Battlefield Ukraine

Ambush Alley

SFC Childers’s platoon had taken up residency in the small but strategically-positioned village of Prolisky. It was a small village between the international airport and the city of Kiev, and on one of three major routes the Russian army would have to travel to capture the city. The Russians had hit the British, German, and American armor units near the Boryspil Airport throughout the entire day, with both air and ground forces causing significant casualties despite the arrival of the two BCTs from the 1^st Armored Division. The Russians were throwing their best tanks and aircraft into this fight and the NATO forces were getting hammered. By midafternoon, the bulk of NATO forces had fallen back to the surrounding villages and suburbs around Kiev, and would look to make this a street fight unless ordered otherwise.

Lieutenant Taylor walked up to Captain Jordan, the new troop commander, to get some final instructions for his platoon. Both men were physically and mentally exhausted from near constant fighting. “Sir, Sergeant Childers and the rest of my platoon are getting the rest of the artillery shells and claymores ready for the ambush. Once we light it off, my guys are supposed to abandon our positions and run to this point here,” he said, pointing to on the map. “Then, you want them to get ready for the next ambush?” he asked, wanting to clarify the mission and make sure he relayed the information properly back to his guys.

Captain Jordan had been the executive officer of Nemesis Troop for the past year. However, earlier in the morning, their captain had been killed during one of the many Russian air attacks. He was then given battlefield promotion to captain and told to take over by their Squadron Commander. Now he had the job of trying to carry out a series of ambushes designed to delay the Russian advance on Kiev.

“Yes, exactly,” Captain Jordan answered. “I have First Platoon here,” he explained, showing Taylor a point on the map. “They have another series of artillery shells ready along this stretch of the highway. Once your platoon falls back, they will need to get this position here and get ready for the third and final ambush. If all goes well, we’ll get three shots at hitting the Russians along this highway before we fall back to this section of the NATO lines. I was told that the 2^nd BCT from 1^st Armor that passed through our lines a couple of hours ago will be positioned here. We will function as their infantry support until told otherwise.”

Their meeting broke up and 2^nd Lt. Taylor and the other 2^nd Lt. from first platoon ran back to their respective platoons to get their men ready for the coming fight. Third and fourth platoons had already been consolidated into first and second platoons earlier in the morning, when they arrived in the village. The troop had taken more than forty-percent casualties since the start of the war, and there was no need to keep four significantly weakened platoons and spread their diminished supply of officers and NCOs across four platoons.

While Lieutenant Taylor had been coordinating the ambush with the rest of the company, Sergeant Childers was having the soldiers string up their claymore anti-personnel mines and 152mm artillery shells along the highway for the ambush.

“Peterson, you unscrew the fuse cap on the artillery round like this,” Childers explained as he demonstrated to a couple of the soldiers in his little group.

“Once you have the fuse cap removed, you take the blasting cap and place it inside the fuse well, and then seal it up like this.” After Childers had demonstrated what to do, he then began to take the back of a phone apart and started attaching a small copper wire from the phone’s circuit to another wire attached to the blasting cap.

“As you can see, we need to be careful when we wire this up. Once it’s done, each one of these rounds is going to be an independent IED that can be set off by sending a SMS text from this phone. So that we make sure they all go off at the same time, I’ve created a group text that will send the message to all of the phones attached to the IEDs simultaneously.”

One of the soldiers asked, “How did you learn all this?”

The question broke Childers concentration for a second, and brought a smile to his face. “I learned how to make these things back in 2003 in Iraq, during the invasion. I was with the Rangers and we had captured a couple of Saddam Fedayeen soldiers who had been building these types of IEDs to use against us. When we raided the building and captured those guys, they had a couple dozen of these things laying around. We had a few of the Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) guys with us, so they set out disarming them. Later that evening, when we got back to base, I talked with some of the EOD guys and they walked me through the process of how these guys were building them. The more we started to encounter these types of IED ambushes in Iraq and Afghanistan, we all started to learn a lot more about them — how to build them and how to disarm them.”

The soldiers listened to his story intently. They looked at him with a bit more awe and respect. Childers smiled and began to work with the IEDs again, turning their attention back to the task at hand.

“Ok, so look here. Once this is done, be careful as these IEDs are now live. We only have five of the blasting caps, so we must use these IEDs carefully. I want them placed inside these five buildings lining the street here,” he said, pointing to three buildings on the right, and two buildings on the left in the center of the village.

