WARNO: Andropov’s Harvest

 

I believe in homicide

I rest my case, don't cast aside

You better believe it

That's the truth of it

Take it or leave it

Resign to it

Homicide, homicide

Homicide, homicide…

 - ‘Homicide’ by 999 (1978)

“Keep firing!” shouted Leonidov.  “Don’t let those fascists near the farm!” Leonidov felt the butt of his AK-74 pound deeper and deeper into his shoulder until a dull ache began to grip the right side of his body.  But there couldn’t be any letup. The West Germans were scouting the battalion’s left flank, attempting to find any weakness the fascists could use against his comrades. He wasn’t going to allow that to happen. As if to prove that to himself, Leonidov fired off a three-round burst from his weapon at an enemy soldier who was firing from behind a tree.  He was gratified when he saw his rounds stitch their way up the enemy soldier's exposed arm, causing the soldier to drop the rifle from his now mangled arm.  Leonidov fired another burst at the pain-stunned West German and saw him spin and fall to the ground. He didn’t know if he had killed the guy, but he was sure that that soldier wasn’t going to be a problem anymore one way or the other.  He pulled back from the window he was firing from, and popped out the magazine from his AK, the muzzle releasing tendrils of smoke that reminded Leonidov of a sooty black snake. The mental image gave him pleasure.  With a snap, a fresh magazine was in place and he fired again.  

Around him, he was aware of the four other men of his recon team doing the same thing. The early 20th-century farmhouse rattled with the noise of three assault rifles and one RPK-74 squad machine gun hammering away. At the same time, rounds from the fascists popped, whizzed, and snapped around him, often shattering furniture, wall hangings, and the occasional decorative vase or knickknack. Just as well, thought Leonidov.  The West German traitors don’t deserve their stolen goods! Leonidov fired again, anger twisting his mouth into a snarl.  

The West Germans were taken by surprise when they approached the farm. The almost casual jog they took down the tree-lined road to the farmstead betrayed the mistaken assumption that they were first on the scene. They were unprepared for the speed with which his airmobile regiment operated, the fruit of hard combat ops in Afghanistan against the fanatical mujahedin.  They were paying for it now.  Leonidov counted at least three enemy soldiers down, with two hiding amongst the trees, their firing becoming increasingly infrequent and then nonexistent.  We won!   The rest of the men made the same realization. Even sour Groyvankov, the squad RPK gunner, had a begrudging half-smile on his brutal face.  

“Okay! That takes care of that!” declared Leonidov. He spit on the green carpeted floor to get the taste of gunpowder, dust, and smoke from his mouth.  “Use this time to check your weapons and count ammo.” Leonidov pointed at Sevrov, the junior soldier in the recon team. “Your arm is bleeding. Nothing serious. But get a bandage on that. We won’t have time for amputations until after the war!”  Sevrov blanched while the rest of the squad laughed at his reaction.

Being proud members of one of the Soviet Army’s most storied regiments, the tight-knit team checked their gear professionally. Because of that silence, they could hear it before they saw it: a mere rumble, but one that quickly rose to a roar of diesel and metal sprockets. Sevrov pointed out the nearest window, his left hand still holding the roll of sanitary bandaging he used to wrap his tricep.  “Tank!  

“You think?” quipped Groyvankov.  The rest of the men snickered.

“It looks like a Leopard 2. Fair enough.” Leonidov slung his rifle and trotted over to the pile of gear the squad deposited near the back of the room they occupied inside the farmhouse. He grabbed a tubular RPG-22 and threw it at Sevrov who caught it dumbly and just stared at it.  “Don’t just look at it! Get ready to fire it! The same for the rest of you!” Leonidov grabbed more of the light anti-tank weapon and gave one to each man.  “Remember: this has a sizable backblast! Spread out and for God’s sake don’t stand behind a comrade when he is firing!” 

