Kamen, West Germany, D+4 0440 Zulu Time
"Recon One, Command. Smoke is on the way, one minute. Move back at full speed and delimit the mined area. Start with the North side. Tank company is already there to cover you, on hill 121, over."
"Command, Recon One. executing now, over."
As soon as the armored vehicles started to move back, French 155 howitzer opened fire and two of the Company's four BRDM exploded. The rest of the Soviet troop transports hastily retreated following the same route used to advance in the minefield, while the two BMP Motorized Battalions following the Regimental Recon Company halted in the forest, three hundred meters behind.
"What a nice start" Alexander Nekrasov said loudly. It took fifteen years in the Army to become Colonel of the 29th Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment, 20th Guards Motorized Division, and here's the result.
"How's possible that after four days of war the high brasses didn't learn anything yet? A reconnaissance in force against a prepared NATO position supported by heavy artillery and helicopters, in urban terrain. What a smart idea. Moreover, the damned French artillery mined the approach route."
Thirty minutes after, Recon company had delimited the minefield with no further attacks from NATO.
"They're waiting our main forces moves out in the open before starting the real dance. I know it, and I cannot do a damn thing about it."
"Twenty Nine all, Command. Execute Plan A, over". All units acknowledged.
One minute later, sixty five howitzer and twelve rocket launchers opened fire on the enemy positions at Dortmund. After twenty minutes pounding, seventy BMP moved out of the forest and advanced South West toward to city.
French artillery began firing after 5 minutes, with their targets in open terrain. Almost at the same time, six Gazelle attack helicopters emerged from the woods North and fired HOT missiles toward the Soviet vehicles. One of the Helicopters exploded after releasing its weapons, hit by a Sa-9, but the 24 antitank missiles destroyed a dozen BMPs.
Then, radio communications went to hell as NATO Electronic Warfare saturated every available channel with interferences.While Nekrasov was trying to reestablish contact the advancing battalions, two American F4 approached the command post location at low altitude and dropped two CBU-52 cluster bombs on it.
Kamen, West Germany, D+4 0630 Zulu Time
"At last CinC-West has seen the light!" Pavel Leonidovich Alekseyev thought.
As commander of the 20th Guards Motorized Division, he already had enough hard times in the previous days, and the idea to order his men a direct attack on Dortmund tormented him.
Now, the failure of the reconnaissance in force a few hours ago convinced his superiors of the necessity to change the axis of advance. The cost of that change has been paid by his division with five hundreds men and dozens of of vehicles.
Alekseyev approached his Chief of Staff, who was having a hard-gained 30 minutes sleep on a field cot. "Wake up Fyodor, we have some urgent work to do."
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| 20th Guards Motorized Division Recon, 04:40 Zulu Time D+4 |