“We are going to use these IEDs for our secondary attack. Now, the rest of these 152mm artillery rounds are going to be placed in these vehicles lining the highway here, and along these four street gutters,” Childers explained as he showed them where he wanted the remaining artillery rounds placed.

One of the soldiers interrupted to ask, “ — Sergeant Childers, if we don’t have any additional blasting caps, how are we going to remote detonate these other IEDs?”

Smiling at the question, he reached down and pulled out a roll of detonation cord. “We are going to use some det. cord for these. The ragheads in Iraq used to do this to us. It was pretty effective but pay attention, this is also dangerous and can kill you if you screw it up. Just like with the blasting cap, you place some of it down into the fuse well, then we wrap it around the round. We are going to daisy chain the remaining artillery rounds along the side of the highway in these abandoned vehicles here,” he pointed down the road to the group of vehicles he was referring to.

“In this case, we’ll have to trigger this manually. We’ll run the trigger wire back to this building here, which I’ll be in. I will personally trigger this IED when the Russians enter the kill zone.” The cacophony of battle down the road at the airport was growing in intensity. It wouldn’t be long before the Russians pushed their way through their ambush.

“Now listen up,” he said to the soldiers, wanting to make sure he had their full attention. “I want two of our M240s set up on the right side of the road in these buildings here,” he explained, pointing to the structures.

“Then, I want the other two M240s placed here, on the left side of the road. This will create a crossfire for our machine guns. Now, we only have two AT4s… I want one on each side of the road so we have good covering fire. When the Russians move through the ambush, I will detonate the first string of IEDs. If the Russians follow their standard doctrine, which they have thus far, they will dismount their troops from the BMPs and BTRs.”

“Those troops are going to fan out and move forward to clear the village,” Childers continued. “That is when I want you M240 gunners to let ‘em have it. They will charge the ambush just like we would, only this next time round, they are going to charge right into our second ambush.” His face lit up with a devilish grin, almost like he relished the destruction he was about to unleash on the enemy.

“When the claymores go off, they will send additional tanks and armored vehicles forward to push through the ambush. You M240 gunners need to get the hell out of dodge and head to the rally point once you hear the explosions. If you stay too long, I guarantee one of those Russian tanks is going to put a High Explosive (HE) round into your position.” Childers paused to look at the M240 crews to make sure they understood what he was telling them. He wanted them to stick around long enough to hit the infantry, but they needed to get out of there once the tanks started to move forward again or they would get blown up.

The men all nodded.

Luke pressed on. “Once you guys break contact, I’ll send the SMS to the IEDs, and hopefully, they will destroy the second group of tanks and armored vehicles.”

He sighed loudly, then looked back at his young soldiers and added, “Look, this is going to be tough. It’s going to be bloody and it’s going to happen fast. The key to this ambush is going to be speed. So, once it’s time to get out of here, you need to run like your life depends on it to the rally point. Don’t try to be heroes. Just do your jobs, remember your training, and let’s try to get out of this alive, all right?”

The soldiers all nodded in agreement, and responded with, “Yes, Sergeant.” Then they went back to work, getting everything set up.

Once Lieutenant Taylor got back to the cluster of houses that sat along the highway, he briefed his men on what the other platoons were going to do, and what their plan of action was once they carried out this ambush. They would hit the Russians hard once they walked into their trap and then quickly race to the next ambush point and try to repeat the process. He showed them on the map the second point and where the additional artillery shells had been placed so they could find them when they arrived. He also showed them where they would rendezvous with their unit once they crossed back into the new NATO lines.

Several Ukrainian army units streamed past their positions at this point. They looked ragged and beaten up. Most of the vehicles had scars cut into them from bullets and shrapnel. The soldiers looked dirty and exhausted — many of them had bandages covering bloody wounds.

Childers had to give the Ukrainian Army credit; they fought fiercely against the Russians, despite being heavily outnumbered. Most of the units were just simply outmatched by the Russians. It was also hard to integrate them into the fight with NATO as their unit’s communications and digital equipment was not interoperable with the US or NATO. The electronic jamming the Russians were using heavily was becoming a problem in keeping the multi-national units communicating. However, for some unknown reason, the Russians were not actively jamming cellular service (of course, this was also a lot easier for them to eavesdrop on).

