Shock of War

by Larry Bond

The effect of this was to make the war seem almost bizarre. One could go several blocks with everything looking normal, then suddenly come upon a street where half the buildings were reduced to rubble. After the first raids, the authorities immediately mobilized and organized relief parties to clear the debris and restore some sense of order. But now the workers, who were mostly volunteers, were tired. Their work dragged, and the continued onslaught was wearing the city down.

  A few bombs, apparently strays, had struck the Old City in the center of Hanoi during the day. Fires continued to burn there, smoke wafting over the city. The smell in the air changed from that of an electrical fire to something sweeter, an incenselike aroma of charred, ancient wood.

  The city’s businesses had largely shut down, with their workers recruited for the country’s home guard, or organized into volunteer brigades for various chores. The regular army soldiers who had been manning checkpoints just a few days before had been moved on to more important tasks. Many of their posts were now abandoned, though sandbags and barrels they left behind still slowed traffic. Others were manned by men who had served in the army earlier, primarily during the early stages of the war with America. They were gray, frail figures, more ghostlike than soldierly, dressed in ragtag combinations of military and civilian clothing. Still, motorists obeyed them, stopping and explaining their business, often asking for directions around the streets that had been barricaded due to the strikes, and exchanging information and rumors about the war.

  Rumors were a great currency. Information about a pending attack, no matter how far-fetched, could get a citizen very far, opening the doors of shuttered shops and even obtaining extreme discounts in price for necessities.

  Hoan Kiem Lake, the romantic soul of Hanoi just east of the now devastated Citadel, was a rallying point for the brigades that were organizing citizen volunteers for the defense. This was at least partly for symbolic reasons—the lake commemorated a successful uprising of the Vietnamese against the Chinese in the fifteenth century, when General Le Loi received a divine sword from a golden turtle there and used it to rout the Ming Dynasty rulers from the country. The park around the lake was overwhelmed by the outpouring of citizenry. Crowds overflowed into the nearby streets, completely choking off traffic.

  The necessary detours sent Zeus and Christian wending their way through much of the rest of Hanoi as they headed toward the Vietnamese command bunkers south of the city. Most of the streets were deserted, the residents either enrolled as volunteers or hunkering down in basements and other places thought to be safe. In a few cases, they were still working—a barbershop overflowed with customers, two men shared a single cup of tea at a table in front of a café.

  At the start of the conflict, the Vietnamese military command had moved its operations to a set of bunkers south of Hanoi. The bunkers had escaped the opening rounds of the Chinese attack, but now were a primary target. They were very deep underground; Zeus believed they could only be taken out with American-style bunker busters, which the Chinese were not believed to have.

  The Chinese had nonetheless made a considerable effort to destroy them. The radio towers that marked the northern fringe of the compound area had been destroyed in one of the first attacks. The small airstrip at the western end of the reserve area had been bombed until it looked like the far side of the moon.

  The Vietnamese had moved some antiaircraft guns and missiles into the area before Zeus and Christian left on their mission to Hainan. All were now twisted wrecks, mangled metal arms and flattened torsos dotting the distance. The security fences tilted and swooned in different directions, and the road leading into the complex was so cratered that a new path had been marked with cones. Only the deepest potholes had been filled in; the jeep bounced back and forth as the driver did his best to navigate through the shallowest ones.

  The bunker entrances were contained in low-rising buildings hugging the field. The nearest one to the road had been hit by a succession of bombs. It had not been totally destroyed, but the Vietnamese had opted not to use it until their engineers could examine the overhead concrete that covered the stairs to the doorways. Following a set of gray cones, the driver took Zeus and Christian around to the next one. It had survived a near miss that had gouged about ten feet of earth away from its northern end.

  There were no guards aboveground. Zeus, who’d been in the bunkers several times now, went down the stairs to the ramp that led to the first security area. He nodded at the soldiers who came to meet him, holding out his arms so they could perform the mandatory weapons checks. He and Christian were wearing civilian clothes, as they had for most of their stay here; the presence of American soldiers in Hanoi, even as advisers, was still top secret.

