Cyber Warfare and the New World Order: World War III Series: Book IV

by James Rosone

  As he stood there for a minute holding his coffee, he lifted it up to his nose and took a big sniff, letting the aroma fill his lungs before he took a long sip. In seconds, he felt the warmth of the liquid move down into his body; within minutes, he could already start to feel the caffeine slowly starting to kick in. Once he had his fix, he looked around to see if he could find General Gardner.

  General Black spotted him talking to one of the Air Force generals and began to walk towards him. He had just finished up his conversation when he saw him approaching. Gardner and then extended his hand, “General Black, it’s good to see you. We have lots to discuss,” he said.

  They walked down the hallway towards General Gardner’s office, which sat just off of the operations center. Gardner liked to be near the heart of the war, which these days meant being near the operations center, which was filled with TV monitors of drone feeds, headcams and an endless feed of data from all sorts of sensors and maps.

  As they sat down to talk, General Black was the first to speak. “The troops are in high spirits. They are eager to get this fight going, if that is what it’s going to come down to.”

  General Gardner smiled for a second as he replied, “That’s good to hear, Tyler.” His face then reverted into a stone-cold, serious expression. “I just got done talking with the President and the National Security Council about twenty minutes ago. We’ve been given the order. We are to begin preparations to invade.”

  He paused for a minute to let his long-time friend collect his thoughts before he continued, “The President has given me some leeway in when we can begin the operation, but he wants it to begin within the month. We can pick the date, time and location, but he wants us to move forward with the four-pronged approach we briefed him on.” General Gardner was somber. This was a big decision. They were about to commit millions of soldiers to one last major campaign of the war.

  The two generals had known each other on and off again for the last fifteen years, but had really become close over these past five months. When General Gardner was given his fifth star, he immediately requested General Black to be his field commander. General Gardner knew that he was not going to be able to be at the front leading his soldiers as much as he wanted to, and he needed someone he could trust to be in that position for him. He had seen how Black had fought tooth and nail against the Chinese, and he admired that. He had finally found someone as aggressive as he was.

  General Black took a deep breath in and then puffed it out as if he were blowing out an imaginary candle. “This is going to be a tough one, Gary. Have you already determined which front we will hit first and what troops we are going to use?”

  “Yes. We are going to go after Shanghai. Using the Raptor troops, I want them to hit Nantong first, then cross the Yangtze River and capture Changzhou. I want that area completely sealed off. Then I want to use our airborne and heliborne troops to hit Shaoxing and drive towards Hangzhou on foot with the Wolverines. They need to move fast and secure the docks and the airports. Once the docks are secured, you need to get reinforcements into those guys quick and firm up their position. We are not going to attack Shanghai right away. I want to get the area completely surrounded and cut off from further supply,” Gary explained as he showed Tyler the plan on his tablet map. He went over the numbers of troops, timeline for reinforcements, number of aircraft assigned for ground support as well as helicopters and Razorbacks available. He also went over the direct fire support the Navy would be providing with their battleships.

  General Black leaned back in his chair. “That is going to be a tall order, Gary.”. He knew there were a lot of concerns. They still did not have nearly as many Raptor suit troopers as they wanted, and wouldn’t for nearly a year. The private sector was cranking them out as fast as they could, but they could only produce so many a month. Presently, they were manufacturing 150,000 a month.

  Gardner nodded, aware of the difficulties. “I’m going to have the Air Force start hitting the rail and road systems in the area tonight. They are also going to start going after the pre-identified targets we went over last week. We will let the Air Force and the Navy pound them for the next three days, then they will shift to our second objective, Taiwan. After the third day of them hammering Taiwan, they will shift their focus back to Shanghai and we will invade. This will hopefully throw them off a bit.”

  “When do we hit the other objectives?” asked Black, knowing those attacks would come sooner rather than later. The goal was to overwhelm the PLA by hitting them at multiple points, forcing them to have to pick which front was going to be the priority.

  “This is the tough part--hitting the next objectives is going to place an enormous strain on the Navy and our sealift capability. We will hit Taiwan within the next four months, using regular infantry. All of the Raptor troops are going to be needed in Shanghai. They are already going to be heavily outnumbered. As to the other objectives…I am not sure just yet. I want to hit Tianjin with the EHDs. We are going to be seriously outnumbered in that invasion, and I think the drones are going to be our best bet. We will follow them up with regular infantry once they have established a beachhead.”

  Standing up and stretching his back, General Black looked his friend in the eye and said, “I know that you’ve done everything you could to prepare for this moment. Now it’s time to put the plan into motion and let the rest of us execute it. We will see it through to victory and bring this terrible war to an end.”

  He left General Gardner’s office and began to marshal several the operations officers and senior NCOs around him to get things started. From that moment on, the operations center was beehive of activity as the greatest military invasion in history began.

  Controlled Chaos

  12 February 2043

  0400 Hours

  Rudong, China

  As Captain Thornton sat strapped into the seat of the Razorback that would fly him into the port city of Rudong, he just wanted to make it out of this situation alive. He had fought in Mexico, the Middle East, California and now China. He just hoped his luck would not run out on this mission. As he sat there with his helmet on, he could see the men around him looking anxious; some had a blank look, others were ready for a fight. As he sat there looking out the door at the water moving quickly below them, he couldn’t feel that the air was chilling or smell the saltwater below; his exoskeleton combat suit was a fully-enclosed system.

