Chapter Two – Slaughter
February 4th 1990
The skies above the IGB
The MiG-23 was regarded by Hauptmann Esser as being a better aircraft overall than the MiG-29. He had flown both, the former in the markings of another country's air force too, and preferred the elder aircraft to the more modern one. The latter was far more advanced with better avionics, combat systems and had greater power at a pilot's fingertips, yet to Esser the MiG-23 was his aircraft of choice. If he had had his way, he would still flying the aircraft which NATO named the 'Flogger' – a name which he didn't understand.
Such desires meant nothing for a professional military pilot like Esser was with the Luftstreitkrafte. When he had returned from his so-called 'volunteer mission' in Iraq where he had too flown the MiG-23, and made a combat kill too against an Iranian F-4, he was assigned to learn to fly the brand-new MiG-29 as that aircraft came into East German service. A real combat veteran with plenty of experience in the Middle East, Esser was among the first group of pilots for the new aircraft that his country brought into service for air defence interception and battlefield fighter duties. Training was conducted on the ground in both the cockpit and in simulators while also when airborne too undertaking practise of all sorts of combat missions for the possibility that one day Esser would see action again.
Such a day had come again.
Three missions were undertaken by Esser today; he and his wingman were sent into the skies above the border between the two Germany's on three separate occasions. In all of his time with the Luftstreitkrafte he had never flown so much in a short space of time. Rumours had been heard when he was in Iraq that pilots in the West got far more flying hours than those in the East did and Esser had part-believed them for the Iranians in the later stages of their war with Iraq – he had been there between late 1986 and early 1988 in two deployments of three months each – always seemed to be flying. Yet to put a pilot, other aircrew on two-man aircraft and above all fighters themselves through that much stain in a regular fashion was unheard of in the Luftstreitkrafte. Personnel needed a stand-down period to attend to other duties and combat aircraft were maintenance intensive.
Yet today, Esser got airborne once in the early morning, again in the late afternoon and then for a third time in the evening after dark. On that final occasion he used a different aircraft to the one he had flown in twice beforehand and had been amazed at the sight of so many ground crew working on the MiG-29's at Preschen to get as many in the air as possible up into the battles which raged across the skies.
On his first mission, Esser took to the air less than an hour after the war had begun. There had been a special briefing the night before where the discovered plans being hatched by the Imperialists were explained and then a call for the men to do their Socialist duty afterwards. His squadron commander had reminded them all again of that before Esser had reached his aircraft but he had forgotten all about those hollow words and focused on flying.
Ground control from a forward position had brought Esser across the width of East Germany and towards the IGB. He and his wingman had overflown Thuringia on a course taking them west-south-west… and towards combat. There was a massive airdrop underway of paratroopers going on somewhere in the north of Bavaria with men and equipment being dropped from transport aircraft of all shapes and sizes over a wide area. NATO fighters posed a danger and those defenceless aircraft needed protected on their way in to their drop-zones and on the way back out too.
Acting under orders from the ground (the conversation was conducted in Russian as Esser had learnt to allow for his promotion within the East German Air Forces tied so closely as it was to the Soviet military) and with their own radars off, the pair of MiG-29's went straight into action as Esser and his wingman were ordered to open fire at targets beyond visual range. Air-to-air missiles shot away towards what Esser was told were F-16 fighters. He fired off two R-27 missiles at one of those fighters and then turned on his radar to allow for guidance; his wingman did the same. Passive electronic jamming systems were activated too with preparations for active systems to come on-line too in the face of a direct attack.
Confirmation came on Esser's radar screen that one of his missiles struck a target. There was plenty of enemy jamming in the air so neither he nor his wingman saw the others impact though ground control stated that the two targeted F-16's were hit and going down. The engagement was far from over though as orders came for the MiG-29's to get closer to where those transports were and other enemy aircraft that were in among them.
Esser could only see West Germany below him in quick glances. There was the green of the countryside and the grey of rising smoke; firm instructions had come when back at Preschen that flying close to the ground anywhere on the other side of the IGB was not to be done due to the risks involved with the use of chemical weapons. That also included bailing out of damaged aircraft, Esser had been told too. Where exactly he was didn't matter though with the skies having no boundaries at the minute.
Coming in high and then dropping down at the last minute, Esser brought his MiG-29 into what was a close-in fight. He had been warned that there were friendly fighters present as well as transports and so had to take care. He and his wingman were to select their own targets now as the radar picture from the ground was distorted and confusing.
There were big, multi-engined transport aircraft in the skies above Bavaria; Esser could visually pick out An-12's and Il-76's. He saw one of the later missing part of a wing and trying to gain height before flames erupted from that damaged portion of the aircraft and then it entered a spin which he judged would soon be fatal. There was a MiG-21 that came climbing high from out of nowhere and almost on a collision course with him before disappearing from sight as Esser needed to focus on the matter at hand.
The transport aircraft were being slaughtered, he was told, and enemy fighters engaging them at close-range needed to be stopped.
His wingman called out a contact and then fired on what he declared over the radio to be an Alpha-Jet. Esser was searching himself for other targets using like his wingman was the helmet-mounted sight which they both wore. His vision was as perfect as possible though in an environment like this with everything happening so fast using the infrared system which was linked to his R-73 missiles. He spotted another damaged transport aircraft, this one with half of its fuselage looking like it was missing…
...then there was a target for him. Esser eyes focused upon what he was sure was an F-4. Whether it was West German, American or flown by anyone else it didn't matter for it certainly wasn't friendly. He recognised the shape just like he had of that one over Iraqi airspace and so he shot off a missile towards it. Esser saw the R-73 missile impact and afterwards breathed an immense sigh of relief. That aircraft had just lit up his own with its radar ready to fire but he had struck first shooting from the flank before the target could turn to face him for a head-on shot.
Tracers from a cannon being fired from somewhere suddenly broke Esser's attention as he caught the flashes of them. His head spun to the left where he speculated the source of them was but he couldn't see an attacking aircraft. His wingman then called out that there was an aircraft below them firing upwards and added that he was engaging that target. The two of them had practised air combat manoeuvring for any circumstances extensively following Luftstreitkrafte doctrine so Esser then broke away to the left with a hard turn giving his wingman room to engage as well as to be covered while doing so by Esser.
The cannon-firing aircraft was an F-104, Esser's wingman announced after he fired a missile at it. There wasn't a confirmed kill though with that R-73 striking the NATO aircraft but the warhead not exploding. The impact certainly would have done plenty of damage with kinetic force alone. Going after that aircraft again wasn't tried because Esser could see further need elsewhere with missiles impacting transports. He searched the skies for the source of those and spotted possible enemy fighters away to his right; Esser took his aircraft and that of his wingman fast in that direction.
Further F-4's were encountered as Esser came across a trio of them chasing after a pair of MiG-23's. Further R-73 missiles were used to engage them with infrared lock-on occurring and then explosions. One of those enemy fighters fired back at him though with its cannon rather than a missile of its own. After dodging the gunfire, Esser was only able to conclude that those F-4's must have used up all of their own missiles already but not left the airborne battlefield. They paid for that mistake with one falling to his attack and his wingman claiming another two.
Ground control now called for Esser to move away to the north from this area with most of the surviving transports having deposited their cargoes in parachute drops and heading back towards East Germany. There were no immediate targets anymore and making sure that those valuable aircraft made it home was important. Esser did want to stay in the airspace which he was yet followed his orders knowing that they made sense over protecting the transports so they could be used again and not remaining himself over enemy territory liable to an attack where his own luck might run out.
When back at Preschen, after seeing no action on his return, Esser and his wingman were given a short period to rest after a post-flight debrief. Orders then came for them to get ready to fly once again though before that they were given an intelligence summary along with the chance to speak to some of their comrades who had been in contact too. There were two aircraft missing from JG 3 with one pilot reportedly killed when his aircraft blew up and the other missing over enemy territory when his MiG-29 had gone down. Other comrades of Esser had returned back to base like he had after engagements though none of them were claiming as many victories as he and particularly his wingman were.