  “You notice there are fewer sentries,” said Christian as they were cleared to enter a second hallway.

  “Need them to fight the war,” answered Zeus.

  “Or they got killed in one of the attacks.”

  “Or that.”

  The floor they were on had been used for a meeting when the Americans had first arrived. But the actual Vietnamese command offices were lower, and the Chinese attacks had convinced the Vietnamese to close off these conference rooms. There were no elevators down to the lower level—in fact, there were no elevators in the complex at all. Zeus and Christian walked down the long hallway to a wide green door. Though the soldier here had seen the man at the other end check them, he nonetheless looked at the IDs they had been issued before stepping aside.

  The door led to a stairway lit by battery-powered red lights. After descending two flights, the stairwell stopped at a steel door. They went through that door and descended another set of steps, repeating the process two more times. The offset shafts were designed to make it difficult for an enemy to send a missile down to the command area.

  The door to the last stairwell opened on to a ramp similar to the one they had started on. The walls and ceiling were made of concrete, polished smooth. The floor was covered with a thin industrial carpet. The lighting fixtures embedded in the ceiling were low-powered LEDs, and shaded the corridor with a dim yellow light.

  The Chinese attacks had damaged one of the venting units, and the Vietnamese had shuttered it to make repairs. This made the air even staler than it had been, to the point that Zeus felt his lungs were being pressed in his chest.

  A young woman in civilian clothes met them a short distance down the hall.

  “Major Christian?” she said.

  Christian nodded.

  “I’m Major Murphy,” said Zeus.

  The young woman flushed, and bent her head.

  “We are most grateful for your brave gallantry,” she said softly. Her English pronunciation was impeccable. “You will please come with me.”

  They followed her past a few closed doors to a small conference room. General Perry was hunkered over some reports at the far end of the table that dominated the room. He was all alone. They had to squeeze past the chair backs to get close to him.

  “The Chinese have moved a fair-sized force into the border area where you were last night,” said Perry. “I have the morning satellite images. I’d welcome your opinions.”

  Zeus struggled to fit into the seat.

  The images showed the situation in western Vietnam about where they had left it; the Chinese forces were arrayed along the flooded Song Da lake area. But Zeus immediately noticed a key change: the water had retreated by nearly 50 percent. It surely wouldn’t hold the Chinese back much longer.

  He paged through the images. They were raw, without notations or accompanying explanations. The Chinese had moved their tanks and many of their troops to the northwest area of their assault, taking them out of range of the Vietnamese artillery. There were concentrations near Moc Chau, Doan Ket, and farther north at Bac Yen.

  If this were the war game simulation, Red Dragon, Zeus would launch a counterattack from the area of Yen Bar, or even farther north through one of the passes in the Hoang Lien Son Mountain Range. It would
break the strength of their drive.

  Of course, he’d also have American troops to do that with. Very big difference.

  The Vietnamese had launched their own strikes on the flank, but the effect of these was negligible. They didn’t have the firepower to push across the Da River, let alone blunt the offensive.

  “This is where you were,” said Perry, handing over another series of images. “The division commander is a fellow by the name of Ho. You should make some sort of gesture of thanks. He contacted his headquarters right away, and they got an ambulance up to evac you. You don’t remember any of it?”

  “No,” said Zeus. “I guess I slept the whole way down.”

  “I don’t blame you,” said Perry.

  The marshalling area was clearly delineated in the photos. A huge black crater sat where the tank farm had been. There were a dozen vehicles, including APCs, that had been hit by the explosion; even at the scale of the photo the damage was visible. Several other vehicles nearby had probably been damaged as well.

  There was a large concentration of tanks, close to fifty, about thirty miles farther north into China. A short distance away was a collection of APCs and trucks, about twice the size.

