But there’s a catch. The laser light is beamed from a satellite in geosynchronous earth orbit. Sun and Hertzberg used off-the-shelf items when they developed their study in 1977. Their satellite consisted of carbon filament structures covered with not-very-good solar cells that powered very large CO2 lasers. At the time, Sun and Hertzberg estimated that one and a half square kilometers of satellite would be necessary for each Boeing. Today, or certainly within five to ten years, we could plan on one square kilometer of satellite per VLHF aircraft. One satellite ten by ten kilometers in area could power a fleet of one hundred VLHF aircraft over one-third of the surface of the world for as long as would be necessary. Three such satellites would give the air fleets world coverage, except for the poles. Should something happen to the satellite, or should the fleet need a lot of speed, the fuel tanks should be practically full and the fleet should be able to return home on kerosene.
The satellite at first glance would seem to be the weak point of such a plan, but a power satellite, while a big and stationary target, would have a hundred or so high-energy lasers with which to defend itself. While not in use as an aircraft energy source, excess power could be beamed into ground power grids via ground-mounted solar cells. This would be a good way to deliver energy to very remote areas; build enough such satellites and the energy crisis would be nothing but a memory.
So, the air fleet rolls down the long runway and takes to the air with either a fleet of tankers supplied from an ocean of imported kerosene (or a space power satellite) dedicated to keeping the fleet flying for the duration of the mission. The fleet composition would vary with the mission. A command ship would accompany every mission; it would be very similar to a present-day AWAC, with extensive radar and command facilities. There would certainly be carriers as Captain Laning described. Some carriers would operate manned aircraft of the Tomcat variety, although numbers would be limited, perhaps to two or three per VLHF aircraft. Other carriers would operate Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPAs) and cruise missiles. The RPAs would be recoverable. The carriers would have basic maintenance facilities on board, sufficient to check out, arm, fuel and maintain the aircraft, and perhaps to even perform minor repair work.
While all VLHF aircraft would carry air-to-air missiles, some would be dedicated to escort work in order to deal with enemy aircraft that survived the fighters and RPAs. These escorts would also be armed with high-energy chemical laser systems designed to deal with enemy missiles and aircraft, provided that such a weapons system is practical.
Ground-attack VLHF aircraft would be simple bombers. They would carry smart gravity bombs and a handful of bombardiers who would guide each smart bomb to within feet of its target. RPAs would scout out targets and report on damage. Such a bombing mission could take days, with the bombers at high altitude and protected by escorts… slow but thorough, and very, very surgical.
Fleet communications would be by laser light. This would give the enemy nothing to listen to or jam. RPAs would be linked to the fleet via laser and thus would be free of ECM activity. RPAs would be the eyes and hands of the fleet. The antiair capability of these aircraft would be formidable. Not only could they pull incredible G forces, but they could also be used to ram the enemy if all else failed. With RPAs, pilots could be switched around as the situation demanded. A well-defended ground target could be attacked by waves of RPAs, with the same pilots flying each wave, having learned from their previous mistakes.
A fleet of VLHF aircraft could roam the world at will, being able to shift back and forth rapidly from targets thousands of miles apart and yet providing support for ground and naval operations as needed. Supplied with energy from space, the duration of the mission would be limited only by the endurance of the crew.
A cargo fleet of VLHF aircraft would bring new meaning to the term “Rapid Deployment.” With an escort of combat VLHF aircraft, the cargo fleet could go anywhere in the world at six hundred knots, laughing at Russian subs and mine fields.
Such an idea is truly radical. It raises many questions: Would it work? Would the Navy or Air Force control it? And so forth. If we started building VLHF aircraft now, there would certainly be cries of anguish from our military professionals. The taxpayer would scream in pain, and Congress would review the project. But above all the racket and noise at home, you might be able to make out the sound of cursing coming from Moscow.
