Winter Kill 2 - China Invades Australia

by Gene Skellig

  Had the LAV failed to defeat the ZBD, there would have been an even chance that the entire operation could have gone the other way. As it was, most of the dedicated assault missions and Australian insurgency at large had gone the allies’ way in Julia Creek; as much due to the shock and awe produced by the sudden appearance of US Marines moving swiftly and with deadly purpose within the very lightly defended town-turned-supply depot as to the careful planning and outstanding effort of the Australian army and civilian militia.

  Seeing that the area was secure; and that the wounded men and prisoners were being taken care of, Rideout sought out Captain Thorne inside the warehouse.

  “Captain Thorne, there you are,” said Ride, simply, as he approached the Australian officer.

  “Top. Good to see you. I’m sorry about your men. My guys feel terrible they got here too late to back them up. They just couldn’t penetrate this deep into town as fast as things moved when your teams rolled into town.”

  “Fog of war. They accomplished their mission, and if it has gone as well as it looks, they’ve probably saved the lives of a great many more Marines and Australians. They’re heroes.”

  “Quite right.”

  “So what’s the good news, Sir?” Top asked.

  “Look around you.”

  As Rideout squinted his eyes to look beyond the Captain into the darkness of the warehouse beyond, he made out some of the lettering on the boxes.

  “Combat Rations? Those the same as our MREs?”

  “Yup,” replied Thorne, “We call them CR1M – ‘Combat Ration – 1 Man’. The best that the Australian Army Catering Corps has to offer, but not quite so many menu options as your brown bags.”

  “How many of them are there here?”

  “From what your Lieutenant Lion has tallied from this warehouse and the other caches and truckloads we’ve looked into so far in the rest of town, there’s nearly one million cases. Eight 24-hour meal bags per case. That’s enough to feed a Division for six months.”

  “Or to starve a division that the food was intended to feed in what, two or three weeks?” Sergeant Rideout said, to an enthusiastic grin from Captain Thorne.

  Fuel, Food, Fight. Three things that the Colonel Ferebee and the CJOC staff had designed this operation around. To take away the enemy’s fuel and food, and trap him thousands of kilometers from his mounting base at Cairns by cutting the strategic lines of communication at each and every fuel dump, log support stockpile, rail yard and rest area from Mount Isa to this side of Charters Towers. Julia Creek was just one of many pieces in the campaign plan. It was the one that Top Sergeant Rideout felt that he was personally responsible for achieving.

  It took over an hour for Rideout to visit all of the key objectives in town before he was satisfied that the town had been completely cleared. He could not get over the fact that it had gone so well, with just six Marines killed, seven wounded. On the Australian side, they had lost four Special Forces team leaders and a score of untrained militiamen, but in comparison to the hundred and twenty PLA soldiers killed, eighty wounded and hundred fifty taken prisoner, the operation was a resounding success.

  The same could not be said for a similar raid attempted at Cloncurry. There, whether because of or in spite of the devastating blow that the PLA Air Defense Regiment and engineering support battalion had experienced some two weeks earlier, the enemy had responded quickly to the attack by Australian insurgents and US Marines.

  The attack had floundered from the beginning, with a few alert sentries opening up on the Australian militia that had attempted to swarm the town on foot from the bush land outside of town. But the Aussies had made good progress at the south-west corner, where an entire sentry post had laid down their arms and surrendered to the allies without firing a shot. However, lacking the speed, maneuverability and firepower that a couple of LAVs would have provided, the Marines could not take out the enemy’s Command Post and other key coordination centers in the heart of Cloncurry. The Marines and Australians had taken heavy losses, perhaps as many as fifty Marines and triple that on the Australian side before the assault had been called off.

  The probability that the Cloncurry Task Force would failure to capture the fuel farm and log support base previously been analyzed by the Operational Risk Assessment team at the CJOC in Katherine. Lacking the X-factor that Task Force Billabong had, in having a place to hide the LAVs, the Cloncurry force was handicapped, lacking the speed, maneuverability and firepower of the LAVs, therefore the Cloncurry assault had been considered to have a Medium probability of failure and a High degree of impact on the campaign plan. As a result, they had mitigated the identified High Risk by laying on a contingency plan.

