B Troop, 1st Squadron, 1lth Armored Cavalry Regiment had once been fourteen tanks. Five of the originals were gone, and there had been only two replacements. Of the rest, all had been damaged to one degree or another. His platoon leader had been killed on the second day of the war, leaving Mackall in command of the three-tank platoon, covering nearly a kilometer of front. Dug in between his tanks was a company of German infantry-men of the Landwehr, the local equivalent of the National Guard, farmers and shop owners for the most part, men fighting to defend not just their country, but their own homes. They, too, had taken serious losses. The "company" was no more than two platoons of effectives. Surely the Russians know just how thin we're spread, Mackall thought. Everyone was dug in-deep. The power of Russian artillery had come as a shock despite all the pre-war warnings they'd had.
"The Americans must love this." The colonel gestured at the low clouds. "Their damned airplanes come swooping in too low for our radar, and this way we have practically no chance to see them before they fire."
"How badly have they hurt you?"
"See for yourself." The colonel gestured at the battlefield. Fifteen tanks lay in view-the burned-out remains. "That American low-level fighter did this-the Thunderbolt. Our men call it the Devil's Cross."
"But you killed two aircraft yesterday," Sergetov objected.
"Yes, and only one of four gun vehicles survived the effort. The same vehicle got both-Senior Sergeant Lupenko. I recommended him for the Red Banner. It will be posthumous-the second aircraft crashed right on his vehicle. My best gunner," the colonel said bitterly. Two kilometers away, the wreckage of a German Alphajet was a charred garnish atop the remains of a ZSU-30 gun vehicle. No doubt it had been deliberate, the colonel thought, that German had wanted to kill just a few more Soviets before he died. A sergeant handed his colonel a radio headset. The officer listened for half a minute before speaking a few words that he punctuated with a quick nod.
"Five minutes, Comrades. My men are fully in place. Would you follow me, please?"
The command bunker had been hastily built of logs and earth, with a full meter of overhead cover. Twenty men were crammed into it, communications men for the two regiments in the assault. The division's third regiment waited to exploit the breakthrough and pave the way for the reserve armored division to break into the enemy's rear. If, Alekseyev reminded himself, everything went as planned.
No enemy troops or vehicles could be seen, of course. They would be in the woods atop the ridge less than two kilometers away, dug in deep. He watched the divisional commander nod to his artillery chief, who lifted a field phone and spoke two words:
"Commence firing."
It took several seconds for the sound to reach them. Every gun the division owned, with an additional battery from the tank division, spoke as one dreadful voice, and the thunder echoed across the countryside The shells arched overhead, at first striking short of the opposite ridgeline, then closing on it. What had once been a gentle hill covered with lush grass turned into a brown obscenity of bare earth and smoke.
"I think they're serious, Sarge," the loader said, pulling his hatch down tight.
Mackall adjusted his helmet and microphone as he peered out the view ports built into his commander's cupola. The thick armor plate kept most of the noise out, but when the ground shook beneath them, the shock came through the treads and suspension to rock the vehicle, and each crewman reflected to himself on the force needed to budge a sixty-ton tank. This was how the lieutenant had bought it-a one-in-a-thousand shot from a heavy gun had landed a round right on his turret, and it had burrowed through the thin overhead armor to explode the vehicle.
Left and right of Mackall's tank, the largely middle-aged German territorials cowered in their deep, narrow holes, their emotions oscillating between terror and rage at what was happening to them and their country-and their homes!
"Good fire plan, Comrade Colonel," Alekseyev said quietly. A screaming sound passed overhead. "There is your air support."
Four Russian ground-attack fighters wheeled overhead to trace parallel to the ridgeline and dropped their loads of napalm. As they turned back toward Russian fines, one exploded in midair.
"What was that?"
"Probably a Roland," the colonel answered. "Their version of our SA-8 rocket. Here we go. One minute."
Five kilometers behind the command bunker, two batteries of mobile rocket launchers ripple-fired their weapons in a continuous sheet of flame. Half were high-explosive warheads, the other half smoke.
