Sci-Fi Tech Military Technology Within the MilSF Novel 'War in 2020'
- Thread starter Husky_Khan
- Start date
Hopefully this alternate Japan is at least still cranking out decent anime.
Actually I can write up the whole exchange I suppose, no real revelations or anything.
"What do you make of these contacts between the Soviets and the Americans, Akiro?" He wanted to hear the voice of Tokyo, of his own people, explaining it all to him one more time.
"The Americans?" he said, surprised. Clearly, his thoughts had been elsewhere.
"Yes. The Americans," Noburu said. "What could they possibly offer the Soviets?"
"Sympathy?" Akiro said with a tight smile, dismissing the issue. "The Americans have given up. All they want is to be left alone in their bankrupt hemisphere. And to sell a few third-rate goods here and there. To those who cannot afford ours."
"It's well know that the Americans have been working hard to catch up militarily. And their strategic defense system is very good."
"They'll never catch up," Akiro said in a tone of finality that was almost rude. "They're racially degenerate. The Americans are nothing but mongrel dogs."
Noburu smiled, listening to his aide speak for the General Staff and the man in the Tokyo street. "But, Akiro, mongrel dogs are sometimes very intelligent. And strong."
"America is the refuse heap of the world," the aide replied, reciting from half a dozen Japanese bestsellers. "Their minorities merely drag them down. In the years of the pestilence, they even had to order their own military into their cities. And the military could barely meet the challenge. For all of their 'catching up,' they still cannot completely control the situation in Latin America. In Mexico alone, they'll still be tied down for a generation. The Americans are finished." Akiro made a hard face, the vintage of a warrior from a classical Japanese print. "Perhaps they can take in a few Soviet refugees, as they took in the Israelis."
Noburu, an officer of legendary self-control, crossed the room and broke his promise to himself. He poured himself a Scotch, without measuring.
"It occurs to me," Noburu said quietly, "that Japan underestimated the Americans once before." And he let the bitter liquor fill his mouth.
So it is a cultural shift. Akiro is reflecting the Japanese common cultural view as of 2020 in this world.
Tiamat
I've seen the future...
Imperial Japan mindset 2.0. Yamamoto is turning in his grave screaming "did my countrymen not learn a single damn thing?!"
The Japanese General in charge of the operation is kinda Yamamoto'ish. Except he went to military school in Britain and is described as an Anglophile. And despite coming from a long military family, his children have gone into civilian careers instead.
Complex characters.
Chapter Twelve:
Omsk
2nd November 2020
American Briefing Prior to the Mission
Technically, the briefing could have been conducted electronically, with all of the officers comfortably seated in their environmentally controlled fighting systems and mobile-support shelters. But Taylor had insisted on gathering his officers together in this sour, freezing cavern, unable to risk the comfort of an unmasked heat source that might be detected by enemy reconnaissance systems,
As the S-2 briefed you," Heifetz continued, "the Soviet front east of the Urals is in a state of virtual collapse. Our mission is to attack the enemy in depth, with the immediately intent of destroying or dramatically disrupting key elements of his forces so that the Soviets are allowed time to reestablish an integrated defense."
The description of First Squadrons attack. It involves M-100 Gunships, preceded by recon and electronic warfare drones and potentially "deep electronic warfare support" from the US Air Force.
"First Squadron, with fourteen operational M-100s of sixteen authorized... During the passage of lines, all Soviet air defense systems will be under orders not to engage unless specifically attacked. Of course, we know that some of them may not get the word, so, on a practical level it means we will risk going with only our passive defense up until we cross the line of departure. There is no point in giving our enemies advance warning that something is coming their way. In any case, your scout drones will be immediately preceded by unmanned light cavalry jammers from the Tenth Cav forward detachment. In-depth electronic warfare support- we're talking very deep- has been laid on by the Air Force."
"Your target-acquisition systems are initially going to pick up mostly junk that belongs to the rebel forces. And there may even be roving pockets of Soviets out there who have been cut off. We can't sort them out, since their equipment is essentially identical- and, anyways, we're after the Japanese-built gear."
...
"First, the most critical target- the Japanese maintenance facilities and the forward marshaling yards. I think that is what the old American Army called a 'target-rich environment.' There are over a thousand of the latest Japanese fighting systems on the ground at Karaganda, awaiting greater or lesser repairs. The volume- is irreplaceable. Further, the maintenance facility itself is a critical node. The Iranians- and the Arabs- are breaking their gear like toys. And if the Japanese can't repair that stuff, it's useless."
...
"Your secondary target at Ruby is the assembly and reconstitution area for the III Iranian Corps. They've pulled off-line to reorganize while the rebels carry the fighting northward. And they're grown overconfident. The sin of pride. The Iranians are just sitting there. You've seen the imagery. Barely an attempt at camouflage, no meaningful dispersion. They are so sure that the Soviets cannot touch them any longer.
Heifitz switched back to the midsize operations map. "Anticipated time on station vicinity Ruby is twenty minutes for either target area."
Squadron One, with fourteen M-100's is expected to engage roughly a thousand vehicles at assembly or repair yards in twenty minutes.
As for possible threats...
"You have a long flight ahead of you, so you must not become distracted by insignificant targets of opportunity. You're on picket duty in case the Japanese have a surprise up their sleeve and get some sort of interceptors up into the air fast. You will be the first element across the line of departure, and the last to close."
Murphy's Law Strikes Regarding M-100 Readiness.
"Any chance of getting those two down systems back up before you lift off?" Taylor asked the squadron commander.
"Doesn't look good. The motor officer's working on one of them right now. That's a straightforward hydraulics problem, but we're missing a part."
Taylor looked at Martinez.
"Shortage item, sir," the supply officer said. "We're authorized three on PLL, but we've already used them. It's turning out to be another bug they haven't gotten out of the system. We're trying to get an emergency issue from the States, but I can't even promise you the manufacturer's got spares. They may have to strip them from the new birds coming off the line."
...
"How bad is Bravo one-four," Taylor asked, "really?"
Martinez looked at him earnestly. "Sir, she's not going to be back up in time for this war. The software problem's bad. It's depot-level maintenance."
Taylor turned to Tercus, the First Squadron commander. "Bud," he said, "I'm going to do a job on you. Sorry." Then he turned back to Martinez. "Manny, I want you to write off Bravo one-four. Combat loss. Then strip it for every damned part you're short. Get every bird up that you can in all three squadrons."
Briefing of the Second Squadron, sixteen M-100's.
"The Iranians and the rebels have clusterfucked themselves around in there. They're probably massing for the big push into Western Siberia, to the northwest of the Kokchetav sector. A successful attack on Diamond takes the pressure off the seam between the two Soviet armies just to the north and turns the tables by splitting the enemy's front in two. Gut the forces near Tselinograd, and the breakthrough area to the northwest starts to look extremely vulnerable.
Hefitz traced along the continuation of Second Squadron's route. "Following a thirty-minute action on a broad front at Diamond, Second Squadron continues the attack along axis White-two to Objective Sapphire, engaging significant targets of opportunity en route. Sapphire wraps around Arkalyk- here- where the Japanese have another forward maintenance site with extensive yards. Clear?"
Third Squadron Briefing.
"Third Squadron's mission is simply the destruction of enemy forces along the corridor formed by Engagement Area Emerald. Then you're on your own. Emerald stretches roughly from Kokchetav to Atbasar. Your navigational aids will automatically key when you hit the initial boundary. Within the engagement area, any military system is fair game. Your mission is extensive destruction of enemy follow-on and supporting forces in the rear of the breakthrough sector. The single specified target is here, at Atbasar. The headquarters of the I Iranian Corps is set into an excavation site just outside town. The coordinates have been programmed in for Charlie Troop, and for Bravo, as a backup. The S-2 suspects this site doubles as a Japanese forward command-and-control site, so make sure you clean it out thoroughly."
Third Squadron mission, described as the easiest one, is the destruction of a Corps level Iranian mechanized formation including its headquarters.
The briefing then touches on the regiments heavy artillery battalion and describes it as both dual use, meaning the secondary use is anti-air and that it will be employed in case the M-100s are pursued by enemy forces to the new assembly areas they will land at after executing the mission.
"Fire support," Heifitz continued. "The regiment's dual-purpose artillery battalion will be employed in its air defense mode. The mobile operations envisioned by the plan will be too swiftly paced for heavy-artillery accompaniment. Thus, we have decided to move the regimental artillery directly to the follow-on assembly areas, by routes to the rear of the area of contact. One battery will deploy to each site- Platinum, Silver, and Gold. You will be prepared to intercept any hostiles on the tail of our squadrons as they close."
Despite supply issues and bugs, the M-100s readiness rate is revealed.
"That leaves us with a present strength of forty-five operational systems of fifty assigned. There is a possibility that we'll be able to get one more of Third Squadron's birds up by lift-off time, but I can't guarantee it."
Another supply and teething problem with the M-100 is discussed.
"Manny, I'm one hell of a lot more concerned about the problem with the calibrators. What's going on there?"
...
"Sir," Martinez said, "as you know, the regiment's authorized four calibrators for the electromagnetic gun systems on the M-100s. Due to deficiencies, the first issue was recalled in July, but so far we've only received two of the A2-variant replacements. We deployed with both of these. Now one of them has gone down. The motor officer's been working on it personally, and we've got an emergency requisition in to the States. But it looks like we may only have a single calibrator to rate between the squadrons at the follow-on assembly areas.
"And there's no way the recalibration can be done manually?" Taylor asked.
"No sir. The system's far too complex. It's not just a matter of sights and gun tube like in the old days- we've got to reset the control electronics, and it takes the recalibration computer to do that."
In explaining the issue with the shortage of 'Calibrators' the Supply Officer and Regimental Commander reveal more details on the electromagnetic gun on the M-100 itself.
"Based on range firings, what's the maximum number of targets a system can engage before degradation becomes noticeable- and at what point is that gun nothing more than an explosive noisemaker?"
Martinez thought. He knew that range firing was not as stressful as combat. But Taylor knew that too.
"Sir, technically speaking, degradation begins with the first round downrange. But it only becomes pronounced after the expulsion of approximately three hundred to four hundred projectiles. Every system is a little bit different. They almost seem to have personalities. The best birds might still be hitting at a fifty percent kill rate out to six hundred rounds. But you can't count on it."
Taylor turned to address the assembly. "I'm sure most of you feel fat, dumb, and happy with these numbers. Sounds like a lot of killing power. But my gut feeling is that we're going to go through ammo at a far higher rate than either the contractors or Fort Leavenworth figured." Taylor nodded to himself. "Best system in the world. But even if it works exactly as advertised gentlemen, those neat little war games back at the Combined Arms Center don't factor in the redundant kills, inexplicable misses, the confusion, and the just plain fucked-up nature of combat. We've got a big mission, spread out over a geographically vast area. And I do not expect that it will be our only mission. So, what it means to me, is that the system commanders have to closely monitor their automatic acquisition system to make sure we're getting the kind of kills we want- and that we're not all killing the same range car a couple of dozen times. You can use technology, you can even believe in it- but, in the end, you can't trust it." Taylor stared out coldly from under his ravaged brow. "Keep your eyes open out there. And think."
TLDR the briefing has three squadrons with a combined total of forty five or so M-100s (at a 95% readiness rate) which are basically fancy future helicopter gunships with railguns as their main weapon going out to engage several mechanized Corps containing thousands of the latest Japanese Combat Vehicles across a thousand plus kilometer long front in Western Siberia in their inaugural combat mission. And engagement times on site being measured in periods of time upwards of half an hour in most cases. I'm sure everything will go fine! Murica!
Omsk
2nd November 2020
American Briefing Prior to the Mission
Technically, the briefing could have been conducted electronically, with all of the officers comfortably seated in their environmentally controlled fighting systems and mobile-support shelters. But Taylor had insisted on gathering his officers together in this sour, freezing cavern, unable to risk the comfort of an unmasked heat source that might be detected by enemy reconnaissance systems,
As the S-2 briefed you," Heifetz continued, "the Soviet front east of the Urals is in a state of virtual collapse. Our mission is to attack the enemy in depth, with the immediately intent of destroying or dramatically disrupting key elements of his forces so that the Soviets are allowed time to reestablish an integrated defense."
The description of First Squadrons attack. It involves M-100 Gunships, preceded by recon and electronic warfare drones and potentially "deep electronic warfare support" from the US Air Force.
"First Squadron, with fourteen operational M-100s of sixteen authorized... During the passage of lines, all Soviet air defense systems will be under orders not to engage unless specifically attacked. Of course, we know that some of them may not get the word, so, on a practical level it means we will risk going with only our passive defense up until we cross the line of departure. There is no point in giving our enemies advance warning that something is coming their way. In any case, your scout drones will be immediately preceded by unmanned light cavalry jammers from the Tenth Cav forward detachment. In-depth electronic warfare support- we're talking very deep- has been laid on by the Air Force."
"Your target-acquisition systems are initially going to pick up mostly junk that belongs to the rebel forces. And there may even be roving pockets of Soviets out there who have been cut off. We can't sort them out, since their equipment is essentially identical- and, anyways, we're after the Japanese-built gear."
...
"First, the most critical target- the Japanese maintenance facilities and the forward marshaling yards. I think that is what the old American Army called a 'target-rich environment.' There are over a thousand of the latest Japanese fighting systems on the ground at Karaganda, awaiting greater or lesser repairs. The volume- is irreplaceable. Further, the maintenance facility itself is a critical node. The Iranians- and the Arabs- are breaking their gear like toys. And if the Japanese can't repair that stuff, it's useless."
...
"Your secondary target at Ruby is the assembly and reconstitution area for the III Iranian Corps. They've pulled off-line to reorganize while the rebels carry the fighting northward. And they're grown overconfident. The sin of pride. The Iranians are just sitting there. You've seen the imagery. Barely an attempt at camouflage, no meaningful dispersion. They are so sure that the Soviets cannot touch them any longer.
Heifitz switched back to the midsize operations map. "Anticipated time on station vicinity Ruby is twenty minutes for either target area."
Squadron One, with fourteen M-100's is expected to engage roughly a thousand vehicles at assembly or repair yards in twenty minutes.
As for possible threats...
"You have a long flight ahead of you, so you must not become distracted by insignificant targets of opportunity. You're on picket duty in case the Japanese have a surprise up their sleeve and get some sort of interceptors up into the air fast. You will be the first element across the line of departure, and the last to close."
Murphy's Law Strikes Regarding M-100 Readiness.
"Any chance of getting those two down systems back up before you lift off?" Taylor asked the squadron commander.
"Doesn't look good. The motor officer's working on one of them right now. That's a straightforward hydraulics problem, but we're missing a part."
Taylor looked at Martinez.
"Shortage item, sir," the supply officer said. "We're authorized three on PLL, but we've already used them. It's turning out to be another bug they haven't gotten out of the system. We're trying to get an emergency issue from the States, but I can't even promise you the manufacturer's got spares. They may have to strip them from the new birds coming off the line."
...
"How bad is Bravo one-four," Taylor asked, "really?"
Martinez looked at him earnestly. "Sir, she's not going to be back up in time for this war. The software problem's bad. It's depot-level maintenance."
Taylor turned to Tercus, the First Squadron commander. "Bud," he said, "I'm going to do a job on you. Sorry." Then he turned back to Martinez. "Manny, I want you to write off Bravo one-four. Combat loss. Then strip it for every damned part you're short. Get every bird up that you can in all three squadrons."
Briefing of the Second Squadron, sixteen M-100's.
"The Iranians and the rebels have clusterfucked themselves around in there. They're probably massing for the big push into Western Siberia, to the northwest of the Kokchetav sector. A successful attack on Diamond takes the pressure off the seam between the two Soviet armies just to the north and turns the tables by splitting the enemy's front in two. Gut the forces near Tselinograd, and the breakthrough area to the northwest starts to look extremely vulnerable.
Hefitz traced along the continuation of Second Squadron's route. "Following a thirty-minute action on a broad front at Diamond, Second Squadron continues the attack along axis White-two to Objective Sapphire, engaging significant targets of opportunity en route. Sapphire wraps around Arkalyk- here- where the Japanese have another forward maintenance site with extensive yards. Clear?"
Third Squadron Briefing.
"Third Squadron's mission is simply the destruction of enemy forces along the corridor formed by Engagement Area Emerald. Then you're on your own. Emerald stretches roughly from Kokchetav to Atbasar. Your navigational aids will automatically key when you hit the initial boundary. Within the engagement area, any military system is fair game. Your mission is extensive destruction of enemy follow-on and supporting forces in the rear of the breakthrough sector. The single specified target is here, at Atbasar. The headquarters of the I Iranian Corps is set into an excavation site just outside town. The coordinates have been programmed in for Charlie Troop, and for Bravo, as a backup. The S-2 suspects this site doubles as a Japanese forward command-and-control site, so make sure you clean it out thoroughly."
Third Squadron mission, described as the easiest one, is the destruction of a Corps level Iranian mechanized formation including its headquarters.
The briefing then touches on the regiments heavy artillery battalion and describes it as both dual use, meaning the secondary use is anti-air and that it will be employed in case the M-100s are pursued by enemy forces to the new assembly areas they will land at after executing the mission.
"Fire support," Heifitz continued. "The regiment's dual-purpose artillery battalion will be employed in its air defense mode. The mobile operations envisioned by the plan will be too swiftly paced for heavy-artillery accompaniment. Thus, we have decided to move the regimental artillery directly to the follow-on assembly areas, by routes to the rear of the area of contact. One battery will deploy to each site- Platinum, Silver, and Gold. You will be prepared to intercept any hostiles on the tail of our squadrons as they close."
Despite supply issues and bugs, the M-100s readiness rate is revealed.
"That leaves us with a present strength of forty-five operational systems of fifty assigned. There is a possibility that we'll be able to get one more of Third Squadron's birds up by lift-off time, but I can't guarantee it."
Another supply and teething problem with the M-100 is discussed.
"Manny, I'm one hell of a lot more concerned about the problem with the calibrators. What's going on there?"
...
"Sir," Martinez said, "as you know, the regiment's authorized four calibrators for the electromagnetic gun systems on the M-100s. Due to deficiencies, the first issue was recalled in July, but so far we've only received two of the A2-variant replacements. We deployed with both of these. Now one of them has gone down. The motor officer's been working on it personally, and we've got an emergency requisition in to the States. But it looks like we may only have a single calibrator to rate between the squadrons at the follow-on assembly areas.
"And there's no way the recalibration can be done manually?" Taylor asked.
"No sir. The system's far too complex. It's not just a matter of sights and gun tube like in the old days- we've got to reset the control electronics, and it takes the recalibration computer to do that."
In explaining the issue with the shortage of 'Calibrators' the Supply Officer and Regimental Commander reveal more details on the electromagnetic gun on the M-100 itself.
"Based on range firings, what's the maximum number of targets a system can engage before degradation becomes noticeable- and at what point is that gun nothing more than an explosive noisemaker?"
Martinez thought. He knew that range firing was not as stressful as combat. But Taylor knew that too.
"Sir, technically speaking, degradation begins with the first round downrange. But it only becomes pronounced after the expulsion of approximately three hundred to four hundred projectiles. Every system is a little bit different. They almost seem to have personalities. The best birds might still be hitting at a fifty percent kill rate out to six hundred rounds. But you can't count on it."
Taylor turned to address the assembly. "I'm sure most of you feel fat, dumb, and happy with these numbers. Sounds like a lot of killing power. But my gut feeling is that we're going to go through ammo at a far higher rate than either the contractors or Fort Leavenworth figured." Taylor nodded to himself. "Best system in the world. But even if it works exactly as advertised gentlemen, those neat little war games back at the Combined Arms Center don't factor in the redundant kills, inexplicable misses, the confusion, and the just plain fucked-up nature of combat. We've got a big mission, spread out over a geographically vast area. And I do not expect that it will be our only mission. So, what it means to me, is that the system commanders have to closely monitor their automatic acquisition system to make sure we're getting the kind of kills we want- and that we're not all killing the same range car a couple of dozen times. You can use technology, you can even believe in it- but, in the end, you can't trust it." Taylor stared out coldly from under his ravaged brow. "Keep your eyes open out there. And think."
TLDR the briefing has three squadrons with a combined total of forty five or so M-100s (at a 95% readiness rate) which are basically fancy future helicopter gunships with railguns as their main weapon going out to engage several mechanized Corps containing thousands of the latest Japanese Combat Vehicles across a thousand plus kilometer long front in Western Siberia in their inaugural combat mission. And engagement times on site being measured in periods of time upwards of half an hour in most cases. I'm sure everything will go fine! Murica!
Last edited:
I'm sorry, but reading these excerpts is just making me laugh my arse off.
It's basically "Americans and Russians now have room temperature IQ's to make the plot work, but here's a few bones thrown at them so it can't be called completely biased", "Japan Stronk!", and "Hey, let's all devolve back into being Imperial Japanese".
Just...
It's basically "Americans and Russians now have room temperature IQ's to make the plot work, but here's a few bones thrown at them so it can't be called completely biased", "Japan Stronk!", and "Hey, let's all devolve back into being Imperial Japanese".
Just...
Chapter Fourteen: Night of November 2-3, 2020
Chapter Thirteen:
South of Petropavlovsk
2nd November, 2020
Babryshkin's depleted brigade reaches Soviet lines and he summarizes the past few weeks.
Babryshkin's mind searched through the scenes of the past weeks. A newsreel, eccentrically edited, played at a desperate speed.The first night the indigenous garrison stationed side by side with his own had almost overrun the barracks and motor parks of Babryshkin's unit. Men fought in the dark with pocket knives and their fists against rifles. All of the uniforms were the same in the dark. The fires spread. Then came the armored drive into the heart of the city to try to rescue the local headquarters staff, only to find them butchered. The repeated attempts to organize a defense were too late. The enemy was forever on your flank or behind you. He remembered the terrible enemy gunships, and the wounded lost in the swirling confusion, the murdered civilians whose numbers would never be figured exactly now. He recalled the sudden death of the last refugees,
Chapter Fourteen:
Night of November 2-3, 2020
Things going wrong pre-deployment with the US Air Force and their ultrasophisticated White Light Electronic Warfare Aircraft. Also provides insight into America's possible electronic warfare capabilities on a more strategic and operational scale.
The United States had been scheduled to fly a strategic jamming mission along the old prerebellion Soviet-Iranian border, wiping out enemy communications over tens of thousands of square kilometers. But the ultrasophisticated, savegely expensive White Light aircraft remained hangar-bound, grounded by severe weather at their home base in Montana. Taylor's regiment and the electronic warfare support elements from the Tenth Cavalry would be able to isolate the operational battlefield wit hthe jamming gear available in-theater, but the enemy would retain his strategic and high-end oeprational communications capability. An important, if not absolutely vital, part of the surprise blow would not be delivered.
Also the human factor playing a part in things going wrong.
Locally, a lieutenant in the Third Squadron had disobeyed the order to lift off with his automatic systems in control. Hotdogging for his crew, he had attempted a manual lift-off in the darkness and had flown his M-100 into mercifully inert power lines. Thanks to the safety features built into the M-100, the lieutenant and his entire crew had survived the crash with only some heavy bruising, some missing teeth, and one broken arm. But the regiment had been robbed of another precious system before the battle had even begun.
Taylor would not receive the promised support of his nation's air force, and he had lost one of his war machines to the antics of a uniformed child. But his regiment was largely in the air- forty-six M-100s had lifted off, thanks to the last-minute achievements of Manny Martinez and the regimental and squadron motor officers. The electronic warfare birds from the Tenth Cav were on station. And there was still no sign that the enemy had discovered the American presence. In less than ten minutes, the First Squadron would cross the line of departure, followed by the Second Squadron, then by the Third Squadron. So far, the untried war machines seemed to be working just fine, and their electronic suites enriched and thickened the darkness through which they would pass to strike their enemies.
Details on the Command Variant of the M-100 and more details on the advanced nature of the American battlefield electronics and computers, sensors, and communications.
Where the standard M-100s had a compartment for a light squad of dragoons equipped for dismounted fighting, the command-variant ships had been outfitted with a chamber crammed with the latest miniaturized communications and information-processing systems. The compartment was environmentally controlled and stabilized. Entering it, you were treated to a spectacle of colored lights from nine monitor screens of various sizes displaying everything from real-time images of the battlefield relayed from space reconnaissance systems to graphic depictions, in glowing colors, of the war in the electromagnetic spectrum... Even the first-level secrets of life and death became available here, in the displays of enemy systems targeted, of friendly systems lost, of available ammunition and deadly energy sources. The commander, with his skeletal staff, could use radar imagery to erase darkness, clouds, or fog, allowing him a god's-eye view that penetrated the witch's sabbath of the battlefield. The commander could monitor the sectors in which his subordinates fought with greater ease than a civilian could watch television. Changes in angle, in levels of magnification, in enhanced color contrasts, and the visual evocation of waves of energy, it was all tehre lurking under a button or switch. The voice of God had its source here too. Alternative-use later systems allowed instantaneous encrypted communications with similarly equipped stations anywhere in the world, and huge volumes of data could be entered into or transmitted from the M-100s standard on-board computers in the middle of combat.
He then details the target acquisition gear.
The on-board and external integrated target-acquisition systems were so capable and versatile that, during training flights, playful crews used them to track small game on the prairie from a distance of dozens of kilometers. The miniaturized "brains" were so powerful and so crammed with both military and general knowledge that they could be ordered to fuse data from all available reconnaissance systems in order to search for any parameter of target- such as the pinpoint location of each blue 2015 Ford on the highways of North America in which two adult occupants were riding and the fuel tanks were less than half full. The microsecond soft of capabilities were so powerful that none of the experts in the regiment had been able to enter a problem which could stump the system. You could charge the target-acquisition system to locate distant plantations of yellow roses- or every enemy combat vehicle with a bent right front fender. The system was so swift that human beings simply could not handle the target volume without extensive automated support and the M-100 was designed to fight on full automatic, relying on its human masters for key decisions, for overall guidance, for setting or revising priorities, and for defining operational parameters. every on-board system could be employed under manual control, if necessary, but but such a reduction in the system's overall capabilities would only be accepted according to draft doctrine, in the most exceptional circumstances. Technically, this most potent-air-land warfare machine ever built had the capability to carry on the fight indefinitely even after its human crew had perished. Taylor once overhead a young pilot joke that hte M-100 made every pilot a general. What the pilot had menat was that the M-100 let every man who sat atits controls play God without getting his hands dirty.
