Anyone who passes their psychology rolls can easily read genuine fear on the faces and in the body language of the generals. In fact they are verging on panic. Gathered in the hangar are many men you have known from your tours in Afghanistan and the many training exercises that the Spetsnaz utilise to keep the best fighting force in the world on their toes. At 01:30 exactly, somewhere an alarm goes off and one of the generals steps forward and addresses you all.
Lt. General Suslin
"Good morning fellow soldiers of the motherland. I will start by introducing myself and explaining the parameters of this briefing. I am Lt. General Suslin and I have taken the time to write down the details of your mission on these boards over here. I will go through them with you and you will go and do your duty. There will be no questions, and we do not have time for niceties like clarification here, I speak, you listen, you do. Do you understand?"
"I said do you understand?" he almost shouts.
After you all respond he nods towards another General who whips the cover off the boards.
Briefing (outlined below)
Soslin then starts to go through the briefing
"Operation White 36
Date/Time of Briefing: 08/20/91/0130 hours
Operational Forces to Deploy:
4th Special Purpose Brigade, elements, Red Army
82nd Special Purpose Airborne and Arctics Warfare Company, Red Army
124th Heavy Lift Wing, elements, Red Air Force
1st Platoon, 18th Special Signals Company, elements, Strategic Rocket Forces.
Strategic Situation:
Site 6 is home to the an ICBM silo of the 123rd Strategic Missile Wing, located in the foothills of the Byrranga Mountains of the Taymyr Peninsula at 76° 12’ N and 106° 18’ E. Strategic Rocket Forces Command lost all telemetry and radio contact with Site 6 six hours ago. Site 6 has not responded to any subsequent attempts at communication. Site 6’s last communication, at 18:30:22 Moscow standard time, was that the facility was under attack by forces unknown. We can only assume now that Site 6 is in the hands of terrorists, counter-revolutionary or imperialist forces. No demands or ultimatums have been issued at this time.
Further complicating the strategic and tactical situation is the presence of a violent storm over Site 6. Air reconnaissance of Site 6 is extremely restricted. High winds combined with low visibility and an unknown amount of snowfall over the site mean that a successful air insertion at Site 6’s landing field via ai rcraft landing or para-drop are rated as extremely low-probability. No appropriate military resources are near enough to reach Site 6 by ground within the time constraints.
The final factor arguing against air insertion is that Site 6 is equipped with four SA-12 ground-to-air missile batteries. If Site 6 i s in the hands of hostile forces, they may have cont rol of the air-defense system, making an approach by air impossible without extreme casualties.
Mission Objective: You r company must reach Site 6, regain control, assess the technical situation at the facility, and re-establish communications and data exchange with Strategic Rocket Forces command at Sverdlovsk. The objective is time-critical. Communications and data exchange must be achieved by 14:45:13 hours, August 22, 1991.
Deployment: The task force wi ll deploy from Soviet Air Defense Forces base at Norilsk.
The task force will be divided into two equal teams consisting of two platoons of Special Purpose Forces. Each tea m will include three personnel from the Strategic Rocket Forces, who will deal with any technical issues at the silo complex once it is secured by the Special Purpose Forces. The use of two separate teams using two different approaches to Site 6 w ill ensu re the success of the mission.
Team number one will attempt to reach Site 6via Mi-26 helicopter launched from Norilsk Air Defense Base. Team number one will proceed via nape-of-the-Earth flight in order to avoid the radar systems and air defense batteries at Site 6.
Team number two will be inserted 114 km from objective, beyond the worst of the blizzard conditions, by an Antonov-124 transport air craft launched from Norilsk Air Defense Forces Base. After performing an open-field landing and disembarking, Team two will proceed overland to the objective using four MT-LBV multi-purpose tracked vehicles.
Whichever team reaches Site 6 first will immediately secure the facility and then reestablish communications with Strategic Rocket Forces Command Sverdlovsk. The second team to arrive w ill provide support. Task Force will remain in place until the weather permits safe extraction.
Security:
All information about, and even the very existence of, White 36 is classified Top Secret. Anything that gets out concerning this operation will be dealt with in the harshest terms possible.
Expected Weather Conditions:
The area of Site 6 is experiencing unseasonable weather. A violent blizzard has reduced visibility to less than 100 meters. Sustained winds are estimated at 65kph with gusts over 100kph. Air insertion directly into Site 6 is an extreme hazard.
I cannot stress enough comrades that the time is of the essence here. If, as we believe, anti-soviet forces have taken control of site 6, then we need to do everything within our power to wrest control back as soon as possible to safeguard the security of the motherland. In short, your country needs you to, as the accursed Americans say, to step up to the plate.
Starshiy Leytenant Poliakov and Leytenant Samoylenko Have the list of 40 men to go with them in the Mi-26 helicopter, the rest of you will board the An-124 immediately. You have your duties to perform"
At this he salutes you all, turns on his heel and stalks out of the hangar and the other generals silently follow him, eyes looking anywhere but at the assembled troops.
Starshiy Leytenant Poliakov
A young Leytenant, who some of you recognise as Starshiy Leytenant Poliakov steps forward and calls out the rota for the Mi-26 passengers.The men peel off from the main group and head towards the front doors of the hangar where they find kits already made up for them. Once thay have been led away, the remaining men, including the invesigators, follow suit and find similarly made up packs with their names attached. Hoisting their bergens onto their backs they are led, section by section to the waiting An-124
Kozlov and Babenko lead a section of their troops towards the waiting An-124