Our Next Great War

by Martin Archer

  “Yes, that’s right. The fighting started days ago. Apparently, a large number of Chinese troops have already infiltrated over the border and there have been frequent contacts—just as they did in Korea many years ago. Infiltration is apparently a standard tactic of the Red Chinese Army prior to a major invasion.”

  I wasn’t about to tell Bill or anyone else that at my suggestion Danovsky deliberately gave her false information about moving his troops. Danovsky did so in the hope it would leak to the Chinese. And it did: Word quickly got around at the State Department that the Secretary met with lesser officers because General Danovsky was in the field getting his troops ready to move to Kharbarovsk where an important battle would soon be fought. It was what the Chinese wanted to hear so they believed it.

  Twenty-one

  New leadership

  President Gerasinov was sitting in his office reading a report about the coup and who was involved when the pains began. How many more wars and coups can I survive? That was what he was thinking when the chest pains knocked him to the floor and his secretary started screaming.

  ******

  I wasn’t invited to the funeral. No surprise there. There was a lot of discussion as to whether anyone from the United States should even attend. Finally the State Department decided Gerasinov’s funeral would be “an opportunity for a new beginning.”

  In the end, the President asked the Vice President and Secretary of State to attend so we can “start to rebuild normal relations.” So they both flew off to Moscow and joined a bunch of African dictators and various and sundry other national leaders who had been receiving Eastern Union aid and hoped the new Russian leader would keep the spigot open.

  Even the Chinese sent their condolences and a fraternal delegation of elderly party leaders. Conspicuously absent were the leaders or representatives of the former Eastern Union states and the NATO countries. They expressed insincere condolences or ignored it entirely.

  Dan’s call from the plane on his way home from Moscow caught me in my Brussels office. “Yeah, you were right, Dick. They are thugs. It was like a gathering of Mafia dons.”

  “But maybe we did a little good. Valerie and I met with this new fellow, Gerasinov, and encouraged him not to use nukes if there is a war with the Chinese. What do you think?”

  “I hope you’re right, of course, Mr. Vice President, and you certainly did the right thing by trying. Unfortunately, as you know, the shooting’s already started and Moscow only controls some of the Russian nukes. Danovsky controls the rest.

  “According to Danovsky and the Russians I’ve talked to, the big player, the guy who will probably decide on whether the nukes under Moscow’s control will be used is probably going to be a real sleaze from the Gerasinov’s inner circle named Torkov. The only question is whether he and his cronies want to continue to pull the strings and money from the shadows or take a more public position and steal it openly.”

  ******

  The members of the Central Committee were meeting at Party headquarters on Red Banner Street to get a final briefing. It was positive. According to General Wu, everything related to the invasion of Russia was going better than expected. As soon as the briefing concluded the committee members would leave to join their families. They’d begun quietly moving to safety in the south several days ago.

  General Wu’s big news for the Central Committee was that the army’s plans and timetables have not changed: The first phase of the invasion would begin in the morning at dawn.

  “The basic plan remains exactly as we have reported to you over the past few weeks, comrades. There have been no changes of substance. As we reported to you previously, we will start with units of the Red Army attacking towards Vladivostok and Khabarovsk. The main attack towards Chita will commence when the Russians stop moving their troops and armor towards Khabarovsk.

  “Our initial diversionary attacks towards Khabarovsk and Vladivostok will be accompanied by the biggest airborne and air mobile assault in history. When the attacks begin, our parachute troops will be simultaneously assault all sixteen of the Russian airfields in the eastern half of Russia. We are using every one of our transport planes and sending all six of our parachute divisions, forty-five thousand men. The goal of our comrade volunteers is simple: to destroy as many as possible of the Russian planes and helicopters so they cannot be used to oppose us.”

  There were many questions.

  “No comrade, there is no indication that they will respond with nuclear weapons. We will be ready, of course, if they do. But both the Second and Third Departments say that the Russians will not do so because they are afraid of our response—as well they should be.

  “Yes comrade. You are correct. Our intelligence departments report they are presently moving reinforcements to Khabarovsk from Vladivostok instead of from Chita. That will continue until our invasion begins and we cut the rail line. Then they will have to get their reinforcements from Chita.

  “Yes comrade. That will occur quickly. Thousands of our men, over twenty thousand, have already infiltrated over the Usurri and into the mountains overlooking the rail line. They will cut it at the same time we launch our attacks on their air fields and begin our ground attacks towards Khabarovsk and Vladivostok.

  “Right here,” he said, pointing with his stick to the big map on the wall, “We will cut it first at a place called Bikin. It will be cut elsewhere as soon as the Russians finish moving their reinforcements from the interior to Khabarovsk.”

  ******

  Charlie Safford and I were sitting in The Detachment’s conference room munching donuts with the staff when the flash message came in from the Pentagon communications center. The sun was just coming up on what looked to become another bright and sunny day in the French countryside when we were informed that the Chinese were going to start attacking tomorrow morning just after daylight, 0614 Beijing time.

  Everyone listened intently as I instantly called Danovsky. It will be our third conversation since about midnight last night. It was already late in the afternoon in Chita.

