Winter Kill 2 - China Invades Australia

by Gene Skellig

  Blakely had been up against the Australian commandos a number of times in a variety of international competitions, and found them to be at par with the best of the US Army Rangers and the Marines from MARSOC. What he liked and respected most about the Australian Special Forces was their relaxed, confident manner. He attributed it to the lack of high-ranking men along with them on international exercises and deployments, as if the Aussies thought of Sergeants and Captains as sufficient supervision for the men, with no need of superior officers to watch over them. He knew that that was true, of course, having seen the disruptive influence that even his new rank of Major could have when an O4, Major, turned up to look in on on the small, closely knit specialist teams that participated in such competitions.

  In the weeks and months before his deployment, as he read-in on the Australian military and their geopolitical context, he became eager for the assignment to begin

  But before he left, he wanted to see his only living relative. Using the two weeks of annual leave that he had left to burn, so the Blakely’s of Washington State went back to Pennsylvania, and stayed with Matthew and his wife. While there, the two brothers talked shop quite a lot, both being military. Near the end of the trip Matt brought Joe, Tannis and Agnes along to his father-in-law’s sprawling acreage in Altoona, Pennsylvania, the Upton farm. Joe and his family had been there before, as the Uptons, Matt’s in-laws, had unofficially adopted the two Blakely brothers years ago, when their parents had died, so Joe considered himself part of the extended Upton family, and seeing all of them before his assignment in Australia was almost as important as the one-on-one time he had spent with Matt.

  It was a special occasion indeed. Fourteen family members seated in the three joint-combined tables extending from Upton’s kitchen well into the family room. For Old General Upton, it was a rare occasion to have his four daughters, his two sons-in-law, children, and guests like Joe, Tannis and Agness filling his overly large ranch with the noise and activity that the old General loved. The collection of his kin and guests made him feel that he was a true patriarch.

  This is what makes a life, Upton thought proudly as he looked out over his family. To see my family here tonight, healthy, happy and prospering. He sat back and let his son in law, Matt Blakely, bring up the subject of his brother Joe’s assignment to Australia.

  Joe had recounted the news of his assignment, promotion, and the good timing that it turned out to be for his daughter. There were smiles all around the room at the great news. Then, the mood became more serious as Joe got into the details.

  “So one part of my job will be helping the Australians improve their amphibious capabilities, and come up with some Joint - Combined exercises for them to try out the new landing craft and other kit we have given them,”

  “Why Joint combined?” asked one of Joe’s sisters.

  “Joint refers to more than one branch of service, in this case, the Australian Navy and the Australian Army. Their Special Forces, mostly from 1 Commando Regiment, are actually Army troops, not like the Marines. In any case, that’s where the ‘Joint’ comes from. Combined is when you have forces from more than one country – the 3rd Marines representing the good ol’ US of A – and, in fact, for some of the exercises that I understand are being planned for the months after we get to Australia, there’ll be a small but important presence from the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force, so it really is ‘Joint-Combined’ on many levels,” Joe said, proudly.

  “That sounds like bread and butter for the Marines, but how does that bring in your Special Ops background?” asked his older brother, Warrant Officer Matthew Blakely, Major Joseph Blakely’s older brother.

  “Not much, at first. It’s one of those ‘walk before you run’ things. They have to learn more about amphibious assault – and our version of manoeuver warfare, before we mix in the role of recon and other special forces. But eventually, if the focus is preparing them for war with China, Australia will have to have better asymmetric warfare skills.”

  “What for? To help liberate places the Chinese could invade in Southeast Asia? Or are you talking about a Chinese occupation of Australia?” asked Mat. “Is that really the reference scenario we’re really talking about here? Shit! That would be bad. Very bad.”

  The room fell silent. With General Upton and the two Blakely boys all being current or former military personnel, and with the old General’s other son in law, Owen MacInnes having served for a short stint in the US Army Reserves, the daughters and wives around the table all had a degree of awareness regarding military matters, everybody around the table understood how serious Joe’s comment really was.

  “What’s the population of Australia, twenty million?” asked Owen.

  “Twenty five,” replied Joe.

  “And how big is their army?” asked Owen, who had given up on military service after his single tour in Iraq, in favor civilian life. Always worried about his brothers in law still in uniform, he still had the military edge and bearing, only no longer drank the Kool-Aid.

  “Thirty thousand soldiers,” said Joe.

  “What is that? – A British style over-strength division? I mean, how many in their army, all-in?”

  “No, that’s it, Owen. That’s their whole entire army, all-in. They have another thirty thousand in their active and standby reserves. It’s quite simple, really. Their fighting force is their Forces Command based in Sydney, essentially made up of various units of their 1st Division scattered across the country, which is where their deployable and highest-readiness units are drawn from for expeditionary deployments. Their 2nd Division is basically their home defense force, made up of reservists.”

  “So what about their Special Forces, are they part of this 1st Div?” asked Warrant Officer Mat Blakely.

