Brad and I usually write up either a narrative or a play by play. However this time I felt that his narrative was so awesome it deserved some prime time love all by its self.
Great style, engaging, well written. I think I found a ghost writer! 😉
Turns 1-2
The Americans had rock ‘n roll and hamburgers but we had big goddamn helicopters. And we used them to effect.
I watched from my cockpit bubble canopy as the Mi-8s soared low over the treetops and, for the first time ever – west of the large snaking fence that had parted the two Germanys for the last forty years. So this was it. We were at war and there was no going back now. I didn’t think the old men in the Kremlin had the heart for another big war but apparently they had all forgotten what it was like. Or perhaps they just wanted one last big adventure before fading out and dying quietly in some big state hospital on the outskirts of Moscow. Who knows?
I pushed the collective and my flying tank (the Americans called them “Hind” but the name did not do it justice) danced a light jig before the ground tilted upwards in front of me and we picked up speed. We too crossed that fatal little green line.
We were told there would be casualties as soon as we crossed over. The Americans had fighter planes, SAM missile batteries, and anti-aircraft artillery. We fully expected to die, to be shot down in one of many possible fascinating ways. But apparently everyone was still in too much awe that it was actually happening so we slipped right through their fingers and the Mi-8s gracefully slid down towards Eisenbach to secure the town.
Major Petrov radioed us to drop off a Sagger team on a ridge to the north of the town. I told Mikhail, my co-pilot in the front seat, to watch out carefully for any surprises. The landing gear came down and we dropped like a beast on the ground below. I could hear the door behind me slide open and the men spilled out. To the south, I watched in anticipation as the Mi-8s unloaded men and equipment. It was just like a training exercise and except for the fact that World War III had started; it was a nice day for it too. Everything seemed pretty okay, which was a first for Soviet Army Aviation history.
Sergeant Trinov was a good leader but even he was not so sure of the best tactics for assaulting a McDonald’s hamburger restaurant. He tried his best, however, and sent his men after the Americans inside.
The Spetsnaz squads poured fire and grenades into the big glass windows near the front of the store. After the firing died down, Yuri and I scrambled through the double doors to our left. Both doors were no doubt necessary to allow the bloated capitalist pigs to enter the store and eat more hamburgers.
As soon as I was inside the restaurant, I got the scare of my life. One of the capitalist stooges stood at the far end of the restaurant with his hand in the air in surrender or maybe greeting. I startled and fired half of my AK-47 rounds at the bastard. The American’s head exploded instantly and his body disintegrated in chunks.
Yuri shouted again and again at me to stop and I finally released my finger from the trigger as my heart pounded in my chest. Yuri got up to inspect the damage. “Is the American dead?” I shouted at him.
“It’s not soldier you killed, Vasily,” he said as he lifted up a plaster arm painted in red and white. “Is just statue of silly American food clown.”
The rest of the Spetsnaz squad poured in behind me.
Trinov scanned the overturned tables, the shards of glass littering the empty restaurant and the pock marks of bullet holes everywhere. “The Americans are over in that building over there,” he said as he pointed across the street.
I’ll admit that I suddenly felt hungry for an American hamburger.
The Mi-8 helicopters took turns sweeping their guns and firing rockets at a small building to the east of the bridge before departing back to base.
My flying tank was to wait around and try to help the Spetsnaz below with their assault. Finally, it was my turn to join the war and kill the enemy. This was not like Afghanistan with the enemy that hid in the holes. No, these men were sitting in a building that I could completely level at a whim. It’s too bad I needed to conserve ammunition or I would have done just that.
I swung towards the building and let loose with a pair of rockets and I cursed as they only hit some cars in the building parking lot. Several cars flipped over and one exploded, belching out inky black smoke in the air.
Mikhail ripped at the building with the big 12.7 mm machine gun and tracers spit out of the nose. It was dazzling and, for a moment, I forgot that we were in great danger here. I veered off from the enemy position.
So the first casualty of World War III was a silly American clown but I had no time to laugh or cry about this because Trinov ordered us to rush into the big building full of little shops just across the street. From the outside, it looked very nice. There was a little bar with a patio outside and no doubt only yesterday this would have been full of peaceful West Germans, going about their lives, drinking good German beer and reading the newspaper. Today, however, it was going to be the site of mayhem and destruction.
