Dark Earth: Exercise Warhammer

Exercise Warhammer Part 3: Rendevous with the Royals

Thankfully, the ride from the Somme to Germany had been much smoother than that of the morning. Flying in over the Heligoland Bight, he was struck by the sight not so far below them of the North Sea Fleet of the Imperial German Navy steaming out to join in the exercise, their carriers and the huge battleships making the little old Somme seem like a child's toy in comparison. They had been the cause of such a fuss over the last few years, from the fusty old admirals and captains bristling at any sort of German war fleet to the French, but Tom thought that was just so much tosh. They were a threat neither in numbers or capacity, not compared with what the Andrew had, and the small matter of the Soviet Baltic Fleet was more pressing.

"Quite something, aren't they?"

Tom looked up from his musing at his interlocutor, a Canadian fellow named Shafer or something like that who did seem distinctly familiar.

"I dare say they are. Not quite as many missiles or planes as ours, but their battlewagons are newer. You seen anything like it?"

"Seven years ago, in Egypt. Now that was a fleet and a half. We couldn't use any of the pictures until afterwards and the MoD kept us on the tightest of leashes when we landed in Alex. They had really knocked the place for six, but very little of that got out."

"Most of the damage had been repaired by the time I was out there a few years ago during my National Service." Tom was warming to the fellow and a good contact never went astray in the business.

"Probably. Keeping the war correspondents away from the battlefront and Cairo stopped us from seeing most of it. Seems like the Americans are taking a leaf out of that book in South Vietnam; I hear you can get more out of the French in Algiers than them."

"Here's to freedom of the press." Tom said sardonically.

"Amen to that."

After they crossed over the coast, the first sign that he was entering a very different country to old Blighty back home was clearly visible - the missile launchers of the Luftverteidigungskraft lined up like the old shore defence cannons back in the war, overlooking the beach and defending the mouth of the vital Kiel Canal. The Jerries had never rebuilt their big gun defences when they had been allowed an army again back in the 50s and they were barred from doing so on the North Sea coast in any case. Tom remembered reading about them burying old tanks up around Kiel as well as fiddling around with some new self-propelled howitzers. Not that this end of Germany was bereft of big guns; he be seeing some of them later on.

As the Rotodyne flew up the Elbe to the muffled background hum of the quietened engines, there were now more missile sites beneath them, part of the five great circles of Fortress Hamburg, as the Nord Deutscher Zeitung had apparently dubbed it. As far as fortresses went, it wasn't on a par with the Maginot Line or the Berlin Wall, but this was a modern system of field positions, missile sites and anti-tank ditches, with much hidden from observation from the air; in wartime, they would be joined by minefields to channel the enemy into killing zones. He'd seen the old remnants of the British anti-invasion defences of the last war at home while growing up, old overgrown pillboxes and trenches for an enemy who never came. For the Germans down below, this was a real and current threat, not history.

Although his hosts were now the Royal Marines and his taxi-cab provided by the Fleet Air Arm, they landed at RAF Uetersen and, to his relief, the weather that greeted his arrival back on terra firma was bright and clear. The runways were bustling with activity and crowded with aircraft, with the usual pair of Supermarine Sunstar squadrons now joined by Harriers and Merlins and its RAF Regiment defences augmented by a Territorial Army anti-aircraft regiment armed with 40mm Bofors guns. Tom's attention, however, was drawn to the reception committee that awaited

Standing before them was a hulking Royal Marine officer in camouflage battle dress, flanked by several somewhat smaller Marines and three forest green Alvis Sphinx transports.

"Good morning, gentlemen and welcome to Germany. Major Standley, Royal Marine Forces Germany. You'll be relieved to know that you've only got a short ride to go to RM Garstedt for our briefing and then a spot of lunch. If you'd be so kind as to hop aboard, we have the road cleared and ready to go."

As they sped along the gun barrel straight military road at a speed that Tom preferred not to know, he decided that he definitely preferred the solidity of the earth below him over the waves or the skies. Hopefully there wouldn't be any further novel forms of transport awaiting them.
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Garstedt had once apparently been a charming German village in the manner of many such in the area, but that was long passed now. An errant RNAS bombing raid one night in 1943 had flattened the poor place with creepback and when the British Army of the Rhine had been re-established two years later, it had been requisitioned for a new garrison. It had been handed over to the Royal Marines in 1951 as they had gained a continental role once again in the Korean War build-up and turned into what it now was - an array of vast barracks, vehicle warehouses and grey concrete behind a series of steel fences.

