by James Rosone
Petrov sat back in the chair, thinking about what Ivan had just said. “Our last major sabotage operation against the American LNG facilities did not go as well as we had hoped. Sure, we destroyed the facilities, but it also hardened the American people’s position against Russia. President Gates used that attack with great effect in rallying his nation against us,” he thought, realizing that he was leery to carry out any similar attacks.
Petrov wondered what Ivan’s thoughts were on the topic. “If you start more of these sabotage operations inside America, how will that negatively affect our situation with the population?” he asked.
Ivan snorted at the question as he blew smoke out through his nostrils. “Does it really matter at this point? The Americans are so enraged by the North Koreans obliterating Oakland and San Francisco, all they want now is revenge. They are drafting five million people into their military. Right now, I want to focus on figuring out how I can slow down the production of the military equipment that will be used against us. Come summer, the Americans are going to unleash an army on us not seen since the Great Patriotic War. I am not certain our generals fully appreciate that fact or understand how desperate of a fight that is going to be.”
Petrov grunted in acknowledgement.
“It’s also not just the Americans,” Ivan continued. “The remaining NATO members are also building up an army. While the winter is going to allow us to solidify our positions, it’s also giving the Allies time to build an army to defeat us,” Vasilek asserted angrily as he stubbed out the remains of his cigarette in the ashtray. He reached into his pocket, pulled out his jade-covered cigarette holder and retrieved another one to light up.
“Ivan, what about the Chinese and Koreans? Are they not sapping enough of the American military away from Europe? Are we truly in that dire of a situation right now?” Petrov asked, hoping in that moment that his military leaders’ optimistic outlook was realistic.
“I think the Chinese have underestimated the ability of the Americans to strike at them. They believe they are such a large nation that little pinpricks here and there won’t hurt them, but what they are finding out is that the Americans are focusing their pinpricks in just one area, concentrating all their bombing efforts and cruise missile attacks on dismantling the Chinese transportation sector. The Americans are bombing every rail and road tunnel they can find, hitting bridges and dams, causing all sorts of logistical problems. The Chinese are also finding out that the South Korean and Japanese armies are not as easy to defeat as they thought. Unlike in Europe, the South Koreans have a multimillion-man army,” Ivan explained as he puffed away on his third cigarette since the start of their meeting.
“It sounds like you are not certain if the Chinese are actually going to win,” Petrov said skeptically.
“Ivan sold me based on the ability of the Chinese to defeat the Americans in the Pacific,” the President thought a bit angrily. “That is going to be key to the success of our efforts in Europe.”
Vasilek looked at Petrov for a moment before responding, “I never said it would be easy or quick. I have spoken with Chairman Zhang. They are getting ready to launch a major offensive against the American Pacific Fleet and some of the Japanese islands. They anticipate having Taiwan fully secured by the end of the year.”
Ivan was almost annoyed at being questioned like this. “I am the spymaster who planned Red Storm,” he thought angrily. “The President just needs to be patient and continue to stay the course.”
Petrov leaned forward and looked Ivan in the eyes. “Ivan, continue to be straight with me. Do not lie or mislead me. I am counting on you to provide me with accurate intelligence and information to be the counterweight to the generals.”
Petrov saw his message was understood. He then stood up. “I have other meetings I need to attend to. I will see you later in the week for our next update,” the President said and then indicated that it was time for Ivan to leave. The two men shook hands, and the Russian spymaster left the Petrov’s office and headed back to his own fiefdom, Lubyanka.
Vilnius, Lithuania
Fourth Infantry Division Headquarters
Major General Paul Austin was still fuming that his division had been forced to retreat from Minsk and fall back all the way to Lithuania. His division had fought fiercely in Belarus for nearly two full weeks before the order had come down from General Cotton, the NATO commander, to fall back to the country they had just invaded from.
“If I had been provided the air support I was promised, things would have turned out differently and my division would still be in Minsk,” he thought.
As he placed his coffee cup down, General Austin looked over to the right of his desk and saw the most recent newspaper sitting there. He briefly picked it up, reading the headlines. Russian Troops Amass on the Borders of Baltic States… Russian Ground Offensive Underway in Nordic Countries… Korean Ground War Turning into Bloodbath… Taiwan’s Beleaguered Military Continues to Hold Out. Austin placed the paper back on the desk.
“These newspapers have no idea what’s really going on. They’re just trying to scare people and drive up sales,” he said to himself, disgusted with how the media continued to portray the war.
A loud knock at the door brought General Austin back to the moment.
“Enter,” he said loudly.
Colonel Wright, his G3 or operations chief, walked into the room along with Colonel Polski, his intelligence chief, or G2.
“What have you got for me, guys?” General Austin asked as they walked towards his desk and took a seat in the two chairs across from him.
“The Russians have moved several divisions towards Estonia and Latvia. It looks like they plan on invading them soon,” Colonel Polski replied briskly. He was accustomed to General Austin’s style at this point and never beat around the bush when talking to him anymore.
Austin nodded, then turned to his operations chief. “What orders do we have from headquarters on how they want us to handle this?” he asked.
