by James Rosone
*******
20,000 Feet Above Buffalo, New York
Major Dieter Gräfe, of the German 74th Tactical Air Force wing, heard the warning alarm blaring in his ear for the fourth time in five minutes.
I can’t think with that stupid woman yelling in my ear, he thought as the female voice warned him of another missile warning. He summarily switched the alarm off.
He banked his aircraft hard into another tight corkscrew as a missile streaked right past him. Then he hit his thruster and pulled hard into another turn just as a string of tracer fire flew right across his canopy. Then he did something remarkable and unexpected—he hit his airbrakes, dropping his speed until he was nearly in a stall.
If his pursuer was using his guns on him, that meant the guy was practically right behind him. A fraction of a second after he did his maneuver, the American F-15E that had just been on his tail moments before flew right past him. He could tell the American pilot was caught off guard, because he instantly lit up his afterburners, trying to add as much distance and speed between them as possible.
Closing his airbrakes, Dieter lit his afterburner. He switched from missiles to guns and depressed the trigger. A string of 27mm rounds from his Mauser BK-27 cannon reached out and slammed into the right wing and engine of the American aircraft as it desperately tried to get away from him.
The F-15’s wing ripped clean off from the G-Forces of the tight, high-speed turn its pilot was trying to make to escape Dieter’s cannon fire. Next, its engine caught fire and the plane now spiraled into a flaming circle.
A second later, the canopy of the F-15 blew clear of the aircraft as the pilot and his backseater were blown out of the plane, their chutes deploying seconds later.
With the immediate threat neutralized, Dieter looked around for the next enemy aircraft and reset his controls. Seconds later, his alarm blared again in his ear. “Warning, warning, warning!”
Where did he come from? Dieter thought angrily. He cursed as a missile appeared behind him. Unfortunately, he had no time to react, and the projectile slammed into his Eurofighter.
Suddenly all of his instruments flashed red. The female warning voice now shouted, “Eject! Eject! Eject!”
Here goes the neighborhood, he thought. Then he pulled the handle. Fractions of a second later, his canopy blew off and he was shot out of his flaming jet, only to see it explode seconds later. His chute hadn’t even deployed when his plane exploded below him. Had he waited even a fraction of a second longer to eject, he’d have been blown apart with his aircraft.
Looking around him, Dieter caught a glimpse of what appeared to be an F-22 as it zipped past him, seeking out more of his comrades to shoot down. Seeing that he couldn’t do anything more to contribute to the fight, Dieter looked around to see where he was. At this altitude, he had a good view of the ground below—it looked like he was still somewhere over the city of Buffalo.
He did his best to angle himself away from the city so he wouldn’t get tangled up in the tall buildings. He knew he was too far away to float back into Canadian territory; his best bet now was to land in a farm field and do his best to hide or make his way back to the border. For now, his part in the war was over, and that thoroughly frustrated him.
*******
20,000 Feet Above Buffalo, New York
Lieutenant Colonel Jeb Trace of the 43rd Fighter Squadron smiled with satisfaction when he saw the German Eurofighter blow up. That was his third kill in the last ten minutes. At this rate, he’d be an Ace in a few more minutes.
Damn, if those Europeans aren’t trying hard to kill us, he thought angrily. He couldn’t believe that it had come down to this. Just six years ago, he’d been stationed at Spangdahlem Air Force base in Germany. He’d trained with many of the very same pilots that were now trying to kill him and his fellow countrymen.
Colonel Trace radioed back to his AWACs support a few hundred miles further back. Without his eye in the sky, the fighters of his squadron were essentially flying blind. “Badger One, this is Hornet One. I need a target,” he said.
“Hornet Flight, be advised that we’re tracking four potential F-35s heading toward your location,” the battle manager responded. “We’re doing our best to get a solid lock on them. We’re going to start mirroring our radar screens to you now. We’ll vector you guys in to get closer to them and then go active with your radars for missile lock.”
