[FH] Breaking News - Chronicle of Operation Colossus 5-of-6

Connestoga's Final Pass

When we rolled out of the repair camp on the 18th I didn't know that within a
week I'd be back in Nirgal talking over how we'd lost the campaign. At the
time I was more concerned with the details of where we were headed, why the
boys called the Krak SAMs (Scary Alien Mothers or Monsters, Jose and Todd
couldn't agree on that) and with looking over snaps of Ben's new daughter.

We were sent back to the corridor adjoining Lasalle, to rejoin the fight
for the Arda-Lethbridge corridor. We joined our brigade in the
afternoon. Not long after Krak Kart fighters, and what may have even been Kin
class scoutships bombed and strafed a three kilometre wide ribbon along much
of the length of our front lines. The drop wasn't long lived, maybe 10 minutes
in total, but it had a sizeable impact. In our immediate area alone three
squadrons of MMRAVs and four squadrans of M44 LACVs were destroyed, the super
high velocity KE rounds driving sections of the dismembered chassis'
underground.

Even after the aircraft had passed over the pounding did not cease, as the
Krak artillery opened up to continue the pressure. After about 45 minutes of
this attention, an armoured spearhead, an alien corp lead by superheavy grav
tanks, advanced on our position west of the Zavidovka mine, northeast of
Pikalevo. At the same time another alien division attacked Lethbridge
directly, just as the rain began again. Yet another Krak division retook the
high ground amongst the Chelny Hills. The thrusts in the low country, on our
position and around Lethbridge proved tough going and the Krak advance
stalled. The alien units up in the hills made an easier time of it and we got
word that our units there had been forced back a little after midnight.

At about 03:00 we got word that a corp of Krak medium armour had launched an
attack on units between us and the Chelny Hills, taking possession of some of
our observation posts. Their assault had met with stiff resistance, but they
ultimately overcame our troops by using
assault troops equipped with PIGs and flame-throwers to clear the
bunkers and outposts. At 04:30 we heard the telltale whistle of our (well ours
and the Swabian) artillery, the shells flying overhead to bombard the Krak
advance to our east. After ten days of action even my ears could tell the
pitch of the passage of our shells from the deeper whine of the Krak solid
slugs. Irshad's dawn briefing let us know that our artillery, aided by the new
spate of soaking rain, had slowed the Krak advance to a crawl.

Encouraged by the success of the night's bombardment another massive artillery
barrage of the Krak lines began at 07:10; fire coming from over 700 guns,
mortars and rocket launchers. That was soon followed by an equally colossal
air strike by the combined forces of the RNACAF, Kreigsluftflotte and VVS. The
volume of fighters passing over darkened the sky, much the same way as the
passing of great flocks of birds was said to centuries ago on Earth. At first
I couldn't understand why our planes didn't stop over the Krak lines but
pushed deeper, far over the horizon. Then Irshad pointed out they were
targeting any alien airbases
they could find back there - attempting to use a modern variant of the
"old German trick" of wiping out local air support within the opening hours of
a battle. The next few hours turned into what was probably the largest air
battle fought to date on any planet in the human sphere of influence. The
human side committed 3986 fighters. Drone counts of the Krak's gave estimates
for their side of around 3703 atmospheric and 202 space capable fighters. The
human planes couldn't present much of a challenge to any of the space capable
Krak fighters, which retreated out of the atmosphere whenever the threat
against them became too great. It is doubtful however, that any alien
atmospheric fighter survived the tussle unscathed. Every Krak airfield was
shot into uselessness and every fighter engaged. Our own losses were
incredible, but the Krak airforce was crippled. It would not be a serious
threat again for weeks if not months.