  “Yuri Andreovich, it is confirmed. The Chinese will launch their initial attacks at dawn tomorrow.” …

  “Yes, 0614.”…

  “Yes, my friend, it is time to bring your troops and planes to full readiness. And tonight, as soon as it gets dark, you must send your swimmers to cut the Chinese bridges and your planes and assault helicopters to hit their airfields and depots.”

  “Yes, I suspect General Petrov and your new president have also being informed, but I will call the marshal immediately as I promised him I would when I visited Moscow. I will also call the Russian Admiralty to warn them.”

  Over and over Yuri and I have talked about the desirability of a preemptive strike on the Chinese airfields at the same time the swimmers go in. But I still didn’t know whether he’d actually do it now that push has come to shove. I hope he does. It’s his best chance to win, maybe his only chance. I’m also going to call Lindauer, Jim Bowie, Major Carpenter, and the navy chief, Sean Matthews, who was out there heading up the swimming instructors now that Jack Flanigan has been pulled out. They’ll need a heads-up so they can get their men out of the way.

  “By the way, Yuri Andreovich, I’m not going to mention your swimmers or your preemptive attacks to Moscow or anyone else. I strongly suggest you consider not mentioning them either.” No sense taking chances on a leak.

  Five minutes later I called General Petrov, the Russian defense minister; he and an interpreter came on the line instantly. He’d already gotten the word from Danovsky and from Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service. Good.

  Then I brought up the Russian navy.

  “I don’t know what General Danovsky’s plans are, Comrade Marshal. But I do know that he does not control the naval forces in his theatre of operation. So if you have not done so already, might I respectfully suggest it might be time to send war warnings to your ships en route to Vladivostok and to order your navy to immediately, and I mean immediat
ely, begin attacking the Chinese subs in the Russian waters off Vladivostok and anywhere else they find them.”

  “Yes. Oh, and as we discussed yesterday, you also might want to send all the anti-submarine aircraft you still have available to Vladivostok to patrol the sea lanes off the port—they may be able to get some of the Chinese subs before they have a chance to hit your ships and reinforcements that are still en route.” What I didn’t want was any Russian anti-sub planes searching for the Chinese missile boats off Kalingrad. We’ve got American attack subs up there tailing them and mistakes happen.

  I tried for several hours before I give up trying to reach the Russian Admiralty. No luck. The number I’d used previously was always busy. While I was doing that Jack and Bill reached out to our people in Eastern Russia to warn them to get clear.

  Then we spent all day in The Detachment conference room fielding an ever increasing flood of anxious calls, silly suggestions, and meaningless information requests coming in from Washington.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Early days.

  General Danovsky did exactly as he had planned and promised. A little after it got dark, just before ten in the evening, he gave the order and every available Russian plane and assault helicopter in the Russian East surged southward in the darkness towards all the Chinese airfields and major supply depots they could reach. The goal of the Russian Far Eastern Air force was simple—to destroy as many as possible of the Chinese planes and helicopters before they can begin their scheduled massive airlift of airborne troops to the Russian airfields.

  Their orders were equally simple: Destroy as many of the Chinese planes and helicopters as possible and still get back to base to refuel and rearm in time to intercept the planes which the Chinese are able to get off the ground to support their scheduled dawn attack.

  As you might imagine would be the case on the eve of an invasion, two Chinese AWACS were in the air and the Chinese ground radar installations were turned on and fully staffed. When the Russian preemptive strike began the Chinese controllers saw the mass of Russian planes begin to lift off their airfields and instantly understood that a preemptive attack was underway. They immediately sounded the alarm.

  China’s fighters and fighter bombers were already fueled and armed and sitting on runways waiting for their scheduled early morning departure to escort the troop transports and provide ground support for the Chinese invasion. When the alarms sounded it was just a matter of quickly recalling sleeping pilots and ground crews from their nearby beds and tents.

  Getting them organized and off the ground turned out to be easier said than done because it had never been practiced. Even so, many of the Chinese fighters were airborne and ready to fight long before the Russian planes could get to the various Chinese airfields.

  ******

  Chinese pilots are not trained for night operations and neither, for that matter, are the Russians. But the fight was not equal because the Chinese air force generals made two bad assumptions: They assumed the Russians would not attack first and they assumed the Russian air force would wait for daylight just as their air force was waiting.

  Fighting in the crowded and only partially controlled night skies was vicious and many planes went down on both sides, including quite a number that crashed into mountains in the dark; others crashed as they returned to their bases and attempted to land in the dark, something both sides rarely practiced.

  On balance, the Chinese were able to put up more planes up than the Russians expected. Even so, despite the rather heroic efforts on part of some of the Chinese pilots, many of the Russian attackers reached their airfield targets and were able to shoot up some of the waiting Chinese transport planes. A few of the planes the Russians hit were already loaded with troops. Most, however, were not. Then the Russian pilots dashed for home to rearm and refuel.

  Overall, the initial Chinese plane losses were significantly heavier than those of the Russians—but the attacks on the Chinese airfields were not a great success because Russian pilots had trouble identifying specific targets in the dark. Even so, if one was scoring the air war as a prize fight it was obvious to everyone that Russia took round one, but not very decisively.

