Our Next Great War

by Martin Archer

Then General Wu paused and smiled before he continued.

  “Similarly, I can now confirm that our parachute troops took the key Russian airfields at Irkutsk and Angarsk without a single man falling to enemy fire. Their runways and facilities are undamaged and the first of our planes are landing on them as I speak.

  "As you may recall, several squadrons of our most advanced fighters will be based on each of those fields. They will, of course, immediately begin intercepting any Russian planes which attempt to resupply the Russian forces east of Lake Baikal.”

  Several of the committee members clapped and there were smiles all around as everyone beamed at everyone else. Then lunch was served. Chicken and rice according to the NSA.

  ******

  A most amazing thing just happened. A troop train from Vladivostok just slowly rolled through the Biken battlefield en route to Khabarovsk and beyond.

  The train came through about twenty minutes after two weird looking little hand pumped service carts and a little switch engine pushing two flat cars moved down the tracks past us at about ten miles per hour. The two men moving the pump handles up and down to keep ahead of the little coal-burner must be either unaware that they are moving through a battlefield or very brave.

  We had all stopped whatever we were doing to watch the tiny little coal-burning locomotive as it came past the village a couple of minutes later puffing black smoke rings into the windless air. Each of the flat cars it was pushing had a BMD parked on it and Russian Marines crouching behind a wall of sandbags. Everyone waved and heads and hands popped up from behind the sandbags to wave back.

  Ten minutes later the troop train itself came through. It was really long and seemed to take forever to pass. The troops clustered around the tanks and vehicles on its hundred or more flat cars looked at us and waved.

  “Jesus. Boss,” Vern exclaimed as the troop train slowly clanked past, “am I seeing things?”

  What really surprised me, and Vern too, was that neither the Chinese nor Chernenko make any effort to stop the train. I looked at the Colonel a bit incredulously as the train slowly rumbled through the village about two hundred meters behind our position. I was surprised because I really expected the Colonel to stop it in order to add its troops to his forces and evacuate our wounded.

  “I know what you are thinking Comrade Major. I thought about stopping it. Yes I did,” he sighed. “But our job is to see that as many reinforcements as possible get to the interior.” Shit, he’s right. Well hell. At least we know the bridges are still up south of us.

  “Well Sir, at least we know the bridges are still up. But I’m really surprised that the Chinese didn’t at least try to hit it with their mortars.” I wonder why they didn’t.

  “Yes, I’m surprised about that myself. Maybe they’ve used up all their mortar rounds. At least I hope so. They probably didn’t have all that many in the first place since their troops had to carry them over the river in addition to their personal weapons and other gear. Or maybe it means they are saving what they left for their next big attack.” Of course. He’s right. Jeez I sure hope they used them all up.

  An hour later Vern and I stop digging our spoons into cans of horrible Russian field rations, sardines in some kind of crème sauce to watch the first of two long and empty trains of flat cars come southbound towards Vladivostok one right after the other. They too were preceded by a hand pumper and then a single flat car pushed by a little coal-burning switch engine. The flat car the switch engine was pushing had a BMD perched on it and troops behind sandbags.

  Chernenko briefly stopped the first southbound train and Vern and I ran to help load badly wounded Russians on the last four flatcars. There was a hospital and surgeons in Vladivostok—if they lived long enough and could get there without being slaughtered along the way.

  We didn’t wait to load the Russian dead lined up along the track. I don't know how the Russians handle their dead. Maybe they’d be buried here where they fell, or perhaps they would go on the next empty flat cars that come along. But they sure caught the attention of the troops on the train that just went past them.

  Whoa. I’m glad I’m not one of the guys pumping the handles up and down on those little hand powered service cars. I’m even more glad I’m not one of the Russian wounded waiting to be evacuated.

  ******

  Sian was at battle stations and rigged for silent running. After an initial spurt of high speed running towards the Russian coast an hour ago, to move away from the spot where it had earlier surfaced and fired its cruise missiles, the Sian was now very slowly moving north along the Russian shoreline. It was barely moving, making less than five knots to minimize its sound signature.

