Northern Fury 4: A Cold and Lonely Place - a CMANO AAR

Started by Airborne Rifles, July 18, 2015, 03:14:31 PM

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bob48

'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers'

'Clip those corners'

Recombobulate the discombobulators!

Sir Slash

If the Allies had 2 Danish Frigates, the war would already be over.  O0
"Take a look at that". Sgt. Wilkerson-- CMBN. His last words after spotting a German tank on the other side of a hedgerow.

OJsDad

'Here at NASA we all pee the same color.'  Al Harrison from the movie Hidden Figures.

Sir Slash

And here I thought all the Danish were good for was making pastries.  ;D
"Take a look at that". Sgt. Wilkerson-- CMBN. His last words after spotting a German tank on the other side of a hedgerow.

Staggerwing

Quote from: mirth on July 29, 2015, 10:22:31 AM
Quote from: Airborne Rifles on July 29, 2015, 10:13:17 AM
Quote from: mirth on July 29, 2015, 08:24:06 AM
That's one luck Danish frigate.

Tell me about it! Just wait until you hear about a later engagement. The crew of that boat should all buy lottery tickets.

(Just a note about the die rolls, the 76mm shell that took out the Yak-141 had a 1% chance of hit, and the computer rolled a 1)

It's better to be lucky than good.

Said every Viking ever.
Vituð ér enn - eða hvat?  -Voluspa

Nothing really rocks and nothing really rolls and nothing's ever worth the cost...

"Don't you look at me that way..." -the Abyss
 
'When searching for a meaningful embrace, sometimes my self respect took second place' -Iggy Pop, Cry for Love

... this will go down on your permanent record... -the Violent Femmes, 'Kiss Off'-

"I'm not just anyone, I'm not just anyone-
I got my time machine, got my 'electronic dream!"
-Sonic Reducer, -Dead Boys

Airborne Rifles

By now the early arctic dusk was falling over Jan Mayen, but that didn't stop an alert soldier at the meteorological station at the south end of Jan Mayensfeld from seeing something suspicious off the southern coast of the island. The station's commander picked up his transmitter and called Major Nansen.

"Viking, this is Odin, over," came the metallic voice through Nansen's receiver.

"Go ahead Odin," responded the major.

"Viking, we just saw a small boat come into sight and beach at the southern end of the island. Several men got out, pulled the boat ashore, and then started moving up the mountain. They appeared to be armed."

Nansen was immediately alarmed. "Did you get a count? What were their weapons," he asked sharply.

"We didn't get any of that," said the meteorological NCO sheepishly. "It is getting dark, and they were more than a kilometer away."

Nansen realized they had done well just to spot what had to be a Spetznaz recon team. But where had they come from? There was now ship out there. It had to be a submarine close in, and he just happened to have an aircraft in the air that was specialized in hunting submarines, with a full load of fuel, sonobuoys, and torpedoes.

"Thank you Odon. Well done. Keep your eyes peeled. We'll send what help down your way w e can."

Nansen called in his senior NCO, a hard-bitten infantry soldier who was acting as the platoon sergeant of his small band of soldiers and airmen. "Sergeant, get together what soldiers who aren't gainfully employed right now and take a patrol down to the southern hill. See if you can spot whatever Spetznaz team the Russians just landed on this rock.

"Yes sir." The sergeant walked off to bundle up and rouse soldiers from their bunks for what was sure to be a bone-chilling hike up the island's low southern mountain.

Next Nansen picked up another radio transmitter and called the P-3 which was just overflying the third lone contact it had detected on its radar, and neutral small container ship. He ordered the P-3 to concentrate on the shallow waters just south of the island. The four-engine plane banked and headed west. Once it arrived off the southern tip of the island it started dropping sonobuoys, both passive and active. These failed for a while to pick any unnatural sound. Then, just as the P-3's crew began to shift their search area to the west, the easternmost passive buoy picked up a faint contact that moved slowly to the south.

The P-3's crew pounced, dropping passive buoys all around the faint contact that quickly resolved into a noisy twin-screwed Echo-II class submarine moving south away from the island at six knots.