Taylor was willing to admit that he himself could not fully imagine all of the implications this untried system might have for the battlefield. But he was certain of one thing, despite the technological wonders under the modern warrior's hand, that hand would manage to grow very dirty indeed.
The Americans feel they may have achieved surprise but are still operating on displacing their regiment after every engagement, worried the Japanese will detect their takeoffs.
"Not a sign, sir. No increase in comms. No enhanced air defense readiness. No interceptors up. No ground force dispersal. It's almost too good to be true."
Taylor wiped his hand across hsi jaw, his lips. "i'm concerned about Manny. The Japs must've picked ups up coming out of the industiral park. He needs to get his ass out of there."
Meredith smiled. "Manny's a big boy. He'll be out of there on schedule. Anyway, there isn't even the slightest indication that hte enemy has detected anything. We're in better shape that I could've hoped, sir."
Another mention of 'The Scrambler' from the Americans has drifted down. A source in Washington informs the Regiments Intelligence Officer of it.
"Just keep your eyes open. There's something funny going on. The puzzle's still missing some pieces."
"What kind of pieces? Intel?"
"I don't know exactly. You know how it is. You just get wind of things. The big boys here have a secret. WE've got this new priority intelligence requirement, it came out of nowhere. And suddenly it's number one on the charts. Something about a Scrambler."
Meredith thought for a moment. "Doesn't mean shit to me. What's a Scrambler?"
"Maybe some kind of crypto stuff. I don't know. They don't know. That's the whole point. The boys two levels above me are jumping throug their asses trying to figure it out."
"Nothing else?" Merry asked. "No context?" He did not much care for the appearance of sudden mysteries when the bullets were about to start flying.
"Listen, Merry. I got to go. I'm not supposed to be using this feed. You take care. Out."
And the voice was gone.
Despite no Air Force EW Support, the Tenth Cavalry's Electronic Warfare Birds Are Going Into Action First.
"Have a look at this, sir," he said to Taylor. "That's the command communications infrastructure in our area of operations. Just wait until the aero-jammers from the Tenth Cav hit them. They won't even be able to call out for a pizza."
...
"Tenth Cav's already kicking ass," Meredith said. "The red dots indicate communications centers the heavy jammers have already leeched and physically destroyed. If those stations want to talk, they're going to have to wait until morning and send smoke signals. The yellow dots are the well-shielded comms nodes or those at our range margins. We can't actually destroy those, but they won't be able to communicate as long as the Tenth Cav stays in the air."
"Good," Taylor said coldly. "Good. Let those bastards feel what it's like to be on the receiving end."
In a manner for which he could not account, Meredith suddenly saw the display through Taylor's eyes. And he knew that the old man was looking beyond the Iranian or Arab or rebel soldiers who suddenly found themselves powerless to share their knowledge with one another, looking behind them to the Japanese. Out there. Somewhere.
The Electronic Warfare Jamming Is Noted by Japanese Command as Likely Bad Weather.
"Sir," Takahara responded. "According to the last reports we received, the Iranian and rebel breakthrough at Kokchetav is meeting only negligible resistance. No change to the situation in the Kuban. We're having more difficulty then usual in reaching our forward stations in northern Kazakhstan.- but I've already sent a runner to wake the chief of communications. I expect to have the problem corrected shortly."
"How long have the communications been down?" Noburu asked, annoyed.
"Half an hour, sir."
"Half an hour. Not unprecedented. But Noburu was unusually on edge. Hung-over with dreams.
"What's the weather like in central Asia?"
There was a pause. Noburu could visualize Takahara straining to see the weather charts, or perhaps frantically querying from the nearest workstation.
"Warm front moving in"- the voice came back. "It's already snowing heavily at Karaganda, sir."
"The famous Russian winter," Noburu mused. "Well perhaps the communications problem is merely due to atmospherics."
"Yes, sir." Or a combination of factors. Some of the headquarters may be using the cover of darkness to relocate in order to keep pace with the breakthrough."
The explanation sounded rational enough. But something was gnawing at Noburu, something not yet clear enough to put into words. "Takahara," he said, "if the chief of communications cannot solve the problem, I want to be awakened."
"Sir."
"Modern armies, without communications-."
"Sir. The problem will be corrected. Sir."
The Japanese General reflects on 'The Scrambler' system again.
Air Force Colonel Noguchi. In charge of the Scramblers. The man was a terrible nuistance, staging one readiness test after another, flying dry missions. Aching to unleash the horrible, horrible toys with which Tokyo had entrusted him. Noburu understood, of course. You could not given a military man a weapon without inciting in him a desire to use it. Just to see.
But Noburu was determined that he would finish this business without resort to Noguchi and the monstrous devices. Let the colonel fly his heart out behind friendly lines. Noburu was not going to give him the chance to make history.
...
All he could do was try to dress it all in a few rags of decency.
Colonel Noguchi was an excellent officer. Exactly the sort Tokyo sought out for promotion these days: a heartfelt technical master. Starving for accomplishment, for glory. Noburu had decided that such men needed to be saved from themselves. And the world needed to be saved, as well.
Noburu thought briefly of his enemies. Surely they hated him. Even if they did not know the least about him, they hated him. They hated him even if he had no name, no face for them. They hated him. And rightly so. Yet, they would never know how much he had spared them.
...
"Are you still there, Takahara?"
"Sir."
"Review Colonel Noguchi's flight plan. I don't want his systems anywhere near the combat zone."
The American Regimental Commander Again Worries About Japanese Recon Systems, Including Their Space Based Ones. Also praise for the Soviet Camouflage and Deception Measures.
"As soon as we get three-eight back up. We're all ready to go, except for that. I've got the operational calibrator on the WIG with me. I'll oversee its displacement. We're in good shape. When the squadrons close on their follow on sites, we'll be waiting for them. Over."
"Manny," Taylor's voice came earnestly over the secure net, "don't fuck around. I know you're trying to do the right thing. But, if you can't get three-eight back up, just blow it in place. I want every last trace of an American presence out of there by dawn. We've got to keep the bad guys guessing. And I don't want to do anything to compromise the Russian security plan. Those guys have done a good job. Besides, some goddamned Jap space system might have picked us up moving out of there. You need to get moving. Over."
"Roger. We're almost done." Martinez knew in his heart that they could get three-eight into good enough shape to follow the WIG under its own power. he intended to bring Taylor the M-100 as a prize, to show that the support troops, too, could do their part. "See you at Platinum."
South of Petropavlovsk
2nd November, 2020
Babryshkin's depleted brigade reaches Soviet lines and he summarizes the past few weeks.
Babryshkin's mind searched through the scenes of the past weeks. A newsreel, eccentrically edited, played at a desperate speed.The first night the indigenous garrison stationed side by side with his own had almost overrun the barracks and motor parks of Babryshkin's unit. Men fought in the dark with pocket knives and their fists against rifles. All of the uniforms were the same in the dark. The fires spread. Then came the armored drive into the heart of the city to try to rescue the local headquarters staff, only to find them butchered. The repeated attempts to organize a defense were too late. The enemy was forever on your flank or behind you. He remembered the terrible enemy gunships, and the wounded lost in the swirling confusion, the murdered civilians whose numbers would never be figured exactly now. He recalled the sudden death of the last refugees,
Chapter Fourteen:
Night of November 2-3, 2020
Things going wrong pre-deployment with the US Air Force and their ultrasophisticated White Light Electronic Warfare Aircraft. Also provides insight into America's possible electronic warfare capabilities on a more strategic and operational scale.
The United States had been scheduled to fly a strategic jamming mission along the old prerebellion Soviet-Iranian border, wiping out enemy communications over tens of thousands of square kilometers. But the ultrasophisticated, savegely expensive White Light aircraft remained hangar-bound, grounded by severe weather at their home base in Montana. Taylor's regiment and the electronic warfare support elements from the Tenth Cavalry would be able to isolate the operational battlefield wit hthe jamming gear available in-theater, but the enemy would retain his strategic and high-end oeprational communications capability. An important, if not absolutely vital, part of the surprise blow would not be delivered.
Also the human factor playing a part in things going wrong.
Locally, a lieutenant in the Third Squadron had disobeyed the order to lift off with his automatic systems in control. Hotdogging for his crew, he had attempted a manual lift-off in the darkness and had flown his M-100 into mercifully inert power lines. Thanks to the safety features built into the M-100, the lieutenant and his entire crew had survived the crash with only some heavy bruising, some missing teeth, and one broken arm. But the regiment had been robbed of another precious system before the battle had even begun.
Taylor would not receive the promised support of his nation's air force, and he had lost one of his war machines to the antics of a uniformed child. But his regiment was largely in the air- forty-six M-100s had lifted off, thanks to the last-minute achievements of Manny Martinez and the regimental and squadron motor officers. The electronic warfare birds from the Tenth Cav were on station. And there was still no sign that the enemy had discovered the American presence. In less than ten minutes, the First Squadron would cross the line of departure, followed by the Second Squadron, then by the Third Squadron. So far, the untried war machines seemed to be working just fine, and their electronic suites enriched and thickened the darkness through which they would pass to strike their enemies.
Details on the Command Variant of the M-100 and more details on the advanced nature of the American battlefield electronics and computers, sensors, and communications.
Where the standard M-100s had a compartment for a light squad of dragoons equipped for dismounted fighting, the command-variant ships had been outfitted with a chamber crammed with the latest miniaturized communications and information-processing systems. The compartment was environmentally controlled and stabilized. Entering it, you were treated to a spectacle of colored lights from nine monitor screens of various sizes displaying everything from real-time images of the battlefield relayed from space reconnaissance systems to graphic depictions, in glowing colors, of the war in the electromagnetic spectrum... Even the first-level secrets of life and death became available here, in the displays of enemy systems targeted, of friendly systems lost, of available ammunition and deadly energy sources. The commander, with his skeletal staff, could use radar imagery to erase darkness, clouds, or fog, allowing him a god's-eye view that penetrated the witch's sabbath of the battlefield. The commander could monitor the sectors in which his subordinates fought with greater ease than a civilian could watch television. Changes in angle, in levels of magnification, in enhanced color contrasts, and the visual evocation of waves of energy, it was all tehre lurking under a button or switch. The voice of God had its source here too. Alternative-use later systems allowed instantaneous encrypted communications with similarly equipped stations anywhere in the world, and huge volumes of data could be entered into or transmitted from the M-100s standard on-board computers in the middle of combat.
He then details the target acquisition gear.
The on-board and external integrated target-acquisition systems were so capable and versatile that, during training flights, playful crews used them to track small game on the prairie from a distance of dozens of kilometers. The miniaturized "brains" were so powerful and so crammed with both military and general knowledge that they could be ordered to fuse data from all available reconnaissance systems in order to search for any parameter of target- such as the pinpoint location of each blue 2015 Ford on the highways of North America in which two adult occupants were riding and the fuel tanks were less than half full. The microsecond soft of capabilities were so powerful that none of the experts in the regiment had been able to enter a problem which could stump the system. You could charge the target-acquisition system to locate distant plantations of yellow roses- or every enemy combat vehicle with a bent right front fender. The system was so swift that human beings simply could not handle the target volume without extensive automated support and the M-100 was designed to fight on full automatic, relying on its human masters for key decisions, for overall guidance, for setting or revising priorities, and for defining operational parameters. every on-board system could be employed under manual control, if necessary, but but such a reduction in the system's overall capabilities would only be accepted according to draft doctrine, in the most exceptional circumstances. Technically, this most potent-air-land warfare machine ever built had the capability to carry on the fight indefinitely even after its human crew had perished. Taylor once overhead a young pilot joke that hte M-100 made every pilot a general. What the pilot had menat was that the M-100 let every man who sat atits controls play God without getting his hands dirty.
Taylor was willing to admit that he himself could not fully imagine all of the implications this untried system might have for the battlefield. But he was certain of one thing, despite the technological wonders under the modern warrior's hand, that hand would manage to grow very dirty indeed.
The Americans feel they may have achieved surprise but are still operating on displacing their regiment after every engagement, worried the Japanese will detect their takeoffs.
"Not a sign, sir. No increase in comms. No enhanced air defense readiness. No interceptors up. No ground force dispersal. It's almost too good to be true."
Taylor wiped his hand across hsi jaw, his lips. "i'm concerned about Manny. The Japs must've picked ups up coming out of the industiral park. He needs to get his ass out of there."
Meredith smiled. "Manny's a big boy. He'll be out of there on schedule. Anyway, there isn't even the slightest indication that hte enemy has detected anything. We're in better shape that I could've hoped, sir."
Another mention of 'The Scrambler' from the Americans has drifted down. A source in Washington informs the Regiments Intelligence Officer of it.
"Just keep your eyes open. There's something funny going on. The puzzle's still missing some pieces."
"What kind of pieces? Intel?"
"I don't know exactly. You know how it is. You just get wind of things. The big boys here have a secret. WE've got this new priority intelligence requirement, it came out of nowhere. And suddenly it's number one on the charts. Something about a Scrambler."
Meredith thought for a moment. "Doesn't mean shit to me. What's a Scrambler?"
"Maybe some kind of crypto stuff. I don't know. They don't know. That's the whole point. The boys two levels above me are jumping throug their asses trying to figure it out."
"Nothing else?" Merry asked. "No context?" He did not much care for the appearance of sudden mysteries when the bullets were about to start flying.
"Listen, Merry. I got to go. I'm not supposed to be using this feed. You take care. Out."
And the voice was gone.
Despite no Air Force EW Support, the Tenth Cavalry's Electronic Warfare Birds Are Going Into Action First.
"Have a look at this, sir," he said to Taylor. "That's the command communications infrastructure in our area of operations. Just wait until the aero-jammers from the Tenth Cav hit them. They won't even be able to call out for a pizza."
...
"Tenth Cav's already kicking ass," Meredith said. "The red dots indicate communications centers the heavy jammers have already leeched and physically destroyed. If those stations want to talk, they're going to have to wait until morning and send smoke signals. The yellow dots are the well-shielded comms nodes or those at our range margins. We can't actually destroy those, but they won't be able to communicate as long as the Tenth Cav stays in the air."
"Good," Taylor said coldly. "Good. Let those bastards feel what it's like to be on the receiving end."
In a manner for which he could not account, Meredith suddenly saw the display through Taylor's eyes. And he knew that the old man was looking beyond the Iranian or Arab or rebel soldiers who suddenly found themselves powerless to share their knowledge with one another, looking behind them to the Japanese. Out there. Somewhere.
The Electronic Warfare Jamming Is Noted by Japanese Command as Likely Bad Weather.
"Sir," Takahara responded. "According to the last reports we received, the Iranian and rebel breakthrough at Kokchetav is meeting only negligible resistance. No change to the situation in the Kuban. We're having more difficulty then usual in reaching our forward stations in northern Kazakhstan.- but I've already sent a runner to wake the chief of communications. I expect to have the problem corrected shortly."
"How long have the communications been down?" Noburu asked, annoyed.
"Half an hour, sir."
"Half an hour. Not unprecedented. But Noburu was unusually on edge. Hung-over with dreams.
"What's the weather like in central Asia?"
There was a pause. Noburu could visualize Takahara straining to see the weather charts, or perhaps frantically querying from the nearest workstation.
"Warm front moving in"- the voice came back. "It's already snowing heavily at Karaganda, sir."
"The famous Russian winter," Noburu mused. "Well perhaps the communications problem is merely due to atmospherics."
"Yes, sir." Or a combination of factors. Some of the headquarters may be using the cover of darkness to relocate in order to keep pace with the breakthrough."
The explanation sounded rational enough. But something was gnawing at Noburu, something not yet clear enough to put into words. "Takahara," he said, "if the chief of communications cannot solve the problem, I want to be awakened."
"Sir."
"Modern armies, without communications-."
"Sir. The problem will be corrected. Sir."
The Japanese General reflects on 'The Scrambler' system again.
Air Force Colonel Noguchi. In charge of the Scramblers. The man was a terrible nuistance, staging one readiness test after another, flying dry missions. Aching to unleash the horrible, horrible toys with which Tokyo had entrusted him. Noburu understood, of course. You could not given a military man a weapon without inciting in him a desire to use it. Just to see.
But Noburu was determined that he would finish this business without resort to Noguchi and the monstrous devices. Let the colonel fly his heart out behind friendly lines. Noburu was not going to give him the chance to make history.
...
All he could do was try to dress it all in a few rags of decency.
Colonel Noguchi was an excellent officer. Exactly the sort Tokyo sought out for promotion these days: a heartfelt technical master. Starving for accomplishment, for glory. Noburu had decided that such men needed to be saved from themselves. And the world needed to be saved, as well.
Noburu thought briefly of his enemies. Surely they hated him. Even if they did not know the least about him, they hated him. They hated him even if he had no name, no face for them. They hated him. And rightly so. Yet, they would never know how much he had spared them.
...
"Are you still there, Takahara?"
"Sir."
"Review Colonel Noguchi's flight plan. I don't want his systems anywhere near the combat zone."
The American Regimental Commander Again Worries About Japanese Recon Systems, Including Their Space Based Ones. Also praise for the Soviet Camouflage and Deception Measures.
"As soon as we get three-eight back up. We're all ready to go, except for that. I've got the operational calibrator on the WIG with me. I'll oversee its displacement. We're in good shape. When the squadrons close on their follow on sites, we'll be waiting for them. Over."
"Manny," Taylor's voice came earnestly over the secure net, "don't fuck around. I know you're trying to do the right thing. But, if you can't get three-eight back up, just blow it in place. I want every last trace of an American presence out of there by dawn. We've got to keep the bad guys guessing. And I don't want to do anything to compromise the Russian security plan. Those guys have done a good job. Besides, some goddamned Jap space system might have picked us up moving out of there. You need to get moving. Over."
"Roger. We're almost done." Martinez knew in his heart that they could get three-eight into good enough shape to follow the WIG under its own power. he intended to bring Taylor the M-100 as a prize, to show that the support troops, too, could do their part. "See you at Platinum."
Chapter Fifteen: Early Morning Hours 3rd November, 2020
Chapter Fifteen:
Early Morning Hours
3rd November, 2020
Starts with a status check including the reveal of more M-100 capabilities as they fly through a snowstorm.
"Weapon suite?"
"Green."
"Target acquisition suite?"
"Green."
"Go to environments check."
"Roger," the copilot said.
...
The environments check took them through the range of visual "environments" in which they could choose to fight. The forward windscreen also served as monitors. The first test simply allowed the crew to look out through the transparent composite material the way a man looked through a window. Outside, the night raced with snow, the big flakes hurrying toward the aircraft at a dizzying speed.
"Better and better," the copilot remarked. The storm meant that even old-fashioned visually aimed systems on the ground would have added difficulty spotting the attackers.
"Go to radar digital," Heifetz said.
The copilot touched his panel, and the night and the rushing snow disappeared. The big windscreen filled with a sharp image of the terrain over which they were flying as though it were the middle of a perfectly clear day.
...
Heifetz briefly admired the perfection of the radar image before him. The view had the hyperreality of an especially good photograph, except this picture moved with the aircraft, following the barren plains gone white under the snow and sudden gashes and hills of waste that marked the open pit mines scarring the landscape. Then he said.
"Go to enhanced thermal."
The copilot obliged. The windows refilled, this time with heat sources highlighted over a backdrop of radar imagery.
"Target sort," Heifetz directed.
Immediately, each of the heat sources that the on-board computer had identified as a military target showed red. Hundreds of targets, near and far, filled the screen, as though the display had developed a case of measles. Below each target, numbers showed in shifting colors selected by the computer to contrast with the landscape. These were the attack priorities assigned by the computer. As the M-100 moved across the landscape, the numbers shifted, as new potential targets were acquired and others fell behind.
...
"Go to composite," Heifetz said.
The next image to fill the screen resembled the "daytime" digital image, with targets added as points of light. This was a computer-built image exploiting all on-board systems plus input from space systems and a programmed memory base. In an environment soaked with electronic interference, or where radar countermeasures buffeted a single system, the computer reasoned around the interference, filling in any gaps in real-time information from other sources. The result was a constantly clear pure-light image of the battlefield. Further, if a particular target held special interest for the crew, they had only to point at it with a flight glove and the magnified image and all pertinent information appeared on a monitor mounted just below the windscreen.
M-100s then activate their electronic warfare systems and details their potential effect on enemy radar and acquisition system, up to and including piggybacking signals and overwhelming and destroy electronics.
"Jammers hot," the copilot said. "Full active countermeasures to auto control."
There was no change in the sharp image that filled the M-100's windscreen. But Heifetz imagined that he could feel the electronic flood coursing out over the landscape. The simple stealth capabilities and passive spoofers had hidden the systems on their approach to the objectives area. Now the attack electronics would overwhelm any known radar or acquisition systems. Enemy operators might see nothing but fuzz on their monitors, or they might register thousands of mock images amid which the First Squadron's birds would be hidden. The jammers even had the capability to overload and physically destroy certain types of enemy collectors. The latest technology allowed powerful jamming signals to "embrace" enemy communications, piggybacking on them until they arrived at and burned out the receiving-end electronics. It was a war of invisible fires, weighed in microseconds.
The M-100s finally engage the enemy at beyond visual range.
"Shooters to full green."
No sooner had the copilot touched the forward controls than Heifetz felt a slight pulsing in the M-100. The high velocity gun had already found its priority targets. The feel under Heifetz's rump was of blood pulsing from an artery. The stabilization system on the M-100 was superb, but the force of the supergun was such that it could not all be absorbed. Slowly, after hundreds of shots, it would lose accuracy and need to be recalibrated.
But that was in the future. Right now, the gun was automatically attacking distant targets that remained beyond the reach of the human eye.
The visual display blinked here and there where targets had already been stricken. Dozens of successful strikes registered simply from the fires of the company with which Heifetz was riding.
...
Heifetz glanced down at the master kill tally that registered how many effective strikes the squadron had managed. Barely a minute into the action, the number constantly increasing- was approaching two hundred kills. His own system had taken out fourteen, no fifteen- sixteen enemy systems.
...
The counter showed that the brilliant machine in which Heifetz was galloping through the sky had already destroyed thirty-seven high-priority combat systems.
Make that thirty-eight.
For the first time in years, David Heifetz found himself grinning like a child.
Perspective from the Middle Eastern Radar Operators in the wake of the electronic warfare assets being deployed.
Even when you humbled yourself to work like the lowest of laborers to care for the machine, it failed you.
Ali looked at the screen in despair and rising anger. The night had been quiet. There were no Russian airplanes or helicopters in the sky. There had been fewer and fewer over the past few weeks, and now the skies belonged entirely to his own kind.
But, without warning, the screen set into his console had washed with light. According to the Japanese instructors, such an aberration was impossible. Now the treacherous screen registered thousands of elusive images, each one of which purported to be an enemy aircraft of some sort. Such a thing was impossible. No sky could ever be so crowded. Anyways, the Russians had few aircraft left. The machine was simply lying.
Ali stood up in disgust and turned away from the useless piece of devilry. He stepped through the gangway into the next cell, where his friends Hasan and Nafik were also working into the late shift.
"God is great," Ali said, greeting his friends. "My machine doesn't work tonight."
"Truly, God is great," Hassan responded. "You can see that our Japanese machines do not work properly, either. The headphones merely make a painful noise."
"The Japanese are devils," Nafik muttered.
Perspective from a Japanese Captain Who Works a Repair Yard for the Japanese Combat Vehicles that are in disrepair.
The Japanese equipment that had been provided to the Iranians was the best in the world- the most effective and reliable. Easy to operate and maintain, it required willful misuse to degrade its performance. It was, in fact, so simple to operate most of the combat systems that even the Iranians had been able to employ them effectively in combat.
The colossal repair effort had long since overrun its estimated costs. For want of a bit of lubrication or simple cleaning, major automative and electronic assemblies were destroyed. Outrageously expensive components required complete replacement rather than the anticipated repairs.
Explosions Wake the Japanese Captain Up In the Middle of the Night
Murawa had been dreaming of red leaves and old temple bells. Until suddenly the bells began to ring with a ferocity that hurled him out of his repose. He spent a long moment sitting with his hands clapped over his ears in a state of thorough disorientation.
The noise was of the bells, loud as thunder. Louder than thunder. The walls and flood wobbled, as though the earth had gotten drunk. Earthquake, he thought. Then a nearby explosion shattered all of the glass remaining in the window of his room and an orange-rose light illuminated the spartan quarters.
My God, he realized, we're under attack.
...
The huge noise of bells would not stop. It hurt his ears badly, making his head throb. The noise was so great that it had physical force. The big sound of explosions made sense to him. But not the bells.
The sound of human shouting was puny, barely audible amid the crazy concert of the bells.
...
Outside, heavy snowflakes sailed down from the dark heavens. The white carpet on the ground lay ion total incongruity with the array of bonfires spread across the horizon.
The motor park. His repair yards.
He watched, stunned, as a heavy tank flashed silver-white-gold as if it had been electrified, then jerked backward like a kicked dog. Nearby, another vehicle seemed to crouch into the earth, a beaten animal- until it jumped up and began to blaze.
With each new flash, the enormous bell sound rolled across the landscape.
The bells. His tanks. His precious vehicles. His treasures.
What in-the-name-of-God was going on? What kind of weapons were the Russians using? Where had they even come from?
Another huge tolling noise throbbed through his skull, and he briefly considered the Iranians might have turned on them. But that was impossible. It was premature. And the Iranians could never have managed anything like this.
...
The air around him hissed. At the periphery of his field of vision, dark figures moved through the shadows or silhouetted briefly against a local inferno.
...
His immediate ambition was limited to reaching the communications center. Someone there might have answers. And there were communications means. Other Japanese officers and NCOs. The comms center called to him both as a place of duty and refuge.
...
Everything was on fire. It was the end of the world. There should have been snow. Or mud. But dust had come up from somewhere. Clouds and cyclones of dust, flamboyantly beautiful. The burning world softened and changed colors through the silken clouds.
He began to choke.