Once airborne for the second time, Esser was sent back to the skies above Bavaria again. He was further to the east of where he was last time – he was informed that he had seen action in the area above Schweinfurt – and acting in the patrol role above ground troops fighting as part of the left-hand wing of the Soviet Eighth Guards Army. Wherever those were Soviet, Polish of his fellow East Germans there Esser didn't know, but they needed battlefield fighter protection.
Ground control brought the pair of MiG-29's into position in an orbiting patrol pattern. Again using his very effective infrared system mounted to his helmet, Esser could see the outlines of aircraft which he were told as friendly in the distance below undertaking battlefield intervention strikes with MiG-27's and Su-17's down there as well as smaller shapes which he believed were combat helicopters. He was waiting for NATO aircraft to show up and soon found that they did though the first operated down low with Esser being told to remain on stand-by as army air defence assets were handling that: he wasn't to go into their engagement zones.
Finally, about midway through the allotted mission time the call came for Esser to go into action. After the crazy environment of earlier where it seemed like combat was constant and he was free to find his own targets being under tight control and waiting had stretched his patience. Now there was a flight of fast-moving enemy aircraft racing in at altitude, though still below him, and he and his wingman were sent against them to move in with short-range missiles rather than those of a longer range due to enemy electronic activity.
F-16's were the targets again with an actual identity uncertain but nonetheless enemy because whichever NATO air arm they served they were hostile. Esser brought his aircraft fast towards them swooping down and waiting until he was in range but before then there came missile fire from them first. His wingman shouted that there were Sidewinder's in the air after visually spotting them and they both fought to defeat the attack with flares and chaff being released while Esser was forced to break off his own attack and manoeuvre. The G-forces which he suffered where something which he forced himself to endure as he evaded the attack as the Sidewinder's failed to hit him yet such moves took him off course.
By then the attack aircraft which the F-16's had cleared the way for were making their attack runs as he and his wingman both struggled to get back into position and reacquire those enemy aircraft too. However, no such luck came as the NATO air attack had been fast, effective and was over with. Esser wanted to go after those aircraft yet his fuel state and orders from the ground brought him back to his patrol station.
The third mission of the day came later after further debriefings, rest and intelligence briefings. Esser was eager to get back again to the frontlines to make up for what he personally regarded as his failure during his second mission to engage the enemy. However, this time he was to stay on the eastern side of the IGB and not go over it as the task was for interception of enemy aircraft aiming to cross over themselves. There had already been a few NATO air strikes into East Germany, Esser had been told at the intelligence briefing, even this early in the war and any more of them needed to be stopped from bombing airbases, supply centres and other targets.
A pair of low-flying Tornado's on a course taking them above Thuringia towards the Erfurt-Weimar-Jena area were detected and ground control sent Esser and his wingman towards them. They activated them own radars once in range and fired R-27's at them before increasing speed, dropping down and aiming to close-in with R-73's and guns if necessary.
All four R-27's missed their targets, decoyed away by what appeared to be specifically targeted jamming.
Esser was surprised because all the briefings that he had pointed to the capabilities of such a weapon as well as his own experience earlier in the day in his first engagement. There would be time to reflect upon that later though for he meanwhile raced towards the penetrating aircraft which had dropped even lower to try and hide among the ground clutter and sought to locate them with his infrared systems. Both were soon picked up with he and his wingman getting a lock-on as he came up from behind them and hopefully undetected before he fired his second wave of missiles.
Both Tornado's were hit with one exploding straight away – giving Esser a bit of a fright at the magnitude of the explosion – and then the second one spinning fast out of control before smashing into the ground in its own fireball. From the latter aircraft there had come ejections of the two-man crew and he observed part of their descent towards the ground below. When flying with the Iraqi's, they had shot at ejecting Iranian pilots in their parachutes but Esser had never agreed with that and wasn't about to do so now for a variety of moral reasons plus the waste of ammunition and the distraction from his mission.
A second interception was directed for Esser to make against a further pair of Tornado's – either West German or British, he was told later – but those were engaged by SAM's before the MiG-29's could get into position. There was a further contact reported in his patrol sector by ground control though the lone aircraft was quickly lost on radar screens and Esser couldn't detect it when he tried searching that area where it went missing. Some of the frustration which he had had on the second mission returned to him but he was kept busy enough this time to not bring that forth as much as it had been earlier.
Esser told himself that it was the withdrawal of adrenaline after the first mission which had upset him so such during the second.
When arriving back at Preschen for the last time today, Esser had been directed to get some proper sleep. He had done as ordered and went to his bunk in the soundproof pilot sleeping quarters but he hadn't drifted off. So much had happened today and he kept recalling moments of the day from what he saw and had done himself to what he had heard from others.
He was finding this war was so exciting!
February 4th 1990
Halberstadt, East Germany
Regiments and battalions within the Landstreitkrafte's 1MRD held honorific titles celebrating certain Germans who were regarded as having championed the Socialist cause. The division itself didn't hold such a title and was informally known as the 'Potsdam Division' after where it was based with the component units having the names of those figures from history instead. Oberst Schrader knew the history behind those names, the official history which the state liked to portray and the rumours which he had heard about the reality too.
Hans Beimler was a Communist politician of the Nazi era who had escaped Dachau and fled to Spain to fight in their civil war before falling afoul of the Soviets and being murdered there; he was celebrated now in East Germany as a hero of Socialism. Friedrich Wolf was another Communist who had fled from the Nazis first to Spain to fight there and then afterwards made his way to Moscow – via France – before returning to Germany post -war to enter the new administration and then take up a diplomatic post as Ambassador to Poland. Rudi Arndt was yet another Communist of the pre-WW1 era; the young Jewish man had been killed at Buchenwald by the Nazis. And then there was Richard Sorge…
Another glorious servant of the internationalist Socialist cause, so the official line ran, Sorge had opposed the Nazis, assisted the Soviets Soviet Union and then been killed by the Japanese. The unofficial truth was a little more complicated than that, especially with his ultimate fate in Japan, yet Sorge was celebrated by having the armoured reconnaissance battalion of the 1MRD named after him.
It was 'Reconnaissance Battalion 1 – Richard Sorge' which led the attack today of Schrader's command across the IGB.
Operating on the left flank of the Soviet Second Guards Tank Army, the 1MRD struck just to the north of the Harz Mountains and into Lower Saxony. The 6th Guards Motorised Rifle Division, a Soviet formation home-based in Poland, was on the right attacking up the Helmstedt corridor with screening forces from the Grenztruppen protecting the other side; the latter would only be a concern if the 1MRD stalled its advance and faced an enemy counterattack. The orders for Schrader were for him to take his command in a northwestern direction towards the distant Hannover while avoiding direct fighting for the urban areas of Braunschweig (better known in the West as Brunswick), Salzgitter and Hildesheim. Those large towns were expected to be death traps to troops trying to advance fast as the 1MRD was to and the communications nets around them rather than through each were to be made use of allowing follow-on forces to eliminate bypassed resistance in each. Opposition ahead of Schrader was reported to be elements of two British combat divisions which had rushed into position over the past day and a half after initial hesitancy on the part of their politicians to commit them to the border areas. The northernmost of those two – apparently the 1st Armoured Division – was to face an attack from Schrader's neighbouring division (the Soviet 6th Guards) and so in the main he would be fighting the British 4th Armoured Division on territory which his opponents were said to know well yet were not properly dug into yet.
Schrader had studied the operational plan and knew he had a realistic chance of success if the intelligence was right about the enemy not having enough strength yet in-place and still in the throws of mobilisation. It would only work too if he was aggressive in his attack and other factors such as success of the Soviets on his flank as well as external air and artillery support was available as planned. If not… then the 1MRD was going to be bled white because attacking defending positions without overwhelming superiority on a ground of your enemy's choosing was not a sound military strategy indeed!