"We've got him," said the Orion's captain as he banked into his final sweep to drop active buoys and pinpoint the location of the Soviet sub. The active buoys dropped free.

"Sir, we've got a problem," the lead sonar technician reported. "The seafloor is so shallow and uneven that the active pings are actually interfering with our ability to pinpoint he Russian. Our torpedoes might also have a problem acquiring under these conditions."

This wasn't what the pilot wanted to hear as he stalked his first Russian sub of the war. "We'll drop anyway, see if we can spook him into increasing speed. Even if we miss, we should be able to get a better fix on him."

The P-3 banked again and settled into its attack run. At the calculated spot the big aircraft's bomb-bay doors opened and a single Mk46 torpedo, one of eight the Orion carried on this mission, dropped free into the dark waters below.

"Torpedo is pinging...it has gone into acquisition mode, closing in and..."

Those aircrew near a window saw a flash in the water that instantly turned to foam behind them.

"Did we get him?" asked the pilot.

"No sir, I still hear his screws. He's picked up speed, sounds to be making turns now for fifteen or sixteen knots. Our torpedo must have guided onto something on the bottom."

"Damn," muttered the pilot, "let's get a better fix and reengage."

"We'll need to drop more buoys," the lead sonarman reported. "At this speed he'll be beyond our detection radius soon."

The P-3 flew over the course of the Echo II, which was now attempting to flee southeast, its captain knowing now that he was hunted. More buoys dropped into the water, then another torpedo. This weapon performed as poorly as the last, much to the Orion crew's disgust.

The same was true for the next six torpedoes the Orion's crew dropped over the next half hour. Their active radar homed in on the seafloor and exploded without damaging anything more than the Russian sub crew's nerves.

"All right," said the aircraft commander. "We've only got two fish left. We need to make them count. I want a thick spread of active buoys to really pinpoint his location, then we're going to drop right on his tail!"

And so it went. The Orion did one pass dropping four DICASS buoys in a tight string right along the Russian's course, the coming around again and dropping the second-to-last Mk46 just a few hundred meters behind the Echo's thrashing propellers. This time the torpedo guided onto the correct target, exploding against the Russian submarine's rudder, shredding it.

"Sir, I think we hit him," reported the sonarman, he's slowed, but I don't hear any breakup noises. Much scraping of metal though, we'll have no trouble pinpointing him now."

"Reengage," was the commander's cold reply.

The P-3 came around again and dropped its sole remaining Mk-46. This weapon too guided on the Russian sub, whose captain was just about to order an emergency blow to get to the surface. He never got the chance. The torpedo bore in and struck the Echo behind the sail, killing the bridge crew and settling the submarine on the seafloor that had been their protection just minutes before.


Back on Jan Mayen Major Nansen reported the death of the Echo to Akershus fortress and also his F-5's failure to sink the container ship Azov. MoD seemed curiously unconcerned about this, and were just happy to know where the ship was. Unknown to Nansen, the Sklinna, a Norwegian diesel submarine patrolling off the southeast coast of Jan Mayen, was by good fortune astride the Azov's projected course and was even now receiving orders to sink the Russia.   

Airborne Rifles

As the Orion's crew finished hunting the Russian submarine, yet another not entirely unexpected threat was materializing to the northeast of Jan Mayen. Ten large, slow-moving contacts had appeared at the edge of the island's radar's detection range, flying in tight formation. Nansen immediately ordered two of his F-5A's aloft, the same two that had been armed for air-to-air operation to begin with. These had been refueled and rearmed and were now ready for a second sortie. The two air-to-surface armed F-5s, who had flown CAP over the island with their cannons until their fuel ran low, were in the process of rearming with Sidewinders as well, but they would not be ready for some time yet as the meager ground crew struggled against the cold in the gathering arctic night. One of the Freedom Fighters had managed to ambush a Soviet maritime patrol aircraft that had passed to close to Jan Mayen's southeast coast, before he landed.

The two Norwegian fighters took off in formation with the flight leader, the captain who had flown the first sortie of the day, in the lead. Nansen was almost certain that the approaching Russian aircraft were transports carrying the troops earmarked to seize his island, but he couldn't be sure that there weren't long-range interceptors mixed in with the heavies. He doubted it, though. The Russian frontline fighters had taken a beating over northern Norway the day before and besides, they weren't expecting fighters out here, right?