Upon their arrival in the huge central parade ground, the correspondents were ushered into the mess hall, half of which had been hastily converted into a briefing room. The tantalising smells of delicious cooked meats wafted over the partition, making both Tom and his stomach hope that the presentation would be swift and to the point. Without further ado, the doors opposite them were thrown open and an enormous Marine brigadier came into the room, making the erstwhile Standley look positively tiny in comparison. He proceeded to begin the briefing in a booming voice, talking at a rapid pace.

"Good morning. I am Brigadier Hurricane, Commander RMFG. Now, I can tell you're all bursting for the scran, so I'll keep this short, sharp and shiny. Our role in this exercise is to provide flank defence to the British Army of the Rhine and keep open the lines of communication of Allied forces in Schleswig-Holstein, with a specific role for the defence of the Kiel Canal in conjunction with the Deutsche Marinier-Korps. "

Pulling aside a curtain, he unveiled a large map and whacked at it with his pointing stick in several different locations.

"Here. Here. Here. Here. Each of our four battlegroups is a fully integrated unit of armour, artillery and Royal Marine infantry, fully supported by batteries of anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles. We are the only brigade in the Royals equipped with the new Hercules heavy armoured amphibious carriers and we've recently been reinforced by 1st Royal Marine Heavy Armoured Regiment with its Super Conqueror heavy battle tanks. Should the enemy come, they will be stopped, make no mistake. Our biggest weapon for stopping them, of course, is our big guns. After lunch, you'll be having a demonstration of their firepower. Conventional of course. Any questions? No? Good."

Hurricane marched away from the podium without even pausing to take questions, clearly with a mission on his mind. Tom's misgivings at the brevity of the briefing were soon dispelled as the partition was pulled aside, revealing a score of tables surrounding four groaning benches, piled high with roast sirloins of beef and soaring Yorkshire puddings, glistening crimson suckling pigs, barons of lamb, massive roast chickens, steaming steak and kidney pies and an array of delectably prepared vegetables. There was something of a rush as the arrayed journalists and Royal Marines descended upon the provender, approvingly observed by the Royal Marine halfling cooks, whose hairy feet seemed to fairly bristle with pride at the appreciation for their culinary handiwork.

Tom, having piled his plate higher than he would have expected possible, (all that tossing and turning on the sea seemed to have had some positive affect on him after all) took found a place at one of the corner tables so that he could observe the goings on around the room when he found him next to a familiar face.

"Halloo there, Mr. Fowler! Enjoy your morning?" It was that friendly newspaperman from the Thunderer, Bailey. He seemed to be quite pleased to remake his acquaintance with Tom.

"I'm not sure anyone ever enjoyed a morning on the Somme, so it seemed hardly sporting to change that."

"Rather; I knew a few chaps back in the last war who did their bit there during the first time around. Damned tough place in every stretch of the word, they said. Five thousand men gone on the first day for barely half a dozen miles...still, we won through in the end, just like last time."

"Where did you serve in the last one?"

"Normandy, Holland, Germany, then Berlin. Much less time in a trench in France than the poor sods in the Great War, but a fairly sticky one at times, at least until the breakout at the end of June from Argentan. Once we were through the Hun, they didn't stop until the Rhine."

Tom nodded thoughtfully, then looked again sharply at Bailey, who was doing terrific execution on a large slice of beef. "Simon Bailey. You're not that Bailey, are you?"

Now his neighbour looked up extremely coolly, even putting down his cutlery. "I'm not at all sure what you mean, old boy."

"Lake Toplitz. Heinrich Himmler. One hundred Waffen SS."

Bailey held his poker face for an instant and then relented, going back to carving his beef. "Honestly, of all the things, of all the places, of all the times...I wager I'll never be rid of it. Anyway, yes, that was I, although the stories are much exaggerated. There were only forty-four of them and I wasn't alone."

"Whatever the circumstances, it is an honour to meet you, sir." Tom went to extend a hand, but Simon waved it away with a wave of the mustard.