The roar of the Leopard tank was now very loud, its predatory shape easily visible as it lumbered up the road despite its mottled grayish-green camouflage. “I will fire first with Groyvankov. If the beast still isn’t dead, then Sevrov and Tikhiy.” ‘Tikhiy’ (his real name was Bulkov, but his understated demeanor earned him the nickname “quiet”) was the squad’s radioman. As such, Leonidov deliberately kept him out of combat as his skill with the radio was more important than his skill with a weapon. But times like this necessitated his involvement. Tikhiy, as ever, had no comment. He just nodded while prepping the disposable rocket launcher. “We do this in pairs. Got it?”

The squad didn’t bother to reply, they simply got ready to fire. Leonidov was proud of their stoicism.  There was no unnecessary chest-beating. They just did their job.

“Good. Get ready…” Leonidov brought the olive green firing tube up to his shoulder and bracketed the enemy tank in the pop-up iron sight at the end of the tube.  He glanced at Groyvankov, getting a nod in confirmation. “Clear behind! Firing!” The RPG-22 was never meant to be fired indoors, but such is the ad hoc nature of battle. With deafening backblasts that blackened the wallpaper opposite the launchers, the two rockets left their tubes and streaked toward the Leopard. The tank’s crew saw the attack and brought the tank to a lurching halt, its turret swiveling to face the direction of the attack, but there was nothing more it could do.  Both rockets struck the tank’s front armor with bright flashes and showers of sparks.  There was no cheering on the part of Leonidov or his men. They simply waited to see what had become of the tank once the smoke cleared.  

The tank seemed stunned. It sat immobile for a time. But then the turret came to life, its 105mm gun adjusted its angle, and a hammer of high explosives smashed into the farmhouse.  Leonidov didn’t remember how he came to be on the floor. With tremendous effort, he pulled himself to a sitting position, his body wracked with pain.  He couldn’t move his legs and the back of his uniform felt wet.  He looked around and saw a round hole in the exterior wall to the left of where he had stood, with the facing interior wall blown apart. He could now see the kitchen with the sink’s plumbing spraying water everywhere. “Bastards.”  Sevrov and Tikhiy were pulling themselves up from the floor, both with various injuries. Of Groyvankov there was only a broken body that resembled a pile of torn rags in a spreading pool of blood. “Fire, damn you! Fire!” he shouted at the dazed Sevrov and Tikhiy. They both nodded, with Leonidov only able to cover his ears and close his eyes in support.  Like archers of old, the soldiers released another volley of rocket-propelled arrows at the dragon.  

The tank was struck again. Two deafening blasts echoed into the farmhouse.  Again, the tank seemed stunned into silence. A thin oily column of smoke slowly rose from the tank's rear.  It grew wider, and smokier, with red flames at its base. The beast was hurt. A fire had erupted from its engine. 

Sevrov turned to the recumbent Leonidov, a smile slowly stretching across his youthful face. “We got…”

The second 105mm round from the Leopard tank blasted into the face of the old farmhouse, causing the exterior wall to crumble in sections, wood shingles raining down like tears.  The fire soon spread inside the home, licks of bright flames entwined with tentacles of smoke visible through the shattered windows. 

No one cared

When someone lied

They'd rather say

That it's irrelevant

You better believe it

That's the truth of it

Take it or leave it

Resign to it

Sgt. Hans Blaufeld's ears rang with the impact of the anti-tank missiles on the exterior of his Leopard. The interior of the tank was filling with smoke, while yellow and red telltale lights blinked at his commander’s station with even more flashing in the driver’s compartment.  

“Fire! In the engine compartment!” cried Pvt. Frederick Nebelhower from his position forward of and below Blaufeld. 

“Hit the extinguishers!” replied Blaufeld.

“But that will foul the engine!” he protested.