A few seconds later, Trace’s radar screen showed him four soft blips that were believed to be the F-35s. Since these were American-made fighters, they knew precisely what radar frequencies to use to get a better lock on them—however, they’d have to get within twenty miles before they could activate their own search radars. It was a risky move, but they needed to clear the skies of these threats. Otherwise, the EU F-35s would tear up the F-15 and F-16 fighters that were going after the enemy SAMs and providing ground support to the Army below.
“Listen up, guys,” said Lieutenant Colonel Trace over their close-in communications system. “This is going to be a tough fight, but we have to clear the skies of these F-35s. We’ve trained against F-35s in the past, so let’s put that training to good use and show these assholes that no one messes with America.”
It took them five minutes to reposition themselves over southern Canada to get themselves prepared to launch their attack. When they’d gotten themselves to within twenty miles of the small group of F-35s, they turned their active radars on, and sure enough, within the first radar sweep, all four of them lit up like Christmas trees. Trace’s flight of four F-22s fired off their AIM-120 advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles at their unsuspecting foes.
Their prey immediately took evasive maneuvers as their suite of electronic defensive measures went into overdrive, spitting out countermeasures and doing their best to jam their missiles. Several of their missiles flew after the countermeasures, and others missed their marks entirely from all the jamming.
Trace’s flight of F-22s fired off another volley of missiles. This time they opted to use their AIM-9 Sidewinders as they had finally gotten within knife range of the F-35s. From further away, it was a fairly even fight, but that close, their F-22s could easily outmaneuver the F-35s.
Now that they knew their stealth cover had been blown, the Belgian fighters activated their radars and returned fire with their own missiles. For the next ten minutes, the two sides began a deadly aerial dance of firing missiles and shooting their onboard cannons at each other, both without a lot of initial success.
Soon, a second group of American F-22s showed up to join the fray. At that point, the tide definitively turned and all four F-35s were shot down. Unfortunately, they’d succeeded in downing two Raptors in the process.
The next several hours would see some of the most intense aerial combat of modern warplanes since the Battle of Britain, with both sides dueling it out with their fourth- and fifth-generation fighters. The United States seemed to be gaining an edge in the fighting, but they were certainly taking a beating.
*******
Goodells, Michigan
Goodells County Park
The sky was dark and ominous. Gray clouds had crept in, obscuring what had looked like a beautiful day when the dawn had first broken through the darkness of the night. Now it looked almost like it might threaten them with snow, judging by the dark bellies of the clouds. Then again, it was January in northeastern Michigan, a part of the state that often received heavy amounts of snow in the winter—so this wasn’t anything new.
Brushing aside his concern for what the weather might hold, Sergeant First Class Rylie looked to his right and left. He saw that his platoon of soldiers from 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment was about as ready as they were going to be for whatever was coming toward them. They were spread out every couple of meters, sporting their winter camouflage outerwear over their standard-issue universal camouflage pattern uniforms. None of them were thrilled about being deployed to Michigan in the dead of winter, let alone the possibility
that they might actually have to fight in the cold and snowy weather of the upper Midwest—but here they were, tricked out in their winter gear, doing their best not to overexpose themselves and preparing to ambush whatever enemy unit was heading toward them.
When they’d first reached this position roughly an hour ago, they were all still wrapping their heads around the reports that a German-Dutch military unit had crossed the St. Claire River. Then they’d heard the aerial dance of death taking place high above them as fighters from both sides fought for supremacy of the battlespace. There was no way to know from the ground who was winning that fight—but they certainly saw and heard a lot of explosions happening high above them. They even spotted a few parachutes descending back to earth as they watched some of the fiery wrecks spin out of control before exploding on the ground.
Despite their personal misgivings at what they were being told by their officers and NCOs, the fighting taking place in the sky above them made one thing abundantly clear—whatever hope there was for a peaceful solution had apparently been dashed. Now it was time to prepare to meet the enemy and send them back across the border.