  “No, they have a brigade-sized Special Ops Command. Those are the guys I will be working closely with, when I’m not busy with their fish-heads and the Forces Command guys, coordinating their exercises with Marines of the MAGTFA in Darwin. At least, that’s how it all looks on paper. What it will be like for real, once I am established, could be another story altogether. But the Orbat of the Australian Defense Force is really quite simple. They are a puny force, and responsible for a massive territory,” Joe said, ominously.

  “And the Chinese have what, two million in uniform?”

  “I was just getting into that with the M2, Marine Intelligence guys. The Chinese have seven military regions, with about twenty military districts, and about twenty Group Armies in various states of readiness,” Joe said, matter-of-factly.

  “What’s a Group Army?” asked Agness, not normally interested in military jargon, despite her father’s best efforts. It was as if she had blissfully ignored years of shop talk around the home. But all of the serious talk about China as a threat had made her become interested in knowing more about it. Something in her intuition told her that it was important information, and could have something to do with her future with Sunny Yao.

  Joe continued: “A Group Army is a military formation, generally self-sufficient, with integral logistical, aviation and other support. Some are well-rounded for the full-spectrum of conflict, basically like the Marine Corps, except that these Group Armies each have an area they specialize in. So in a war, they would combine them in ways that fit the specific battle space and strategic plan. A Group Army can have up to one hundred and sixty thousand soldiers, give or take.

  Doing the numbers in her head, Agness was shocked. “So they have around three million soldiers.”

  “That’s about right. But what’s even more shocking, considering their mass-conscript style of doctrine, is the real number.”

  Agness didn’t wait. She didn’t want to know the answer, but she couldn’t bear not to know. “What’s the ‘real number’, Dad?”

  “The number of men and women fit for military service,” Major Blakely replied to his daughter, with everybody else at the table listening intently.

  Agness frowned. “Why is that
important?”

  “In a mass-conscript army, like the Soviets had in World War Two, and the Chinese are still organized as today, the actual soldiers are not valued that highly. They are expendable – like bullets. We saw this in the Korean War, such as in the Chosin Reservoir with the Chinese 42nd Group Army. They just kept pouring men into the fray, with us mowing them down like crazy, until we ran out of ammo. You see, they can afford to take massive losses, and just keep throwing more and more men – and women, actually – into the war until they overwhelm you.”

  “Attrition warfare,” commented his brother

  “That’s right, Matt. So given that most able-bodied men, and a surprising number of women, will have rotated through and served for at least a few years in the PLA, the number of people suitable for military service is like a kind of massive reserve of expendable soldiers. And China, like the Soviets fighting the Germans, is willing to take unimaginable losses.

  Agness took it all in with dread. “So what is the number?”

  “Three hundred and fifty million. Counting able-bodied men. Six hundred million, if you count the women.”

  She tried to fathom it. The numbers simply beggared belief, but Agness tried to picture so many people in a war, and rejected it on some level: “But Dad, there’s no way they would throw away that many lives, just to win a war.”

  “True, but it does give you a sense of how deep their reserves truly are, and that if it ever came down to it, they could just keep throwing bodies at us until our puny numbers – exceptionally trained and well-armed as they are – would be overwhelmed.”

  Agness stared at him and through him, slowly coming to grips with the terrible possibilities ahead. Her questions ended as she took in what could be coming. She was not alone in her foreboding. Others stared awkwardly into the food on their plates.

  Changing subject to more technical matters, Owen MacInnes broke the uncomfortable silence. “You said ‘high readiness’. So they have expeditionary forces, ready to go?”

  “Oh yeah, even if China has not been an expansionary power, something has been changing in terms of their Order of Battle. They’ve been ramping up their military spending, at an average of ten to twelve percent every year since about 2000. While we’ve been cutting our spending by about the same amount every year since 2012,” replied Major Blakely. “They’ve been building up their military capacity in a very stealthy way, developing their manufacturing capabilities in terms of commercial shipping and aviation technologies, and not broadcasting the military applications of these productive capacities. Just like the Germans did in the 1930’s.

  “That’s why we need those alliances. Kind of like the Allies against the Germans in World War Two. Indonesia alone would add 240 million citizens, but I think they’re more in the Chinese sphere of influence these days. At least we have India, with a billion people, well, at least 700 million or so left after their war with Pakistan. Anyhow, they are very anti-Chinese, ‘cause of the can of ass-kicking the Chinese opened up on them in the 1960’s.”

  “So if the Chinese are the new Germans, the big threat to everybody, then who are the new Russians? – The Russians?

  “No, Matt, I think it really is the Indians who are the new Russians in that context. Even with their losses in the Indo-Pak War, they’re the ones who can throw massive numbers of soldiers into a war. So if attrition is what you mean, yeah, the Indians would play that role this time around,” said Joe.

  “So who are the Australians in that analogy? The Polish?” asked Owen.

  “Are you kidding?” said Matt.

  “No, seriously, the Poles killed like 30,000 Germans in the opening weeks of the German invasion of Poland. Nowhere near enough, but quite respectable given that they still had cannon and cavalry, and were up against a new form of warfare, like tanks and motorized infantry, right? The Poles fought heroically for a few weeks. And from what I’ve read and seen on the History Channel shows, if the Allies had thrown in with the Poles early on, and not let Stalin and Hitler divide Poland between them, it could have made a huge difference,” said Owen.