  It had taken less than an hour to put the backup plan into execution once the CJOC had learned that the town could not be captured. A singled coded message had been sent to the Australian P3 Orion aircraft orbiting over Groote Island in the Australian Gulf of Carpentaria. The Australian P3C crew then relayed the message onward to an IL76M air tanker of the Indian Air Force, orbiting two hundred miles farther to the east. Onboard the IL76M, Group Captain Singh changed the mission orders for two of his SU27 strike aircraft, and communicated these to the fighter pilots who had just completed tanking from the very same Russian manufactured air-to-air refueller that Singh was using as his airborne tactical control platform.

  The re-tasking of two of the strike aircraft meant that there would be only two instead of four SU27s to be sent on the raid to Charters Towers, with the first two being re-tasked to hit Cloncurry. Four others assigned for an attack at the PLAAF operations at Cairns and only one, the ninth in the overall wave, assigned to attack the Chinese-controlled RAAF dry-bones air base at Weipa.

  Group Captain Singh knew of the plan to capture or destroy all fuel supplies from Charters Towers all the way along the one thousand kilometers to Camooweal. He had allocated fully half of the Indian Air Forces’ remaining stock of serviceable fighters for an anti-air battle over Camooweal, hoping to draw all of the estimated eight to ten Chinese Su27’s and Su30s to the extreme west of their Queensland sector. That would leave the back door open to his two, now three-pronged strike package that had been holding out of range over the Gulf of Carpentaria, just north of Queensland.

  Sitting on the ground with his wrists zip-strapped behind his back, his hands numb from the hours since he had surrendered, Wan Shanyu, formerly of 4th Battalion, 370th Regiment, 124th Division PLA, was now a relatively happy Prisoner of War.

  Aware that he could be executed at any minute by one of the very angry looking Australians that he encountered, he was glad to be in the hands of the somewhat more disciplined, or perhaps simply more well restrained US Marines who had shepherded him and the other prisoners captured in the failed attempt to seize Cloncurry.

  When he saw the Marines passing the word about something and then all of them looking to the skies to the North, Wan immediately understood.

  If they can’t capture it, they’re going to bomb it.

  Sure enough, a few moments later the quiet evening twilight was interrupted first by the sound of an approaching jet engine, and then the sky was filled with bright lights as some of the few remaining SAM batteries lit off missiles after the incoming jets.

  From the massive explosion in the sky moments later, Wan surmised that at least one of the enemy, no, allied jets, he corrected himself, had been shot down. The lead Su27 had indeed been hit by a missile fired by an HQ-12 SAM battery.

  The crew of the HQ-12 had been quick to reposition, in a ‘shoot and scoot’ operation meant to make it more difficult for a Suppression of Enemy Air Defense, SEAD, tasked aircraft. However, the two Su27s launched against Cloncurry were not on a SEAD mission.

  They were each equipped with a pair of American manufactured CBU 105 Cluster Bombs. The cluster bombs had only begun to be used by the Indian Air Force since 2010, however the CBU 105 munitions held by the Australians were compatible with the launch mounts which some of the IAF fighter
s were equipped with, so they could make use of the Australian cluster bombs on the Indian fighter-bombers.

  With ten sub-munitions per cluster bomb and four components per sub-munition, a total of 160 bomblets were deployed by the pair of Su27s before they attempted to evade the SAMs rising up at them from Cloncurry.

  Programmed to explode fifteen meters above the surface if they do not find their pre-designated target, over 95% of the bomblets detonated in a three second timeframe.