Once his platoon and squadron had deployed to their blocking positions scattered on either side of Interstate 69, all Sergeant Rylie could do was sit and wait. Sixty long minutes went by as the tension and anticipation of the unknown wore on their emotions.
After what felt like forever, Rylie heard a sound that was unmistakable. The metallic clanking gave away a tracked vehicle as it traveled down the paved road in their direction. Steadily, the sound grew louder. His pulse raced as his blood was flooded with adrenaline; the sense of fear and excitement only continued to build.
While he couldn’t see what was heading toward them yet, he felt the ground quiver a bit as the sound of tank tracks echoed through the barren woods and the surrounding area. The soldiers of Rylie’s platoon all knew this sound well, and it could only mean one thing—an armored vehicle that wasn’t American was heading toward them.
“Here they come!” shouted Sergeant Mendoza over the radio to the rest of the squadron. Mendoza and two other privates had set up a listening/observation post about fifty meters in front of their position, so they’d have eyes on the vehicles first.
Rylie signaled with his hands to the Javelin crew just a few meters away from him to get ready. The soldiers manning the anti-tank guided missile nodded in acknowledgment and looked through the optical sights, lining the missile up on the target they wanted to destroy.
“Steady…wait for it,” whispered Rylie over the platoon net. He knew as soon as he yelled fire, all hell would break loose and it’d be game on.
Seeing the armored vehicle come around a slight bend in the road, he felt his stomach tighten with fear and excitement. This wasn’t like Iraq or Afghanistan, where he had first cut his teeth in combat—this was a battle against a fellow professional army, one he had trained and fought with as an ally in Afghanistan.
When the vehicle finally reached their preidentified kill box, he depressed the radio talk button, talking just above a whisper. “Fire.”
Pop…swoosh.
Two Javelin anti-tank missiles shot out of their tubes and instantly took off for their targets, a German Leopard II tank and the Marder directly behind it. The tank was the lead vehicle in a five-vehicle convoy; along with the tank and the Marder were three Fuchs armored personnel carriers. This was clearly a heavy scout element for a much larger force still further back.
Seconds after the dismounted American soldiers fired their missiles, the 30mm Bushmaster guns on their nearby Stryker vehicles fired a string of rounds at the three enemy armored personnel carriers. Each of those vehicles could carry ten infantry soldiers, so if they could take them out now, that would be thirty enemy soldiers out of the fight.
At lightning speed, the Javelins crossed the four hundred meters of distance and slammed into the Leopard and Marder before the drivers or their commanders even had time to respond to the attack. When the first missile hit the tank, the Leopard’s reactive armor detonated as it was designed to do, barely saving the crew.
The driver of the tank fell back on his training and automatically popped their IR smoke canisters as he deftly gunned the engine and steered the tank off the road. They were clearly trying to get out of their line of sight before they got hit with another missile. As they drove off the road, past the ditch and into the wooded area to the right, the tank commander turned the turret in the direction of Sergeant Rylie and his men.
The Javelin that had been aimed at the Marder scored a direct kill shot. The shaped charge exploded through the reactive armor as the second charge blew into the troop compartment. The detonation of the second charge inside the vehicle caused a massive overpressure inside the sealed compartment, and the top hatches blew open, releasing a short jet of fire as the ammunition and anti-tank missiles inside cooked off. The vehicle ground to a halt in the middle of the road and then summarily blew up.
One of the German Fuchs APCs swerved to try and avoid getting hit with more rounds before it crashed into a tree on the side of the road. The Stryker continued to light the troop compartment up with 30mm rounds in an effort to slaughter its human cargo before they could get out. The other Fuchs saw what was happening and immediately drove off the road to the left and popped a series of smoke grenades to obscure the Americans’ view. When the two remaining vehicles stopped, their human cargo of soldiers piled out of the rear and hunted for targets to shoot at.
“Light ’em up!” yelled Sergeant Rylie over the company net.
