Nationale Volksarmee

February 8th 1990
Bissendorf, West Germany

Though not sure exactly, Gefreiter Schmid thought that Bissendorf was about five or six kilometres north of Hannover Airport. He had walked, jogged and ran there today after the airport which he and fellow paratroopers with 40 Luftsturmregiment had held for four days against all the odds had fallen earlier. Along the line of retreat, following the course which the tanks which had first come to relive them then who needed assistance in withdrawing had taken, many men who had survived those battles for the airport had been lost either dead, missing or captured. Schmid didn't share their fate and he was determined as long as he was able to he would keep on fighting, yet the retreat was demoralising. He and everyone else who had made it to Bissendorf knew that there would probably be further for them to go as they withdrew in the face of a NATO counterattack.

Schmid had heard a Leutnant tell Voller that it would have been better if the Soviets with their 16th Guards Tank Division hadn't turned up with their tanks late last night after racing down from the bridgehead over the Aller River at Celle: maybe then the British Army wouldn't have struck at the airport. He had to agree with what he had overheard there as his sergeant had been told the reason for their withdrawal. Alas, such was war…


The fight for Bissendorf was bloody and destructive. Schmid was involved with it at a personal level so knew none of the grand strategic plans of those of a senior rank involved yet understood full well that the intention was to stop the British here. To do that meant that their tanks and infantry needed to be engaged with every weapon available and without mercy.

Laas had been killed earlier in the day – shot from a distant rifle that had destroyed most his head making him almost unrecognisable afterwards – but Hummels still needed a second man with him to carry the reloads for his Metis weapon and also act as a spotter. Voller had told Schmid to stay with the missileman and take over from Laas; the RPG-18 which Schmid had been carrying unused was given away to another man.

It was their tanks which were giving the British the strength that they had and those were to be engaged. Others were concerned with bombarding Bissendorf into ruins and conducting infantry-versus-infantry battles. Schmid had anti-tank duties to attend to.


Hummels was far better at scouting for enemy tanks than Schmid was and it was he who spotted the armoured steel beast which he declared was a Chieftain. That tank was edging forwards through the ruins of houses on the southern side of the village with infantry nearby. The smashed buildings which had been brought down – artillery from one side or the other had done that damage – caused the Chieftain to move as slowly as it was.

Schmid spotted something else though as they prepared to open fire from their concealed position among the ruins of another building: “There's a second tank!”

Apparently there was a full British division undertaking their counterattack in the Hannover area and Schmid had known that if the armies of NATO was anything like those of the Warsaw Pact then their divisions would have hundreds of tanks. He had been expecting that there wouldn't be just one tank operating alone and worried over Hummels' confidence that they were about to conduct a perfect ambush against just one.

With two tanks the British would be able to make sure that he and Hummels would only get one shot off.

“We will wait until the second one moves out of sight.”

“The infantry will be here before then!” Schmid could see more than a hundred dismounted men, all armed and heading their way. He and Hummels only had their rifles: two against one hundred and that one hundred backed up by a pair of tanks was not good in any way.

“We wait!” Again, Hummels missed at him with a hasty, annoyed tone. There was no thanks to Schmid after his spotter had obviously just saved both their lives.


There was a deafening blast that broke the temporary silence.

Schmid unconsciously threw his hands up to cover his ears as his eyes shut too. Ahead of them, out in the open on the main road through the village, there had come a sudden and fantastic explosion. When he opened his eyes he could see that the first tank was burning furiously… or what remained of it anyway as the turret and main gun were both inexplicitly missing. Afterwards his sight was drawn to movement away to the left where what appeared to be a Soviet T-80 came into view.

“Go for the second tank!”

“I am.” Hummels was way ahead of him. “Shut up and prepare to reload me in case we fail to get a hit.”

“Of course.” Schmid had been chastised and might have deserved it. He had been caught up in the excitement and not realised that the missileman he was assisting was just aware of the situation as he was.

“Firing!”

Less than a second later, the Chieftain tank which had been following the first exploded when the Metis missile impacted upon it. This explosion was nowhere near as violent as the first had been but still looked to Schmid to have done the job. He didn't have much time to observe the successes of the missile hit though for all around him there was gunfire. Many of the British infantry had been left in shock after the first tank had been hit and not realised as Schmid had where that destruction had come from in the form of the T-80 which he had spotted, but those same men opened fire towards him and Hummels after they fired their missile. Bullets flew in their direction and Schmid feared that very soon heavier weapons would be used to engage them as well.

“We need to get going!”

“I know.” Hummels was already packing up and preparing to move.

There was an exit through the ruins that ran backwards away from where they had chosen as a firing point and Schmid was soon heading that way with Hummels following close behind him. There would be further work to do as more tanks were certain to be around the village yet for now they needed to get away clean so that they could carry on the fight afterwards.


Throughout the rest of the day and into the night, the battle for Bissendorf would continue. The village was at the centre of the frontlines between the British 3rd Armoured Division and the Soviet 16GTD as the two formations engaged each other up close and personal in a slugging match causing death and destruction all around them. Heavier engagements would take place in Brelingen, Wademark, Burgwedel and Kirchhorst – nearby villages and small towns – but that didn't mean that the fighting in Bissendorf wouldn't be extremely violent.

The village was one of many in West Germany being utterly destroyed by the war and here Schmid was just one of millions of men fighting.





February 8th 1990
Leuth, West Germany

NORTHAG now had its field headquarters located close to the border with the Netherlands and at Site #13.

Site #13!

Leutnant Haas couldn't believe that the superstitious British, those who were making the decision on where to move the headquarters column to every twenty-four hours, had chosen Site #13 of all places. They had been to #3, #7, #1 and #10 since the dispersal plan had gone into effect and Haas had been expecting that #6 would be chosen soon enough. His fellow East Germans were waiting at that location ready to slaughter the command staff of NATO ground forces in northern West Germany when they arrived there and every day which passed without the arrival of the command vehicles and trucks increased the chances of them being detected there.

If today had seen a movement to Site #4 or #9 – for example – Haas would have accepted that better than #13 being chosen. It was absolutely inconceivable that this location would be chosen based upon it number being one regarded by so many people as unlucky.

Haas was left dumbfounded at such a decision though at the minute he had other things on his mind than worrying about today's chosen site. Later tonight a decision on where they would move to tomorrow would be made and perhaps then things might turn out as he hoped…


During his intensive training with the HVA to act abroad in a covert manner impersonating someone who he wasn't, Haas had been subjected to lectures which had covered the psychological pressures an intelligence officer living under cover in hostile lands would suffer. There would be the loneliness that would be encountered as well as the homesickness too. In addition, feelings of mistrust would develop towards everyone Haas would meet he was told and possibly even paranoia as well. Early in his career when he learnt his trade posing as a West German elsewhere apart from in the Federal Republic – he spent some time in Austria as well as Greece too – he had experienced all of this and afterwards was grateful for the warning he had been given.

Since arriving in West Germany, Haas had been burdened by something else that he had been warned about too: false attachments. Though he had tried to avoid it, he was being emotionally involved with this country which was his nation's enemy. As the West Germans would always say of East Germans, they were Germans too. He had tried his best to counter this yet it was such a difficult thing to do especially now in the midst of the ongoing war. He didn't want to see death and destruction rain down upon his fellow Germans. It was not the fault of them – even the military officers with whom he associated – that the war was occurring and that their own government was as unreasonable as it was in not seeing the light in what the best course was for their nation. His training kept telling him to rebel against this but the more he fought it the more difficult it became.

Haas remembered who he was and his oaths of service so wasn't about to betray who he really was nor the secrets of his country which he knew… yet he cheered for West Germany when news came of the victories they were winning in the field while also was left upset too when defeats came. His superiors back home if they witnessed his outward behaviour might have congratulated him on doing such a good job yet they wouldn't know the internal torment which he was suffering from. He feared that if this continued for an extended period of time then it might break him.

Events of yesterday and especially earlier today had brought forth Haas looking inwards at himself. He overheard briefings given and listened to the rumours with rising apprehension as to what first happened on the Lüneburg Heath and then with the Kassel Incident as well.


The West German I Corps was under NORTHAG command and several others officers within the transport security detachment which he served with had previously been assigned to units in peacetime that now formed that wartime command. Four combat divisions were assigned to fight on the North German Plain and when the Soviets had made their breakout yesterday they had crushed two of those under the weight of their artillery first then massed tanks and infantry. Both the 3rd Panzer and the 11th Panzergrenadier Division's had ceased to exist as divisional units when their brigades had been torn apart and while sub-units had managed to survive the battles they were nothing more than scattered battalions either cut-off behind the new frontlines or pushed out of the way and forced into retreat. The troubling news of what had happened there had been offset first by how the 1st Panzer Division had held their ground where they fought just to the south and then today when the 7th Panzer Division had joined a NORTHAG effort to counterattack and try to push the Soviets back. That latter division had advanced from the Nienburg area along the glacial valley where the Aller ran and coordinated with British and American forces either side in driving back parts of the Soviet Second Guards Tank & Third Shock Army's that had driven so far forward the day before.

Then there had come the rumours of what was being referred to as the 'Kassel Incident'.

Outside of NORTHAG's area of responsible and inside that of CENTAG, there had apparently been a furious explosion of ammunition – either in a convoy or possibly at a stored location – that had been seen and felt for many miles. A mushroom cloud had formed afterwards as a result. From what Haas had been told, the flashes of the ammunition blasts followed up by that visual sight had managed to convince certain people on the ground that a nuclear blast had occurred. Fighting between the Soviets with their Twentieth Guards Army and Belgian troops (under NORTHAG command) as well as part of the West German III Corps (with CENTAG) had been ongoing when the explosion occurred near Kassel adding to the tense situation.

Reports had gone up the chain of command that the Soviets had employed a thermonuclear device and requests came for a counterattack to be made using NATO nuclear weapons. Pointedly, from what Haas understood, those calls for nuclear retaliation hadn't been made from the Belgian or West German commanders on the scene but from others. Cooler heads had refused to do so without any proof of such a crossing of the nuclear threshold: there were no strategic indicators let alone any confirmation on the ground of a radiological nature.

How tense the situation had been at the time and who argued for what kind of retaliation wasn't known to those with whom Haas spoke but they had all been rather concerned. No West German – East German either! – wanted to see such weapons used on German soil. Once one was used, even a small weapon of a tactical nature, then the feeling that Haas shared with the West Germans he served with was that all would be put to use with the results being a nightmare of biblical proportions here in Germany.


While retaining such mixed feelings, Haas again found himself in possession of intelligence of great importance that yet again he was unable to pass onto his own side where much use could be made of it.

Centred around Braunschweig and Wolfsburg, though stretching between Hannover and the IGB crossing at Helmstedt, the 1st Panzer Division was inside a salient formed that pushed deep into a bulge-shaped area. There were reserve units from the Territorial Army – including a signals units which the man Haas was impersonating had once served within too – in that area too holding onto ground that was threatened with encirclement should the Second Guards Tank Army do what NATO intelligence expected it to do and make a push tomorrow in a southwestern direction towards Hannover and the Weser beyond. Such an attack had been stopped today but it was thought likely to come again and the British I Corps wouldn't be able to beat it back unless they withdrew into better defensive positions. As the 1st Panzer Division was now under British command, they would have to withdraw too. Such a retreat was to take place tonight of upwards of twenty thousand men, preceded and probably hampered by many more civilians as well, and certainly something that could be taken advantage of if Haas had been able to get that information out.

Furthermore, Haas also knew about the Americans with their long-delayed reinforcements for NORTHAG now starting to arrive. There were British troops shipping over from the UK mainland and the Dutch I Corps was too finally getting itself into position, but all of the talk here at NORTHAG headquarters was about the US III Corps as they were of significant strength as an offensive force… now that they had finally moved away from their POMCUS sites that had faced such severe chemical weapons attacks.