The world had slowed down, as if it were giving him time to catch up. As he watched, a tracked troop carrier near the perimeter of the repair yard rose into the sky, shaking itself apart. he could feel the earth trembling beneath his buttocks.
Ever so slowly, dark metal segments fell back to earth, rebounding slightly before coming to rest.
Point of View of the Third Squadron Commander.
Charlie troop was finishing up the turkey shoot outside of Atbasar, and Alpha and Bravo had reformed into an aerial skirmish line that stretched for thirty nautical miles from flank to flank. His squadron alone had accounted for the destruction of, at latest count, two thousand four hundred and fifty-six enemy combat vehicles or prime support rigs, and they had not lost a single M-100. Reno had read his military history, and it seemed to him that his squadron's attack constituted one of the most lopsided victories on record.
...
The regiment's other two squadrons had performed equally well. First Squadron even had a higher kill tally, although it was unfair to count them equally, since First Squadron had been able to run up the numbers by completing the destruction of all the vehicles massed and awaiting repair at the Karaganda yards.
A South African Mercenary Bomber Squadron Under Contract From the Japanese is Approaching the Omsk Industrial Yard Where They Suspected the Russians Were Hiding a Military Force. Shows some capabilities of Japanese aviation assets.
Suddenly, the aircraft leapt up into the darkness, then dropped again, bouncing his stomach towards his throat.
"Sorry about that, Sir. We're entering a bit of broken country. Nasty bit of desert. I can take her up, if you like. Two hundred meters ought to more then do it."
"No. No, continued to fly nap-of-the-earth. We will regard this as a training flight. We shall make it have value."
Zeederberg snapped on his clear-image monitor, inspecting the digitally reconstructed landscape. Barren. Utterly worthless country.
These modern Japanese bombers run afoul of American electronic interference as well however. They can barely communicate between their own formation of aircraft but can communicate with satellites still. Also insight into the capabilities of the Japanese bombers sensors and optics and that the possess jammers of their own.
"I've lost Big Sister. I think we're being jammed."
"What are you talking about?" Zeederberg demanded. He hurriedly tried his communication set.
White noise.
"Any hostiles near our flight path?"
"Nothing registers," the weapons officer responded. "Looks like clear flying."
Probably the damned Iranians, Zeederberg decided. Jamming indiscriminately. "Keep your eyes open," he told the commanders of eth eight other aircraft in his squadron, using a burst of superhigh power. "Minimize transmissions. Move directly for the target area. If we lost contact, each aircraft is responsible for carrying out the attack plan on his own.
The other aircraft acknowledged. It was a bit difficult to hear, but they possessed the best communications gear the Japanese had to give, and they were flying in a comparatively tight formation. The messages could just get through. But communicating with a distant headquarters was out of the question. The jammers, whomever they belonged to, were very powerful.
Zeederberg felt wide awake now, despite the heaviness of the predawn hour. The jamming had gotten his attention. The on-board systems read the interference as broad-based- not specifically aimed at his flight. But you could never be too careful.
The mission was growing a bit more interesting then he had expected.
"Let's go with full countermeasures suites on," he told the copilot. "I want to isolate the target area as soon as we're within jamming range. And then let's do another target readout. See if they've got the digital sat links jammed too."
The copilot selected a low-horizon visual readout of the target area from a triangulation of Japanese reconnaissance satellites. The seam-frequency links still operated perfectly, making it clear that the hostile jamming was directed primarily at ground-force emitters.
At first glance, the imagery of the industrial park looked as dreary and uninteresting as it had the afternoon before when Zeederberg had carried out his mission planning. Warehouses, gangways, mills, derelict fuel tanks.
"Wait," Zeederberg said. He punched a button to half the flow of imagery, sitting up as though he had just spotted a fine game bird. "Well, I'll be damned."
He started at the imagery of the wing-in-ground tactical transport, trying to place it by type. The craft certainly was not of Soviet manufacture. He knew he had seen this type of WIG before, in some journal or systems recognition refresher training.
He had almost missed the ship. It was well camouflaged, with the sort of attenuated webbing that spread itself out from the hidden pockets along the upper fuselage. The kind the Americans had pioneered.
"Christ almighty," Zeederberg said quietly. "That's American. It's bloody American."
There was a dead silence between the two men in the forward cockpit. Then the navigator offered his view through the intercom:
"Perhaps the Russians have decided to buy American."
Zeederberg was hurriedly calculating the time-distance factors remaining between his aircraft and their weapons release point.
"Well," he said slowly, figuring all the while. "they're about to find it a damned poor investment.
The combat debut of the M-100's appears to be decisive. One squadron tallied about 2500 vehicles and heavy equipment rigs destroyed and the other two squadrons did just as good or better, thus meaning a potential 7500 vehicles and other pieces of heavy equipment destroyed by the forty five or so M-100's. Also several up to Corps level repair yards, headquarters, and fuel dumps were also destroyed and it was performed at night in the midst of a snowstorm.
Also the localized broad based electronic jamming by their sister regiments unmanned electronic warfare birds was fairly effective in blinding radar and communications in the area of operations.
The M-100 has multiple vision modes on its windscreen monitors as well, including variations known as 'radar-digital, enhanced thermal, a target sorting one and a composite digital mode.
Early Morning Hours
3rd November, 2020
Starts with a status check including the reveal of more M-100 capabilities as they fly through a snowstorm.
"Weapon suite?"
"Green."
"Target acquisition suite?"
"Green."
"Go to environments check."
"Roger," the copilot said.
...
The environments check took them through the range of visual "environments" in which they could choose to fight. The forward windscreen also served as monitors. The first test simply allowed the crew to look out through the transparent composite material the way a man looked through a window. Outside, the night raced with snow, the big flakes hurrying toward the aircraft at a dizzying speed.
"Better and better," the copilot remarked. The storm meant that even old-fashioned visually aimed systems on the ground would have added difficulty spotting the attackers.
"Go to radar digital," Heifetz said.
The copilot touched his panel, and the night and the rushing snow disappeared. The big windscreen filled with a sharp image of the terrain over which they were flying as though it were the middle of a perfectly clear day.
...
Heifetz briefly admired the perfection of the radar image before him. The view had the hyperreality of an especially good photograph, except this picture moved with the aircraft, following the barren plains gone white under the snow and sudden gashes and hills of waste that marked the open pit mines scarring the landscape. Then he said.
"Go to enhanced thermal."
The copilot obliged. The windows refilled, this time with heat sources highlighted over a backdrop of radar imagery.
"Target sort," Heifetz directed.
Immediately, each of the heat sources that the on-board computer had identified as a military target showed red. Hundreds of targets, near and far, filled the screen, as though the display had developed a case of measles. Below each target, numbers showed in shifting colors selected by the computer to contrast with the landscape. These were the attack priorities assigned by the computer. As the M-100 moved across the landscape, the numbers shifted, as new potential targets were acquired and others fell behind.
...
"Go to composite," Heifetz said.
The next image to fill the screen resembled the "daytime" digital image, with targets added as points of light. This was a computer-built image exploiting all on-board systems plus input from space systems and a programmed memory base. In an environment soaked with electronic interference, or where radar countermeasures buffeted a single system, the computer reasoned around the interference, filling in any gaps in real-time information from other sources. The result was a constantly clear pure-light image of the battlefield. Further, if a particular target held special interest for the crew, they had only to point at it with a flight glove and the magnified image and all pertinent information appeared on a monitor mounted just below the windscreen.
M-100s then activate their electronic warfare systems and details their potential effect on enemy radar and acquisition system, up to and including piggybacking signals and overwhelming and destroy electronics.
"Jammers hot," the copilot said. "Full active countermeasures to auto control."
There was no change in the sharp image that filled the M-100's windscreen. But Heifetz imagined that he could feel the electronic flood coursing out over the landscape. The simple stealth capabilities and passive spoofers had hidden the systems on their approach to the objectives area. Now the attack electronics would overwhelm any known radar or acquisition systems. Enemy operators might see nothing but fuzz on their monitors, or they might register thousands of mock images amid which the First Squadron's birds would be hidden. The jammers even had the capability to overload and physically destroy certain types of enemy collectors. The latest technology allowed powerful jamming signals to "embrace" enemy communications, piggybacking on them until they arrived at and burned out the receiving-end electronics. It was a war of invisible fires, weighed in microseconds.
The M-100s finally engage the enemy at beyond visual range.
"Shooters to full green."
No sooner had the copilot touched the forward controls than Heifetz felt a slight pulsing in the M-100. The high velocity gun had already found its priority targets. The feel under Heifetz's rump was of blood pulsing from an artery. The stabilization system on the M-100 was superb, but the force of the supergun was such that it could not all be absorbed. Slowly, after hundreds of shots, it would lose accuracy and need to be recalibrated.
But that was in the future. Right now, the gun was automatically attacking distant targets that remained beyond the reach of the human eye.
The visual display blinked here and there where targets had already been stricken. Dozens of successful strikes registered simply from the fires of the company with which Heifetz was riding.
...
Heifetz glanced down at the master kill tally that registered how many effective strikes the squadron had managed. Barely a minute into the action, the number constantly increasing- was approaching two hundred kills. His own system had taken out fourteen, no fifteen- sixteen enemy systems.
...
The counter showed that the brilliant machine in which Heifetz was galloping through the sky had already destroyed thirty-seven high-priority combat systems.
Make that thirty-eight.
For the first time in years, David Heifetz found himself grinning like a child.
Perspective from the Middle Eastern Radar Operators in the wake of the electronic warfare assets being deployed.
Even when you humbled yourself to work like the lowest of laborers to care for the machine, it failed you.
Ali looked at the screen in despair and rising anger. The night had been quiet. There were no Russian airplanes or helicopters in the sky. There had been fewer and fewer over the past few weeks, and now the skies belonged entirely to his own kind.
But, without warning, the screen set into his console had washed with light. According to the Japanese instructors, such an aberration was impossible. Now the treacherous screen registered thousands of elusive images, each one of which purported to be an enemy aircraft of some sort. Such a thing was impossible. No sky could ever be so crowded. Anyways, the Russians had few aircraft left. The machine was simply lying.
Ali stood up in disgust and turned away from the useless piece of devilry. He stepped through the gangway into the next cell, where his friends Hasan and Nafik were also working into the late shift.
"God is great," Ali said, greeting his friends. "My machine doesn't work tonight."
"Truly, God is great," Hassan responded. "You can see that our Japanese machines do not work properly, either. The headphones merely make a painful noise."
"The Japanese are devils," Nafik muttered.
Perspective from a Japanese Captain Who Works a Repair Yard for the Japanese Combat Vehicles that are in disrepair.
The Japanese equipment that had been provided to the Iranians was the best in the world- the most effective and reliable. Easy to operate and maintain, it required willful misuse to degrade its performance. It was, in fact, so simple to operate most of the combat systems that even the Iranians had been able to employ them effectively in combat.
The colossal repair effort had long since overrun its estimated costs. For want of a bit of lubrication or simple cleaning, major automative and electronic assemblies were destroyed. Outrageously expensive components required complete replacement rather than the anticipated repairs.
Explosions Wake the Japanese Captain Up In the Middle of the Night
Murawa had been dreaming of red leaves and old temple bells. Until suddenly the bells began to ring with a ferocity that hurled him out of his repose. He spent a long moment sitting with his hands clapped over his ears in a state of thorough disorientation.
The noise was of the bells, loud as thunder. Louder than thunder. The walls and flood wobbled, as though the earth had gotten drunk. Earthquake, he thought. Then a nearby explosion shattered all of the glass remaining in the window of his room and an orange-rose light illuminated the spartan quarters.
My God, he realized, we're under attack.
...
The huge noise of bells would not stop. It hurt his ears badly, making his head throb. The noise was so great that it had physical force. The big sound of explosions made sense to him. But not the bells.
The sound of human shouting was puny, barely audible amid the crazy concert of the bells.
...
Outside, heavy snowflakes sailed down from the dark heavens. The white carpet on the ground lay ion total incongruity with the array of bonfires spread across the horizon.
The motor park. His repair yards.
He watched, stunned, as a heavy tank flashed silver-white-gold as if it had been electrified, then jerked backward like a kicked dog. Nearby, another vehicle seemed to crouch into the earth, a beaten animal- until it jumped up and began to blaze.
With each new flash, the enormous bell sound rolled across the landscape.
The bells. His tanks. His precious vehicles. His treasures.
What in-the-name-of-God was going on? What kind of weapons were the Russians using? Where had they even come from?
Another huge tolling noise throbbed through his skull, and he briefly considered the Iranians might have turned on them. But that was impossible. It was premature. And the Iranians could never have managed anything like this.
...
The air around him hissed. At the periphery of his field of vision, dark figures moved through the shadows or silhouetted briefly against a local inferno.
...
His immediate ambition was limited to reaching the communications center. Someone there might have answers. And there were communications means. Other Japanese officers and NCOs. The comms center called to him both as a place of duty and refuge.
...
Everything was on fire. It was the end of the world. There should have been snow. Or mud. But dust had come up from somewhere. Clouds and cyclones of dust, flamboyantly beautiful. The burning world softened and changed colors through the silken clouds.
He began to choke.
The world had slowed down, as if it were giving him time to catch up. As he watched, a tracked troop carrier near the perimeter of the repair yard rose into the sky, shaking itself apart. he could feel the earth trembling beneath his buttocks.
Ever so slowly, dark metal segments fell back to earth, rebounding slightly before coming to rest.
Point of View of the Third Squadron Commander.
Charlie troop was finishing up the turkey shoot outside of Atbasar, and Alpha and Bravo had reformed into an aerial skirmish line that stretched for thirty nautical miles from flank to flank. His squadron alone had accounted for the destruction of, at latest count, two thousand four hundred and fifty-six enemy combat vehicles or prime support rigs, and they had not lost a single M-100. Reno had read his military history, and it seemed to him that his squadron's attack constituted one of the most lopsided victories on record.
...
The regiment's other two squadrons had performed equally well. First Squadron even had a higher kill tally, although it was unfair to count them equally, since First Squadron had been able to run up the numbers by completing the destruction of all the vehicles massed and awaiting repair at the Karaganda yards.
A South African Mercenary Bomber Squadron Under Contract From the Japanese is Approaching the Omsk Industrial Yard Where They Suspected the Russians Were Hiding a Military Force. Shows some capabilities of Japanese aviation assets.
Suddenly, the aircraft leapt up into the darkness, then dropped again, bouncing his stomach towards his throat.
"Sorry about that, Sir. We're entering a bit of broken country. Nasty bit of desert. I can take her up, if you like. Two hundred meters ought to more then do it."
"No. No, continued to fly nap-of-the-earth. We will regard this as a training flight. We shall make it have value."
Zeederberg snapped on his clear-image monitor, inspecting the digitally reconstructed landscape. Barren. Utterly worthless country.
These modern Japanese bombers run afoul of American electronic interference as well however. They can barely communicate between their own formation of aircraft but can communicate with satellites still. Also insight into the capabilities of the Japanese bombers sensors and optics and that the possess jammers of their own.
"I've lost Big Sister. I think we're being jammed."
"What are you talking about?" Zeederberg demanded. He hurriedly tried his communication set.
White noise.
"Any hostiles near our flight path?"
"Nothing registers," the weapons officer responded. "Looks like clear flying."
Probably the damned Iranians, Zeederberg decided. Jamming indiscriminately. "Keep your eyes open," he told the commanders of eth eight other aircraft in his squadron, using a burst of superhigh power. "Minimize transmissions. Move directly for the target area. If we lost contact, each aircraft is responsible for carrying out the attack plan on his own.
The other aircraft acknowledged. It was a bit difficult to hear, but they possessed the best communications gear the Japanese had to give, and they were flying in a comparatively tight formation. The messages could just get through. But communicating with a distant headquarters was out of the question. The jammers, whomever they belonged to, were very powerful.
Zeederberg felt wide awake now, despite the heaviness of the predawn hour. The jamming had gotten his attention. The on-board systems read the interference as broad-based- not specifically aimed at his flight. But you could never be too careful.
The mission was growing a bit more interesting then he had expected.
"Let's go with full countermeasures suites on," he told the copilot. "I want to isolate the target area as soon as we're within jamming range. And then let's do another target readout. See if they've got the digital sat links jammed too."
The copilot selected a low-horizon visual readout of the target area from a triangulation of Japanese reconnaissance satellites. The seam-frequency links still operated perfectly, making it clear that the hostile jamming was directed primarily at ground-force emitters.
At first glance, the imagery of the industrial park looked as dreary and uninteresting as it had the afternoon before when Zeederberg had carried out his mission planning. Warehouses, gangways, mills, derelict fuel tanks.
"Wait," Zeederberg said. He punched a button to half the flow of imagery, sitting up as though he had just spotted a fine game bird. "Well, I'll be damned."
He started at the imagery of the wing-in-ground tactical transport, trying to place it by type. The craft certainly was not of Soviet manufacture. He knew he had seen this type of WIG before, in some journal or systems recognition refresher training.
He had almost missed the ship. It was well camouflaged, with the sort of attenuated webbing that spread itself out from the hidden pockets along the upper fuselage. The kind the Americans had pioneered.
"Christ almighty," Zeederberg said quietly. "That's American. It's bloody American."
There was a dead silence between the two men in the forward cockpit. Then the navigator offered his view through the intercom:
"Perhaps the Russians have decided to buy American."
Zeederberg was hurriedly calculating the time-distance factors remaining between his aircraft and their weapons release point.
"Well," he said slowly, figuring all the while. "they're about to find it a damned poor investment.
The combat debut of the M-100's appears to be decisive. One squadron tallied about 2500 vehicles and heavy equipment rigs destroyed and the other two squadrons did just as good or better, thus meaning a potential 7500 vehicles and other pieces of heavy equipment destroyed by the forty five or so M-100's. Also several up to Corps level repair yards, headquarters, and fuel dumps were also destroyed and it was performed at night in the midst of a snowstorm.
Also the localized broad based electronic jamming by their sister regiments unmanned electronic warfare birds was fairly effective in blinding radar and communications in the area of operations.
The M-100 has multiple vision modes on its windscreen monitors as well, including variations known as 'radar-digital, enhanced thermal, a target sorting one and a composite digital mode.
Chapter Sixteen & Seventeen: 3 November 2020
Chapter Sixteen:
3 November 2020
Immediate Aftermath of the American Assault. Surprise was total and catastrophic.
It was a catastrophe. He was looking at a space relay image of the yards at Karaganda. The devastation was remarkable, and as he watched, secondary explosions continued to startle the eye. He had already reviewed the imagery from Tselinograd and Arkalyk, from the Kokchetev sector and Atbasar. Everywhere, the picture was the same. And no one knew exactly what had happened. There was no enemy to be found.
The first report of the debacle had had come by an embarrassingly roundabout path. An enterprising lieutenant at Karaganda, unable to reach higher headquarters by any official means, had gone to a local phone and called his old office in Tokyo with the initial report of an attack. Amazingly, the old-fashioned telephone call had gotten through where the latest communications means had failed, and the next thing Noburu knew he was being awakened by a call from the General Staff, asking him what on earth was going on in his theater of war.
It was a catastrophe, the extent of which was not yet clear to anyone. Especially to the poor Russians. Oh, they had pulled off a surprise all right. They had caught their tormentors sleeping- quite literally. The Russians had made a fight of it after all. But the poor fools had no idea what they had brought upon themselves.
Human Error or Oversight Regarding M-100 Operators. Powerful computers and detection systems still open to human fallibility.
Meredith looked up from the console. "Heavy jamming up north. Not from our side. The parameters are all wrong. The bastards might have slipped something by us."
He commanded the ship's master computer to do a sort: identify any hostile changes in the sector to the north.
Instantaneously, the screen flashed a digital image indicating enemy aircraft flying on a northerly axis. The computer had been doing its duty perfectly. It had been programmed to alert to enemy aircraft on a converging course with the combat squadrons of the Seventh Cavalry. The computer had known of the presence of these enemy aircraft in the sky since they had taken off. But no one had told it to report enemy aircraft passing the regiment. Responding precisely to the demands of its human masters, the computer had not found the penetrating enemy fight of sufficient interest to merit a warning alert.
Insight on the conventional and fuel air explosives used by the South African/Japanese Aircraft.
They were standoff, guided weapons, loaded with the most powerful compacted conventional explosives that were available, a new generation in destructive power, with a fierce equivalent to the yield of tactical nuclear weapons. These would be followed by the latest variety of fuel-air explosives, which would burn anything left by the bombs. The nine aircraft under his command had more than enough power to flatten the extensive industrial site.
Effectiveness of the jamming of the Japanese Bombers On their Strike Mission
They had tried everything. Relaying to Martinez. Alerting the Soviet air defenses. But the Japanese-built penetration bombers were jamming everything in their path. Exactly as Taylor's force had done and was still doing.
Japanese Electronic Intelligence makes a gaffe as well which didn't take advantage of a defect in an American encryption system.
Chapter Seventeen:
3 November 2020
"Sir," Takahara began, "you can listen to them yourself. The station is broadcasting in the clear. Apparently there is a defect in the encryption system of which the sender is unaware. Everything is in English. American English."
Reaction from the Japanese General Staff Regarding the Attack.
"I cannot be certain of the view from your perspective, Noburu. However, from Tokyo, it appears that you are presiding over the greatest defeat suffered by Japanese arms in seventy-five years."
Japanese General Staff Orders Noburu to deploy the Scramblers, referenced as 'Three-one-three-one.'
"General Tsuji, I continue to believe that the employment of Three-one-three-one would be a mistake. We will never be forgiven."
Tsuji laughed scornfully. "What? Forgiven? By whom? You must be going mad, Noburu."
Yes, Noburu thought, perhaps. "The Scramblers are criminal weapons," he said. "We, of all people-."
"Noburu, listen to me. Your personal ruminations are of no interest to me. Or to anyone else. You have one mission, and one only: to win a war. For Japan. And can you honestly tell me, after what we have all seen this morning, that you are in a position to guarantee victory without the employment of Three-one-three-one?"
"No."
"Then get to work."
The M-100s attempt to engage what are described as 'Mitsubishi aircraft' which are the penetration bombers the South African mercenaries are piloting on their airstrike.
"Flapper, you've been working with these birds since they were scribbles on a blueprint. Tell me honestly- will we be wasting our time going after those fast movers?"
Chief Krebs made the face of a careful old farmer at an auction.
"Can't say for sure. Nobody ever figured on M-100s getting in a dogfight with zoomies. That's blue-suiter work. I mean, helicopters, sure. Knock 'em out of the sky all the day and night."
"But?"
The old warrant officer smiled slightly, revealing teeth stained by a lifetime of coffee and God only knew what else. "Well I don't see a damned reason why it can't be done. If we get a good angle of intercept. The guns are fast enough. And we've got plenty of range. The computer don't care what you tell it to kill. And these babies are pretty well built. They'll take a hell of a shaking. Superb aeroelastics. No, boss, I'd say, so long as we can get a good vector. I mean, no forward hemisphere stuff, those Mitsubishis have a very low radar cross-section head-on. And they're fast. No, if we can just sneak in on them between, say, nine and ten o'clock, we just might take them down."
Glitch source in American Encryption is Discovered
He wanted to get it all right, and he had no way of knowing that the encryption device on his troop internal net had already failed over an hour before. His set could still receive and decode incoming encrypted messages, but, whenever he broadcast, his words were clear for all the world to hear. The state of encryption devices had become so advanced that none of the design engineers working the "total system" concept for the M-100 had considered building in a simple warning mechanism to indicate such a failure.
The engineers were not bad engineers, and the system's design was a remarkably good one, overall. The M-100 had proved itself in battle. But it was a very, very complex machine, of the sort that legitimately needed years of field trials before reaching maturity. The United States had not had the years to spare and, all in all, we were remarkably lucky with the performance of the M-100,
A Troop Continues Their Attempt to Pursue the Japanese Bombers, Now Identified as Mitsubishi 4000s. The scale of the growing electronic interference is something the South African pilots of the bombers haven't experienced before.
Zeederberg was anxious to get back down on the ground. He had been out of contact with higher headquarters for hours, and the level of electronic interference in the atmosphere was utterly without precedent in his experience. Something was wrong. Even his on-board systems were starting to deteriorate, as though the electromagnetic siege was beginning to beat down on the walls of his aircraft. He could no longer communicate even with the other birds flying in formation with his own, and the sophisticated naviational aids employed for evasive flying were beahving erratically. The formation had been reduced to flying higher off of the ground than Zeederberg would have liked, and all they could do was to maintain visual contact with each other and head south at the top speed their fuel reserves would allow.
They had destroyed their target. Mission accomplished. The standoff bombs had proven accurate, as always, and what the bombs had not flattened, the fuel-air explosives burned or suffocated. Zeederberg hoped it had been worth it. The only confirmed enemy target he had been able to register had been that single American-built wing-in-ground transport. Perhaps there had been other equipment hidden in the maze of old plants and warehouses. Undoubtedly, the Japanese knew what they were doing. But during the mission brief, no one had warned them to expect a density of electronic interference so thick it seemed to physically buffet the aircraft. Something was terribly wrong.
Zeederberg felt unaccustomed streaks of sweat trailing down his back, chilling the inside of his flight suit. It was nerve-racking flying. This is what it must have been like in the old days, he thought. Before the computers took over.
"Sky watch report?" Zeederberg begged through the intercom. He half expected the intercom to go out too.
"All clear," a tiny voice responded. "Plenty of interference. But the sky looks as clean as can be."
The trio of M-100s attempt to engage the nine Japanese Mitsubishi 4000 penetration bombers going at high speeds in low altitude.
"Thirty-five miles."
"bad angle," the assistant S-3 cried.
"Fuck it," Krebs said. "You pays your money and you takes your chance."
Taylor's eyes were fixed to the monitor.
"Here they come," he said.
"Hold on," Krebs shouted.
The M-100 jerked its snouth up into the air like a crazy carnival ride designed to sicken even the heartiest child. The main gun began to pulse.
"Jesus Christ."
The M-100 seemed to slam against one wall of sky, then another, twisting to bring its gun to bear on the racing targets. Taylor had never experienced anything like it.
"Hold on."