Colonel Wright, a man who always had a determined and serious look on his face, responded gruffly, “Right now, the 82nd Airborne units are preparing defenses in Estonia and Latvia. The British are moving a tank division in that direction, but that’s about as much support as those countries are going to get. With the 6th Tank Army still here in Belarus and three divisions sitting less than 100 kilometers from us, we’ve been ordered to stay in place.” Wright seemed almost disgusted by the orders he had presented. He wanted to fight.
General Austin let out a soft sigh. “I hate playing defense,” he thought. “I want the enemy reacting to us, not the other way around. I guess no one wants to risk a couple of divisions getting trapped and cut off like what happened in Kiev again.”
Austin could see that his G2 was itching to tell him something, so he signaled for him to go ahead and speak.
Colonel Polski nodded and announced, “General, our intelligence drones and other assets in the area indicate that the divisions marshaling at the borders of Latvia and Estonia, along with the Nordic states, will likely invade within the next month. The Russians are probably looking to establish a buffer zone to delay our forces when we launch our attack in the summer. It also looks like they’re starting to prepare a network of defensive positions along the various approaches to Moscow and St. Petersburg.” Like General Austin, Polski was a straight shooter, direct and to the point with information; he liked to present the facts directly and let the decision makers decide what to do with them.
Austin scratched his chin for a moment, contemplating the information he’d just received. “If the Russians do launch a winter offensive, then it won’t be long before they hit our positions here. So, how do we best counter what we know is most likely going to happen?” he wondered. He picked up the wooden puzzle he kept on his desk, fiddling with it as he weighed the options. Suddenly, an idea came to him, like a lightbulb turning on.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” General Austin began. “I wa
nt our brigades to stay mobile. We’re not going to get locked into a defensive position where we can’t maneuver. Our best defense is our ability to shift and move our armor and mechanized assets to where they’re going to be needed. Make sure our artillery is also staying mobile. I have no idea how much air support we’ll be able to request or receive, so we ‘e going to have to rely heavily on our own artillery support,” he said, issuing his first orders for how he wanted the division to plan on defending Lithuania and their assigned area.
Once the two officers had the rest of their marching orders, they left his office to pass on the new orders and further develop the plans for what to do when the Russians launched their winter offensive.
Battle of Taipei
Sergeant Lin pulled another cigarette out of his pack of Pall Malls; he frowned when he realized the pack was now empty. Sitting against the wall of the corner café his group of soldiers had taken up residence in, he lit up his last cigarette, taking a deep breath in and filling his lungs with the smoke and nicotine. He closed his eyes briefly, trying to clear his mind for a few minutes while he enjoyed his last Pall Mall. He knew there would be more heavy fighting shortly, and he was taking a few minutes to enjoy one of the last luxuries he had, not knowing if he would live another day or if this would be his last. There were only nine members of his company left alive since the initial invasion. His brigade was more like the size of a reinforced battalion than a brigade. His unit had fought bitterly from one defensive position to another, eventually being pushed back to Taipei.
With no Taiwanese air support to speak of, the PLA had been pouring tens of thousands of soldiers a day onto the island, with no way of being able to stop the incoming storm. It was only a matter of time until the island was fully occupied.
Sergeant Lin wondered, “What exactly are we fighting for now? If we have no hope of winning, then why do we continue this conflict? How many civilians are being killed on a daily basis because the government wants to keep fighting? We are destroying this city block by block…”
Just as his private thoughts were starting to run amok, a familiar voice called out. It was Major Wu, one of the few officers from their battalion left alive. “Sergeant Lin, one of the scouts has spotted a mechanized infantry unit moving in our direction. I need you to get the antitank missiles moved to the upper rooms of the building and get ready to engage them once they get within range,” Wu ordered.
“Yes, Sir. We’ll set a nice trap for them,” replied Lin as he got up, grabbing his rifle and heading to the other room, where a lot of the soldiers were currently resting.
When Lin entered the room, he saw roughly thirty soldiers lying in various positions on the floor, trying desperately to catch up on some much-needed rest. The fighting the last few weeks had been fierce and nearly nonstop, exhausting them all. Lin kicked one of the soldier’s feet, causing him to stir.
“Everyone up!” he shouted. “We have enemy troops heading towards our position.” Sergeant Lin spoke in a loud authoritative voice, making sure everyone heard him and started to get moving right away.
The men started to rustle, getting to their feet a bit slowly. As they pulled their minds out of the sleepy fog, they started to put their body armor back on and grabbed their weapons.
“I need the fire teams to take up your defensive positions. The antitank soldiers need to grab their rockets and come with me. We are going up to some of the higher floors to get a better angle on the armor units,” he ordered.
Then Lin turned to his most senior sergeant left alive. “Sergeant Yang, you are in charge of the fire teams on this level. Understood?”
The sergeant nodded and started rounding up his group of soldiers, getting them moving to the various machine gun positions they had established. The group had strung together a series of machine gun positions that would provide them with interlocking fields of fire when the PLA ground forces made their advance.