  What he was certain of was that they were flying very fast. He could tell by the looks on the door gunner’s face and from the pilot when he first got on that they were nervous. Thornton’s company, along with the rest of his battalion, was going to be flown in from the troop ships offshore and be deposited right in the center of Rudong County, which controlled dozens of smaller docks and ports that were going to be critical to secure if the invasion was going to work. Hundreds of Pershing battle tanks were waiting to be offloaded at those docks, along with thousands of Wolverine infantry fighting vehicles.

  His Razorback was flying low and swiftly. He had ridden in the Razorbacks dozens of times, but was not sure he had ever ridden in one that was flying this hastily. In the distance, he saw waves of Razorbacks. Just behind them, and a little higher in altitude, he saw dozens of additional gunships. The sky was full of helicopters. After nearly fifteen minutes in the air, he could start to see land off in the horizon. It was the pre-twilight hours of the morning, so the land still looked dark and ominous, but he could see shards of light starting to penetrate the night. He knew they were getting close, and things were about to get crazy. He had no idea if he was going to live another five minutes, five hours, or five days. What he did know is life was never going to be the same for everyone on board this helicopter.

  Joe did not have to wait long for the silence to be broken. Within a minute of first seeing land, enemy tracer fire began to rise from the ground headed straight for them. The dimly lit green lights grew in size and intensity as they approached his helicopter. Explosions began to sha
ke their craft as they few through the air, Thornton’s heart began to race and his chest tighten up. He knew there was nothing he could do, but that did not relieve the anxiety he was feeling. Their pilot began to deftly evade the enemy fire, moving their Razorback seconds before a missile would have hit them. Joe thought to himself, “This pilot is good.”

  As their craft flew over land, the volume of enemy fire began to pick up even more. Joe did not think that it was possible, but the number of enemy tracers flying all around them was so thick that he could not believe he had not already been ripped apart by them. He felt his craft shake multiple times as they began to take some hits. Then an explosion nearby threw the Razorback to one side and then the other; their pilot tried desperately to duck and dodge while also going with the flow.

  Joe saw the door gunner, who was sitting about ten feet from him, begin to use his gun. He began shooting at unknown targets at the ground. Joe wished he could shoot at something, anything. He hated being helpless like this, strapped to a seat hoping and praying that he was not killed by some unseen hand before he was able to get on the ground.

  They were approaching what he thought was the center of town. The pilot banked hard to one side and let loose a volley of anti-personnel rockets. Seconds later, they jerked to the other side and fired several anti-tank missiles at an unseen target. There was a loud explosion and their Razorback lurched swiftly towards the opposite side. Smoke, began to fill the cabin, alarms began to blare, and he heard several of his men let loose a number of swear words; some shouted out a few prayers. As their craft began to slide out of control, Paul thought for a minute, “Is this it? Am I about to die?”

  Then their Razorback slammed into the side of a building and bounced off of it. They thudded hard and crashed into a parking lot next to several mid-sized office buildings. Once the Razorback stopped moving, Joe realized that they were still alive. He could still see smoke, and felt some heat, which meant the Razorback was on fire, but at least for the moment, they were alive. He immediately yelled to everyone in the craft, “Grab your gear and get out!”

  In seconds, ten of the men in his squad were off the Razorback and moving to the side of one of the office buildings for cover. Two of his soldiers had been killed in the crash and one of the door gunners had also been killed. The two pilots survived, though they both had some injuries and broken bones. Three of his soldiers ran back to help the wounded and retrieve the dead bodies of his soldiers that died. Thornton began to issue orders, “I want you six to set up a perimeter around our current position.”

  “Yes Sir,” they responded.

  He turned to his communications sergeant and continued, “We need to let the rest of the company know our location. I want to get a situation report from all of my platoon leaders ASAP.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  Thornton loaded a map and found the GPS plot of their location. He saw that they were only a few hundred meters away from their original landing zone. He also discovered one of the Razorbacks carrying his soldiers had been completely destroyed, with no survivors. Two more had been shot down and had casualties but those Marines were on the ground and moving to their objectives. The other two platoons had landed successfully and were moving to secure their targets. Seeing that he was not far from his original objective and looking at his surroundings, Joe opted to move his headquarters to the first floor of the office building they were now using as cover. He ordered second platoon to move to his position and sent his remaining squad members into the office building to secure it and set up spotter positions on the roof. Once the other platoon arrived, they would be relieved.

  He needed to get his base of operations established; his objective was to secure a perimeter so they could begin to bring in more soldiers and get some light armored vehicles and mobile anti-aircraft vehicles set up. He had 45 minutes to secure his area before the next wave of reinforcements would begin to arrive, and two hours before eight Wolverine infantry fighting vehicles would be airlifted in.