The Russian aircraft, An-12 Cub's, were indeed carrying a battalion of Soviet paratroopers with orders to land on a seize the island. They had taken off hours before and in the chaos of the ongoing global war had not received the warning that their objective was more heavily defended than it ought to be. They would pay heavily for their ignorance.

The Norwegian pilots picked up their quarry by the light of the sun setting at their backs and attacked from the front and below. They volleyed off all eight of their sidewinders for six quick kills, then looped around back to down the remaining four. The Russian trail gunners reminded the Norwegians that these transports had some teeth, but the F-5A's avoided the ineffectual defensive fire with relative ease. In just five minutes ten Russian transports with the better part of an elite airborne battalion were in the frigid Arctic ocean.     

Now both F-5s were out of missiles and almost out of cannon ammo. This didn't bother the flight leader as he whooped and pumped his fist. He was a ace twice over! And only on the second day of the war!

As they circled northeast of the island waiting for the other two F-5s to complete their arming, the GLOBUS site on the island detected to airborne jammers approaching from the northeast as well. Major Nansen ordered his airborne fighters to investigate.

The flight leader had no qualms about doing this. He was excited about the prospect of yet another kill. But as his fighter cruised north at 10,000 meters, the situation changed. His warning receiver began screaming at him and he craned his neck around the horizon to see where an attack could be coming from. The he saw it. A missile was approaching from the north, and beyond it he could just make out two fighter-sized objects. The Russian CAP over Kiev, two Yak-141s, must have turned off their radars and approached undetected.

The captain put his aircraft into a diving turn, but it was too late. The AA-11 Alamo, a semi-active radar homing missile, exploded off the F-5's left wing, sending into a spiraling descent. The captain managed just to pull his ejection handles. His chute deployed, and he floated to the dark waters below, wondering how and if he would survive the coming hours, his aerial victories now forgotten.

The captain's wingman was more lucky. The missile targeted on him failed to guide, and his diving escape shook the Russian pursuers, who were themselves short of fuel. He leveled out below the clouds, and the Russians turned back for Kiev.

mirth

Great stuff, AR. The Norwegians are putting up a hell of a fight with their meager force!
"45 minutes of pooping Tribbles being juggled by a drunken Horta would be better than Season 1 of TNG." - SirAndrewD

"you don't look at the mantelpiece when you're poking the fire" - Bawb

"Can't 'un' until you 'pre', son." - Gus

Airborne Rifles

Major Nansen soon realized that the loss of one of his fighters could not have come at a worse time. Behind the two jammer aircraft that the island's sensors had detected soon came ten more transports, this time big An-22s, on a course for Jan Mayen. The only thing standing in their way was the surviving airborne F-5A, and this only had a few bursts of cannon ammunition left. Nansen got on the radio and ordered the pilot to do what he could.

The F-5 climbed back into the sky after evading the Russian CAP, and vectored for the oncoming transports. The young officer was shaken after the loss of his wingman, but he had a job to do. His jet passed through the clouds into the waning Arctic light and his sharp eyes caught the last glints of sunlight off of the formation of approaching four-engine birds. The F-5 closed the formation from below, and at point blank range put a long burst of 20mm shells streamed into the cockpit of the lead An-22. The big aircraft lazily banked until it was on its back, falling out of the sky, as the small, nimble fighter shot up through the formation and turned in a wide loop to dive back onto the remaining nine Russians. This time the Norwegian came down on their tails and put another long burst of 20mm shells into the wing of the trailing Antanov. The two starboard engines caught fire and the transport fell out of formation, diving to try to put out the flames. It didn't work. The wing collapsed under the strain of the fire and the dive, and the wreckage, both aircraft and human, plummeted through the clouds into the sea.

The F-5's pilot lined up a third transport and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened. He  quickly realized that he had expended all of his shells and now could do nothing but watch as the Russians approached his base. He swore in frustration before breaking off to avoid the ineffectual fire coming from the surviving Russian tail gunners.

