“Gen’ral, I polled the guys, and we do want to join you guys if you’ll have us?” Daniel asked.
I put my arm around him and said “Captain, we are glad to have you.”
Just as General Davies walked up to pat Daniel on the back, we heard screaming. Shots rang out. I looked to the west and heard the unmistakable sound of a drone coming over the trees.
Chapter 14
The Battle near Schenectady
Return to Table of Contents
“Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum; If you want Peace, Prepare for war”
—Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus
“Snipers! Drones!” I yelled as the drones began dropping shrapnel bombs onto the battlefield. Rather than focusing on the battle that was ensuing, I found myself trying to find Lily in the midst of all of the action. Damn it! Why did I let her come with us? I thought to myself as I ran for cover.
“Shrapnel bombs.” While all bombs have shrapnel of some kind, it was under the ruthlessness of the Russian soldiers that this new type of bomb found its way into our battles. In 2025, the first shrapnel bomb was dropped onto a battlefield.
The Russians had perfected a bomb about the size of a ten-gallon trash can. On the bottom of the bomb there was a pressurized lever that was round, and about six inches in diameter. Inside the bomb they loaded up a large assortment of sixteen penny nails, small lead wheel weights, and anything else they could raid from the now shut-down auto parts and hardware stores in our former country.
It was packed with several bricks of C-4 in the bottom and all of the shrapnel was loaded on top of it. They put a lightweight hard plastic lid on the top. They would drop the bomb onto the battlefield from a drone. When the bomb hit the ground, the pressurized lever would push up into the C-4 and ignite it. They had molded a conical shaped bottom so the blast went upward and outward. The resulting explosions did not take out arms and legs like other bombs. No, those bombs left survivors. These bombs exploded upward at an angle and took off your head. There was no way to save soldiers in the vicinity of a shrapnel bomb. They were headless heaps of flesh and blood on the ground. The Russians were ruthless and wanted no survivors.
I could see General Davies with what looked like an old K-98 8mm Mauser. He was working that firearm flawlessly. When he went dry with ammunition, he reloaded with amazing quickness and was back on target in a flash. I ran up to him in a panic.
“General, I need some lemon grenades!” I hollered.
“In my satchel,” he replied while motioning with his head to the satchel on his right side, while he continued firing his Mauser.
I reached in and grabbed several grenades, put them into my Tru-Spec pants pockets and started running toward a large group of socialists soldiers on the north side of the field.
There was smoke everywhere and the drones kept coming. I could hear the snipers picking off the drones with their old Remington 700’s. The good thing about the snipers taking out the drones in midair was usually the shrapnel bombs would then explode in the air. You just had to watch for falling drone debris, nails and lead weights.
I heard a loud rumbling noise as I spied on Adam and Lily on the far north ridge. “Tanks! Tanks! Tanks!” I yelled as I saw tanks coming over the hill to the south.
Adam was working his Winchester 94 in quick fashion. I saw Socialist soldiers falling all around him. Lily was firing her Remington 870 into a crowd of Russian soldiers. I saw the Remington go dry on ammunition, and there were still four Russians coming toward her. Seeing Adam still enthralled in a battle himself, I knew she had no help. She was over eighty yards away from me. There was no way I could get there. I was about to see my daughter die. Then it happened.
Without hesitation, Lily pulled out a Glock 34 from under her jacket and began firing double-taps into the coming Russians. It was an absolute thing of beauty. One Russian stumbled and fell at her feet. She then took her right foot and quickly kicked him with the full force of her body in the jaw, knocking him backward as she kept firing at the other Russians. She immediately took out a Benchmade knife and stabbed one in the neck. Even from eighty yards away I could see the blood spurting out of his carotid artery.
“Gen’ral, look out!” came the advice from Daniel.
I turned to see two Russians running for me. I took my Glock 19 out and went to work. I shot those two Russian soldiers and as they fell, I started running across the field to help General Thomas. He was embattled with two Socialist soldiers. As I ran toward him, I took one out with a shot from the Glock. General Thomas stabbed the other in the right eye with an old Case pocket knife.
As I arrived beside General Thomas I said, “Grant, these New Hampshire guys fight pretty good.” I pulled the pin on a lemon grenade and flung it as hard as I could toward a group of advancing Russian soldiers. As it exploded I saw six of them fall to the ground writhing in pain as blood spurted out onto the battlefield.
“That they do Paul” he yelled. “Tanks are coming!” he yelled.
I took my Drago bag off my back and yelled to General Thomas, “Cover me Grant.”
I heard his Colt 1911 pistol firing shots over my head as I stopped and took out a brick of C-4 and put a short fuse in it. One of the Russian T-90 tanks was rolling right for us.
