"If we capture Alfeld I will let you have the keys to the city. For the present, let me do my job. Dismissed!" Probably wanted permission to shoot suspected fascists. As a four-star general, Alekseyev could not ignore political officers, but at least he could ignore those under the rank of general. He walked over to the tactical maps. On one side as before, lieutenants showed the advance of his-his!-units. On the other, intelligence officers were assembling what data they had on enemy opposition. He grabbed the shoulder of his operations officer.
"I want that lead regiment right behind the motor-rifle troops. If they need some help, give it to them. I want this breakthrough and I want it today. What artillery do we have set up?"
"Two battalions of heavy guns are ready now."
"Good. If those infantry have targets for them, find out, and let's start hitting them now. This is not a time for finesse. NATO knows we're here, and our worst enemy is time. Time works for them, not for us." The operations officer and artillery commander got together, and two minutes later his 152mm guns were delivering fire to the front. He'd have to have a medal awarded to the dead commander of 20th Tanks, Alekseyev decided; the man deserved a reward of some kind for the training he saw evident in this staff.
"Enemy air attack in progress," a plotting officer said.
"Enemy tanks emerging from woods east of Sack, estimate battalion strength. Heavy artillery fire supporting the Germans."
He had to trust his colonels now, Alekseyev knew. The time at which a general could observe the entire battle and control it was long past. His staff officers made their little marks on the map. The Germans should have waited, the General thought, they should have let the division spearhead go through, then attack the division supply column. That was foolish, the first time he had seen a German commander make a tactical error. Probably a junior officer who had relieved a dead or wounded superior, or perhaps a man whose home was nearby. Whatever the reason, it was a mistake and Alekseyev was profiting by it. His leading two tank regiments took losses, but they smashed the German counterattack in ten furious minutes.
"Two kilometers-leading elements now two kilometers from Sack. Opposition from artillery only. Friendly units are in sight. Infantry troops in Sack report minor resistance only. The town is nearly clear. Forward scouts report the road to Alfeld is open!"
"Bypass Sack," Alekseyev ordered. "The objective is Alfeld on the Leine."
It was a scratch team. American mechanized infantrymen and the lead tank squadron of an advancing British brigade reinforced the remains of Germans and Belgians who had been crushed by five Soviet divisions that day. There was little time. Combat engineers worked furiously with their armored bulldozers to scrape shelters for the tanks while infantrymen dug holes for their antitank weapons. A cloud of dust on the horizon was all the warning they needed. A division of tanks was reported heading their way, and the civilians had not entirely evacuated the town behind them. Twenty miles behind them, a squadron of ground-attack aircraft circled, waiting for the call-down signal.
"Enemy in sight!" a lookout on a church steeple radioed. In seconds artillery fire lashed at the leading Soviet columns. Antitank-missile crew popped the covers off their targeting scopes and loaded the first weapons of what promised to be a long afternoon. The Challenger tanks of 3rd Royal Tank Regiment settled into their holes, hatches shut tight as the gunners zeroed their sights on distant targets. Things were too confused and there had not been enough time to establish a firm chain of command here. An American was first to fire. The TOW-2 missile sped downrange its control wires trailing out behind like a spider's web as it reached four kilometers to a T-80 tank.
"Advanced elements are now under fire from enemy missile teams," reported a plotting officer.
"Flatten them!" Alekseyev ordered his artillery commander. Within a minute the division's multiple-rocket launchers were filling the sky with trails of fire. Tube artillery fire added to the carnage at the battle line Then NATO artillery joined the fray in earnest.
"Lead regiment is taking losses."
Alekseyev watched the map in silence. There was no room for deceptive maneuver here, nor was there time. His men had to race through the enemy lines as quickly as possible in order to seize the bridges on the Leine. That meant that his leading tank crews would suffer heavily. The breakthrough would have its own heavy price, but the price had to be paid.