Currently they had some of their forces on the Lüneburg Heath, which had taken part in today's counterattack, though most of their troops were moving eastwards through tonight across Münsterland and Westphalia towards the Weser. They would have the cover of darkness as well as what was offered when they moved through the Teutoburgerwald to avoid detection and would too be using radio discipline on the march all to make sure that they weren't observed, but Haas knew that they were moving to the battle. He was also aware of their order of battle as the 1st Cavalry and the 5th Infantry Division's were different from their peacetime establishments back in the United States. By now his own side would certainly know about the third division of the US III Corps due to the 2nd Armored Division being in action today complete with two of its organic brigades, a Dutch brigade attached and also heavy reconnaissance & fire support from the independent 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, yet he could tell them too about the rest of the Americans coming forwards towards battle.

Their commander had have been killed by what he had heard here was a Spetsnaz missile strike upon his helicopters and delays inflicted due to those chemical attacks, but as far as Haas was concerned the Americans – just as the British said – were a potent force here. He worried that no one on his own side knew that they were underway towards where all the intelligence said that the Third Shock Army was expected to move tomorrow.


Haas had been turning all of this over in his mind when he had left the command vehicle that was his work station to have a cigarette. He had wrapped up warm to smoke outside and away from the sensitive communications equipment that his Hauptmann declared could be damaged by such activity; Haas knew how false that was.

He now went back inside into the warmth where his superior told him something that changed everything: tomorrow they were moving to Site #6.

February 9th 1990
Wittstock Airbase, East Germany

Being shot down had humbled him somewhat, Hauptmann Esser had been told by his commander.

Esser certainly didn't agree with such an observation as he regarded the whole affair as not something that was his fault and that he was still one of the most superior fighter pilots within Jagdfliegergeschwader 3 with far more experience than anyone else as well as an impressive wartime record so far. He was still mad as hell over what had happened and eager to get his own back against one of those F-15's that the Americans had. Some other pilots he had spoken with appeared frightened of such an aircraft but he knew that should he get close-in to combat an Eagle then he with his skills in an aircraft like the MiG-29 would make short work of another one of those fighters that had caused him to spend the last few days on the ground rather than in the air.

There weren't that many MiG-29 fighters left though hence why Esser and the rest of JG 3 were at Wittstock now rather than at Preschen as they were in peacetime and at the beginning of the war. Far too many of the new-build fighters had been lost in combat and – of course – this wasn't the time for the Soviets to transfer any of theirs from their units to the Luftstreitkrafte. At Wittstock there was a Soviet Air Force unit (the 33rd Fighter Aviation Regiment, part of the 16th Guards Fighter Aviation Division) which flew MiG-29's too yet hadn't suffered as many losses as Esser's unit: JG 3 had been transferred here.

The official line was that by flying alongside the 33rd Regiment, the lone East German combat wing of MiG-29's would be able to conduct joint operations with the Soviets and perform better in combat as they worked together in unity against their NATO opponents. Propaganda aside, Esser, his fellow pilots and what MiG-29's in Luftstreitkrafte markings remained available were to be lectured to by the Soviets here on their failures and shown the correct way to fly these advanced aircraft. The MiG-29 hadn't been long in service flown by East Germans and the Soviets had long regarded JG 3 as not up to their standards and by bringing them here to Wittstock they could school them on how not to waste such aircraft in combat as they believed had been done. Moreover, Esser also suspected that the Soviets also wanted what East German MiG-29's were left to make up their numbers with the 33rd Regiment. This formation had seen some of their aircraft shot down and while such numbers weren't overwhelming they still had cut into the available combat strength to a significant degree.

When he and his fellow pilots weren't in the sky in their aircraft there would be Soviet pilots in these MiG-29's which wore Luftstreitkrafte markings.


Thankfully, the 'joint operations' here between JG 3 and the 33rd Regiment didn't involve the mixing of pilots from both units paired as wingmen together. Esser and all aircrew within the Luftstreitkrafte – no matter which aircraft they flew from fighters to transports – spoke Russian as was necessary and were schooled in the same combat tactics yet the Soviets did things different from the East Germans, and vice versa, in many small but still important ways. That was supposed to soon change but for now when MiG-29's lifted off in twos and fours from Wittstock they would have crews of the same nationality.

Esser was thus now out on the taxiway with another MiG-29 beside him whose pilot was another survivor from their time at Preschen. Oberleutnant Bruno Frommer was someone else who had seen extensive combat during this conflict and in the past few years had been a 'volunteer' abroad serving in the air arms of friendly regimes. Frommer had been to Iraq like Esser had though also to Libya as well. This was someone whom Esser was comfortable flying alongside for he knew for one that the man wasn't about to be rattled by enemy fighters or missiles.

It had been more than five minutes since they had both led their aircraft out of the Hardened Aircraft Shelters (HAS's) and out first onto the flight-ramp before coming onto the taxiway. Back inside the protection of the HAS's, Esser had had his fighter fuelled and armed (while the blast doors were open to vent an accidental explosion) after last-minute maintenance checks had been made. It should have then been the case that he and Frommer should have at once got airborne and gone westwards as ordered. All throughout the day the Soviets were driving their Third Shock Army towards the Weser River, aiming to cross that water barrier south of Bremen he had been told in his mission brief, and they needed as much fighter cover available to stop enemy air attacks against them.

Why were they still sitting here on the ground though? There was an aircraft coming in for an emergency landing and so they had to wait. Esser believed that he and Frommer should have been given clearance ahead of such a landing as they were combat aircraft on their way towards the front while the aircraft which they were waiting for was not involved in such a crucial role. Moreover, if the emergency landing went wrong then they, like the other MiG-29's which were on the ground – admittedly not many at the minute but still some! – were all going to be stuck until any wreckage was cleared.

He damn well hoped that that inbound aircraft was of great importance to the war effort, more so than the armed and very capable aircraft which he and his wingman flew!


Whilst he waited, Esser glanced around first over his port wing and then out to starboard. He noted the mounts of earth dotted everywhere where close-in SAM and anti-aircraft gun emplacements where located to provide air defence for Wittstock alongside more which he knew were outside of the flight-area. He also stared towards signs of movement near the perimeter in several places where he saw many people milling about. From here he couldn't identify them though he knew that they were teenagers digging further defensive works here where infantry if necessary could take up positions in trenches and machine gun pits: Esser wondered what kind of situation would have to occur for a development like that this far inside East Germany! Regardless, those teenagers were members of the Freie Deutsche Jugend (FDJ). He himself had once been part of the FDJ – membership was more than necessary to get anywhere in life here in East Germany – as a young lad and had fond memories. The propaganda hadn't been too overbearing and there had always been something to do… including spending time with girls as well!

For a moment he recalled his first experiences as a man with a girl he attended an FDJ summer camp with on the Baltic coast many years ago now. He smiled at the memory of such carefree times.

At Wittstock, the FDJ was here doing their patriotic duty. The senior PHV officer attached to Esser's unit – why couldn't he have stayed behind at Preschen? – had told them that it was another example of unity between fraternal allies with the teenagers here helping to assist both Soviet and East German forces. Esser knew that schools across his country were closed due to the war but he didn't think that it was a good thing for those children to be here in such a dangerous place. His opinion on this matter wasn't one he was going to share anyway for it would count for nothing and only earn him a reprimand from the PHV.


Frommer came on the radio breaking Esser's distant thoughts; “It's a Seventy-Six coming in. Can you see it?” The short-range communication between them was informal and conducted in German rather than their previous contact with the tower made in Russian. “Oh… hang on. No...”

“That is an A-Fifty, Bruno.”

Esser looked ahead towards the end of the runaway and saw the A-50 aircraft approach. This airborne radar and command-control aircraft was based upon an Ilyushin-76 aircraft and there weren't many of these in service due to what he had heard were fierce losses even though they had been kept far back from the frontlines when engaged in supporting combat missions undertaken by other aircraft.

“Look at all of that smoke!”

“I see it.” There was black smoke pouring from the starboard wing, a wing which Esser saw was missing one of the four engines. He was astonished that the aircraft was still flying with what must have been major damage caused – probably by a missile strike – that had resulted in the loss of an engine and an ongoing fire.

As he continued to watch, the aircraft came down. He prepared to cringe with the expectation that there would be an impact with the ground but the crew aboard the A-50 did very well indeed. They got their aircraft on the ground and then slowed it down as it travelled further along the tarmac.

Esser was amazed at the skill shown to get such a big, badly-damaged aircraft down.

Moments later, when the A-50 stopped rolling and firefighting vehicles surrounded it, the tower came on the radio ordering him and Frommer to lift off. Esser acknowledged the command but then he saw something out of the corner of his eye.

“Air Attack!” He screamed into the radio mike fitted to his helmet while at the same time pushing the throttle forward. There were a pair of aircraft coming in from the south, very low and straight towards Wittstock: two F-4's with what looked like plenty of ordnance hanging beneath their wings!


Go, Go, Go, Go!

Esser mentally willed his fighter down the runaway. Any second lost here on the ground meant increasing the chance of imminent death. He had no time to glance out of the cockpit to check on those inbound enemy fighters for all of his attention was to get his own up to speed and airborne. He could imagine what those F-4 crews were seeing with his MiG-29 and that of his wingman still on the ground here and perfect targets to be taken out as helpless as they were. His wrist stung holding the throttle as it was but the pain was worth it.

It was just a little further to go…

The fighter came off the ground and Esser at once set about retracting the landing year. His eyes were upon his gauges waiting for the altitude off the ground that he needed to pull the stick back like he needed to.

Just another moment…

Esser conducted a combat take-off as he activated the afterburners as he pulled the control stick back while keeping the throttle where it was. All of his attention was focused upon the vertical climb that he now entered taking his aircraft up, up, up and at full speed getting away from the ground and into the sky above. Up there he would have a chance to fight back rather than be open to attack when down below.

When Esser finally levelled out of his climb, Esser was amazed that he was still alive. He was to the west of Wittstock and with his threat receivers wailing though he was soon manoeuvring across the sky with his jammers on aiming to break the lock-on of whomever was lighting him up. He sought to establish radio contact with ground control and also had to wonder what had happened to Frommer. His wingman didn't answer his quick radio call and Esser couldn't see him up here above the clouds which he had raced through.

He really didn't hope that those F-4's had shot down his comrade.





February 9th 1990
Kristiansand, Norway

HMS Coventry didn't come directly into Kristiansand as the Royal Navy vessel had other duties to attend to so the prisoners aboard were transferred from the frigate to shore in a pair of small motor-launches. Fregattenkapitan Wolke was mighty glad to be off that ship and away from the smug British officers aboard though apprehensive for his fate now that he was being taken to Norway. He had the added burden of worrying about the remains of his crew too: he was responsible for the thirteen fellow sailors that the now departed Coventry had rescued from the sea along with him.

Under the gaze of armed Norwegians – naval reservists he assumed – Wolke sat aboard one of those motor-launches as the shore approached with his head down and lost in his own thoughts.


Rescue had come yesterday in the form of a helicopter first that had circled above floating wreckage on the surface where beforehand had been the Halle.

Wolke had only just managed to escape from his ship as she had broken apart and slid beneath the rough seas while leaving so many of his men behind trapped aboard. It had been a case of every man for himself when the ship had broken apart and no time for false heroics: he hadn't even considered abiding by the foolishly romantic view that a captain should go down with his ship. Living had been the only thing on his mind at that point and it had been his whole focus when in the freezing cold water. He had held on with all of his might to a life-preserver which he had come across and been forced to physically fight another man for it as it could only save the life of one man, not two.