When the Russians came over to the United Socialist States they brought a large assortment of Russian T-90 tanks. The T-90 is a Russian third-generation battle tank that is essentially a modern day war machine. The T-90 incorporates many features of their other battle tanks that have been in service since World War II. It was manufactured first in 1991, and even today, in 2028, it is the most modern tank in service with the Russian Ground Forces and Naval Infantry. The T-90 uses a 125mm 2A46 smoothbore tank gun, 1G46 gunner sights, a new engine, and thermal sights. Standard protective measures of the tank include a blend of steel, composite armor, Smoke mortars, Kontakt-5 explosive-reactive armor, laser warning receivers, Nakidka camouflage and the Shtora infrared ATGM jamming system. The EMT-7 electromagnetic pulse (EMP) creator is available in the tank but is not used because militias have nothing for them to use it against.
The T-90 is fitted with a “three-tiered” protection system. The first tier is the composite armor in the turret, consisting of basic armor shell with an insert of alternating layers of aluminum and plastics and a controlled deformation section.
The second tier is third generation Kontakt-5 ERA (explosive reactive armor) which significantly degrades the penetrating power of kinetic-energy ammunition and also gives the turret its distinctive angled “clam shell” appearance. ERA bricks are also located on the turret roof and provide protection from top-attack weapons. The turret’s forward armor package, in addition to the ERA and steel plating, contains a composite filler of Russian composite armor sandwiched between upper and lower steel plates. The composite armor results in a lower weight and improved protection when compared with steel-only armor.
The third tier is a Shtora-1 (Curtain) countermeasures suite, produced by Elektromashina of Russia. This system includes two electro-optical infrared “dazzlers“ on the front of the turret (which gives the distinct Red Eyes), four Laser warning receivers, two aerosol grenade discharging systems and a computerized control system. The Shtora-1 warns the tank’s crew when the tank has been ‘painted’ by a weapon-guidance laser and allows the crew to slew the turret to face the threat. The aerosol grenades are automatically launched after Shtora detects that it has been painted. The aerosol grenades are used to mask the tank from laser rangefinders and designators as well as the optics of other weapons systems.14
The T-90 was a beast. Fortunate for us, the Russians did not think it was necessary to stay inside the tank. They consistently sent someone out of the turret to be their eyes for the battlefield, because the smoke was always so thick in our battles. I ran up to the side of the tank and climbed on board and waited.
I took this moment to recite my prayer. I had a longstanding ritual of reciting the beginning of the prayer of St. Fra
ncis before taking a Socialist soldiers life. I had put my own twist on it long ago, I’m sorry St. Francis, but it works for me.
“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is the socialist enemy; total destruction and despair.” —Amen
Sure enough, within seconds the lid on top of the turret opened. I immediately dropped the C-4 into the tank, jumped off and ran toward another tank. As I ran, I heard the familiar sound of a muffled boom inside the tank.
I rounded a corner toward another tank and saw several socialists soldiers completely engulfed in flames. They were screaming and then they dropped to their knees. The screams stopped, and they fell into a heap of burning flesh on the ground.
Flamethrowers! Flamethrowers had been used in wars for years, though this was the first time I had seen one in this particular war. They have rarely been used in war since World War II. But yet, here they were, being used by our very own New Hampshire militia.
A flamethrower is a mechanical incendiary device designed to project a long controllable stream of fire. They were first used during World War I, and widely used in World War II. Some flamethrowers project a stream of ignited flammable liquid; some project a long gas flame. Most military flamethrowers used liquids, but commercial flamethrowers tended to use high-pressure propane and natural gas, which was considered safer. They were often used by the military and by people needing controlled burning capacity, such as in old agriculture fields or other such land management tasks back in the day. They were designed to be carried by the operator or mounted on a vehicle.
The man-portable flamethrower consisted of two elements: a backpack and the gun. The backpack element usually consisted of two or three cylinders. In a two-cylinder system, one cylinder held the compressed, inert propellant gas (usually nitrogen), and the other held flammable liquid—typically petroleum with some form of fuel thickener added to it. A three-cylinder system often had two outer cylinders of flammable liquid and a central cylinder of propellant gas to maintain the balance of the soldier carrying it. The gas propels the liquid fuel out of the cylinder through a flexible pipe and then into the gun element of the flamethrower system. The gun consists of a small reservoir, a spring-loaded valve, and an ignition system; depressing a trigger opens the valve, allowing pressurized flammable liquid to flow and pass over the igniter and out of the gun nozzle. The igniter could be one of several ignition systems: A simple type was an electrically-heated wire coil; another used a small pilot flame, fueled with pressurized gas from the system.
The flamethrower was a potent weapon with great psychological impact upon unprepared soldiers, inflicting a particularly horrific death. This led to many calls for the weapon to be banned back in the twentieth century. It was primarily used against battlefield fortifications, bunkers, and other protected emplacements. A flamethrower projected a stream of flammable liquid, rather than flame, which allowed bouncing the stream off walls and ceilings to project the fire into blind and unseen spaces, such as inside bunkers or pillboxes. Typically, popular visual media depicted the flamethrower as short-ranged and only effective for a few meters.15
In today’s war, a flamethrower can be a valuable tool. “I gotta get me one of those,” I said to myself as I quickly ran the other way toward two, waiting Russian soldiers.