"Don't start with all that - you'll get the cousins excited. Anyway, good to see you survived your time on one of Her Majesty's smaller ships; I managed to luck it out on the old Kenya, even if it is under new management. Shame that neither of our 'hosts' sent the Dutchmen flying, as it were."

"That was a bit of a shock to see all three of them sunk so quickly. It was almost as if those new missiles, the Black Bears, had been debuted to maximise their impact. I think that the Admiralty wanted to send a bit of a message to Moscow that they don't just need to worry about Nereus anymore."

"Clever lad. I think you might just be onto something there. If our adversaries are a bit more circumspect about the prospects below the waves in the Atlantic, then they might be a bit more circumspect here on land."

"How does the situation here in Germany strike you? Although there are more troops on the ground in Germany now, the Soviets still outnumber and outgun them."

"So it would seem. For all the talk that we have the edge in technology, and I would contend that we still control that in the key areas and weapon systems, the Red Army is catching up more and more. However, with the edge in the air and the quality of our tanks and those of the Americans, we are out in front, I'd say."

"You'd be the expert on that, after all. Thinking of using what you see here in an update for your book?"

"My, aren't you well read? I wager we'll see a few more of those when we finally get handed over to the Army. It isn't them I've really come to see, though; there's supposed to be a few impressive things to see after luncheon."

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Impressive was probably an understatement.

Spread out across scattered wooded copses that dotted the German fields were four huge self-propelled guns, covered in camouflage netting and surrounded by hurrying crews. Barrels over ninety foot long jutted out into the skies and, on cue, roared in unison, sending their mighty shells hurtling towards the east. These were the big guns of the Heavy Siege Batteries of the Royal Marine Artillery, the defenders of the Kiel Canal and the German Baltic Coast, each capable of sinking a battleship or smashing an invasion fleet. They were equipped with both these conventional shells, now slashing through the heights of the atmosphere towards their target range off the coast of Fehmarn, and the nuclear ones carefully protected in the British bases.

Again the guns spoke, a second volley crashing out with a tearing explosive noise so loud that Tom had to cover his ears. Somewhere almost 90 miles away, a colony of seabirds were still squawking in outrage as they flapped northwards to their new hunting grounds, having eventually been persuaded by the enchantments of a shapeshifting Royal Marine wizard. The rumbling guns now moved out from their initial firing positions far faster than Tom would have thought, followed by their escort of self-propelled surface-to-air guided missiles and mobile anti-aircraft guns.

In wartime, would these behemoths be able to get off more than a few rounds? Brigadier Hurricane and the Royal Marines seemed to think they would, dropping a few guarded hints about illusory misdirection dweomers, but Tom wasn't as completely convinced as some of his colleagues. However, those handful of volleys would be more than enough to devastate the enemy. It would really depend upon protecting them from what could come from above.

High, high up in the now-brilliant blue morning skies, flying back towards the west was the now familiar sight of a TSR-2 Eagle.

Now it was the RAF's turn.

The Canadian journalist in question is Morley Safer, well known for his 1965 report from South Vietnam, 'The Burning of Cam Ne', as well as his later work on 60 Minutes in the US. He did cover Suez for CBC in 1956 historically, so provided an opportunity to reflect on a very different conflict.

Essentially, the British shut down and jammed all attempts to broadcast out of Egypt beyond their own sources, as well as keeping their attached journalists under extremely tight control. The information war was seen as vitally important.

The RMA guns are not static, but self propelled, akin to the Soviet Kondensators, albeit a bit faster. Their role is similar to the US Army M65 atomic cannon from @, with a particular secondary purpose of coastal defence. Their presence is more testament to interservice rivalry between the RN and Army than operational necessity.

Bailey captured Himmler there in part of the post VE Day mop up operations after the Fall of Berlin. Some details have been given in Never Had it So Good and 1947's Singapore Sling. As he says, he wasn't alone, but worked from ambush with a small patrol of half a dozen men and an SOE agent; after other Nazis had attempted the poison tooth escape, the response was to knock him out and then knock/pull out every tooth. As said in Singapore Sling, the Office of the Witchfinder General was not at all keen to hand over dear Heinrich to the International Military Tribunal, intending a warmer fate for him.