verulam

PFC Purtle hollered down to the armored truck’s driver to stop.
“Hold up here.  We don’t want to get too far back from Sergeant Bagby.”
“What are you talking about?” the young Private responded, “He said to leave him. The whole world is blowing up on that hillside!” 
“Just hang here a few minutes,” Purtle ordered, “I’ll see what I can do.”  He finished clipping the lead round from a new box of 40mm HEDP onto the dangling belt from his Mk19, swung the weapon around, and adjusted the traverse and elevation mechanism to lay the heavy gun on the hillside a scant 300m away.  All he could see were trees, with smoke sifting up through the leaves. 
“Well, what the hell, they won’t like these grenades going off over their heads,” he thought, and loosed a quick burst, followed by another.  He had no solid target, but shooting back at anything felt good, and soothed his jangling nerves.
 

 
On the other side of the hill, KPT Antonyuk spoke emphatically into his handset, his tone imperative. 
“No, you must pull back.  There are too many, and they are on the south side too.  Get your men back to the gully!  Now!” 
“Is that LT Kolomiyets, with Second?”  his RTO asked. 
“Yes, but he is not himself.  He must lead his men back….” 
As the Kapeytan spoke, the “TCHANK, TCHANK, TCHANK!” hammer on anvil sound came again from behind the 2nd Platoon Positions.  Moments later yet another column of smoke rose into the sky, marking the destruction of yet another Ukrainian BMP-2, this one belonging to PdPK Levchenko himself.  Antonyuk looked to his rear for his commander, and saw him with his team headed back down towards the gully to their rear.  Cannon shells from up on the hillside and across the valley kept whipping across, each one detonating above the surviving infantrymen of 2nd Platoon, each with a fearful “Craccckk!”  Antonyuk watched in helpless agony as yet another team of dismounts hit the ground and lay still.  Then another round zipped past from the south, this one seemingly close enough to reach up and grab as it passed.  It detonated closer, and tight behind.  The Ukrainian officer gasped in shock as he recognized that it had found its mark, directly over his commander’s team.  He saw the haze of smoke in the air, and the dust thrown up on the ground from the shrapnel’s impact, all around his trusted mentor.  He said a brief prayer, and as it cleared he saw PdPK Levchenko still moving forward, though one of his party now lay still. 
“This is a disaster,” Antonyuk thought, “We must save what we can.  I wonder if the mortars can retreat in time.”  He grabbed the handset again and began speaking.
 

 

 
North of PFC Purtle’s position, LT Upham assessed the situation.  He was desperately working his way through his PACE plan, trying first his primary – his MNVR radio, then his alternate – his Blue Force Tracker 2, then his contingency – TACSAT (couldn’t find the bird) and finally his emergency communications systems.  His emergency system was a locally procured GSM cell phone he had picked up in Lviv, but to operate it he had to shut off his Bradley’s on board electronic warfare set.  While he was frantically working his way through this, his crew was helping SSG Svendson’s team cross loading the Javelin rounds.  It took less than a minute, but time seemed precious.  Upham hated his position – as soon as Purtle and Svendson had pulled back he had lost his eyes up front, and now had no idea how close the Russian elements had drawn. 
“Sir, we’re good to go.” 
“Dammit – frickin’ phone.  Good Sergeant, I need you to move back up so you can see what’s coming.  Move carefully up about 50m that way, where I came from, and get eyes on the hillside.  I’m pretty sure you should get a Jav shot in short order.  Don’t hang for two, just shoot and scoot like we practiced.  Haul ass back here.  I’ll send your truck back another terrain feature.”
“Roger that Sir.  Anything from Battalion at all?” 
“Not a damn thing.  Go kill a tank and I’ll bet I’ve got them up before you get back.”
The grim look in the NCO’s eyes struck the young collegian like a brick.  But he took the hit and nodded. 
“Good luck.  We’ll back you up.” 
He tucked the apparently useless phone back in his cargo pocket, and clambered up the side of the Bradle, hooking up his headset as he dropped into the BC’s hatch.  Without usable comms the scouts had no access to covering artillery, attack aviation, Air Force close air support or any other help, including MEDEVAC.  Nor could they do their actual job of communicating the enemy’s disposition to their Battalion leadership.  Upham hoped that comms would clear as the rapid columns of heavy armor drew nearer.
 