He had felt no shame for his actions there in doing what he had because at the time it had been necessary.

That helicopter had circled for some time while desperate sailors from Wolke's doomed ship hopelessly pleaded for assistance. He himself had waited in silence considering that he had to keep his strength and not waste it by shouting and trying to swim after an airborne helicopter as others had done… many of whom tired themselves out soon enough and disappeared under the water from the effort.

When the boat had come, launched from a ship coming up behind it, only then had Wolke made the effort needed. He had swum towards it as fast as he could with his life-preserver in tow but determined to be pulled out of the water by those aboard. Wolke had been the first man there and when the arms had come to get him onto the boat he had felt the relief of salvation wash over him.

Other men had been pulled from the Skagerrak too and there had been troubles with so many desperate men trying to clamber aboard all at once. Wolke had huddled in a corner keeping out of the way again at that point unashamed of what he had done in being the first here and not eager at all to assist the ongoing rescue effort.

It was only afterwards when the bigger Coventry had come closer had Wolke started to reconsider his actions. He became aware of how selfishly he had acted and that what he had done had gone against his oaths as an officer and also morality too. He had feared for his own life yet endanger those of others too for he had realised that he could have assisted in saving more men than eventually ended up being brought aboard the little boat first and then the ship from where that and the helicopter had come. His fear of drowning when in the water had overcome him and made him act as he had done, he told himself, and it would be the right thing to do to atone for those shameful acts afterwards.


Therefore, when aboard the Coventry late yesterday and through most of today, Wolke had been trying his best to do right by his remaining crew. He thought it best to make it known to the British his rank and to be the one with whom they dealt rather than have them mistreat his men as he had first feared they might. While he didn't speak English, there was a Royal Navy officer born in West Germany (to a military family, Wolke was informed by the Lieutenant-Commander who was the First Officer) aboard who spoke German and it was this man who was responsible for the prisoners from the Volksmarine. Wolke wasn't interrogated beyond being asked his name, rank, date-of-birth and his military service number – for record-keeping only apparently – and his men were given food and medical care rather than being beaten or threatened with death unless they revealed state secrets.

Wolke had never really believed that might have happened yet had tried to steel himself ready should the propaganda which he had heard about his country's enemies actually be true.

An introduction to the Coventry was given to Wolke… like he was a visiting dignitary! He leant that the ship was twice the size of his with a far bigger crew and carried a pair of helicopters. There was the lack of a main gun for the vessel though plenty of missiles carried along with anti-submarine torpedoes. He wasn't able to learn anything significant about these weapons nor the ship's combat systems as he was only given a pro forma brief. The vessel itself was only a few years old and named after one lost when the British had fought Argentina in 1982; it was clearly far more capable than his sunk Halle.

Wolke was told that he and his men were prisoners and would be treated under international laws governing the rules of conduct to be shown towards opposing military forces captured. The British made a big deal out of his and it was irksome to him how they treated him as someone to practise this on and also made remarks that while he couldn't understand suggested that they were morally superior to him by doing so. The unsaid suggestion was that he wouldn't be doing the same in their shoes.

When he met with the Captain, Coventry's commander spoke through his First Officer in assuring Wolke that the East Germans aboard would be treated well here and afterwards when they left the frigate before then inviting his counterpart to his stateroom for something to eat. Wolke made sure that his men were being fed too and only then did he agree to eat with the two Royal Navy officers. It was a hearty meal which Wolke had wanted to ravish down though had restrained himself for the sake of formality. During that dinner, he had been subject to what he considered British propaganda. They informed him that the combined Warsaw Pact navies – the United Baltic Fleet – had failed to breakout of the Baltic Exits following defeats inflicted by upon them by NATO ships, submarines, aircraft and missiles in a set-piece battle that the Coventry had played a small role in.

Like the Danish submarine which he had been told had been responsible for sinking the Halle, Wolke was told that the Coventry had been guarding the rear of the Baltic Exits and this frigate was claiming the destruction of a Soviet submarine. He wasn't sure how much of this was all true though it was clear that the British wanted him to believe what they were saying.

He nodded and pretended that it was all of no interest to him while eating their food.


Arriving in Norway, their new captors brought Wolke and his men seemingly right into the heart of the main harbour. He counted more than a dozen shops here including a couple of small warships though mainly civilian vessels that he could only assume were now undertaking military tasks. What those tasks were he didn't know yet he was certain that it must be important for this was wartime and Kristiansand was a major port.

Wolke was escorted off the motor-launch he was on and marched off with those other sailors from the Halle and into captivity here in Norway where he expected to sit out the war until a conclusion was reached… whatever that might be.





February 9th 1990
Schweinfurt, West Germany

As he had been told to do, Oberleutnant Korner curled up into the foetal position as he lay in the muddy trench with his eyes shut, his mouth open and his hands over his ears. Around him the other men who had leapt in here when the warning was shouted that B-52's were overhead were doing the same.

Then the first bombs made impact with the ground nearby as hell incarnate was unleashed.

Someone screamed near to Korner continuously as the bombs fell from the bombers overhead that they had only a few moments warning that were coming their way. Those screams were of pure terror and displayed an immense fear on the part of whoever had chosen to react that way. Another man near to Korner was repeating the Lord's Prayer over and over again. Korner could hear the shouts from that man as he pleaded with his God to save him between the blasts that kept on coming. He himself just kept as small as possible with the hope that doing nothing would keep him safe without external intervention.

Again and again and again the ground shook. Korner was lifted up out of the mud a few inches each time and then dropped back down into it again. It hadn't rained since yesterday and he was thankful for this otherwise as the trench lowly started to collapse around him he might have drowned within the mud. Instead he shuffled each time after landing towards what seemed safer ground rather than slide down deeper into the sinking ground.

Following the shakes and between the noises from those with him, Korner heard the blasts too. His hands couldn't protect his ears from them and he was convinced that at any moment now his eardrums were going to burst. Keeping his mouth wide open was meant to stop that happening, he had been told, though he wasn't sure as to whether such a thing would work. He couldn't help but momentarily wonder what it would be like to be left deaf after this in a world of silence.

More bombs fell as the bombing attack continued.

Korner knew why the Americans were using their massive aircraft this evening to blast Schweinfurt. This town had been captured on the war's first day by Soviet paratroopers with one of their airborne divisions creating a bridgehead into northern Bavaria through which an attack by a portion of their Eighth Guards Army had drove towards afterwards. The bridges over the Main River were later lost to air strikes but the temporary crossings here – which Korner was here to assist in the operation of in such a hostile environment – had been used to allow for first a Soviet motor rifle division and then a Polish tank division which had followed them to operate here deep inside West Germany.

Wurzburg was where the forward elements of the attacking Warsaw Pact troops were now, he had been told. This meant that the American Army in West Germany had been split into two with what was apparently one of their multi-division corps commands, the US VII Corps, assailed from both sides now and the other – the US V Corps – hit in the flank while fighting against the main body of the Eighth Guards Army on the other side of the Spessart. Holding Schweinfurt was the key to all of this though as it was a major communications network, including the crossings over the Main.

That was why the B-52's were overhead. Korner couldn't see them and certainly didn't want to. He had heard all about those aircraft with their giant internal bomb-bays loaded with countless high-explosive bombs and the devastating effects such weapons could have. Those tales came from those who had been here for some time rather than new arrivals like him who had been officially briefed that there was only a small, almost insignificant air threat to Schweinfurt and any bomber that the Americans had would be blasted out of the sky long before it could pose a threat.

So much for that piece of propaganda.

It would be the river that the bombers were targeting, Korner told himself as he continued to be bounced around the trench. They would be aiming to drop their bombs over the pontoon bridges, his fellow engineers there and the armoured vehicles backed up waiting to go over the Main for operations to the south and the east too. His visit up here to the headquarters complex outside the town itself had certainly saved his life even though he was being as roughly treated as he was. Bombing the city of Schweinfurt would be later used for propaganda purposes, he knew, just as it had already been following events here of the war's first day that he had recently been told about.

The official line ran that the majority of the city's inhabitants who had been killed by nerve gases in Schweinfurt on February 4th had died the horrible deaths that they had due to the Americans unleashing such weapons to 'stop the liberation'. There was no mention in the news reports that he had been told were being broadcast back home about the rockets that he had later found out had been targeted upon the landing sites for Soviet paratroopers nor the unfortunate change in direction of the wind which had blown such gases towards the city. Here in Schweinfurt, what few civilians remained following the city which had become an armed camp were given hastily-printed leaflets – Korner had seen one – repeating this and asserting that it had been the deliberate intention of the Americans to slaughter West Germans here.

Korner knew the truth and suspected that almost everyone did, but wisely kept his mouth shut on that matter.

The bombing came to a stop. All of a sudden there were no more bombs falling. Korner opened one eye first and then the other as he raised himself up to his hands and knees. At any moment he was ready to drop back down and protect himself again, but no more bombs fell. Yet there wasn't silence that met him though. That screaming from whoever that was nearby continued and then there was something else too. It was a strange noise off in the distance that he had no idea as to the source of.

After a while, slowly and still on edge, Korner got out of the trench and wiped the mud from his face. He felt heat upon him the moment that he stood up beside the road and turned around to look towards where he knew the centre of Schweinfurt was.

The noise was that of the greatest conflagration he had ever seen. His mouth came open again as he gasped in awe at what he was witnessing. This time, there would be no need for false propaganda as it could truly be said that what he was witnessing now was the work of NATO military action not that undertaken by his own side that had gone awry.

The Halle looks like a good schip.

February 10th 1990
Burgwedel, West Germany

40 Luftsturmregiment had been pulled back from the frontlines late yesterday and moved a short distance to the rear though still not far from where the ongoing fighting was taking place. There was a mobile battle underway in the battles around Hannover to the north and east which required tanks and armoured infantry with dismounted units such as the East German paratroopers unable to keep pace with the environment as it was there. The pull-back had come far too late for many of their number though with plenty of dead soldiers from this elite Landstreitkrafte formation not being able to make it to the village where they were supposed to regroup and be reorganised.

Gefreiter Schmid was one of the five hundred plus men who was at Burgwedel today and still able to fight: the other three hundred missing were between here and Hannover Airport either dead or in enemy custody. Like almost everyone else, officers and men, Schmid was tired, dirty and carrying minor war-wounds. His hands and knees were cut while he had bruises to his arms and legs. He stunk after being unable to wash for a week now and his uniform was torn and ripped in multiple places. The longest that he had slept for uninterrupted was a total of two and quarter hours while he hadn't had a proper meal since before the war begun. The medics had issued pills for the sergeants to give to themselves and then men to apparently make them feel better; Schmid had done as ordered to do in swallowing the pills but still had stomach cramps and a permanent headache.

Nonetheless, despite everything, he still wanted to keep on fighting and everyone he had spoken to had said the same thing when they had been together. Morale was at an all time high with everyone eager to return to battling the West Germans and the British who had killed so many of their comrades.

Schmid wanted to go back and finish what he had started.


Such decisions weren't those to be made by Schmid though, nor anyone else with the 40 Luftsturmregiment in fact. Orders had come down from higher above then regimental-level – the Soviet Second Guards Tank Army in fact – that a battle-hardened, elite airmobile unit such as the one pulled back to Burgwedel, even depleted as it was, was needed to see action again elsewhere and had to be readied.

Schmid was currently inside a school with many of his comrades while other men were inside a church building. These two locations inside the village were the only places where they were allowed to stay out of the rain outside and get some food inside them while also take the time for some rest as well. There was the distant sound of artillery off in the distance though that was far enough away to not be of a concern for a moment. Here Schmid ate and sat down in the dry while he waited to be told what was going on.

He had to wait a while for that to occur.

