Winter Kill 2 - China Invades Australia

by Gene Skellig

  “Colonel, that does not sound right. The Marines don’t have a reputation for fleeing from a fight, now do they?” the general asked, suspiciously.

  “My thoughts exactly, Sir. I think they had deployed into town originally as a show of force, perhaps hoping we would pause until all three regiments of the 124th Division could be in position before moving in on the town. But as we moved so much faster than they expected – thanks to your brilliant plan – they must have fallen back to more defendable terrain on the rise out of town.”

  “When will the 370th be ready to attack?”

  “I’ve given the order to commence immediately. We should have word soon, Sir.”

  “Excellent,” Leung said, looking at some of the tactical data on the big screen TV’s. “Don’t give the enemy any time to prepare; just keep moving forward as fast as possible. Come to think of it, this puts some pressure on our timetable. We are moving faster than expected there. Better have the 163rd push their logistics dump from here,” Leung said, indicating the massive fuel dump just east of Cloncurry, “to mount up and move through Cloncurry, and begin to establish a refueling base at Mount Isa by tomorrow.”

  “But sir, we don’t have engineering support there anymore. We would have to pull the Combat Engineers of the 370th back from Cloncurry to do that, and they’re busy with the wounded and fire-fighting at Cloncurry,” said the colonel.

  Not missing a beat, the detail-oriented General searched the tactical display for alternatives.

  “What about this unit, at Julia Creek?”

  “That’s 2nd Battalion, Combat Engineers, from the 163rd. Yes, we could have them deploy to the dump this side of Cloncurry. It's only about eighty kilometers. But then once they pack up the bladders and get the fuel farm moving, we’ll have to pull them back to Julia Creek. We need them there for security, and to help with the scheduled move of the 20th Division when we get into the next phase.”

  “Agreed. Now, I’ve got to go for a conference call with General Ma. When I get back in about two hours I want to hear that the 124th has cleared the west side of Mount Isa, and broken through the Marines line there on that rise,” General Leung commanded as he got up and left the Command Post.

  “Yes, General,” bounced off of his back.

  Four hours later, General Leung finally returned to the Command Post. He was pleased as punch to hear that the enemy lines had folded, that the 124th Division had pressed on two hundred kilometers farther west from Mount Isa, and were closing in on the Allies’ hastily prepared position at Camooweal, right at the Queensland – Northern Territory border. The 163rd Division had driven right through Mount Isa and was arriving at an assembly area named ‘Inca Creek’.

  “So what’s the problem?” asked General Leung, excitedly.

  “Fuel, sir.” Colonel Pan, the senior PLA Ground Forces member of the battle staff, spoke up. “We have outpaced even your aggressive timelines, and really have to pause the 163rd. As you recall, they were supposed to hold back at Mount Isa, to resupply, before leap-frogging through what was supposed to be a tired and battle-weary 124th. But as the enemy keeps falling back, the 124th just kept pressing ahead – those were your orders, after all – so it’s not surprising that they have pressed ahead so far along the open road.

  Enjoying the good mood that the General was in, PLA Air Force Colonel Song joined in. “General, we have some great footage to show you.”

  With a nod from Leung, Colonel Song signaled a major, who nodded to a sergeant. Suddenly one of the big screen TVs came to life with high qualify visuals looking down on a column of vehicles snaking along a narrow road.

  “This is courtesy of the Foreign Intelligence Directorate. You may recall, Sir, in 2013, they obtained the complete package of the Sniper Advanced Targeting Pod from the computers of Lockheed Martin corporation? Anyhow, the fitment of the American system into our SU-30s went very well. We have a couple of Sniper-AT-Pod-equipped aircraft in theatre. This footage was taken less than an hour ago, about 100 kilometers west of Mount Isa.”

  “Impressive, Colonel Song. I have been briefed on this, but have never seen it before. What am I looking at?”

  “You see these vehicles? Here, and here?” the Colonel gestured to the display, where a line of small vehicles could be seen moving west along the highway, and then to a few other lines vehicles moving to the south, away from the highway.