  From Wan’s point of view, as his eyes tried to regain night vision after the brightness of the SAMs that had just scorched into the darkening sky, the sudden pop-corn sounds and accompanying flashes of light and smoke reminded him of the grand finale of a fireworks display. However, the beautiful impression only lasted a moment. Seconds later, fuelled by the millions of liters of gasoline and diesel fuel from the thin-skinned bladders of the massive fuel farm, and punctuated by the powerful secondary explosions from ZDB-90s and other Chinese armor hit by the carpet of exploding bomblets, the entire town went up in a hellish conflagration.

  Wan felt for his countrymen who died in the inferno, despite the fact that he understood the military necessity of their death. Being a POW now, after convincing the two other men from his fox hole OP to surrender alongside him when the ground assault had begun, Wan was now hoping that the ultimate victory, an allied victory, would now come that much sooner.

  It did not take a military genius to understand how serious the situation had now become for the 42nd Group Army.

  From the reports coming into the CJOC in Katherine, the successes and failures of a large number of small operations was being plotted on a ten meter long stretch of wall that had been converted into a detailed map of the 1000 kilometers of the A6/A2 highway from Charters Towers to Camooweal.

  The location of each and every ambush, where Marines and local Australian militia had captured or destroyed convoys of various sizes was detailed. In about half of the cases, the ambush teams had been able to capture truckloads of food, ammunition and supplies, commandeer the bowsers of fuel or water.

  The captured war booty was quickly moved away from the A2 highway, along dirt roads north or south, off the main axis of advance. This was done to make it impossible for the PLA to send out forces to recapture the supplies, fuel and equipment.

  After the initial setback of the failed assault on Cloncurry, the mood in the CJOC quickly changed to that of elation, as in the majority of cases, the ambush operations and depot-raids had been highly successful.

  “Ok, now, simmer down, gents! The night is not over yet. We’ve still got those downed pilots to find with Combat Search and Rescue in the Camooweal area. Those guys don’t know our CSAR procedures, and have no ISOPREPS - the list of personal questions the CSAR teams can ask them to verify their identities - so stay on top of that. We need each and every one of those IAF pilots,” Colonel Ferebee said, reigning in the staff from what had become a bit overly-celebratory.

  “Sir, what about the interpreters?” asked a Major from the 3rd Brigade. “Task Force Billabong is asking for interpreters to help figure out how to get the captured SAM battery up and running. They’re also asking for some mechanics and engineers to help unload the train they captured.”

  “Train? I did not hear that one. Fill me in,” said Ferebee.

  “There were a number of tanks and infantry fighting vehicles low-beds in Julia Creek when they took the town. Looks like at least two Russian-built Type 99s.”

  “Wow, if we can get those up and running, along with some air defenses, we can build up a sizeable force at Julia Creek. Have Major Blakely send that kid he uses, what’s his name?”

  “Yao Ming,” said a staffer, “Sunny Yao. But he does not know much about military stuff. We better send that Chinese Captain from 1st Battalion. We should also send Lieutenant Jarvis from the Third Marines along for good measure – he can provide us with a more detailed After Action Report and Combat Assessment – up the MAGTFA chain of command.”

  “Good idea, Captain. We may as well adapt our Branch Plans: Have everything that was going to go into Cloncurry shift over to Julia Creek instead. Cloncurry is of no use to anybody now. No, we’ll make Julia Creek the area for Australian force generation, agreed, General?”

  “Quite,” said General Davies. “I reckon we can get a few thousand militia men into that area over the next few days. Many of them are familiar with heavy equipment, from the gold mines and such. Should be easy enough for them to learn how to operate some of that Chinese armor, at least as drivers. We’ll get proper soldiers into the mix and train them up in no time,” the Australian General said excitedly.

  “Colonel Pan, are you telling me that it’s gone? Completely gone?” General Leung asked the senior Army officer in the alternate Command Post. They had returned from the air-raid bunker to find their CP in flames from the cluster bomb attack, and had re-assembled the staff in another boarding school a few blocks away. However it was taking a long time to get the new CP fully up and running. Something seemed to be wrong with the communications gear, as connectivity with units all the way from their new CP in Charters Towers to the Mount Isa were down. They had great comms with the two divisions sitting idle near Camooweal, but they had little to report other than their urgent requirement for resupply of fuel, water and rations.