Finally, there came the call for those inside the school where Schmid was to stand-to outside. The rain had eased off and Schmid went outside as he was instructed to along with everyone else; what remained of the regiment was all gathered together along with what Schmid saw were some additions too. He had heard talk inside that after counting the cost of the losses taken there was to be a reorganisation and he saw that now as men were moved about. He himself was placed in what he realised was a company-group with men with whom he had served before but others too from different elements of the regiment now it was short of so many men. This whole process took some time with changes made during the roll-calls and Schmid found the whole thing very haphazard. The 40 Luftsturmregiment was usually so organised in everything, yet that was in peacetime and not after a week of fighting the enemy inside their own territory.

He paid attention too to the new officers with the regiment who wore a different uniform.

Those were Soviet Army men he saw. Part of his training was basic recognition of uniforms of allies and opponents as the 40 Luftsturmregiment was expected to fight almost anywhere. They wore insignia denoting them as junior men – lieutenants and captains – and they moved to stand alongside East Germans of fellow rank commanding the platoons and companies. This was something new…

There was a new regimental commander too. This Oberstleutnant was a fellow East German, Schmid saw, but someone he had never seen before. Schmid and the others were soon addressed by this man as he stood before them all. He had to shout to be heard among so many paratroopers gathered before him and there was a good chance that not all those he spoke to heard him.

Schmid did and he wasn't best pleased with what was said.

No mention was made as to where his predecessor was just that this new man was now in charge. He spoke of the fact that the regiment would soon be back in action again and that he would demand that the men do their best. Had they done so before? He told the men to ask themselves that. Had they not been forced to withdraw from where they were? He told them to consider as to whether that was because they hadn't fought hard enough? They would be in action again soon, tonight in fact, and would they do better this time than before? He told them to remember their duty and not to display acts of cowardice in fighting the enemy.

It was an outrageous statement to make. Schmid knew that they had all fought as hard as they could have and done their duty only to be beaten by a mass of enemy tanks that as a light infantry force they couldn't have hoped to overcome. A fighting withdrawal had been made in the face of the enemy and the regiment hadn't broke.

Schmid's morale sunk immediately and he was sure that around him it was the same with all of the other men. They had done so well and had been were eager to get fighting again but here had come this outsider to tell them the opposite. This was not the right thing to say to the regiment on the eve of returning to battle.





February 10th 1990
Kommando Landstreitkrafte, Geltow, East Germany

While he still had many duties to attend to, Generaloberst Ulrich did not have all of his time consumed by them. He had overseen the progress of the field armies which made up the Polish Front move through East Germany and to the frontlines in West Germany. There was still ongoing supervision needed to be done of securing the lines of communications for those forward troops and support elements in the rear yet he wasn't overly burdened by them.

Rather than spent his time idle, Ulrich was able to indulge himself in studying the 'bigger picture' of how the war was going between his duties. He was a student of military history and he was now positioned in a key role to see how the war was progressing. Battles of the ancient era were one thing and so were those epic conflicts of the Second World War, but the fighting across in West Germany during World War Three was wholly different as his influence could be felt there.

This evening, while men were fighting across on the other side of the IGB, Ulrich was at his command post in the warm comfort drinking coffee and talking with his deputy as they looked at the maps of where that was taking place.


“Wolfgang, one day they will call this the 'Hannover Salient'.”

“I don't doubt that, Heer General.” Like the commander of the Landstreitkrafte, his deputy was looking at the pins positioned on the map of the Lower Saxony area around Hannover.

“Will the British dare to make another counter-offensive? A corps-sized one this time?”

“General-Polkovnik Kostenko” (the former Belorussian Military District commander now in charge of the Polish Front) “and his staff are hoping that they will make the effort soon enough and fail to get anywhere significant.”

“And cut themselves off even more…?”

“That is my understanding, yes.”

On the map, Ulrich could see what the Kostenko was hoping for. One of the strongest NATO ground forces currently active in West Germany was the British I Corps. Three British and one West German divisions were its main composition with other smaller attachments from regular and reserve units of both nation's armies. This force was gathered around Hannover defending the general area in a large salient from attacks coming from the north and east being launched by the Soviet Second Guards Tank Army. Polish units, now with the Northern Front were to the south though of more significance were other Polish Front troops – the Soviet Twenty–Eighth Army – driving towards the Weser to the northwest. If the British I Corps remained where it was, fighting to keep hold of Hannover in what Ulrich understood was more to a political need than military necessity, then they were soon going to be in very serious trouble.

“The frontlines have moved since we last undated the map, Heer General.”

“Wolfgang, they move all of the time, back-and-forth in some places too, and it is hard to keep up.”

For Ulrich, the personal interest he had in the overall campaign rather than just the role he was playing was hampered by the movements on the battlefield in real-time. The fighting in West Germany was one of mobile warfare even in areas where from a distance the fighting seemed static as tanks and mechanised infantry clashed from near Jutland down into Austria. At night time the fighting would generally ease off – though that wasn't always the case – and there would often be big advance at dawn but also at other times through the day. When he had his staff update his maps showing the progress of the war he could sometimes be surprised at the scale of movement in places yet disappointed to see none elsewhere where he thought there would have come much.

“There's not much movement here near Flensburg.” Ulrich's deputy now brought his superior's attention to a second map; he was someone who understood his commander's interest and sought to aid him in that while they had a break from their other duties… however, it was not the case in this instance.

“Forget it!” Ulrich held his hands up for a second, surrendering the idea of discussing the situation there. He had a sip of his coffee, savoured its taste and was glad he was here in his headquarters and not with the chain-smoking Soviets in their command bunkers. “The situation there will be the same there in a week as it is today.

Here, Wolfgang, is where I am interested in.”

Ulrich moved to a third map located on a wall in his operations room below ground at Kommando Landstreitkrafte: this one showed the northern parts of Bavaria & Baden-Wurttemberg as well as central and southern parts of Hessen.

“Snetkov has yet to employ his second echelon tank army.”

“I fear, Wolfgang, he has waited far too long.” Ulrich knew what he could have done if he had been in the place of the Northern Front's commander. “He should have pushed it forward on day three, maybe day four towards Schweinfurt.”

“Or across the Fulda River between the West Germans and the Americans, Heer General?”

“No, that would have been a mistake.”

The Soviet First Guards Tank Army consisted of three Soviet tank divisions and an East German one too. It was meant to be an exploitation force to rush forward either behind the Twentieth Guards or Eighth Guards Army's when they made an initial breakthrough early in the war and pour the twelve hundred plus tanks forward deep into West Germany either into Hessen or Bavaria. Instead, it had been held back even when Ulrich considered that opportunities had come for such a movement of armour.

When the Third Shock Army, with an identical composition and role had been used on the North German Plain following the Second Guards Tank Army that onrush of armour had been met by a combined counterattack mounted by a trio of NATO divisions waiting in reserve themselves. Such a move had stung the Third Shock Army… but look where that formation was now. NATO hadn't pressed home their strike and withdrawn afterwards when they had struck at the Third Shock Army fearful of their own losses yet as far as Ulrich could tell Snetkov had been concerned about seeing something similar happen to the First Guards Tank Army and so hadn't committed his exploitation force at all. This was a grave error indeed.

He now explained to his deputy what he would have done: “Schweinfurt was the key, Wolfgang. That Soviet airborne division got near-destroyed holding on there until relief came but when the tanks from the Eighth Guards Army arrived they were still holding their landing ground and the roads open for access all across Bavaria. Look where the frontlines are now: Wurzburg and Karlstadt are still held by the Americans there.”

“Where could the First Guards Tank Army have gone in your opinion, Heer General?”

“West and southwest.” His hand moved over the map. “Aschaffenburg could have been moved against to threaten Frankfurt but the main effort should have been to take Wurzburg and then aim for the Rhine between Darmstadt and Heidelberg. The French were still taking their time and the river could have been reached before they could defend it.

If Snetkov had his tanks on the Rhine, behind Frankfurt too, then that would have been a potentially war-winning move.”

Ulrich had to wonder if when counting the cost of the 'mistake' there – as he saw it anyway – Snetkov's superior as Western-TVD Zinoviev was considering adding a single bullet to that total. He saw it as a major strategic blunder not to open up the frontlines there and the apparent hesitation was not something that the Soviets were going to take lightly when it was all down to a single man in uniform as they gambled on the fate of nations.


Both men had some more coffee and Ulrich spoke to an aide who came into the room bringing him a message form concerning the East German 9TD. Afterwards, he went back to his map of Lower Saxony again and looked at the reported position of that formation, one assigned to the Third Shock Army.

“Where is Schwarmstedt, Wolfgang?”

“Here.” A finger from his deputy pointed to a point on that map between Bremen and Hannover. “Near where the Aller meets the Leine.”

“Our Ninth Tanks have just reached there.”

“Kostenko employed one of his reserve airborne divisions at dawn this morning at Schwarmstedt as well as nearby Hodenhagen and Rethem as well – all river crossing sites. Now I see why.”

Ulrich did as well: “He is sending the Twenty–Eighth Army towards Nienburg, Wolfgang, while keeping the Third Shock Army pushing for Bremen still. They have Americans, Dutch and some West Germans between them and the Weser, but I think that we will see this now as the main focus of the war.

Once the river is crossed in strength by either army, or both, that NATO is finished in the north. They can't stop ten divisions moving together like that and not with all the mass civilian panic that is occurring because of the threats to Hamburg and Bremen.”

“So much for Wurzburg, Heer General?”

Ulrich turned to his deputy and saw a cunning smile on the face of the junior man. There was no malice there in such a remark.

“It seems that Kostenko knows his business. If he can trap the Dutch on the wrong side of the Weser in the north and the British to his south, then its either into the Netherlands or down to the Ruhr.”

Ulrich was impressed at what he was seeing. He wondered if there was someone like him across on the other side, maybe someone not so directly involved, who had heard about a mass movement of armour today through a little place called Schwarmstedt on the way to a riverside town known as Nienburg and understood the significance…

“Heer General, I think that maybe we are now seeing the end of the conflict.”

“Yes, I think you may be correct.” Ulrich had another thought though. “Or NATO dooms us all and makes Schwarmstedt, Nienburg and wherever else they desire to the targets of their nuclear warheads, Wolfgang.

You must remember that this conflict isn't all about the conventional fighting on the battlefield because there are other factors at play too.

Ask yourself this: if you were defending our country and NATO had a tank army over the Havel making for Brandenburg and Potsdam, with a view to racing afterwards for Berlin, while major parts of your own army were still on the other side of… say the Elbe, and you had the choice of giving in or using nuclear weapons, what would you do?”

No immediate response came from Ulrich's deputy as the man must have understood what his commander was getting at. The end was coming and if the situation had been dangerous before now when it came to the threat of nuclear weapons being used it was desperate indeed now.

February 11th 1990
Dehnsen, West Germany

It had taken some time and an influential intervention, but the Poles had seen sense and the orders hadn't come for the remains of the East German 1MRD to lead the assault over the Leine at Alfeld. Oberst Schrader had to thank Polkovnik Korovin for convincing the command staff of the Polish Second Army that his division couldn't complete that mission and would be best used afterwards providing flank security once the river was crossed.

Otherwise, Schrader was convinced, the last of his men would all have been killed this morning when the attack was made.

British troops on the western side of the Leine and especially in the high-ground above had inflicted massive casualties upon the Poles. The pair of regiments from their 2MRD which had gone over first had gotten their first taste of combat here in West Germany and it had been just as deadly as when Schrader's command had gone up against NATO troops. All their swagger was shattered when the artillery barrage had failed to silence the enemy's fire support and not killed men in their firing positions either. Armoured vehicles making amphibious crossings had been hit when still in the water and light transport helicopter knocked down – all taking the men inside them to their deaths. Long-range strikes by the artillery that the British had, supported by West German multiple-barrelled rocket-launchers, had been greatly effective in hitting follow-on troops and the British had been able to call upon air support too which had intervened decisively.

