... there ...
“You with me, Skippy?” he called on the radio.
“Got you covered, Bronco,” his wingman replied. “Bandit at your one o’clock, going left to right.”
“On him,” Winters replied, putting his nose on the distant spot in the sky. His radar spotted it, locked onto it, and the IFF transponder didn’t say friendly. He triggered off his second Slammer: “Fox-One on the south guy! Eagle, Boar Lead, how we doing?”
“We show five kills to this point. Bandits are heading east and diving. Razorback is coming in from your west with four, angels three-five at six hundred, now at your ten o’clock. Check your IFF, Boar Lead.” The controller was being careful, but that was okay.
“Boar, Lead, check IFF now!”
“Two.” “Three.” “Four,” they all chimed in. Before the last of them confirmed his IFF transponder was in the transmit setting, his second Slammer found its target, running his morning’s score to four. Well, damn, Winters thought, this morning is really shaping up nice.
“Bronco, Skippy is on one!” his wingman reported, and Winters took position behind, low, and left of his wingman. “Skippy” was First Lieutenant Mario Acosta, a red-haired infant from Wichita who was coming along nicely for a child with only two hundred hours in type. “Fox-Two with one,” Skippy called. His target had turned south, and was heading almost straight into the streaking missile. Winters saw the Sidewinder go right into his right-side intake, and the resulting explosion was pretty impressive.
“Eagle, Boar Lead, give me a vector, over.”
“Boar Lead, come right at zero-nine-zero. I have a bandit at ten miles and low, angels ten, heading south at six-hundred-plus.”
Winters executed the turn and checked his radar display. “Got him!” And this one also was well within the Slammer envelope. “Fox-One with Slammer.” His fifth missile of the day leaped off the rail and rocketed east, angling down, and again Winters kept his nose on the target, ensuring that he’d get it on tape ... yes! “That’s a splash. Bronco has a splash, I think that’s five.”
“Confirm five kills to Bronco,” Eagle Two confirmed. “Nice going, buddy.”
“What else is around?”
“Boar Lead, the bandits are running south on burner, just went through Mach One. We show a total of nine kills plus one damage, with six bandits running back to the barn, over.”
“Roger, copy that, Eagle. Anything else happening at the moment?”
“Ah, that’s a negative, Boar Lead.”
“Where’s the closest tanker?”
“You can tank from Oliver-Six, vector zero-zero-five, distance two hundred, over.”
“Roger that. Flight, this is Bronco. Let’s assemble and head off to tank. Form up on me.”
“Two.” “Three.” “Four.”
“How we doing?”
“Skippy has one,” his wingman reported.
“Ducky has two,” the second element leader chimed in.
“Ghost Man has two and a scratch.”
It didn’t add up, Winters thought. Hell, maybe the AWACS guys got confused. That’s why they had videotape. All in all, not a bad morning. Best of all, they’d put a real dent in the ChiComm Flanker inventory, and probably punched a pinhole in the confidence of their Su-27 drivers. Shaking up a fighter jock’s confidence was almost as good as a kill, especially if they’d bagged the squadron commander. It would make the survivors mad, but it would make them question themselves, their doctrine, and their aircraft. And that was good.
So?”
“The border defenses did about as well as one could reasonably expect,” Colonel Aliyev replied. “The good news is that most of our men escaped with their lives. Total dead is under twenty, with fifteen wounded.”
“What do they have across the river now?”
“Best guess, elements of three mechanized divisions. The Americans say that they now have six bridges completed and operating. So, we can expect that number to increase rapidly. Chinese reconnaissance elements are pushing forward. We’ve ambushed some of them, but no prisoners yet. Their direction of advance is exactly what we anticipated, as is their speed of advance to this point.”
“Is there any good news?” Bondarenko asked.