  What didn’t get particularly noticed by anyone during the initial aerial brawl was the relative handful of individual Russian helicopters that came in low and slow over isolated sections of the border and headed towards certain railroad bridges inside China.

  ******

  China’s navy had over fifty operational submarines. All of them were made in China and most of them were very slow and very noisy short range diesel attack subs based on the old 1950s Soviet Romeo class. The Soviet Romeos, in turn, were based on the German U-boat designs of the late 1930s used by the Second World War German subMarine wolf packs that ravaged Allied shipping in the Atlantic.

  In other words, most of the Chinese subs were hopelessly obsolete and virtually useless against the significantly faster and relatively advanced technologies employed by the Russian surface ships bringing reinforcements to Vladivostok.

  The shortcomings of the Chinese subs were well known to the Chinese admirals and planners. They took it into consideration when they were planning for the possibility of today’s war. The basic plan of the Chinese Navy was quite simple—since the Chinese subs would have great difficulty intercepting the faster inbound Russian ships on the high seas, they would wait for the Russians to come to them. Accordingly, the Chinese admirals concentrated almost their entire fleet of attack submarines on the approaches to Vladivostok.

  Chinese thinking was based on the idea that their subs could wait quietly near Vladivostok and attack the Russian ships as they came in to dock. And to some extent it worked. A number of Russian ships still inbound to Vladivostok were attacked during the last fifty miles of their voyage around half the world.

  Unfortunately for the Chinese, concentrating their subs off Vladivostok also meant that the Russian anti-submarine surface ships could be similarly concentrated and easily find them. It also meant Russia’s other ships and submarines would be relatively unchallenged if they launched attacks on Chinese shipping and the major Chinese ports.

  I’d suggested as much to Gerasinov. Attacks on Chinese shipping and the Chinese ports wouldn’t do much to directly affect the outcome of the war—but indirectly it would put pressure on the Chinese Communist Party leadership to end the war.

  ******

  Attacks on the inbound Russian ships were scheduled to coincide with the beginning of ground and air war—just after dawn on the day of the invasion. Unfortunately for China, by that time a substantial number of the Russian naval ships and commercial charters had already reached Vladivostok and unloaded their precious cargos of troops and equipment.

  Also reaching the port with Russian troops prior to China’s official invasion start time was a huge troop carrying flotilla of smaller surface ships with various degrees of anti-submarine capability. They had been generally useless against the technological superior NATO subs in the Turkish War, but were more than adequate for use against the obsolete Chinese subs.

  Short operational ranges and the technological limitations of the Chinese submarines led the Chinese Navy to schedule the arrival of the Chinese subs in the Vladivostok waters so they would show up just in time for the war to start and, therefore, be able to stay as long as possible. The waters off Vladivostok were packed with them in the hours leading up to the scheduled invasion. More than forty Chinese attack submarines were on station off Vladivostok and scheduled to start operations at dawn on August 29th. 0614 Beijing time.

  Circling above them, were more than fifty Russian surface ships ranging from coastal patrol vessels carrying depth charges to relatively sophisticated anti-subMarine cruisers and destroyers such as the Admiral Markov. The waiting Russian ships had already discharged the troops and equipment and they had carried and were now patrolling off Vladivostok.

  Orders for the Russian Navy to commence hostilities and begin dest
roying the waiting Chinese subs came at the same time the Chinese AWACs picked up the surprise Russian air attack—about two hours after the sun went down on the evening of the twenty-eighth.

  And the Chinese subs just sat there and let it happen. They had no inter-sub communications and no way to receive messages from their headquarters without surfacing or sending up a communications buoy—something they had been ordered not to do for fear of giving away their position. As a result, each Chinese captain could hear the steady drumbeat of depth charge explosions, but didn’t know what he could or should do other than obey his orders and wait for dawn and the official start of the invasion.

  The result was the destruction of most the Chinese submarine fleet before it even became operational at dawn on the twenty-ninth. Unfortunately for the Russians, not all of the Chinese subs were destroyed.

  ******

  Captain Shi Yunsheng and the crew of the Song class submarine Swallow waited anxiously for the 0614 start time specified in their orders. They heard the frequent depth charge explosions and he knew that other Chinese subs were in his patrol area. But he didn’t know how many of his fellow captains were with him in the waters off Vladivostok or what was happening to them. All Captain Shi and his officers knew was that they had specific orders to follow.

  Shi’s Swallow lay silently on the bottom near the entrance to the Vladivostok harbor as it had ever since it crept into position and settled on to the bottom more than twenty hours earlier. Shi and his crew become increasingly anxious as time passed and their air supply continued to diminish. They listened to the sonar operators’ continual reports of vessels in the vicinity and could periodically hear for themselves the sound of high speed screws passing overhead and the pinging of searching sonars.

  Then something changed. Depth charges began going off, lots and lots of depth charges. And they continued going off all night long, including several so close to the Swallow that the boat shook and the lights flickered. Sometimes they exploded close enough that everyone on the boat could hear them; other times they were so far in the distance that only the Swallow’s two sonar operators heard them.