Our Next Great War

by Martin Archer

  Initially Colonel Stransky had merely been ordered to load his usable tanks and personnel carriers on tank carriers that would be coming as soon as they finished delivering construction equipment. When they arrived, he was told to take his tanks and APCs, and just the men needed to operate them in combat, south to Khabarovsk and wait for new orders. The rest of his men, the truck drivers, clerks, and cooks, were to be left under the command of one of the battalion’s officers to form a provisional infantry company. The least useful officer; he’d made sure of that.

  One of the more interesting things about the movement of Stransky’s armor was that the battalion’s trucks and jeeps were to be left behind with the newly formed infantry company and the BMP infantry fighting vehicles were to be loaded to the gills with all the extra supplies, fuel, and ammunition they could carry. Even the tanks were to pile on all the extra supplies and ammunition they can carry even if it meant they could not swing their tubes and rotate their turrets.

  Obviously we are going to operate in rough terrain for an extended period of time without access to supplies, Stransky thought. But where and why and doing what?

  Then yesterday an order had come down that all the men in the division with heavy weapons training, such as its mortar men, SAM operators, and machine gunners, were to be trucked down the dirt road to the railroad. They were to bring with them all their weapons and all their ammunition, including the “war reserves” that had not been out of the battalion's ammunition bunkers since the Second Ussuri River War with the Chinese in 2003.

  What this left the 112th division and its unhappy commander, Major General Ivan Bulganin, was about five thousand infantrymen, if one included all the clerks, truck drivers, and cooks, to defend almost two hundred kilometers of border. And then today, to Bulganin’s dismay, he was ordered to organize and thoroughly arm and provision one hundred enlisted volunteers and ten senior sergeants for long-term hazardous duty assignments behind the lines as partisans.

  Every man who volunteered to serve as a partisan, including the NCOs, was to be immediately promoted two ranks and paid his next six months pay in advance, three thousand American dollars and a lot of useless Russian rubles.

  Two hours later the General was ordered to immediately report to Khabarovsk to receive further instructions and to bring with him all his remaining supplies and equipment, his air support company with its four light observation aircraft and six old helicopters, and all his men except the one hundred and ten volunteers. This is too much. What have I done wrong?

  Bulganin’s distress ended abruptly when he reached Khabarovsk. His efficiency and honesty in getting the food and money to his men, and his rapid dispatch of the troops and armor detached from his division had been recognized and appreciated. He was additionally given the command of the 83rd Guards Division based south of Khabarovsk.

  The luckless commander of the 83rd, Bulganin was informed, had been relieved because he diddled and dawdled and hoped that no one would notice he didn’t send his engineers and tried to get his hands on the money and food the Spetsnaz brought to pay his troops.

  His first job, an elated Bulganin was told by the frontal commander, General Danovsky, was to move the 83rd and what’s left of the 112th into a blocking position where the Trans-Siberian Railroad begins to go through the mountains about one hundred kilometers west of Khabarovsk.

  When he gets there, Danovsky told him, he was to dig in and be ready to give the Chinese a bloody nose; and then, if the Chinese did break through his lines, lead his men in a fighting withdrawal down the railroad line by leapfrogging backwards from one pre-selected rally point to the next. He should, General Danovsky told Bulgansky, inspect the withdrawal route in person and select the rally points himself.

  Getting all that done, General Danovsky told him, “will undoubtedly require that you and your political officers immediately take a hard line, a very hard line, with the slackers and defeatists you find.”

  Bulganin took on his new assignment with the enthusiasm and determination of a man reborn—his lack of a “patron” that resulted in his having been given the most isolated division in the army has generated an opportunity for him to shine. He was determined to do so.

  Chapter Nine

  A new day with two divisons.

  An elated Bulganin immediately ordered one of the young majors accompanying him to return to the 112th to organize the partisan units and make sure his deputy commander immediately started moving what was left of the division to Kharbarovsk and then down the rail line into the interior. Then he helicoptered south to the 83rd with three of his officers.

  He also ordered his two most dependable men, a lieutenant colonel and a major to Khabarovsk. They were to wait there, he told them, for the rest of the division’s Mi-8s helicopters to arrive carrying certain men and supplies.

  As soon as the helicopters arrived and refueled, the two officers and the men on the helicopters were to fly west along the railroad and set up a preliminary base camp at the rail spur nearest to where the two divisions were to dig in and establish their initial defenses. He pointed the location out to them on a map.

  ******

  Bulganin found the 83rd every bit as bad as Danovsky had described it. Maybe even worse. But then he brightened considerably when he realized that it was a great opportunity for him to make his mark since the 83rd could only get better.

  The disgraced general of the 83rd had already departed in one of the division’s three operational helicopters by the time Bulganin arrived. The division’s chief of staff, a rather untidy colonel with a sandwich in one hand and a cigarette in his other, explained that the departing general mentioned something about sending it back after it had dropped him off the Khabarovsk airfield.

