrymen scurrying for cover. Bursts of gunfire followed up a moment later, fortunately not catching anyone in the open. The joint Spetsnaz/VDV attack on CENTAG (Forward) had been a bloody failure. The Soviet troops had been cut to pieces by the defenders from the 1-4th Infantry. Now soldiers from that battalion and West German Territorial troops were searching for the groups of survivors.
Deciding that it was better to use armour than risk his men, the commander of the group called a sub-platoon of M60A3TTS forward. As the tanks passed by the infantrymen emerged from cover and followed the trailing tank. The lead tank suddenly juddered to a halt as it was hit by two RPG-22. The reactive armour panels they hit were able to deflect the HEAT warheads of the RPG before they hit the tank’s main armour. However, the crew were briefly stunned. The second M60 sprayed the likely firing location with machine gun fire before firing a single 105mm HEP shell. Under covering fire from the tanks, the infantry moved up and assaulted the position that the Soviets had been firing from. They found a couple of dead bodies, two empty RPG-22 tubes and some brass cartridges, but it looked like the main group of Soviet troops had managed to escape.
*
Sergeant First Class Hopper was as frustrated as any man in D Armor Company by their apparent inability to pin down the surviving Soviet raiders. He had been in the right place at the right time to have taken part in one of the initial engagements. During the search for the remaining raiders, Hopper and his crew did get the rare privilege of shooting down an An-26 ‘Curl-A’ with a 105mm round. True, it was only just off the ground, but it still counted as a shoot down.
Now he had been put in charge of a small task force of two tank sub-platoons and one platoon of M1126. West German units had identified the location of one group of Soviet Spetsnaz/VDV and had thrown up a cordon around them. Hopper’s task force, plus another one that was formed of two platoons of M1126 and one sub-platoon of tanks, had been given the task of quartering the area. Hopefully they would either kill the enemy or drive them into guns of the surrounding West German soldiers.
Since the armoured vehicle were fitted with thermal sights, it was very hard for the enemy to hide. Although there were numerous false alarms when wildlife was picked up. Scanning one sector, Hopper spotted a group of infantrymen where there should not be. He could just make out that their rifles had curved magazines. They were also somewhat closer than he liked.
“Gunner, enemy infantry! Load canister!”
“Identified!” The gunner replied, traversing the turret so that he was on target.
“Loaded!” The loader confirmed, having managed to locate one of the few canister rounds the M60 was carrying.
“Fire!”
“On the way!”
‘KABOOM!’
The hundreds of steel balls in the canister round shredded both the trees and the Spetsnaz sheltering amongst them. Another group of Soviet soldiers broke cover after Hopper’s tank had opened fire, only for most of them to be cut down by machine-gun fire from a M1126. These two groups dealt with; it was time for the task force to move on.
2131 hours GMT. North of Teluk Ambon, Ambon Island, Indonesia.
The village was still burning and smelled of death as the five white men entered it. Bodies lay where they had fallen; to the disgust of the men, many were women and children. By their dress and arms, they might have been mistaken for a patrol of Spetsnaz from the Soviet Ambon garrison. However, that was far from what they really were; three of them were ex-SASR, while the other two had been recruited from 2nd Commando Regiment. They were one of a small number of teams of ex-Special Forces personnel operating on behalf of ASIS that had been inserted into Ambon pre-war. Most were officially former ADF, though there were a handful of New Zealanders, Brits and Canadians. Their status was supposed to make them deniable if caught or killed by the Indonesian. Although neither country was at war with the other anymore, the Australian government was not keen on the new Indonesian government finding out that it had been involved in supporting the Christian militias.
*
Former Staff Sergeant Charlie ‘CC’ Crawford spotted their contact sitting on the steps of what had been the village mosque smoking a cigarette, a Sten Mk.II(S) sitting on his lap. The mosque had almost completely collapsed and was still smouldering. The contact stood up and offered Crawford a cigarette.
“Takes the smell away.” He said with a grim smile.
“No thanks.” Crawford replied. “You have it?”