Reconnaissance Battalion 1 was reinforced by the reconnaissance companies of two of the trio of motorised rifle regiments under Schrader's command. He sent the now five mixed companies of armoured vehicles – tracked and wheeled models – along with infantry dismounts forward at the allotted time when the immense artillery barrage begun. His own divisional guns supported the efforts of thousands of pieces of howitzers & heavy mortars, rocket launchers and tactical missiles which exploded into action at dawn all along the IGB and elsewhere from the shores of the Baltic to where the Austrian, Hungarian and Yugoslavian borders converged near a place called Tauka. His reconnaissance units were wearing full chemical warfare equipment with overpressure systems active aboard vehicles as they went into a dangerous environment due to all of the chemicals in the air. Those were non-persistent weapons aimed elsewhere not at the portions of the IGB where the reconnaissance units led what would be simultaneous regimental-sized attacks, but enemy counter-strikes with their own chemicals were expected to occur and the weather might be unpredictable enough to endanger the scouting efforts of the formation named after such a man as Richard Sorge.
At his command post, Schrader listened to the reports from that battalion commander to the division's First Officer. If he had wanted to he could have heard what was being said over the battalion command net or even company-level radio communications though there was more order where the battalion commander was concerned as he wasn't directly engaged himself with the enemy as his subordinates found themselves to be. The waterways of the Großer Graben and the Oker that ran across the borderline had been crossed and the vehicles were inside West Germany carrying the men. Minefields had been reported when some casualties inflicted yet there were few physical blockages close to the border as might have been expected had the enemy been able to fell trees in number as well as blow up river embankments and other features of the land. As to the enemy, no opposition was reported at first though there soon came reports of sniper-like attacks on the BRM-1's, BRDM-2's and BTR-70's which formed the reconnaissance columns. Fire was returned and moves were made to get around the light opposition and overwhelm them though the enemy was striking in a mobile fashion and moving fast from one engagement to another. Schrader expected nothing less from screening forces aiming to break up his attack and was impressed when he heard the orders of the battalion commander as to how to deal with that in the exact manner described by the doctrine which the Landstreitkrafte subscribed to.
Soon enough, Schrader was back studying the map. His headquarters aides made their markings on the plastic overlays showing where the reconnaissance elements were moving with their three-pronged attack. The advance in the centre was a feint while those on the flanks were going to be where he sent each a motorised rifle regiment following the reconnaissance units making headway into West Germany. The valley where the Oker River ran towards the town of Wolfenbuttel was where the 2nd Motorised Rifle Regiment (named after Arthur Ladwig) was to move north along. There was a reported military base in that town which Schrader expected to be empty with the troops from there out in the field in the valley, either side of it in higher ground or maybe elsewhere. Hopefully his reconnaissance units would find the main line of resistance rather than scattered screening troops or if not then the air support on its way once combat was joined.
The second main reconnaissance force was to lead the formation named after Hans Beimler, the 1st Motorised Rifle Regiment. They moved northwest towards Salzgitter-Bad aiming to go around that outlying region of the bigger town of Salzgitter itself and then lead the regiment across broken, rougher ground where beyond was the Autobahn and the corridor heading towards Hannover. Greater opposition was expected in this attack which Schrader was instructed to have his division undertake but it was to be his main attack unless something unforeseen happened. The 1MRD had a trio of motorised rifle regiments as well as a tank regiment with the latter and one of the former being held back ready to move. Schrader was aiming to sent them following the 1st Motorised Rifle Regiment but if that proved impossible due to the enemy then they would follow the 2nd Motorised Rifle Regiment instead.
More than just the combat-manoeuvre elements of which some were moving into battle first with the rest getting ready to follow, the 1MRD contained combat support and service support elements too. There was Schrader's artillery, air defence and combat engineering assets along with his logistics forces too. All were under natural and artificial cover before dawn broke and the attack begun with elements to emerge at set times following designated paths to move forward as battle was joined. The 1st Artillery Regiment along with the detachment of long-range rockets (the Luna system, better known as FROG-7) had been firing at distant targets but were needed to move from those positions where they had opened fire into new ones and also cross the border to better support the ground troops. There were anti-aircraft defences with the motorised rifle regiments as well as divisional-level units and this was the same with the engineers. Keeping everyone supplied, handling rear-area security and many other non-combat tasks were to be done by the logistics elements and they needed supervision.
Schrader had a capable staff here at his headquarters and officers spread among the division's elements yet they all needed supervision as they followed the battle plan but were ready to deviate from that in the face of enemy action or other unforeseen circumstances. No one said that overseeing this would be easy for Schrader when he took up the post as divisional commander and was then assigned to take the 1MRD into battle yet it was what was expected of him. His mind had to be everywhere at once because if mistakes were made in one area, especially in the rear, then the men of the division would face a slaughter at the hands of the enemy.
“Sir,” the Operations Officer called for Schrader's attention, “the reconnaissance column in the Oker Valley believes they have encountered the main line of resistance.”
The reports from combat in the Oker Valley came in thick and fast. The pair of reconnaissance companies were reporting to have met tanks.
“What kind of tanks?” Schrader wanted to know what tanks were being engaged and his question was to the battalion commander on the scene via the Operations Officer.
The reply took a minute or two to come back to him: “Scorpion's with seventy-six millimetre canons.”
Schrader could have laughed. In theory, the Scorpion (operated by both the British and Belgian Army's his pre-war intelligence reports had said) was a light tank at best: it was an armoured reconnaissance vehicle with a short-barrelled canon best suited for scouting and fire support missions.
“Engage them but have Oberstleutnant Mohr” the battalion commander “report back when his detachments meet Chieftain’s or Challenger's, not scouting vehicles.” More irritated than angry, Schrader realised that too much pressure had been put on the forward units to report-in and they had overreacted. It was better than being ignorant of threats but they needed to preform better. Maybe if…
“Challenger tanks now being reported, Sir. Blue-Six has seen a pair while Red-Two has exchanged shots with another one.” Now there was what Schrader regarded as contact with the main line of resistance. His intelligence summaries on the British Army didn't show their operational pattern to be to mix main battle tanks in with armoured reconnaissance vehicles in defence and so here was the initial enemy main force.
“The British are very far forward here.” The previously silent senior Soviet Army liaison officer with the 1MRD, Polkovnik Korovin, added his opinion. Schrader waited for something more insightful to follow this comment yet nothing was forthcoming. All that there was was the surprise evident in Korovin's voice at where the British were in strength this close to the IGB.
Further radio reports from the Oker Valley came in to the divisional headquarters. Schrader let the 2nd Motorised Rifle Regiment's commander get on with controlling that fight as his advance guard elements – tanks and mechanised infantry supported by self-propelled howitzers – get involved. There was plenty of blood being spilt as the British Challenger's did a lot of damage and the T-55 tanks fielded by the Landstreitkrafte struggled to score hits upon those. Thankfully, there were anti-tank missile weapons available to assist and the British were outnumbered. A call for air support was denied by Schrader as he believed that the situation there didn't warrant it. The enemy fell back in the direction of Wolfenbuttel when engaged and therefore it was clear that once again initial belief that the frontlines were going to be there.
This was his first time in combat, Schrader had to remind himself, and it was the same for all of his officers and men too. They were still learning the harsh realities of war where just because the enemy seemed to be everywhere in number it didn't mean that that was the case. His right-hand attack was still pushing up the Oker Valley against an enemy force which despite what the intelligence summaries had said had tanks with it despite being a screening force.
Schrader would learn from this.
It was with the second attack, on the left, that soon enough more attention was paid. British troops fighting along the approaches to Wolfenbuttel were no more than flank guards and their real strength was elsewhere and ahead of where the 1st Motorised Rifle Regiment was advancing – just as in the divisional plan drawn up by their Soviet overlords.
Keeping himself and his divisional staff from jumping in too early this time, Schrader monitored the situation with regards to the approach towards Salzgitter-Bad but didn't interfere. Oberstleutnant Dieter Metzler was his best regimental commander and displayed what he had always done in exercises beforehand today in real combat. When the reconnaissance elements met with British dismounts those opponents were overrun and any fleeing were struck at if there was the possibility of them causing any further loss, but the objective to advance fast towards his objectives was maintained. Once stronger opposition was met, Metzler reported back that he was engaging that while on the move as he successfully brought his forces into play.
“Do we have fighter-bomber support ready?”
“A flight of Sukhoi-17's is on standby, Sir.”