The Poles had got across the Leine though at the price of their lead units smashed to pieces and only after the British had withdrawn away from their initial positions; they had gone back into the high-ground behind them where Schrader was of the opinion that they aimed to truly make a fight for it in a mobile fashion as they had done to him. The fighting had moved into the forested uplands with current engagements taking place around the villages of Brunkensen and Warzen. Those locations commanded road access on the other side of the first ridge line with the Ith Hills to be crossed next. He wished the men of the Polish 4MRD good luck for they would need it. He had seen the maps of the area and taken the time to examine to geography there and baulked at the thought of fighting across such terrain to reach the Weser beyond.

Moving through the remains of the first Polish division and following the second, and ahead of a pair of tank divisions that made up the rest of the Polish Second Army waiting to follow, Schrader's beaten but still combat-capable command crossed the river over assault bridges that had been laid over the water. There were more than a dozen improvised crossings made around Alfeld – the Poles had followed the Soviet text-book examples perfectly – and those had provided the necessary means of getting over the Leine and to the right-hand flank of where the Poles were fighting.


Along the western side of the Leine ran a major road as well as a railway line. The valley provided good communications links for north-south movement as those ran past and through villages ultimately providing a link between Hannover and Gottingen. Limmer was the first village directly north of where the crossings from Alfeld were (that town being on the eastern side of the river) and then the smaller Godenau before there was then Dehnsen where Schrader currently was with his command column. This was another unremarkable place, just a village in the countryside home to a few hundred souls before the war, but it was on the road heading towards where Brüggen was. That village sat on the eastern bank too in a suitable location where further crossings could be made by the Poles but it was still defended as West German reservists were dug-in there as well as across the nearby thick forest of the Grafelde.

The valley here, on both sides of the river too, was what Schrader was responsible for securing and so he had his men now fighting for control of Brüggen. They were attacking from the rear with Schrader using an oversized battalion task force for that mission. He had tanks, armoured fighting vehicles and self-propelled mortars as well as infantry assigned to take that town from the rear and much success was being reported back to him. There came contentment with such news as the 1MRD needed some good news after the mauling that everyone knew it had taken in previous engagements having such a detrimental effect upon morale.

To strike further up the Leine Valley later today and especially tomorrow would be what Schrader was to have his command do after Brüggen had been dealt with. He was protecting the Poles' flank directly while also meant to drawn attention from British forces defending the approaches to Hannover from the south which such advances. Gronau and Elze, small towns with which commanded crossroads, were in that direction and he anticipated that far tougher fighting would occur at both of those when his men got there.

However, there remained the issue of the Külf.


In attacking westwards as they had done, the Poles had cut through a gap in the ridges towards Warzen first while then afterwards striking for Brunkensen as well. They had moved through an area of woodland whilst doing so – and taken many casualties – but avoided the immense ridge that was the Külf. This steep ridge dominated the Leine Valley north of Alfeld as it sat above the western side where Schrader had his men operating.

As a major geographical feature of the surrounding terrain, Schrader knew that if this wasn't wartime and instead a peacetime exercise then it would be something considered by a Landstreitkrafte officer as a perfect defensive position for dismounted infantry armed with machine guns and man-portable missiles. Attacking upwards to root out such defenders would be best done with plenty of fire support as well as patience and a realisation that casualties among the attacking force would be numerous.

Schrader had men getting ready to turn what would have been a troublesome theoretical staff exercise into a battle.

Before the Nationale Volksarmee marched across into West Germany, the 1MRD had a total of sixteen combat-manoeuvre battalions under command: nine of infantry in tracked and wheeled vehicles, six tank battalions and the final one of consisting of reconnaissance troops & armour. After the battles which Schrader's men had fought and the losses taken, he had reorganised his command into a total of six battalion-sized units now. One of those was currently fighting around Brüggen with another three ready to follow them once they had completed that mission in moving northwards. His two other battalions, formed in the main of infantry with armoured personnel carriers, were here in Dehnsen where Schrader was. He was waiting to send them into battle where they would begin what he expected to be a bloody and methodical process of routing out the enemy he expected to be up there. Those armed troops along with artillery observers too all had to be eliminated to secure this area.

What Schrader was waiting for was the promised air support to show up. There was meant to be a major air strike involving half a dozen fighter-bombers dropping napalm across the Külf with careful targeting done so that the weapons meant to boil NATO forces didn't do the same to his men. Those Sukhoi-17's were running late though and Schrader wasn't going to attack without them.

He would wait until they arrived.





February 11th 1990
Kiel, West Germany

Kiel wasn't somewhere that Generalmajor Fritsch wished to be today. He had far too much work to be done from his base of operations at Neumünster as well as a desire to seek some pleasure once there too for himself. However he had no choice though but to attend the ceremony taking place in the city beside the Baltic as it had been decreed personally by Strauss – the civilian to whom Fritsch even as a senior Nationale Volksarmee officer was subordinate to – that his attendance was required.

The ceremony was taking place so that 'the people could celebrate their liberation'.

Kiel was full of East German and Soviet officials and troops here overseeing a large propaganda event to which much work had been done to stage-manage it in the right fashion. There were media present too to broadcast images and stories of what was taking place as well as many West German civilians – now Germans, Fritsch had to remind himself – who had been encouraged to attend using all sorts of means to get them there. Speeches were to be made, medals handed out and the promise of a new beginning was meant to be presented here.

Fritsch was smart enough to keep his feelings on the matter to himself. He knew damn well how these 'Germans' here regarded him and everyone else from his own country as well as their views on the Soviets too. These civilians dragooned into turning out in the centre of the city would like him rather be anywhere else. Moreover, plenty of those in uniform wanted nothing to do with something such as this either. None of what he felt was verbalised and instead he had been prepared to spend the day pretending to listen to the speeches given and to be interested in the parades while instead having his mind elsewhere.


Alas, that was not to be: there were others in Kiel with a determination to make his day in Kiel tiresome and full of hassle.

To begin with, there was General-mayor Anisimov from the KGB. This Soviet officer of the same rank of him was someone who had sought him out here in Kiel on purpose after Fritsch had previously made several successful attempts to dodge him. Anisimov headed up the KGB force with the Soviet Thirty–Eighth Airborne Corps and his duties had been at the frontlines allowing for Fritsch to stay out of his way. Today though Anisimov wasn't involved in supervising the political security of the troops fighting across Schleswig as well as overseeing interrogations of POW's; he wanted to talk to Fritsch instead about the deaths of several of his personnel which had taken place in the rear across the occupied area where Fritsch was in command.

On three different occasions now, KGB officers had been killed by guerrillas, partisans and terrorists. Anisimov blamed Fritsch for this in radio communications and now he did so in person. Moreover, the KGB officer also remarked on Fritsch's 'other activities' too with how he was living in hotel in near-luxury at Neumünster and spending the nights with young women who were in a vulnerable condition. Fritsch's moral character was criticised here with Anisimov making it clear that he had reported this up the chain of command. The issue at stake, Anisimov carried on, was the failures being shown by Fritsch in the duties he was tasked to perform in the rear held up against how he was spending his time entertaining himself. Before Fritsch could protest, the KGB officer stated that he had heard the excuse that had been given to Strauss over the fact that Fritsch was only supposed to be guarding the efforts of the Strauss Group rather than pacifying the region and he wasn't prepared to listen to that again: Fritsch had enough men to do both roles if he forgot his distractions and did his duty!

Furious, but again holding his tongue, Fritsch had to take all of this personal criticism from the KGB officer without a word of complaint. He was aware that Strauss was already unhappy with him at how many losses his own personnel had taken when they were out doing what they were as well as the general security situation and now he had Anisimov on at him too. The two of them were going to cause him plenty of trouble soon enough and the best thing he would do was to say nothing for the time being and try to get himself out of this situation using his own political connections high up in the Luftstreitkrafte.

Moving on after all of that, Anisimov then turned without being prompted by Fritsch to the issue of manpower available for the security duties in the rear that he had spoken of Fritsch not preforming to a satisfactory level. There was to be a battalion of Soviet paratroopers and a KGB anti-terrorist detachment both assigned to Fritsch's headquarters as well as a colonel whom Anisimov had chosen personally. The paratroopers were from one of the Soviet 7GAD's regiments who had landed in Kiel when the war begun and afterwards been fighting up at the frontlines against the Danes. They were to be released for duties in the rear and broken down into a trio of companies based throughout the occupied area. Instead of garrison duty Fritsch was to use the paratroopers to react to armed attacks and chase down the perpetrators so those couldn't be repeated. The intelligence team and the colonel at Neumünster with Fritsch were to further assist in this effort to eliminate armed assailants so that the region could be pacified.


After finally getting away from the KGB, Fritsch was also unfortunate to run into one of the senior Soviet Army staff officers from the Thirty–Eighth Airborne Corps headquarters as well. This man was a bore instead of a tyrant and wanted to give Fritsch a briefing on the current military situation as he had been instructed to; Fritsch's role in the rear meant that he had to be up to speed. He already had his own people moving back and forth between Ostenfeld (where that headquarters currently was) and Neumünster who had told him about the intelligence pointing to arrivals in Denmark of further NATO troops plus the activities of the enemy at sea and didn't need to hear it all again.

Persistence was the mark of this officer though who wanted Fritsch to understand the possible threats of an enemy counterattack taking place in the rear coming from the air or the sea. The Thirty–Eighth Airborne Corps wanted to attach liaison officers direct to his headquarters to provide a better level of coordination ready to meet such a possibility. Dealing with him as best as possible, a man who went on and on and repeated himself, Fritsch agreed to this while all the time thinking that surely such a thing should have been an order from above anyway.

Only afterwards did he realise that now he would have two different sets of outsiders at his headquarters and any chance he had of further stress relief to unburden himself was now gone for the foreseeable future.


Strauss was the head functionary for the Northwestern Administration and a man who Fritsch regarded as far too ready to believe his own propaganda. He was giving a speech this afternoon as Fritsch watched and pretended to listen concerning the so-called liberation and the war which had brought that about. In relation to the latter, Strauss spoke at length about the 'evils plots' of 'imperialists aboard'. He blamed Bush and Thatcher and Mitterrand for the deaths of Germans. There was real passion in his voice and those around him nodded – Fritsch included – though those in the assembled audience looked far from impressed.

The small crowd out in the open were all surrounded by armed men after being coerced into being here and Fritsch could see all sorts of emotions on display from fear to horror to even apparent boredom. It was quite a sight and he was engrossed in it…

…so much so that he missed the sound of the first gunshot.

He heard the second crack from a rifle fired from not so far in the distance – possibly over in the buildings to the left, from up high somewhere – and instinct took over: Fritsch dropped down from his previous standing position to the ground. All around him on the improvised stage there were others getting as low as possible like him with all sorts of commotion going on from shouts to whimpers and people scrambling about to get off the stage too.

A third shot then rang out and afterwards there came no more. Instead there were more screams, plenty of shouting and the situation went from commotion to pandemonium as the crowd ahead was now reacting too. Fritsch stayed still where he was for only a short time as he had weighed the risk of being the target of a bullet against that of being crushed by the crowd and staying still had come out unfavourably in that equation.

Like many others, Fritsch was soon fleeing for his life.


The successful assassination of Strauss by a gunman with a high-powered rifle – Fritsch later suspected a NATO special forces sniper – was the spark that set Kiel alight. After the panic amongst that crowd there had come trouble in the immediate area and then that had fast spread outwards. Physical violence had taken place among civilians and the security personnel present. There had come injuries and further trouble relating from that. Guerrillas had moved in afterwards in what was clearly not something spontaneous. All across the city they had soon attacked areas where security forces were leaving to deal with the trouble at the scene of the Strauss assassination.