The contact dug around in his pockets before finding a folded piece of paper. He handed it across to the Australian. Crawford unfolded it and studied the drawing; it was a pretty good likeness of a SS-C-5 Stooge (K-300P Bastion-P) launch vehicle. The other side of the paper was a map that showed the locations of where the vehicles had been spotted. Crawford placed the paper into a plastic wallet and put it in his top pocket.
“You have what we’ve asked for?” The contact asked.
“It’s in the usual place. Though, I hear you have plenty of stuff courtesy of the Soviets.” Crawford replied.
The contact gave the Australian a big toothy grin. The former SASR NCO had to supress an urge to carry out some impromptu dental surgery with his right fist.
While Crawford and the contact had been speaking, the other members of the patrol had spread out, searching the village. They found that many of the bodies had been bound by their hands and shot in the back of the head. The remains of the mosque was full of charred corpses. One of the patrol members could not help but notice that the doors of the mosque were barred from the outside. Something he reported to Crawford. The ex-Staff Sergeant looked to the contact for an answer.
“They did it to one of our churches, so we do it to one of their mosques.” He replied with a shrug. “They’ll probably try to do it to us again, and if they do, we’ll burn some more villages. There’s more of us then them, so we’ll win.”
Crawford, hardened soldier that he was, had heard similar excuses for inter-communal violence in Timor. Even so, he felt the bile rise in his throat. He turned and spat on the ground.
“Time we were going.” He said simply. “Gonzo, give me your map and I’ll mark the locations of the launchers on it.”
As the patrol turned and spread out to leave, Crawford turned back to their contact one last time.
“You choose a massacred village for another meet and I’ll fuckin’ kill you, you b*stard!” He growled.
The contact shook his head.
“I don’t think your bosses care where we meet, just so long as I keep providing what they need.”
It took all of Crawford’s self-control not to shoot the man dead. Instead, he turned away and followed his patrol.
South African Heroine Makes Big Splash In The North.
Captain to Receive highest West German decoration for Bravery – Cape Times.
Cape Town, - The newest and thanks to the war only South African submarine, S 101 Manthatisi, is making headlines in Europe as she, under the command of Lieutenant Commander Mompati, played a decisive role in the Battle of Gotland.
Gotland is a Swedish island in the Baltic, and NATO naval and air forces plus our submarine managed to thwart a major combat sortie by the Soviet Baltic Fleet in the waters off the island.
Reportedly, Manthatisi managed to sink two destroyers, one nuclear submarine and in conjunction with other submarines and naval air assets, crippled the Soviet flagship, a very large nuclear-powered cruiser, to the point it had to be towed back into port, possibly a constructive total loss.
This latest achievement follows a harrowing, nick-of-time escape from the German city of Kiel, dodging enemy ships, being shot at by tanks and having to transit through waters crawling with enemy warships.
Reportedly, her commanding officer has been out in for the highest West German decoration for bravery the newly instituted Grand Cross of the Iron Cross. Neither the West German nor the South African Ministries of Defence were forthcoming with further details, citing operational security concerns.
Very possibly, after replenishing in an undisclosed location, our Heroine is plying the cold, dark waters of the Baltic again, bringing the fight to the enemy.
2201 hours GMT. Sydney, New South Wales.
On 5th May Paul Sutherland had been a twenty-six-year-old computer programmer working for a small startup IT company. Within twenty-four hours of the attack on Canberra, Sutherland found himself and around three hundred other men at Holsworthy Barracks being inducted into the Australian Army. He was just too old to have been subject to conscription when it had been reintroduced and the only previous military experience he had was six months with the Sydney University Regiment. Sutherland had left the regiment after that time, deciding that the military life was not for him. Besides, his course was keeping him busy enough.
The cohort of men that Sutherland was a mixed bunch aged between twenty-five to thirty-five – i.e. outside the normal age for National Service in Australia. However, amongst the younger men were those who had served twenty-four months of regular service and passed straight to the stand-by reserve. Most of these men did not stay long at Holsworthy, being posted to regular, or reserve units of the army within a few days. Of those who remained, instructors identified those who had either been or had the qualities to be junior NCOs, or officers. Even amongst those with no military experience some men with leadership qualities were identified and put on the fast track to leadership positions.