“GO!” screamed Trinov. Our squad burst out of the hamburger restaurant and I sprinted across the street and into the parking lot. We took cover behind a burning car. One of our Mi-8 helicopters swooped low and shot out a stream of bullets as it went past the nearby building. We ran to the bar across the street. After a pause, we clambered up the patio and inside.
Yuri was beside me and he suddenly dropped as I heard a noise coming from behind the bar. In shock and anger, I scrambled behind a barrel while my other squad mates kicked over a table and started returning fire. A grenade landed behind the overturned table and my eyes went wide as Niki casually picked it up off the ground and flung it back. There was a very loud pop and the firing from behind the bar stopped.
I looked behind me and Trinov and the rest of my squad mates had set up a PKM machinegun in the nearby hamburger restaurant and fired at the rest of the Americans in the adjacent shop. With all that helicopter fire and the PKM, it must have been a living hell in there for the American soldiers.
Good. Yuri was my friend.
As I watched the men scramble below at the American positions and the other helicopters raked them with machinegun fire, I got a call over my radio warning about “incoming support”. What the hell was that supposed to mean, I thought?
Suddenly my little radar screen lit up with something very fast coming our way. I could only pray that it was not an America fighter.
Much to my pleasant surprise, a Rook (yes, I know you called it a “Frogfoot” back then. Were you just giving them silly names to make them sound less threatening?) soared low from the west shoving cannon fire out from its nose before dropping a bomb on one of the buildings. From up here, it all seemed so precise and deadly. Were there really men down there under all that, suffering and dying and killing?
Turn 3-4
Major Petrov and his men rushed to the south side of the building where the Americans were trying to make a counter-attack. As he ran, he fumbled with his bayonet before dropping it out of frustration. Somewhere in front of him, there was a fierce firefight and several explosions. Smoke filled the hallway as his men charged forward. He stepped over several bodies. An apartment door stood crookedly in the hallway, dangling off its hinges. He tapped two men on the shoulder and told them to rush the apartment. They charged in and a second later there were a handful of small pops. Both of his men groaned and fell to the floor dead. Useless.
He ordered several men behind him to charge in again and this time braced his submachine gun against the door and shoved it in the doorway. He was firing blind into the apartment but he was safe behind the cover of the wall and the door. The SMG jumped up in his hands. His men charged in, screaming and firing wildly. He followed them in, watching as an American jumped on one of his best men with a kitchen knife in one hand. Both men cursed at each other. The young Russian shoved at the American’s throat with his rifle stock. Finally, the American pushed the rifle stock away and lunged at the Russian with the big knife. Petrov snapped out of it and emptied his AKM, the bullets walking their way up the American’s bod before he fell to the ground. Petrov’s young subordinate looked up and nodded a quick thanks.
Petrov turned the corner out of the kitchen and headed towards the apartment bathroom. Two Russians pushed at the door but were unable to budge it. One Spetsnaz flew at the door with a kick but only managed to put his leg through the flimsy wood. He squealed in pain as the American on the other side of the door shot the offending limb. Petrov pulled the young man away from the door, writhing in pain. He pulled a grenade off his webbing, took the pin, and sunk the grenade into the hole made by the Russian soldier’s leg. Suddenly he heard cries of panic and the Americans inside desperately trying to open the door to escape. His men held tight on the door as it pushed and pulled against the jamb. A few seconds later, the grenade inside the bathroom exploded and no one tried to open the door anymore.
Trinov barely paused to survey the carnage. “We must get across the bridge,” he told the men around him.
Boris sat idly in the factory to the west of the Eisenbach Bridge. If the war ended today, he could be proud. His only job so far was to liberate the factory where the West German workers had been exploited for the past forty years and he and his men had done it without firing a single shot. The fact that the factory was empty and that no American soldiers were in sight helped the smooth completion of this task immensely.
As he took a long drag of a cigarette, he peered out of the large windows and looked worriedly to the west. So far things had gone smoothly this morning but sooner or later the Americans would figure out what happened and there would be hell to pay. He hoped that he and his men would not be the ones to foot the bill. Boris’ hope died the instand he heard the M1 tank.