  So far the captain’s strategy was working. The Russian surface ships he expected to swarm to his launch site must have assumed he would run away towards deeper water instead of moving even closer to shore. His sonar men had so far only picked up the sound of one set of high speed screws. And it was moving further away from the port and its sound quickly faded away.

  “Captain from sonar,” was Lee Sheng’s anxious call from his post on the listening devices. “Possible contact. Unknown submarine. Possible torpedo tube doors opening bearing seventy one degrees. Estimate twenty seven thousand meters.” The anxiety and fear in Lee’s voice was obvious to everyone.

  “Sonar. Three pings.”

  “Yes Captain,” was the very nervous response. The pings were followed seconds later by “Sonar confirms target is unidentified submarine at six eight degrees. Estimate distance twenty-six thousand. No identification.”

  We haven’t heard any submarines since we got here so maybe it is the Canton. Well, no sense taking chances. I’ll go to maximum revolutions so it can identify us; and be ready to make a hard turn and fire a noise maker decoy if it isn’t.

  “All ahead maximum. Stand by to execute maximum turn to two eight two degrees. Set bow planes for maximum rise. Stand by to fire one noise-maker. Come to periscope level.”

  “Torpedo in the water,” screamed the Sian’s sonar chief. “Two torpedoes.” … “More torpedoes.”… “More torpedoes.”

  Captain Yee of the Sian fired all of his noise makers and made two hard left climbing turns in a desperate effort to escape. But the outcome was inevitable—because the Sian had been built in a Chinese shipyard using stolen construction blueprints for a Soviet November class missile sub, a slow and noisy Soviet model that was technologically obsolete thirty years ago, long before the Sian was launched.

  At their best, the top speed submerged of the old Soviet November class of missile subs was a little less than thirty kilometers per hour. The Chinese copies couldn’t even do that. There was no way for the Sian to outrun or outmaneuver the six Mk-48 torpedoes homing in on it at over sixty miles per hour. And it didn’t. Twelve minutes later the Canton similarly doesn’t escape a massive spread of Mk-48s fired by the Grayling.

  Neither Chinese sub was able to surface or send a message; they just disappeared.

  I got the news via a flash NATO contact message about ten minutes later. Well, hopefully the Chinese will never know that the last of the Russian navy’s operational surface vessels and submarines sailed for Vladivostok more than twenty-four hours earlier. If they do, they’ll know that all of China’s nuclear boomers, both of them, have just been sunk by NATO submarines.

  But will they know that American subs did the deed and I was the one who ordered the hit? And do I really care?

  Then I got back to what I was doing before the NATO message arrived and finished sending a flash order to the Marine commander at NATO headquarters following up on his response to my recent inquiry.

  “Effective immediately expedite movement of all able-bodied Russian airborne survivors directly to Kansk, Russia using all available means. Similarly expedite all usable captured weapons, ammunition, and parachute gear to Kansk. Ignore troops, weapons, and supplies not immediately deployable.

  "Report initial shipment quantities and estimated arrival
times within the hour with hourly updates thereafter until all available en route. Repatriation operation is code-word classified “Rosebud Restaurant. Evans.”

  And, of course, I sent a copy of my order to Tommy Talbot with a request that he coordinate and support a maximum-effort airlift to get the surviving Russian airborne troops and their weapons, ammunition, and jump gear to Kansk.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Close combat.

  Crouching in the narrow slit trench outside the Podovsk bunker that was now serving as Danovsky’s headquarters was not exactly the best place to ask General Danosky the questions that came in this morning from General Evans. But the timing was perfect—neither of us would be going anywhere or doing much of anything until the Chinese air attacks stopped.

  “Uh, Comrade General, I received some information and inquiries from General Evans an hour ago. I believe you will find the information encouraging.”

  “By all means, tell me Comrade Colonel Lindauer. I really do need some encouraging news,” Danovsky replied with a wry smile. “What is the news from Richard Ivanovich?”