Sutherland was identified as being someone who could potentially have the qualities to be a JNCO. However, his limited time with the SUR counted against him and the instructors decided that he needed more experience before any promotion. Sutherland knew nothing of their deliberations, instead being pre-occupied by the news that his civilian job no longer existed. With several members of its staff called up, the startup had folded. It hardly improved his attitude to military life.
Disappointment had also come when weapons had first been issued. Sutherland had seen some of the men from the stand-by reserve issued F88s (which he had used in the SUR) or older L1A1 SLRs, before they had headed off to the range. However, he and most of the rest of the cohort of National Servicemen had been elderly Lee-Enfield No.1 rifles. Although a few men had been issued F1 submachine guns, or Bren LMGs. However, after a few days on the range Sutherland found he could shoot quite well once he got used to the bolt-action on the rifle. The bayonet training was also an excellent way to get rid of some of his anger and frustration. But that did not mean he became an enthusiastic soldier. Instead, he became a reluctant soldier, still irritated to have been plucked from civilian life, but still willing to do the best he could.
On the other hand, there were those amongst the cohort who identified as conscientious objectors of one type, or another. They had been transferred to army civil defence companies alongside those the instructors had decided would give their best service.
After two-weeks Sutherland and those left found out that they were being formed into a Local-Defence Company, which would be under the direct command of 5th Brigade. Their job would be to guard Key Points and man Vehicle Check Points, back-filling for units of the brigade that were still deployed to Canberra.
*
Vehicle Check Point duty had proven to be fairly boring, the police officers Private Sutherland and the section he was part of were supporting had done all the work of checking driver’s licences and their vehicles. The only excitement had come when police Dodge Rams carrying officers from the State Protection Group had come screaming through the VCP. Their General Duties colleagues having cleared the road and waved the SPG through. Just over forty-five minutes later another vehicle convoy, this time carrying soldiers from TAG East, escorted by NSW Police Highway Patrol vehicles, roared past. News had filtered down to the VCP that the SPG had hit a nearby apartment containing a KGB ‘sleeper cell’. Sometime later the two convoys had passed by in the other direction at a somewhat sedater pace. Sutherland could not help but notice that the soldiers from TAG East looked somewhat disappointed and frustrated. For some reason that had cheered him up immensely.
2215 hours. Flughafen Lübeck, Schleswig-Holstein.
Flames licked around the remains of the Wiesel 1 MK20. The tankette had been unfortunate to have come into the sights of an NVA T-72. East German troops had now fully surrounded the airhead and were pushing the perimeter in. A concentration of Ground Based Air Defences was making Close Air Support difficult and a reinforcing air-lift impossible. Rather than assisting the main advance of Operation COBALT, the Fallschirmjäger were now a liability. Their predicament putting severe pressure on I (GE) Korps to speed up its advance before the Fallschirmjäger were overrun. The balance of 26th Luftlande Brigade “Saarland” had managed to borrow, beg and steal ground vehicles and had joined the ground advance, hoping to find a way of joining their comrades at Lübeck.
For the moment, the Fallschirmjäger had enough anti-tank weapons to hold off the enemy armoured vehicles and were dug in well enough to be protected from artillery fire. However, their supply of ammunition was beginning to run low. It had been planned that the second and subsequent helicopter lifts would bring in additional ammunition. The first lift had been about getting ‘boots on the ground’ and establishing the airhead. To save on the use of anti-tank weapons, the Fallschirmjäger had created improvised weapons, which they were using wherever possible. These included Molotov Cocktails and Eagle Fireballs. [5]
Small tank-hunter teams equipped with these improvised weapons had sneaked out beyond the perimeter and had launched hit-and-run attacks. Unsuspecting East German tanks and BMPs were set on fire. However, around half of the teams did not return, being killed by enemy infantry. The attacks did keep the NVA off-balance and forced them to keep one eye on their rear.
2301 hours. Northeast of Leuchars, Fife, Scotland.
