Paterson, October 2nd, 2000
The troop in New/Old didn't hold to the plan. As soon as the fighting started in Praga they fell on their minders with gun and blade. By the time we mopped up the survivors in Praga they'd seized the cantonment and manned the walls. A small reaction force from the Palace was caught and slaughtered by the time we joined them. Ballsy and outstanding.
We radioed Rataj that the river communities had fallen. He could proceed back at first light. I set Emowitz the task of guarding the northern road. He took 40 men and two of our RPG-16 launchers. The rest of the men were seconded to me. We reinforced New/Old Town.
My troops and the Russians formed two mobile reserves. The men I'd brought over joined with the New/Old garrison and took to positions at or near the wall. I gave them orders to stand down half the men for sleep leaving the rest to watch the ruins. I expected action in the next few hours.
I was wrong. We heard plenty of movement down towards the Palace. Some gunfire too. Sorting out the unmotivated the only way they knew how.
Dawn broke and still no attack. I received reports of movement outside the walls. Occasional shots passing back and forth as they infiltrated as close as they dared. We could handle an infantry assault. What where they waiting for?
I was answered a hour later when the distant squeals and grinding of tanks sounded up the road.
Alphabit, October 2nd, 2000
"Get up, get up!" Ed's shouting at me. "Armor heading up the gap!"
Doc sleepily curses. I rub the sand away. "Didn't Cap blow it?"
"No! Keeping it open for the locals!"
God damn! I scrapped up my kit and raced for the town's 'gateway'. Like most of the construction in Warsaw, the wall isn't a sturdy structure. It grew as the locals cleared the rubble to make homes and fields. The weight of the upper layers keeps the lower from shifting out. More of a steep mound of scree than a proper wall. Only in a few spots, here and there along the length are older walls that survive the cities bombing. They give something for the rubble to lean on. The New/Old gateway is on such spot with two story walls anchoring the gap.
We'd argued, before the mission, about blowing it. Flooding the gap with rubble would keep armor out of New/Old or at least slow it enough for the RPG teams to take them apart. They'd decided to keep it. It would take months to clear. Well, they've got all winter to do that. I need to close it now.
The distant crump of mortars sounded from the Palace. I grabbed what cover I could. The rounds fell inside the walls. Begin to walk back.
God have mercy. I am one stupid git. The rounds are back that a-way, coming closer, but they're not here. I push off the ground and move. Grin. I'll race you to the gap!
I beat them. Mortar shells impact on both sides of the wall, but none in the space between. Then they start spilling smoke. Tanks coming next.
I spill out my kit; explosive bricks, detonators, and wire. I know them all, my old friends, by feel. The old walls in the gap. I walk their length, hand trailing along, feeling for the strain. The stone, it'll sing to you if you listen, let you know where the strain is. I hum along. Here a brick, trail out the wire, here another. The crunch of treads and howl of engines grows closer. Here, a third should do. Blind fire tears through the cloud, wild and high. Time to go. Wires trailing I sprint back and around the wall. Just need to wait a moment.
Leonid
Kapitan calls out from the other side of the gap as the clouds roll over us. "Leo! Get me another tank. Ours is broke!"
Damn smokescreen. Down the long road Czarny's tanks and IFVs are ready to push through us. I settle the thermal into my helmet's cradle. Take the scope from the SVD. See what I can see.
Out there, two tanks lead way. I can see both the drivers and the commander unbuttoned. They're safe in the smoke. Nyet.
Line up on the right tank's drive. Take the breath in. Let it out. In the quiet space between his head snaps back from impact. Still accelerating the tank curls to my right chewing into the ruin before stopping.
Blind fire from coax MGs and pintle mounts rake the wall at random. Most is low, some high, beside me a an RPG gunner screams at one just right. The other tank's still pushing forward. My second shot misses, close enough to send the driver ducking back in his station. The commander follows suit. There's a strange shape on the rear deck. Did they weld one of the big 120's there?