Most of the US Special Forces who had been working with the Ukrainians as military advisors were essentially stuck with those same units, acting as liaison officers and coordinators between US and NATO Forces. The interoperability problem was something that had to be overcome, but until additional communications equipment could be integrated into the Ukrainian Army, the SF soldiers and their equipment would have to be the stopgap solution. While this was not ideal, it did mean the Ukrainian units had seasoned combat veterans to help advise them during some of the heaviest fighting.

The next three hours went by with a near-constant stream of Russian ground attack aircraft and helicopters flying all over the place, attacking anything that moved below. As the platoon sat waiting in the village for the final allied troops to withdraw past them, they saw a pair of Su-25s dive down on what was most likely the remaining Ukrainian forces. These fighters were armored like the American A-10s, and they carried dozens of bombs, rocket pods, missiles and a 30mm auto-cannon.

Thump, thump, BOOM, BOOM. As the black smoke and fire rose in the distance from the latest Su-25 bombing run, Childers thought, “I wish we could shoot them down… it’s too bad that we ran out of Stinger missiles yesterday. There’s no more to be had, either.”

From time to time, they would see a massive aerial battle, but it was hard to tell who was winning and losing. Very seldom did they see an F-16 swoop down and plaster some Russian armor. When they did, they were quickly shot at by multiple air-defense vehicles.

“Look at that, Sergeant Childers,” one of the soldiers near him said, pointing to the sky.

A single F-16 flew in low over the trees and in a spectacular display of bravery, headed right for the Russian tanks with his afterburner lit. It released a pair of cluster munitions as it flew over them, only to explode into a million pieces seconds later. A missile that seemed to have come out of nowhere must have hit it.

“Ugh, I was hoping that guy was going to make it,” Sergeant Childers said, speaking to no one in particular.

“Hey, here comes two more fighters — I think those are Germans,” Specialist Cross said excitedly.

The two German Eurofighters tried to provide their countrymen with some close air support, both releasing a pair of 500 lbs. bombs. However, as the two aircraft peeled off to the right and began to gain altitude, a pair of MiGs came out of nowhere and blotted them both from the sky.

Childers churned through conflicting thoughts. “It’s so unbelievably frustrating to see our air support being shot down like this,” he groaned. “Then again, it’s encouraging to know that the Air Force is still doing their best to support us despite the incredible danger the pilots are placing themselves in.”

As the air battle continued and the remaining allied units passed through their ambush back to the new NATO lines, they began to hear the creaking and cracking of metal tracks. It was the unmistakable sound of tanks and other armored vehicles advancing towards them.

One of their scouts radioed in to Lieutenant Taylor and Sergeant Childers, “Nemesis two-two, this is Nemesis two-four. We have a column of T-90s approaching the village now. Count 12 enemy tanks. We also count 18 BTRs and at least half a dozen BMPs. Standby for contact, out.”

“Crap. They are bringing in T-90s now instead of T-80s. I’m not sure the artillery shells are going to penetrate their armor…” thought Taylor.

With the scouts at the edge of the town reporting the enemy tanks, it was only a matter of minutes now until they saw the lead vehicles entering their kill zone.

Lieutenant Taylor looked through the window of the building that his squad was in to see if he could spot Sergeant Childers and his crew. They were fairly well-hidden, but he thought he could still see them. He looked slightly to his right, not wanting to give away his position as he glanced outside the window. The Russian tanks were well within the kill zone; it looked like Childers was waiting for some of the BMPs and BTRs to also get within the box.

“A little closer… now I have you guys,” Sergeant Childers said to himself as he detonated the daisy-chained artillery rounds.

BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. The cars and storm drains the IEDs had been placed in erupted in a sudden orange ball of flames as thousands of chunks of scalding hot metal were thrown into the lead Russian infantry fighting vehicles and the tanks caught in the ambush. The force of the explosion was so great that several of the armored vehicles were thrown over on their sides.

“Now, Cross,” Childers said over the platoon net.

Specialist Cross was on the roof of the building next to them. He quickly popped up above the lip of the flat room, and aimed his AT4 at the first tank he saw, a T-90. Cross depressed the fire button, igniting the rocket motor. In a split second, the rocket shot out of the tube and slammed into the left rear side of the tank, causing a small explosion. The tank jerked to a stop and the engine area burst into flame.