  As he surveyed the area around him, he realized the office buildings were located on the edge of a densely populated residential area. His position was also relatively close to several anti-aircraft heavy guns, which were still shooting away at the Razorbacks and gunships moving around the area. He called the platoon leader for third platoon, gave them the location of the enemy gun position, and directed them to take it out. It appeared to be in the center of several large apartment buildings. It was likely placed there to discourage the Air Force from dropping a bomb on it, killing a bunch of civilians. It was a smart play on the PLA’s part, but his grunts would take it out.

  While two soldiers from his headquarters squad began to set up the communications antennas and run the cables back into the reception area of the office building, a dozen PLA soldiers appeared about fifty yards from his position at the corner of the intersection nearby. They immediately began to shoot at him and the soldiers pulling sentry duty.

  One of Thornton’s men fired his M203 grenade launcher in their direction, while another soldier moved behind a small brick wall and began to fire controlled bursts from his M5. Joe took cover behind a parked vehicle in the parking lot and took aim at one of the Chinese soldiers. He saw the fighter move to the corner of a building and begin to fire at his men. As he took aim at the soldier, he sighted in on his head and fired a single shot. The man’s head jerked back, and he collapsed where he was standing. Joe immediately began to move on to the next soldier, repeating the process several times. The PLA seemed to be so focused on shooting at the other soldiers behind the building that they had taken over that they did not seem to notice him off to the side, behind a parked car.

  Thornton had picked off seven PLA soldiers before anyone began to fire at his position. Seconds later, a Marine gunship flew nearby and fired off several anti-personnel rockets in the direction of the PLA soldiers, blowing them up. Joe saw one enemy soldier get thrown in the air, landing maybe ten feet from where he had just been standing. He saw the man desperately grab for his left arm, which had just been ripped off by the explosion. Joe took aim and shot him in the head, ending his misery.

  The attack helicopter that had randomly appeared near them quickly darted off to find another target to attack. Now that the enemy had been neutralized, Thornton and his men continued to clear the area for the follow-on forces that would arrive soon. They needed to push several vehicles in the parking lot to the outer edge and create a clearing for additional helicopters to land. Once they finished, the parking lot would have enough room for two Razorbacks to land at a time.

  When Joe walked into the reception area of the office building, he saw his two coms Marines had their laptops up and running and had pulled up the portable digital map board. As he began to study the map board, he learned the current positions of the Marines in his battalion and company. A couple of drone feeds were also being piped in. The drones were identifying pockets of enemy soldiers and overlaying them on the map in relationship to the Marines’ positions. Several red flashing symbols represented the battalions’ primary objectives and targets that had not yet been neutralized, while others were now listed as blue, indicating that they had been destroyed.

  Studying the map for a second, he could see that the third platoon had successfully taken out those enemy anti-aircraft guns and were now en-route to his position. First platoon appeared to be bogged down, still trying to accomplish their primary objective. It looked like most of second platoon had been killed after two of the three Razorbacks carrying them had been shot down. The remaining squad of soldiers was still pressing on with their mission, securing a nearby road junction. He was going to need to detail off a squad from third platoon to assist them once they arrived. As he located his fourth platoon, he was able to determine that their first and second squad had secured one of the key bridges near the S324 highway.

  An hour after their crash landing, a steady stream of Razorbacks and heavy helicopter transporters began to arrive at Thornton’
s position. Nearly four hundred additional Marines arrived, along with eight Wolverines. Captain Thornton’s Company had cleared one of five initial landing zones, to assist the incoming battalions of Marines in securing the rest of the city. The rest of his battalion had secured three ports, which were now being used to offload the more heavily armored Pershing tanks and other armored vehicles that would begin to make their way to Nantong and the Yangtze River.

  *******

  General Li Zuocheng had been promoted to Eastern Theater Commander two months ago. He knew this was an important promotion because he would most likely be defending against an American invasion, one that could take place anytime. He was not without resources. He had 1,300,000 soldiers to defend nearly 500 miles of shoreline, along with some of the most important industrial cities and sectors in the country. His force was broken down into 82 divisions; 14 of them were heavily armored divisions, while the rest were a mix of mechanized and light infantry division. To augment his force, he had 22 PLA militia divisions, which were lightly equipped and poorly trained infantry.

  He knew the Americans were going to launch an invasion of mainland China, the question his officers and planners were trying to decipher was when and where. They knew that Nantong had the majority of the deep water heavy ports in Jiangsu Province, a key foothold to Shanghai; this made it a prime target. The capture of Shanghai and the industrial centers around it would be a big blow to China. General Zuocheng knew the American President wanted to break China up because they had grown too powerful; he could not let that happen.

  At 0300 in the morning, one of his aides knocked on his door and woke him up. Li was upset. He had been getting one of the best night’s sleep he had had in the past week. The Americans had been attacking the various airfields in his military district with high altitude bombings and cruise missiles. Most of the cruise missiles were shot down, but the F41s had been modified to now carry two 500 lb. Joint Direct Attack Munitions, an old-fashioned dumb bomb with a specialized GPS and laser-guided nose, and guidable tail fins. It was fortunate that the Americans only had a few hundred of these aircraft, or they could single-handedly dismantle his armored forces. Once it became clear what the Americans were doing, he had ordered his forces to disperse into the cities.