The result was the loss of control by occupying forces of most of Kiel by nightfall. Around certain key points of a strategic nature – the naval base, the docks and the canal locks – control was maintained but almost everywhere else it was lost. Immense fires soon started leaving areas aflame as well. Casualties among security forces were of a great number.

This all occurred while Fritsch was meant to be responsible for making sure that nothing like this happened.

Chapter Ten – Pressure

February 12th 1990
West Berlin

Leutnant Platz walked out away from the cover offered beside the building and into the open. He had his PM-63 sub-machine gun with him and begun to spray 9mm bullets towards the French troops up ahead. He got off maybe half a dozen shots before return fire came and he was felled by bullets himself from multiple sources who all had a clear line of fire.

It was a clear case of suicide.

Fighting back the sudden nausea as well as trying with all of his might to stop his eyes from watering, Feldwebel Weiss turned away from the sight of his officer's body and towards his men. “Stay where you are!” He called out to them despite none looking as if they were about to move. “They have us pinned down and we wait!”

Out in the street lay the body of Platz. Weiss didn't want to look at the man but couldn't help doing so. Blood was starting to pool around the corpse and there was also something else rather unpleasant to see: the officer's left leg was twitching somewhat along his boot to scuff the ground. Weiss was certain that Platz was dead yet there remained something there in him causing that movement to occur. He had seen plenty of men die so far in this conflict, including several of his own men whom he as their sergeant was responsible for, but this was altogether something very different indeed.

As he continued to stare, he considered why Platz had done what he just had.


Just before dawn, Platz had informed Weiss that the fighting within the British Sector of West Berlin was soon coming to an end as the last organised NATO units – British and French forces plus the remains of the beaten Americans – were making a last stand in the area around Tegel Airport as well as north of Spandau too. They were under attack from all sides though their now all-round defence and desperation made them a strong opponent: as they ran out of ammunition, space and time their resistance had strengthened. All available combat units inside West Berlin were to now take part in the fight to finish off the enemy and so Platz's platoon was needed to move away from its rear area tasks around the Olympiastadion where their duties had been concerned with the British military facilities nearby.

Platz had spoken of the latest rumours that were going around too: those concerning the apparent nuclear destruction of Magdeburg. That was not true, he reminded Weiss, and he wanted that made clear to the men. The other day the same fate had been said to have befallen Dresden and before that Leipzig. All of this was false and those spreading such lies needed to be dealt with internally before it came to the attention of someone higher-up in the chain of command… after which anyone repeating such a wild claim would surely be sorry.

In listening to his officer speak, Weiss had been able to sense in Platz plenty to cause him some concern. The almost whispered tone of voice was worrying and so to had been the inability to meet eye contact either. There was a sadness in the man on display. However, Weiss himself was not in the best way either after eight previous days of the war and the start of a ninth day of being here in West Berlin. He was feeling the strain physically as well as mentally of all of this. There was the guilt that he felt for the things that he had been forced to do and the pressure from above – even if it wasn't overt – to achieve what was tasked from their superiors.


He hadn't understood just how much pressure Platz was under though as well as not fully grasping the internal guilt that his officer was carrying around with him. This wasn't just because of all that had occurred here in West Berlin but everything previous to this since last year when the Felix Dzerzhinsky Guard Regiment had operated elsewhere and done what it had in other places too.

The man had a young bride back home; if Weiss remembered correctly that was somewhere near Weimar or Jena. She was pregnant too with Platz's first child after a marriage that had taken place last summer before most of the country had for a while gone crazy.

What would become of her now?


Gunfire from the French up ahead suddenly increased in intensity and then there was the sound of vehicles moving this way. Weiss carefully braved a look and saw that there was at least two, maybe more of those four-wheeled armoured personnel carriers that the French had moving this way. They carried a medium machine guns as their armament and could be deadly if used in the right manner, but not here. He had to take his mind off the matter of what had occurred with Platz and redirect it towards his duty.

“Muhlenberg,” he called out to one of his men who carried an RPG-16 rocket-launcher, “hit that vehicle with your Grom!”

“Yes, Feldwebel.” The reply was instant and full of confidence. Weiss didn't know yet how the platoon would react to the death of Platz, especially as they would have seen it occur in the same manner as he had, but for now they were remembering their duty as he was.

“Hauser, make sure you have a reload ready at once!”

“I have, Feldwebel.” Muhlenberg and his assistant grenadier Hauser were both with the platoon on attachment from one of the regiment's heavy weapons company's. Each knew their duty yet Weiss had been taught long ago to always make sure.

“Open fire when you are ready!”

Platz's death was a tragedy but there was still a war to be fought. Moreover, Weiss had to remember that the loss of his officer's life was just one of so many which had occurred not just here in West Berlin, but throughout the two Germany's, the rest of Europe and around the world too.





February 12th 1990
Along the Autobahn to Osnabrück, West Germany

Captain Clayton Dixon, United States Army Reserve, served in peacetime on a part-time basis with the 157th Infantry Brigade based in Pennsylvania. With that formation arriving in Europe yesterday as part of the 24th Infantry Division, he was now with the divisional staff and assigned to the transportation security liaison first working alongside Belgian Army officers and now with those from the West German Army.

Leutnant Haas would rather that it was anyone else but he who was tasked to be with a man like Dixon as the Americans moved through western Lower Saxony towards the frontlines. He found this captain to be obnoxious, patronising and the most disagreeable person he had met in a very long time. Dixon spoke German too and thought that the correct thing to do was to practise this language that he hadn't spoken in a while with Haas as the two of them travelled from Aachen where they had linked up last night all the way up to Osnabrück and beyond if Haas didn't manage to get away from the man there.

This was certainly the worst possible reassignment for the imposter from the HVA that Haas was.


At first Dixon had wanted to talk about the journey undertaken by his brigade and the rest of the division too. He spoke of how once mobilised across Pennsylvania and Georgia – the 157th Brigade in the former and in the latter state the two combat brigades and the rest of the 24th Division – the men had waited to be flown across to Europe while shipping was hastily assembled to get all of their equipment across the ocean. Dixon related tales of immense vessels known as 'fast sealift ships' being loaded at places such as Philadelphia and Wilmington in the North-Eastern United States as well as Charleston and Savannah in 'Dixie'. Five of those big ships as well as a fleet of smaller vessels had taken almost everything needed to field a full division across the North Atlantic when protected by NATO warships and aircraft at sea. The fighting men had travelled by air to Europe once the ships were in-sight of the coast and Dixon had done the same as them as he had been aboard a civilian Boeing-747 in Pan-Am colours that had been requisitioned by the American government.

Dixon had arrived at Brussels airport and then travelled to Antwerp where two of the fast sealift ships had arrived; more vessels were at Flushing in the Netherlands as well as Terneuzen and Zeebrugge in Belgium. Damage done to the immense Europoort facility at the Hook of Holland outside of Rotterdam from enemy air-launched missiles meant that no large ships would be able to unload with haste there for some time. When at Antwerp, Dixon had been present to witness the speed with which the pair of fast sealift ships were unloaded. In a nod to who he believed Haas was, he mentioned how those ships had been built several years ago at Emden in West Germany first for commercial use and later acquired by the United States for naval reserve duties. They were roll-on/roll-off vessels which had been used to transport not just tanks and armoured vehicles across the North Atlantic but other tracked vehicles too as well as countless trucks and jeeps. The Belgians had been waiting for the vessels to arrive and known the exact composition of their cargo as well as the manner in which they had been loaded so that as the ships docked at once the vehicles started coming off to be met by drivers to take them away from the quayside in designated staging areas for pre-deployment.

Dixon assured Haas that it had been an awe-inspiring sight to witness. He was a logistics officer and knew what he was talking about too – this was Dixon's opinion of himself anyway – for he had been there at Wilmington in Delaware when one of those vessels had been loaded in such a way that upon arrival in Europe it could be offloaded in the fashion that it was done.

Afterwards, the Americans had travelled fast across the southern part of the Netherlands and Belgium's northern reaches only linking up as a whole division around Aachen inside West Germany. Motorways had been cleared for their use and detours taken around bridges that had been knocked down by enemy action so there was no delay at all in the transit through the Low Countries as there shouldn't be here in West Germany either.


Dixon and the rest of the Americans that had arrived in the Low Countries – the 24th Division had been joined by other units that Haas hadn't been informed the designation of for reasons of operational security in crossing the ocean (one possibly being an armoured training unit from the desert in California) – were to join the US III Corps fighting along the Weser.

A Soviet field army had pushed the Americans back over the wide river first at Nienburg and afterwards then a smaller place called Hoya too. Dixon had been informed how the rest of the III Corps had made a withdrawal across the river after the Soviet penetrations to get to those locations and were now fighting on the western side of the Weser. The 24th Division was now riding to the rescue with the belief in the American that the Soviets would face a counterattack from these fresh, eager troops to push them back over the river the moment they reached there. Dixon spoke of how Haas would leave them at Osnabrück and not be fortunate to be present to witness such an attack taking place; he seemed certain of this despite acknowledging that the strategic plans like that weren't being told at this stage to junior officers in the rear.

At length, Dixon moved on to talk about his view of what should have happened the moment that the Soviets managed to get over the Weser and leaving them with no major geographical features ahead of them for a major drive further west and southwest: their bridgeheads should have been subject to thermonuclear attack. Nienburg and then Hoya afterwards if necessary could have been struck with what he assured Haas were 'small, clean warheads' to eliminate the crossings that the Soviets had operational as well as their lead units. There would have been 'only a few' civilian casualties, Dixon added, when doing such a thing as he believed the towns would have already been empty of civilians fleeing once they heard that the Soviet Army was approaching.

Why such a strategy hadn't been employed to eliminate the attacking elements of the Soviet Twenty–Eighth Army as they started to go over the Weser was a political decision that in Dixon's opinion was a mistake. Doctrine called for such attacks to be made to in an instant obviate rampaging enemy armoured spearheads on the battlefield getting over a waterway such as the Weser. Dixon added to these statements by explaining to Haas his further beliefs on the matter concerning this that West Germany's allies were pressurising the government to use such weapons on the battlefield but were afraid to apply that pressure too much less Kohl and his ministers in their bunker do 'the unthinkable'.

What did Dixon regard as the unthinkable? Withdraw from the NATO alliance and seek a separate peace with the Soviets to avoid their country becoming a thermonuclear battlefield.

Haas hadn't been able to argue against that belief as Dixon might have been correct there, yet neither of them was in a position to know otherwise.


Autobahn-1 crossed over the Dortmund-Ems Canal east of the town of Greven and very close to the Münster-Osnabrück Airport. Due to the highway bridge, the airport and this section of that major internal waterway all located nearby each other in such a fashion had made the area around Greven a target for the Soviets. That town had been subject to attack from missiles and bombs too in addition to the strategic transport links. The bridge that took the highway over the waterway below was still standing yet much damage had been inflicted by high-explosive bombs falling from Soviet aircraft in close proximity to it. The Autobahn was needed to be used by the Americans though – as well as other NATO forces fighting further north around Bremen for their own communications with the rear – as so a set of temporary crossings had been constructed right in the shadow of that construction. The pontoon bridges over the canal were numerous and built to take the weight of armoured vehicles being transported across loaded upon low-loader trailers as those with the 24th Division were; therefore they were sturdy crossings.

Haas had left the truck in which he had been with Dixon upon the suggestion of the American that they do so for the purposes of stretching their legs for a bit after the long drive up from Aachen as well as to observe some of the vehicles going over those pontoon bridges.

