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Firestorm: Red Thunder

The Team Yankee Global Campaign

Bump in the Night

100 POINTS
British
K. Alexander
VS Warsaw Pact
Volkhv
Intelligence photograph taken before commencement of operations. The Russians had yet to take up positions around the town, and their presence came as a shock to the counter-attacking NATO forces.

Stranded

2nd Lieutenant Jameson was an Englishman a long way from home; but perhaps more frustratingly, he was a long way from his sector. His tracks had been posted to the Niederbayern area for joint training with the local Bundeswehr forces when the balloon went up, leaving him and the others of the training company stuck with minimal combat ammunition, fuel, and without a steady supply of decent tea.

Suddenly faced with the Red Army crashing through neutral Austria, they had been hurriedly organised into an understrength battlegroup (comprising a single company of Chieftain tanks, and their reconnaissance element, a troop of Scorpion light tanks) and attached to a mechanised company of Panzergrenadiers. Jameson found himself under the auspices of an older West German Hauptmann by the name of Messer or Masser – they had only spoken over the radio, it had been hard to tell the difference – and had been tasked with pushing East to foil Russian attempts at establishing a bridgehead. The British tanks were to act as an armoured fist for the wholly mechanised Panzergrenadiers, with the West Germans also supplying anti-air and artillery elements to help cover the advance; for their part, the Royal Air Force had put a flight of Harrier ‘jump-jets’ on stand-by, should the coming battle dictate it.

The joint task force had been assembled to move off in the early hours of the morning. The West German battlegroup had been dubbed ‘ANVIL’, and the British ‘HAMMER’. And true to their name, ANVIL would see itself struck first.

Tanks of soon-to-be battlegroup HAMMER on exercise near Landshut, prior to hostilities.

The British are Coming

The Scorpion tanks of HAMMER’s recce troop moved carefully ahead of the British column, trundling through the immaculately kept lawns of the village church, just off the main road. The West German battlegroup was somewhere to the North East of them, trading blows with a dug-in platoon of Russian armour that had materialised in the dark. The commander of the lead recce tank could see the flash of gun and cannon fire through his low-light optics above the civilian and industrial buildings in the distance, but could see no signs of enemy activity in the modest village square to his immediate twelve-o’clock. He wheeled his light tanks through a gap in the old buildings and back towards the main road.

Just as the Scorpions turned left onto the road, their optics picked up the unmistakable shape of a Russian T-72 main battle tank. It was idling across both lanes of the tarmac, less than a hundred metres away. The commander of the recce troop almost had a heart attack, and barked for his troop to come to a halt and move back into the cover of the buildings. To his relief, the Red Army tank hadn’t seemed to notice them, staying put at the bottom of the road. He noted that it appeared to be lying in wait, perhaps expecting the West German Panzergrenadiers to attempt a push towards the open village square. The commander quickly radioed his findings back to the Chieftains that were moving down the road into town, advising that they were about to run into the flank of what was possibly a platoon of Russian tanks waiting in ambush.

The Chieftains of 1 Troop roll past their recce element into the village, forming a combat formation as they go. 2nd Lieutenant Jameson is leading the way.

Jameson flicked back to his squadron command net with a smile on his face. His forward recce had found him a golden opportunity, and he had a plan. He ordered his 2 Troop off the road as they approached the outskirts of the village, having them move up his left flank and towards the village square. He and his 1 Troop would link up with the Scorpions on the road, and then move to engage the T-72s before they had a chance to move off and spoil his shooting. They would likely bolt to a better position as soon as the firing started, and, he reasoned, this would send them dashing into the open square out of his line of sight – and into the guns of 2 Troop.

His West German counterpart had requested relief, and he would do just that.

1 Troop blitz down the main road, taking the Russians by surprise.

The first T-72 detonated in a shower of sparks and molten metal, the explosion shattering the window panes of the surrounding buildings. The second T-72 just down the street from it took two fin rounds to the turret before the rest of the platoon realised what was happening, and started to move out the line of fire at speed. The Russian tanks had been in firing positions overlooking the village square and the road beyond, likely, as the recce troop had supposed, awaiting a Bundeswehr push through the village proper. A third T-72 took a 120mm round to its engine deck, bursting into flames as its comrades crashed through the hedge they had been hunkered behind. Jameson didn’t doubt they would’ve been almost impossible to see had his German friends decided to venture towards the village centre, but they obviously had not expected a troop of Chieftains to come barrelling down the road on their flank this far South!

The Hammer

The quiet village had come alive. West German artillery had put down a curtain of smoke on the other side of the square to help cover the British coming down the road, and now it was drifting through the village, the refraction of light from the burning Russian vehicles casting an ominous orange glow. The troop of Chieftains on the road moved into a position in a car park beside the square, hoping to intercept the remaining T-72s with their guns as they made a break for it. Their next victim came into view, still trailing foliage and mud from its blown cover, and was met with a fusillade of fire from the still positioning British tanks. One round struck, blowing apart the T-72’s running gear, and sending it skidding to a halt under loss of traction; a second round drilled into the turret and out the other side, burying itself into a building beyond. Jameson could see the crew bailing out of the smoking hatches through the glow of his night optics, as his loader made the L11 gun ready again. His loader had yelled in the affirmative just as the last two Russian tanks came rumbling through the smoke, swinging their hulls towards his Chieftains and opening fire. The rounds went high, ripping through the upper floors of the residential buildings behind them and showering the teams in masonry. The British tanks took aim to retaliate, but the T-72s had disappeared behind a screen of smoke.

The Russian tank commander still had his wits about him, it seemed.

The surviving Russian tanks swing into position on the square, as 1 Troop prepares to move into the car park and engage.

The tanks of 2 Troop caught up to the fighting just in time to see a retreating T-72 disabled on the square from 1 Troop’s intercepting fire. They had navigated through the same churchyard the Scorpions had snuck through earlier, and moved up to the periphery of the village centre under cover. The lead Chieftains halted in fire positions just as the remaining two T-72s opened fire on their commander, setting off smoke counter-measures as they did. The enemy armour was now completely obscured – but not for long. The flanking Chieftains were rewarded for their patience, as two squat hulls came reversing from the smoke, clear as day in the gunners’ infra-red gunsights.

2 Troop struck the final hammer blows, and the Red Army tank platoon was put out of its misery.

2 Troop catch the fleeing T-72s in the open. Despite valiant attempts at recouping the initiative, the Russians could not prevent their fate.

Dawn of the First Day

2nd Lieutenant Jameson watched the sun come up and took a long draw from his cigarette. He was perched atop his command tank, sat as it was in the square at the centre of the village. He could still smell the smoke in the air from the Russian vehicles smouldering nearby. His men were taking the time to wash themselves in the large fountain nearby, which, by some miracle, had survived untouched. He thought it too easy, this war business, and wondered to himself if it was all just dumb luck; it could well have been very different had the Russians decided to position themselves just a few metres back between the buildings. It would have been the Russian tank commander pondering these things, he thought to himself, as my Chieftains burned around him. The Red Army had pulled back it seemed, Hauptmann Messer commenting that the armour he was engaging in the fields outside town seemed to bleed away into the darkness once the British tanks struck. The Bundeswehr officer suspected the Russians may have thought a much larger force had smashed into their left flank, and thought better than to hang around as their defence crumbled. In typical German fashion, it had been a complement. Dumb luck, indeed.

Jameson stubbed his cigarette out and wished he was back home.

2nd Lieutenant Jameson's command tank, resting in the square after the battle.

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