Taylor tried to watch the monitor, but the M-100 was pulling too hard. The machine's crazy acrobatics tossed him about in his safety harness as though he were a weightless doll. He did not think the machine would hold together. The system had not been designed for the bizarre and sudden angles of aerial combat with fixed-wing aircraft.
Going to crash, he thought. We're going to break up.
He strained to reach the emergency panel. But the rearing craft threw him back hard against his seat.
The main gun continued to pulse through the mechanical storm.
Taylor tried again to reach the emergency toggles.
"Flapper," he shouted. "Help me."
There was no answer. Taylor could not even twist his head around to see if his copilot was all right.
The M-100 went into a hard turn, slamming Taylor's head back.
The main gun blasted the empty sky.
Suddenly, the M-100 leveled out and began to fly as smoothly as if nothing had occurred.
Taylor's neck hurt, and he felt dizzy to the point of nausea. But beside him the old chief warrant officer was already on the radio, checking in with the two escort ships. Kreb's voice was as calm as could be. It took a damned old warrant, Taylor decided, to fake that kind of coolness.
The entire action had taken only seconds. One bad curve on the roller coaster.
Tayloor looked at the target monitor. The screen was empty.
"Merry," he called angrily. "Merry, goddamit, we lost them. The sonsofbitches got away."
"Calm down there, Colonel," Krebs told him. "Ain't nobody got away. Look at your kill counters."
"Chief's right," Merry said through the interocm. "We got them. Every last one. Look."
"Meredith relayed a series of ground images to the monitors in the foward cabin. Taylor insisted on going through the images twice. Counting.
Yes. They had gotten them all. Or, rather, the M-100s had. Nine unmistakable wrecks lay strewn across the wasteland, with components burning here and there.
3 November 2020
Immediate Aftermath of the American Assault. Surprise was total and catastrophic.
It was a catastrophe. He was looking at a space relay image of the yards at Karaganda. The devastation was remarkable, and as he watched, secondary explosions continued to startle the eye. He had already reviewed the imagery from Tselinograd and Arkalyk, from the Kokchetev sector and Atbasar. Everywhere, the picture was the same. And no one knew exactly what had happened. There was no enemy to be found.
The first report of the debacle had had come by an embarrassingly roundabout path. An enterprising lieutenant at Karaganda, unable to reach higher headquarters by any official means, had gone to a local phone and called his old office in Tokyo with the initial report of an attack. Amazingly, the old-fashioned telephone call had gotten through where the latest communications means had failed, and the next thing Noburu knew he was being awakened by a call from the General Staff, asking him what on earth was going on in his theater of war.
It was a catastrophe, the extent of which was not yet clear to anyone. Especially to the poor Russians. Oh, they had pulled off a surprise all right. They had caught their tormentors sleeping- quite literally. The Russians had made a fight of it after all. But the poor fools had no idea what they had brought upon themselves.
Human Error or Oversight Regarding M-100 Operators. Powerful computers and detection systems still open to human fallibility.
Meredith looked up from the console. "Heavy jamming up north. Not from our side. The parameters are all wrong. The bastards might have slipped something by us."
He commanded the ship's master computer to do a sort: identify any hostile changes in the sector to the north.
Instantaneously, the screen flashed a digital image indicating enemy aircraft flying on a northerly axis. The computer had been doing its duty perfectly. It had been programmed to alert to enemy aircraft on a converging course with the combat squadrons of the Seventh Cavalry. The computer had known of the presence of these enemy aircraft in the sky since they had taken off. But no one had told it to report enemy aircraft passing the regiment. Responding precisely to the demands of its human masters, the computer had not found the penetrating enemy fight of sufficient interest to merit a warning alert.
Insight on the conventional and fuel air explosives used by the South African/Japanese Aircraft.
They were standoff, guided weapons, loaded with the most powerful compacted conventional explosives that were available, a new generation in destructive power, with a fierce equivalent to the yield of tactical nuclear weapons. These would be followed by the latest variety of fuel-air explosives, which would burn anything left by the bombs. The nine aircraft under his command had more than enough power to flatten the extensive industrial site.
Effectiveness of the jamming of the Japanese Bombers On their Strike Mission
They had tried everything. Relaying to Martinez. Alerting the Soviet air defenses. But the Japanese-built penetration bombers were jamming everything in their path. Exactly as Taylor's force had done and was still doing.
Japanese Electronic Intelligence makes a gaffe as well which didn't take advantage of a defect in an American encryption system.
Chapter Seventeen:
3 November 2020
"Sir," Takahara began, "you can listen to them yourself. The station is broadcasting in the clear. Apparently there is a defect in the encryption system of which the sender is unaware. Everything is in English. American English."
Reaction from the Japanese General Staff Regarding the Attack.
"I cannot be certain of the view from your perspective, Noburu. However, from Tokyo, it appears that you are presiding over the greatest defeat suffered by Japanese arms in seventy-five years."
Japanese General Staff Orders Noburu to deploy the Scramblers, referenced as 'Three-one-three-one.'
"General Tsuji, I continue to believe that the employment of Three-one-three-one would be a mistake. We will never be forgiven."
Tsuji laughed scornfully. "What? Forgiven? By whom? You must be going mad, Noburu."
Yes, Noburu thought, perhaps. "The Scramblers are criminal weapons," he said. "We, of all people-."
"Noburu, listen to me. Your personal ruminations are of no interest to me. Or to anyone else. You have one mission, and one only: to win a war. For Japan. And can you honestly tell me, after what we have all seen this morning, that you are in a position to guarantee victory without the employment of Three-one-three-one?"
"No."
"Then get to work."
The M-100s attempt to engage what are described as 'Mitsubishi aircraft' which are the penetration bombers the South African mercenaries are piloting on their airstrike.
"Flapper, you've been working with these birds since they were scribbles on a blueprint. Tell me honestly- will we be wasting our time going after those fast movers?"
Chief Krebs made the face of a careful old farmer at an auction.
"Can't say for sure. Nobody ever figured on M-100s getting in a dogfight with zoomies. That's blue-suiter work. I mean, helicopters, sure. Knock 'em out of the sky all the day and night."
"But?"
The old warrant officer smiled slightly, revealing teeth stained by a lifetime of coffee and God only knew what else. "Well I don't see a damned reason why it can't be done. If we get a good angle of intercept. The guns are fast enough. And we've got plenty of range. The computer don't care what you tell it to kill. And these babies are pretty well built. They'll take a hell of a shaking. Superb aeroelastics. No, boss, I'd say, so long as we can get a good vector. I mean, no forward hemisphere stuff, those Mitsubishis have a very low radar cross-section head-on. And they're fast. No, if we can just sneak in on them between, say, nine and ten o'clock, we just might take them down."
Glitch source in American Encryption is Discovered
He wanted to get it all right, and he had no way of knowing that the encryption device on his troop internal net had already failed over an hour before. His set could still receive and decode incoming encrypted messages, but, whenever he broadcast, his words were clear for all the world to hear. The state of encryption devices had become so advanced that none of the design engineers working the "total system" concept for the M-100 had considered building in a simple warning mechanism to indicate such a failure.
The engineers were not bad engineers, and the system's design was a remarkably good one, overall. The M-100 had proved itself in battle. But it was a very, very complex machine, of the sort that legitimately needed years of field trials before reaching maturity. The United States had not had the years to spare and, all in all, we were remarkably lucky with the performance of the M-100,
A Troop Continues Their Attempt to Pursue the Japanese Bombers, Now Identified as Mitsubishi 4000s. The scale of the growing electronic interference is something the South African pilots of the bombers haven't experienced before.
Zeederberg was anxious to get back down on the ground. He had been out of contact with higher headquarters for hours, and the level of electronic interference in the atmosphere was utterly without precedent in his experience. Something was wrong. Even his on-board systems were starting to deteriorate, as though the electromagnetic siege was beginning to beat down on the walls of his aircraft. He could no longer communicate even with the other birds flying in formation with his own, and the sophisticated naviational aids employed for evasive flying were beahving erratically. The formation had been reduced to flying higher off of the ground than Zeederberg would have liked, and all they could do was to maintain visual contact with each other and head south at the top speed their fuel reserves would allow.
They had destroyed their target. Mission accomplished. The standoff bombs had proven accurate, as always, and what the bombs had not flattened, the fuel-air explosives burned or suffocated. Zeederberg hoped it had been worth it. The only confirmed enemy target he had been able to register had been that single American-built wing-in-ground transport. Perhaps there had been other equipment hidden in the maze of old plants and warehouses. Undoubtedly, the Japanese knew what they were doing. But during the mission brief, no one had warned them to expect a density of electronic interference so thick it seemed to physically buffet the aircraft. Something was terribly wrong.
Zeederberg felt unaccustomed streaks of sweat trailing down his back, chilling the inside of his flight suit. It was nerve-racking flying. This is what it must have been like in the old days, he thought. Before the computers took over.
"Sky watch report?" Zeederberg begged through the intercom. He half expected the intercom to go out too.
"All clear," a tiny voice responded. "Plenty of interference. But the sky looks as clean as can be."
The trio of M-100s attempt to engage the nine Japanese Mitsubishi 4000 penetration bombers going at high speeds in low altitude.
"Thirty-five miles."
"bad angle," the assistant S-3 cried.
"Fuck it," Krebs said. "You pays your money and you takes your chance."
Taylor's eyes were fixed to the monitor.
"Here they come," he said.
"Hold on," Krebs shouted.
The M-100 jerked its snouth up into the air like a crazy carnival ride designed to sicken even the heartiest child. The main gun began to pulse.
"Jesus Christ."
The M-100 seemed to slam against one wall of sky, then another, twisting to bring its gun to bear on the racing targets. Taylor had never experienced anything like it.
"Hold on."
Taylor tried to watch the monitor, but the M-100 was pulling too hard. The machine's crazy acrobatics tossed him about in his safety harness as though he were a weightless doll. He did not think the machine would hold together. The system had not been designed for the bizarre and sudden angles of aerial combat with fixed-wing aircraft.
Going to crash, he thought. We're going to break up.
He strained to reach the emergency panel. But the rearing craft threw him back hard against his seat.
The main gun continued to pulse through the mechanical storm.
Taylor tried again to reach the emergency toggles.
"Flapper," he shouted. "Help me."
There was no answer. Taylor could not even twist his head around to see if his copilot was all right.
The M-100 went into a hard turn, slamming Taylor's head back.
The main gun blasted the empty sky.
Suddenly, the M-100 leveled out and began to fly as smoothly as if nothing had occurred.
Taylor's neck hurt, and he felt dizzy to the point of nausea. But beside him the old chief warrant officer was already on the radio, checking in with the two escort ships. Kreb's voice was as calm as could be. It took a damned old warrant, Taylor decided, to fake that kind of coolness.
The entire action had taken only seconds. One bad curve on the roller coaster.
Tayloor looked at the target monitor. The screen was empty.
"Merry," he called angrily. "Merry, goddamit, we lost them. The sonsofbitches got away."
"Calm down there, Colonel," Krebs told him. "Ain't nobody got away. Look at your kill counters."
"Chief's right," Merry said through the interocm. "We got them. Every last one. Look."
"Meredith relayed a series of ground images to the monitors in the foward cabin. Taylor insisted on going through the images twice. Counting.
Yes. They had gotten them all. Or, rather, the M-100s had. Nine unmistakable wrecks lay strewn across the wasteland, with components burning here and there.
Last edited:
Tiamat
I've seen the future...
Yeesh, that Imperial Japan mindset really did crawl back out of the grave in full force, didn't it? Gee, this won't bite Japan in the ass again, not at all....
Chapter Eighteen: 3 November, 2020
Chapter Eighteen:
3 November, 2020
The Americans are formulating a plan to utilize the intelligence gleaned from the Japanese Operational-Tactical Brain By Trying to Figure Out a Way to Access the Japanese Control Systems
"And we've been busting our asses to come up with a con-plan to exploit what you've given us. Now we're just lacking one piece," The Colonel looked at Ryder.
"What's that, sir?"
"You. We need you downcountry. And I'll tell you honestly- if we implement this plan, it might be dangerous as hell."
...
"Sir, if you're talking about actually entering the Japanese control system, we're going to need some support from the Russians."
Japanese Electronic Warfare Intercepts Capitalizing On the Temporary Encryption Glitch of the Americans In Order to Utilize their Mystery 'Scrambler' System. The M-100 also has a slight vulnerability to detection from the rear hemisphere by the most advanced Japanese radars.
Some young American officer had given the game away. Blabbering naively on the airwaves. Telling everything, The City: Orsk. The name of the assembly area: Silver.
...
Direction-finding based upon intercepts was, of course, far more difficult than it had been in decades past, thanks to the ultra-agile communications means and spoofer technology. But, for every technological development in the science of warfare, there was ultimately a counterdevelopment. The Japanese arsenal had been just adequate to track down the Americans.
Once the intercepts had revealed the general orientation of the American unit, intelligence had been able to steer advanced radars and space-based collectors to the enemy's vicinity. The new American systems proved to be very, very good. Unexpectedly good. Even the most advanced radars could not detect them from the front or sides. But the rear hemisphere of the aircraft proved more vulnerable. The returns were weak- but readable, once you knew what you were looking for.
Now the enemy's location was constantly updated by relay, and Noguchi was able to follow the Americans quietly as he led his flight of aircraft in pursuit. He would have liked to see one of the new enemy systems with his own eyes, out of professional curiosity. But he certainly was not going to get that close.
...
once the Scrambler drones were released from the standoff position, he had every intention of leaving the area as swiftly as his aircraft could fly.
An M-100 who had engaged the penetration jet bombers prior is stricken with some sort of malfunction.
"This is Five-five echo." A young voice. Earnest. Frightened. "I've got to put her down. The control system's breaking down."
"Roger," Taylor answered calmly, struggling to conceal the depth of his concern from teh pilot of the troubled escort ship. "Just go in easy. We'll fly cover until you're on the ground. Break. Five-five Mike, you cover from noon to six o'clock. We'll take six to midnight, over."
"Roger."
"This is Echo, I've got a ville coming up in front of me."
"Stay away from the built-up area," Taylor ordered.
"I Can't control this thing."
"Easy now. Easy."
"We;re going down." The escort pilot's voice was stripped down to a level of raw fear that Taylor had heard no more than a dozen times in his career. The first time had been on a clear morning in Africa, and the voice had been his own.
"Easy," was all he could say. "Try to keep her under control."
"-going down-"
The station dropped from the net.
"Merry. Hank. Get a clear image of the site. Get a good fix on him."
...
Even now, Taylor could not help feeling a twinge of injured vanity. The sole M-100 that had gone down, for any reason, had been one of his two escort ships. Although the escort ships were responsibly for his safety, he was aslo, unmistakably, responsible for theirs as well. And the loss was clearly his fault. For going after the neemy fast movers. He had asked too much of the M-100s.
...
The assistant S-3 had locked the image of the downed craft on the central ops monitor. It looked like the bird had gone in hard. There was a noticeable crumpling in the fuselage, and shards of metal were strewn across the snow. But the main compartment of the M-100 had held together.
"Five-five Echo, this is Sierra five-five. Over." Taylor gripped the edge of the console, anxious for a response, for a single word to let him know that the crew had survived.
Nothing.
The location of the crashed M-100 is advanced upon by enemy mechanized forces.
The officers crowded around the monitor, edging out the nearest NCO. The standoff image showed the wreck about two kilometers outside of a ruined settlement. Smal dark shapes had already begun moving toward the downed M-100 from the fringe of buildings.
"What do you think, Merry?"
"Personnel carriers. Old models. Soviet production."
"Any chance they're friendlies?"
"Nope," Meredith said immediately. "Not down here. Those are bad guys."
As if they had overheard the conversation, the personnel carriers began to send streaks of light toward the crash site.
"Chief," Taylor called forward through the intercom, "can you take them out?"
"Too close for the big gun," Krebs answered. "We'll have to go in on them with the Gat. Going manual. Hold on, everybody."
Too close for Rail Guns. Switching to Gatling Guns!
"This is Five-five Echo. Can anybody hear me? Can you hear me? We're taking fire. We're taking hostile fire. I've got some banged-up troopers in the back. We're taking fire."
"Mike, wait," Taylor told the net. "We hear you, Echo. Hang on. We're on the way."
In response, the M-100 turned hard, unbalancing both Taylor and Meredith this time.
...
"I'm going forward," Taylor said, and he pushed quickly through the hatchway that led towards the cockpit, bruising himself as the aircraft dropped and rolled.
By the time Taylor dropped into his pilot's seat, Krebs had already opened up with the Gatling gun. It was teh first time all day they had used the lighter, close-fighting weapon.
"I've got flight controls," Taylor told Krebs. "Just take care of the gunnery."
"Roger." The old warrant officer unleashed another burst of fire. "Good ol weapon, the Gat. Almost left them off these babies. Damned glad we didn't."
Down in the snowy wastes, two enemy vehicles were burning. The others began to reverse their courses, heading back for the cover of the blasted village. Taylor manhandled the M-100 around so that Krebs could engage a third armored vehicle. Then he turned the aircraft towards the downed bird.
As the Commanders M-100 descends the Pilot of the downed aircraft reports he has two broken legs and the copilot is dead. They also see the M-100 is starting to burn and launch an impromptu ground rescue attempt.
"What about your fire suppression system?" Taylor demanded. "Can you operate it manually?"
"I can't move. Can't. Please. Oh, God, I don't to burn. Don't let me burn."
As it descended the M-100 turned so that Taylor could see the wreck again. And there was, indeed, a fire. In the forward fuselage, where the pilot's exit hatch was located.
Then Taylor saw one hopeful sign. At the rear of the downed M-100, a soldier was on his feet. He had already lain two of his comrades in the snow, and he was headed back inside the burning aircraft.
Taylor's ship settled, and he lost sight of everything in the white-out snow."
...
The noise of the M-100 was overpowering on the outside, but nonetheless he began to shout at the dark form lugging bodies through the snow a football field away.
"Move them farther off. Get them further away."
The distant soldier did not respond.
...
A billow of fire rose from the central fuselage of the downed aircraft.
"Jesus Christ," Taylor swore.
...
From somewhere off to the right, behind the veil of the snowstorm, weapons began to sound- hard flat reports against the whine of the M-100 waiting behind Taylor's back. Small arms. The enemy were coming dismounted this time. There would be no obvious targets for the escort bird flying cover.
...
Taylor dodged a severed block of metal and ranup around the M-100's stubby wing and flank rotor, howling wind at his back. He leapt at the pilot's hatch, grabbing the recessed handle despite the nearby flames.
"Fuck," he shouted, recoiling and shaking his scorched hand.
The door was locked from the inside.
The NCO passed him, heading straight for the cockpit. Standing on the tips of his toes, the man could just look inside.
"Is he all right?" Taylor shouted.
"Can't see. God damned smoke."
"We'll have to smash in the windscreen."
The NCO looked at the fragile assault rifle in his hands. "No way," he said matter-of-factly.
...
picked up the shovel again. Slipping in the snow and the mud, he ran at the cockpit, swinging the tool with all of his might.
It only bounced off the transparent armor fo the windscreen.
He smashed the barrier again. And again. The he drove the blade as hard as he could into the synthetic material.
It was useless. The windscreen had been built to resist heavy machine gun fire. His efforts were ridiculous.
But you had to try, you had to try.
...
The younger man was short of breath when he got to Taylor's posiiton. "Come on sir," he begged. "We've got to get out of here."
"The pilot," Taylor said adamantly.
"For God's sake, sir. He's gone. The smoke would have got him by now. The goddamned windscreens are black.
Yes. The smoke. Better smoke than fire. The smoke would even have been welcome, in a way.
The M-100 begins to take off, having rescued everyone they could from the downed M-100. The fire suppression system on board the crashed M-100 had apparently failed completely.
They took off on a straight line for the dark outline of the command ship. The big rotors churned the sky in readiness. TGhe underlying rumble of the engine promised salvation.
Krebs had seen them coming. He had increased the power to the upended rotors and soon the noise was so loud that Taylor could no longer hear the rounds chasing him. Up ahead, the M-100 began to buck like an anxious horse. Then Krebs steadied it again.
...
They had to gain sufficient standoff distance before they could use the main armament to destroy the remainder of the wreck. The Gatling gun would never have penetrated the composite armor. While they were gaining altitude, Meredith gave Taylor the rest of the bad news. Of the soldiers carried out in the rear compartment, only the shocked boy and one evidence concussion case were alive. The remainder of the light squad of dragoons had died, victims either of the impact, or of smoke inhalation. The command M-100 bore a cargo of corpses down in its compact storage hold.
"Goddamit, Merry," Taylor said, "the ship shouldn't have gone down like that hard. Just not supposed to. And the fire suppressant system's a worthless piece of shit."
Meredith patted an inner panel of the aircraft with exaggerated affection. "We still don't know exactly what happened, sir. Could've been a computer malfunction. Overall, these babies have been pretty good to us today."
The two men felt a quick pulse under the deck as Krebs delivered a high-velocity round that would shatter the wreck back on the ground beyond recognition.
Noguchi is about to attempt to deploy the Scrambler system. But the thought of deploying such a system is filling him with an almost visceral fear due to its untested nature somehow affecting him.
Dying held little terror for Noguchi, who envisioned it as the door to an uncomplicated nothingness. What frightened him was the condition in which he might have to live, if anything went wrong with the Scramblers.
The counter stripped away the seconds.
They had almost reached the optimal release point for the drones.
And if something went wrong? If the Scramblers activated prematurely? If he was unable to turn his aircraft out of the Scramblers reach with sufficient speed? If the effective range of the Scramblers proved even greater than projected? If the ground control brought his aircraft back on the automatic flight controls, with a terrible cargo? There were so many ifs. The Scramblers had never even had a real field trial- it would have been impossible. And the experiments on animals could not be regarded as conclusive.
The thought that the Scramblers might touch back at him, might caress him, their appointed master, with their power, left him physically unsteady and incapable of rigorous thought.
He glanced again at the monitor. Within half an hour of touching down, the Americans automatic camouflage systems had done a surprisingly good job of hiding the aircraft- even though it was evident the mechanical measures had not been designed with the anomalies of a snow-covered landscape in mind. Of course, the Scramblers would affect everything over a huge area- but it was reassuring to know that the prime target was exactly where the transmissions had promised it would be.
...
Noguchi struggled to steady himself. But the mental images challenged him again, attacking his last self-discipline with visions of the condition in which a faulty application of the Scramblers might leave him.
No. No, he could not bear to live like that.
A thousand times better to die.
...
"Clean release," he heard in his helmet's tiny speakers.
One by one, the other aircraft in his flight reported in. Clean release, clean release.
Noguchi found his course and ordered all of the aircraft under his command to accelerate to the maximum. Behind them, the undersized drones sped quietly towards a place called Silver.
A briefing reveals the Commander of Third Squadron engaged in an unauthorized 'dismounted' raid on an Iranian Headquarters resulting in unnecessary casualties, likely for reasons of personal career advancement.
"Everybody's tucked in. Assembly Areas Gold and Platinum report fully secure status. We have no system losses. The Tango element took five KIA and eleven WIA during ground contact with an Iranian headquarters site, but I think you might want to get the details straight from him.
Taylor's voice returned. He sounded unusually raspy and stressed to Heifetz. "Everything okay at your site?"
"Basically. There was a small site-management problem. Part of Silver was already occupied by Soviet support troops. There's no coordination. Their system's gone to hell."
The drones carrying the Scrambler systems approach Silver, the name for the assembly site for one of the American Seventh Cavalry Regiments First Squadron.
Sturgis took a deep breath. it was a wonderful thing to be a soldier. To be a real combat leader.
A snowflake caught at the corner of teh young man's eye. He paused to wipe it away, touching a gloved hand to his shying eyelash.
And Captain Jack Sturgis jerked perfectly upright, gripped by a pain the intensity of which no human animal had ever before experienced.
More 'teething' problems likely revealed with the M-100 in its combat debut. Despite potentially carrying one of the most lopsided military engagements in military history, an M-100 suffers an unexpectedly hard crash which injures and kills many of those on board. Furthermore the M-100s fire suppression system didn't work either in that event.
There are also revelations of other features of the M-100 including it has a Gatling Gun for close in fighting. It was almost not added to the M-100 but proved its worth in this rescue engagement, lighting up and setting ablaze multiple older Soviet model armored personnel carriers. It's also revealed the M-100 is likely highly resistant to its own Gatling Gun, but can be obliterated much like anything else, by its own Railgun. The transparent windscreens are also resilient to at least heavy machine gun fire.
The most notable thing in the chapter is the deployment of the much foreshadowed 'Scrambler' system by the Japanese however which is still only described in a roundabout manner. It apparently has a 'huge area of effect' and the effects of which instill a visceral fear and terror into the Officer who deploys them via aerial delivery drone who considers being affected by the Scrambler as a fate a thousand times worse than death.
3 November, 2020
The Americans are formulating a plan to utilize the intelligence gleaned from the Japanese Operational-Tactical Brain By Trying to Figure Out a Way to Access the Japanese Control Systems
"And we've been busting our asses to come up with a con-plan to exploit what you've given us. Now we're just lacking one piece," The Colonel looked at Ryder.
"What's that, sir?"
"You. We need you downcountry. And I'll tell you honestly- if we implement this plan, it might be dangerous as hell."
...
"Sir, if you're talking about actually entering the Japanese control system, we're going to need some support from the Russians."
Japanese Electronic Warfare Intercepts Capitalizing On the Temporary Encryption Glitch of the Americans In Order to Utilize their Mystery 'Scrambler' System. The M-100 also has a slight vulnerability to detection from the rear hemisphere by the most advanced Japanese radars.
Some young American officer had given the game away. Blabbering naively on the airwaves. Telling everything, The City: Orsk. The name of the assembly area: Silver.
...
Direction-finding based upon intercepts was, of course, far more difficult than it had been in decades past, thanks to the ultra-agile communications means and spoofer technology. But, for every technological development in the science of warfare, there was ultimately a counterdevelopment. The Japanese arsenal had been just adequate to track down the Americans.
Once the intercepts had revealed the general orientation of the American unit, intelligence had been able to steer advanced radars and space-based collectors to the enemy's vicinity. The new American systems proved to be very, very good. Unexpectedly good. Even the most advanced radars could not detect them from the front or sides. But the rear hemisphere of the aircraft proved more vulnerable. The returns were weak- but readable, once you knew what you were looking for.
