Chieftains by Robert Forrest-Webb Read Free Book Online Page A

Browning for a few seconds.
     
    He felt tugging at his legs, and heard the anxious voice of Podini, Utah's gunner. 'What the hell was that?'
     
    Before he could answer, the thunderous roar of the explosion reached the tank. He let his legs collapse, dropping into the interior and pulling the hatch closed above him. He could feel the heavy hull of the Abrams vibrating.
     
    'What...'began Podini, again.
     
    'Get your eyes to the night sights, and keep them there.' He was shouting. Hal Ginsborough the loader was somewhere in the darkness. 'Gins, load APF and stand-by.'
     
    'There was a clank of metal as Ginsborough obeyed. 'Loaded.'
     
    Podini called desperately, 'You want me to fire? I don't see a target, I don't see a target!'
     
    'For Christ's sake don't fire...just prepare for action.'
     
    The hull of the tank was vibrating again, and the thunder in the distance was continuous. There was a crackling in Browning's headphones. A voice, urgent. 'November Squadron, this is Godfather, affirm radio contact. Over.' There was interference on the wavelength – which Browning knew was jamming by some communications unit across the border. If it became too efficient then the short-range communication could be maintained by HF which was more difficult to block out, and the squadron had a wide choice of alternative wavelengths. There was a pause as the troop leaders made their answering calls, then the squadron captain again. 'Hullo November we have Daisy May...' Jesus! What a code name for full hostilities, thought Browning. 'November...prepare for incoming...'
     
    Communication was lost in a tumult of sound that swelled around the Abrams; the mingled screams and howls of rockets, the whistling roar of howitzer shells. Browning peered, startled, through his periscope lenses. The sky was criss-crossed now by hundreds of white trails of fire. The woods beyond the frontier were alight with countless explosions. Mistakenly, for a moment he thought the barrage was solely that of the NATO artillery to the rear, but then the ground heaved and rippled. A blue-orange flash erupted a few meters to the left of the tank, hurling earth, tree branches and shrapnel skywards.
     
    Metal splinters shrieked from the Abrams' hull.
     

FIVE
     
    The first shells to touch NATO-defended soil were those of a battery of 152mm D-20s fired from eleven kilometers behind the East German frontier, the battery commander anticipating his orders by several seconds. His twenty guns began a steady rate of fire of four rounds a minute each. They were joined by several RM-70 missile batteries stationed beyond the second ridge of hills and closer to the border, their rockets launched in 'ripple' sequence from the forty muzzles on each vehicle. The intense barrage erupted along almost the entire east-west borders, from northern Germany to southern Austria, the town of Lübeck coming under an artillery blitzkrieg from the Soviet heavy 180mm S-23s with their rocket-assisted shells.
     
    The NATO forces' response was immediate. The previous days had not been wasted. Satellites, air reconnaissance, the intelligence units working in the East German territory, ground radar and the pre-laid electronic sensors, had provided a vast quantity of information on the positioning of Warsaw. Pact troops and equipment. The pilots of the NATO air forces had been briefed and, rebriefed many times during the past hours in anticipation of imminent conflict, the artillery brigades closest to the border already knew of any concentrations of armour or mechanized infantry.
     
    Although earlier defence plans had ruled that no NATO troops, vehicles, aircraft or projectiles should in any circumstances cross the West/East demarcation line, the enormous build-up of enemy war materials in the border areas, indicating the determination of a Sovkt invasion once it commenced, had forced the NATO military commanders to hastily revise their orders.
     
    The first aircraft into enemy airspace were a