  “Well, maybe,” commented Joe. “We could debate that. But no, the Aussies would have to be the Russians in that context.”

  “How so? - I don’t’ get it. They’ve got zero population, and the Australian climate is all desert there, not winter and forests.”

  “I don’t mean it that way, Owen. I mean in terms of territory. All the other countries in the region are relatively small and heavily populated. But Australia is massive. It’s a continent on its own, something like twenty-five hundred miles across. That’s like from Berlin to Moscow twice over. And in warfare, real-estate is everything. It would take a huge number of troops to occupy so much space, and the defenders could trade off space for time, like the Russians did,” said Joe, passionately.

  “I suppose, if they are not defeated outright at the start. But with such puny forces there to start with, how could they expect to stand up to the Chinese long enough for their vast territory to make a difference? After all, the Chinese could throw just a half-dozen Group Armies at it, and completely overwhelm the Aussies,” said Mat, with a dose of skepticism. “After all, aren’t the Australian cities – and military units – concentrated along the east coast, from Sydney up to Brisbane? What’s to stop the Chinese from overwhelming them at the outset and then simply marching across those thousands of miles of outback at their leisure?”

  “Me and 2500 other Marines, for a start,” said Joe. “And some very nasty special ops tricks I’m supposed to train the Aussies about. After all, I am a specialist in Foreign Internal Defense and counter insurgency,” said Joe, with pride.

  “Only in that case, you and your Aussie ‘mates’ would be the insurgents,” said Matt Blakely, grimly.

  Owen pondered at what that would mean. Would it be anything like the Russian front in World War II, with partisans ruthlessly hunted down and entire towns being massacred? He recalled the terrifying photographs he’d seen in the history books and TV shows.

  General Upton gazed over his family at the table around him. What terrible events does the future have in store of us? Will this be the last time we’re all together? he wondered, after all that they had just talked about. A scholar of military history, the old General knew that ominous clouds were coming.

  3

  billabong

  Master Sergeant Rideout was on a rampage, and his long time buddy Master Gunnery Sergeant Gannon would soon be on the receiving end of it. Their friendship dated back to Rideout’s first terrifying days in the Marine Corps as a recruit at Parris Island. It had been eighteen years since Rideout first planted his feet in the yellow footprints inlaid in the parade square, his first day in the Marine Corps. Within weeks, when others had tried unsuccessfully to bring Rideout into line, Gannon had been the first man to ever knock him down in a fist fight and since then their friendship had only deepened.

  Therefore it was only logical that the two men still used each other as punching bags from time to time. Only now, as Staff Non-Commissioned Officers, SNCOs, harsh words had largely replaced the fists. But when it was necessary to let off some steam, the two Marines sought each other out.

  Rideout stormed into Gannon’s office and barked at his pal sitting at the desk. “What the fuck is the matter with you, Gary?”

  “Elaborate, asshole,” Gannon shot back.

  “I mean, why did you pawn this detail off on me – you’re the Master Gunnery Sergeant around here, and I’m just a lowly Master Sergeant. So the ‘making nice with host nation’ crap, this ‘Ack–Limey–Tization’ detail is your problem, not mine!” shouted Top Sergeant Rick “Ride” Rideout.

  With a crooked smile on his face, ‘Master Guns’ leaned back in his chair as if he was about to enjoy what would come next.

  “Have you read the tasking? – I mean, carefully?”

  “Sure. It says I have to go on a two-week tour with a couple of Australian Army military police. What the fuck is
that? To get some ‘local knowledge’. I can figure this place out on my own. They do speak English here you know. Well, sort-of, anyhow.”

  “Ride, you missed the salient point here.”

  “Cut the crap. You’re no more well educated than I am, so don’t try to impress me with Officer vocab. This is not some piece of shit memo here. What’s your point?”

  “The prominent, jutting out, relevant term in that tasking is ‘integration’ of Marines into the host nation military community.”

  Master Gunnery Sergeant Gannon deliberately left out his conversation with the Australian Special Forces Captain Thorne, who had spoken to him about the true nature of the task. That it had something to do with the new USMC LnO to the Australian military command, some newbie Major Blakely, inbound from MARSOC, was enough to convince Master Guns that it was an unavoidable task that he had better embrace from the start. He was pretty sure that he had met the new LnO some time back on an exercise in Germany, and recalled a degree of confidence and determination that engendered his respect. So when the MAGTFA Administration Officer gave him the personnel selection criteria for the assignment requested by the ADF’s Forces Command, he knew just who do assign. Besides, he had thought, it’s exactly the sort of mind-fuck that Rick Rideout really needs, maybe the antidote to his crudity and penchant towards that high risk behavior of his.

  “We’re Marines, Gary. We don’t integrate. What sort of shit is this? Sounds like Air Force fag talk. The only time I integrate is when I am on top of, behind, or underneath a woman.”