Now the enemy's location was constantly updated by relay, and Noguchi was able to follow the Americans quietly as he led his flight of aircraft in pursuit. He would have liked to see one of the new enemy systems with his own eyes, out of professional curiosity. But he certainly was not going to get that close.
...
once the Scrambler drones were released from the standoff position, he had every intention of leaving the area as swiftly as his aircraft could fly.
An M-100 who had engaged the penetration jet bombers prior is stricken with some sort of malfunction.
"This is Five-five echo." A young voice. Earnest. Frightened. "I've got to put her down. The control system's breaking down."
"Roger," Taylor answered calmly, struggling to conceal the depth of his concern from teh pilot of the troubled escort ship. "Just go in easy. We'll fly cover until you're on the ground. Break. Five-five Mike, you cover from noon to six o'clock. We'll take six to midnight, over."
"Roger."
"This is Echo, I've got a ville coming up in front of me."
"Stay away from the built-up area," Taylor ordered.
"I Can't control this thing."
"Easy now. Easy."
"We;re going down." The escort pilot's voice was stripped down to a level of raw fear that Taylor had heard no more than a dozen times in his career. The first time had been on a clear morning in Africa, and the voice had been his own.
"Easy," was all he could say. "Try to keep her under control."
"-going down-"
The station dropped from the net.
"Merry. Hank. Get a clear image of the site. Get a good fix on him."
...
Even now, Taylor could not help feeling a twinge of injured vanity. The sole M-100 that had gone down, for any reason, had been one of his two escort ships. Although the escort ships were responsibly for his safety, he was aslo, unmistakably, responsible for theirs as well. And the loss was clearly his fault. For going after the neemy fast movers. He had asked too much of the M-100s.
...
The assistant S-3 had locked the image of the downed craft on the central ops monitor. It looked like the bird had gone in hard. There was a noticeable crumpling in the fuselage, and shards of metal were strewn across the snow. But the main compartment of the M-100 had held together.
"Five-five Echo, this is Sierra five-five. Over." Taylor gripped the edge of the console, anxious for a response, for a single word to let him know that the crew had survived.
Nothing.
The location of the crashed M-100 is advanced upon by enemy mechanized forces.
The officers crowded around the monitor, edging out the nearest NCO. The standoff image showed the wreck about two kilometers outside of a ruined settlement. Smal dark shapes had already begun moving toward the downed M-100 from the fringe of buildings.
"What do you think, Merry?"
"Personnel carriers. Old models. Soviet production."
"Any chance they're friendlies?"
"Nope," Meredith said immediately. "Not down here. Those are bad guys."
As if they had overheard the conversation, the personnel carriers began to send streaks of light toward the crash site.
"Chief," Taylor called forward through the intercom, "can you take them out?"
"Too close for the big gun," Krebs answered. "We'll have to go in on them with the Gat. Going manual. Hold on, everybody."
Too close for Rail Guns. Switching to Gatling Guns!
"This is Five-five Echo. Can anybody hear me? Can you hear me? We're taking fire. We're taking hostile fire. I've got some banged-up troopers in the back. We're taking fire."
"Mike, wait," Taylor told the net. "We hear you, Echo. Hang on. We're on the way."
In response, the M-100 turned hard, unbalancing both Taylor and Meredith this time.
...
"I'm going forward," Taylor said, and he pushed quickly through the hatchway that led towards the cockpit, bruising himself as the aircraft dropped and rolled.
By the time Taylor dropped into his pilot's seat, Krebs had already opened up with the Gatling gun. It was teh first time all day they had used the lighter, close-fighting weapon.
"I've got flight controls," Taylor told Krebs. "Just take care of the gunnery."
"Roger." The old warrant officer unleashed another burst of fire. "Good ol weapon, the Gat. Almost left them off these babies. Damned glad we didn't."
Down in the snowy wastes, two enemy vehicles were burning. The others began to reverse their courses, heading back for the cover of the blasted village. Taylor manhandled the M-100 around so that Krebs could engage a third armored vehicle. Then he turned the aircraft towards the downed bird.
As the Commanders M-100 descends the Pilot of the downed aircraft reports he has two broken legs and the copilot is dead. They also see the M-100 is starting to burn and launch an impromptu ground rescue attempt.
"What about your fire suppression system?" Taylor demanded. "Can you operate it manually?"
"I can't move. Can't. Please. Oh, God, I don't to burn. Don't let me burn."
As it descended the M-100 turned so that Taylor could see the wreck again. And there was, indeed, a fire. In the forward fuselage, where the pilot's exit hatch was located.
Then Taylor saw one hopeful sign. At the rear of the downed M-100, a soldier was on his feet. He had already lain two of his comrades in the snow, and he was headed back inside the burning aircraft.
Taylor's ship settled, and he lost sight of everything in the white-out snow."
...
The noise of the M-100 was overpowering on the outside, but nonetheless he began to shout at the dark form lugging bodies through the snow a football field away.
"Move them farther off. Get them further away."
The distant soldier did not respond.
...
A billow of fire rose from the central fuselage of the downed aircraft.
"Jesus Christ," Taylor swore.
...
From somewhere off to the right, behind the veil of the snowstorm, weapons began to sound- hard flat reports against the whine of the M-100 waiting behind Taylor's back. Small arms. The enemy were coming dismounted this time. There would be no obvious targets for the escort bird flying cover.
...
Taylor dodged a severed block of metal and ranup around the M-100's stubby wing and flank rotor, howling wind at his back. He leapt at the pilot's hatch, grabbing the recessed handle despite the nearby flames.
"Fuck," he shouted, recoiling and shaking his scorched hand.
The door was locked from the inside.
The NCO passed him, heading straight for the cockpit. Standing on the tips of his toes, the man could just look inside.
"Is he all right?" Taylor shouted.
"Can't see. God damned smoke."
"We'll have to smash in the windscreen."
The NCO looked at the fragile assault rifle in his hands. "No way," he said matter-of-factly.
...
picked up the shovel again. Slipping in the snow and the mud, he ran at the cockpit, swinging the tool with all of his might.
It only bounced off the transparent armor fo the windscreen.
He smashed the barrier again. And again. The he drove the blade as hard as he could into the synthetic material.
It was useless. The windscreen had been built to resist heavy machine gun fire. His efforts were ridiculous.
But you had to try, you had to try.
...
The younger man was short of breath when he got to Taylor's posiiton. "Come on sir," he begged. "We've got to get out of here."
"The pilot," Taylor said adamantly.
"For God's sake, sir. He's gone. The smoke would have got him by now. The goddamned windscreens are black.
Yes. The smoke. Better smoke than fire. The smoke would even have been welcome, in a way.
The M-100 begins to take off, having rescued everyone they could from the downed M-100. The fire suppression system on board the crashed M-100 had apparently failed completely.
They took off on a straight line for the dark outline of the command ship. The big rotors churned the sky in readiness. TGhe underlying rumble of the engine promised salvation.
Krebs had seen them coming. He had increased the power to the upended rotors and soon the noise was so loud that Taylor could no longer hear the rounds chasing him. Up ahead, the M-100 began to buck like an anxious horse. Then Krebs steadied it again.
...
They had to gain sufficient standoff distance before they could use the main armament to destroy the remainder of the wreck. The Gatling gun would never have penetrated the composite armor. While they were gaining altitude, Meredith gave Taylor the rest of the bad news. Of the soldiers carried out in the rear compartment, only the shocked boy and one evidence concussion case were alive. The remainder of the light squad of dragoons had died, victims either of the impact, or of smoke inhalation. The command M-100 bore a cargo of corpses down in its compact storage hold.
"Goddamit, Merry," Taylor said, "the ship shouldn't have gone down like that hard. Just not supposed to. And the fire suppressant system's a worthless piece of shit."
Meredith patted an inner panel of the aircraft with exaggerated affection. "We still don't know exactly what happened, sir. Could've been a computer malfunction. Overall, these babies have been pretty good to us today."
The two men felt a quick pulse under the deck as Krebs delivered a high-velocity round that would shatter the wreck back on the ground beyond recognition.
Noguchi is about to attempt to deploy the Scrambler system. But the thought of deploying such a system is filling him with an almost visceral fear due to its untested nature somehow affecting him.
Dying held little terror for Noguchi, who envisioned it as the door to an uncomplicated nothingness. What frightened him was the condition in which he might have to live, if anything went wrong with the Scramblers.
The counter stripped away the seconds.
They had almost reached the optimal release point for the drones.
And if something went wrong? If the Scramblers activated prematurely? If he was unable to turn his aircraft out of the Scramblers reach with sufficient speed? If the effective range of the Scramblers proved even greater than projected? If the ground control brought his aircraft back on the automatic flight controls, with a terrible cargo? There were so many ifs. The Scramblers had never even had a real field trial- it would have been impossible. And the experiments on animals could not be regarded as conclusive.
The thought that the Scramblers might touch back at him, might caress him, their appointed master, with their power, left him physically unsteady and incapable of rigorous thought.
He glanced again at the monitor. Within half an hour of touching down, the Americans automatic camouflage systems had done a surprisingly good job of hiding the aircraft- even though it was evident the mechanical measures had not been designed with the anomalies of a snow-covered landscape in mind. Of course, the Scramblers would affect everything over a huge area- but it was reassuring to know that the prime target was exactly where the transmissions had promised it would be.
...
Noguchi struggled to steady himself. But the mental images challenged him again, attacking his last self-discipline with visions of the condition in which a faulty application of the Scramblers might leave him.
No. No, he could not bear to live like that.
A thousand times better to die.
...
"Clean release," he heard in his helmet's tiny speakers.
One by one, the other aircraft in his flight reported in. Clean release, clean release.
Noguchi found his course and ordered all of the aircraft under his command to accelerate to the maximum. Behind them, the undersized drones sped quietly towards a place called Silver.
A briefing reveals the Commander of Third Squadron engaged in an unauthorized 'dismounted' raid on an Iranian Headquarters resulting in unnecessary casualties, likely for reasons of personal career advancement.
"Everybody's tucked in. Assembly Areas Gold and Platinum report fully secure status. We have no system losses. The Tango element took five KIA and eleven WIA during ground contact with an Iranian headquarters site, but I think you might want to get the details straight from him.
Taylor's voice returned. He sounded unusually raspy and stressed to Heifetz. "Everything okay at your site?"
"Basically. There was a small site-management problem. Part of Silver was already occupied by Soviet support troops. There's no coordination. Their system's gone to hell."
The drones carrying the Scrambler systems approach Silver, the name for the assembly site for one of the American Seventh Cavalry Regiments First Squadron.
Sturgis took a deep breath. it was a wonderful thing to be a soldier. To be a real combat leader.
A snowflake caught at the corner of teh young man's eye. He paused to wipe it away, touching a gloved hand to his shying eyelash.
And Captain Jack Sturgis jerked perfectly upright, gripped by a pain the intensity of which no human animal had ever before experienced.
More 'teething' problems likely revealed with the M-100 in its combat debut. Despite potentially carrying one of the most lopsided military engagements in military history, an M-100 suffers an unexpectedly hard crash which injures and kills many of those on board. Furthermore the M-100s fire suppression system didn't work either in that event.
There are also revelations of other features of the M-100 including it has a Gatling Gun for close in fighting. It was almost not added to the M-100 but proved its worth in this rescue engagement, lighting up and setting ablaze multiple older Soviet model armored personnel carriers. It's also revealed the M-100 is likely highly resistant to its own Gatling Gun, but can be obliterated much like anything else, by its own Railgun. The transparent windscreens are also resilient to at least heavy machine gun fire.
The most notable thing in the chapter is the deployment of the much foreshadowed 'Scrambler' system by the Japanese however which is still only described in a roundabout manner. It apparently has a 'huge area of effect' and the effects of which instill a visceral fear and terror into the Officer who deploys them via aerial delivery drone who considers being affected by the Scrambler as a fate a thousand times worse than death.
Chapter Nineteen: 3rd November 2020
Chapter Nineteen:
3rd November 2020
Contact Is Immediately Lost With Assembly Area 'Silver'
"Sierra five-five, This is Saber Six. Sierra five-five. This is Saber six..."
Taylor knew immediately that something was seriously wrong when he heard Reno's voice on the command net. The general's son was always careful to maintain a studied coolness over any open communications means, except when he was verbally destroying one of his subordinates, or in combat, when his voice screamed for medals, awards, citations. Now Reno's voice strained with emotion and he had done something which he never had done before. He had used the call sign "Saber six" on Taylor's net.
Taylor knew that Reno affected the call sign on his squadron's internal comms, but the main was always careful to use his proper call sign on the regimental command net, both because Taylor made it plain that he disapproved of unauthorized nonsense and because "Saber six" was a timesworn cavalry handle reserved for regimental commanders- not for the subordinate lieutenant colonels who commanded squadrons.
"Tango five-five, this is Sierra five-five. Over."
"This is Saber- I mean, Tango five-five. I can't contact anybody at AA Silver. I was on the horn with the One-three, and he just cut out in midsentence. I've tried calling Whisky five-five, but I don't even get anything breaking up. Nothing. Is something going on down there? What's going on?"
...
He turned to the special satellite communications link that was normally reserved for conversations with the nation's highest authorities.
Meredith was already keying the system. Then they all waited again, while in the background Reno pleaded for attention and answers over the regimental command net.
They waited for five minutes. But there was nothing. The heavens were dead.
Finally, Taylor turned back to the command net, determined to make one last attempt.
"Any Whisky station, any Whisky station," he called First Squadron, his words reaching out toward Assembly Area Silver, "this is Sierra five-five. How do you hear this station, over?"
Nothing.
...
"We're going in. We're going to find out what the hell's going on."
Taylor called ahead to Second Squadron at Platinum, just outside of Orenburg. The squadron commander had been monitoring the traffic on the net, digesting it and maintaining radio discipline.
"If you lose contact with me," Taylor said, "you are to assume command of the regiment." Everyone knew that Reno was the senior squadron commander by date of rank. But Reno was in no condition to lead the regiment at the moment. If he ever had been.
Reno did not contest the message that had been sent opently for all command net subscribers to hear.
Well, Taylor though, I've still got Second and Third Squadrons. If worse comes to worst.
"Contact the escort element," Taylor told the assistant S-3. "Tell them we're going in ready to fight."
The Command Element Approaches Assembly Area Silver
Translated through the monitor screen, the imagery of Assembly Area Silver had an unmistakable quiet about it that frightened him with its wrongness. It was eerie, unnatural. It occurred to him for the first time that silence could have a look about it, an intrusion across sensory boundaries that jarred the working order of the mind. The silent display of M-100s, partially camouflaged and dispersed over a grove-dotted steppe, was somehow so insistently incorrect that he could feel his body responding even as his mind struggled to process the information into harmless answers.
First Squadron was supposed to be quiet, lying still in hide positions. The goal was to blend into the landscape, to avoid offering any signs of life to searching enemy sensors. To play dead. Even beyond that- to become invisible. The problem was that the M100s burrowed so neatly into the snow fields had achieved the desired effect too well.
No unit was ever completely silent. No unit was ever so disciplined that it could avoiding twitching a human muscle or two for the practiced eye to spot. Perfection in camouflage and deception operations was a matter of degree.
But the First Squadron site had a special, unbearable silence about it. It had begun with the refusal of every last oral communications channel to respond to Taylor's queries. They had all assumed that First Squadron had been hit and hit badly by an enemy strike. Then Meredith tried a computer-to-computer query.
Each computer in First Squadron responded promptly when contacted. Data passed through the heavens instantly and exactly. The machines continued their electronic march through the endless battlefields of integers. It was only their human masters that made no reply.
The first imagery Meredith called up had filled them with a sense of relief. Yes. There they were, all right. Carefully dispersed M-100s. There was not a single indicator of battle damage. The snow drifted across the site with blinding purity, and when you looked carefully, the concealed contours of the M-100s on the ground betrayed no trace of destruction. The squadron looked exactly as it was supposed to look, and it occurred to Meredith that the whole business just might be a bizarre communications anomaly.
It was only the feel that was wrong.
"Run a systems check on our environmental seals," Taylor ordered.
"You figure chemicals, sir?" Meredith asked.
"Could be. I don't know. Christ," Taylor said quietly. "I've seen week-old corpses that didn't look that dead."
"Nerve agent strike?"
Taylor bent closer to the imagery, narrowing his eyes, obviously straining to achieve a greater intensity of vision.
"That's what I'd have to bet, if I was betting. But it doesn't make any goddamned sense. Even if a strike had caught some of the birds with their hatches open, others would have been sealed. If only because of the cold. And the automatic seals and the overpressure systems would have kicked in." He backed away from the monitor,
...
"It just doesn't make any sense Merry. If it was nerve gas, or any kind of chemicals, somebody would have survived. The autosensors would have alerted, and we would have had more flash traffic calls coming in than the system could've handled." He shook his head very slowly, then touched the edge of the gauzed hand to his hairline. "It just doesn't make any sense."
After ruling out conventional attack, communications anomalies and chemical strikes, the M-100s draw closer until within a few kilometers of Assembly Area Silver.
Something was terribly, inexplicably wrong. Each man in the cabin knew it, but none of them could bring it out in words.
"What's that?" Taylor demanded, stabbing a finger at the monitor. As the M-100 approached the heart of the site, the on-board sensors picked up greater and greater detail.
Meredith squinted and saw only a black speck. He touched the selector pencil to the screen and the lens telescoped down.
It was a body. A man's body. Where before there had been only the disguised outlines of machinery and the insistent silence.
"He's moving," Parker said.
They all bent down over the monitor, each man's stale breath sour in the nostrils of his comrades.
Yes. It was unmistakable. It was definitely a man, in uniform, and he was moving. He was lying on his back, making jerking, seemingly random gestures at the sky.
"What in the name of Christ?" Taylor whispered.
The unintelligent, wasted movement of the man's limbs came erratically. But he was unmistakably alive, although the snow was beginning to bury him. The man's movements reminded Meredith of something, but he could not quite place it.
"Get us down on the ground, goddammit," Taylor roared.
It seemed to Meredith that Taylor had just realized what was going on. But the old man seemed to have no intention of sharing his knowledge.
"Yes sir," Kreb's voice came back through the intercom, just a second late. The old warrant officer's voice seemed to tremble, astonishing Meredith, who had grown used to Krebs's theatrical toughness.
The sensors on the M-100 were very efficient, and although they were still several kilometers away from the thrashing soldier's location, Meredith could already begin to make out the exact contours of the body, even the more pronounced facial features. He almost thought he recognized the man.
They Land at Assembly Area Silver and Take Measure of the Aftermath of What Occurred.
When they had lugged the young captain's snow-dusted body into the shelter of Heifetz's M-100, they had found Lucky Dave and the crew spilled over the floor like drunkards, eyes without focus, limbs twitches like the bodies of beheaded snakes, mouths drooling. The smell of shit had soaked out through their uniforms, and they made unprovoked noises that seemed to come from a delirium beyond words.
"Listen to me," Taylor said quietly. The snow was beginning to decorate his shoulders. "I think they hear us. I think they hear every word. They just can't respond."
The Regimental Commander Reveals Some Insight Into American Military Research Since the Zaire Debacle back in 2005 and Their Efforts to Research Alternative Technologies to Counter the Japanese.
"Ten years ago, when you were off studying your Russian, I was involved in some unusual programs. Between L.A. and our little jaunt down to Mexico. We were working like mad, trying to come up with alternative technologies for a military response to the Japanese. The M-100s are one result of all that. But there were a lot of other projects that didn't make it all the way to production. For a variety of reasons." He shook Meredith. "Are you all right? Are you listening to me?"
Meredith nodded, with the acrid aftertaste of vomit and snow in his mouth.
"We tried everything we could think of," Taylor said. He shook his head at the memory. loosening snow from his helmet. "Some of the ideas were just plain crazy. Nonsensical. Things that couldn't possibly have worked. Or that needed too much development lead time. But there was one thing-."
...
"It was out at Dugway. You had to have every clearance in the world just to hear the project's code name. Some of the whiz kids out at Livermore had come up with a totally new approach. And we looked into it. We brought them out to Utah, to the most isolated testing area we had, to see what they could do. They didn't care much for the social environment, of course. But once we turned them loose, they made amazing progress," Taylor paused, still staring out through space and time. "They came up with a weapon that worked, all right. Christ almighty, we could've finished the Japs within a year. As soon as we could've gotten the weapons into the field. But we just could not bring ourselves to do it, Merry. I mean, I think I hate the Japanese. I suspect I hate them in a way that is irrational and morally inexcusable. But not one of us- not one of the people that had a say wanted to go through with it. We decided that the weapons were simply too inhumane. That their use would have been unforgeable." Taylor looked down at the snow gathering around their boots and smiled softly. "I thought we were doing the right thing. The scientists were disappointed as hell, of course. You know, the worst soldier I've ever known has a more highly developed sense of morality than the average scientist. Anyway, I really thought we were doing the right thing. I guess I was just being weak." He shook his head. "It looks like the Japanese have made fools of us again."
After explaining how the US could have developed a weapon that would've won their War against the Japanese in a year... a decade ago, he explains what the weapon likely was.
"But- what was it?" Meredith asked. "The weapon?"
Taylor raised his eyebrows at the question as though further details were not so pertinent. "It was a radio-wave weapon," he said matter-of-factly. "Complex stuff to design, but simple enough in concept. You take radio waves apart and rebuilding them to a formula that achieves a desired effect in the human brian. You broadcast, and the mind receives. It's a little like music. You listen to a song with a good beat, and you tap your foot. A ballad makes you sentimental. Really, sound waves have been manipulated us for a long, long time. Well, the boys from Livermore had been screwing around with jamming technology for years. Same principle. They started off small. Learning how to cause pain. The next step was to focus the pain. And so on. You could cause death relatively easily. But that was too crude for men of science. They went beyond the clean kill. And we developed- well, compositions, you might say, that could do precisely focused damage to the human mind." Taylor looked at Meredith. "Think back to your military science classes, Merry. And tell me: is it preferable to kill your enemy outright or to incapitate him, to wound him badly?"
"To wound him," Meredith said automatically.
"And why?
"Because- a dead soldier- is just a dead soldier. But a wounded soldier puts stress on the enemy's infrastructure. He has to receive first aid. Then he has to be evacuated. He requires care. A dead soldier makes no immediate demands on the system, but a wounded man exerts a rearward pull. Enough wounded men can paralyze-."
"Exactly. And that's it, Merry."
"But- how long until it wears off? When are they going to be all right?"
Taylor strengthened his grip on Merry's arm. "Merry, it doesn't wear off. Christ, if it did, we would have fielded it in a heartbeat. The effects are irreversible. It's a terror weapon, you see."
Meredith felt sick again. With a deeper, emptier, spiritually dreary sickness.
"But- you said they might be able to understand us?"
Taylor nodded. "It makes no difference to recovery. In fact, that's the worst part, Merry. You see, if the Japanese are using approximately the same formula we came up with, Lucky- Colonel Heifetz and the ohters have not suffered any loss in intelligence, or in basic cognitive reasoning... See that's the beauty of this weapon- the victims remain fully intelligent human beings, even though they are physically utterly incapable of controlling their basic bodily functions. They cannot even tell their eyes were to look. But htey still process what their eyes happen to see. That way, by presenting your enemy with a mature, living intelligence, you rob him of the excuse to ligthen his load with conscience-free euthanasia- you're not killing a thing. You'd be killing a thinking, feeling human being who lost the use of his body in the service of his country." Taylor snorted. "Beautiful isn't it."
The details and effects of the long foreshadowed 'Scrambler' weapon are finally revealed and that the United States was conducting research into something similar years prior, but declined to bring such a weapon into production and service.
3rd November 2020
Contact Is Immediately Lost With Assembly Area 'Silver'
"Sierra five-five, This is Saber Six. Sierra five-five. This is Saber six..."
Taylor knew immediately that something was seriously wrong when he heard Reno's voice on the command net. The general's son was always careful to maintain a studied coolness over any open communications means, except when he was verbally destroying one of his subordinates, or in combat, when his voice screamed for medals, awards, citations. Now Reno's voice strained with emotion and he had done something which he never had done before. He had used the call sign "Saber six" on Taylor's net.
Taylor knew that Reno affected the call sign on his squadron's internal comms, but the main was always careful to use his proper call sign on the regimental command net, both because Taylor made it plain that he disapproved of unauthorized nonsense and because "Saber six" was a timesworn cavalry handle reserved for regimental commanders- not for the subordinate lieutenant colonels who commanded squadrons.
"Tango five-five, this is Sierra five-five. Over."
"This is Saber- I mean, Tango five-five. I can't contact anybody at AA Silver. I was on the horn with the One-three, and he just cut out in midsentence. I've tried calling Whisky five-five, but I don't even get anything breaking up. Nothing. Is something going on down there? What's going on?"
...
He turned to the special satellite communications link that was normally reserved for conversations with the nation's highest authorities.
Meredith was already keying the system. Then they all waited again, while in the background Reno pleaded for attention and answers over the regimental command net.
They waited for five minutes. But there was nothing. The heavens were dead.
Finally, Taylor turned back to the command net, determined to make one last attempt.
"Any Whisky station, any Whisky station," he called First Squadron, his words reaching out toward Assembly Area Silver, "this is Sierra five-five. How do you hear this station, over?"
Nothing.
...
"We're going in. We're going to find out what the hell's going on."
Taylor called ahead to Second Squadron at Platinum, just outside of Orenburg. The squadron commander had been monitoring the traffic on the net, digesting it and maintaining radio discipline.
"If you lose contact with me," Taylor said, "you are to assume command of the regiment." Everyone knew that Reno was the senior squadron commander by date of rank. But Reno was in no condition to lead the regiment at the moment. If he ever had been.
Reno did not contest the message that had been sent opently for all command net subscribers to hear.
Well, Taylor though, I've still got Second and Third Squadrons. If worse comes to worst.
"Contact the escort element," Taylor told the assistant S-3. "Tell them we're going in ready to fight."