As Specialist Cross was firing his rocket, a second soldier also popped up and fired off his AT4 as well. Like Cross’s rocket, his rocket flew right for the T-90 he had aimed at, only this time, the tank’s anti-rocket defense system activated, deflecting the rocket just as it was about to hit the tank. It flew into the dirt and exploded harmlessly.

While this was happening, the Russian soldiers who had been riding inside the infantry fighting vehicles and troop carriers disgorged from their vehicles and began to fan out and move towards the American positions. The Russians started to pour heavy machine gun fire towards the roofs of the nearby buildings, trying to kill any soldiers that might be hiding up there with additional anti-tank weapons.

“Now!” Sergeant Childers yelled over the radio.

The rest of the platoon opened fire on the Russian soldiers, causing most of them to drop to the ground for cover. The M240 gunners began to rake the Russian positions, crisscrossing the highway with heavy machinegun fire, killing dozens of enemy soldiers before they even knew what happened.

Lieutenant Taylor saw the building one of his M240 crews was set up in suddenly explode as a tank fired an HE round right into it. In a split second, he watched in horror as the upper torso of Private First Class Torino got ejected from the building, still holding onto the ammunition belt he had been feeding into the machine gun.

“Dear God, he’s still alive,” Taylor thought to himself as he briefly saw Torino try to crawl to cover, only to get hit by a bullet in the head.

As more explosions began to rock the buildings they were hiding in, a massive wave of Russian soldiers began to bum rush their positions, just as the Americans would have done in a similar ambush.

“Where the hell are those claymores, Sergeant Childers?!” the lieutenant shouted inside his own head. Taylor dropped his 30-round magazine and slapped another one in place, hitting the bolt release. He took aim at the enemy soldiers no more than 50 yards away.

BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM! The entire front half of the wave of enemy soldiers just disappeared into a bright red mist of blood, torn uniforms and body parts as the ten claymore mines detonated, throwing thousands of steel ball bearings into the charging enemy.

“Everyone, get out of here now!” Childers screamed over the radio, hoping to be heard above the cacophony of small arms fire, explosions, and the screaming of soldiers on both sides.

“These blasted Russians and their doctrine, if they are not predictable,” Childers dismayed as he saw several T-90s run over half a dozen screaming wounded soldiers in an attempt to try and push their way through the ambush. Several BMPs and BTRs were quickly trying to follow the tanks through the village to get out of the kill zone as well.

“Blow it, Sergeant Childers! What are you waiting for?!” yelled Lieutenant Taylor over the platoon net. Childers looked down at the cell phone and hit send on the text message. In a fraction of a second, the additional IEDs went off, disabling one of the two T-90s and destroying two other infantry fighting vehicles. He then grabbed his M4 and ran out the back of the building, down the alleyway, heading straight for the wooded area, not far from the ambush point.

Childers caught up to some of his soldiers, who were panting hard as they were lugging the M240 and extra ammo. As they ran, he heard the whistling sound of incoming artillery rounds and yelled, “Hit the ground!”

Luke and the soldiers near him collectively dove forward and landed hard, skidding briefly on the ground before rolling to a stop. The earth beneath them then shook violently as artillery rounds began to strike nearby, throwing enormous amounts of dirt and debris from the surrounding buildings into the area. Craning his neck back to look at the village they had just left, he saw several additional artillery rounds plaster the remaining buildings, leveling everything.

“Come on guys, we need to get the heck out of here,” Childers said as he helped to lift several of his soldiers to their feet and they began to run to their next rally point.

“That attack ought to slow them up a bit while they deal with their wounded,” Luke thought to himself.

As Lt. Taylor was running through the woods with several of his soldiers he hoped Sergeant Childers and his group made it out all right. As he ran though, he couldn’t shake the images he had just seen. His mind raced, filled with the unmistakable yelling and screaming of wounded soldiers, men howling in agony. He saw that young soldier picking up his own severed arm off the side of the road. Taylor’s mind could not turn off.

While Nemesis Troop was carrying out their ambushes along E40 highway, the other troops of the 2^nd Cavalry carried out their own traps on the other highways. While none of these ensnarements would stop the Russian advance altogether, it was slowing them down while NATO continued to rush additional forces to Kiev.