“Check again with Metzler's air staff to make sure that they have the correct radio codes and that the anti-aircraft teams are aware of the approach and departure routes.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Schrader did not want problems to occur with the air support assigned to his troops and checked on their progress making sure that all angles were covered. Those would be Soviet aircraft making an attack when needed too so therefore it was important that there were no communication problems nor misunderstandings.
More reports came in from Metzler's mobile headquarters that he was facing further opposition. Tanks were being met and engaged on the move as the 1st Motorised Rifle Regiment pushed for the Innerste River. At the front there, the reconnaissance units were now under regimental command rather than that of their battalion commander just as doctrine called for in such an engagement. Metzler was using his own tanks to assist those armoured reconnaissance vehicles while his infantry in their lighter-armed personnel carriers were covered from multiple sources of attack. Finally, stubborn opposition was met with casualties being inflicted and the call came for that air support.
Schrader gave a nod to his Operations Officer to proceed and those aircraft circling back over this side of the border shot forward and into battle themselves. He wondered when he would meet enemy aircraft himself with fighter-bombers and attack helicopters being expected but until then the skies were seeing on Soviet aircraft instead. Despite the occasional problem, so far everything was going to plan.
For the next several hours, Schrader and his command staff oversaw the first battles on the ground which the 1MRD would take part in during the war. The operational plan was generally followed with the two attacks at first becoming one main attack and a sideshow with the other: it was to the left where the main weight of the division's strike forward into West Germany moved. Past Salzgitter-Bad and along the Innerste River first one then two and finally three of his combat-manoeuvre regiments would advance. Artillery and air support would cover that advance through British troops which Schrader's military intelligence team would later discover was their 20th Armoured Brigade.
The advance into West Germany would see the division spread over a large area with incomplete control exercised at first over captured portions of territory though that would change as more troops came over the IGB. Schrader would later move his headquarters forward with a new location being found before nightfall again hidden in an area of woodland like the initial headquarters near Halberstadt had been.
In combat with the enemy, the 1MRD took plenty of losses. Combat on the ground killed and wounded many men with plenty of vehicles being knocked out too. The T-55 tanks which the division fielded only won the engagements which they took part in due to weight of numbers and plenty of external assistance; many burning hulks were left scattering the countryside along the line of advance. Schrader's anti-air defences saw much combat during the day with guns and missiles being fired at attacking aircraft where the numbers grew more frequent the deeper the 1MRD advanced. British Harrier's made attacks and so to did their Jaguar's. The West Germans struck with Alpha-Jet's at the front and then a latter attack by their Tornado's into his rear areas with that latter action mainly hitting dummy sites so carefully set up and ringed with defences to take their toll upon such attacking aircraft. Thankfully, there was no sign yet of the American A-10 attack aircraft which several briefings pre-war had covered, weapons of war which were certainly something to be respected if not feared for their supposed armour-killing capabilities. Of opposing chemical warfare attacks there were none of those today against his troops despite all precautions taken against them and the detection efforts to observe such use by his and army-level assets.
Schrader had far more contact than he would have liked with the Second Guards Tank Army headquarters. He and his staff had to field far too many requests for confirmation of objectives being reached in the fashion demanded by those responsible for the plans which the 1MRD was doing its best to follow. His divisional guns were tasked on several occasions to fire long-range support missions for the neighbouring Soviet 6th Guards when they got into difficulties and aircraft meant to be assisting him were called away at the last minute. Doctrine stated that in a multi-division attack like the field army was launching, those units achieving the set goals were to be given external support over those stuck upon enemy defences: the established practise of reinforcing success. At a micro-level he did this with his own troops allowing the 2nd Motorised Rifle Regiment to advance slowly up the Oker Valley fighting opposition on their own while all effort was made with the 1st & 3rd Motorised Rifle Regiment's plus the 1st Tank Regiment later approaching the Hildesheim area. However, that wasn't the case as assistance was given to the 6th Guards as they struck against a joint British-West German defence of the Helmstedt area where the main road and rail routes, following the course of the Autobahn, came over the IGB.
Fuming silently, but careful not to allow that to show for fear of who might be listening and decide to report him for their own gain, Schrader was unable to do nothing. His division still advanced and achieved almost all of their first day objectives in terms of territory taken. Not as many of the enemy had been engaged and defeated as the plan called for, but Schrader knew that such a thing couldn't be blamed upon him. NATO had mobilised late and their troops moving into position late would have faced chemical warfare strikes delaying them from reaching their forward positions.
He was convinced that if the war carried on like this it would soon be over because despite some setbacks, from his point of view this war was being won here where the 1MRD was fighting… yet he would have to admit that he was ignorant of events elsewhere.
February 4th 1990
The North Sea
Fregattenkapitan Wolke was not party to the strategic plans of the United Baltic Fleet and was only aware directly of the role which his warship was to play in the war. However he had taken plenty of staff courses on his rise up the ranks through the Volksmarine and therefore could make more than an educated guess at what had been planned for the opening moves of the war here in the North Sea. His ship and others had been sent out ahead to draw the enemy's attention and therefore be sacrificed once the first shots were fired; behind them in the Baltic Sea the rest of the Baltic Fleet would be able to concentrate free of initial interference.
The Halle was out ahead to be a magnet for enemy attacks with no one to come to her aid… nor of the one hundred and eight East German sailors aboard.
The orders transmitted in code to the Halle just an hour before the war began were for Wolke to 'conduct offensive military action' in the North Sea and 'engage hostile NATO warships to prevent aggression against the German Democratic Republic'. No one at the other end from where such orders had been prepared had obviously seen the contradiction in such wording and, more-importantly as far as Wolke was concerned, considered for a moment how a ship such as the Halle was meant to achieve such a stated mission.
Built at the Zelenodolsk shipyard in Tatarstan, Wolke's command was a Type-1159 frigate designed and equipped for coastal missions with an anti-submarine warfare focus. The weapons and systems aboard were primarily for hunting submarines with a secondary role for the frigate being patrol. There were no helicopters carried nor anti-ship missiles. There were SAM's aboard and anti-aircraft guns to deal with air threats though the primary weapons were the main guns and the rocket-launchers for the depth charges.
The Halle was in waters surrounded by enemy-held shorelines on all sides when the war begun and could expect to face not just subsurface threats where she might stand a chance of success but air and surface threats too where her self-defence capabilities were limited and offensive missions against such enemy components non-existent. Such was why Wolke considered those orders from home to be tantamount to suicide for him, his crew and his ship.
What could he do though?
Refuse to obey those orders?
Take his ship and his crew to the enemy and desert?
Or… maybe do the best that he could with what he had. The Halle was a warship and there were other vessels of the United Baltic Fleet out here in the North Sea. They all knew their mission and had the initiative on their side. Wolke had to console himself with the notion that someone, somewhere must have known what they were doing sending him out here. The idiot who sent those orders to him worded that way was certainly not whom had decided that the best way to fight NATO in what was effectively their own territory was to take the war to them as best as possible rather than having the mixed fleet of East German, Polish and Soviet ships that formed the fleet on the defensive where the enemy expected them to be located.
Wolke had told himself that the surprise factor would allow his ship to catch the enemy off-guard here in waters which they thought would be safe for the transit of their own ships. If the Halle was to fight, and fight to win, then Wolke had to have faith in the ability of his ship to put to a fight and hope that luck came their way too.
The Halle would survive the first day's Battle of the North Sea.
Wolke would attribute this to a combination of luck and the weather too. By nightfall he convinced himself that just maybe there be a chance for him to get back to his family when the wartime voyage was over with. That might have been a doomed hope, but it was a hope nonetheless.
In the patrol area to where the Halle was assigned, no substantial enemy forces made an appearance. Forced by his orders to undertake offensive missions, Wolke had his sonar systems active looking for enemy submarines in the shallow waters between the British Isles and mainland Europe. However, at the same time he didn't use his active air & surface-search radars; there was no need for them in hunting submarines… and they would draw attention to the warship too.
NATO submarines should have been active in the North Sea. There would be vessels transiting the waters either on their way north towards the Norwegian Sea or heading east to the Baltic Exits. Others should have been on patrol looking for warships such as the Halle. The range of the systems mounted upon Wolke's command were not that great and they weren't the latest technology either and therefore there was no sign of any submarine contacts Wolke wasn't certain that he would successfully prosecute a kill with the Halle before the warship itself came under attack yet no situation such as this developed.