Editor's Introduction to:
BATTLE AT KAHLKHOPOLIS
by Robert Adams
Robert Adams lives in Florida, where one of his nearest neighbors is Mrs. Alice Andre Norton. His best known works are the deservedly popular “Horseclans” novels.
The ancients believed that all civilization moved in cycles. There had been a Golden Age in the past, and another might come in the future. Empires rise and fall; civilizations grow and die, and it will ever be thus.
Adams writes of a time centuries after World War III, when civilization is just returning to North America. In the western plains and beyond dwell the ‘Mericans, including the nomadic peoples known as the Horseclans. To the east are more settled kingdoms, dominated in part by descendents of Greek speaking Hellene invaders who have established the rule of the thoheeks or dukes.
Before civilization collapsed there had been great advances in genetic engineering; as a result some families have highly developed telepathic communications abilities. A very few have extraordinary longevity and the ability to recover from wounds and disease. These near-immortals are regarded as gods by the common people.
Adams chronicles the saga of the inevitable conflict between the nomadic Horseclans and the settled Hellene lands. This tale of the Horseclans takes place in the early days before the clansmen learned just how vulnerable the cities were.
BATTLE AT KAHLKHOPOLIS
by Robert Adams
With the retreat of the late, unlamented King Zastros’ huge army from Karaleenos back into what once had been the Southern Kingdom of the Ehleenoee, the surviving thoheeksee of the kingdom set about putting their hereditary lands to order and productivity, filling titles vacated by war, civil war, assassinations, suicides and disease, and in general preparing the southerly territories for the merger with the victorious Confederation of the High Lord, Milos of Morai.
Chief mover and the closest thing to a king that the southern Ehleenoee now owned was Thoheeks Grahvos tohee Mehseepolis keh Eepseelospolis. After taking into consideration all of the varied infamy that had taken place in the former capital, Thrahkohnpolis, Grahvos had declared the new center of the soon-to-be Southern Confederated Thoheekseeahnee to be situated at his own principal city of Mehseepolis.
Now that city was become a seething boil of activity—sections of old walls being demolished, the city environs being expanded and new walls going up to enclose them, troops camped far and wide around the city, existing public (and not a few private) buildings becoming beehives with the comings and the goings of Ehleenoee nobility, their retainers and their staffs, as well as the host of attendent functionaries necessary to the operation of this new capital city.
One day, some years after the announcement of the new capital city, two noblemen sought audience with Thoheeks Grahvos and his advisors. One of these two was a gray beard, the other a far younger man, but the shapes and angles of the faces—eyes, noses, chins, cheekbones—clearly denoted kinship between the two, close kinship. The old man was tall, almost six feet, his physique big-boned and no doubt once very powerful, with the scars—at least a couple of which looked to be fairly new—of a proven warrior.
The harried assistant chamberlain knew that he had seen this man, or someone much like him, before, but he could not just then place who or where or when, and the petitioner refused to state his name or rank, saying only that he was a man who had been unjustly treated and was seeking redress of the new government. The only other word he deigned to send in to the thoheeksee was cryptic.
“Ask the present lord of Hwailehpolis if he recalls aught of a stallion, a dead man�
��s sword and a bag of gold.”
When, on his second or third trip into the meeting room, the assistant remembered to ask this odd question, Thoheeks Vikos of Hwailehpolis leaped to his feet and grabbed the assistant’s shoulders, hard, demanding, “Where is this man? What would you estimate his age? Is he come alone or did others bring him?”
When the now-trembling functionary had scuttled off to fetch back the oldster, Vikos explained his actions to his curious peers.
“It was after that debacle at Ahrbahkootchee, in the early days of the civil war. I had fought through that black day as an ensign in my late brother’s troop of horse, and in the wake of our rout by King Rahndos’ war elephants, I and full many another found myself unhorsed and hunted like a wild beast through the swamps of the bottom lands. It was nearing dusk and I was half-wading, half-swimming yet another pool when I heard horsemen crashing through the brush close by to me. Breaking off a long, hollow reed, I went underwater, as I had done right often on that terrifying day, but I knew that if they came at all close, I was done this time, for the water of the pool was clear almost to the bottom, not murky as had been so many others, nor was the spot I had to go down very deep—perhaps three feet, perhaps less.