  “He sends his best regards, Sir. And he wants you know that the Chinese submarines that attacked Kalingrad this morning have apparently been attacked by Russian anti-submarine aircraft and sunk with all hands.”

  “He also wants you to know that a major effort is underway to repatriate and re-equip the Russian paratroopers captured at Brussels and in Germany at Patterson Barracks. They are being transported to Kansk as we speak. General Evans says about four thousand of them should be in Kansk and available for you to use by October Twelth.”

  “General Evans also said I should respectfully suggest you consider sending a senior officer to Kansk to take command of your new airborne force. He says the men will begin arriving there in about forty-eight hours, but that it is going to take at least five days to airlift in enough weapons, equipment, and ammunition to fully equip and organize them.”

  “Four thousand airborne troops available at Kansk? That is good news, Comrade American Colonel. Very good news. Do you know why it is good news, Comrade Colonel?”

  “I think so, Sir. The airfields at Irkutsk and Angorsk can be reached by Russian transport planes coming off Kansk, particularly if they continue on and land at your nearby auxiliary fields. On the other hand, the Chinese fighters have significantly shorter legs so that Kansk is too far for the Chinese to reach with their fighters based at Irkutsk and Angorsk.”

  “Exactly so. You can read a map. Perhaps you are a colonel after all,” he said with a smile. I just grinned at him.

  “Also Sir, General Evans requests your permission to be allowed to communicate directly with whomever you place in command of your new force of paratroopers.”

  “I have just the man for this, Comrade Colonel. Please tell Richard Ivanovich that General Karatonov will be sent to Kansk immediately to take command. General Karatonov will be authorized to communicate directly with him.” And report to me immediately after each contact.

  ******

  “General Talbot, Dick Evans here, Sir.”

  “Fine, General. Thank you for asking.”

  “The reason I’m calling General Talbot, is that I need a quick intelligence update about certain Russian capabilities. Hopefully something we can get without asking Moscow or letting them know we are interested.”

  “Thank you, Sir, I appreciate that. Uh, Tommy, we need to know how many Kelt air-to-ground missiles the Russians have left and where they are located. And we need to know how many of the Tu-16 bombers or other planes that can launch them the Russians have left that are operational and where they are.”

  “Yes Sir, that’s right. We need it yesterday. But here's the hook; we don’t want Moscow to know we’re asking.”

  I’m not going to ask Moscow and I don’t want the new Russian president or anyone else to ask either. I’m afraid the Chinese will hear about it and figure out what Danovsky might be thinking of doing.

  ******

  Chinese troops and armor were now over the Amur River in force and, following a couple of hours of intense artillery preparation that was now in process, were about to launch major attack up the valley that runs from the Amur River north to Khabarovsk. The Russian artillery has remained quiet and waiting ever since it got pushed back out of range of the newly installed Chinese bridges.

  As soon as the Chinese got over the Amur, Lieutenant Colonel Stansky’s entire battalion of tanks and infantry fighting vehicles was quickly pulled out of the initial fighting—and returned to the hull down positions the battalion prepared before it was sent forward to the Amur. At the moment it was stretched out all along a tree-covered ridge overlooking the little village that sits astride the road running from China to Khabarovsk. Thank God the army commander is a tanker. He understands how we should fight.

  Stransky himself was standing on his tank with his binoculars to his eyes and alternately looking down at the activity in the village and then at the faint lines he can see running across the Amur to the south—the pontoon bridges the Chinese threw across the river on either side of the destroyed railroad bridge.

  ****** Lieutenant Colonel Ivan Stransky

  The ground was still damp and muddy from the rain that was falling as the Chinese were storming across the Amur. Another tank battalion, one of the two belonging to the 112th Guards, was in a similar line of hull down positions on the ridge on the other side of the valley. This is not like Afghanistan and Iraq. Not at all.