“Yes, General. Our air force and our American friends have given their air force a very bloody nose. We’ve killed over thirty of their aircraft with only four losses to this point, and two of the pilots have been rescued. We’ve captured six Chinese pilots. They’re being taken west for interrogation. It’s unlikely that they’ll give us any really useful information, though I am sure the air force will want to grill them for technical things. Their plans and objectives are entirely straightforward, and they are probably right on, or even slightly in advance of their plans.”
None of this was a surprise to General Bondarenko, but it was unpleasant even so. His intelligence staff was doing a fine job of telling him what they knew and what they expected, but it was like getting a weather report in winter: Yes, it was cold, and yes, it was snowing, and no, the cold and the snow will probably not stop, and isn’t it a shame you don’t have a warm coat to wear? He had nearly perfect information, but no ability to do anything to change the news. It was all very good that his airmen were killing Chinese airmen, but it was the Chinese tanks and infantry carriers that he had to stop.
“When will we be able to bring air power to bear on their spearheads?”
“We will start air-to-ground operations this afternoon with Su-31 ground-attack aircraft,” Aliyev replied. “But ...”
“But what?” Bondarenko demanded.
“But isn’t it better to let them come in with minimal interference for a few days?” It was a courageous thing for his operations officer to say. It was also the right thing, Gennady Iosifovich realized on reflection. If his only strategic option was to lay a deep trap, then why waste what assets he had before the trap was fully set? This was not the Western Front in June of 1941, and he didn’t have Stalin sitting in Moscow with a figurative pistol to his head.
No, in Moscow now, the government would be raising all manner of political hell, probably calling for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council, but that was just advertising. It was his job to defeat these yellow barbarians, and doing that was a matter of using what power he had in the most efficient manner possible, and that meant drawing them out. It meant making their commander as confident as a schoolyard bully looking down at a child five years his junior. It meant giving them what the Japanese had once called the Victory Disease. Make them feel invincible, and then leap at them like a tiger dropping from a tree.
“Andrey, only a few aircraft, and tell them not to risk themselves by pressing their attacks too hard. We can hurt their air force, but their ground forces—we let them keep their advantage for a while. Let them get fat on this fine table set before them for a while.”
“I agree, Comrade General. It’s a hard pill to swallow, but in the end, harder for them to eat—assuming our political leadership allows us to do the right thing.”
“Yes, that is the real issue at hand, isn’t it?”
CHAPTER 52
Deep Battle
General Peng crossed over into Russia in his command vehicle, well behind the first regiment of heavy tanks. He thought of using a helicopter, but his operations staff warned him that the air battle was not going as well as the featherheads in the PLAAF had told him to expect. He felt uneasy, crossing the river in an armored vehicle on a floating bridge—like a brick tied to a balloon—but he did so, listening as his operations officer briefed him on the progress to this point.
“The Americans have surged a number of fighter aircraft forward, and along with them their E-3 airborne radar fighter-control aircraft. These are formidable, and difficult to counter, though our air force colleagues say that they have tactics to deal with them. I will believe that when I see it,” Colonel Wa observed. “But that is the only bad news so far. We are several hours ahead of sch
edule. Russian resistance is lighter than I expected. The prisoners we’ve taken are very disheartened at their lack of support.”
“Is that a fact?” Peng asked, as they left the ribbon bridge and thumped down on Russian soil.
“Yes, we have ten men captured from their defensive positions—we’ ll see them in a few minutes. They had escape tunnels and personnel carriers set to evacuate the men. They didn’t expect to hold for long,” Colonel Wa went on. “They planned to run away, rather than defend to the last as we expected. I think they lack the heart for combat, Comrade General.”
That information got Peng’s attention. It was important to know the fighting spirit of one’s enemy: “Did any of them stand and fight to the end?”
“Only one of their bunker positions. It cost us thirty men, but we took them out. Perhaps their escape vehicle was destroyed and they had no choice,” the colonel speculated.
“I want to see one of these positions at once,” Peng ordered.