“It’s gone anyway. Do it.“ A coughing fit made him pause.  “Everyone out! Now! I can’t even see my hand in front of my face with all this smoke…” Blaufeld opened the hatch above him. His body stiffened from tension, he awkwardly pulled himself onto the top of the cupola. Smoke followed him out of the hatch, making it hard to see where the turret handhold was located, and he nearly tumbled from the top of the tank onto the sun-baked road below. He bent over coughing. When the spasm passed, he spat on the dusty road, partly to get the oily taste of smoke from his mouth and partly out of frustration with the condition of his tank.  “Everyone out?” he called.  Nebelhower, who exited from the same side of the tank, gave a thumbs up as he ran past Blaufeld to check on “his baby” and its engine that he slavishly looked after.  On the other side of the tank, he heard his gunner, Vogel, and the loader, Feldt, replay in the affirmative.  “Good. Good,” he muttered. 

He straightened. The farmhouse they had systematically demolished lay up the road, flames consuming more of its structure.  “We got you even if you stung us.” 

He turned and joined Nebelhower as he examined the still-smoking engine at the vehicle’s rear. Nebelhower was already at the engine, his hands moving with practiced precision despite the chaos around them. "It's bad, sir," he said, not looking up. "We might be able to patch it up, but it'll take time."

“Nah, not going to happen.” Nebelhower stopped his examination to glare at him. “Don’t worry, not a write-off. But we will need a recovery vehicle to tow us back to the FoB. Hopefully, they can swap in a new engine before the day’s out.” Blaufeld looked up at the sun, its bright summer glare making him squint. Blaufeld could often forget there were such things as the sun and fresh air when locked inside his turret for long deployments.  “It's early yet, not even noon.” He turned to Feldt who had wandered over to poke at the engine with the rest of them even though he had no special expertise.  “Get on the radio and call for a recovery vehicle.”

Feldt nodded, “Right way.” He pulled himself up on the tank and scrambled inside the turret with all the ease of a rabbit bolting into its hole.  

“Vogel, grab the rifle and stand guard while Nebelhower and I get the camo netting to cover this 55-ton sitting duck.” 

But Vogel wasn’t listening. He was staring into the sky, a combination of stress and the hot summer day causing perspiration rivulets to run from his hairline down his boyish face. “It might be too late…”

Blaufeld felt a cold stone form in the pit of his stomach as his head snapped up to look where Vogel was pointing. All he saw was a blackish blotch against the bright blue sky. It grew and split into two, one larger than the other, with the larger arcing away while the smaller streaked towards them. Blaufeld couldn’t get the words out from his smoke-choked and thirst-parched throat. “Run!” was all he croaked before the air-to-ground anti-tank missile struck. The explosion was deafening, a concussive force that threw Blaufeld through the air. He landed hard, the impact knocking the wind out of him. As he lay there, dazed and struggling to stay conscious, he muttered “Feldt… get out…” His vision faded to black with the burning tank becoming a torch in a darkening room.

Captain Kostya Ivanov smiled inside the MiG-27's cockpit as the Kh-29T anti-tank missile found its target and detonated with a flash, turning another Western tank into so much junk.  It was his third kill of the day. A hectic day, indeed, he mused. He brought the sleek ground attack aircraft into a hard turn onto a new vector to search for another target.  He was still somewhat taken aback by the state of hostilities. It was so sudden!  Still, he was glad to have an opportunity to accomplish what he had been training to do for most of his adult life. And he was very good at it, as his kill count confirmed…

His threat indicator suddenly began screeching in concert with a flashing yellow warning light. Something has locked onto me! He instinctively threw the craft into a wild series of gyrations while popping flares and chaff and threw his head about in a desperate attempt to spot his attacker. Was it a SAM? Another fighter? What was it, dammit! 

He never did find out. His MiG-27 disintegrated too quickly after being struck. 

I believe it's homicide

I rest my case, don't cast aside

You better believe it

That's the truth of it

Take it or leave it

Resign to it

Homicide, homicide

Homicide, homicide

Homicide, homicide