Turn 5
Heavy machine gun fire does not bother me. M1 tank rounds whizzing past my helicopter do not bother me. Even the threat of Stinger missiles does not bother me. What really bothers me, however, is when I am unable to hit back at them.
From my cockpit, I saw clearly the American armored vehicles rushing in from the west. They had managed to avoid fire from the Sagger weapons team I had dropped off on the north hill and the little armored vehicles were fast enough that they could avoid my machine gun fire and still drop off their men. It was maddening!
Mikhail was not happy either. He had all but locked up one of the armored vehicles with the anti-tank missiles but the little pest weaved past a church just as we fired. The missile took off and then spiraled straight into the steeple with a fantastic explosion that rained bricks and mortar onto the street below.
Major Petrov had never before had the pleasure of watching an armored vehicle try to crush him. As the M113 plowed towards him, he screamed at his men to open fire, which they did with gleeful abandon. Their bullets mostly bounced off the vehicle’s hull harmlessly. Someone behind him fired a grenade launcher at the APC, however, and this seemed to finally give the driver pause. More angry than scared, Petrov turned to say something but the look of horror on his men’s faces made him turn to the west and look down the street. An M1 tank sat in front of them and all he could think was, “That’s a very large tank,” before the muzzle flashed and everything in the world went white.
Boris ran to the second floor of the factory with his men. The M1 tank just outside was firing down the street. One of his men aimed their RPG at the tank below but Boris put out his hand. There was no sense giving away their position to the other Americans that were surely all around him. They would wait until the Yankee soldiers came near and then they would fire at them point blank and kill them all.
Another group of comrades in the factory downstairs were not so reticent, however, and as an American APC rushed down the street, he saw a quick flash and a smoke trail coming from the factory window. The M113 was turned into a twisted metal wreck in the middle of the street. The hull was black and charred and there was a big hole punctured in its right side where the RPG had penetrated. The rear ramp was crumpled and peeled slowly from the back of the vehicle before falling slowly to the street with a soft “clunk”.
Suddenly Boris thought he spotted something moving below. Incredibly, American soldiers from across the street were racing towards the factory, using the wrecked vehicle as cover. Now was the time to shoot. He switched his weapon to automatic and let the bastards below have it. The Americans might get their big tanks into the city but this factory was his now and they would not take it back from him. Perhaps after the war, they would be so proud of Boris that they would let him manage this very factory. That would be nice, he thought, as he emptied his magazine into the Americans below.
Turn 6
The big American tank was a big Russian problem, Boris finally realized. There were now American soldiers on the factory floor below him. All the grenades and RPG rounds had been exhausted on the Americans near the M113. The men around him were pulling their pistols and slipping bayonets on the end of their rifles.
This was not very effective, however, against 105mm high explosive rounds. One of the tank rounds slammed into the window down the walkway where his squad sat. While the explosion nearly deafened him, he stopped feeling sorry for himself when he looked back to find many of his men missing important body parts such as their heads and torsos. There was a lot of screaming too. He wouldn’t forget that – even if they did give him this factory after the war.
He crawled away from the windows, coughed up the dust swirling around him and he heard the strange sounds of a foreign language being spoken below him. He waited.
Did I mention to you that I don’t really like M1 tank rounds flying past my helicopter? I thought so.
Now please don’t think that I was scared of that silly American tank. It was no match for our missiles and I would have gotten around to destroying it eventually. Mikhail pointed out, however, that American soldiers were swarming the factory near the tank and that this factory seemed to be their objective. It was time to ruin their day so I did what any self-respecting pilot did and I put the flying tank four feet above the street, rotated it towards the factory and let loose with everything I had. Missiles, rockets, machine gun rounds. All I could think was, “So the Americans think they have firepower with their tanks? No, my friend, I will show you firepower. You have only little toys!”
The factory started on fire immediately after we started firing. Something inside exploded as I raked across the windows with the machine gun and the rocket pods. Eventually, a big black cloud of dust burst through the windows and then the outer wall completely fell off and there was no more façade. The factory’s steel girders and machinery were exposed naked to the street outside. I should have probably stopped there but I didn’t. I just kept firing. Eventually, Mikhail told me that we were completely dry. I smiled and turned for home.