"Radio intercepts have identified two brigades en route. One British and one Belgian."
"They'll send more than that. They must know what we can do if we exploit this. We have 1st Guards Tank Army in reserve..."
"Commit half of our reserves here?"
"I can't think of a better place." Alekseyev gestured at the map. The drive toward Hannover had been stopped within sight of the city. The northern army groups had gotten into the outskirts of Hamburg, at the cost of gutting 3rd Shock Army's tank formations. "With luck, we can break all of the 1st into the enemy rear. That will get us to the Weser at least-maybe the Rhein."
"A large gamble, Pasha," CINC-West breathed. But the odds here were better than anything else on the map. If the NATO forces were stretched as thinly as his intelligence staff said, they had to crumble someplace. Perhaps this was it? "Very well. Start posting the orders."
"What about their ASW forces?" asked the captain of USS Pittsburgh.
"Considerable. We estimate that Ivan has two major antisubmarine warfare groups, one centered on Kiev, the other on a Kresta cruiser. There are also four smaller groups, each composed of a Krivak-class frigate and four to six patrol frigates of the Grisha and Mirka type. Add to that a large collection of ASW aircraft and finally twenty or so submarines, half nuclear, half conventional," answered the briefing officer.
"Why don't we let them keep the Barents Sea?" muttered Todd Simms of USS Boston.
There's an idea, Dan McCafferty agreed silently.
"Seven days to get there?" Pittsburgh asked.
"Yes, that gives us a good deal of freedom on how to enter the area. Captain Little?"
The captain of HMS Torbay took the podium. McCafferty wondered if the Brits had any need for NFL-style noseguards in their team sports. Under six feet, but very broad across the shoulders, his head topped by a shock of sandy, unruly hair, James Little certainly looked like one. When be spoke, it was with toughly won assurance.
"We've been running a campaign we call Keypunch. The objective of Keypunch is to evaluate what ASW defenses Ivan has operating in the Barents Sea-and also, of course, to lop off the odd Sov who gets in our way." He smiled. Torbay had four kills. "Ivan's set a barrier from Bear Island to the coast of Norway. The immediate area around Bear Island is a solid minefield. Ivan's been laying the things since he took the island by parachute assault two weeks ago. South of this area, so far as we can determine, the barrier is composed of some small minefields and Tango-class diesel subs as a front line, backed by the mobile ASW groups and Victor-III-class nuclear submarines. Their aim appears to be not so much prosecute-to-kill as prosecute-to-drive-off. Every time one of our submarines has made an attack on this barrier line, there has been a vigorous response.
"Inside the Barents, things are pretty much the same. These small hunter-killer groups can be bloody dangerous. I personally had an encounter with a Krivak and four Grishas. Inshore, they have helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft in direct support, and it was a most unpleasant experience. We also found several new minefields. The Soviets appear to be sowing them almost at random in water as deep as one hundred fathoms. Finally they seem to have set a number of traps. One of them cost us Trafalgar. They set a small minefield and placed a noisemaker within it that sounds exactly like a Tango schnorkeling her diesels. As near as we can make out, Trafalgar moved in to collect the Tango and ran right into a mine. Something to keep in mind, gentlemen." Little paused to let that bit of hard-won intelligence sink in.
"Right. What we intend you chaps to do is head north-northwest towards the edge of the Greenland Icepack, then east along the edge of the pack to the Svyatana Anna Trough. Five days from today three of our submarines will raise pure bloody hell on the barrier, supported by our own ASW aircraft and some fighters if that can be arranged. That ought to get Ivan's attention and draw his mobile forces west. You should then be able to proceed south to your objective. It's a roundabout route, of course, but it enables you to use your towed sonars for the maximum period of time, and you should be able to run at relatively high speed at the edge of the icepack without being detected."
McCafferty thought that one over. The edge of the icepack was a noisy place, with billions of tons of ice in constant movement.
"The route has been scouted, by HMS Sceptre and Superb. They encountered minor patrolling only. Two Tangos were found in that area. Our chaps had orders not to engage." That told the Americans how important this mission was. "They will be waiting for you, so do be careful about engaging something in your path."
"How do we get out?" Todd Simms wondered.