  “You stopped them for a day, maybe more,” said Perry. “We’ve been preparing the defenses.”

  “That’s a huge force,” said Christian. “Assuming a three-to-one ratio of infantry to armor.”

  “I think it’s safe to say there’ll be more than that,” said Perry. “The highways are being booby-trapped and mined. The road net through the mountains is sparse. The Vietnamese have a chance.”

  “They’re going to isolate Hai Phong,” said Zeus. This major port on the Pacific was some fifty-five miles east of Hanoi, and another hundred or so south of the border.

  “Why bother if they’ve got it blockaded?” asked Christian.

  “Because they want to use the port,” said Zeus. “They can land troops there. And more important, ship material out. Which is really the reason they’re attacking like this. They want to get it intact. That’s why they’re coming along the coast.”

  “Could be,” said Perry. “It hasn’t been bombed or mined. Which would tend to prove your theory.”

  Zeus looked at the images from the Gulf of Tonkin and the rest of the waters off Vietnam. The Chinese invasion force was still gathered at the southern tip of Hainan Island. The Chinese aircraft carriers remained close to the western side of the island—roughly where Zeus had seen one of the ships from the window of the airliner.

  There was another force, three destroyers and a Corvette-sized craft, steaming south.

  “They’re thinking of taking the oil platforms,” Zeus told Perry, pointing to the destroyers.

  “Possibly,” said Perry, reaching for the images.

  “This is an American ship,” said Christian, pointing to the destroyer tagged as McLane. “What’s it doing up here all by itself?”

  “Testing the blockade,” said Perry.

  “It’s not going to take on the carriers, is it?” asked Zeus. “If they come west?”

  Perry made a face. “He’s under orders to avoid conflict.”

  Zeus knew from the simulations that the Chinese ships were not as potent as their American counterparts—a Chinese aircraft carrier couldn’t hope to project the sort of power an American carrier did, and one Chinese destroyer or light cruiser was no match for the USS McLane. But even an American destroyer would be overmatched by the carrier’s planes; a coordinated attack would send it to the bottom.

  Especially if the destroyer wasn’t allowed to fight.

  “He’s got two Chinese warships tracking him,” added Christian, looking at the map. “One of them’s a cruiser.”

  A good match, Zeus thought. The American should win, but …

  “We’ll let the Navy worry about their assets for now,” said Perry. “The first problem is how to stop those tanks.”

  “The Chinese are making a mistake using the heavy tanks that close to the coast,” said Christian. “There are only a few highways. Route 18’s their main route—take that out and they’re stuck. We dynamite a couple of bridges, and they grind to a halt.”

  “They don’t think the Vietnamese can stop them,” said Zeus. “And they’re right.”

  “There’s a possibility we’ll get American assets to fight them,” Perry told them, his voice hushed. “We’re working on it.”

  “A-10s?”

  Perry nodded. Zeus realized that meant he had approved the force plan they’d been working on before the mission to Hainan. He wondered, though—the politics back home did not favor intervention.

  “Proceed as if they’re not coming,” Perry added. “Figure out a way for the Vietnamese to stop the tanks, if possible.”

  “Prayers?” quipped Christian.

  “Hopefully, a little more than that,” said Perry as he rose from his chair. “I’m meeting with the Vietnamese commanders in an hour. I need ideas by then.”

  * * *

  “They’re aiming at Tien Yen,” said Christian. He pointed to a small city a few miles from the coast in northern Vietnam. “It’s a crossroads. From there they have a couple of ways to get to Hai Phong.”

  Zeus nodded. It would be a good first-day goal, reachable within hours; they could even bypass any strong points without losing access to the roads. Once that was taken, they could stay on 18, which became a coastal highway farther south, or they could move inland and take Hai Phong that way. The Yen Tu Mountain Range would push them eastward, but also cut the Vietnamese options for attacking their flank.