B Flight, No.27 Squadron, RAF Regiment had relocated just over a kilometre to the east of its previous position. It having been felt that it had spent too much time in one place. With personnel drafted in from other trades at RAF Leuchars, the move had been quick, and the flight had only been out of action for a couple of hours.
The flight’s four Rapier launchers, radars and other supporting equipment had been emplaced and hidden as well as they could be. As had the two Starstreak LMLs detached from H.Q flight. Point defence had also been enhanced by some GPMGs placed on AA mounts. Though, in Flight Lieutenant Cox’s opinion, if the flight needed to use them to defend itself from air attack, something had gone very wrong.
The flight had briefly been put on alert when an attack on RAFs Lossiemouth an Kinloss that morning. However, no Soviet aircraft, or missiles had come any further south. Moreover, no threat out of the Baltic had developed either. Instead, Cox had kept his gunners busy carrying out routine maintenance and improving their ground defences. It was the ‘Rock Apes’ in one of the GPMG posts that first noticed something wrong.
“You hear that, Ken?” The LAC manning the L7 said.
His number two strained his ears, trying to hear what the LAC thought he could hear. Yes, there was a distant buzzing. It seemed to be coming from overhead. At this time of day, it was dark, and both men strained their eyes to see if they could see anything in the night’s sky.
“I see it!” The LAC suddenly called out. “It’s like a little helicopter!”
“Well, it shouldn’t be here!”
The LAC swung his GPMG, intending to fire on the small craft. However, he was frustrated by the fact that it was on a tripod, and he could not elevate it high enough. The No.2 grabbed his rifle, put it to his shoulder and started to fire rapid shots at the approaching helicopter. The LAC gave up on the machine-gun and picked up his own rifle and opened fire too.
*
Alerted by the rifle shots, Flight Lieutenant Cox emerged hurriedly from his Command Post. Someone had shone a pair of powerful lights on the target, and he saw that it was a Remote-Controlled helicopter of some kind. It jinked left and right so as to make it a difficult target. Cox could make out that it appeared to have a package attached to its fuselage between the skids. It could only be an explosive device of some kind. He cursed his stupidity in leaving his own rifle in the C.P and drew his Browning pistol. He took aim and emptied the magazine in less than a minute. More of the flight were now engaging the intruder with their personal weapons, but it was two of the GPMGs on AA mounts that finally scored a kill. The diminutive helicopter crashed to the ground and blew up, as whatever its payload was exploded.
Cox reloaded his pistol and ducked into his Command Post.
“Let H.Q know we’ve come under attack from some kind of RC helicopter carrying a bomb.” He told the radioman inside, as he grabbed his rifle. “They’ll need to alert the army too, I think. The range on those things can’t be too great.”
“Right, Boss.”
*
Shortly after the warning was given, A Flight to the south of RAF Leuchars spotted a similar RC helicopter approaching. This time a Starstreak missile worth thousands of pounds obliterated a modified hobby toy probably bought for a few hundred. A few minutes after that, an army patrol searching the Ground Defence Area around the station was lucky to avoid a third RC helicopter that tried to Kamikaze into one of their Land Rovers. Security, already tight, would be strengthened throughout the GDA, but no sign of whoever had been in control of the RC helicopters was located that night.
***
[1] See Link.
[2] In the author’s opinion (BW), that’s debatable given @ experience in Afghanistan. As of 2025 the British armed forces have opened all trades to women.
[3] In @, a young woman named Tanja Kreil whose application to serve in a non-medical specialty in the Bundeswehr sued the federal Republic at the EU Court for Human Rights in 2001, claiming that the then-current legislation allowing women to solely serve in the armed forces medical field violated European Law. The court decided in her favour. Since then, women are allowed to serve in all capacities in the Bundeswehr. It has not been an unqualified success (few things ever are! BW). In TLW, in view of the much different political situation, the ECHR told her to stow it.
[4] This is basically the current state of affairs concerning sexual intercourse in the @ Bundeswehr. This is one regulation I think is applied common sense. A rarity in any military.
[5] See link for details.