Surface contacts should have been aplenty in the North Sea too. The pre-war briefing back at Rostock-Warnemunde had stated that warships from many different navies could be expected to be encountered moving towards combat or on patrol such as submarines were; none came across the path of the Halle. As to civilian ships, the radio operators picked up signs of non-combatant vessels talking over unguarded channels to coastguard stations and warships yet none came into the immediate area of Wolke's warship. His general position throughout the day was between one hundred and twenty to one hundred and fifty kilometres east of an area called North Yorkshire in Britain. That meant that he wasn't in the area where civilians ships heading for the north coast of West Germany bringing in military wares, nor any escorts which they had, were moving through at this time.
An Atlantic storm had swept over Britain in the last few days of peace bringing the bad weather that came with it into the North Sea during the war's first day. It was weather conditions like this which had caused problems back home before the Halle had left port with objections being raised as to undertaking military action at this time of year from some voices… those selected military officers, many of them from the Volksmarine, quickly regretted voicing their opinions. Regardless, it was the weather which protected the Halle today from almost all enemy observation from their air: the biggest threat to Wolke and his crew.
The electronic warfare systems aboard the Halle, as basic as they were, detected on two occasions the presence of airborne radars which intelligence stated belonged to NATO aircraft. In the mid-morning, not long after war had broken out and while Wolke had his warship begin hunting for submarines, the surface-search radar fitted to either a French or West German Atlantic maritime patrol aircraft was detected in the distance. First to the south and then to the east, that aircraft was searching the water for contacts. As is the case with radars, their emissions can be detected at greater distance than they themselves can observe and so the Halle was aware of the aircraft but unseen. The rough seas and low clouds that deposited plenty of rain would have interfered with the aircraft in its search though at the same time had it managed to locate the Volksmarine warship that Wolke knew that trouble would have come. Anti-ship missiles could have been launched or a simple radio call could have been made to call for other aircraft or vessels to strike. He had been prepared to open fire at once with the Romb SAM system (the version of the Osa-M exported to East Germany and known in the West as the SA-N-4) should detection had occurred to limit the time which the aircraft could make a radio call, yet no contact came.
A second maritime patrol aircraft appeared in the early afternoon. There was a gap in the dense cloud coverage overhead and for a short while the seas were a little calmer too. Wolke had worried when this occurred that an aircraft might appear and it had too. The intercepted radar waves at a distance showed it to be a P-3, another propeller-driven aircraft with excellent loiter time over the water as well as weapons and a radio. The radar waves faded in and out while everyone within the command compartment aboard the Halle held their breath as each time those were detected closer and closer and…
…then the P-3 had come under attack. Traces of other airborne radars were detected in the skies those being of the combat radars with MiG-27 fighter-bombers. A radio broadcast was made in English from the aircraft identifying it as an American naval air arm P-3 rather than from one of the several other nations which flew that model. The Mayday call was cut short all of a sudden and none of the radars were being detected anymore. Wolke was told that one of the lockouts posted was reporting a possible explosion in the skies and while at first sceptical of that due to the distances involved, he had to accept that such a thing had been seen due to the sailor being unaware of what those in the control room knew at the time.
For the second time in the day, the Halle had escaped the air threat that was all around the warship due to its location out here in the North Sea.
Other vessels weren't as lucky as the Halle was.
Through overheard radio communications intercepted by the various antenna that the warship mounted, the deaths of crews aboard other vessels were heard as friendlies and hostiles were attacked resulting in burnings and sinkings. Aircraft like that P-3 were brought down too making Mayday calls and they didn't all explode in mid-air with some making slow falls from the skies before impact with the water.
Translators aboard who spoke Russian and English, as well as the radio operators who naturally spoke their native German too, were asked by Wolke to give information at some times though on other occasions weren't. There was a Soviet destroyer caught in a missile attack from an attack by NATO aircraft; an unarmed intelligence trawler also crewed by Soviets reported being taken under gunfire from a fast patrol boat and was left alight just as the destroyer was with fires out of control. A pair of Type-205 Volksmarine missile-boats were both sunk after torpedoes from a suspected submarine hit them causing crippling damage yet Wolke could do nothing for his fellow sailors. A British warship, an American military stores ship, several West German military and civilian vessels and what was believed to be a Norwegian warship too (no one aboard the Halle spoke Norwegian so it might have been a Dane or Swede heard desperately calling for rescue) were all taken under attack during the day. Shouts came of further air attacks and last messages to be passed onto love ones.
When he reflected upon all of this, Wolke wondered that should the Halle be struck at in the future and be in trouble, would anyone listen to radio messages from his crew?
February 4th 1990
Hannover Airport, Langenhagen, West Germany
“Use your rifle, Schmid! Point the damn thing over there and shoot!”
In the midst of explosions, gunfire and the pained screams of the wounded, Gefreiter Schmid could hear his sergeant shouting at him perfectly. He fully understood what Oberfeldwebel Voller was saying and related to the urgency of the situation. After all, there were bullets coming their way which Schmid was perfectly aware were endangering the two of them and their fellow paratroopers.
Joachim was dead on the ground beside them though and Schmid couldn't take his eyes off the smashed, bloody face of his best friend and someone who he regarded as the brother he had never had.
He'd been shot!
He'd been killed!
Why couldn't Voller understand?
“There's more coming over from the left!” A shout now came from another one of the squad members.
Schmid remained staring at the open, lifeless eyes of Joachim.
“Schmid!” Voller was in his face as the two of them crouched behind the smouldering jeep out here on the airport taxiway. “Do your duty!”
The impacts of the rifle butt against his arm came as a surprise. Schmid had been hit before while in the Landstreitkrafte, and hit harder too, but this time…
He looked up and over to his left, raising his rifle as he did so. He could see the armed soldiers coming forward towards them from behind that aircraft sitting on the runaway just as he had been told.
Schmid aimed his rifle and did it not for Voller, not for the 40 Luftsturmregiment and not for his country but for Joachim.
They had been on the ground for only a few minutes before Joachim had been killed. When the flotilla of helicopters had arrived laden with Schmid and his comrades as part of the second wave landing here, they had come into Hannover Airport after it was supposed to have already been seized by those who made the initial assault. They had leapt from the Mil-8 helicopters under orders from their sergeants and junior officers ready to form up into their platoon groups ready to move away from their open areas that had already been taken. Some who had stopped and stared at the smashed passenger jets sitting on the apron and the taxiways were shouted at while others kept their heads down and followed their orders.
Schmid had been in the latter category. Some of his comrades had mentioned the destruction all around them saying that buildings and aircraft were on fire while there looked like dead civilians in places too, yet he had done as he was told. They were not going on an outing, they had been told before leaving Romke; instead they were going into a battle where if they didn't pay attention to their orders then they were going to be in grave danger.
Joachim had nodded seriously at such statements and Schmid had taken notice. His best friend was normally boisterous and sometimes a practical joker – therefore always getting into trouble in a discipline-focused organisation like the 40 Luftsturmregiment – but hearing those words and then listening to the sounds of warfare erupting in the distance before they boarded their helicopters had changed all of that in an instant.
When here at this airport outside a city where Schmid had never thought that he would travel to, that shouting to get into order had come just before the explosive attack against them had come. All of a sudden instead of heading away calmly from the helicopters to somewhere else, there had been the new orders to immediately deploy and find cover. Everyone had scattered when the machine gun fire came following the first blast which had been the sudden explosion of one of the Mil-8's from an unseen rocket-launcher.
Then Joachim had been shot.
Schmid had no idea as to whether those soldiers which he was engaging were West German, English, French, American or another nationality. They were too far away to see clearly and even if the range was closer he knew no other languages apart from some basis military terms in Russian nor would he recognise emblems which those enemy soldiers wore. What he did know though was that the enemy here were not giving in.