Running toward the soldiers, I heard a drone coming up behind me. I could see Lily and Adam about thirty yards in front of me. Damn! If that drone comes down, all three of us are dead, I told myself. Approaching the two soldiers, I shot one with my Glock. I heard a loud boom and the other fell. Lily stood behind him, holding a still smoking shotgun. As I came close to her, she yelled, “Duck Dad!” I dove to the ground coming to rest just in front of her feet, as she fired a shot from the Remington 870 toward the drone. A loud explosion and shrapnel rained down onto the battlefield all around us.
Lily reached down, grabbed my right arm and helped me get to my feet. “Old Poly-Shock rounds Dad. Gotta love em!’” she exclaimed. I could not respond as my right arm was throbbing behind the elbow and I could hardly breathe. Little did I know that my injuries were worse that I had imagined.
Poly-Shok! Back in 2007, a newly formed company, Poly-Shok Incorporated, sought to take the military and law enforcement world by storm. Poly-Shok was a twelve-gauge shotgun round that was made entirely for law enforcement and military applications. As a result, the company instituted into their charter, that they would only sell the Poly-Shok ammunition to those entities.
According to the Journal of Forensic Sciences, the Poly-Shok ammunition was a 12-gauge, 2 ¾ inch shotgun shell that contained a low-density polymer body surrounding a mesh spherical lead bead core, capped in turn by a high-density polymer actuator. The lead beads were less than 1mm in diameter. Upon firing the Poly-Shok, the body, core, and actuator left the barrel as a unit, thus making the projectile most analogous to a slug, without the cone shaped spread seen with shot.
What really made the Poly-Shok stand out when compared to other shotgun ammunition was the performance on impact. On impact, the actuator initiated separation of itself and the projectile body from the lead bead core. The actuator then dispersed the lead beads at a 90º angle to the target, creating a projectile with a broad face: ‘‘Over the next two to three milliseconds, the actuator expanded the core up to three inches in diameter, and while comprised of up to 14,000 individual particles, was still operating as though it were a solid object’’. With such a wide surface area exposed, kinetic energy was rapidly transferred to the target; this quick energy dump resulted in damage at the impact site, but no solid projectile capable of traveling through the target, hence reducing the likelihood of collateral damage.” “According to Poly-Shok Inc., the ammunition causes a permanent wound cavity up to eight inches deep and five inches in diameter for both bare and heavy denim-clad ten percent ordinance gelatin.18
In other words, Poly-Shok was one more big and bad piece of light duty artillery. The operator of a 12-gauge shotgun could fire a shot within one and one-half inch of point of aim, out to one hundred fifty yards. And, whatever it hit, it stopped there. It was an absolutely beautiful piece of self-defense equipment. Unfortunately for Poly-Shok Incorporated, without sales to civilians, they were not making enough money to stay in business. Within three years they filed for bankruptcy and closed their doors. Some of the rounds were still floating around, and in 2028, if you found a treasure trove of Poly-Shok, it was worth its weight in gold.
After taking a few steps, I started feeling lightheaded and fell to the ground taking Lily with me. “Adam!” I heard Lily yell as we went down.
I was not sure what was going on, I had my Glock in my hand but I couldn’t pull the trigger. I looked at my hand and my fingers were locked into a deformed looking configuration. I saw what looked like a large, lead, wheel weight sticking out of my right forearm. I reached with my left hand and attempted to grab it and pull it out as Adam quickly showed up. Shots were ringing out all around us, smoke filled the air and soldiers from both sides were screaming and yelling. I was dizzy and confused.
“No-no! Leave it General!” Adam said grabbing my face into both of his hands and moving my head so that we were face-to-face. “It’s bad and don’t touch anything. Just hang on, do you understand me?” he asked as I tried to comprehend his statement through my ringing ears.
I nodded my head affirmatively, took the Glock out of my right hand with my left hand. I put my finger on the frame and said, “Let’s go.”
Adam picked me up, slung me over his shoulder as best he could and took off running for a small clump of pine trees on the eastern side of the battlefield. Lily ran behind him firing her shotgun for cover. I had my Glock raised in my left hand and was firing shots at the pursuing Russians.
Time seemed to stand still as Adam carried me across that battlefield. I surveyed the landscap
e I could see it all. There was an active battle going on in what appeared to be a one hundred fifty yard wide by two hundred yard battlefield. I saw soldiers from both sides lying on the battlefield. Drones were lying in heaps on the ground. I saw three, disabled tanks. My snipers were focusing on long range drone shots. General Davies was firing what appeared to be a repurposed AK-47. Wonder what happened to the Mauser I thought. General Thomas was firing two pistols at four Socialist soldiers who had him cornered. There were three flamethrowers that I could see. There was so much smoke rolling about the field that my eyes burned.
Adam reached a clump of trees and leaned me up against a pine tree. He and Lily started a firefight with several approaching soldiers. I joined in on the fight and fired three or four shots with my left hand, and then my slide locked to the rear. I looked at my Glock. All I could think was, why isn’t it working? As I began banging it on the base of a pine tree, Adam turned to me and yelled, “General! General!” Looking up at him, my eyes got hazy, Adam got blurry, and I drifted off into unconsciousness.
The Conspiracy of American Democracy - A Father's Revenge Page 11