“Of course, Comrade General.” Wa ducked inside and shouted an order to the track driver. The Type 90 armored personnel carrier lurched to the right, surprising the MP who was trying to do traffic control, but he didn’t object. The four tall radio whips told him what sort of track this was. The command carrier moved off the beaten track directly toward an intact Russian bunker.
General Peng got out, ducking his head as he did so, and walked toward the mainly intact old gun turret. The “inverted frying pan” shape told him that this was off an old Stalin-3 tank—a very formidable vehicle, once upon a time, but now an obvious relic. A team of intelligence specialists was there. They snapped to attention when they saw the general approach.
“What did we kill it with?” Peng asked.
“We didn’t, Comrade General. They abandoned it after firing fifteen cannon shots and about three hundred machine gun rounds. They didn’t even destroy it before we captured it,” the intelligence captain reported, waving the general down the tank hatch. “It’s safe. We checked for booby traps.”
Peng climbed down. He saw what appeared to be a comfortable small barracks, shell storage for their big tank gun, ample rounds for their two machine guns. There were empty rounds for both types of guns on the floor, along with wrappers for field rations. It appeared to be a comfortable position, with bunks, shower, toilet, and plenty of food storage. Something worth fighting for, the general thought. “How did they leave?” Peng asked.
“This way,” the young captain said, leading him north into the tunnel. “You see, the Russians planned for everything.” The tunnel led under the crest of the hill to a covered parking pad for—probably for a BTR, it looked like, confirmed by the wheel tracks on the ground immediately off the concrete pad.
“How long did they hold?”
“We took the place just less than three hours after our initial bombardment. So, we had infantry surrounding the main gun emplacement, and soon thereafter, they ran away,” the captain told his army commander.
“I see. Good work by our assault infantry.” Then Peng saw that Colonel Wa had brought his command track over the hill to the end of the escape tunnel, allowing him to hop right aboard.
“Now what?” Wa asked.
“I want to see what we did to their artillery support positions.”
Wa nodded and relayed the orders to the track commander. That took fifteen minutes of bouncing and jostling. The fifteen heavy guns were still there, though the two Peng passed had been knocked over and destroyed by counter-battery fire. The position they visited was mainly intact, though a number of rockets had fallen close aboard, near enough that three bodies were still lying there untended next to their guns, the bodies surrounded by sticky pools of mainly dried blood. More men had survived, probably. Close to each gun was a two-meter-deep narrow trench lined with concrete that the bombardment hadn’t done more than chip. Close by also was a large ammo-storage bunker with rails on which to move the shells and propellant charges to the guns. The door was open.
“How many rounds did they get off?” he asked.
“No more than ten,” another intelligence officer, this one a major, replied. “Our counter-battery fire was superb here. The Russian battery was fifteen guns, total. One of them got off twenty shots, but that was all. We had them out of action in less than ten minutes. The artillery-tracker radars worked brilliantly, Comrade General.”
Peng nodded agreement. “So it would appear. This emplacement would have been fine twenty or thirty years ago—good protection for the gunners and a fine supply of shells, but they did not anticipate an enemy with the ability to pinpoint their guns so rapidly. If it stands still, Wa, you can kill it.” Peng looked around. “Still, the engineers who sited this position and the other one, they were good. It’s just that this sort of thing is out of date. What were our total casualties?”
“Killed, three hundred fifty, thereabouts. Wounded, six hundred twenty,” operations replied. “It was not exactly cheap, but less than we expected. If the Russians had stood and fought, it could have been far worse.”
“Why did they run so soon?” Peng asked. “Do we know?”
“We found a written order in one of the bunkers, authorizing them to leave when they thought things were untenable. That surprised me,” Colonel Wa observed. “Historically, the Russians fight very hard on the defense, as the Germans found. But that was under Stalin. The Russians had discipline then. And courage. Not today, it would seem.”
“Their evacuation was conducted with some skill,” Peng thought out loud. “We ought to have taken more prisoners.”