Back on the ground, Nansen was out in the howling cold urging his ground crews to get the other two F-5s into the air, but nothing he said could overcome the atrociously cold and icy conditions that his ground crews had to fight through to load the ordnance. One F-5 was nearly ready, but the sergeant in charge of the aircraft was saying that it would still be at least five minutes until the pilot could taxi.

"Well," Nansen said testily, "there are going to be Russian paratroopers in just a few minutes, so get it done!"

As it turned out, the attack of the surviving airborne F-5A had effects beyond the downing to two transports. The Russian pilots were already rattled from listening in on the panicked radio transmissions coming from the lead wave of An-12s as they had been annihilated a few minutes earlier. Their fear and confusion had increased as the lone F-5 slashed through their formation, destroying the lead and trail jets. Now, as they approached the tiny drop zone that Jan Mayen's airfield presented, the Russian formation fell apart. The mission commander had gone down in the lead aircraft, while the alternate commander had been in the trail, and now the surviving pilots found themselves leaderless. Some pressed on to drop their cargo of  paratroopers and vehicles while other pilots decided to remain at altitude and overfly the island before turning back for Russia.

Those that descended to allow the paratroopers to jump badly misjudged the drop zone, and even worse turned the jump lights green while still too high. This caused the Russian airborne troops to exit the aircraft too early and too high. Normally this would only have meant that they would have landed more scattered than usual. Here in the Arctic ocean it was a disaster. Three aircraft dropped their loads, consisting of roughly one hundred paratroopers and three BMD vehicles. More than half of the of the paratroopers landed in the water and either drowned under their weight of their equipment or expired due to hypothermia. Those fortunate enough to fall on land were widely scattered across the saddle that formed the narrow neck of the island. BY a stroke of good fortune, all three BMDs descended over dry ground, though far up the slope of the southern mountain rather than onto the flat isthmus on which the airfield sat.


The Norwegian platoon sergeant whom Nansen had sent with a cobbled-together patrol to try to locate the Spetznaz intruder had been trudging his heavily bundled group of ten cooks, radar techs, and ground crewmen up the slope of Jan Mayen's  southern island when he began to hear the explosions and see the dull flashes through the clouds of the air battle taking place to the northeast. The grizzled old infantryman though he'd counted eight or nine explosions. Then there had been a period of silence, followed by several more widely spaced explosions. He though he'd spotted a burning aircraft fall through the clouds over the shoulder of the northern peak, but it had happened too quickly for him to be sure. Then he heard the scream of jet engines passing low over head, and finally he saw the dark shapes of what could only be parachutes falling through the clouds along the neck of the island. In the darkness he couldn't gauge how many, but he knew at that moment he had to get back to the airfield as quickly as possible. He turned his tired troops around and started trudging back down the mountain towards Jan Mayenfeld. As they walked, the sergeant saw the blue glow from the tailpipes of an F-5 as the fighter taxied onto the frozen gravel runway and took off.


The jet that the platoon sergeant had seen climbed quickly in pursuit of the withdrawing Russian transports. The plot was able to catch two that had dropped their paratroopers and down them with Sidewinders, but the surviving six AN-22s made good their escape. Nansen called off the pursuit in case any more Russians were en route. He doubted it at this point and quickly sent the F-5 to ambush one of the Russian EW aircraft lurking to the northwest once the third and final surviving Freedom Fighter was aloft. One AN-12 jammer fell to Norwegian missiles. Warned, the other turned north and fled for the safety of the Kiev's CAP.


Airborne Rifles

While the battle  in the skies over Jan Mayen played out, more drama was occurring under the waves to the southeast and north of the island. The captain of the Sklinna had kept his boat at periscope depth as he moved northeast along the southern coast of Jan Mayen, closing with the wounded Russian freighter Azov. Intercepting the Russian ship had proven to be ridiculously easy. Before night fell she had been belching a column of black smoke over the horizon, and after dark the fires from the burning aviation fuel from the destroyed helicopter acted as a beacon as the ships approached each other.

