The fighters were returning. Toland counted them off in his head. He came up short by two Tornados and one Tomcat. As soon as the landing rolls were completed, each fighter taxied to its shelter. The RAF did not have enough permanent ones. Three of the American fighters ended up in sandbag revetments, where ground crews immediately refueled and rearmed their aircraft. The crews climbed down their ladders to waiting jeeps and were driven off for debriefing.
"Bastards used our own trick on us!" one Tomcat pilot exclaimed.
"Okay, what did you run into?"
"There were two groups, about ten miles apart. Lead group was NEG-23 Floggers with the Blinders behind them. The MiGs launched before we did. They really knocked our radars back with white noise, and some of their fighters were using something brand new, a deceptive jammer we haven't run across yet. They must have been at the edge of their fuel, 'cause they didn't try to mix it up with us. I guess they just wanted to keep us off the bombers until they launched. Damn near worked. A flight of Tornados came around them on the left and bagged four of the Blinders, I think. We got a pair of MiGs-no Blinders-and the boss vectored the rest of the Toms onto the missiles. I splashed two. Anyway, Ivan's changed tactics on us. We lost one Tomcat, I don't know what got him."
"Next time," another pilot said. "We go up with some of our missiles preset to go after the jammers. We didn't have enough time to set that up. If we can get the jammers first, it'll be easier to handle the fighters."
And then the Russians will change their tactics again, Toland thought. Well, at least we have them reacting to us for a change
After eight hours of vicious fighting that saw artillery fire dropping on the forward command post, Beregovoy and Alekseyev stopped the Belgian counterattack. But stopping them wasn't enough. They'd advanced six kilometers before running into a solid wall of tanks and missiles, and the Belgian artillery was laying heavy intermittent fire on the main road supporting the Russian advance toward Hameln. Certainly they were preparing for another attack, Alekseyev thought. We have to hit them first-but with what? He needed his three divisions to advance on the British formations standing before Hameln.
"Every time we break through," Major Sergetov observed quietly, "they slow us down and counterattack. This was not supposed to happen."
"A splendid observation!" Alekseyev snarled, then regained his temper. "We expected that a breakthrough would have the same effect as in the last war against the Germans. The problem is these new light antitank missiles. Three men and a jeep"-he even used the American title for it-"can race along the road, set up, fire one or two missiles, be gone before we can react, then repeat the process a few hundred meters away. Defensive firepower was never so strong before, and we failed to appreciate how effectively a handful of rearguard troops can slow down an advancing column. Our security is based on movement"-Alekseyev explained the basic lesson from tank school-"a mobile force under these conditions cannot afford to be slowed down. A simple breakthrough is not enough! We must blast a massive enough! We must blast a massive hole in their front and race at least twenty kilometers to be free of these roving missile-crews. Only then can we switch over to true mobile doctrine."
"You say we cannot win?" Sergetov had begun to have his own doubts, but did not expect to hear them from his commander.
"I say what I did four months ago, and I was correct: this campaign of ours has become a war of attrition. For the moment, technology has defeated the military art, ours and theirs. What we're doing now is seeing who runs out of men and arms first."
"We have more of both," Sergetov said.
"That is true, Ivan Mikhailovich. I have many more young men to throw away." More casualties were arriving at the field hospital. The line of trucks running in and out never stopped.
"Comrade General, I received a message from my father. He wishes to know how things progress at the front. What should I tell him?"
Alekseyev walked away from his aide for a minute to ponder that.
"Ivan Mikhailovich, tell the Minister that NATO opposition is far more serious than we expected. The key now is supplies. We need the best information we can get on NATO's supply situation and a determined effort to worsen that situation. We have received little information on how well the naval operations to kill NATO convoys are going. I need that in order to evaluate NATO's endurance. I don't want analyses out of Moscow. I want the raw data."
"You are unhappy with what we get from Moscow?"