From three sides now there came gunfire from rifles and machine guns. Bullets whizzed towards his position and the others taken by his comrades. Some of those struck the improvised shelters from which his fellow paratroopers sought cover behind, others hit nothing while more made impact with the bodies of men from the 40 Luftsturmregiment. Few died like Joachim had done, suddenly and silently, and instead screamed, wailed and cried.
It was a slaughter. There wasn't enough cover and so many of the enemy were in range pouring fire towards the men like him out in the open.
“Keep firing!” Voller remained next to Schmid and shouted at all of the soldiers near him from his squad and others. “Remember your duty and fight!”
“I am out of ammunition, Oberfeldwebel.”
“Take Otto's magazines.”
“He's dead.”
“I know. He won't be needing them, will he, you fool!”
Schmid listened to the exchange between Voller and a fellow corporal named Willi. He was amazed at how Willi had been hesitant to take something as important as ammunition from a deceased comrade of his at a time like this when they were all fighting for their lives. Could he see how important it was to maintain their rate of fire?
But then he recalled how he himself had been just a few moments beforehand and maybe it wasn't so strange how Willi had reacted…
Focusing his attention back out front, Schmid pushed the barrel of his AKS-74 from out of cover and squeezed the trigger letting lose a short burst of 5.45mm bullets in the direction of the enemy. He started to raise his head afterwards to see what exactly was out ahead and maybe to fire again, this time with more accuracy, but before he could do that the overturned jeep was racked again with gunfire. Schmid had no idea what model this vehicle was, who had been its crew & where they were now and especially how it had ended up like it was. What he did know was that this vehicle was saving his life from what was now seemingly quite accurate gunfire. Poor Joachim had been caught unawares but Schmid was determined not to share his fate.
His head stayed down.
Another warning shout came: “Helicopters!”
The helicopters turned out to be 'friendly'. They were Mil-24's which made attacks with their guns and rockets. One of them was brought down when struck with what appeared to be a missile from the enemy troops, but the other pair made multiple attacks against those soldiers which had kept the paratroopers like Schmid pinned down and slowly being picked off. Through stolen glances and the gleeful observations of some of his comrades over the objections of Voller, he learnt that they had poured fire into the enemy all around the airport killing countless numbers of them before they then withdrew from the skies.
One attack apparently killed a group of his comrades, Schmid was told, but that was something that he didn't see himself.
Then the calls came for the 40 Luftsturmregiment to emerge from their hiding places and chase the retreating enemy.
Schmid didn't want to leave the safety which he had found and also had remorse for leaving the lifeless Joachim behind yet Voller was insistent: “All of you, get up and move! Advance to the left now! Quick, quick, quick!”
Up on his feet, Schmid did as he was told.
Welcome to Hannover.
February 4th 1990
West Berlin
West Berlin was burning.
From where Feldwebel Weiss was positioned, he could see fires and smoke from countless sources. His vantage point was only from the gunner's position inside a SPW-70 armoured vehicle (this was the version East Germany used of the Soviet BTR-70 built under license for export from Romania), yet that was enough to give him enough of a view ahead towards the Western enclave here in the heart of his country as a great conflagration was ongoing.
He wondered where the firemen were. Had they taken up arms instead to join the fight for the city? Weiss had been told that there were tens of thousands of armed West Berliners alongside the Imperialist troops there and so maybe they were fighting?
There were no firemen waiting behind the troops ready to go into the city of which he was among the great number of, that was something that he did know. East German and Soviet regular soldiers, reservists who wore the uniforms of his country's army, border guards and specialist riot police along with the Ministry of State Security paramilitary troops like he was were all positioned to strike, yet there certainly weren't any firemen.
Weiss hoped that the situation wouldn't become one where he would be called into assist combating the flames. He knew how to operate the weapons station aboard this vehicle and to use his rifle too should the need come to dismount, but to go up against a fire like the one ahead was quite different indeed.
Positioned to the south of the city, located just inside where The Wall was down, Weiss watched as the wind blew the majority of the smoke away to the north and east. Some whispers came his way yet remained outside the closed up vehicle in which he sat. He would be happy to stay in this seat all day, even if it became more uncomfortable than it already was along as he didn't have to go and be one of those he feared would be tasked to try to put out those fires.
Alas, that was not to be.
They had been told that the regiment was attacking the American sector in the southwest of Berlin. There were border guards attached to the assault here with Soviet heavy forces moving in from the right from the direction of East Berlin. This information had been passed down the chain of command because it was necessary to avoid fraternal fire but no other information of a strategic nature had been given to non-commissioned officers like Weiss due to operational security concerns; he had no idea what was going on in the rest of the city.
From what he could gather the assault here hadn't gone anywhere near as successful as planned because it was now the early evening and it appeared that a significant portion of the regiment was still only a mile, maybe a bit more, inside the city. He thankfully hadn't been up front and felt the full force of the American Army… unlike so many of his comrades. Their wheeled armoured vehicles – like his one – had been ripped apart not by the tanks that were apparently fighting the Soviets but by lighter man-portable weapons such as a missile system called the 'Dragon' and a 90mm recoilless rifle known as the 'M67'. Attacks using machine guns hadn't really harmed Weiss' comrades when in their vehicles nor had rifle fire employed by the Americans and all the militarised West Germans, but their heavier weapons used to support regular infantry and Militia units had.
It was a group of those Militia – West Berlin civilian soldiers – which he had been called down from his stationary vehicle to deal with. His Leutnant had received an order which was passed onto Weiss and it was just the same as those issued in places such as Leipzig, Dresden, and Cottbus before this war with the West erupted. As the Felix Dzerzhinsky Guard Regiment had done in those locations, they were again going about the business of shooting civilians.
Standing to the side alongside his officer, Weiss watched over the men as they prepared to open fire. He was thankful that unlike beforehand when making war against their own civilians, this time he wasn't in the firing squad. At the same time, he was one of those partially responsible for the deaths that were about to happen. Yet he had no choice. He was a sergeant now rather than the corporal he had been only late last year because other men within the command structure had refused to shoot unarmed civilians during the disturbances which had caused so much trouble.
Those men were dead now: shot after field court martials by their own men with their executioners having no choice in the matter.
“Shoot to the head or to the chest, nowhere else.”
Leutnant Platz didn't shout at the men as he gave them the penultimate order. Weiss noted that his officer was even looking down at the ground when he spoke rather than at his soldiers or at those lined up ready to be shot. Both hands were in Platz's pockets of his uniform trousers too; Weiss had to assume that was because the man didn't want anyone to witness them shaking as he reckoned that they were.
Then the final order came: “Take aim,” a pause, “and fire!”
Platz had only raised his voice a little bit as he said those words.
Ten men opened fire against what Weiss had counted were eight civilians. Six were policemen from what he was able to see with the men ranging in age from their late twenties to their forties; three of those were already wounded before they were shot. The other two men executed were not in any uniform of any kind but were shot alongside the policemen who had fought against the attack into West Berlin.
Platz removed his hands from his pockets afterwards and Weiss watched him remove his pistol from his holster before then grasping that weapon with both hands. There was a walk made by the officer over to where the civilians had been shot down. One of them groaned, another moved back-and-forth silently while a third wailed as he tried to crawl away.
The first pistol shot was to the head of the man seeking to get away as best as he could. Then came the second, the third and the fourth: one to each man whom Platz took aim at as he put them out of their misery. The Makarov-PM pistol was then fired again, again, again and again. In that intervening time between the first four shots and the final four, Weiss had observed Platz look like he was struggling to stay upright and not collapse. Perhaps it was the blood, bits of skull and brain matter which landed upon his trousers, but Weiss didn't know that for sure.
Either way, his officer had looked far from being able to stomach all of this.
Weiss knew nothing of why these men had been slaughtered as they were. No one had told him and nor had his Leutnant been informed either. The order had came from higher up though and that was all that mattered. The prisoners captured in combat had been taken here to the rear and shot for reasons which he wasn't party too. It wasn't just here either with these eight men executed; Weiss could hear what sounded like firing squads elsewhere too.
When back in the SPW-70, no one had anything to say. Platz was in another vehicle and the other sergeant present wasn't someone who would object to opinions being raised as long as no one went as far as treasonous talk. Regardless, there was just silence. Everyone knew that what they had just witnessed wasn't something that anyone else wanted to talk about. Almost all of them had been through this before and there came the silence that always followed such events.