“Suddenly I became aware that the legs of a big horse were directly beside my body, and not liking the thought of a probing spear pinning me to the bottom to gasp out my life under the water, I resignedly surfaced that I might at least die with air in my lungs.
“I looked up into the eyes of none other than Komees Pahvlos Feelohpóhlehmos himself!
“In a voice that only I could hear, he growled, ‘Stay down, damn fool boy!’ Then he shouted to the nearing troopers, ‘You fools, search that thick brush up there where the stream debouches. This pool is as clear as crystal, nothing in it save fish and crayfish, so I’m giving my stallion a drink of it.’
“Then the Komees deliberately set his horse to roiling the sediments of the bottom, clouding the water, while he did the same with the butt of his lance. He dropped a sheathed, jeweled sword upon me, and when I brought my face up to where I could see him, he tossed me a small, heavy bag and said, ‘You may well be the last of your House after this day, young Vikos. There is a bit of gold and a good sword. Wait until full dark and then head northwest; what’s left of the rebel army is withdrawing south and southeast. If you can make it up to Iron Mountain, you’ll be safe. And the next time you choose a war leader, try to choose one with at least a fighting chance to win. God keep you now.’’
Thoheeks Grahvos nodded. “Yes, it sounds of a piece with all else I know of the man. For all his ferocity and expertise in the waging of war for the three kings he served in his long career, still was he ever noted to be just and, when possible, merciful. Strange, I’d assumed him dead, legally murdered by Zastros, as were the most of his peers. It’s good to know that at least this one of the better sort survived the long bloodletting. Who was his overlord anyway? If he’ll take the proper oaths, Komees Pahvlos the Warlike would make us a good Thoheeks, say I.”
* * *
“And so,” concluded old Komees Pahvlos, “when it was become obvious that these usurping scum were determined to not only deny young Ahrahmos here his lawful patrimonies, but to take his very life as well, had they the chance, I knew that stronger measures were required, my lords.
“Could but a single warrior do it alone, it were done already. Old I assuredly am—close to seventy years-old—but I still am tough and the hilt of my good sword has not become a stranger to my hand. But a disciplined, well-armed and well-led force will be necessary to dislodge this foul kakistocracy that presently squats in Ahrahmos’ principal city and controls his rightful lands. And due to reverses, I no longer own the wherewithal to hire on fighting men, equip and mount and supply them with the necessaries of warfare.”
“But I will wager, Strahteegos Komees Pahvlos,” said Thoheeks Grahvos, “that nothing has robbed you of your old abilities to lead armies, plan winning battles and improvise stunning tactics on the spur of the moment. I had meant to ask you to take oaths to this Council and the Confederation, then assume one of the still-vacant thoheekseeahnee, but if you’ll indeed take those oaths, I have a better, far more useful task in mind for you now.”
Chief Pawl Vawn of Vawn sat at a table in a tent in the camp of Seentahgmahrtees Tomos Gonsalos, senior officer of those Confederation forces sent south to aid the thoheeksee in securing and maintaining peace. With them at table sat Ahnteeseentahgmahrtees of Infantry, Guhsz Hehluh, and Thoheeks Portos, figurehead commander of these alien troops deep in the heart of the former Southern Kingdom.
A meal had been eaten while the men talked, and now, while a bottle of a sweet wine circulated, the Horseclans-man asked, “If this Pahvlos is such a slambang Strahteegos and all, how come he didn’t tromp you all proper for his king and end it before it even got started?”
