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They released unspeakable brutality upon an unseen enemy nearly twenty miles away. In a single minute, each launcher fired twelve 227mm rockets toward the massed Russian brigade. Inside each rocket were 518 antipersonnel and antitank submunitions that would be released once they were over the target area. Each submunition was capable of tearing a three-inch hole in the top of a tank or BMP. Once inside the armored vehicle, the little bombs would fragment to kill everyone aboard.
One hundred tanks and an equal number of BMPs waited in a narrow ravine for the brigade commander to give the order to crush the overextended American lines. From out of nowhere, more than eight thousand armor-piercing bomblets poured down upon their heads. The munitions ripped into the thin tops of the armored vehicles.
In sixty seconds, one the Soviet Union’s finest brigades disappeared in a firestorm of unbelievable savagery. Not a single soldier survived the grisly massacre. The corpses of the three thousand, and their burned-out vehicles, would stand forever as a monument to the new world’s warfare.
The Multiple Launch Rocket Systems’ crews started to reload. They’d be ready to fire again, or to move on to a new location, in three minutes. While the attackers prepared to release fearsome death and destruction once more, they were instantly transformed from aggressor to victim.
A Russian spotter located the source of the rocket firing. He called in a squadron of attack helicopters. Six Mi-24 “Hind-Gs” roared across the American lines. It took them just over a minute to cover the distance to the rocket launchers. The American crews were still in the process of reloading. They were caught in the open by the Hinds’ sudden appearance. At the last possible instant, their Stinger team spotted the Hinds as they roared out of the low trees on the eastern side of the autobahn. A Stinger gunner locked onto the lead helicopter. He waited for the sweet tone. The second it sounded, he fired. The helicopter exploded into a thousand flaming pieces one hundred feet above the autobahn filled with terrified German civilians. Death rained down upon the fleeing maze of cars. Scores of German vehicles were soon ablaze.
The other Hinds opened fire with rockets, missiles, and machine guns. On the open ground, the Americans had no chance of escape. The two rocket-laden launcher systems on the snowy knoll below Richardson’s position exploded with incredible force. The monstrous blasts shook the hilltop to its very foundation. A mammoth fireball reached high into the heavens.
The second Stinger gunner fired. Only a few feet above the autobahn, the Hind on the far right blew up in midair. The Stinger gunners desperately tried to reload.
A Hind opened fire on the exposed soldiers kneeling on the snowy ground. One of the air defenders went down in a twisted heap.
Hidden on the hilltop, the tank platoon watched the one-sided battle.
“Tim, we can’t just sit here and watch these guys get slaughtered!” Warrick screamed. “We gotta help them!”
“They’re out of range of my antiaircraft machine gun,” Richardson said.
“Well, they’re not out of range of our main gun. I’m certain we can nail a few of those bastards and help those guys out. I’m going to start targeting the one hovering on the far left, even if you haven’t given me an order to do so.”
“Tony, go ahead and target him if you want. I’ll even give you a hand with the coordinates. But you’re wasting your time. We’re not going to fire unless the lieutenant tells us to. And you and I both know that Lieutenant Mallory’s never going to issue such an order. We’re here to defend this crossroads, and we can’t do that if we’re dead. If we pick a fight with a handful of Hinds, when they’re through with us, there’ll be nothing left on this hilltop but three smoldering tanks.”
“But we’ve got to do something.”
“There’s nothing we can do. All we can do is pray the Hinds don’t spot us. Because if they do, they’ll do to us what they’re doing to them.”
Another of the swarming Hinds’ machine guns ripped into the last Stinger gunner. He dropped motionless into the snows. The Hinds went after the final pair of American rocket launchers. Missiles tore from pods beneath the helicopters’ stubby wings. In a desperate attempt to survive, the launcher crews ran up the hill. They were fifty yards from their launchers when the missiles hit. The launchers exploded with such overpowering violence that even at such a distance, the soldiers were killed instantly.
Like an ancient farmer’s scythe cutting the pliant winter wheat, flaming metal and erupting munitions cut a swath thirty yards wide in the civilian cars on the jammed autobahn. The carnage on the roadway was inconceivable. And quite final. Death and suffering were everywhere Richardson surveyed.
The victorious helicopters raced off to the east. In the three tanks, the crews breathed a collective sigh of relief.
• • •
The defeated Russian brigade was quickly replaced by another. One whose commander wasn’t nearly as foolish as his predecessor.
The Americans had nothing with which to replace the demolished Multiple Launch Rocket Systems.
Throughout the long afternoon, the intense pressure on the Allies’ line was unyielding. Russian losses were tremendous. Yet for each Russian soldier lost, for each Russian tank destroyed, one moved forward to take its place. And another moved forward to take the place of the one that had just moved forward. And another moved forward to take that one’s place.
The replacement process for those poor souls who’d never again in this lifetime fight for Comrade Cheninko went on almost without end.
Unfortunately, the Americans had no such luxury. For every American soldier lost, for every ravaged American tank, the line grew a little weaker. There’d be no one to take their places. The beleaguered American defenses were dangerously thin. Still, all along their lines, the 1st Armor Division held fast.
The first twelve hours of the battle for Germany had belonged to the Russians. But at noon, the tide
had changed. The last three hours had been owned by the stalwart Americans. By midafternoon on the first day, the Russians weren’t one foot closer to the Rhine River than they’d been at midday. With the sun settling in the west, both sides prepared to battle throughout the bitterly cold, sixteen-hour night that would follow.
The Americans were in a desperate situation. It was, however, a desperation tinged with the smallest blush of hope.
And so far, the Americans hadn’t been forced to use their trump card.
Their final ace had yet to be played.
CHAPTER 38
January 29—3:15 p.m.
On the Eastern Fence
Ramstein Air Base
Slumped over his machine gun, Arturo Rios fell asleep at a little after two. As he did, the temperature reached its highest point of the day—twenty-eight degrees. Neither Goodman nor Wilson tried to keep him from sleeping.
The exhausted Rios had been unconscious for about an hour when a strong hand grasped his shoulder and vigorously shook it.
“Airman . . . hey, Airman, wake up. They tell me after all the Russians you killed this morning, you’re in need of a bit of relief.”
The hand continued to shake him. Rios slowly opened his eyes. Standing over him were three grinning soldiers with burgundy berets in their pockets. Rios could see the square patch on each soldier’s left shoulder with the AA on it, and the word AIRBORNE above the patch.
With Spangdahlem gone, the last American fighter base inside Germany had to be held at all cost. A battalion from the 82nd Airborne had arrived. With them were two companies of Bradleys from the 24th Infantry along with two platoons with eight M-1 tanks. The airborne soldiers and their cohorts had been headed east to reinforce the 3rd Infantry’s lines, but they’d been recalled. With refugees clogging every inch of roadway, it had taken the battalion over five hours to cover the sixty miles to Ramstein. The burgundy berets had driven through Ramstein’s front gate at two thirty. They were there to ensure that the beleaguered airmen could maintain their fragile hold on the base. Minus one thousand of their countrymen and all of their armored cars and antitank missiles, there was no way Ramstein’s survivors could withstand a second determined Russian attack on their own.