The Command Element Approaches Assembly Area Silver
Translated through the monitor screen, the imagery of Assembly Area Silver had an unmistakable quiet about it that frightened him with its wrongness. It was eerie, unnatural. It occurred to him for the first time that silence could have a look about it, an intrusion across sensory boundaries that jarred the working order of the mind. The silent display of M-100s, partially camouflaged and dispersed over a grove-dotted steppe, was somehow so insistently incorrect that he could feel his body responding even as his mind struggled to process the information into harmless answers.
First Squadron was supposed to be quiet, lying still in hide positions. The goal was to blend into the landscape, to avoid offering any signs of life to searching enemy sensors. To play dead. Even beyond that- to become invisible. The problem was that the M100s burrowed so neatly into the snow fields had achieved the desired effect too well.
No unit was ever completely silent. No unit was ever so disciplined that it could avoiding twitching a human muscle or two for the practiced eye to spot. Perfection in camouflage and deception operations was a matter of degree.
But the First Squadron site had a special, unbearable silence about it. It had begun with the refusal of every last oral communications channel to respond to Taylor's queries. They had all assumed that First Squadron had been hit and hit badly by an enemy strike. Then Meredith tried a computer-to-computer query.
Each computer in First Squadron responded promptly when contacted. Data passed through the heavens instantly and exactly. The machines continued their electronic march through the endless battlefields of integers. It was only their human masters that made no reply.
The first imagery Meredith called up had filled them with a sense of relief. Yes. There they were, all right. Carefully dispersed M-100s. There was not a single indicator of battle damage. The snow drifted across the site with blinding purity, and when you looked carefully, the concealed contours of the M-100s on the ground betrayed no trace of destruction. The squadron looked exactly as it was supposed to look, and it occurred to Meredith that the whole business just might be a bizarre communications anomaly.
It was only the feel that was wrong.
"Run a systems check on our environmental seals," Taylor ordered.
"You figure chemicals, sir?" Meredith asked.
"Could be. I don't know. Christ," Taylor said quietly. "I've seen week-old corpses that didn't look that dead."
"Nerve agent strike?"
Taylor bent closer to the imagery, narrowing his eyes, obviously straining to achieve a greater intensity of vision.
"That's what I'd have to bet, if I was betting. But it doesn't make any goddamned sense. Even if a strike had caught some of the birds with their hatches open, others would have been sealed. If only because of the cold. And the automatic seals and the overpressure systems would have kicked in." He backed away from the monitor,
...
"It just doesn't make any sense Merry. If it was nerve gas, or any kind of chemicals, somebody would have survived. The autosensors would have alerted, and we would have had more flash traffic calls coming in than the system could've handled." He shook his head very slowly, then touched the edge of the gauzed hand to his hairline. "It just doesn't make any sense."
After ruling out conventional attack, communications anomalies and chemical strikes, the M-100s draw closer until within a few kilometers of Assembly Area Silver.
Something was terribly, inexplicably wrong. Each man in the cabin knew it, but none of them could bring it out in words.
"What's that?" Taylor demanded, stabbing a finger at the monitor. As the M-100 approached the heart of the site, the on-board sensors picked up greater and greater detail.
Meredith squinted and saw only a black speck. He touched the selector pencil to the screen and the lens telescoped down.
It was a body. A man's body. Where before there had been only the disguised outlines of machinery and the insistent silence.
"He's moving," Parker said.
They all bent down over the monitor, each man's stale breath sour in the nostrils of his comrades.
Yes. It was unmistakable. It was definitely a man, in uniform, and he was moving. He was lying on his back, making jerking, seemingly random gestures at the sky.
"What in the name of Christ?" Taylor whispered.
The unintelligent, wasted movement of the man's limbs came erratically. But he was unmistakably alive, although the snow was beginning to bury him. The man's movements reminded Meredith of something, but he could not quite place it.
"Get us down on the ground, goddammit," Taylor roared.
It seemed to Meredith that Taylor had just realized what was going on. But the old man seemed to have no intention of sharing his knowledge.
"Yes sir," Kreb's voice came back through the intercom, just a second late. The old warrant officer's voice seemed to tremble, astonishing Meredith, who had grown used to Krebs's theatrical toughness.
The sensors on the M-100 were very efficient, and although they were still several kilometers away from the thrashing soldier's location, Meredith could already begin to make out the exact contours of the body, even the more pronounced facial features. He almost thought he recognized the man.
They Land at Assembly Area Silver and Take Measure of the Aftermath of What Occurred.
When they had lugged the young captain's snow-dusted body into the shelter of Heifetz's M-100, they had found Lucky Dave and the crew spilled over the floor like drunkards, eyes without focus, limbs twitches like the bodies of beheaded snakes, mouths drooling. The smell of shit had soaked out through their uniforms, and they made unprovoked noises that seemed to come from a delirium beyond words.
"Listen to me," Taylor said quietly. The snow was beginning to decorate his shoulders. "I think they hear us. I think they hear every word. They just can't respond."
The Regimental Commander Reveals Some Insight Into American Military Research Since the Zaire Debacle back in 2005 and Their Efforts to Research Alternative Technologies to Counter the Japanese.
"Ten years ago, when you were off studying your Russian, I was involved in some unusual programs. Between L.A. and our little jaunt down to Mexico. We were working like mad, trying to come up with alternative technologies for a military response to the Japanese. The M-100s are one result of all that. But there were a lot of other projects that didn't make it all the way to production. For a variety of reasons." He shook Meredith. "Are you all right? Are you listening to me?"
Meredith nodded, with the acrid aftertaste of vomit and snow in his mouth.
"We tried everything we could think of," Taylor said. He shook his head at the memory. loosening snow from his helmet. "Some of the ideas were just plain crazy. Nonsensical. Things that couldn't possibly have worked. Or that needed too much development lead time. But there was one thing-."
...
"It was out at Dugway. You had to have every clearance in the world just to hear the project's code name. Some of the whiz kids out at Livermore had come up with a totally new approach. And we looked into it. We brought them out to Utah, to the most isolated testing area we had, to see what they could do. They didn't care much for the social environment, of course. But once we turned them loose, they made amazing progress," Taylor paused, still staring out through space and time. "They came up with a weapon that worked, all right. Christ almighty, we could've finished the Japs within a year. As soon as we could've gotten the weapons into the field. But we just could not bring ourselves to do it, Merry. I mean, I think I hate the Japanese. I suspect I hate them in a way that is irrational and morally inexcusable. But not one of us- not one of the people that had a say wanted to go through with it. We decided that the weapons were simply too inhumane. That their use would have been unforgeable." Taylor looked down at the snow gathering around their boots and smiled softly. "I thought we were doing the right thing. The scientists were disappointed as hell, of course. You know, the worst soldier I've ever known has a more highly developed sense of morality than the average scientist. Anyway, I really thought we were doing the right thing. I guess I was just being weak." He shook his head. "It looks like the Japanese have made fools of us again."
After explaining how the US could have developed a weapon that would've won their War against the Japanese in a year... a decade ago, he explains what the weapon likely was.
"But- what was it?" Meredith asked. "The weapon?"
Taylor raised his eyebrows at the question as though further details were not so pertinent. "It was a radio-wave weapon," he said matter-of-factly. "Complex stuff to design, but simple enough in concept. You take radio waves apart and rebuilding them to a formula that achieves a desired effect in the human brian. You broadcast, and the mind receives. It's a little like music. You listen to a song with a good beat, and you tap your foot. A ballad makes you sentimental. Really, sound waves have been manipulated us for a long, long time. Well, the boys from Livermore had been screwing around with jamming technology for years. Same principle. They started off small. Learning how to cause pain. The next step was to focus the pain. And so on. You could cause death relatively easily. But that was too crude for men of science. They went beyond the clean kill. And we developed- well, compositions, you might say, that could do precisely focused damage to the human mind." Taylor looked at Meredith. "Think back to your military science classes, Merry. And tell me: is it preferable to kill your enemy outright or to incapitate him, to wound him badly?"
"To wound him," Meredith said automatically.
"And why?
"Because- a dead soldier- is just a dead soldier. But a wounded soldier puts stress on the enemy's infrastructure. He has to receive first aid. Then he has to be evacuated. He requires care. A dead soldier makes no immediate demands on the system, but a wounded man exerts a rearward pull. Enough wounded men can paralyze-."
"Exactly. And that's it, Merry."
"But- how long until it wears off? When are they going to be all right?"
Taylor strengthened his grip on Merry's arm. "Merry, it doesn't wear off. Christ, if it did, we would have fielded it in a heartbeat. The effects are irreversible. It's a terror weapon, you see."
Meredith felt sick again. With a deeper, emptier, spiritually dreary sickness.
"But- you said they might be able to understand us?"
Taylor nodded. "It makes no difference to recovery. In fact, that's the worst part, Merry. You see, if the Japanese are using approximately the same formula we came up with, Lucky- Colonel Heifetz and the ohters have not suffered any loss in intelligence, or in basic cognitive reasoning... See that's the beauty of this weapon- the victims remain fully intelligent human beings, even though they are physically utterly incapable of controlling their basic bodily functions. They cannot even tell their eyes were to look. But htey still process what their eyes happen to see. That way, by presenting your enemy with a mature, living intelligence, you rob him of the excuse to ligthen his load with conscience-free euthanasia- you're not killing a thing. You'd be killing a thinking, feeling human being who lost the use of his body in the service of his country." Taylor snorted. "Beautiful isn't it."
The details and effects of the long foreshadowed 'Scrambler' weapon are finally revealed and that the United States was conducting research into something similar years prior, but declined to bring such a weapon into production and service.
Last edited:
Tiamat
I've seen the future...
IMO....if the Japanese have no reservations about using such a weapon to begin with, that ought to be grounds for a nuclear response.
The ramifications of nuclear disarmament (and the dependency on space based strategic defense instead) is one of the warning themes of the book as well. I didn't mention it (beyond the comments on space based strategic defense systems) because it wasn't really a technical part of the story I wanted to cover in this thread.
Chapter Twenty: 3rd November, 2020
Chapter Twenty:
3rd November, 2020
The White House Reacts to the Use of the 'Scrambler' Weapon. Defeatism is already evident in the cabinet level meeting. It's also revealed what the scale of Soviet casualties might've been.
"Mr. President," he began carefully, "we would do well to remember that the balance sheet isn't completely in the red. If you look at the raw numbers, for instance, the Japanese and their proxies have suffered a grave defeat at the hands of the United States Army. We've lost a squadron. They've lost their most potent field forces, the key combat equipment out of several corps. If the Japanese hadn't had an ace up their sleeve, we'd be sitting here having a victory celebration. Our forces performed brilliantly.
"Cliff," the President said to Bouquette, "is it the Agency's view that the Japanese will make repeated use of the Scramblers if we don't cut a deal?"
Bouquette rose. "Mr. President, there's no question about it. If they employed them once, they'll do it again. If we provoke them. We suspect that they've already delivered an ultimatum to the Soviets. "And you now concur with the assessment of Colonel- uh, Taylor that these are some of kind radio weapons?"
Bouquette pawed one of his fine English shoes at the carpet. "Yes, Mr. President. Radio-wave weapons, actually. Yes, it now appears that Colonel Taylor's initial assessment was correct. of course, he had the advantage of being on the scene, while we had to work with second-hand information."
"And these are weapons that could have been introduced into the U.S. arsenal a decade ago?"
"We can still build them," the chairman interrupted. "We could field new prototypes in six months."
"I don't want to build them," the President said. There was an unmistakable note of anger in his voice. "If we had them, I would not order their use. Even now." Waters slumped again, then smiled wearily. "Perhaps, after the election, you'll be able to take up the matter with my successor." He turned back to Bouquette. "Do we have any idea whether the Japanese have other tricks up their sleeve? Do they have any more secret weapons?"
Bouquette glanced down at his hand-sewn shoes. Then he took a breath that was clearly audible to Daisy. "Mr. President, we have no further information in that regard. But we cannot rule out that possibility."
"Before I make a final decision," President Waters said, "I want to consult with our Soviet allies one more time."
"Mr. President," the secretary of state said impatiently. "their position's clear. While we lost- what was it- a squadron? A few hundred men? The Soviets still haven't begun to total their losses. An entire city- what was it, Bouquette?"
"Orsk."
"Yes, Orsk. And dozens of surrounding towns. Hundreds of settlements. Why, the Soviets are overwhelmed. They have no idea how to cope with the casualties. We're talking numbers in the hundreds of thousands. And what if the Japanese use these weapons again? Mr. President, you heard the Soviet ambassador yourself. 'Immediate negotiations for an armistice.'"
The Americans are actually plotting a potential counterstrike and want the Soviets help.
The American was crazy. General Ivanov could not believe what he had heard. The memory of the American colonel's scarred face was troubling enough- now it appeared that the man's mind was deformed as well.
A raid.
A raid into the enemy's operational-strategic rear.
A raid on the enemy's main command and control center.
A raid on the enemy's computer system, of all things.
It was a madman's notion,
Expansion on the scale of loss the Soviets have suffered as the Soviet General in Command of the Military Forces in Western Siberia reacts.
The long day had begun so well. With American successes that promised to decisively alter the correlation of forces. American successes so great they both frightened Ivanov and made him envious, even though the Americans were on his country's side this time.
Of course, he and a select group of Soviets had known there would be a Japanese reply. They had even had an inkling of the form the Japanese response would take. But they had not understood the dimension of the loss they would suffer, otherwise they would not have involved themselves with the Americans in the first place. They had attempted to call the Japanese bluff.
Then the world ended for every Soviet citizen living within a zone tens of thousands of square kilometers. A military transport had landed at Orsk to find its entire population reduced to infantile helplessness. It was worse than the chemical attacks. Worse, in its way, than the plague years had been. The Japanese had won. And, no matter how cruel and theoretically inadmissible their methods had been, their victory could not be denied. All that remained was to salvage as much of the motherland as possible.
...
Meanwhile, Ivanov waited in his headquarters for word that the Japanese terror weapons had descended from the heavens at yet another location, perhaps devouring an entire army this time. Perhaps they would come for a worn-out Soviet general who was no longer a threat to anyone.
Ivanov wondered exactly how the weapons worked. Was their effect instantaneous, or would a man who recognized what he was dealing with have time to put a pistol to his head?
"How can we respond to something like this? The Japanese have made it very clear that the strike on the Orsk region was merely a warning."
"And the Americans have no technological countermeasure?"
...
"If they do, they're keeping it a secret." He shrugged. "Moscow believes the Americans are as helpless as we are. Oh, there's some nonsense about attacking Japanese computers- But, really- with such weapons at the enemy's disposal- What is to be done?" Ivanov looked fully into Kozlov's stare for the first time, and saw the reflection of his desolation. "Nothing," Ivanov answered himself. "Nothing."
"Yet, Colonel Taylor is planning a raid?" He plans to continue the fight?"
...
"And he wants to raid Baku? The Japanese headquarters?"
Ivanov smiled wistfully. "Yes. The Japanese headquarters. Of course, you and I remember when it was otherwise."
...
"In any case, lend the Americans the knowledge of the setup in Baku. Let them make their plans. I don't think it will come to very much."
Much Like the Joints Chiefs in the White House Briefing, the Soviets Seemed to Have Noted How Decisive the American M-100s Attack was in a Conventional sense. There's also disagreement within the Soviet Union as to how to respond as well.
And the Americans had come so close. Really, there was no substance left to oppose Soviet forces on the ground. Even in their battered condition, they could begin to sweep back to teh south, through Kazakhstan, And beyond. The Americans, with their wondrous machines, had done the enemy coalition irreparable harm. The correlation of ground forces had shifted remarkably.
The only problem was the new Japanese terror weapon. Still, it was unthinkable to Kozlov that his people would let a single tool deprive them not only of victory but perhaos of their national independence. What had happened at Orks? A terrible thing. Gruesome. But it was nothing compared to teh sufferings of the Great Patriotic War. What had happened to the Russian character? To the spirit of sacrifice?
Kozlov refused to feel beaten.
This chapter is short on technical and military details which is the point of this thread as it mostly deals with the fallout from the American and Soviet POV's of the M-100s and the Scrambler attack, especially on the Soviet Union. The US Secretary of State throws out that the Russians have likely suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties. Meanwhile the Russians state that thousands of square kilometers were apparently affected by the strike. There is still high level and low level disagreement from both America and the Soviet Union over how to respond, with a primary fear being of more Scrambler strikes.
3rd November, 2020
The White House Reacts to the Use of the 'Scrambler' Weapon. Defeatism is already evident in the cabinet level meeting. It's also revealed what the scale of Soviet casualties might've been.
"Mr. President," he began carefully, "we would do well to remember that the balance sheet isn't completely in the red. If you look at the raw numbers, for instance, the Japanese and their proxies have suffered a grave defeat at the hands of the United States Army. We've lost a squadron. They've lost their most potent field forces, the key combat equipment out of several corps. If the Japanese hadn't had an ace up their sleeve, we'd be sitting here having a victory celebration. Our forces performed brilliantly.
"Cliff," the President said to Bouquette, "is it the Agency's view that the Japanese will make repeated use of the Scramblers if we don't cut a deal?"
Bouquette rose. "Mr. President, there's no question about it. If they employed them once, they'll do it again. If we provoke them. We suspect that they've already delivered an ultimatum to the Soviets. "And you now concur with the assessment of Colonel- uh, Taylor that these are some of kind radio weapons?"
Bouquette pawed one of his fine English shoes at the carpet. "Yes, Mr. President. Radio-wave weapons, actually. Yes, it now appears that Colonel Taylor's initial assessment was correct. of course, he had the advantage of being on the scene, while we had to work with second-hand information."
"And these are weapons that could have been introduced into the U.S. arsenal a decade ago?"
"We can still build them," the chairman interrupted. "We could field new prototypes in six months."
"I don't want to build them," the President said. There was an unmistakable note of anger in his voice. "If we had them, I would not order their use. Even now." Waters slumped again, then smiled wearily. "Perhaps, after the election, you'll be able to take up the matter with my successor." He turned back to Bouquette. "Do we have any idea whether the Japanese have other tricks up their sleeve? Do they have any more secret weapons?"
Bouquette glanced down at his hand-sewn shoes. Then he took a breath that was clearly audible to Daisy. "Mr. President, we have no further information in that regard. But we cannot rule out that possibility."
"Before I make a final decision," President Waters said, "I want to consult with our Soviet allies one more time."
"Mr. President," the secretary of state said impatiently. "their position's clear. While we lost- what was it- a squadron? A few hundred men? The Soviets still haven't begun to total their losses. An entire city- what was it, Bouquette?"
"Orsk."
"Yes, Orsk. And dozens of surrounding towns. Hundreds of settlements. Why, the Soviets are overwhelmed. They have no idea how to cope with the casualties. We're talking numbers in the hundreds of thousands. And what if the Japanese use these weapons again? Mr. President, you heard the Soviet ambassador yourself. 'Immediate negotiations for an armistice.'"
The Americans are actually plotting a potential counterstrike and want the Soviets help.
The American was crazy. General Ivanov could not believe what he had heard. The memory of the American colonel's scarred face was troubling enough- now it appeared that the man's mind was deformed as well.
A raid.
A raid into the enemy's operational-strategic rear.
A raid on the enemy's main command and control center.
A raid on the enemy's computer system, of all things.
It was a madman's notion,
Expansion on the scale of loss the Soviets have suffered as the Soviet General in Command of the Military Forces in Western Siberia reacts.
The long day had begun so well. With American successes that promised to decisively alter the correlation of forces. American successes so great they both frightened Ivanov and made him envious, even though the Americans were on his country's side this time.
Of course, he and a select group of Soviets had known there would be a Japanese reply. They had even had an inkling of the form the Japanese response would take. But they had not understood the dimension of the loss they would suffer, otherwise they would not have involved themselves with the Americans in the first place. They had attempted to call the Japanese bluff.
Then the world ended for every Soviet citizen living within a zone tens of thousands of square kilometers. A military transport had landed at Orsk to find its entire population reduced to infantile helplessness. It was worse than the chemical attacks. Worse, in its way, than the plague years had been. The Japanese had won. And, no matter how cruel and theoretically inadmissible their methods had been, their victory could not be denied. All that remained was to salvage as much of the motherland as possible.
...
Meanwhile, Ivanov waited in his headquarters for word that the Japanese terror weapons had descended from the heavens at yet another location, perhaps devouring an entire army this time. Perhaps they would come for a worn-out Soviet general who was no longer a threat to anyone.
Ivanov wondered exactly how the weapons worked. Was their effect instantaneous, or would a man who recognized what he was dealing with have time to put a pistol to his head?
"How can we respond to something like this? The Japanese have made it very clear that the strike on the Orsk region was merely a warning."
"And the Americans have no technological countermeasure?"
...
"If they do, they're keeping it a secret." He shrugged. "Moscow believes the Americans are as helpless as we are. Oh, there's some nonsense about attacking Japanese computers- But, really- with such weapons at the enemy's disposal- What is to be done?" Ivanov looked fully into Kozlov's stare for the first time, and saw the reflection of his desolation. "Nothing," Ivanov answered himself. "Nothing."
"Yet, Colonel Taylor is planning a raid?" He plans to continue the fight?"
...
"And he wants to raid Baku? The Japanese headquarters?"
Ivanov smiled wistfully. "Yes. The Japanese headquarters. Of course, you and I remember when it was otherwise."
...
"In any case, lend the Americans the knowledge of the setup in Baku. Let them make their plans. I don't think it will come to very much."
Much Like the Joints Chiefs in the White House Briefing, the Soviets Seemed to Have Noted How Decisive the American M-100s Attack was in a Conventional sense. There's also disagreement within the Soviet Union as to how to respond as well.
And the Americans had come so close. Really, there was no substance left to oppose Soviet forces on the ground. Even in their battered condition, they could begin to sweep back to teh south, through Kazakhstan, And beyond. The Americans, with their wondrous machines, had done the enemy coalition irreparable harm. The correlation of ground forces had shifted remarkably.
The only problem was the new Japanese terror weapon. Still, it was unthinkable to Kozlov that his people would let a single tool deprive them not only of victory but perhaos of their national independence. What had happened at Orks? A terrible thing. Gruesome. But it was nothing compared to teh sufferings of the Great Patriotic War. What had happened to the Russian character? To the spirit of sacrifice?
Kozlov refused to feel beaten.
This chapter is short on technical and military details which is the point of this thread as it mostly deals with the fallout from the American and Soviet POV's of the M-100s and the Scrambler attack, especially on the Soviet Union. The US Secretary of State throws out that the Russians have likely suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties. Meanwhile the Russians state that thousands of square kilometers were apparently affected by the strike. There is still high level and low level disagreement from both America and the Soviet Union over how to respond, with a primary fear being of more Scrambler strikes.
...Yeah, I'm sorry, but the more I read this, the more it becomes obvious that the plot requires everyone on the American and Soviet leaderships to have dropped fifty IQ points, while everyone on the Japanese side went full bore Imperial Japanese Buffoon again.
The President and his cabinet basically just being completely impotent over a goddamn terror weapon being used cut the already fraying suspension of disbelief rope with a chainsaw. smh
Some of the tech is interesting, especially from the 1990's onwards point of view, but the premise and the worldbuilding is just... awful. I've honestly seen fanfiction of a higher quality.
Christ, even Red Alert 3 had a better plot, and that's a low bar to fail at.
The President and his cabinet basically just being completely impotent over a goddamn terror weapon being used cut the already fraying suspension of disbelief rope with a chainsaw. smh
Some of the tech is interesting, especially from the 1990's onwards point of view, but the premise and the worldbuilding is just... awful. I've honestly seen fanfiction of a higher quality.
Christ, even Red Alert 3 had a better plot, and that's a low bar to fail at.
Chapter Twenty One: 3 November 2020
Chapter Twenty One:
3 November 2020
Japanese and Allied Reaction to the Arrival of the Americans and the Scrambler Counterstrike at their Baku Headquarters which is an old Soviet fortress built into a hilltop mountainside.
Even through the bunkered thickness of the walls and bulletproof glass, he could hear them out there in the night. The people. Gathering in defiance of the outbreak of plague that had begun to haunt the city. Tens of thousands of them, there was no way of counting them with precision. Inside the headquarters complex, his staff continued to celebrate the success of the Scramblers, undeterred.
...
The rhythmic chanting echoed relentlessly through the walls.
"Death to Japan," they cried.
...
The demonstrators had begun to gather even as the Scramblers did their work... How would Tokyo explain it? Marginally literate roustabouts had known of the vast scale of the Iranian and rebel defeat almost as swiftly as Noburu himself. In response, they materialized out of alleyways, or descended from the tainted heights of apartment blocks... The faithful came in from the vast belt of slums that ringed the official city, from homes made of pasteboard and tin, from quarters in abandoned railcars that were already in the possession of a third generation of the same family. They came under banners green and black, the colors of Allah, the colors of death. In the heart of the headquarters building, their voices had been audible before they halfway climbed the hill, and now, as they formed a great crescent around the front of the military complex, their voices reached down into the stone depths of the mountainside. To the buried operations center, where Noburu's officers were drinking victory toasts in confident oblivion.
...
The headquarters building was shaped like a U with short sides, forming a courtyard that opened out onto a broader space that functioned alternatively as a parking area for military vehicles or as a parade ground. It was bare now, with the austerity of wartime. Beyond the cobbled and cemented space, the wall rose, defining the perimeter of the compound. The wall was built to a height greater than the tallest man and unruly coils of concertina wire stretched along its top, connecting intermittent guard towers from which automatic weapons scanned silently over the excluded crowds.
Noburu headed straight for the central gate. Closed now, the two oversize steel doors were crowned with spikes, a number of which had been bent or broken off. Noburu had no clear plan of action. He just wanted to see the beginning of the end with his own eyes.
The protestors attempt an asymmetric action upon the Japanese headquarters.
Before their eyes, men had begun to fly through the air. Soaring above the wall. Men with invisible wings.
The first few did not fly high enough. They caught the curls of the wire atop the wall, then hung limply. One sailed out of the low sky only to land gruesomely atop the spikes of the gate, impaling himself without a sound.
Noburu was baffled. Was this some new mystery of the East?
In a matter of seconds, half a dozen of these enchanted men had snared themselves in their attempt to soar over the wall and join Noburu in the enclave. The accepted the pain of their failures with remarkable stoicism. Wordlessly entangling themselves in the midst of the razor-sharp loops, the men sprawled their arms and legs across the barrier.