Kaptein Bulls, the Sklinna's commander, allowed the wounded Russian to approach within a mile before he launched two wire-guided torpedoes. The Azov never had a chance, her crew never even spotted the wakes of the oncoming weapons. The two fish exploded under the oncoming freighter, breaker her keel and tearing huge holes in her hull below the waterline. She sank quickly.

Under normal circumstances many of the crew and passengers would have survived the sinking. But this was the Arctic, in winter, at night. None of the souls on board the Azov reached land.


North of the island USS Jacksonville had been approaching the Kiev battle group head-on based on the data gathered by the P-3 out of Jan Mayen that had made its way via Major Nansen up the chain of command to CINCLANT. Commander Dickel had given his crew time to stand down and rest in anticipation of action. Now they were at battle stations as the first sonar returns came in from the Russian formation as it passed through the convergence zone about thirty miles ahead of Jacksonville.

The American sub's sonar crew tallied two frigates, an Udaloy, a Kresta-class cruiser, and the Kiev herself. Troublingly, the Udaloy appeared to on a very nearly reciprocal bearing to Jacksonville. Dickel ordered a course correction to bring his boat past the southern flank of the Russian ASW destroyer. He would have to deal with that dangerous ship if he wanted a chance at the prize.

Half an hour passed as Jacksonville and the Russian formation continued to close. The Russian ships began to appear again on American sonar sensors after they had disappeared through the convergence zone. Jacksonville was angling south of the Udaloy, but not far enough. Dickel decided on a more aggressive course of action to crack the Russian screen.

"Weps, unload those Mk48s. I want all four Harpoons in our tubes. Well use them on the Udaloy, the slip in through the hole left in the screen and do the Kiev with torpedoes."

Jacksonville's torpedo room worked frantically to pull the big Mk48s out of the sub's four torpedo tubes and replace them with the missile canisters. By the time the job was done the Russian destroyer was dangerously close.

"Sir," said the XO in a low voice, "are you sure about this? We are going to pinpoint our position as soon as we let those missiles fly."

"I'm counting on the fact that they're going to be too busy dealing with the afermath of our attack to be able to track us effectively," responded Dickel, also in a low, and annoyed, voice.

"Aye sir," responded the XO. Dickel was a good boss, if a bit too aggressive, but the XO had also learned not to cross him when he had made up his mind. This was one of those times.

"Bring us shallow," ordered Dickel.

Jacksonville ascended until her crew could feel the action of the waves just above the sail and periscope. The sonar room did a final check on the range and bearing to the Udaloy, and then the American ship began launching her missiles. One after another, four Harpoons burst out of the dark water, ignited, and rocketed north towards the Russian destroyer.


The Russian defenses, already on high alert, reacted well to the attack. One after another the American missiles were knocked out of the sky by a combination of SAMs and gunfire. Only one remained, but this one flew true and plunged into the Udaloy amidships before exploding. Initially the damage did not appear to be too severe, and the Udaloy's captain continued in his role as ASW screen commander, now with an urgent task to find and sink the American submarine that had wounded his ship. Deep inside the destroyer, however, fires from the initial explosion began to spread.


Dickel hadn't waited to assess the effectiveness of his attack. He dove his submarine deep and increased speed to clear datum, breaking contact toward the center of the Russian formation. For about a quarter of an hour Jacksonville moved north without hearing any sort of counterstroke from the Soviets. Dickel ordered his boat to slow and ascend in preperation for beginning to stalk the Kiev. Unknown to him, helicopters from the Kiev and her escorts had been swarming the water above him, performing MAD runs and dropping passive listening buoys in an attempt to localize the threat. Dickel's decision to slow down allowed all of these sensors to finally get a fix on his boat's position. The Udaloy, whose captain was only beginning to realize that the damage the missile had done might have been worse than initially though, turned his ship and launched a Metel anti-submarine rocket.


"Conn, sonar, torpedo in the water! It's right behind us sir!" called the lean sonarman.

Dickel cringed. This had been his greatest fear. Had he been too aggressive? The next few minutes would tell.

"All ahead flank, take us deep! Launch countermeasures!" he ordered.

