Admiral Jerzy Waitrowski
"Captain, scouts report the vessel is in sight."
Yes, as if he didn't know. He's been watching the smoke plume wind its way downriver. Soon, very soon. "Report"
"Tug and Barge. Two vehicles on the barge's forward deck. He reports it as an OT-64 and a T-72. Sir, the OT is on the starboard side."
Damnation. The OT is a box on wheels, over 2 and a half meters tall, a people mover. The T-72 is built short and low to the ground to make a small target and use available cover. He wanted that tank first shot dead, but that OT casts a shadow. The OT won't stand up to the Rapira, but it costs time, time the tank might use to get it's own shot off. The Wislakrew doesn't have armor.
He leans out the bridge window and bellows down to the gun crew. "Gunner, the tank is obscured by another vehicle. Take the best shot you can get as soon as the barge clears the headland. You'll only have a small window."
"Aye, Captain!"
------------------------------------------
Leonid
Tadeuz takes another sounding. "Dat the Swider ahead. Capt'n knows to go slow. Outflow slows as it meets the Wistula. Drops dirt, makes bars as it mingles."
The same short speech he gives every time we pass another river. I am shoreman, da, not know anything. After we're past the mouth he'll share his homemade. Take the paint off the barge. Best kind.
I feel something wrong. Eyes on me. There in the Swider's mouth is something. Grey and angular. I reach for the radio to the bridge.
FLASH-CRACK!
I'm on the deck, the air moved around me. Radio up, "Bow to bridge, contact in the river mouth, 300 meters!" No clang, no deck shift, no flash of heat behind me. They missed.
The tug sounds it's 5 times sharply, pause, 5 times, pause, 3 times....
FLASH-CRACK-CLANG!
I feel the flash of the detonating shell against my back and the pressure pushing me down into the deck. Out T-72 jumps against it's moorings. A perfect hole on the upper right glacis. Smoke begins to pour, black, off of the rear deck. Sgt Ormen clambers off the turret. His mouth flaps wildly, but nothing in my ears.
---------------------------------------
The bridge crew roars. A large plume of black smoke rises off of the tank's deck. Little figures run about wildly.
"Cast off bow and stern!"
--------------------------------------
Smoke. No flames. No boom. I pick myself up. Clamber aboard the tank's deck. Reach for the turret hatch. Smoke greets me.
---------------------------------------
"Hold fire!" That's a kill. "Load HE! Put rounds onto the superstructure!" Lose the bridge and she'll be adrift, helpless.
-----------------------------------------
Hold that breath. Find your sight. Blink the tears from your eyes until you can see. The turret's already swung partway around. There it is. Pull.
The autoloader chuckles as it cycles a new round into position. Keep that breath in.
------------------------------------------
The torpedo cutter doesn't have much armor, really, but it is enough to set off the self-forging charge in the HEAT round. The molten metal penetrator cuts right through the thin metal of the bridge spraying a hose of molten metal across instruments and men. Shattered glass and sheet metal shrapnel chew everything outside of the stream.
On the deck, shadowed by the forward walkway from the explosion against the bridge, the crew of Rapira pick themselves up. The gunner works the screws to bring the gun back around to what he thought was a confirmed kill.
CRACK
-------------------------------------------
BOOM... The T-72 rocks back as the Rapira's HE round impacts on the hull front.
Like a fucking dog with a bone. I'm banged around the turret interior. My breath rushes out. I choke on the smoke. Exhale and hold. Fight the burning inside. Damn them. Are they still in the sight? Yes, no, yes? Fire.
-----------------------------------------
The round strikes the shield of the Rapira anti-tank gun. It jumps it shocks, twisting to port, and listing over the rail. The gun crew crushed in its wake. Shells bounce across the decking.
----------------------------------------
"Gunny! You see it!" The barge's bow is awash in thick smoke, lit by cannon flash and impacts.
He doesn't bother to answer me. He's damn calm. "Mortars, 50 degrees off the bow, 400 meters. Give it everything."
It'll take time to calculate the angle and orient the tubes. Our MG emplacements are lashing back. I don't know if they're going to be able to do anything to it.
-------------------------------------------
The autoloader chunks to itself as it cycles the next round, fire. Cough. Cycle, fire. Cough, cycle, cough. Fire. Doubled over with wracking coughs. Can't breath. Fire.
------------------------------------------
Four more 125 rounds slam downriver. Two impacts on the cutter. The first strikes where the Rapira had been braced against the superstructure. The penetrator cuts down into the interior of the ship, lancing molten metal through bulkheads and spraying across the crew and cargo spaces. The second impacts on the hull and slices through cargo and a fuel bunker. Molten metal flash boils the fuel forcing it out the entry point and down the fuel lines. A jet of flame rises cutter's bow. In the engine compartment, fuel lines snap and superheated liquid mixes with open air. If the Wislakrew still ran on diesel, it would have exploded, instead alcohol flashes throughout the compartment, strangling the engine gang, and blossom out of every open hatch, air intake, and exhaust.
Random mortar fire falls about the stricken ship.
------------------------------------------
"Check fire. All mortar's check fire."
-----------------------------------------
Smoke, choking smoke. Hands on my uniform and under my arms. Choking. Good God, I'll never smoke again. Coughing so hard I'm puking too.
Wonders, I can hear too. "Get the Oxy from sick bay! Now!" Try to tell them. I'm ok, just need to sleep.
-----------------------------------------
Crewless, powerless and holed, the Swider carries her into the bank. She lists and settles.
-----------------------------------------
"Doc, casualties."
Doc nods her head. "Concussion, some shrapnel wounds, five patched and back on light duty. I pulled three more off duty. They'll need to be watched."
"And our fine fucking Russian."
"Leo's our worst, smoke inhalation. I have him on oxygen and moved into sick bay. We're going to have to just wait and see." This is for public consumption. I'd already cornered Doc. Leo should be dead, strangled on burning lubricants, but given our 'special circumstances' I knew he'd be back in days. Right?
"Eddie, the tank?"
"First round cored her Major. Right through driver's compartment, fuel tank and into the engine. Would have been really bad if we hadn't drained all the juice when we started this trip. Instead the grease and lubricants went and took the rubber and wiring with them. APU and electronics went as well. I'll run lines from the OT and see if the turret comes back, but she's a bunker now."
Gunny?"
Any heads in the water got worked over. We don't see anyone on shore. Doesn't mean they're not there, crew is still at GQ.
"Good. Captain Rataj, ship status?"
"Completely operational. Karl reports damage to forward decking, none to hull. I'll be ready to move when you are."
"Great! Captain, the cutter was waiting for us. Is the Swider just a good place to park or is there a potential base to be found?"
"Swider is deep channel. Up here," he taps the map, "Otwock, 3 kilometers upstream, industrial town, good docks before the war. Was on my route."
"In your opinion, can we still run it?"
"Swider runs fast. Blockage would be at the mouth." He grins, "Make side trip."
"You wouldn't want to take a bunch of small fry when one big stick would do." My command staff thinks it out. Grins appear. We may have a chunk of their force bottled here. And support personnel, if they're based there."
"We'll stay here until Eddie and the mechs finish running lines and we know the tank's status. Then, side trip."
No comments:
Post a Comment