As 2nd Lt I rarely am afforded the opportunity to work alone, make my own decisions, or execute in the field without some ponce driving me bonkers.
However, circumstances being such as they are, the need has arisen for Her Majesty to entrust her training, her investment, and her Officers and my good common sense all to me. Now I was not intent upon disobeying orders, or mucking up as the enlisted say. No, I wanted to be in command and to execute with my team. Surviving would also be nice but not guaranteed at the rate things were going.
Nay, I was tasked out of necessity. We were a plucky lot. One had to be really, as the might of Her Majesty’s army and world dominion shrank, so too had unit honors. Three hundred years of history truncated into the moniker 9th/12th Royal Lancers [ Prince of Wales, lucky bastard tasting that Diana I say, goes to show titles really matter!] any way. 300 years gone with a stroke of a pen, due to cost cutting.
A pity for the 9th, but if one were to cast a critical eye upon her history, she spent most of her 300 years battling a few French in the Peninsula, some rag a muffin curry munchers in India and a few Afghans and Boers only to be participants on the last Lance on Lance cavalry action in WW1. Illustrious indeed.
Whereas the 12th, bloody hell at least they fought at Waterloo and buggered the Prussians in WW1.
Now B Squadron had a real job, worth of the units mixed past.
We seek.
We report.
We destroy.
With most of a troop of thin skinned FV 102’s with 107’s ranging ahead to track down the new enemy, blind, bind them and bugger them and close the seam between 1 Corp and the Belgians.
The real enemy. A real war, a real fight, a battle that matters to the unit, to the world. Not some rag tag rebel Irish mob, not some pig headed Boer or Kraut. The devil incarnate. The ruin of worlds, and empire vanquishing subjugating monster, the Soviet.
Yes, I’m all in. The carnage to date has been horrific in just seven short days, Chem strikes at airfields, entire towns reduced to rubble by arty. Rape, death, mayhem, carnage. Tanks racing to the Rhine and beyond.
Normally I’d be a junior officer and part of a Battalion or more scale force. However we were currently being smashed, and kicked around like grade schoolers, fighting a mean eyed, fat fisted bully who knew he could not lose. No amount of ‘fighting spirit’ was going to compensate for the waves of Soviet kit.
Caught flat footed, under funded for 20 years, and complacent we are fighting for our very existence as we know it. Thank God for Maggie. She at least got us on path to recovery. Lord know where we would be without her as Prime Minister.
‘Sir, I took a moment to brew a cuppa on the bounce, its about time we found these bastards eh Sir?’
I said to Charlies ‘Cheers Charlie. Let the boys do their job. They target we fire our ten missiles and ideally with your help we make 10 kills.’
‘Right you are Sir, I’m the lucky sod who gets to reload out side the bloody vehicle! Do they boffins do this sort of thing for shits and giggles?’
Charlie was one of three crew, Tracks being the other, was our driver, or Tracton was his actual name, but we all called him by his nick for all the obvious reasons.
Charlie, was the odd one. Slender, wiry, short but with a jockeys bone crushing hand shake, he had at one point been a jockey, but some ‘event’ forestalled that career. So he was now our loader.
His craggy faced and crooked smile beamed at me. Then ducked away. Knowing that a lecture on who was safest was likely forth coming. As I was the one who would also be outside the vehicle remote guiding our fiery missiles on to target.
The tea even as we jostled along slowly into yet another abandoned hamlet hit the spot.
My head set toned. ‘Delphi B3-2, reporting to Delphi B3-1 contact! Over.’
“ All Delphi B3 units halt!! All units halt!!” I ordered excitedly. No need for the repeat, but bloody hell, we had found the recon elements attempting split us and the Belgians apart!
“B3-2, copy, report status” I said, as my heart rate kicked up a notch and the warm summer breeze died down as if it too had a sense of dreadful anticipation, making sweat pop on my brow.
The report was a bit devastating to say the least. Two platoons of T-80s, bloody BMP-2s out the ying yang that would out missile us if they spotted us and of course those wheeled madmen in BRDMs. Outgunned.
Not good. But it was the 14th Guard who we that we had been sent to find. As Intel has suggested, West of Herzberg am Harz, we had a few surprises for our recon counterparts probing our lines, even if we were a but under weight on killing power.
From the edge of the hamlet where our 3 CVR[t] sat we could direct fire unseen for the most part. I ordered all Delphi 3-1 units to cut engines, and set up targets while B3-2 called in a ADM strike on the other side of the wood copse between us.
Meanwhile I also plotted a reference and called in an ADM strike to channel the movement should the Soviets head South towards us.
They appeared to be spread well apart on either side of the main access road heading West. If we got lucky perhaps we could knock out each element separately, and sow a little fear to boot.
‘Firing for effect. Jolly Roger Alpha over.’ I listened to the exchange on the battlenet.
‘On target, tally ho fire , fire fire lads.’ The boys were excited, and nervous. Fighting T-80s in 50mm of armor was like, well never mind, here they came just moments later. I’d never heard Arty Delivered Mines [ADM] fired in anger. Bloody hell, what a sound!
The whistle of the 155’s travelling from klicks away warmed my heart, zoned in on us and the targets, each shell carrying nine magnetically activated AT mines, spreading mayhem at 200m intervals. Within two minutes the lush green verdant fields in front of us were covered in armed mines with about 600 grams of RDX, ideal for mobility kills, allowing us to either call in MLRS of shoot and scoot until lady luck abandoned us.
Maybe I can do this and these lads can survive another day you know? That is all I was thinking as the rounds continued to fall. That and the fact that my cuppa tea could use a refill.