It was for naught. The Russian torpedo was too close and had entered the water in such a way that the first thing its sensors saw was the American submarine only a quarter mile away. As the Jacksonville's screw thrashed the water in a desperate bid for speed, the Russian weapon closed and impacted against the sub's keel. Water flooded in, and this, along with her already downward momentum, carried the American submarine and her captain and crew to a watery grave on the floor of the Arctic ocean. In the end, she would not rest there alone.


Above the waves, the fires started on the Udaloy by the American Harpoon were beginning to spread and rage out of control. Despite valiant efforts by her crew, the fires eventually reached the magazines that housed the ammunition for the ship's two 100mm guns. A rumbling explosion shook the destroyer for several seconds, and then she began to settle at the bow. Her captain ordered abandon ship, and one of the Krivak-class frigates came alongside to rescue the survivors. Ahead of them, Kiev and her now weakened screen plunged onward, headed southwest.

mirth

"45 minutes of pooping Tribbles being juggled by a drunken Horta would be better than Season 1 of TNG." - SirAndrewD

"you don't look at the mantelpiece when you're poking the fire" - Bawb

"Can't 'un' until you 'pre', son." - Gus

OJsDad

Looks like the US Navy should have stayed out of the way and let the Norwegians take care of things!
'Here at NASA we all pee the same color.'  Al Harrison from the movie Hidden Figures.

Airborne Rifles

Quote from: OJsDad on August 24, 2015, 12:27:30 PM
Looks like the US Navy should have stayed out of the way and let the Norwegians take care of things!

Yeah, I went in conservative with th Jacksonville, then decided once I got close to play it more aggressive, but by the time ice reloaded with Harpoons I was too close. I should have used the Harpoons from further out and the moved in through the hole in the screen, or alternately not used harpoons at all and tried to sneak into the formation quietly to torpedo the Kiev. Live (or die!) and learn.

Airborne Rifles

Back at Jan Mayenfeld Major Nansen was trying to make sense of what was going on. He knew Russian paratroopers had landed, but in the dark he couldn't be sure how many or where. With all of his aircraft in the air, he had made sure that everyone, ground crews included, were carrying their rifles and sidearms and were deployed around the airfield to repel an attack. There wasn't any more ordnance to load onto his small air force at this point anyway. Still, he was short his infantry platoon sergeant and the patrol he had sent south several hours before. He was dearly feeling their absence now as he waited for elite Soviet paratroopers to appear out of the howling arctic night. He had already ordered his technicians to prepare their radars, radios, and codebooks for destruction in the event of an attack. There was realistically no way he could hold off a determined assault by even a platoon of disciplined Russian infantry. 


Two miles to the southwest, on the face of the volcanic mountain that formed the southern end of Jan Mayen, the platoon sergeant and his motley ten-man patrol were working their way back downhill in a file the dark when the sergeant, in the lead, raised his hand and signaled for silence. He strained his eyes into the darkness down the mountain and slowly began to discern three boxy shapes spread out in front of him with the smaller dark shapes of soldiers moving between them. He could hear the soft clicking and clacking of weapons and equipment as what could only be the Russian paratroopers below him stumbled about in the volcanic terrain. Then he smelled it; diesel fuel. The boxy shapes began to make sense as he strained his eyes. They were BMD assault vehicles. As he surveyed, he found that one had landed on a steep slope and was laying on its side, another was still attached to its drop platform with figures huddled around the engine compartment, and the third, further down the slope, appeared to be abandoned. This impression was dispelled when the engine of the third BMD suddenly coughed to life and idled.

The platoon sergeant felt despair as he saw the small vehicle. If he had even one puny LAW, he could easily put it out of action. But whoever had sent him to this godforsaken rock had, in their wisdom, failed to supply him with even the most rudimentary of ant-armor weapons. That vehicle, along with what looked to be a platoon of Russian paras, was more than enough combat power to overrun the airfield and radar station, if and when they started moving. If they got that second vehicle moving, even worse. The third was obviously a loss.

As the Norwegian sergeant knelt in his white smock, cradling his rifle, a crazy plan began to form in his mind. He turned and told his patrol to take cover and stay put. Then, to their amazement, he stood straight up, slung his rifle over his should, and walked confidently down the hill. He wasn't noticed until he was right in among the Russians, who quickly turned and trained the Kalashnikovs on him. The sergeant raised his had a called out in Russian, "Dobre noche!" And then in English, "who is in charge here?"