At 09:39 on the 19th we got clearance to begin an assault on the Krak forces
to our front. We pushed off the plain fairly easily. Within an hour we'd
fought our way up on to the first slopes. The lead units had fairly stiff
casualty rates, but the rest of us were still in decent shape. The easy going
didn't last for long however and we soon found ourself almost unable to move.
Within minutes of starting up on to the slope a 'Hunter' MMRAV had lost its
undercarriage and slumped down into a cascade of explosions and a Paladin in
the lead squadron had been
blown into the air and come cart-wheeling back down through the main
press of vehicles, disabling another 'Hunter' (shearing off its turret when it
bounced past) and crippling a 'Striker' before lodging fast amongst a group of
'Hoplite' MICVs. The immediate call for ambulances indicating the carnage that
collision had wrought.

The advance had found itself trapped in a huge defensive minefield.
Engineering units were called to come up and clear them. Whether triggered by
the catastrophic destruction of the first minefield victims or in response to
the associated increase in our comms traffic, the Krak artillery renewed the
harassment of our lines as we sat stuck fast amongst the mines. It took 20
minutes for a fifteen man contingent of the 2nd Austrian Engineer Company to
reach our lines and begin the clearance, all the while under artillery fire.
During the next six hours the Swabian sappers cleared and taped paths through
the minefield. The task made all the more dangerous by its location on old
mine tailings. The ground was peppered with old machinery parts, discarded
drill bits, chunks of unprocessed ore and as a result detectors were useless,
their readings frenzied and completely uninformative. This meant that rats and
bees had to be used to mark mine trails and then the mines had to be lifted
out and made safe by hand; an extremely dangerous enterprise. It was testimony
to the expertise of the Austrian engineers that the fifteen strong force
cleared 4500 mines, opening a wide enough path for our forces to push on. That
is an astounding feat that works out at a rate of a mine a minute by each
sapper. My respect for these hardy and talented souls soared as they waved us
through; each with their own layer of red mud. They looked like terracotta
soldiers with wide, white Cheshire grins.

We were moving again, but the rate of progress still wasn't high. It took us
another thirteen hours to push a further 10km forward, the Kraks launching
rocket attacks from the northwest and opening up with large
K-guns that had been placed in bunkers to our northeast. Considering
that we were attacking without the element of surprise against a dug-in
and potentially numerically superior enemy, I guess any progress was a marked
achievement. I can assure it felt anything but at the time.