“They ran too fast, Comrade General,” operations explained.
“He who fights and runs away,” General Peng quoted, “lives to fight another day. Bear that in mind, Colonel.”
“Yes, Comrade General, but he who runs away is not an immediate threat”
“Let’s go,” the general said, heading off to his command track. He wanted to see the front, such as it was.
So?” Bondarenko asked the lieutenant. The youngster had been through a bad day, and being required to stand and make a report to his theater commander made it no better. ”Stand easy, boy. You’re alive. It could have been worse.”
“General, we could have held if we’d been given a little support,” Komanov said, allowing his frustration to appear.
“There was none to give you. Go on.” The general pointed at the map on the wall.
“They crossed here, and came through this saddle, and over this ridge to attack us. Leg infantry, no vehicles that we ever saw. They had man-portable anti-tank weapons, nothing special or unexpected, but they had massive artillery support. There must have been an entire battery concentrated just on my one position. Heavy guns, fifteen-centimeter or more. And artillery rockets that wiped out our artillery support almost immediately.”
“That’s the one surprise they threw at us,” Aliyev confirmed. “They must have a lot more of those fire-finder systems than we expected, and they’re using their Type 83 rockets as dedicated counter-battery weapons, like the Americans did in Saudi. It’s an effective tactic. We’ll have to go after their counter-battery systems first of all, or use self-propelled guns to fire and move after only two or three shots. There’s no way to spoof them that I know of, and jamming radars of that type is extremely difficult.”
“So, we have to work on a way to kill them early on,” Bondarenko said. “We have electronic-intelligence units. Let them seek out those Chink radars and eliminate them with rockets of our own.” He turned. “Go, on. Lieutenant. Tell me about the Chinese infantry.”
“They are not cowards, Comrade General. They take fire and act properly under it. They are well-drilled. My position and the one next to us took down at least two hundred, and they kept coming. Their battle drill is quite good, like a soccer team. If you do this, they do that, almost instantly. For certain, they call in artillery fire with great skill.”
“They had the batteries already lined up, Lieutenant, lined up and wait
ing,” Aliyev told the junior officer. “It helps if you are following a prepared script. Anything else?”
“We never saw a tank. They had us taken out before they finished their bridges. Their infantry looked well-prepared, well-trained, even eager to move forward. I did not see evidence of flexible thinking, but I did not see much of anything, and as you say, their part of the operation was preplanned, and thoroughly rehearsed.”
“Typically, the Chinese tell their men a good deal about their planned operations beforehand. They don’t believe in secrecy the way we do,” Aliyev said. “Perhaps it makes for comradely solidarity on the battlefield.”
“But things are going their way, Andrey. The measure of an army is how it reacts when things go badly. We haven’t seen that yet, however.” And would they ever? Bondarenko wondered. He shook his head. He had to banish that sort of thinking from his mind. If he had no confidence, how could his men have it? “What about your men, Valeriy Mikhailovich? How did they fight?”
“We fought, Comrade General,” Komanov assured the senior officer. “We killed two hundred, and we would have killed many more with a little artillery support.”
“Will your men fight some more?” Aliyev asked.
“Fuck, yes!” Komanov snarled back. “Those little bastards are invading our country. Give us the right weapons, and we’ll fucking kill them all!”
“Did you graduate tank school?”
Komanov bobbed his head like a cadet. “Yes, Comrade General, eighth in my class.”
“Give him a company with BOYAR,” the general told his ops officer. “They’re short of officers.”
Major General Marion Diggs was in the third train out of Berlin; it wasn’t his choosing, just the way things worked out. He was thirty minutes behind Angelo Giusti’s cavalry squadron. The Russians were running their trains as closely together as safety allowed, and probably even shading that somewhat. What was working was that the Russian national train system was fully electrified, which meant that the engines accelerated well out of stations and out of the slow orders caused by track problems, which were numerous.