More and more of the odd angels rose from the crowd beyond the wall. Noburu could not understand the bizarre acrobatics. His mind filled with decades of old news film. Moslem fanatics lashing themselves mercilessly for the love of God. Riots, revolutions. Burning cities. The Arabian nights- and the tormented days. Endless calls for the blood. Once, he knew, the Azeris had gathered to call for the death to the Armenians, later for death to the Russians. Before that, their brethren to the south had howled, "Death to America."
Now it was "Death to Japan." As he had known it would be.
...
At last one of the dervishes cleared the height of the gate. He arced just above his impaled brother, twisting in the light, and dropped with a careless thud just a few feet from Noburu and his sole remaining escort.
The security officer had his pistol at the ready. He hustled toward the intruder, barking orders.
The visitor did not stir.
Suddenly, the security officer arched backward, away from the body. It was an exaggerated gesture, and it reminded Noburu of the way a startled cat could stop abruptly, pulling back its snout from evident trouble.
The security officer turned and bolted unceremoniously past Noburu. The man gibbered, and Noburu could make out only a single word:
"Plague."
...
Runciman's disease. It was unmistakable. the marbled discoloration of the skin. The look of pain that lasted beyond death. The corpse lay broken on the ground, in a fitting posture of agony.
Another body cleared the wall and hit the ground with a thud.
Tokyo wanted thanks. And here it was.
Wondrous gifts flew through the air in this country. The people generously gave up their dead. Such a beautiful gift. Expressive, Noburu would have liked to have wrapped up at least one of the bodies and sent it to the Tokyo General Staff.
Noboru let his attention sink back to the corpse at his feet. You were lucky, he told the dead man. You were one of our friends. Had you been one of Japan's enemies, had you passed your years in the city of Orsk, or had you been one of those American soldiers, your suffering would only be beginning.
The crowd beyond the wall erupted in a scream that had the force of a great storm compacted into a single moment. It pierced Noburu. It was impossible to assign a catalogued emotion to the scream. The common words used to define the heart did not suffice.
We are worse than any other animal, Noburu thought. And he bent down to close the corpse's eyes.
He turned back into the parade ground's lengthening shadows, to the small group of officers awaiting him in horror.
"It's all right," Noburu assured them. "My shots are up-to-date. Tokyo has taken care of everything."
Japanese preventive medication for the 'Plague/Runcimans Disease' has apparently been issued to senior Japanese leadership.
The Regimental Commander Briefs the President On his Planned Operation.
"It all started," Taylor said," with a damned good piece of luck. The Japanese battlefield control computers have been considered impregnable. But a young warrant officer from the Tenth, working with his Soviet counterpart, cracked a key component the Russians had recovered from a downed Japanese control bird. I understand that you've been briefed on the matter, but let me explain it from the battlefield perspective. Using the knowledge we've already derived from this computer 'brain,' we've been able to electronically transliterate various offensive computer programs into the software alphabet that the Japanese computers will accept. Most importantly, we now have the means to enter anything we want into the Japanese system and to do it very quickly. Of course, the Japanese have no idea about any of this, as far as we know. If we can just get to one of their main terminals before they realize they've been compromised, we could deliver a mortal blow to their system." Taylor was clearly excited by the concept, and the building fire in his voice was the only real enthusiasm the President had encountered for hours.
"The possibilities are incredible," the colonel continued. "We can direct their system to make fatal errors. Not only can we completely disorient the enemy's control system, we ca direct his weapons to attack each other. We can direct communications nodes to commit electronic suicide. We can offset every grid and coordinate in his automated mapping system. And we can actually conjure up false worlds for the enemy commanders. They'll be sitting at their monitors, imagining that htey're watching the battle, when in fact everything portrayed will be an illusion. And we'll be the master magicians. At the very least, we'll destoy their faith in their electronics. We'll be altering not just the parameters of the system, but hte perception of its operators." taylor looked into the President's eyesfrom a world away. "But the most beautiful part is actually the simplest. Every Japanese military system has a self-destruct mechanism built into it. It's ostensibly to prevent the gear from falling into enemy hands- but it also functions as a safeguard, in case, say, the Iranians turned against them-."
"Never happen," Bouquette muttered audibly.
"-then the Japanese could simply send out electronic system in Iranian hands, ordering the machines to self-desturct. The component the Russians captured has shown us how it's fone. And it's easy. We maybe be able to neutralize these new weapons."
"The Scramblers," Waters said.
"Yes, sir. The Scramblers." Taylor twisted up in the side of his mouth, a half-leer in a dead face. "Unfortunately it can only be done through a Japanese master control computer. That's the background. Here's the plan. I intend to take my command ship and a single troop of five M-100s- manned by colnteers- on a raid against teh Japanese theater headquarters at Baku. We will employ all of our deception systems going in, and, as we close, we'll jam everything in the area of operations. The Tenth Cav will be able to help us with that. Our approach to the target will also be covered by a larger scale deception operation as the rest of my regiment pulls out to the north. My raiding party will disappear in th3e noise of events. And we'll move fast. We won't be going in blind, either. The Soviets are sending me an officer who knows the layout of the Baku headquarters complex."
Taylor paused, and the President sensed that the man was searching through a tired brain for any key factors he might have omitted.
"We're banking on Japanese reluctance to destroy their computer system, no matter what happens," Taylor continued. "Since they don't know we've broken their code, they'll assume we couldn't access the system even if we had a year to take it apart and play with the components. Again, this system is considered to be absolutel impregnable, a sort of futuristic fortress. We'll count on going in very fast, loading in our porgrams, and getting out of there." Taylor stared hard at the President. "I want to do it tomorrow."
Waters nodded noncommittally.
"It's a long shot," Taylor admitted. "We'll have no time for rehearsals. We'll have to refuel once on the way and the Soviets will have to help us out on that. We won't be able to afford significant casualties- it's going to be a bare-bones operation. And we'll be counting on Japanese overconfidence so that they won't destroy the control computer and stop us in our tracks. Then, coming back out, we'll be vulnerable as hell- it appears that the Japanese can detect the M-100's signature from the rear hemisphere. Mr. President, I frankly cannot give you the odds on the outcome. I'd just be guessing. We may fail. But- as an American soldier- I would be ashamed not to try."
The layers of hard confidence dissolved from Taylor's features, and he simply looked like a vulnerable and very tired man. "Mr. President, we beat them today. We destroyed their finest forward-deployed systems. Their central Asian front is in a state of collapse." Taylor was obviously fumbling for the words to explain his view of the world. "The only thing that's holding them together now is the success of this new weapon."
"The Scramblers," Waters said, retasting the word.
"Yes, sir. Otherwise, we've got them licked. You see, sir, in war- the loser is often simply the first guy to quit. Time and again, commanders have assumed that they've been defeated when, in fact, they were in far better condition than their enemies. We know how badly we've been hurt. But it's always harder to gain an accurate perception of the true state of the enemy." Taylor's eyes burned and begged across the miles. "Mr. President, just give us a chance. Let's not quite. Try to remember what it was like for our country after the African intervention, when everything seemed like it was coming apart. It's been a long, hard road back. But we're almost there. Let's not quite while there's still a chance."
After giving his concept of operation for a deep raid thousands of kilometers into enemy controlled territory, it's revealed that the Americans also have recent imagery of the Baku headquarters. But still have to interpret the data.
"You didn't mention the disturbances in Baku in your plan. Have you seen the imagery?"
"Yes, sir."
"And what do you think about it? Doesn't that complicate your operation?"
"Not necessarily. In fact, the demonstrations may provide us with a very good local diversion, if they continue. The Japanese must be worried as hell about their coming over the wall."
Waters pursed his face into a quizzical expression. "What do you mean by that? What do you think those demonstrations are all about?"
"Well," Taylor said, "my S-2 thinks it's pretty clear. And I agree with him. The Japanese are learning the same lesson we had to learn the hard way. In Teheran."
Waters thought for a moment. "Then you believe those demonstrations are anti-Japanese?"
Taylor looked surprised by the question. "Of course. It's obvious."
Waters nodded, pondering this brand-new slant. "Thank you, Colonel Taylor. You'll be hearing from me in thirty minutes."
Taylor's image faded from the screen.
For a moment, there was a dull silence, reflecting the inertia of weary men. Then the secretary of state shook his patrician head in wonder.
"The man's crazy," he said.
Description of the Assembly Area Platinum Where the Regiments Raid Squadron is Preparing.
The regiment had established its headquarters in a small network of field shelters near Orenburg, in Assembly Area Platinum. The facility offered good camouflage, light ballistic protection, and no protection whatsoever, should the new Japanese weapons descend through the darkness. The staff worked hectically, as was the American custom, and no one seemed bothered by the threat of a Scrambler attack. The weapons were so overpowering that men quickly blocked them out of their immediate consciousness, as soldiers from an earlier generation had done with nuclear weapons or as men had learned to do with the plague.
Mostly Like the last Chapter. The main relevant technical details are the reinforcement of the American action on the battlefield has caused their Japanese-backed adversaries front to collapse and the fallout has resulting in anti-Japanese demonstrations and other actions taking place as the Japanese local allies seem to blame Japan for such a sweeping failure.
The Americans also deduced how the Japanese were able to track their Assembly Area and that the M-100 has a slight vulnerability from the rear hemisphere from the latest model Japanese sensors which weren't blocked in totality by localized American electronic warfare assets within the area of operations, combined with the momentarily undetected encryption glitch of the American communications.
Final details are on the Japanese Operational Headquarters in Baku, located atop a hill, built into a mountainside. It was a former Soviet military headquarters. It has concrete perimeter walls, a steel gate with spikes on the top, concertina wire laid across the top and multiple guard towers. Thick bunker like construction and bulletproofed glass used in its construction.
3 November 2020
Japanese and Allied Reaction to the Arrival of the Americans and the Scrambler Counterstrike at their Baku Headquarters which is an old Soviet fortress built into a hilltop mountainside.
Even through the bunkered thickness of the walls and bulletproof glass, he could hear them out there in the night. The people. Gathering in defiance of the outbreak of plague that had begun to haunt the city. Tens of thousands of them, there was no way of counting them with precision. Inside the headquarters complex, his staff continued to celebrate the success of the Scramblers, undeterred.
...
The rhythmic chanting echoed relentlessly through the walls.
"Death to Japan," they cried.
...
The demonstrators had begun to gather even as the Scramblers did their work... How would Tokyo explain it? Marginally literate roustabouts had known of the vast scale of the Iranian and rebel defeat almost as swiftly as Noburu himself. In response, they materialized out of alleyways, or descended from the tainted heights of apartment blocks... The faithful came in from the vast belt of slums that ringed the official city, from homes made of pasteboard and tin, from quarters in abandoned railcars that were already in the possession of a third generation of the same family. They came under banners green and black, the colors of Allah, the colors of death. In the heart of the headquarters building, their voices had been audible before they halfway climbed the hill, and now, as they formed a great crescent around the front of the military complex, their voices reached down into the stone depths of the mountainside. To the buried operations center, where Noburu's officers were drinking victory toasts in confident oblivion.
...
The headquarters building was shaped like a U with short sides, forming a courtyard that opened out onto a broader space that functioned alternatively as a parking area for military vehicles or as a parade ground. It was bare now, with the austerity of wartime. Beyond the cobbled and cemented space, the wall rose, defining the perimeter of the compound. The wall was built to a height greater than the tallest man and unruly coils of concertina wire stretched along its top, connecting intermittent guard towers from which automatic weapons scanned silently over the excluded crowds.
Noburu headed straight for the central gate. Closed now, the two oversize steel doors were crowned with spikes, a number of which had been bent or broken off. Noburu had no clear plan of action. He just wanted to see the beginning of the end with his own eyes.
The protestors attempt an asymmetric action upon the Japanese headquarters.
Before their eyes, men had begun to fly through the air. Soaring above the wall. Men with invisible wings.
The first few did not fly high enough. They caught the curls of the wire atop the wall, then hung limply. One sailed out of the low sky only to land gruesomely atop the spikes of the gate, impaling himself without a sound.
Noburu was baffled. Was this some new mystery of the East?
In a matter of seconds, half a dozen of these enchanted men had snared themselves in their attempt to soar over the wall and join Noburu in the enclave. The accepted the pain of their failures with remarkable stoicism. Wordlessly entangling themselves in the midst of the razor-sharp loops, the men sprawled their arms and legs across the barrier.
More and more of the odd angels rose from the crowd beyond the wall. Noburu could not understand the bizarre acrobatics. His mind filled with decades of old news film. Moslem fanatics lashing themselves mercilessly for the love of God. Riots, revolutions. Burning cities. The Arabian nights- and the tormented days. Endless calls for the blood. Once, he knew, the Azeris had gathered to call for the death to the Armenians, later for death to the Russians. Before that, their brethren to the south had howled, "Death to America."
Now it was "Death to Japan." As he had known it would be.
...
At last one of the dervishes cleared the height of the gate. He arced just above his impaled brother, twisting in the light, and dropped with a careless thud just a few feet from Noburu and his sole remaining escort.
The security officer had his pistol at the ready. He hustled toward the intruder, barking orders.
The visitor did not stir.
Suddenly, the security officer arched backward, away from the body. It was an exaggerated gesture, and it reminded Noburu of the way a startled cat could stop abruptly, pulling back its snout from evident trouble.
The security officer turned and bolted unceremoniously past Noburu. The man gibbered, and Noburu could make out only a single word:
"Plague."
...
Runciman's disease. It was unmistakable. the marbled discoloration of the skin. The look of pain that lasted beyond death. The corpse lay broken on the ground, in a fitting posture of agony.
Another body cleared the wall and hit the ground with a thud.
Tokyo wanted thanks. And here it was.
Wondrous gifts flew through the air in this country. The people generously gave up their dead. Such a beautiful gift. Expressive, Noburu would have liked to have wrapped up at least one of the bodies and sent it to the Tokyo General Staff.
Noboru let his attention sink back to the corpse at his feet. You were lucky, he told the dead man. You were one of our friends. Had you been one of Japan's enemies, had you passed your years in the city of Orsk, or had you been one of those American soldiers, your suffering would only be beginning.
The crowd beyond the wall erupted in a scream that had the force of a great storm compacted into a single moment. It pierced Noburu. It was impossible to assign a catalogued emotion to the scream. The common words used to define the heart did not suffice.
We are worse than any other animal, Noburu thought. And he bent down to close the corpse's eyes.
He turned back into the parade ground's lengthening shadows, to the small group of officers awaiting him in horror.
"It's all right," Noburu assured them. "My shots are up-to-date. Tokyo has taken care of everything."
Japanese preventive medication for the 'Plague/Runcimans Disease' has apparently been issued to senior Japanese leadership.
The Regimental Commander Briefs the President On his Planned Operation.
"It all started," Taylor said," with a damned good piece of luck. The Japanese battlefield control computers have been considered impregnable. But a young warrant officer from the Tenth, working with his Soviet counterpart, cracked a key component the Russians had recovered from a downed Japanese control bird. I understand that you've been briefed on the matter, but let me explain it from the battlefield perspective. Using the knowledge we've already derived from this computer 'brain,' we've been able to electronically transliterate various offensive computer programs into the software alphabet that the Japanese computers will accept. Most importantly, we now have the means to enter anything we want into the Japanese system and to do it very quickly. Of course, the Japanese have no idea about any of this, as far as we know. If we can just get to one of their main terminals before they realize they've been compromised, we could deliver a mortal blow to their system." Taylor was clearly excited by the concept, and the building fire in his voice was the only real enthusiasm the President had encountered for hours.
"The possibilities are incredible," the colonel continued. "We can direct their system to make fatal errors. Not only can we completely disorient the enemy's control system, we ca direct his weapons to attack each other. We can direct communications nodes to commit electronic suicide. We can offset every grid and coordinate in his automated mapping system. And we can actually conjure up false worlds for the enemy commanders. They'll be sitting at their monitors, imagining that htey're watching the battle, when in fact everything portrayed will be an illusion. And we'll be the master magicians. At the very least, we'll destoy their faith in their electronics. We'll be altering not just the parameters of the system, but hte perception of its operators." taylor looked into the President's eyesfrom a world away. "But the most beautiful part is actually the simplest. Every Japanese military system has a self-destruct mechanism built into it. It's ostensibly to prevent the gear from falling into enemy hands- but it also functions as a safeguard, in case, say, the Iranians turned against them-."
"Never happen," Bouquette muttered audibly.
"-then the Japanese could simply send out electronic system in Iranian hands, ordering the machines to self-desturct. The component the Russians captured has shown us how it's fone. And it's easy. We maybe be able to neutralize these new weapons."
"The Scramblers," Waters said.
"Yes, sir. The Scramblers." Taylor twisted up in the side of his mouth, a half-leer in a dead face. "Unfortunately it can only be done through a Japanese master control computer. That's the background. Here's the plan. I intend to take my command ship and a single troop of five M-100s- manned by colnteers- on a raid against teh Japanese theater headquarters at Baku. We will employ all of our deception systems going in, and, as we close, we'll jam everything in the area of operations. The Tenth Cav will be able to help us with that. Our approach to the target will also be covered by a larger scale deception operation as the rest of my regiment pulls out to the north. My raiding party will disappear in th3e noise of events. And we'll move fast. We won't be going in blind, either. The Soviets are sending me an officer who knows the layout of the Baku headquarters complex."
Taylor paused, and the President sensed that the man was searching through a tired brain for any key factors he might have omitted.
"We're banking on Japanese reluctance to destroy their computer system, no matter what happens," Taylor continued. "Since they don't know we've broken their code, they'll assume we couldn't access the system even if we had a year to take it apart and play with the components. Again, this system is considered to be absolutel impregnable, a sort of futuristic fortress. We'll count on going in very fast, loading in our porgrams, and getting out of there." Taylor stared hard at the President. "I want to do it tomorrow."
Waters nodded noncommittally.
"It's a long shot," Taylor admitted. "We'll have no time for rehearsals. We'll have to refuel once on the way and the Soviets will have to help us out on that. We won't be able to afford significant casualties- it's going to be a bare-bones operation. And we'll be counting on Japanese overconfidence so that they won't destroy the control computer and stop us in our tracks. Then, coming back out, we'll be vulnerable as hell- it appears that the Japanese can detect the M-100's signature from the rear hemisphere. Mr. President, I frankly cannot give you the odds on the outcome. I'd just be guessing. We may fail. But- as an American soldier- I would be ashamed not to try."
The layers of hard confidence dissolved from Taylor's features, and he simply looked like a vulnerable and very tired man. "Mr. President, we beat them today. We destroyed their finest forward-deployed systems. Their central Asian front is in a state of collapse." Taylor was obviously fumbling for the words to explain his view of the world. "The only thing that's holding them together now is the success of this new weapon."
"The Scramblers," Waters said, retasting the word.
"Yes, sir. Otherwise, we've got them licked. You see, sir, in war- the loser is often simply the first guy to quit. Time and again, commanders have assumed that they've been defeated when, in fact, they were in far better condition than their enemies. We know how badly we've been hurt. But it's always harder to gain an accurate perception of the true state of the enemy." Taylor's eyes burned and begged across the miles. "Mr. President, just give us a chance. Let's not quite. Try to remember what it was like for our country after the African intervention, when everything seemed like it was coming apart. It's been a long, hard road back. But we're almost there. Let's not quite while there's still a chance."
After giving his concept of operation for a deep raid thousands of kilometers into enemy controlled territory, it's revealed that the Americans also have recent imagery of the Baku headquarters. But still have to interpret the data.
"You didn't mention the disturbances in Baku in your plan. Have you seen the imagery?"
"Yes, sir."
"And what do you think about it? Doesn't that complicate your operation?"
"Not necessarily. In fact, the demonstrations may provide us with a very good local diversion, if they continue. The Japanese must be worried as hell about their coming over the wall."
Waters pursed his face into a quizzical expression. "What do you mean by that? What do you think those demonstrations are all about?"
"Well," Taylor said, "my S-2 thinks it's pretty clear. And I agree with him. The Japanese are learning the same lesson we had to learn the hard way. In Teheran."
Waters thought for a moment. "Then you believe those demonstrations are anti-Japanese?"
Taylor looked surprised by the question. "Of course. It's obvious."
Waters nodded, pondering this brand-new slant. "Thank you, Colonel Taylor. You'll be hearing from me in thirty minutes."
Taylor's image faded from the screen.
For a moment, there was a dull silence, reflecting the inertia of weary men. Then the secretary of state shook his patrician head in wonder.
"The man's crazy," he said.
Description of the Assembly Area Platinum Where the Regiments Raid Squadron is Preparing.
The regiment had established its headquarters in a small network of field shelters near Orenburg, in Assembly Area Platinum. The facility offered good camouflage, light ballistic protection, and no protection whatsoever, should the new Japanese weapons descend through the darkness. The staff worked hectically, as was the American custom, and no one seemed bothered by the threat of a Scrambler attack. The weapons were so overpowering that men quickly blocked them out of their immediate consciousness, as soldiers from an earlier generation had done with nuclear weapons or as men had learned to do with the plague.
Mostly Like the last Chapter. The main relevant technical details are the reinforcement of the American action on the battlefield has caused their Japanese-backed adversaries front to collapse and the fallout has resulting in anti-Japanese demonstrations and other actions taking place as the Japanese local allies seem to blame Japan for such a sweeping failure.
The Americans also deduced how the Japanese were able to track their Assembly Area and that the M-100 has a slight vulnerability from the rear hemisphere from the latest model Japanese sensors which weren't blocked in totality by localized American electronic warfare assets within the area of operations, combined with the momentarily undetected encryption glitch of the American communications.
Final details are on the Japanese Operational Headquarters in Baku, located atop a hill, built into a mountainside. It was a former Soviet military headquarters. It has concrete perimeter walls, a steel gate with spikes on the top, concertina wire laid across the top and multiple guard towers. Thick bunker like construction and bulletproofed glass used in its construction.
Last edited:
Chapter Twenty Two: 4 November, 2020
Chapter Twenty Two:
4 November, 2020
American and Soviet Officials are Discussing the Particulars of their planned operation. Includes how terrain and approach can still enhance the already stealthy approach of the M-100s.
"We've looked over the terrain, and the overhead shots and the map make it look like the best approach is to come in low from the north, using the peninsula to shield us. What do you think?"
Kozlov appeared doubtful. "Yes, I think you can do that, should you wish. But perhaps another way is better. You see, there are radar sites hidden on the ridge of the peninsula. But have you thought to come in from the east? Over the water? You see, there are many oil towers- what is the English word?"
"Derricks?" Meredith asked.
"Yes. The derricks. They are made of metals. You would have natural radar shielding effects. I know, because our radars were always blind in this sector."
"Fuck me," Colonel Williams said. "You still can't beat firsthand knowledge of your area of operations."
The M-100 can apparently land wherever a lighter military helicopter can land.
"You know," Kozlov said, "that there is also the roof here. It is not marked, but it is reinforced to act as a helipad. It is quite big. Can you land on a regular helipad?"
Taylor grew extremely interested. "Piece of cake."
Use of Medicine by US Forces to Operate Beyond Normal Waking Hours.
No man had any healthy energy left. They continued to function only by the grace of wide-awake tablets and individual strength of will.
At the Japanese Headquarters in Baku, the Demonstrations Turn More Violent That Night.
"Truck bomb," Kloete said casually. He boosted the machine gun until he had a sounder grip on it. "Fuckers took out the main gate."
Despite recent advances and debuts in military technology, somehow the Assault on the Japanese Headquarters in Baku is being decided by far more humble weaponry.
Brassy flares dripped from the heavens, lighting the compound and the nearby quarter of the city. Lower down, tracer rounds wove in and out of the darkness, while the block of buildings just beyond the barracks complex burned skyward. Apparently, the first assault had been beaten off. There was little human movement in evidence at the moment. Noburu strode briskly across the helipad to gain a better look. The South Africans trotted on ahead, booted feet heavy under the burden of their weaponry.
"Machine gun," Kloete cried, "action." His voice carried the legacy of old British enemies, insinuated into Boer blood and transported now to the shore of the Caspian Sea. Kloete spoke in unmistakably British phrases, muddied by an Afrikaans accent.
The South African's long-barreled weapon began to peck at targets Noburu's aging eyes could not even begin to distinguish.
As Noburu hunkered down behind the low wall along the edge of the roof, blossoms of flame spread out from under one of the guard towers, a construction that housed sentinels in a bulb atop a long, narrow stalk. Now the tulip came to life. Its base uprooted by the blast, the tower shivered, then seemed to hop, struggling to keep its balance. Finally, the construction's last equilibrium failed and the tower fell over hard, slamming its high concrete compartment down onto the parade ground.
The shouting came before the sound of guns. Screaming unintelligibly, the Zeris rushed back in through the wreckage of the main gate. The big steel doors had been blown completely off their hinges, and the masonry of the wall looked as jagged as broken bone. Black figures dashed forward, silhouetted by flames. Other figures dropped over the wall where long stretches of wire had been torn away. The lead figures opened fire with automatic weapons as they ran.
Fresh flares arced. Inside the compound, a crossfire of machine guns opened up. A few of the remaining guard towers laid down a base of fire on the far side of the wall, but other sentry perches remained silent and dark.
...
The garrison's machine guns swept the invaders off their feet.
...
"Action left," Kloete cried. His subordinates followed the swing of the machine gun with their own weapons.
Noburu peered into the darkness, trying to follow the red streaks from his companions' weapons, seeking a closer glimpse of this new enemy.
Down on the parade ground, flares revealed tens of dozens of bodies. Some lay clustered, others sprawled apart. Here a man moved over the cobblestones like an agonized worm, while another twitched, then stilled. Snipers went to ground, then suddenly blasted at the headquarters building, drawing concentrated fire in response.
Noburu had believed the assault was over, when a fresh wave poured screaming through the gate. Outlined by the inferno across the road, one man carried a banner aloft.
...
But the automatic weapons made in Honshu or on the Cape of Good Hope did good work. The assault again dwindled into a sniping between a few riflemen amid the landscape of dead and wounded and the defenders of the compound's interior.
General Noburu states he is releasing the South African's from their contract and that this is Japan's fight.
