Chieftains

There were two Soviet Hind-F gunships swinging across the border woodland, and Davis heard himself shout an impossible warning to the crews of the Swingfires. The two aircraft came in at little more than a hundred feet, ominous dark vultures hovering above the ATGWs. One of the vehicle's gunners must have seen them for there was a burst of fire from the GPMG on his cupola, and the helicopter on the right jinked, then steadied. There was flame beneath its stubby wings and momentarily Davis thought it had been hit, then the flame left the gunship as a pair of rockets traced downwards. They struck the slab side of one of the FV 438s simultaneously, bracketing the maintenance hatch. Davis saw the vehicle explode into fragments, its wreckage hurled high into the air by the force of the detonation. A second pair of 'Spirals' had left the other Hind, and one of the two remaining FV-438s received a direct hit to the rear of the cupola. The third, its tracks racing, was hurtling in reverse through the thin woods almost as though it were out of control, the pines flattening beneath it, smashing out of its path. It jerked to a stop, and as it did so one of its Swingfire missiles left the launcher, ricochetted from the ground a hundred meters along its path, and then exploded above the woods. Davis could feel the terror of the men within the vehicle. Its tracks churned again, failing initially to get traction, then it spun briefly as the driver desperately sought a route through the trees that would lead him to deeper cover. The first of the gunships hovered above and behind the vehicle, its pilot taking time to give 'his gunner a clear shot. It seemed to Davis that the gunship was toying with the FV-438, a hawk suspended above its prey. He saw white trails from its missiles, then the smoke of their explosions hid the destruction of the remaining Swingfire vehicle. But the Hind-F had remained stationary too long and at too low an altitude. One of the battle group's reconnaissance Scimitars on the lower slopes of the woods had watched the destruction of the FV-438s, its gunner following the movements of the second helicopter through the sights of the Scimitar's Rarden 30mm cannon; the temptation when the gunship remained stationary at point-blank range, and within the elevation of his cannon, was irresistible. A four-round burst of armour piercing special explosive Hispano shells tore through the fusilage. Three failed to explode against the light materials of the aircraft's body, but the fourth struck the port turboshaft, Mowing away the upper part of the engines and the complete rotor assembly. Davis swore jubilantly as the aircraft plunged nose first into the ground and instantly caught fire. There could be no survivors in the inferno of blazing fuel and detonating ammunition. He felt a sharp pain in his mouth, and tasted blood. In the excitement of the past minutes he had bitten through the inner part of his lower lip. Davis's war was only forty-six minutes old.

SEVEN

At the 1st Battle Group Field Headquarters, Lieutenant Colonel James Studley was attempting to ingnore casualties in terms of human death, and view them instead as incidents requiring only tactical assessment. It was not easy. The British Chieftains being destroyed were his tanks, and no matter how hard he tried it was impossible to forget they contained the bodies of his men. Out there in the smoke were young troopers he had lived with, trained from civilian to soldier, congratulated, promoted, reprimanded. He had learnt early to hate the enemy.

One complete squadron of his Chieftains was already out of action, the vehicles destroyed, and the crews either dead or wounded. It had happened in the first few minutes of hostilities. The squadron's positions had been struck by a massive rocket attack that had immediately wiped out about half of Alpha Squadron's tanks. The fire on the Chieftains had been so accurate that Studley was convinced their location had been radioed back to the Soviet artillery by infiltrated or sleeper artillery observers, who must have been inside NATO territory well before the outbreak of war.

He had ordered the remaining tanks of Alpha Squadron to withdraw towards Königslutter, but before they could do so, further artillery fie and a strike by a formation of helicopter gunships had obliterated them.

The other two squadrons of the battle group had both suffered casualties in the artillery barrage. C troop of Charlie Squadron had lost all their vehicles although there were several crew survivals; all wounded, who had already been evacuated to the casualty collecting post at Burgdorf with the survivors of Alpha. B and C Troops of Bravo Squadron had both lost one Chieftain apiece, with no crews surviving. The leader's tank of Bravo Squadron had received a hit near the turret ring from an armoured piercing shell which had failed to penetrate, but dislodged the turret, crippling the vehicle and breaking the leader's right arm.