If he hadn't have done so then things would have been mighty different indeed…

“Hauptmann, that man over there in the truck with the American is not Leutnant Andreas Dietzsch!” Someone on the other side of the truck, out here in the cold morning sunshine, was talking about him.

“What do you mean?” The response from whom Haas presumed was the captain referred to sounded very dismissive of such a statement.

“I know Andreas Dietzsch. We both served in the ABC-Abwehrbataillon 720 together at Hage two years ago. The two of us were in the signals detachment for that unit before he afterwards transferred east to another unit near Wolfsburg.”

“Are you certain that that is not him, Leutnant? Mistakes can be made especially with all of the stresses that we are under.”

“That man there, Hauptmann, is not Andreas Dietzsch. We went drinking together at the weekends and fell out when he became inappropriate with my younger sister – I ended our friendship with a punch! Sir, I recommend that you contact the Feldjager because that man there is an imposter up to no good at all.”

Whoever, Haas' accuser was he was certainly vocal in his denunciation and also perfectly correct. The officer who the HVA had cast Haas to take the physical place of had certainly served within the NBC reconnaissance battalion that was spoken of; Haas had read the file on the man over and over again. Before his assignment, during peacetime, he had asked his controllers about such a risk of being identified by someone as he was now and they had told him that their intelligence work into the make-up of West German Territoralheer officers meant to be attached to the NORTHAG command staff in wartime included no one whom should have known Dietzsch beforehand. Haas had worried them over the assurances of that yet those had been proved correct when he was with NORTHAG's field headquarters early in the war.

However, he was no longer isolated as he had been with few West Germans about as there were many men wearing the same uniform as he was now assisting their NATO allies in moving throughout the country. He recalled earlier how one man had stared quite strangely at him back in Aachen and now remembered that man's face. His fellow lieutenant was on the other side of this truck but Haas suspected that at any moment he would come around to this side possibly to distract him while his captain brought along the military police.

Then Haas recalled that Dixon spoke German rather fluently. He turned around from looking at the river and worrying over his impending doom to see that it was right before him in the form of the pistol that the American now had pointed straight towards his face.

“Hurensohn!” Shouted Dixon and Haas knew that it was all over for him.





February 12th 1990
Achim, West Germany

Bremen, Hamburg and everywhere in between in this part of West Germany, all territory held by NATO forces on the eastern side of the Weser, was being evacuated. They weren't just pulling out their troops either but thousands upon thousands of civilians were being protected as they fled their homes too moving westwards towards the apparent safety on the western side of the river. There were Dutch and West German troops who were pulling out and crossing the Weser in Bremen as well as just to the north to there; some under the command of the Netherlands I Corps with others from the LANDJUT Corps who had first retreated in Hamburg at the beginning of the war.

There were strong and numerous forces of the Third Shock Army moving against them as they did so with many divisions under the command of that field army coming from the east and southeast. In addition, there were paratroopers – along with light armour – who had been in Bremerhaven and nearby since the start of the war who were advancing from the northwest too applying further pressure as NATO made their withdrawal.

Major Koch could only watch a small part of this take place from the vision blocks of his T-55 tank yet what he was seeing in the town of Achim, located in the Weser Valley upstream of Bremen, gave a good indication as to the scale of such a major enemy retreat to avoid being caught in the attempt to trap them on the wrong side of the Weser. He was limited to what he could see with his own eyes, what was on the divisional radio net now that the 2/17R had been reattached to the 17MRD and the morning's intelligence brief which he had attended before his command was sent into Achim.

Around him was most of the rest of Koch's parent division. Motorised rifle units as well as other tanks along as reconnaissance and combat engineering units were moving through this town. The mission was to engage and destroy any enemy units here which had chosen to remain behind. All intelligence pointed to Achim as having been abandoned by NATO yet that might not necessarily be the case with the possibility that enemy units may have remained behind deliberately or accidentally to slow the progress of the 17MRD following the approach routes to Bremen from this direction.


To Koch's left lay the main portion of Achim through which a slow and cautious advance was being made by infantry units. On his right to the north of the town other tanks were moving along the main highway as they faced minefields rather than snipers and demolitions which were present inside Achim. He himself was leading his understrength battalion along the course of the railway line in another slow-moving advance. Koch regarded the danger from enemy units willing to engage his tanks as serious and not something to be dismissed yet the greatest danger that he saw came from the skies as well as all the destruction that the West Germans had left in their wake when they had made their withdrawal from this area under the cover of darkness in the early hours of this morning.

In Langwedel, Etelsen and Uesen – smaller towns also beside the Weser and through which the 17MRD had advanced late last night and into today – there had been devastation left in the wake of the West Germans as they fled. They had undertaken an orgy of destruction to destroy anything of any value to the invader as well as to make a military occupation very unattractive indeed. Koch had seen the after-effects of the downing of bridges elsewhere since the war had begun as well as further explosions to block roads with rubble, cause rivers to flood low-lying land by blowing open embankments and the fires lit in woodland to make them temporary impassable.

Those three towns and now Achim were very different indeed in the scale of what was done.

The railway line was just one example. Explosive charges had been set along the track and the resulting blasts had torn up large sections. Furthermore, all necessary infrastructure along the line that Koch had seen were destroyed too from overhead power-lines brought down to further blasts ripping through switching points and posts holding signals lights. Elsewhere throughout the towns on the approaches to Bremen the West Germans had blasted apart public utilities facilities and any bridge they could find that would cause a delay to the invader. Warehouses where food might be found were on fire and large shops emptied of the same. Civilian buses and construction equipment was missing or destroyed in-place if the West Germans hadn't taken those with them. Where there had been petrol stations those had been drained of all fuel stored in their underground tanks and then the buildings demolished as well. Street signs were missing from everywhere in the hope that Koch believed to deny directions to the advancing East German forces.

It had all been thoroughly organised, Koch could see. Plenty of planning had been done across must what have been many years, decades even to do this on such a scale. However at the same time, amongst all of that destruction there were certain facilities that Koch might have expected to see wiped out that were not. The West Germans had left alone hospitals and smaller clinics as well as fire stations with such civilian services presumably being untouched as there were still some ordinary West Germans who hadn't left with NATO troops. He believed that after everything he had seen elsewhere with civilians who stayed in their homes after the frontlines passed them by than medical care and protection against fires would be the last of their worries…


His tanks rumbled slowly along the course of the railway. Koch had them moving slowly with caution employed to guard against an ambush on the ground and also men tasked to keep an eye upon the cloudy skies above in case aircraft or armed helicopters made an appearance. The latter threat worried him more as while a man on the ground with a rocket-launcher or an armoured vehicle could do much damage worst could come from an air attack. NATO had been using their air power over and over again to strike against the Third Shock Army as it moved towards Bremen and Koch had to wonder where were the friendly aircraft meant to be protecting those like him on the ground.

Generally straight, the railway tracks ran towards the city up ahead with trees surrounded the raised embankment among which they sat. Such an elevated position with that cover offered to an attacker made Koch very uncomfortable indeed. The soonest he was through with this mission the better. He was out in the open with what men under his command he had left and while they were advancing and therefore helping to win the war, yet the ever present danger of attack from the air was concerning.

Koch wasn't involved in the grand strategy of matters of this war yet he could understand that despite his bad experiences at times NATO was being driven back across West Germany. Their air power was strong though, overwhelming at times, and was keeping this war from being won.

He hoped that his masters – military and political – were going to deal with that soonest otherwise he couldn't see a suitable endgame even with so much enemy territory taken.

Chapter Eleven – Air Power

February 13th 1990
Kommando Landstreitkrafte, Geltow, East Germany

According to the now confirmed information available, the helicopter carrying the Commander of the Western-TVD had been downed last night somewhere near his Ziegelroda Forest headquarters and Marshal Zinoviev killed. More details were not forthcoming though Generaloberst Ulrich suspected that a NATO fighter was responsible for undertaking such an act. Whether it had been a pre-planned intelligence-led coup de grace or just plain luck really didn't matter because the man was dead. He had a deputy and a capable staff, but Zinoviev was in Ulrich's opinion a military genius (despite being a Germanphobe) and would be missed.

The man would himself miss seeing the results of his grand maskirovka today when the offensive to finish off NATO here in Germany commenced in an hour or so when dawn arrived. Ulrich had only been made aware of what was in the offing overnight as the operational security had been so tight and he believed that NATO certainly had no idea what was coming.

If everything went according to plan the war would be won today.


At his maps again, Ulrich studied the ground where the multiple strikes were to be made to break open the frontlines for good. He was unashamedly in awe at what had been achieved in keeping everyone – including himself – unaware of what was coming. All that those outside Zinoviev's staff thought that they knew about the intentions of the Western-TVD's commander for upcoming operations was false information; this included those involved on the Soviet-led side, not just the senior NATO commanders on the other side.

That was what maskirovka was though. Ulrich himself had been a pupil of the Soviet military as they taught him how to conduct strategic deception operations to provide the enemy with nothing but falsehoods before your big attack yet he had doubted that Zinoviev would do something like he had on this scale. His personal feelings towards the man had made him doubt the now-deceased Soviet senior commander and he regretted that. However, their opponents, those on the other side of the frontlines would have more than regrets when dawn came and the massed armies moved out of cover and into the theatre-wide attacks where they were not expected to be and in strengths not thought to be what they were.


There was no official name for the operations about to commence that Ulrich was aware of as 'Volga-3' still covered military warfare being commenced in West Germany. He had taken to calling it 'Zinoviev's maskirovka' when he had been informed of the broad-strokes of it and that term stuck with him. There were two main elements to it: one in the north with the Polish Front and the other in central Germany where the Northern Front was operating.

Like NATO intelligence, Ulrich had previously believed that only the Soviet Twenty–Eighth Army was across the Weser south of Bremen with the Third Shock Army to their north moving against that city. Zinoviev had actually ordered the Polish Front commander to bring that latter field army over the river though and leave Bremen and other missions on the eastern side of the Weser to units under the command of the Polish Second Army no matter who they previously answered to. Both forces were to advance west and southwest heading for the Ems River (much narrower than the Weser) with the Netherlands ahead in one direction and access to the Ruhr in the other. The commanders of both field armies were to be given massive fire support in terms of artillery support to break through and then waves of aircraft to assist them in charging forward. All subordinate units were to keep driving forward and to bypass opposition if necessary rather than engage or encircle such enemy forces. Speed was everything here as the shock value of being in such numbers where NATO didn't expect them – especially so many troops over the Weser – was deemed more important that winning battles. Territory was to be taken and political blows struck by that.

The southern attack was to be made with the Soviet First Guards Tank Army. Ulrich knew that he had been waiting like NATO had for it to make an appearance and doing what they had in wondering where and when it would finally attack. Now those five divisions were about to go into action in what was conversely the most obvious location yet at the same time unexpected too: onto the Fulda Plain. NATO forces had been focused upon the worry that that formation would strike from the Wurzburg area into northern Bavaria just as he had thought best for the First Guards Tank Army to do and responded by striking at Schweinfurt as they had. No, instead the massed tanks were to move behind the right wing of the Soviet Eighth Guards Army and pour across the battlefields where for more than a week the Americans had engaged a trio of Soviet divisions there: they were to go through the frontlines along the Fulda River and move either side of the Vogelsberg. The aim was to have the First Guards Tank Army eventually on the Rhine somewhere between Koblenz and Mainz… if not then their attack would surely distract from the bigger one in the north.

In opposition, NATO had too few troops and those present with too many priorities. It was in the air when NATO remained strong, despite all Soviet-led efforts to the contrary, not on the ground.

When had air power ever won a war? Ulrich couldn't think of an occasion when that was and it certainly wasn't going to bring this conflict to a successful conclusion for NATO. They had dropped bridges over the Elbe here in East Germany and many more over other rivers in Poland. In addition, NATO air power had blasted many targets in spectacular fashion closer to the frontlines… yet not enough and with enough effect. Their air attacks had often been met with opposing fighters and maybe NATO aircraft came off best overall but they hadn't won complete control of the skies just dominated them at times.