  “But it never came back,” the colonel reported with a shrug of his shoulders.

  Bulganin had landed his helicopter next to the 83rd’s division headquarters, and caught the staff sitting around smoking and playing cards. They thought it was the general’s helicopter returning and ignored it.

  Bulganin’s face had gotten red with anger and he went ballistic; he was shouting and the staff were standing stiffly at attention as he told them they were one inch away from being stripped of their ranks and sent to a penal battalion for gross dereliction of duty.

  “And you,” he screamed at the division’s political officer. “You knew about the orders to send the construction equipment and armor; and you knew the men did not initially get the money sent to pay them and the food to feed them. You are supposed to prevent such disobedience from happening and report it if you can’t.”

  “Did you report them to General Danovsky or to the office of the military district’s political commissar or any other authority? No. You didn’t. I know you didn’t. I checked.”

  “Get rid of him,” he snapped at one of the officers who’d accompanied him from the 112th. “The rest of you come over here,” he ordered as he pointed to the map one of the officers who had accompanied him is busy tacking up on the plywood wall.

  He was in the midst of giving orders as to where and how the 83rd’s units were to be relocated, and the order in which they were to move, when he was interrupted by a brief rattle of gunfire.

  Then there was a single shot. The already highly attentive officers became even more attentive. The 83rd just suffered its first casualty of the coming war.

  I was very uneasy about shooting the political officer. I probably would not have done it if General Danovsky had not said it would be necessary to encourage the others.

  ******

  Five days later Bulganin’s men began arriving at their new position. It was spread out on the hills on both sides of the railroad line at kilometer post one thirty seven. There was a small rail spur three miles further on. Bulganin himself was there at the spur watching as his self-propelled artillery, and what was left of the armor of his two divisions, was unloaded from a long line of flatcars using a makeshift ramp. The ramp was, and rightly so, the fir
st thing Danovsky’s engineers had constructed when they arrived eight days ago.

  Bulganin wasn’t the only one watching. A small party of Russian officers and a couple of men, obviously military, in unmarked fatigues landed in a helicopter and were looking at the unloading as they walked over to him. None of them knew it, of course, but an even smaller party of Chinese was also watching through powerful binoculars from a hill several miles away.

  A few moments later the new arrivals walked up and saluted. A young lieutenant, Borisov according to the name on his fatigues, introduced them as “foreign friends here to observe your progress.”

  Several of the foreigners asked very pointed questions as to his plans and the progress he was making. They wanted to know what forces and equipment he already had in place and about the men and equipment en route. Then one of the foreigners, an older tough-looking man with the close cropped white hair, whose name was apparently something like “Saffor,” asked him if it is true he had a firing squad shoot one of the officers responsible for delaying his men’s pay.

  There was no use denying it. So, very defensively, Bulganin admitted it.

  “Yes. I had him shot. It had to be done; and it wasn’t just the men’s food and pay. He was the division’s political officer and he said nothing and alerted no one when the division commander, the man I replaced, tried to steal the men’s money and then ignored the orders he received to send his armor and engineers to Khabarovsk.”

  Bulganin was greatly relieved by the interpreter’s translation of the gray-haired foreigner's response.

  “Good man. You did the right thing.” Thank God. I thought I was in real trouble.

  Then one of the aides of the foreign officer spread a big map on the ground. They all stood in a semi-circle around it and spent more than an hour discussing where various kinds of Chinese attacks might come from and how Bulganin and his men might respond to them. The foreigners made several helpful suggestions and observations.

  All and all, it was a very helpful meeting, Bulganin later decided. That evening, he used some of the foreigners’ ideas to impress his senior staff as they stood in front of a similar map in his command tent.

  The old man is tough and he really knows his stuff became the generally accepted view of the 83rd’s officers about their new commander. They liked the idea that he cared about his men and was thinking ahead as to how the Chinese might attack and where rally points might be established if they were pushed out of their assigned position.

  What Bulganin had not been told was that the foreigners came to see him primarily because the payroll and food distribution team assigned to the 83rd is still missing and two of its ten men are Americans. He also didn’t know that they’d be back in a few days when the 83rd’s infantry arrived. They had already checked out the division’s armor and engineers; they had all been paid last week. So were all the units in and around its headquarters.

  Only some of the infantry, those who had been scattered in isolated posts along the border and in the villages, remained to be questioned. They were still inbound on trucks somewhere on the service road; they would be questioned about when and how they received their pay when they arrived.

  ******

  Bulganin surveyed his first four days in his new command with satisfaction. Most of his vehicles and artillery from the 83rd and the 112th were still on the road; but his officers and men, with their wives and children safely evacuated, and eating better food and being promptly paid, were responding even better than he had thought possible. We just might pull this off, he told himself.

  Even so, everything was certainly not going as smoothly as he had hoped. For one thing, it had been impossible to get all the men and weapons and supplies of the two divisions into the available trucks. He’d actually flown back to both of the divisions’ original headquarters to see for himself before he finally accepted the reality that his trucks would have to go back for a second load, and maybe even a third and fourth. It might take several weeks before they all arrived.