For a moment no one moved, and he began to fear that this crazy gamble was turning out to be a bad throw of the dice, but then a figure stepped out from the semicircle of barrels facing the Norwegian and said, also in English, "I am Major Pivo and...I suppose I am in charge. What do you want?"

The Russian major seemed shaken, the sergeant noticed, and as he looked around he realized that so did the rest of the Russians. They didn't look like a confident group of elite soldiers about to make an attack. Their body language told him they were stunned and demoralized.

"Major," the Norwegian said, "you and your men appear to be in some difficulty. So is my commander. With you here, no one will come to take us off this rock, and regulations prevent us from surrendering to you. On the other hand, I gather that you only have a small fraction of your force gathered, and we have sunk what I expect was your ship, the Azov, that was supposed to bring in your supplies." At his news he saw the Russian flinch, and he knew he had him..

He continued, "we can't surrender to you, but we can't defeat you either. But let me tell you, we will destroy and burn everything left on this island before we let you have it. You will freeze or starve in days. But if you leave your vehicles, and come back to the airfield with us, we will give you shelter and food. Our role in this war is done, as is yours. We can sit out this war together. Whoever wins, we will still be alive, and eventually the winners will come to take us all home. There is nothing else either of us can do for our countries on this rock."

The Russian major, who had seen some desperate days in Afghanistan as a junior officer, stood and considered...


To say that Major Nansen was surprised when his trusted platoon sergeant arrived at the airfield in the early hours of the morning at the head of a column of forty armed and shivering Russians would have been an understatement. The arrangement that the sergeant had worked out was even more of a shock. But as he considered it, he saw the wisdom of the grizzled NCO's ways. He had no weapons left with which he could hurt the Russian offensive, and his post had served its purpose of warning NATO that the Russians were headed for Iceland. Even his radar was really of no further use to NATO, as the Russians would surely demolish it in the morning from the air or sea. He had hurt the Russians far worse than he could have hoped, destroying a significant portion of Kiev's air group, sunk a Russian nuke sub and an amphip masquerading as a freighter, and destroyed the better part of a Russian airborne battalion along with their transport aircraft. Now he was out of weapons and out of options.

He ordered the P3 and F5s to land, refuel, and then head south. He then welcomed Major Pivo into his office where the two began to discuss how they would spend a very awkward remainder of the war together on this very cold and lonely place.


A few hours later, a bright orange life raft floated northeast of Jan Mayen. It was the Norwegian captain who had commanded the four F5s on the island before being shot down by the Russian Yak-141. He had parachuted into the water and amazingly managed to inflate and climb into his rescue raft. Now he was shivering violently and beginning to hallucinate as his body descended into hypothermia. Just then, a great dark monster broke through the waves next to his raft and rose higher and higher above him.


Kaptain Bulls on the Norwegian submarine Sklinna had proceeded northeast after sinking the Azov and stayed shallow. This had allowed him to pick up the captain's rescue beacon and after the F-5 was downed and engaged in his secondary mission of rescuing downed airmen. Now he was long down from the small sail of his submarine at the raft, hoping he was not too late. Three crewmen were on the rocking deck of the submarine pulling the raft on. They dragged the pilot out and half carried, half dragged him below. As soon as they were inside Bulls dropped down and ordered his ship to dive. Then he went to the galley where the violently shivering was being covered with warm blankets and offered a steaming cup of hot coffee.

Sklinna turned south, awaiting orders that would give them more Russian targets.

The Battle of Jan Mayen was over. The NATO outpost was neutralized after a fashion, but at huge and unexpected cost to the Soviets. And now the NATO command knew that the Russians were coming, and they were coming for Iceland.

mirth

Great finish! I love the platoon sergeant's 'solution' to the situation.
"45 minutes of pooping Tribbles being juggled by a drunken Horta would be better than Season 1 of TNG." - SirAndrewD

"you don't look at the mantelpiece when you're poking the fire" - Bawb

"Can't 'un' until you 'pre', son." - Gus