  “These are civilian vehicles that are fleeing just ahead of the Australian and Marine rear guard. We are moving in on them so fast that they can’t even run away fast enough! Many of them seem to be headed into this Camooweal Caves National Park, but they seem to be trying to get as far from the A2…”

  “Don’t you mean the ‘A6?’” interrupted General Leung.

  “No, sir. The name changes from A6 to A2 once you pass Cloncurry,” Colonel Song paused until the general nodded. “Anyhow, they seem to be doing whatever they can to get off of the A2, the Barker Highway, so as to avoid being run over by our armored infantry regiments bearing down on them. I can only imagine how terrified they must be.”

  The image shifted to heavy, dark vehicles.

  “And these are a few Australian or USMC infantry fighting vehicles – their rear guard. By now they will have reached the tiny town, hamlet really, called Camooweal and will undoubtedly be setting up some sort of defenses. After our fuel bowsers reach the 372nd, they will simply move in and clear the town, later tomorrow at the latest. Then we’ll have the 163rd Division leap-frog through the 124th and take the lead as we move into Northern Territory.”

  “Colonel Song, we should expect the enemy to consider the defense of this border town to be an important psychological event. They will throw everything they have at us, particularly in terms of aircraft. Do we have any air defense units there, or just the CAP?”

  “Nothing on the ground, Sir. Just the CAP. We’ve got both serviceable air tankers over Cloncurry now, keeping a six-pack of SU-27s up twenty-four-seven over the highway, all the way to the border. We can handle anything they throw at us,” the Air Force colonel said with confidence.

  “Very good. Now, Colonel Pan, go on about the fuel issue.”

  “General. Because of the excessive speed of advance, the 372nd Regiment, at the Forward Edge of the Battle Area, just east of Camooweal, and the rest of the 124th Division coming into line behind the FEBA, have robbed too much fuel from the 163rd Division. Now both Divisions are running extremely low. We need to take a 48-hour pause to stage fuel to all six regiments that are involved.

  “Approved. We could use a good rest here as well, Colonel Pan. Let’s have everybody go to ground for the night. It’s been a busy two days without much rest for anybody. Of course, Colonel Song, that does not apply to your CAP. With all of our losses in the Air Defense Regiment, your fighters better stay right on top of the 124th.

  “Understood, General. We’re keeping a six-pack of SU-27s stacked in pairs for three levels of CAP over the FEBA, and a four-pack of SU230’s on station with the tankers, a few hundred miles to the east, making ten fighters in total. That is our max effort for continuous operations, but we can sustain that for up to five days. Beyond that, we’ll have to scale back the CAP. It’s already robbed too much from our reserves – we’ve got basically nothing up here or in Cairns, other than transiting aircraft rotating into or out of the Camooweal CAP,” said Song.

  “Very well, we’ll look at scaling it back after we see if there’s any fight left in the enemy.”

  With that, the 42nd Group Army ground to a halt, with the forward Battalion of the 372nd Regiment having closed to within fifteen kilometers of the border town of Camooweal. They could see the soft lights of the small community illuminating the cloudy skies, but were more than pleased with what they had accomplished, gobbling up so many hundreds of kilometers and reaching the western extreme of Queensland so far ahead of even the most optimistic of schedules.

  It would be the farthest west that any unit of the PLA would reach in the campa
ign.

  14

  BIlLABANG

  Both ambush teams had deployed without incident; one to take up a position twenty kilometers to the east of the Billabong; the other five kilometers to the west. On cue, top Sergeant Rideout and the rest of Task Force Billabong started up their engines and climbed their vehicles out of the Billabong hideaway. As they pulled onto the A6 Highway, turning right and accelerating towards Julia Creek, the men became tense.

  Rideout could sense it. No longer hidden by the terrain and camouflage of their sanctuary, the three Light Armored Vehicles and dozen civilian pattern vehicles were fully exposed on the open expanse of the highway which had seen so much heavy traffic from the People’s Liberation Army over the last two weeks.