  Having to wait for the arrival or his infantry and supplies was a serious problem; the terrible state of the dirt service road running along the railroad made for very slow travel even though it had been closed to civilian vehicles. But it had to be used; it was the only road running east and west in this part of Russia.

  A big problem was that no one had any idea when the two divisions’ towed artillery would arrive. The somewhat garbled radio message he’d received yesterday seemed to suggest it would start arriving tomorrow. Then it would take at least a week, Bulganin estimated, for the trucks pulling the artillery to turn around and go back to get the infantry and their weapons and supplies. And even then they may not be able to carry everything and have to make yet another trip.

  Will I have enough time? That’s what worried Bulganin more than anything else. Danovsky himself helicoptered in this morning and complimented him on the work in progress. And then ruined his day by saying that the Chinese invasion might reach his position as early as in the next two or three weeks.

  Well, he would do his best. If it didn’t work it wouldn’t be for want of his trying or driving his men. Then he decided to take another look at his second artillery fire base, the one to the southwest. It was in a good position to support his main line of resistance, he thought. But the foreign officer was right, he admitted to himself; the way I initially planned to deploy my artillery makes my guns too vulnerable to an infantry attack if the Chinese get around my main force by walking over the mountains and attacking my rear.

  Should I relocate the firebase or just reconfigure it to be more easily defended? Damn. Most of the gun pits and fighting positions are already dug. Time is running out so better to stay where we are and improve the defenses that support them.

  ******

  Bao Wei, Shen Ji, and what was left of their Chinese infantry company moved slowly, very slowly, every night. Even so, three or four of the wounded men could not keep up and several of them had developed serious infections. But he could not abandon them for fear of further damaging his men’s sagging morale. So the able-bodied men were carrying the gear and weapons of the wounded men and doing their best to help them along, even carrying them at times.

  Periodically the Chinese could hear planes overhead and once they heard the sound of a distant helicopter. But it was otherwise quite peaceful, like taking a long holiday hike through the woods, except, of course, that they were in rough mountains and could only walk at night with one man and a shielded flashlight leading the way. On several particularly dark and rainy nights they didn’t even try to walk at all.

  It was also quite different from their training in China. There were actually wild animals in the forest. Most of the men had never even heard of moose and elk, let alone actually seen one. So they became quite excited, and some even worried and loaded their weapons when a moose wandered into their camp while they were quietly resting and sleeping under the trees.

  The men watched in utter fascination as the moose stripped twigs and leaves off the trees and shrubs around them without even apparently knowing they were quietly sitting and standing all around it.

  Bao watched the moose for a moment and then made up his mind when Sergeant Shen raised a questioning eyebrow and made a shooting gesture with his hands. The men were all watching as Bao nodded and held up a single finger and pointed—one careful shot. They will have meat with their noodles when they next could light a fire.

  More and more moose and other wild animals were seen as the Chinese walked deeper and deeper into the mountains. One night as they walked they heard the mournful howls and yips of what could only be wolves. Not a single one of the Chinese soldiers had ever seen or heard wolves before, but they all knew instinctively what it was they were hearing.

  Somehow the possibility that they might see and hear more wild animals when they went to ground each morning caused their spirits to rise as their “reconnaissance patrol” continued. Within days the memories of the disast
rous confrontation with the Russians receded into the past along with their concern for the wounded men they’d been forced to leave behind.

  Lieutenant Bao himself became increasingly upbeat, and so did his men as a result. Despite the slow pace it increasingly looked as though he and his men would reach their intended destination with time to spare. It was an isolated spot on a forested mountainside from which they could sally forth when their radio broadcast the song that was the Bao’s signal to proceed.

  Exactly forty eight hours after he heard it he was to destroy a certain railroad bridge and then begin attacking the railroad and everything associated with it.

  What Bao knew, and his men and Sergeant Shen Ji did not, was what they were supposed to do and where—they were supposed to cut the first bridge where the railroad entered the mountains, about one hundred kilometers west of Khabarovsk. What he did not know was when.

  ******

  Bao only realized that they had found the railroad when word was passed back from the scouts leading the Chinese column that they could see vehicle lights flickering below them about ten kilometers away. He immediately turned the company around and withdrew to a densely wooded forest ravine they had struggled through an hour earlier. Then they went to ground.

  When morning arrived Bao Wei took one man with him and cautiously moved forward to check things out and plan his attack. He was surprised to see a lot of military traffic on both the railroad bridge and on the dirt service road running along side the tracks; and most of the traffic seems to be flowing westward. Has the invasion started—are the Russians retreating?

  It was not until the next day when he walked further west into the mountains on a similar two-man reconnaissance that Bao realized that a major Russian military strong point was under construction. With his binoculars he could see it on both sides of the railroad about ten kilometers to the west.