  Stranksy was talking to his driver on the tank intercom when he noticed a Jeep pull up about sixty meters away on the other side of the crest of the ridge. Its two occupants walked forward to watch as his battalion’s remaining T-72s carefully moved back into their hull down positions—the positions they had abandoned forty-eight hours earlier when they were ordered to move closer to the river to help oppose the Chinese crossing.

  Wonder who that is? Oh, it’s that American tank officer who was hanging around back at the chokepoint asking all the questions. Wonder what he’s doing up here. Guess I’m about to find out.

  “Hello Colonel Stransky” the American said through his interpreter as he walked up and saluted. "Do you remember me? I'm Jack Marshall, we met at division headquarters.

  “Hello yourself American tank officer. I am surprised to see you. I heard all the Americans fled when the shooting started.”

  “Nope. No such luck. Here I am.”

  “Well, you better get back in your Jeep and get the hell out of here. The goddamn fuck your mother Chinese are coming and the bastards are dangerous. I lost four of my tanks and a BMD down by the river and only one of the tank crews escaped.”

  “No shit. Did you get any?”

  “Irina here,” Stansky said patting his tank affectionately, got one tank for sure, and maybe an armored personnel carrier, before we were ordered to pull back. “Some of my men claim they got two or three.” Mostly they lied. But they’re good boys.

  “Well this position looks pretty good. You and your boys will get a lot more if the Chinese come up this side of the valley instead of up the middle. Particularly if you wait and let them get into your kill zone.” I wonder if they’ll wait.

  “You’re right about that, Comrade American; about this side of the valley, I mean. Neither my battalion nor the one on the ridge across the way is close enough to the center of the valley to reach the road that runs up its middle—but right behind me, on the other side of this ridge, is all the heavy artillery of one of our divisions and they, so their observers claim, have the road zeroed in.” In the unlikely event the Chinese are dumb enough to use the road.

  “Where are the artillery observers,” Marshall asked. I’m not going to ask the Colonel how long he thinks the observers will stay before they run?

  “Down there to the right,” I told him as I pointed with a thrust of my binoculars towards a distant Jeep with big antennas on it and a couple of men standing next to it.

  “It’s the 314th’s ar
tillery behind me so those are their fire control observers. I don’t know whose artillery is beyond the ridge on the other side of the valley. Probably the 93rd Guards.” Fuck the artillery. My job is to destroy any enemy armor and vehicles that attempt to come up this side of the valley and that, by God, is what we’re going to do.”

  “Well good luck to you, Colonel, and to your men. I almost wish I could stay with you and see what happens. But I can’t. Orders. So when the Chinese make their move I’ll have to go. But before I do I’m going to visit the artillery behind you—then I’m going to get out of Dodge while I still can.”

  Colonel Stransky’s right. It should work. Unless the artillery observers run they should be able to walk the artillery up or down the road depending on where the Chinese are massed. That’ll stop the infantry but the chances of a direct hit from behind the ridge are slim—so the Russian artillery is not going to stop the Chinese tanks who come up the middle.

  Then Stransky jumped down from his tank and stood next to me while he swept the valley with his binoculars. I got my glasses out and did the same. The Chinese artillery barrage was obscuring the view of the river. I’m glad on not down there. I sure hope the Russians pull back in time.

  We were not be able to see the river but we could see what was left of the armor and troops of the Russian infantry division stretched out below us across the floor of the valley. It, the Russian line, was just behind the little village whose little log houses were on either side of the road that ran up the valley. What was left of the division pulled back into that blocking position behind the village when the Chinese pushed them off the Amur. Damn I’m glad I’m not down there in the valley. Those poor bastards are going to take the full brunt of the Chinese attack.

  “General Bulganin’s plan is sound,” Stransky told his nervous men over and over again as I walked with him from tank to tank in the bright late morning sun.

  “The division in the valley in front of us will hurt them and then fall back and hand off the fight to the 19th Guards. And our comrades in the 19th Guards, in turn, will hurt the Chinese and fall back and hand the fight off to the naval infantry behind them.”