At the edge of Krickek, a 30 year old Ukrainian private was smoking a cigarette.  He was a rough looking character, with a light beard over heavy acne scars, and the tobacco stains on his teeth hid the poor dental repairs.  But despite his ragamuffin appearance, he was alert and was keeping his smoke low in the hole he shared with a young high school kid from Kiev. 
“There, look…” he said, carefully setting his smoking cigarette against a sandbag. 
“It is a Russian – you see him Bubi?”
“Don’t call me that, you derelict.  Of course I see him.  Are you going to shoot him, or just admire him?”
The veteran grinned, never taking his eyes from the Russian trooper, creeping along a hedgeline in the little ville on the far side of the river.  For such a young punk, this kid had spirit!  He gave the AGS-17 grenade launcher a nudge to the left, and triggered a burst without even rechecking his aim.  The machinegun chuckled, and spat out a short stream of deadly little balls – like black little golf balls he thought, as he followed their short flight.  The rounds bracketed the hedge, detonating close around the Russian soldier, who quickly dropped from sight.  The private fired three more bursts for good measure, precisely dropping the grenades onto both sides of the hedge.  No more could be seen, but a shout in Russian seemed to promise that at least some of their fire had done some damage.  He smiled a crooked grin, and tucked his cigarette back into the corner of his mouth.  With the dust raised by their firing, it could hardly give away their position now.  Behind him another volley of artillery slammed down on Krichek, shattering street cobbles, bricks and roof tiles, as it detonated against the streets. 
 
http://youtu.be/jyIP2M3Av3s
 

 

 
LT Lysenko was wondering exactly who had his range.  He wasn’t certain, but his little post had taken nearly 20 rounds of something, and though he thought initially they had been seen by a tank, now he feared someone had zeroed in on his little band with a deadly large mortar, perhaps two.  The rounds came it at fairly regular intervals, and though he couldn’t get a direction from inside, they certainly seemed to be falling from above rather than below.  He popped his head up long enough to see a Russian infantryman plowing through the wheat, heading towards him from the north, then ducked as another bomb whistled in before detonating against the roof of the power plant stack to his east.   He strained to catch the fall of shot against the truck he had targeted with his own mortars, but could not see anything but a cloud of dust in that direction.  They must be on though, and he carefully pulled the radio set from his dead RTO’s back to raise the antenna so he could make the call.  
 

SSG Venar wasn’t exactly sure what was going on, but he knew it wasn’t good.  The Ukrainian infantry up the slope from him seemed to be having a bad time of it, and the shrapnel from the airburst they continued to receive rattled the trees above his head.  He turned to his teammate.
“We need to get the hell out of here.  Lets go.  I’ll call the LT as we move.”
 The two scouts began slithering back down the hill towards the gully they had infiltrated along.  As they moved, Venar keyed his mike and spoke into his headset.
“Fernandez, you there?  I don’t see you.  Where did you go?”
His driver responded almost immediately, gasping loudly,
“Outlaw 13, this is 13 Delta!  We had to pull back.  We got hit – no idea where it came from, we were just sitting there and BAM!  The right fender is all blown to ****!  I think the run flat is still okay, but I don’t know if it hurt the engine, or…”
“Delta, are you in cover?”
“Roger, I backed further up the gully.  I’m pretty sure no one can see us from here.  Michaels is checking the right side.”
“Okay, hang tight.  We’re gonna try and get back to you.  Too hot up here.  Switching higher, so just hang on.  13 out.”  Venar switched his radio over by feel, and immediately keyed on the platoon net.
“One Six, this is One Tree, over.” 
“This is One Six, send it.”
“One Tree, it is way hot here.  Green boys on the hill are getting their ass handed to them by our friends in red.  Could not stay.  Displacing back.  My Delta says our truck took a hit.  Seems to still run, but will have to assess when I get back.”
“Roger, bound back and stay under cover.  Let me know when you are remounted.”
“Wilco, out.”  The two scouts began working their way down into the ravine. The veteran NCO turned to his teammate.
“Get that AT-4 ready.  I don’t like those engine noises, and that green BMP over there is backing up.” 
 