  Things had really begun to settle down three days before, however, when the two Chinese divisions had completed their crossing of western Queensland from Charters Towers to Cloncurry. From what Top Sergeant Rideout understood form the intelligence SitRep, the mining engineer’s booby-trap at Cloncurry had been devastating for the enemy’s Air Defense Regiment. With plenty of air power available to compensate, however, the enemy had continued to advance the six regiments of their now Armored Corps formation, and had already made contact with the security forces first at Mount Isa, where the Marines of the MAGTFA had immediately withdrawn as if afraid to be overrun by the fast-moving Chinese divisions pouring into the Camooweal area.

  But this time, when a lightly armored and fast-moving reconnaissance team from the PLA’s 372nd Regiment ran into a company of US Marines at a check-point just ten kilometers east of Camooweal, the Marines did not budge. From the vigorous way that the Marines pursued the surviving members of the Chinese recce platoon, hunting them down in a high-speed chase as the PLA soldiers retreated to the safety of their advancing formation, it was clear to all involved that the Marines were going to stand and fight. That battle lines had been drawn.

  Having made contact with the Marines with only the loss of a few dozen men from the 372nd Regiment, and with the rest of the 124th Division settling in to the line, the PLA seemed content to establish a five kilometer wide front, and halt offensive operations for the moment. In the tense quiet that ensued, the front was patrolled on one side by the Allies to the west and by recce teams from the rapidly-entrenching battalions of the 372nd Regiment to the east.

  Unlike past encounters, it seemed, the Chinese were ready for an operational pause. It did not take long for the CJOC to determine, through intercepted radio transmission and other ‘leakage’ from Chinese military communications that they were monitoring with the aid of the CIA facility at Pine Gap, that the entire 42nd Group Army was being given a 48-hour operational pause for logistical resupply and a well-earned bit of rest for the weary soldiers. They were weary from travel, not from war-fighting, as there had not been any meaningful engagements other than the mines and missiles that had affected the engineering battalion and the Air Defense Regiment that had been hurt so badly in Cloncurry.

  Once the CJOC had sufficient confirmation from Special Forces units and the network of civilians monitoring the A2 highway, the disposition of Enemy units became clearly understood.

  The arrival of the third and final Regiment of the 163rd Division, taking up a position just twenty kilometers behind those of the 124th Division, meant that the Chinese had taken the bait. Intoxicated by the speed of their advance they had over-run even General Leung’s aggressive timetable, and had unwittingly raced directly into Colonel Ferebee’s trap. The collision of PLA forces with the Allies at Camooweal was the signal for Task Force Billabong to commence operations. Being such a tiny force and with such a highest risk mission to carry out, the men following the lead of Top Sergeant Rideout and Master Sergeant Gannon were now required to operate more like Special Forces operatives then any of them had ever been trained for, and they knew it. So their tension as they sped west towards Julia Creek was understandable.

  All thoughts of What if they attack from the air? and What if their security forces are more substantial than we think? were quickly dispelled the moment the small band of Marines blew past the Chinese military police checkpoint at the Y intersection on the east side of Julia Creek town-site.

  In his side-view mirror, Top Sergeant Rideout watched as the dazed sentries were taken out by the Australian Special Forces and civilian militia who literally appeared out of no-where.

  Rick recognized a few of their faces, from the many visits that the Australians had made with the Marines at the billabong. The close coordination between the Marines and Australians over the past ten days in the Billabong was beginning to pay off as the two hundred or so Australians who had snuck up to their start positions around the outskirts of the remote hamlet now swung into action in perfect unison with the shock-and-awe of the Marines rapid thrust into the town’s center. As planned, the cue had been the sudden arrival of the Marines’ convoy arriving from the east, which, as intended, had caught the security forces of the engineering and logistics battalion of the 370th Regiment - perhaps two companies in total strength – completely off guard.

  For all they knew the convoy that suddenly appeared from the east was a strange PLA Ground Force unit making its way up the line to the west, as had dozens of convoys over the past two weeks. The presence of American standard military pattern vehicles and Australian civilian SUVs was not unusual, as all Chinese forces had been using a mix of seized western equipment along with the armor and specialized equipment that had been deployed from China by sea.