Rylie and his men opened fire on the unsuspecting Germans with their M4s and M240G machine guns, sending a wall of lead at the enemy soldiers. Red tracer fire raked the German positions as the Americans laid into them. The rest of the Americans’ sixteen Stryker vehicles also joined the fray with their M2 fifty-caliber heavy machine guns, their 30mm chain guns and two Mark 19 automatic grenade guns, showering the enemy soldiers with an unbearable amount of withering gunfire.
Pop…swoosh.
A third Javelin flew out of their lines and went straight for the German tank that was doing its best to help its countrymen and kill the missile crews that were still gunning for them. The tank’s main gun leveled at the center of the American lines for the briefest of seconds before it belched smoke and flame.
BOOM.
BAM.
A clump of trees, dirt and underbrush exploded when the nearby Stryker vehicle blew apart. Several other soldiers close to it screamed out in pain as they were hit by the hot shards of flying shrapnel and debris, adding to the chaos erupting all around them.
A second later, the Javelin crossed the distance between the two warring factions and slammed into the rear side compartment of the tank. This time, the warhead punched right through the reactive armor, shooting its jet of fire and molten copper directly into the engine and ammunition compartments of the tank. The fuel tanks and ammunition locker instantly ignited and exploded in spectacular fashion. Flame shot up into the sky as the ammunition locker’s blowout doors released the force of its contents up and away from the crew compartment. The entire back half of the tank completely blew apart.
Shocked and disoriented, the Germans who hadn’t been killed outright tried to return fire and organize themselves as best they could.
While the Americans thought they had the Germans pinned down, one of their Stryker vehicles exploded in a massive fireball, throwing several nearby soldiers to the ground and hitting many more with shrapnel. Then a second, third and fourth Stryker blew up before they even knew what was hitting them.
The remaining American vehicles didn’t wait to find out where this new threat was coming from; they blew their own infrared smokescreens and started shuffling around for a better-concealed position while the four anti-tank crews swung their Javelins around to deal with the new threat.
*******
On a hillcrest a couple of kilometers away from the ensuing battle, Lieutenant Colonel Jeremy
Kilgore watched as one of his squadrons caught a German scout unit by complete surprise. As he observed the battle unfolding, the sounds of war saturated the area. The popping sounds of M4s, the heavy reports of the fifty-caliber machine guns and the ratatats of the M240G light machine guns were intermixed with the heavier bass sounds of the 30mm chain guns reverberating throughout the area.
Three hours ago, before the war had officially started, Kilgore’s regiment had been deployed to a campground near the small town of Emmett, just off Interstate 69. This placed them somewhat close to the US-Canadian border without putting them in a city. Up until a few hours ago, everyone in the regiment had been of the mind that this was all a show of force—that somehow, some way, calmer heads would triumph and this UN force on the other side of the border wasn’t actually going to invade. The prevailing thought amongst his unit was that enough people would have seen the 1980s movie Red Dawn to realize that the heavily armed populous of America wouldn’t tolerate a foreign army on its soil. Clearly that logic hadn’t won the day.
When the first shots of the war had been fired, Kilgore’s scout platoon had been watching the US-Canadian border in a state of anxious boredom. It had been a huge shock when they’d received word over the radio that a Dutch or German Special Forces unit had taken over the Blue Water Bridge before the platoon of engineers could blow it up. The whole capture had happened so fast, they couldn’t do anything to intervene and soon a large column of German and Dutch armored vehicles and infantry soldiers had bum rushed the bridge. At that point, the 9th Cavalry Regiment was ordered to set up a blocking force on both sides of Interstate 69 around Goodells while the rest of the brigade moved forward to assist them.
Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore had been zeroed in on the action taking place below him when he heard a noise to his left. To his surprise, Kilgore saw a couple of civilian vehicles driving up the hill where he was situated. A group of eight lightly armed citizens wearing hunting camo got out of their vehicles and pointed in the direction of the battle unfolding in their sleepy little country town.