 

 
On the south side of the hill, SGT Cox continued his crawl, cursing all the way.  He could not believe that his team had not worn their anti-thermal Ghillie suits.  He would never be sure, but he felt those might have hidden them from view.  His crawl was slow and deliberate, as he had been taught, and as he had done numerous times in training and in Afghanistan.  He gradually worked his way back towards his torn teammates, focused on at least recovering their dog tags, and double checking to ensure they were both actually dead.  Unfortunately, his premonition on vulnerability to thermal sights was well founded.  A Russian tank gunner on the south side of the wheat field, equipped with solid second-generation thermal imaging sights, courtesy of the French company Thales, caught a hint of movement from within the treeline.  The commander told his gunner to fire if he thought he saw troops, and a 125mm high explosive fragmentation round screamed across the intervening kilometer in less than a second.  Though it missed him by over 20 meters, the shell exploded at a height of nearly 5 meters off the ground, blasting steel shards at lethal velocity in all directions.  SGT Cox felt his body struck by half a dozen splinters.  Three drove into his body armor and stopped, bruising him, but doing little harm.  Two tore into his right arm and shoulder, piercing his muscle but doing recoverable damage.  The last was a strip that failed to fully fragment, nearly 20 cm long and razor sharp, peeled from the length of the bursting shell, still flying at nearly 600m per second when it struck him in the left leg just below the knee.  Dazed but still conscious, SGT Cox clamped his left hand down on his gushing leg while his right groped for his Combat Application Tourniquet, conveniently rigged, per training, for single handed application. 
 

 
As the Russian forces decimated KPT Antonyuk’s company, the first two BMP-2s to die had been 1st Platoon vehicles.  Now the sole surviving vehicle hunkered down in the gully and watched fate bearing down on him.  The commander could not quite spot the enemy vehicles, but he could see their antennas moving towards him as he peered over the lip of the gully embankment that shielded his track.  He looked behind him, and was gratified to see his squad of infantrymen moving up into the trees to his rear.  The LT was dismounted and ordered to keep his men in and around the village of Starov.  Obviously he had decided to interpret the village borders somewhat loosely.  Perhaps they could still manage to hit a few of the Russian dogs as they came hunting for him.
 

 

P.S.  Please do keep voting up the posts. If I cannot defeat Bil on the battlefield, perhaps I can amass more 'forum reputation points' than him!  Ha!

On the north side of the hill, the remnants of 3rd Platoon were still being ground down by the advancing Russian BMP-3s and infantry.  The Platoon leader came staggering back through the forest and collapsed by a tree, falling next to the last two surviving dismounted infantrymen from his small command, both bleeding from multiple shrapnel wounds to their faces and upper torsos. 
“Sir, are you okay?”  one asked.  The Lieutenant’s haggard face told the story as he just stared at the man in obvious shock.  In that instant, another burst of lethal 30mm cannon fire struck, directed by the thermal sights on an unseen enemy vehicle, and the officer fell forward on his face and was still.  The two infantrymen cried out in panic, then both began crawling away from the source of the fire, one whimpering in fear and the other snarling in impotent rage.
 

 
Note:  BMP in background is destroyed Ukrainian 3d Platoon vehicle.  
 