  But when the shooting started, with a few quick-to-react soldiers at some of the entrenched positions around town firing upon the Australian soldiers militiamen, it quickly became clear to the security forces in Julia Creek that their boring little logistics supply base was under attack.

  Fortunately for the Marines in the fast-moving convoy led by Top Sergeant Rideout, the troops guarding the Julia Creek Railway Station were not so quick to react. The defenders, all six of them, had come out of the one story railway station to look across the gravel parking lot to see what was going on in town when an American infantry fighting vehicle suddenly appeared in front of them, lurching to a stop no more than five meters in front of the terrified traffic techs.

  The men did not react. They did not fight, run, nor raise their hands in surrender. They simply stared at the strange vehicle, hoping that it would not start firing at them. They were so stunned that they were unable to budge.

  Sergeant Rideout’s SUV crossed the large gravel parking area without stopping. Clearly that area was under control, at least for the moment. Feeling a profound sense of relief that they had caught the enemy by surprise, Rideout and his team continued their task, screaming around the townsite looking for any form of organized resistance, ready to take up a position from which they could coordinate the actions of immediate response teams from both the Australians and the Marines. The trouble was, there was almost nothing to deal with.

  After racing around the rail yards and seeing a few small groups of Australians bearing arms and clearly in control, they turned north and headed deeper into town. They came across a fire-fight centered on the Shire Office, but quickly determined that the skirmish was all but over before it had begun, based on the bodies of Chinese soldiers that could be seen on the street, and a surprising number of Australian militiamen firing at the small stone building from positions on all sides. Nothing for Rideout to do there either.

  “Let’s head for the fuel farm,” barked Rideout.

  “Roger, Top,” said his driver as he gunned the accelerator and sped up Julia Street towards the next block.

  “There it is, see the skate park?” Top said, approaching a strange set of concrete ramps just to the right of the road.

  “Oh, I see it.” The driver pulled the vehicle over beside a typically Australian metal-clad box of a building. There were Marines moving about on the other side of the building, and the occasional burst of gunfire.

  After stepping out of his SUV, Serge
ant Rideout paused to look, listen, and sense. All quiet, he thought. What the hell, there should have been more of a firefight.

  “Top! There you are!” said a Lance Corporal, who had just come out of another SUV that had pulled into the driveway of the town’s only large sports field.

  “What it is it, Conway?”

  “Captain Thorne is looking for you. He’s over at the warehouse on Coyne Street. Just turn right when you get to the end of this block, and look for the smoking Light Armored Vehicle.”

  “We lost an LAV? I didn’t hear a thing. What happened?”

  “Yeah, really crappy, that one. But there’s good news there too. Better go look for yourself, Top,” said the Lance Corporal, seemingly unwilling to go into the details of what had transpired.

  “Thanks. I’ll go see for myself.” Top said, mounting up in his SUV and speeding away.

  Two minutes later he had seen enough to piece together what had happened. As one of the three most important targets inside the town, the large warehouse had been the scene of a short, desperate battle. The Marines that had moved in on the warehouse in their eight-wheeled LAV-A2 had engaged and defeated the Chinese ZBD-97 infantry fighting vehicle that was known to be protecting the high value target, but there had not been enough Australian militia personnel in support of the sole LAV-A2, and it had been taken out with a well-aimed 120 mm High Explosive Anti-Tank Missile fired from a shoulder-launched Type 98 tube in the hands of a well-trained PLA soldier. That he and a dozen or more of his fellows had been dispatched shortly thereafter was small consolation to Top Sergeant Rideout.

  The three dead Marines crewing the LAV had achieved their mission, taking out the 100mm armed ZDB-90, basically a Chinese-licensed knock-off of the Russian 100mm gun equipped BMP-3, but had paid for it with their lives. Thankfully, the six Marines riding in the back of the LAV had just deployed out the rear hatch when the HEAT round from the ZBD-97 had struck. The dismounted Marines completed the mission of clearing the warehouse of enemy defenders, with particular vengeance for their friends. The smell of death and toxic smoke still lingered in the air as Rideout pieced it all together.