Weiss wondered if it was the same in the vehicles further forwards. Those that had survived the fighting up there – against combat soldiers, not surrendered civilians who were bound and unarmed – were they talking in their vehicles? Were they discussing the weather, maybe the girls which they had met the last time they were on leave or even the fighting which they had taken place in? Anything had to be better than this silence among men who knew that they had just witnessed something… evil.
He wished that he was in one of those vehicles and having to take his chance with the Americans…
…but he wasn't. He was here with the men who had just taken part in a slaughter, an execution and the only thing that he could do to take his mind off that was to watch the city ahead of him carry on burning as the light in the skies faded ending the daylight hours.
February 4th 1990
Western TVD Headquarters, the Ziegelroda Forest, East Germany
'As unwelcome as a former fiancé at a wedding': such was the description given by one of Generaloberst Ulrich's aides to how welcome senior Landstreitkrafte officers were at the forward headquarters of the Western Strategic Direction. The Warsaw Pact supreme headquarters for the invasions of Denmark, West Germany and Austria were located inside East Germany yet East Germans were certainly not made to feel welcome here. In the series of underground bunkers located west of Leipzig, Soviet military officers were in-charge in all of the command positions which mattered with those wearing their uniforms of their nation's supposed allies made to feel like outsiders and begrudgingly given little information if and when at all.
Ulrich had his orders though and those were to remain in the Ziegelroda Forest for the time being until he was given instructions to leave.
The bunkers were located within naturally-formed and manmade hills and hidden among the trees of the forest. There was a nearby airfield at Allstedt though access to the facility here was by concealed road links rather than by helicopters as the intention was that the location was to remain unknown to NATO intelligence gathering assets. Communication antenna were scattered away from the bunkers linked though above-ground cabling and then rebroadcast forward to combat elements at the front through other arrays positioned elsewhere within East Germany as another security measure to ensure the lack of enemy attention paid to the headquarters.
Chain-smoking was near obligatory here. Peer pressure forced Ulrich to join in and he kept his aides busy fetching him more packets of cigarettes so that he could keep up with everyone else doing the same thing. It was the pressure that they were all under that brought this about with the worries over the ongoing operations not as strong as the dread that at any moment there would come a lone word reported over the radios from somewhere at the front or in the rear: Oryol.
Oryol was Russian for Eagle and the designated codeword which would mean that a thermonuclear detonation had taken place. There were not meant to be any use of such special weapons by Warsaw Pact forces during the invasion if Volga-3 went to plan and conventional military action forces the West to accede to the Kremlin's demands, so the use of such a word would mean that the West had done the opposite and instead raised the stakes. Once Oryol was heard once, everyone knew that that would only be the first time too…
The first use of nuclear weapons would almost certainly occur in Germany if that should happen: either side of the IGB. Ulrich had no doubt that afterwards countless more would explode within the borders of his divided country and it would be his countrymen who were the victims. He smoked to calm his nerves at the thought of nuclear holocaust taking place on German soil.
All military operations taking place in Europe from the Baltic to the Alps, from the Polish-Soviet border to the British Isles were under the command of Marshal Vasily Ivanovich Zinoviev. Everything which took place on the ground, in the air and in the a-joining waters whether it be offensive or defensive was his responsibilty. That was a weight which Ulrich was glad that he didn't have to bare due to the complexity of such a role when dealing with the ongoing war in terms of the actual fighting as well as the other vitally important issues of logistics, security and politics too.
Zinoviev was a Germanphobe, a man with a rabid hatred of Germans and all things German. He had come from his peacetime headquarters at Legnica in Poland to replace his predecessor just after the New Year and soon enough everyone knew how much this man despised Germans. The rumour was that his father had been killed during the Nazi-Soviet War and maybe that was true; all Ulrich knew was that this man had nothing but blind hatred for him and his countrymen no matter what uniform they wore.
Ulrich had dealt with Zinoviev's deputy since the news had been filtered down that Volga-3 was to go ahead and been ordered to report to the Ziegelroda Forest bunkers. From there he was to initially provide a liaison with regards to the pre-combat deployment of the forces of the Landstreitkrafte which were attacking westwards before then afterwards – at a designated time – returning to his own Potsdam headquarters to exert control over rear-area forces supporting the invasion in a supply sense east of the IGB and occupation & security troops west of that border line.
The lines of communication which ran lateral across Eastern Europe were his number one task so that they could be kept open for the movement of supplies and reinforcements one way and POW's going in the other direction. Those links needed managing and they needed guarding too from enemy threats and obstructions with second-grade troops under Ulrich's command completing that task. He only had authority over those which ran through East Germany on the ground though not those elsewhere or at sea and in the air.
When it came to his responsibilities west of the IGB, Ulrich was to oversee the physical occupation of the northern and central parts of West Germany which were to be overrun in the fighting; again, other locations were the duties of others. The emphasis on providing the manpower for security tasks was his yet at the same time there would be much autonomous control exercised elsewhere by combat units in their immediate rear areas and then the activities of the KGB, the GRU and the Stasi from his own country doing what they were as well.
On omission from peacetime planning for a situation such as this was the duty of Ulrich's command for operations against West Berlin; now something under the direct control of Zinoviev.
Some of his staff at Potsdam were already underway addressing the initial stages of these tasks for Ulrich to supervise, guarding supply links and making sure that the first wave of reinforcing troops soon to move in from Poland had the transportation links held open for them, yet he was still waiting to be instructed to go back there. Whilst effectively hanging around, unwelcome as he was, Ulrich observed much on the first day of the war from this headquarters in the rear when so much information was at-hand.
The Western-TVD commanded four Front's. Each of these contained field armies and air armies of which many had a multinational character while one of those Front's had a naval component too. There was the Baltic Front on the right tasked to move against Denmark on land with air and sea action (the latter with the United Baltic Fleet) in the western Baltic Sea and the North Sea beyond. Alongside, operating out of East Germany was the Northern Front: the biggest and with the most important mission of invading the majority of West Germany and striking further to the west. Then there was the Central Front with assigned forces striking from Czechoslovakia and Hungary west and southwest. Finally, immediately behind there was the Polish Front with what was the Second Echelon of combat forces tasked to reinforce the initial attacks against the West.
Troops under Ulrich's command in peacetime, the regular forces of the Landstreitkrafte, were assigned to the Baltic and Northern Front's and he took the time while beneath the supposed safety of the cover offered by the Ziegelroda Forest to take note of their activities on the first day of the war.
The 8MRD was with the Soviet Thirty-Eighth Airborne Corps that also consisted of a Soviet airborne division, one of their independent airmobile brigades and a separate tank regiment too. As part of the Baltic Front, the mission given to the 8MRD was to advance into Schleswig-Holstein and charge for the Kiel Canal and Jutland beyond. Amphibious operations in the eastern parts of the Danish Archipelago by the Polish Third Landing Corps (Polish and Soviet naval infantry joined by Polish paratroopers too) was meant to assist them alongside naval activity by keeping their opponents off-balance with the 8MRD expected to break through the frontlines and link-up with airborne forces which had seized key points ahead. Hamburg was to be ignored with this initial drive with the aim of taking a large swath of hostile territory full of airbases and seaports to support strategic goals.
There were meant to be Danish troops in Schleswig-Holstein alongside the West Germans, Ulrich had learnt, as NATO plans called for them with likely additions of British and even American light troops too. None of those reinforcements for the West Germans there had managed to arrive in time before Volga-3 commenced. Parts of the frontlines which the West Germans had manned, as thinly spread as they were and focused as expected on what they saw as the strategic potential of Hamburg, had crumbled and the 8MRD was advancing northwards. They had been hurt by the enemy, but breakthroughs had occurred allowing the 8MRD to march forward: they had advanced along the narrow corridor between the urban areas of Hamburg and Lubeck before later getting as far as Neumunster. Relieving the Soviet paratroopers at Kiel and Eckernforde as per the plan had been too much to do within one day, but they were on course to do so by tomorrow unless something very unexpected happened.