We spent most of the night trying to avoid being vaporised by the
house-sized guns, while we inched our way forward. Then at 02:35 on the
20th we were told to fall back. Irshad ordering Jose to head for some old open
cut mining gullies to the southwest. He urged Jose down the length of the
gully and ordered him to tuck in at the far end. It was like hunkering turret
down behind some berm, but it seemed like such a disheartening reversal to be
running away after how hard fought every inch forward in those hills had been.
We had been settled in our hole for less than five minutes when a brilliant
white light flashed across the sky; then there was a deep thud to the
northeast, like something huge had toppled; then an enormous rumble vibrated
us as it passed through and rattled lose stones off the gully walls; finally
we were rocked by a gale of wind and pressure and pelted by stones and other
small debris. I can see why Irshad (and the commanders of all the tanks that
had lined the gully behind us) had headed for cover. "What was..." I began, my
voice shook with awe and my gut clenched wondering if we had also started
lobbing nukes. "That was the RNS Connestoga." Irshad informed us. "They flew a
Corvette in and shot up the f'ing SAMs point blank?! You gotta respect those
balls!" Todd enthused. "No" Irshad corrected. "Could have fooled me, it sure
looked like a ship passage. What kind of orbital attack leaves a trail like
that then?" Todd asked confused. "Ramming" Irshad replied. "RAMs they some
kind of new RSN missile?" Todd asked. "No Todd they rammed the bunkers."
Irshad explained patiently. "Huh?" Todd still looked confused. Ben spun round
slack jawed with recognition. "You don't mean..."
"I do."
"But why? Surely if they had to go orbital, just plain old fire would be
fine." Ben opined "Nah, they were probably afraid that'd f' the atmosphere
round here good and proper, they still need it to be gp friendly" Jose put in.
"GP?" I now felt as lost as Todd "Ground pounder" Ben supplied. "Oh, thanks."
My vocabulary grew by leaps and bounds around this lot. Irshad put up his hand
to stop any further theorising. "The situation
space-side is hotting up. Not boiling like down here, but a good deal
hotter than before we left Nirgal. Word is the Connestoga was crippled while
trying to disrupt those fighters that buzzed the lines day before yesterday.
Apparently she was too deep into Mars' gravity well to escape without a tow,
and its too hot up there for her to get one without risking more ships. 'Old
man' Stephenson has known for a while she might be coming down I'd reckon, but
didn't trouble us with the news until she was just about here. Guess he
figured we had enough to worry about down here without watching the heavens
too. Anyways that last comms dump, backup on the hill, said the command crew
of the Connestoga had decided to make her end worth something and that we had
better find deep cover and fast. So here we are. And now we have to get out of
this rat hole and go kick some more SAM arses." I was feeling speechless; Ben
was shaking his head; Todd still looked puzzled opening and closing his mouth
with a quizzical look; but Jose was all business and had us back up that hill
in no time. We encountered some resistance, but it was fairly light and we
were soon in the area that had held the bunkers with the big ship guns. The
landscape was a good deal different from what our holo's had projected last
time. A huge gouge marked the final path of the Connestoga; giant mounds of
earth piled high on either side; boulders the size of small buildings sitting
out in the open where there had been flat ground less than an hour before.
There were also great chunks of ship and bunker scattered about like a
gigantic, demonically dismantled children's toy. The hellish feel to the
landscape was only accentuated by the fact everything was smoking. There were
a number of smouldering grass fires, but the drizzle that was still falling
quite quickly sapped their strength. Each piece of wreckage was topped by
wisps of smoke and steam as the rain hit the superheated scrap. Todd whistled.
"My Dad checked I really wanted to join up by recounting in great detail the
worst he'd seen in the TSW, but he never said there would be days like this."

We drew up on the other side of Connestoga's final resting place and got in a
few hours rest before we had to move again. With the heaviest components of
the support gone, the Krak had again been pushed down off the Chelny Hills.
With that area now securely back in human hands we were being directed to the
lowlands northwest of Lethbridge.

As the sun crawled across the sky on the 20th we picked our way to the Huon
Plain. A few lighter tanks we had been travelling with were sent out to scout
the surrounds, but the bulk of us were told to pitch camp and wait for the
rest of our forces to arrive. Ben introduced me to the wonders of kosher
rations, while Todd taught Jose to line dance on the Paladin's long nose.
Irshad seemed consumed by report filing and writing letters home. Just on dusk
I poked my head out of the tank, looking for a place to pee. As I wound my way
through the tank park I was amused to see small fires out of sight behind most
tanks. Around each tiny glow, standing to minimise light leaks, were tankers
of every size, sex, race and religion. Yet they shared as much as they
differed. They all had that ruffled look of people who've lived in the same
clothes for a fortnight; people who desperately needed a shower; people who
had seen things and done things they'd never tell their families about. Human
soldiers much like any others through history, sharing a joke, swapping small
luxuries, making the best of the time they had. This wasn't the first time I
thought that you never really appreciated history until you lived it.

The battle of Huon Plain

When Todd shook me awake the next morning it was to tell me that our air force
and artillery had started bombing the Krak positions and we had to form up.
What followed easily displaced Kursk, Winchester and Bradley as candidate for
the largest and bloodiest tank engagement ever.