  “It appears that the entire facility there was destroyed by enemy air attack,” said Colonel Song, the Air Force staffer.

  “The entire facility? What about the roads? Are they still open, or did they cut some bridges or crater the highway? What the fuck? Where was the CAP?” The General was losing his cool.

  “The CAP shot down six of their fighters over Camooweal, with the loss of only two of ours. At this rate, along with the two the SAMs got here and the one shot down at Cloncurry, the Indians are quickly running out of fighters.”

  “Well, Colonel Song, they sure kicked the shit out of us in Cloncurry, and with the raid on the air bases at Weipa and Cairns it sounds like you’ve got some real problems of your own, so I wouldn’t get too cocky if I were you,” the General warned, seemingly looking for someone to direct his frustration at. “Pan, go over it again, what do we know of the lines of communication,” the general commanded, more calmly now.

  “Sir. We may have lost a few convoys. We definitely have lost the railhead at Julia Creek and an unknown number of rail-cars. May have arrived before the enemy captured Julia Creek. Until I get confirmation, I can only assume that the enemy has mounted some sort of large scale sabotage operation at a number of locations between here and Camooweal.”

  “Colonel, you get those assumptions turned into facts. I want to know where they struck, what they got, and what we still have. How long will it take for fuel to reach to the 124th?”

  Looking very uncomfortable, the army Colonel struggled to find the words. “Never, sir. I think they got all of it.”

  Fuming mad, the General undid the clasp of his service pistol, as if he was going to execute the man. “What the fuck do you mean, ‘never’? We must have fifty separate convoys along that thousand kilometers of highway. Are you telling me that it is all in enemy hands, the entire highway?”

  Something snapped inside the Colonel at that moment. Suddenly he’d crossed a line: no more coddling this incompetent General. No more finding excuses for the loss of good men all because of the pathetic little ego of this worm with stars on his chest. The Colonel wanted, at this moment, if nothing else, his dignity back. Damn his career and his life if this was all it was going to amount to.

  The Colonel turned to the General and looked at him with utter calm and disdain. “No, sir, but going by how many units we have lost contact with, and what the drones can see through these damned low clouds tonight, they must have put up a well-coordinated series of ambushes or road-blocks, probably using civilians, and captured or destroyed most, if not all, of the convoys.” Looking straight into the General’s eyes, with mounting hatred, he continued. “They had no sec
urity, sir, as you know. You gave the orders to push the Regiments up so fast, after all.” With that comment, he had sealed his fate.

  General Leung pulled out his pistol and aimed it at the officer. What he saw on the Colonel’s face at that last moment was a sneer of contempt. The General shot him in the face without another word.

  It would take another twenty four hours before the scale of the disaster was confirmed, but the late Colonel Pan had been correct, no more fuel would ever reach the 124th and 163rd Divisions, now trapped a thousand kilometers behind enemy lines. Two full mechanized infantry divisions, an air defense regiment, and a large portion of the available fuel and transportation resources in the Queensland sector had been lost – an entire armored corps!

  On General Bing’s orders, Colonel Song arrested General Leung, and assumed control of the Command Post. Having the 42nd Group Army commanded by a PLA Air Force colonel was highly unusual. However, Colonel Song understood that it would not last long. He would do what he could to establish a more defensible front line, not so far inland, and then beg for support from General Ma’s 41st Group Army.

  With no fuel, water, or rations, the two divisions of the 42nd would not hold out for long with Marines plunking rounds off of their armor all night long. As it was, talk of mass surrender had already begun. Hopefully they will hold out until they starve to death, as the Russians did in Finland in the Second World War, Song thought to himself, and not surrender at the first sight of a Marine.

  15

  INDIAN OCEAN

  THREE YEARS INTO THE WAR

  As General Patel looked upwind at the rising sun he knew that the breeze he felt was due more to the eighteen knots that the warship he was travelling on was making than any actual wind.