Lately, the PLA had been using a lot of militia forces to bum-rush their positions, while the more experienced regular army units advanced behind them. This tactic had been working well for the PLA. While most of the militia units would get wiped out, they forced the Taiwanese soldiers to expend a lot of ammunition on them and give away their positions. This enabled the more experienced regular army soldiers to hit them hard with direct fire from tanks and indirect fire from artillery.
As Sergeant Lin trudged up to the emergency stairwell to the fourth-floor landing, he stopped for a minute while the soldiers below him caught up to him. He sent four soldiers into the fourth floor to set up their positions.
“Remember, don’t bunch up, and make your shots count. We only have so many of those rockets left,” he instructed. “Plus, once you fire from one position, make sure you move to a new spot because the enemy will likely send a tank round your direction, or at least some heavy machine gun fire.”
The soldiers nodded in response and proceeded to fan out on the fourth floor.
Lin led the rest of the soldiers up to the top floor, the seventh floor, which would also act as their observation point. He had twelve soldiers with him. Four soldiers carried antitank rockets, three were snipers, and the rest made up two heavy machine gun teams.
“All right, I want you guys to fan out and find a good position,” Sergeant Lin ordered the rocket-toting soldiers. “Make sure you have some cover and identify your next firing position and get those ready as well. I do not want you guys to sit in one position for too long.”
He then turned to face his next set of soldiers. “Snipers, I want you guys to set up a little way back in the building, so you are not easily spotted. Your primary target is the PLA officers. If you spot an officer or someone leading the soldiers forward, take them out.”
The soldiers immediately went to work, identifying where the best positions would be and figuring out what they could use for cover. This was the third such building they had taken over and would fight from in the past week, so they were getting better at figuring out what would work and what wouldn’t. If and when the fighting became too intense, they would be ordered to fall back to the next city block and take up another set of defensive positions.
The sounds of jet aircraft flying low and fast over the city echoed loudly through the shattered windows of the building. When they had moved into this building the day before, they had gone through and intentionally broken all of the windows, eliminating the glass as a potential source of shrapnel. It would also reduce the risk of giving away their firing positions when they started shooting.
Once the jets passed by overhead, they heard the thunderous booms of multiple explosions, not too far away. Then came the unmistakable sound of helicopters.
Lin looked to the soldier who was carrying their last two Stingers, signaling him to get the first one ready and move towards the blown-out window.
Thump, thump, thump. The helicopter blades grew louder as they echoed off the buildings of the city. Then they saw the first helicopter come into view. It was a CAIC Z-10 ground attack helicopter, similar to the American Apaches. As they watched the chopper move, it was clear that it was not headed directly for their position, but it was certainly advancing in their direction. They needed to neutralize that helicopter before it became a problem.
The young soldier prepped the Stinger and turned to Lin, signaling that he was ready. Then, he turned the surface-to-air missile towards the helicopter and activated the heat-seeking warhead. In seconds, the warbling tone from the launcher let the soldier know the warhead had acquired the target and was ready to be fired. As the soldier squeezed the trigger, the missile made a loud popping noise as it was ejected from the tube and the rocket motor ignited.
The missile streaked out of the building at lightning speed towards the Z-10. The helicopter immediately reacted to the threat and dispensed multiple flares in an attempt to throw the Stinger off. Unfortunately for the pilot of the Z-10, the Stingers the Americans had shipped to the Taiwanese days before the war had started wer
e the newest, most advanced version of the missile. The seeker identified the flares and ignored them, directing the missile towards the helicopter as it desperately tried to seek cover by dipping down between buildings. In less than five seconds, the Stinger had closed the distance and detonated its warhead, spraying the chopper with its deadly shrapnel. The helicopter exploded a second later and crashed to the ground below.
Two more Z-10s appeared off in the horizon and headed towards their building now that they knew it was occupied. Sergeant Lin knew they had probably seen where the Stinger had come from and would likely try to lob a few rockets or missiles in their direction.
Lin immediately told the soldiers in his group, “Get down and be ready for impact!”
As he was about to hit the floor himself, out of the corner of his eye he spotted several Stingers racing towards the helicopters from a different building, several blocks away from them.
The helicopters immediately began to jink from side to side and dropped in altitude to get between the buildings and try to escape the Stingers heading towards them. One of the missiles slammed into a nearby building, missing the helicopters, but the second missile found its mark, obliterating another threat from the sky.
While the aerial attack was taking place, dozens upon dozens of enemy infantry fighting vehicles and tanks rumbled down the streets, heading towards them. The lead T-99 moved closer, until it was only two blocks away. Sergeant Lin’s soldiers held their fire as they had been instructed, letting the tanks get closer. As the tankers moved forward, so did densely packed units of PLA militia.
Sergeant Lin lifted the small radio to his mouth and relayed a set of orders to the soldiers on the fourth floor, who had eight American-made AT-4 rockets with them. In seconds, he saw three rockets fly out in the direction of the enemy tanks. The T-99’s self-defense systems immediately activated, destroying two of the rockets, while the third one plowed into the top of the turret’s roof, causing a small explosion. In less than a second, that small blast turned into a much larger detonation, blowing the turret completely off as the ammunition on board caught fire and exploded.