The advances had by the 1MRD operating with the Soviet Second Guards Tank Army on the North German Plain had also pretty much gone to plan surprising Ulrich who secretly hadn't expected that level of success as the maps showed when he saw them. It was true that the majority of their British opponents had withdrew backwards from initial forward positions to their main defensive lines, but they had lost many men and much equipment in doing so: some smaller British formations had actually broken. Losses to the 1MRD were bad and that couldn't be ignored yet they had driven forward pushing some of the best NATO troops far back from the IGB.
On the other side of the Harz Mountains, the 11MRD was operating as part of the Soviet Twentieth Guards Army. They were tasked to engage whatever Belgian units managed to make it into their wartime positions before the war opened and give their Soviet parent formation options for exploitation should the West Germans located in northern parts of Hessen prove as stubborn as expected. The Belgian Army was strung out in the middle of redeployment from home, Ulrich had been informed, with only the most forward units based pre-war in West Germany at the front when the war started. Their pair of brigades had been outnumbered two-to-one in combat strength but were in position even if the rest of the Belgian Army wasn't.
The 11MRD had failed its initial objectives. NATO air power had come into play and had not faced aerial interference with the 11MRD having to rely upon its own air defences rather than fighter cover to beat off murderous air attacks. Parts of the division had suffered crippling losses in combat on the ground when running into effective ambushes as the Belgians fought a battle of manoeuvre; afterwards they were then bombed from above without mercy.
An even worse fate had befallen the 4MRD moving into northern parts of Bavaria. Given a flanking role too, this division had engaged American units as East German troops had tried to advance in a southern direction on the left-hand side of the Soviet Eighth Guards Army's massive attack. The Americans had stopped the march of the 4MRD cold with immense losses taken to the two attacking motorised rifle regiments and the other pair of combat-manoeuvre regiments being given the emergency tasking of preparing defensive positions right on the IGB in case the Americans counter-attacked into the German Democratic Republic itself!
In an overheard conversation, one of Ulrich's aides had reported back to him that Zinoviev had spoke to the commander of the Northern Front – General Snetkov, former commander of the Group of Soviet Forces Germany – and instructed him to pass on congratulations to the head of the Eighth Guards Army. The attack by the 4MRD had done just what the Soviets wanted and gained the attention of the Americans having them move men and aircraft away from the main attack which had then made headway towards the Fulda Valley on the other side of the Spessart high ground.
The operation against Hannover Airport was what Ulrich had regarded as suicidal for the East German paratroopers involved. He had tried to have an audience with Zinoviev before the war opened with the aim to talk him out of sending those elite Landstreitkrafte troops to complete such a task but the Soviet wouldn't even see him when he heard of the reason behind such a request. Ulrich had been left furious but was impotent when it came to having an influence over combat operations at the front.
His concern had been that the 40 Luftsturmregiment was being used in what several of his aides referred to as a 'tissue paper fashion': the scattering of airborne and airmobile units everywhere in the enemy's immediate rear seemingly at random (to NATO anyway) but in a fashion where they would have to assign troops to act against such landings. There were similar operations elsewhere with Soviet troops doing what he feared had been done to his own paratroopers but that wasn't the point. He didn't believe that it was right to send valuable men into the enemy's rear and then not give them any support after they had landed. He had seen how the airborne operations in the Baltic had been undertaken with a view to reinforce and make strategic gains from such moves and this occurred in other places within the Northern Front's area of operations, yet it wasn't the case with the 40 Luftsturmregiment who were to be left to their own devices with the hope that they would then draw in NATO troops.
Ulrich could do nothing but hope for the best with his paratroopers there outside Hannover. They had taken the airport then held off a counterattack by West German reservists but where far from the frontlines with indications that heavier forces were on their way towards them… just as the Soviets wanted.
Away from the fates befalling his own soldiers, Ulrich had access to intelligence which flowed into Zinoviev's headquarters concerning the enemy. There were some things which the Soviets were keeping to themselves and not letting East German, Polish or Czechoslovak officers present like him see but most of what was known about how NATO was reacting was available to Ulrich.
Those chemical weapon strikes using short-range ballistic missiles (SRBM's) against American REFORGER sites had hit their targets with enough accuracy and reasonable timing to make them extremely worthwhile. Storage sites where military equipment for the American Army was located – arranged in a fashion to facilitate the rapid forming of combat formations ready to be sped to the frontlines – had been targeted when the majority of them were seeing the arrival of troops coming in from across the Atlantic. Those troops had flown over to Europe, de-planned and raced to their REFORGER sites as they set about getting ready before the war erupted.
Then the SRBM's had arrived.
Many NATO airbases were hit by chemical weapon strikes with the substances dispersed in an aerosol form so that they were deadly but their effects wouldn't last that long. The aim there was to so that air operations would be disrupted by when Soviet tanks overran those facilities they could then be used by their new occupiers to continue the war effort. With the REFORGER sites, the chemical agents employed were thickened into a jelly-like substance making them 'persistent'. Traces of the chemicals got everywhere and remained lethal for a long time. Initial efforts to clean the affected areas and especially the equipment might get rid of most of the chemicals but not all, therefore increasing the lethality of the strikes. Troops were targeted too by the weapons as they were then when the SRBM's hit with their deaths and injuries being an added bonus of hitting the equipment sites like they were.
Intelligence pointed to the best success with the attacks being against the REFORGER sites in the north with less success in the south. In the latter case, bases for two American combat divisions near the Saarland were struck after the majority of the men and equipment had moved through and out of them. There were still some supporting assets crippled during the chemical 'rain' which fell though. In Holland, Belgium and at the sites in West Germany near the Ruhr and west of the Rhine the SRBM's which hit there impacted right when the Americans were engaged in making the most use of them. All the reports on this Ulrich saw said that thousands of American soldiers had been slaughtered... as well as locals too, thus impacting upon immediate recovery efforts.
This all linked into the more conventional intelligence which Ulrich saw about NATO. They had apparently been expecting that the war might not break out (a diplomatic solution had been the forlorn hope) and if it did, it wouldn't start for a day or two later than it did this morning. Delays in NATO mobilisation among many countries for political reasons had meant that their armies were not in place. What forces pre-deployed inside West Germany were at the front ready to fight but their necessary reinforcements had seen delays and then Warsaw Pact action against them.
The West Germans were in the best position with almost all of their regular forces and second-line reserves ready to fight with mobilisation at a late stage with third-line, internal security troops; they were also operating in their own country. The British had much of their professional army in West Germany with a significant portion of ready reinforcements held at short notice to move due to the international situation and a lot of that force was in place or nearly in place by this morning. The French had stood with NATO and were moving their troops in West Germany towards the frontlines with many more regular troops from their country observed soon to do so – it was estimated that their full army would be ready to fight within the next five days at the most.
The smaller armies of NATO with a commitment to West Germany were in a lesser position. Holland and Belgium had hesitated over whether the threat of war was real with so many of their troops still at home and having to fight with what they had on-hand for now. Canada's forward-deployed troops were likewise in the fight but with reinforcements still across the North Atlantic and needing to get to West Germany before being formed up and equipped.
Then there was the Americans. Their army in central parts of West Germany had been deployed into combat positions last night with REFORGER units streaming in behind them before the SRBM strikes. However, their three-division strong army corps meant to operate on the North German Plain had been caught up in the chemical attack. Further intelligence assessments needed to be made, but it looked as if the only troops that the Americans had available for the fight in such area was a combat brigade pre-based near Bremen and possibly a heavy-armour / reconnaissance regiment which might have left the REFORGER strike at Monchengladbach before that facility was blasted with V-series chemicals.
All this information pointed to NATO being in a position of great danger for them. Ulrich could see that the problems in many areas of the battlefield that they would face would be that there was going to be a lack of reserves for the immediate future. Once frontline units collapsed under the relentless waves of attacks which Zinoviev was going to launch against them in a follow-up to today, for a period of time the enemy would have nothing on hand to plug gaps torn in the line.
He could see victory… yet worried over how much of the Landstreitkrafte, and the wider Nationale Volksarmee too, would be around by then to see that.