Behind the tank I count 2 BTRs and a BMP. Switch up the SVD for the dead man's RPG. Rounds rake back and forth. I grab up his satchel of rockets. One in the tube and two in the bag. Back up. They're halfway here. RPG to the shoulder. Flash and pressure as the motor kicks in. The tank shudders at the hit and it spins left as the track disintegrates. Mobility kill.
I drop to reload. Pop back up. The BMP is entering the gap, too close to arm the warhead. I sight on the rear BTR. It comes apart. I drop back down. I'm reloading when the wall crashes and shifts underfoot.
Alphabit
Cap wants a tank! Can do. Can do!
Just wait till you're in the gap. The engine shouts change, reverberating off both sides, amplifying the growl. Give it one heartbeat. Trigger.
The charges blow out the retaining structure. Scree, piled high against it, settles then slides down into the gap. A wave of rubble washes around the track, lapping up to the deck, trapping it in tons of rock. Get through that!
Leonid
The walls drops from under me a sudden half-foot. I can feel the stone shudder to a stop. Tremors as it shifts. On all fours I crawl away from the gap till I can't feel the shaking anymore.
In the distance I can hear the infantry assaulting other spots on the wall. The men will hold them. Here is where the battle was to be won. To the accompaniment of rifles the smoke clears.
I've lost the 16 after the wall shifted. I pull my last RPG-18 from my pack.
Alphabit
Not a tank! Little turret on a flat deck. It looks like my Squishmobile back in Krakow, a BMP. Hope Cap still wants it.
Doc's here at last. I shout to her, "Mine!" point at the BMP. She says something back. Wish my ears weren't ringing so loud.
She gets right close and bellows, "Hatch!"
Oh damn, men inside, recovering from the shake-up. We've both got the same idea. Grenades.
Soldiers muscle aside the rubble on their deck hatches. Arms reach out to climb from the vehicles. My grenade hits an open hatch, bouncing back into the drift of concrete. Doc's is good. Launched in a high arc it drops into a hatch. "Just like softball," she'll tell me later. Men scream. Desperately they try to scramble out before the detonation claims them. If not that one, then mine a second later.
Leonid
The last mobile vehicle, the BTR, tries to slalom backwards through the wrecks. Hard going made harder when the RPG-18 takes it on the forward deck. The death trap burns.
Paterson
Our walls held. The mortar battery on the Krowola gave the Palace a working over. Don't know if we got their mortars, but we didn't take any further fire.
Casualties, as they have us report, were 'acceptable. Between the mortar attack and fighting I had 21 dead. That would be sure to rise as Doc dealt with the wounded. Even with Rataj opening his stocks of antibiotics we'd be looking at follow on deaths and crippling injuries. Back to butchery as Doc said. I didn't bother with an enemy body count. Lots was good enough for me.
Leo reported on the shape he'd seen on the near tank. Nothing there now. Maybe there'd been tank riders? He disagreed. I'd been joking about a new tank. He got me two.
Two tanks stuck outside the walls. The nearer tank, a T-80, had been tracked by Leo. The crew hadn't bailed. Where would they have run, being right under our guns. I promised them fair treatment under the laws of war. I could afford to be generous and kept my word. I'll get the Russians on it as soon as things are settled.
The second tank, over a hundred meters down the road, near the bend had been abandoned by the commander and gunner. We shifted it close to our wall.
I press ganged the T-80 crew and some of the locals into shifting rock. We'll clear the gap to salvage the BMP as well.
Leo came back to me after talking to the T-80 crew. It hadn't been tank riders. Just one rider. They claimed it was Baron Czarny. Could. not. be. Was not. Like a bad joke, "Leo we kept his brain". He was shook. I convinced him the Baron had a body double. I think I convinced him anyway. Whoever it had been. Czarny is D E A D. Period.
I got my final surprise of the day towards evening. Russians clearing the BMP of bodies shouted for a medic. They'd found a survivor inside. Rutkowski.
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