 
In Krichek, KPT Kovtun knew that the Russians were up to something.  The artillery  continued to hammer down, but there was simply not enough fire or probing coming from the far side of the river, especially given the destruction of one of an enemy BMP over there by his ATGM team several minutes ago.  Someone or something should have been hunting, searching, trying to pin down the missile team or flush out its comrades.  He called the BMP2 section which had moved up and taken position along the row of houses on the west, facing the river. 
“Borsuk 11, have you seen anything?  Any activity from the far side?”
“Nothing Viktor, hang on, I’ll move up and take a quick look.”
“Borsuk 11, this is Vovk, Hang on 11, don’t do anything stupid.”
“Trust me Viktor – we are good on this.”
An instant later a Kovtun heard the unmistakable hammering of outgoing 30mm fire, over the shriek of another incoming artillery shell.  As his ears were still ringing from the tremendous detonation, he gradually heard the voice calling again on his radio.
“Vovk, this is Borsuk 21…  Vovk this is Borsuk 21…”  with a heavy heart, already knowing Kovtun took a deep breath and replied.
“Go ahead 21.” 
“11 is destroyed.  We never saw what did it.  His track is burning.  No one got out.” 
“21 this is Vovk, do me a favor and don’t DIE in the next five minutes.  Keep scanning but keep YOUR heads down.  We need your track, your cannon, and your missiles!  Stay under cover and respect the enemy’s abilities.  Vovk out.”  He passed the handset back to his RTO, making a deliberate effort not to throw it against the wall, and carefully peeling his white-clenched fingers from the black plastic.  An instant later, he took it back and spoke again.
“Brytva 22, this is Vovk.  Move to checkpoint 2 and observe.”
“This is Brytva 22, understood.  Moving.  I have permission to shoot?”
Podpulkovnyk Tymoshenko stepped into the room.
“You are committing the Tunguska?”
“Brytva 22, destroy anything you see.  Out”  Kovtun gave his Air Defense Commander a hard look. 
“Yes Sir.  It is needed.  We have lost too many combat vehicles, and now 11 has stupidly gotten himself and his crew obliterated.  I need a check on the south, and it must be fast, and lethal if anything is there.  Brytva 21 on the other side has done quite well, although he said he saw nothing from his new position.”
“Absolutely.  Good, I approve.  I trust you Viktor.  Keep the fight going.  Levchenko will get here with the Americans.” 
 
http://youtu.be/cKvN6JINyaw
 
Outside, Major Harris drew the same conclusion from both the sounds of cooking off ammo from the recently destroyed BMP up the street, as well as the radio traffic which he and Beach were monitoring.  He too drew out his handset:
“Guiness, this is five, over.”  As a small team, the SFAT had adopted informal call signs.  SPC O’Brian was well known for his heritage, and his favorite beverage.
“Five this is Guiness.”
“Need you to get over to TRP 2 like we discussed.  Seen anything? Figure you can make it?”
“Roger.  We can make it.  The green boyos over here saw a couple dismounts earlier, but they laid into them with their AGS and we haven’t seen any movement since.  I think our move is still masked.  Same mission?”
“Roger, just like we rehearsed, over.”
“Guiness moving.  We’ll be back in a bit with notches on our CLU.  Out.”
One hundred meters away, the SPC O’Brian picked up the Javelin launcher, tapped PVT Metcalf on the shoulder, and headed quickly down towards the river bridge, carefully skirting the anti-tank mines laid on either side of the road.
 

 
At the Ukepor Power Plant, LT Lysenko grinned as he spoke into his mike. 
“Yes, that is in there.  Fire for effect.”
The infantry in the field had dropped from view, discouraged by a few bursts from his squad in the entry building, and the mortar spotting rounds had bracketed the position where he had last seen the Russian truck and troops.  He hoped the mortar boys would fire fast so he could shift them closer into the field.  He doubted his few men could hold off a platoon of determined Russians. 
 
Starshiy Kostenko knew he was a dead man.  The 2nd Platoon private was on the ground, crawling past the body of one of his comrades, trying to follow his section leader back down the hill to the west, away from the murderous fire from inside the trees.  It was like a horrible story to tell little children.  From dark shadows beyond sight inside the trees, the forest had suddenly belched fire and flame, and all around him men had fallen.  His own thighs and cheek burned with shrapnel, and he felt the warm sticky wetness of his own blood on his pant legs as he crawled.  Suddenly, right behind him, he heard a crashing roaring clatter of sound.  He turned his head and saw the Russian beast, a BMP-3, a mere stones throw behind him.  He swung his rocket launcher around, and thought to himself how sad his mother would be…
 

Downloaded, I'll get back to you with a report soon.  Many thanks.

A bit belated but thanks to Chris for doing these vids. The 'promo' showcase videos of upcoming material is much appreciated. Given the timezones I'll never get the chance to watch it live, but it's good to sit back and watch it at a later date.