  “The first line of defense is to blow up the bridges on both parts of National Road 18,” continued Christian, referring to the branches of the highway that ran along the Tien Yen River and the other farther east. Again, this was a no-brainer, very basic strategy that would slow the Chinese advance, not stop it—none of the bridges were very steep or long. Still, it could delay them by more than a day.

  Whether that would be enough was an open question.

  The Vietnamese army had ten armored brigades. On paper at least, this was a considerable force—there were over 1,300 main battle tanks alone, with an assortment of light tanks and fighting vehicles to complement them.

  But the bulk of the Vietnamese tanks were T-54s and T-55s, excellent tanks in their day … which had ended somewhere during the late 1960s or early ’70s. They were no match for the Chinese 99s, or even the lighter tanks in the Chinese army. The heavier T-62s the Vietnamese had were every bit as vulnerable, though they had better guns.

  There were three armored brigades in the north. One was dedicated to Hanoi and would not be taken from the city for any reason. Both of the others were in Lang Son, the province to the west of the area where the Chinese tanks had been spotted. It was far too late to get either brigade into place to meet the advance at the border.

  The obvious thing to do would be to slow the Chinese advance with the forces in place. As the Chinese advanced, a counterattack might be organized to cut behind the spearhead, striking at its flank. There was a certain amount of wishful thinking involved in such a strategy, even though it wasn’t exactly radical—it presupposed that the Chinese flank would be weak enough to hit.

  Slowing the advance was itself problematic. The infantry forces in place consisted of one Vietnamese regular division, just called to regular strength, and two regional divisions—militia units that had been promoted to regular status under the Vietnamese mobilization system. None were equipped to deal with the sort of armored assault the Chinese were about to launch.

  The regular division had a smattering of Russian antitank weapons, including a few vehicle-mounted AT-2s and man-portable AT-3s. Neither missile could be counted on to penetrate the Chinese tanks, though lighter vehicles such as APCs would be vulnerable to well-placed fire. The AT-2s were older, line-of-sight missiles; the AT-3 was wire-guided. Both could be fired from a little over a mile away, though in practice much closer ranges were greatly
preferred.

  Unless you were the operator under fire, of course.

  The steeps hills and slim road net suggested that land mines would be particularly useful, but Zeus knew from their earlier briefings that most of the mines the Vietnamese had were ancient, a good number left from the American war, and were mostly of the antipersonnel variety, useless against heavy armor. Squad-level antitank weapons were virtually nonexistent—primarily RPGs that would bounce off the hulls of the Chinese main battle tanks and even some of the infantry fighting vehicles Zeus had seen.

  Experience had shown over and over that a determined enemy could improvise tactics to defeat tanks if they had enough time and the right weapons. Typically, armor became more vulnerable as it slowed down and lost its advantage of mobility and speed.

  But where would they get the weapons?

  Zeus stared at the map. He’d concentrate on the time element first.

  Maybe if you blew all of those bridges, it would take longer than a day. There hadn’t been bridging equipment in the depot they’d attacked, and none had been spotted in the last set of reconnaissance photos.

  The tanks could ford some of those crossings. Maybe all of them.

  The Chinese were cautious, though. He’d seen that in the west.

  Blow the bridges. That meant two days’ delay, more if you could set up additional traps near them.

  Highway 4A cut straight down from Lang Son. If the Vietnamese sent one of their tank brigades in that direction, then swung the second down and around so that it blocked off the approach to Hai Phong, they might have a chance at a flank attack.

  Not really, thought Zeus. Their weapons would be hopelessly outmatched.

  They could get more artillery into the area. Once the tanks stopped, the artillery fire could take at least a few out.

  He sketched the ideas out for Christian. They weren’t much; even Christian could see through them.

  “Look, if we blow up every bridge, that’s still only a few days at most,” he told Zeus. “A few days. I can’t imagine it taking a whole week to get to Tien Yen, even without the bridges. You get there on Day Three, you have the whole rest of the coast open to you. South of Dam Tron, everything really opens up—you don’t have to be Patton.”