“Oh, he did, he did, my good Pawl,” said Portos, “in the beginning, years ago. I was a part of that rebel army then, and I know. It required years and the—then-unknown —help of the Witchmen to put Zastros’ army back together in a shape fit to once more face Komees Pahvlos; and that, finally, we did not have to face him was a great relief to full many a one of us, believe me. By that time all of the ancient royal line was extinct, and Thoheeks Fahrkos, who had seized the crown and the capital, had dismissed the royal strahteegoee. Most of the remaining royal troops—the only regular forces the kingdom had had—deserted then, marched away with their officers, so all Fahrkos had when we brought him to bay was his personal war band, such as it was.”
“Even so,” put in the graying Freefighter officer, Guhsz Hehluh, “before I put me and my Keebai boys under the orders of some whitebeard doddard, I’ll know a bit more about him. You Kindred and Ehleenoee can do what you want, but if I mislike the sound or the smell of this Count Pahvlos, why, me and mine, we’ll just hike back up to Kehnooryos Ahtheenahs and tell High Lord Milos to find us other fights or sell us back our contract.”
But within bare days, Guhsz Hehluh was trumpeting the praises of the new Grand Strahteegos, who, with his small entourage, had ridden out and found the Freefighters at drill. After sitting his horse by Hehluh’s in the hot sun, swatting at flies and knowledgeably discussing the strengths and weaknesses of pike formations and the proper marshaling of infantry, Pahvlos had actually dismounted and hunkered in the dust of the drill field to sketch with a horny forefinger positions and movements of an intricate maneuver.
To Tomos Gonsalos, Pahvlos remarked, “It’s basically a good unit you command here, Colonel. I’d take you and them just as they are now were you not a mite shy of infantry and a mite oversupplied with cavalry. To rectify that situation, I’ll be brigading your regiment with two more, all infantry, all veterans too, no grass-green plow-boys.
“I think that both you and your other officers will get along well with Colonel Bizahros, who commands the Eighth Foot, from the outset; but Colonel Ahzprinos, commander of the reorganized Fifth Foot, is another matter entirely. Understand me, Lord Tomos, Ahzprinos is a good warrior, a fine commander in all ways, else I’d not choose him to serve under me. But he also is loud, brash and sometimes overbearing to the point of arrogance. Nonetheless, I can get along with him, and I’ll be expecting my subordinates to do so too.”
And so in the weeks that followed, the Confederation troops and the two regiments of former Southern Kingdom foot drilled and marched and drilled some more under the critical eye of Komees Pahvlos, while all awaited the arrival of the war elephants from the far-western Thoheekseeahnee, where they had been bred and trained for centuries, making do in the meantime with the three beasts that had survived King Zastros’ disastrous march north.
These three survivors were not the huge, fully war-trained bull elephants now on the march from the west but rather the smaller, more docile cow elephants, mostly utilized for draught purposes. That they were used by Komees Pahvlos at all was a testament to the extraordinary control over them exercised
by Horseclansman Gil Djohnz, who could demand of the three cows performances of an order that the old strahteegos had never before seen in all his long years of service with elephant-equipped armies. Watching Djohnz and his two Horseclansmen assistants put the trio of elephants through their paces had reduced native Ehleenoee feelahksee to a state of despair and set them to mumbling darkly of sorcery and witchcraft.
The old commander was greatly impressed with Horse-clansmen in general, for never before had it been his pleasure to own such a splendid and versatile mounted force as the squadron of medium-heavy horse under Chief Pawl of Vawn. Southern Kingdom horse traditionally came in three varieties—light horse or lancers, heavy horse, most of whom were noblemen, and irregulars, who frequently were archers and usually recruited from the barbarian mountain tribes and were often undependable, to say the least.
But these northern horsemen were very dependable; moreover, they could fulfill the functions of at least two of the three—they could lay down a heavy and accurate arrow storm, then case their bows and deliver a hard, effective charge against the unit their arrows had weakened and disorganized. Serving in conjunction with such troops, Pahvlos could easily ken just how they and their forefathers had so readily rolled over the armies of Kehnooryos Ehlahs, Karaleenos and assorted far-northern barbarian principalities.
There Will Be War Volume IV Page 16