The rains had finally ended, but in the end that did nothing to aid in
visibility, the action of over 7700 tanks creating blinding clouds of smoke
and dust. The day started clear enough. We were out in one of the lead groups
and moved cautiously out on to the plain, ardently trying to avoid a repeat of
the earlier minefield disaster. I think we all felt exposed out on the flat
ground and were keen to get back into some cover. We didn't get the chance
though. When we were about 5 kilometres onto the plain a mass of Krak tanks
topped the far rise and advanced down on to the plain to face us. The long
range of our HELs again came to our aid and we managed to pick away at them on
the approach. As they pushed forward, we tried to fall back, or at least
jockey around, so that we could keep the distance between us open. They
weren't going to let us maintain the range though and we quickly ran out of
manoeuvre room. With no where left to go our commanders ordered us forward.
Within minutes we were at close range and feeling the full impact of such
close fighting. Not the least of which was again to do with the Krak's ability
to disable our comms. It was so bad this time the AI was having trouble even
drawing the immediate area. The smoke from destroyed tanks had mixed with the
plain's fine dust and defensive aerosols used to block LOS to make an
impenetrable screen around us, which was only exacerbated by the Krak blocking
feeds from drones and observers in clearer areas. We were largely fighting
blind and the lines became confused and interpenetrated. I don't know whether
the Krak were as lost as we were or whether they purposefully mixed into our
units, in the hope of creating lethal levels of chaos and friendly fire, but
that is how we found ourselves. Thousands of tanks at point blank range,
looking more
like an armour-plated wrestling match than the multi-kilometre
engagements modern tankers were accustomed to. At this range the Krak MDCs and
HKPs were tearing us apart. Our weapons were equally deadly though; the exact
form of main gun and armour irrelevant at such close quarters. The entire
battle had degenerated into a confused profusion of
bitter small-unit actions at close quarters. Not the way a tank battle
should be fought, according to prevailing military wisdom, at least; and
definitely not for the best part of a day. It wasn't until 21:00 that the last
shots were fired and the remaining units of the two sides disengaged.

I don't know how we survived. I put it down to Jose driving like a maniac and
the other three firing until their hands cramped. We got hit at least seven
times, but magically Jose always got the nose round just in time. I still
don't know how we escaped with only dented armour, a cracked wheel, collapsed
turret bearing and exhausted ammo stocks. The main systems did short out about
the midpoint of the afternoon, after we took a particularly heavy hit to the
nose, but with a slap from Irshad the backup systems kicked in and kept us
running. I was relieved to see that while the backup lights were dimmer than
those at full primary
power they weren't the dull red favoured in sci-fi and military dramas.
I think that would have been an uncomfortable reminder of where we may well
have ended up if the backups had failed. Assuming Hades really is decorated in
shades of crimson.

Easily the scariest moments of the day from my perspective was when a
'Killjoy' surprised us as we crept between the hulks of a squadron of hover
skirted Swabian 'Deimos'. It was like being surprised by some great tarantula
sitting in amongst her slaughtered prey. The monster MBT was less than 100
metres from us. In the time we got two shots on it, it had three on us. One of
the shots went wide, but the other two hit us square on, doing much of the
damage I mentioned earlier. Meanwhile our shots had blackened its armour, one
sheet dangling precariously loose. We had also destroyed the APSW mount, but
this did nothing to deter the monster who kept on straight at us. For what he
accomplished next I fully intend to hook Jose up with Grand Prix driving after
this shooting war is done. He managed to out drive the grav tank, wheeling
around wrecked chassis' and broken tank parts, all the while in reverse. In
the end Jose made good our escape by luring the hulking monstrosity into a
gap between two semi-demolished tanks, where it stuck fast. He received
cheers all round, and promises of beer. I for one could have kissed him or
donated my first born or provided him with any number of extravagant gifts.

After this colossal clash both sides were exhausted and heavily attrited.
Given we did not see any renewed Krak advances we can guess they were as low
on resources and reserves as our side. We had fought to a stalemate. Our
commanders had us withdraw to the partly constructed Margaritifer line at the
base of the hills around the Huon Plain. The few remaining Swabian reserves,
currently protecting Pikalevo, transferred their positions up to help cover
the retreat and construction of the fortifications.

<Continued in Part Six>