That wasn't enough to win this war, one which Ulrich didn't believe air power – from either side – could win.


As to their ground forces, Ulrich was aware that in the north where Zinoviev's maskirovka would see the advance of two field armies – with a couple of thousand of tanks and tens of thousands of battle-hardened troops – the Americans had brought in one, just one combat division fresh from their homeland after a journey across the North Atlantic. There were some British light troops formed into two divisions – one established as a light, rear-area force (the 2nd Infantry Division) and the other as an ad hoc formation (the new 5th Infantry Division) – as well as some Dutch reservists who were present after a complicated mobilisation process. Those units were with three different corps commands all of which were smaller than the opposing field armies in terms of units, men and tanks though with bigger areas of responsibility. They all answered to a single commander overall yet Ulrich was aware of great internal fragmentation when it came to national priorities on the NATO side during this war.

On the side he was on, also one of many allies, there were no such problems: like it or not the Soviets said what was to be done and that was it.

On his beloved maps here in his bunker, Ulrich had marked where NATO had their troops in the way of the pair of field armies Zinoviev had condensed together ready to attack from their Weser bridgeheads. Far too many NATO troops were on the wrong side of that river where it was wider downstream. There were Dutch and West German troops moving through Bremen and north of them (deemed the Bremen Gap apparently by the other side) to get back over the river with so many civilians caught up among them that they were protecting as they fled too. South of there was the Americans with their III Corps: they had four divisions whom all had now seen battle and all of whom had undertaken counterattacks against the bridgeheads held with marked failure. That had been the same across West Germany during the war as NATO didn't press their strikes home with a focus upon preserving their strength for more. Ulrich knew that was fine military strategy, just not in this war.

There were the British too who also remained east of the Weser focused upon keeping their Hannover Salient. Ulrich had feared that they were waiting to strike in a major offensive but that had not come. In fact, they had used up their last reserves with the 3rd Armoured Division to beat back moves made yesterday between Hannover and Lake Steinhude around a place called Wunstorf. Including the West Germans with them, there were four more divisions there – all fine, first-line troops – on the wrong side of the Weser holding what he could only regard as the political objective of keeping Hannover. The Polish First Army was trying to squeeze them from the south aiming for the river at Hameln where Ulrich didn't believe they could reach yet it was the Soviet Second Guards Tank Army that pinned the British I Corps in-place.

This stupid political decision was going to cost them dear. Ulrich understood why they were doing so as to lose that city when Hamburg had been mainly overrun yesterday and West Berlin was about to surrender might cause a negative reaction from the West Germans, but he believed they should pull back to the region east of where the Weser meandered if they wanted to stay on the eastern side of the river: around Minden and Porta Westfalica if necessary. At the same time he would have to admit that the Second Guards Tank Army commander had been put in just as an awkward position as his British opponent. From what Ulrich had been told the man had been given contradictory instructions to not press home his attacks to drive the British back over the Weser so eventually they would be trapped when the moment came to take the crossings ahead of them (a military decision) as well as the KGB pushing for Hannover to be seized to cause a blow to West German morale. Of course, both concepts made sense as was always the way of such things!

In the south, where the First Guards Tank Army was to strike there were the French where. They had a corps command there in Hessen yet its 'divisions' were no more than brigades heavy in armour and not so much in infantry support. As the rest of NATO had done, the French too seemed to have paid too much attention to getting first-line troops into West Germany and then all the necessary support from ammunition to air power. Again, this was all sound military strategy to do so before bringing in massed reserves of lighter units afterwards, but that was where the strengths of the West's armed forces lay. When the First Guards Tank Army erupted onto the Fulda Plain today the French were expected to launch a stunning counterattack yet it wouldn't be pressed home and soon enough they like the Americans already there would face a counter-counter move themselves by numerically stronger forces: they couldn't be everywhere with what numbers they had.


The weathermen said that there would be clear skies all day today and into tonight. With such a change in the weather there would be all of those aircraft in the sky doing their worst. Ulrich understood that in his planning Zinoviev had foreseen NATO aircraft tearing into his attacking units trying to support their troops at the frontlines but there would be Soviet aircraft in the skies too as well as those from East Germany and Poland.

With the skies contested the offensive should succeed. Ulrich couldn't see how it couldn't. NATO had no large reserves forces left in-theatre. The Americans had their 'national guard' but Ulrich knew those were third-line troops who even with good equipment and excellent training were still completing mobilisation on the other side of the North Atlantic; they needed to be shipped across complete with equipment first. The British and the French had a big manpower pool but no heavy weapons in terms of tanks and massed armoured fighting vehicles ready to be manned by those yet to be mobilised men. The West Germans were fully committed with what they already had and if intelligence was correct had suffered disproportionate losses compared to their allies.

Even if NATO pulled a surprise out of nowhere and stopped the attacks of Zinoviev's maskirovka today there were still as many as five Soviet field armies – all mechanised and with thousands of tanks – rolling through Poland heading this way. NATO air strikes had slowed them down but not stopped them. They equated to the reserves the Americans had but were far more numerous and closer to the frontlines as well.

This was it. This was to be the final blow to finish off NATO on the ground in West Germany. The Soviets would have their tanks on the Dutch border, maybe near the Ruhr and close to the Rhine too if things went really well, by tonight or early tomorrow. If not, then soon enough the third wave of Soviet troops would show up.

Ulrich could see nothing but Soviet victory today – his own country's army would only have a minor role to play – and the coming end of the war. Nothing, not even that air power NATO put its faith in, was going to stop this from happening…


…unless NATO decided to use nuclear weapons that was.





February 13th 1990
Above West Germany

If it could fly, then it was in the skies above northern parts of Germany this morning.

Hauptmann Esser believed that any aircraft capable of combat was airborne now taking part in what had to be the biggest air battle of the war for control of the sky. He had his radar active and the display was filled with countless contacts – friendlies, enemies and 'unknowns' – while the radio was alive was chatter as pilots contacted ground and airborne controllers. He was trying to focus upon his own mission and playing the necessary role he was tasked to do yet there were plenty of distractions that he couldn't get out of his mind.

The need to concentrate was never more greater too especially as he was far ahead of the frontlines deep into enemy territory.


His mission this morning was the same as those given to all East German, Soviet and Polish pilots participating: combat NATO aircraft. Ground attack strikes and reconnaissance tasks were for now not to be undertaken as instead there were just fighter duties to do. Air-to-air missiles and bullets for cannons were the only weapons carried and as many of those as possible. Every pilot had instructions that they were to shoot down any NATO aircraft that they saw whether it be a direct threat to them or not. Moreover, keeping NATO aircraft away from their ground attack missions was of an even greater priority than engaging those assigned to protect them.

Esser hadn't had the time before he had lifted off at dawn from Wittstock to give all of this much thought and consider what was going on with such orders being issued. Instead he had kept his mind of getting airborne and then heading westwards into the patrol area where he was assigned. There was a trio of other MiG-29's with him – all crewed by Soviet Air Force pilots rather than his usual Luftstreitkrafte cohorts – and he had to trust that their mind was on the job too.

Plenty of targets were sure to be in the skies, the MiG-29 pilots had been told, and they shouldn't come back to Wittstock unless their missile stocks were expended and they could claim aerial victories against enemy opponents. No more had been said on the matter yet Esser hadn't needed to be told what was unsaid: those who fail to do their duty this morning, for whatever reason, even a justifiable one, will be in plenty of trouble upon returning to Wittstock.


From what he knew, his own unit JG 3 had taken immense losses in combat against NATO during the war. That was repeated across the Luftstreitkrafte too with the pilots of other East German aircraft having been shot down like so many of his comrades who had started the war at Preschen as he had.

And it was the same with the Soviet Air Force as well.

They too had faced the destruction of their aircraft when airborne, and also on the ground in many cases as well, at the hands of NATO. While they had many more aircraft to lose it didn't mean that the losses were to be taken lightly by them either. Esser had no idea of numbers or anything more than the specific instances which he had witnessed yet he had heard enough talk of how the Soviets had seen their combat aircraft destroyed just as his own service had. This included the large amount of aircraft that they had based in East Germany before the war broke out and the immediate reinforcements flown in from across Eastern Europe and the western regions of their own country.

In response to that and to allow there to be so many Soviet aircraft in the skies today, Esser had been told that second-line units from across the Soviet Union had been reassigned to the war in Europe, even training units, so as to make good the losses in numerical terms. Moreover, joining the Soviet Air Force in battle now were elements of the Soviet Air Defence Force. In the Luftstreitkrafte there was little more than an administrative separation between the two yet the Soviets had to completely independent air arms for frontline combat and rear-area air defence duties. With the latter, there were primarily interceptors fielded and such aircraft had greater range and weapons loads than the tactical aircraft usually positioned in peacetime in more exposed forward positions.

Today, Esser was joined in the skies by some of those Soviet Air Defence Force aircraft. A squadron of their Sukhoi-27 interceptors – detached from its parent regiment – had been busy getting airborne from Wittstock before he and the other MiG-29's lifted off. Perhaps there would be difficulty in linking those interceptors to the tactical battles raging though the Luftstreitkrafte and the Poles had managed it throughout the war and Esser presumed the Soviets would either have sorted that out or it would just have to be dealt with. Either way those big aircraft loaded with missiles had been impressive to watch and Esser relished the day that the Luftstreitkrafte would eventually be able to field such aircraft itself and he might have a chance to fly one.

Of course, that would be after the war. Today they were all crewed by Soviets and operating even further westwards than he was. He hoped that they were engaging those troublesome, deadly American F-15's long before those aircraft could intervene as they often did at other times when NATO had showed off its air power.


Currently above western Lower Saxony, between the Weser and the Netherlands, Esser was flying southwards. His flight leader had tasked them to go after a flight of enemy aircraft, numbering six, streaking low across the sky heading towards that river where the fighting on the ground was taking place. They flew high and fast while keeping track of the enemy – who had to see the danger using their own warning systems – waiting to swoop down upon command and engage.

As always, when in such a situation as this, Esser tried to keep calm and not get overexcited. He struggled with the adrenaline rush and fought to keep his breathing under control. There was plenty of danger to worry about from distant threats yet there should at least be a radio call from the airborne controller far away back over East Germany if enemy fighters were spotted. Missiles launched from the ground were a different matter though…

As the range to the planned firing position lessened Esser armed two of his short-range R-73's which checking that his infrared guidance system was functioning as it should be. Everything was in order and he returned to the radar display of where the targets were for a glance at that too. Again, the enemy remained where they were beforehand seemingly not taking any action. Esser was suspicious though not overly worried as the distance between him and the NATO aircraft was still significant and he was sure that those enemy pilots would be getting all sorts of warnings on their threat displays. They hadn't been highlighted by him and the other MiG-29's to tell them that there was an overt threat to them, just a general one.

The flight leader now called for the radars be switched into passive mode. Esser did as he was told and waited for the command to increase speed and start losing altitude as the engagement began. Instead, a different call came over the radio.

“Enemy missiles! Evade, evade!”

Esser swung his gaze left and right as he asked himself why his own threat receivers weren't screaming warnings at him. In the bright, clear skies he could see nothing. There were no enemy fighters nor missiles racing across the sky. He did something that he shouldn't and hesitated for a moment trying to decide what to respond on the radio. He couldn't make up what form of clarification he should best ask for from the irritable flight leader that he had.

Too late.

There was a flash, a wave of heat that washed over him searing his eyes and then nothing else at all. Esser faded out as his aircraft disintegrated around him after being struck from a SAM coming from below.