"This is now Japan's fight. You may summon one of your transports to remove your men." Noburu looked at the oversize colonel sprawled just beyond his knees. "And yourself."
Kloete laughed. It was a big laugh and it rang out clearly against the background of chanting.
"That's very generous of you, General Noburu. Extremely generous. But we'll be hanging about for now."
Nearby, the other South Africans chuckled wearily. But Noburu did not get the joke.
"As you wish," he said. "You are welcome to stay and fight. But I am releasing you from the provisions of your contract, given the changed cir-."
"Oh, just stuff it," Kloete said. "I'd be out of here like a gazelle, if I could. But your little wog friends took over the military airstrip while you were getting your beauty sleep. Baku's a closed city." Kloete looked up with the wet porcelain eyes of an animal. "Pity the lads at the airstrip, I do. Crowd doesn't seem in the most humanitarian of moods."
The Security Situation Deteriorates as it turns out their communications have inexplicably shut down.
"We have unforeseen problems."
Noburu almost laughed out loud. It seemed to him that Akiro had acquired a marvelous new talent for understatement.
"Yes," Noburu said, forcing himself to maintain a serious demeanor. "Go on, Akiro."
"We do not have sufficient small-arms ammunition. No one imagined- there seemed to be no reason to provide for such a contingency."
"No," Noburu agreed. "No reason at all."
...
"There's more?" Noburu asked sadly.
"Sir. We have been unable to report our situation to Tokyo. Or to anyone. Something- is wrong. None of the communications means work. Except for the main computer link, which will not accept plain voice text. We're working to format an appropriate automated message, but- everything was so unforeseen."
What were the Americans up to now? Noburu shuddered.
...
Even at the height of yesterday's attack by the Americans, the high-end communications links had continued to function flawlessly. The only immediate communications problem had been within or immediately adjacent to the combat zone. What was happening?
"Akiro? What does Colonel Takahara think? Is it possible our communications have been sabotaged?"
Akiro shrugged. He knew how to operate command consoles. But he was not a signals officer, and he personally had no conception of what might be happening. "Colonel Takahara says its jamming."
Jamming? Then by whom? It had to be the Americans. Only they possessed strategic jammers. Yet- the Americans had not employed their strategic systems in combat the day before, and the omission had baffled Noburu. The situation made little sense to him.
Were the Americans attacking again? Despite the employment of the Scramblers?
"Akiro. Listen. Tell Colonel Takahara all automated control of military operations to the rear command post in Teheran. That can be done easily enough through the computer. But it must be done quickly, in case the enemy has found a way to jam our automation feeds. I want to be able to resume control the instant the jamming lifts and we- discourage the demonstration."
...
"Sir. Colonel Takahara says that the jamming is of such power that many of our communications sets have burned out."
"It doesn't matter. I can fight the entire battle through the computer, if need be."
As the Japanese reveal their computer system is so advanced it can manage the conflict even with their communications jammed, another assault on the headquarters begins.
An enormous howl erupted from the world beyond the wall. The chanting was over- this was simply a huge, wordless wail. It was the biggest sound Noburu had ever heard.
"Here they come," Kloete screamed.
A section of the perimeter wall disappeared in fire and dust. The blast wave tipped Noburu backward with the force of a typhoon wind.
"Fire into the smoke, fire into the smoke."
A smaller blast shook the floor beneath them. Grenade launcher, Noburu realized. Either they had stolen it, or rebel regulars had joined the mob's ranks.
...
The Azeris fell in waves. But each next wave splashed closer.
...
A last flare helped them, and Noburu realized he had never seen so much death so close at hand. The broad space between the headquarters building and the main gate writhed like a snake pit with the wounded. But, when you looked closely, you saw a great ragged stillness around the hurt, waiting to accept them all. A man could have walked from the headquarters entrance to the main gate by stepping from corpse to corpse, without ever touching concrete or cobbles.
The Cause of the Inexplicably Confusing Strategic Jamming Is Revealed.
Colonel Johnny Tooth, United States Air Force, was a happy man. The four big WHITE LIGHT electronic warfare birds under his immediate control were on-station and functioning perfectly, exactly twenty-four hours late.
But lateness was a relative thing. The goddamned nearsighted Army ground-pounders didn't understand that you could not risk expensive aircraft and their crews in hopelessly bad weather. Technically speaking, of course, he was a little behind schedule- but his aircraft had made it into the war after a direct supersonic flight from the States and they were performing flawlessly, jamming an enormous swathe from the Caucasus east across Soviet Central Asia and northern Iran. There wasn't going to be any chitchat on the ground tonight.
The details and capabilities of the US Air Forces Electronic Warfare WHITE LIGHT Aircraft, which were delayed by weather and thus are now launching their mission a day after the M-100s debut, are revealed. Also detailed is the Air Forces coordination with the US Army forces on the ground in the Soviet Union. The mission commander also reveals his perspective on American military spending and priorities in the past thirty years.
The WHITE LIGHT aircraft had the capabilities of flying at speeds above Mach 3 or of slowing to a near hover. In either case, they were invisible to any of the air defense systems known to be deployed in-theater. A long association with the WHITE LIGHT program gave Tooth the sort of warm, safe feeling a man had when he held good investments while the economy was going to shit for everyone else.
...
"Don't you think we should try to contact the Army guys?" his copilot asked over the intercom.
Tooth could hardly believe his ears. "You nuts, Chubbs?"
"Well," Chubbs said more carefully, "I just thought we ought to let them know we're on-station. You know?"
Tooth sighed. So few people understood the interrelationships. "Maybe on the way out," he said, always ready to compromise. "But first we're going to run a complete mission. Nobody's going to be able to say the U.S. Air Force didn't do its part." Tooth shuddered inwardly, picturing some rough-handed, semiliterate Army officer testifying before a congressional subcommittee, claiming that the weight of military operations had been borne by the Army alone. The Air Force didn't need that kind of heartache, with budgets as tight as they were. Tooth understood clearly that the primary mission of the U.S. Army was to siphon off funding from vital Air Force programs.
The Air Force had gone through a run of bad luck... Then the Army had started grabbing all the glory, whether from their dirty little police-duties during the plague or from their primitive roughnecking down in the Latin American mud. Why, you could have hired off-duty policemen to do the Army's job and you would have saved the country billions... The minor action the Air Force had seen had shown, to widespread horror, that the oldest, slowest planes in the inventory were the best-suited to joint requirements. The underdeveloped countries simply refused to buy first-class air defense systems for stealth bombers to evade. Worse, they refused to provide clearcut high-payoff targets.
...
So the opportunity to show what the WHITE LIGHT aircraft could do was a welcome one. The birds had come in just at nine billion dollars a copy in 2015, and the program had required fall-on-your-sword efforts by congressmen whose districts included major defense contractors in order to force it through Appropriations. It would have been nice, of course, if everything could have been synchronized with the Army operation, in accordance with the original plan. But, ultimately, the thing was just to get the birds into action. His superiors had made the decision to launch the mission twenty-four hours late without consulting the other services. There was always the chance that the Army would try to block the Air Force activities with some whining to the effect that there was no further need for the jamming support, or that it would interfere with ground ops. You could never trust a grunt.
...
"How's everything going back there, Pete?" Tooth called to his weapons officer, who was currently sending streaks of man-made lighting through the heavens, destroying billions of dollars worth of enemy electronics.
"Just fine, sir. We're putting out so much juice we'll fry pretty near every transmitter between here and the Indian Ocean. They'll be talking with tin cans and pieces of string when the sun comes up. Tokyo's going to shit."
...
Colonel Johnny Tooth was fully aware that stealth technology and fifth-generation electronic defenses had rendered his aircraft as invisible in daylight hours as it was at night. But Tooth nonetheless preferred flying in the darkness. It might be unreasonable, but the ability to wrap himself up in the ancient cloak of night just made him feel that much more secure.
The main revelation is yet another American secret weapon, but instead of a US Army Program, the WHITE LIGHT program was for the US Air Force and created a number of Electronic Warfare Stealth Airplanes that each cost an estimated nine billion 2015 dollars per aircraft. The United States used four of them in this mission. They are capable of near hovering to going up to Mach 3 with supersonic flight able to take them from Montana to Central Asia and back again on seemingly one fuel tank. They are considered stealth aircraft with fifth-generation electronic defenses and just as invisible during the day as the night from all known air defense and radars known to be in theaters, which likely includes many of Japan's latest models.
Considered a 'strategic jammer' it apparently has jammed all communications beyond the main Japanese command supercomputer and furthermore has burned out an estimated 'billions of dollars worth of mostly Japanese electronics.'
4 November, 2020
American and Soviet Officials are Discussing the Particulars of their planned operation. Includes how terrain and approach can still enhance the already stealthy approach of the M-100s.
"We've looked over the terrain, and the overhead shots and the map make it look like the best approach is to come in low from the north, using the peninsula to shield us. What do you think?"
Kozlov appeared doubtful. "Yes, I think you can do that, should you wish. But perhaps another way is better. You see, there are radar sites hidden on the ridge of the peninsula. But have you thought to come in from the east? Over the water? You see, there are many oil towers- what is the English word?"
"Derricks?" Meredith asked.
"Yes. The derricks. They are made of metals. You would have natural radar shielding effects. I know, because our radars were always blind in this sector."
"Fuck me," Colonel Williams said. "You still can't beat firsthand knowledge of your area of operations."
The M-100 can apparently land wherever a lighter military helicopter can land.
"You know," Kozlov said, "that there is also the roof here. It is not marked, but it is reinforced to act as a helipad. It is quite big. Can you land on a regular helipad?"
Taylor grew extremely interested. "Piece of cake."
Use of Medicine by US Forces to Operate Beyond Normal Waking Hours.
No man had any healthy energy left. They continued to function only by the grace of wide-awake tablets and individual strength of will.
At the Japanese Headquarters in Baku, the Demonstrations Turn More Violent That Night.
"Truck bomb," Kloete said casually. He boosted the machine gun until he had a sounder grip on it. "Fuckers took out the main gate."
Despite recent advances and debuts in military technology, somehow the Assault on the Japanese Headquarters in Baku is being decided by far more humble weaponry.
Brassy flares dripped from the heavens, lighting the compound and the nearby quarter of the city. Lower down, tracer rounds wove in and out of the darkness, while the block of buildings just beyond the barracks complex burned skyward. Apparently, the first assault had been beaten off. There was little human movement in evidence at the moment. Noburu strode briskly across the helipad to gain a better look. The South Africans trotted on ahead, booted feet heavy under the burden of their weaponry.
"Machine gun," Kloete cried, "action." His voice carried the legacy of old British enemies, insinuated into Boer blood and transported now to the shore of the Caspian Sea. Kloete spoke in unmistakably British phrases, muddied by an Afrikaans accent.
The South African's long-barreled weapon began to peck at targets Noburu's aging eyes could not even begin to distinguish.
As Noburu hunkered down behind the low wall along the edge of the roof, blossoms of flame spread out from under one of the guard towers, a construction that housed sentinels in a bulb atop a long, narrow stalk. Now the tulip came to life. Its base uprooted by the blast, the tower shivered, then seemed to hop, struggling to keep its balance. Finally, the construction's last equilibrium failed and the tower fell over hard, slamming its high concrete compartment down onto the parade ground.
The shouting came before the sound of guns. Screaming unintelligibly, the Zeris rushed back in through the wreckage of the main gate. The big steel doors had been blown completely off their hinges, and the masonry of the wall looked as jagged as broken bone. Black figures dashed forward, silhouetted by flames. Other figures dropped over the wall where long stretches of wire had been torn away. The lead figures opened fire with automatic weapons as they ran.
Fresh flares arced. Inside the compound, a crossfire of machine guns opened up. A few of the remaining guard towers laid down a base of fire on the far side of the wall, but other sentry perches remained silent and dark.
...
The garrison's machine guns swept the invaders off their feet.
...
"Action left," Kloete cried. His subordinates followed the swing of the machine gun with their own weapons.
Noburu peered into the darkness, trying to follow the red streaks from his companions' weapons, seeking a closer glimpse of this new enemy.
Down on the parade ground, flares revealed tens of dozens of bodies. Some lay clustered, others sprawled apart. Here a man moved over the cobblestones like an agonized worm, while another twitched, then stilled. Snipers went to ground, then suddenly blasted at the headquarters building, drawing concentrated fire in response.
Noburu had believed the assault was over, when a fresh wave poured screaming through the gate. Outlined by the inferno across the road, one man carried a banner aloft.
...
But the automatic weapons made in Honshu or on the Cape of Good Hope did good work. The assault again dwindled into a sniping between a few riflemen amid the landscape of dead and wounded and the defenders of the compound's interior.
General Noburu states he is releasing the South African's from their contract and that this is Japan's fight.
"This is now Japan's fight. You may summon one of your transports to remove your men." Noburu looked at the oversize colonel sprawled just beyond his knees. "And yourself."
Kloete laughed. It was a big laugh and it rang out clearly against the background of chanting.
"That's very generous of you, General Noburu. Extremely generous. But we'll be hanging about for now."
Nearby, the other South Africans chuckled wearily. But Noburu did not get the joke.
"As you wish," he said. "You are welcome to stay and fight. But I am releasing you from the provisions of your contract, given the changed cir-."
"Oh, just stuff it," Kloete said. "I'd be out of here like a gazelle, if I could. But your little wog friends took over the military airstrip while you were getting your beauty sleep. Baku's a closed city." Kloete looked up with the wet porcelain eyes of an animal. "Pity the lads at the airstrip, I do. Crowd doesn't seem in the most humanitarian of moods."
The Security Situation Deteriorates as it turns out their communications have inexplicably shut down.
"We have unforeseen problems."
Noburu almost laughed out loud. It seemed to him that Akiro had acquired a marvelous new talent for understatement.
"Yes," Noburu said, forcing himself to maintain a serious demeanor. "Go on, Akiro."
"We do not have sufficient small-arms ammunition. No one imagined- there seemed to be no reason to provide for such a contingency."
"No," Noburu agreed. "No reason at all."
...
"There's more?" Noburu asked sadly.
"Sir. We have been unable to report our situation to Tokyo. Or to anyone. Something- is wrong. None of the communications means work. Except for the main computer link, which will not accept plain voice text. We're working to format an appropriate automated message, but- everything was so unforeseen."
What were the Americans up to now? Noburu shuddered.
...
Even at the height of yesterday's attack by the Americans, the high-end communications links had continued to function flawlessly. The only immediate communications problem had been within or immediately adjacent to the combat zone. What was happening?
"Akiro? What does Colonel Takahara think? Is it possible our communications have been sabotaged?"
Akiro shrugged. He knew how to operate command consoles. But he was not a signals officer, and he personally had no conception of what might be happening. "Colonel Takahara says its jamming."
Jamming? Then by whom? It had to be the Americans. Only they possessed strategic jammers. Yet- the Americans had not employed their strategic systems in combat the day before, and the omission had baffled Noburu. The situation made little sense to him.
Were the Americans attacking again? Despite the employment of the Scramblers?
"Akiro. Listen. Tell Colonel Takahara all automated control of military operations to the rear command post in Teheran. That can be done easily enough through the computer. But it must be done quickly, in case the enemy has found a way to jam our automation feeds. I want to be able to resume control the instant the jamming lifts and we- discourage the demonstration."
...
"Sir. Colonel Takahara says that the jamming is of such power that many of our communications sets have burned out."
"It doesn't matter. I can fight the entire battle through the computer, if need be."
As the Japanese reveal their computer system is so advanced it can manage the conflict even with their communications jammed, another assault on the headquarters begins.
An enormous howl erupted from the world beyond the wall. The chanting was over- this was simply a huge, wordless wail. It was the biggest sound Noburu had ever heard.
"Here they come," Kloete screamed.
A section of the perimeter wall disappeared in fire and dust. The blast wave tipped Noburu backward with the force of a typhoon wind.
"Fire into the smoke, fire into the smoke."
A smaller blast shook the floor beneath them. Grenade launcher, Noburu realized. Either they had stolen it, or rebel regulars had joined the mob's ranks.
...
The Azeris fell in waves. But each next wave splashed closer.
...
A last flare helped them, and Noburu realized he had never seen so much death so close at hand. The broad space between the headquarters building and the main gate writhed like a snake pit with the wounded. But, when you looked closely, you saw a great ragged stillness around the hurt, waiting to accept them all. A man could have walked from the headquarters entrance to the main gate by stepping from corpse to corpse, without ever touching concrete or cobbles.
The Cause of the Inexplicably Confusing Strategic Jamming Is Revealed.
Colonel Johnny Tooth, United States Air Force, was a happy man. The four big WHITE LIGHT electronic warfare birds under his immediate control were on-station and functioning perfectly, exactly twenty-four hours late.
But lateness was a relative thing. The goddamned nearsighted Army ground-pounders didn't understand that you could not risk expensive aircraft and their crews in hopelessly bad weather. Technically speaking, of course, he was a little behind schedule- but his aircraft had made it into the war after a direct supersonic flight from the States and they were performing flawlessly, jamming an enormous swathe from the Caucasus east across Soviet Central Asia and northern Iran. There wasn't going to be any chitchat on the ground tonight.
The details and capabilities of the US Air Forces Electronic Warfare WHITE LIGHT Aircraft, which were delayed by weather and thus are now launching their mission a day after the M-100s debut, are revealed. Also detailed is the Air Forces coordination with the US Army forces on the ground in the Soviet Union. The mission commander also reveals his perspective on American military spending and priorities in the past thirty years.
The WHITE LIGHT aircraft had the capabilities of flying at speeds above Mach 3 or of slowing to a near hover. In either case, they were invisible to any of the air defense systems known to be deployed in-theater. A long association with the WHITE LIGHT program gave Tooth the sort of warm, safe feeling a man had when he held good investments while the economy was going to shit for everyone else.
...
"Don't you think we should try to contact the Army guys?" his copilot asked over the intercom.
Tooth could hardly believe his ears. "You nuts, Chubbs?"
"Well," Chubbs said more carefully, "I just thought we ought to let them know we're on-station. You know?"
Tooth sighed. So few people understood the interrelationships. "Maybe on the way out," he said, always ready to compromise. "But first we're going to run a complete mission. Nobody's going to be able to say the U.S. Air Force didn't do its part." Tooth shuddered inwardly, picturing some rough-handed, semiliterate Army officer testifying before a congressional subcommittee, claiming that the weight of military operations had been borne by the Army alone. The Air Force didn't need that kind of heartache, with budgets as tight as they were. Tooth understood clearly that the primary mission of the U.S. Army was to siphon off funding from vital Air Force programs.
The Air Force had gone through a run of bad luck... Then the Army had started grabbing all the glory, whether from their dirty little police-duties during the plague or from their primitive roughnecking down in the Latin American mud. Why, you could have hired off-duty policemen to do the Army's job and you would have saved the country billions... The minor action the Air Force had seen had shown, to widespread horror, that the oldest, slowest planes in the inventory were the best-suited to joint requirements. The underdeveloped countries simply refused to buy first-class air defense systems for stealth bombers to evade. Worse, they refused to provide clearcut high-payoff targets.
...
So the opportunity to show what the WHITE LIGHT aircraft could do was a welcome one. The birds had come in just at nine billion dollars a copy in 2015, and the program had required fall-on-your-sword efforts by congressmen whose districts included major defense contractors in order to force it through Appropriations. It would have been nice, of course, if everything could have been synchronized with the Army operation, in accordance with the original plan. But, ultimately, the thing was just to get the birds into action. His superiors had made the decision to launch the mission twenty-four hours late without consulting the other services. There was always the chance that the Army would try to block the Air Force activities with some whining to the effect that there was no further need for the jamming support, or that it would interfere with ground ops. You could never trust a grunt.
...
"How's everything going back there, Pete?" Tooth called to his weapons officer, who was currently sending streaks of man-made lighting through the heavens, destroying billions of dollars worth of enemy electronics.
"Just fine, sir. We're putting out so much juice we'll fry pretty near every transmitter between here and the Indian Ocean. They'll be talking with tin cans and pieces of string when the sun comes up. Tokyo's going to shit."
...
Colonel Johnny Tooth was fully aware that stealth technology and fifth-generation electronic defenses had rendered his aircraft as invisible in daylight hours as it was at night. But Tooth nonetheless preferred flying in the darkness. It might be unreasonable, but the ability to wrap himself up in the ancient cloak of night just made him feel that much more secure.
The main revelation is yet another American secret weapon, but instead of a US Army Program, the WHITE LIGHT program was for the US Air Force and created a number of Electronic Warfare Stealth Airplanes that each cost an estimated nine billion 2015 dollars per aircraft. The United States used four of them in this mission. They are capable of near hovering to going up to Mach 3 with supersonic flight able to take them from Montana to Central Asia and back again on seemingly one fuel tank. They are considered stealth aircraft with fifth-generation electronic defenses and just as invisible during the day as the night from all known air defense and radars known to be in theaters, which likely includes many of Japan's latest models.
Considered a 'strategic jammer' it apparently has jammed all communications beyond the main Japanese command supercomputer and furthermore has burned out an estimated 'billions of dollars worth of mostly Japanese electronics.'
Last edited:
Chapter Twenty Three: 4 November, 2020
Chapter Twenty Three:
4 November, 2020
Aftermath of the WHITE LIGHT Electronic Warfare Strike Upon the Japanese Headquarters and the Hope of Rescue or Reinforcement for them
The communications center was a ruin. The intelligence officer speculated that the Americans had employed aircraft from their WHITE LIGHT program. But it was impossible to know with any certainty. The world was so full of surprises. The only thing that was definite was the burnt-out stasis of the magical talking machines that directed warfare in the twenty-first century. When the interference finally stopped, only two systems remained functional: an ancient vacuum tube radio set inherited from the Soviets- with which the staff had been able to contact a loyal garrison to the north- and the main computer system. The computer was Japan's pride. It had been built to withstand any imaginable interference. The computer was the castle of the new age, wherein the warrior sought his last refuge.
A relief column had been organized to fight its way into the city from the nearest loyal garrison, according to a message received over the old HF radio. But no one knew what obstacles and ambushes were out there waiting. Ideally, the helicopters and tilt-rotor aircraft would have provided reconnaissance as well as quicker relief ferrying in troops and ammunition and lifting out the wounded. But the jamming attack during the night had destroyed the electronics on virtually all of the tactical aircraft in the vicinity. The only option remaining was the dispatch of an armored relief convoy- which would have to drive blindly over mountain roads.
His shrunken staff labored to repair at least a few of the communications systems by cannibalizing others. He could have run the war through the master computer, but he recognized that such an action would be sheer vanity. He needed a functioning headquarters around him. For the moment, the rear had a broader capacity to sort out the damage and revitalize allied efforts. Given the present state of his headquarters, Noburu would have been shooting into the darkness. As it was, he could not even communicate with the rear command post by voice. So he elected to wait. To try to think clearly. He had transmitted only one firm order through the master computer: the Scramblers were not to be employed again without his personal authorization.
The Americans have taken off to perform their raid upon the Japanese Headquarters Fortress in Baku. The plan is to meet Soviet refueling vehicles in a Caspian Sea estuary that will allow them enough range to strike Baku and return to Russian lines.
The M-100s on-board sensors registered defunct tractors in place of tanks.
Kozlov looked down at the monitor displaying a visual survey of the designated refueling site. The steppe was embarrassingly empty. Where Soviet refueling vehicles should have been waiting, there was only the gray earth.
"We're going to have to put down," Taylor said. "Hank, call the other birds. We'll go to ground and wait. All we're doing up here is burning fuel."
"I want good dispersion on the ground," Taylor said. "The refuelers can shuttle around when they get here. And everybody deploys their camouflage before they so much as take a piss."
"Just the autocamouflage?" Meredith asked.
Taylor pursed his lips, then agreed. "Yeah. It's a tradeoff. But we need to be ready to move fast. And let's put these babies down a few clicks to the south so we don't have those fat boys coming in right on top of us. We'll guide them to the birds after we get them under positive control."
"The mission. There's a way we can still do it. Without the extra fuel."
"How?"
"Well, given that we don't have enough fuel to hit Baku and make it back to secure Soviet territory-."
"Given," Taylor agreed.
"Okay. Then were else could we go? After we hit Baku?"
Taylor looked questioningly at the younger man. Meredith's expression was that of an excited boy.
"What about Turkey?" the S-2 asked. "Okay, we don't have the legs to get back. So we just keep going. I've calculated the distance. We can just barely make it. Head west out of Baku, right across Armenia, and put down inside the Turkish border. Turkey's remained neutral-... We'll have to scuttle the ships as soon as we set down. But at least we can accomplish the mission. They'll intern us until the end of hostilities- but so what? We'll at least get to strike a blow instead of going home with our tails between our legs-."
The Impressive Range of the M-100s allows them to fly from Orenburg to Turkey despite delays. Then something arrives at the empty refueling site they were supposed to land at a few kilometers away...
Suddenly, a massive explosion colored the near horizon. The blast wave did not take long to reach them. Hot, rushing air pushed the southern wind aside. The noise, despite the distance of several kilometers, was deafening. The impact had been to the north, exactly where the Soviet fuelers had been designated to link up with the M-100s.
A second blast quickly followed the first.
"Ambush," Taylor shouted. "It's a fucking ambush. The Russians sold us out."
The two men ran for the M-100.
...
"Mount up, mount up," Taylor shouted, waving the helmet he still held in his hand.
Flapper Krebs had been quicker to grasp the situation than any of them. The M-100's engines were already whining to life.
"Merry," Taylor yelled, "get on the horn. Get everybody up in the air."
The large camouflage fans began to withdraw into the M-100's fuselage.
...
The M-100 began to lift into the sky.
Across the horizon two big bursts colored the steppes bright orange, yellow, red. A border of black smoke began to expand above the fires. In quick succession, half a dozen more blasts erupted. Each one came closer to the ship as it struggled to gain altitude.
...
"Foxtrot one-four. Airborne. Over," the first of the other M-100s reported in. Then another ship called in, the voice of its pilot reflecting how badly shaken everyone had been by the surprise attack.
A ripple of explosions chased the M-100 into the sky.
"Rockets," the copilot reported drily. "Standoff, air-launched, looks like. Compact conventional explosives and fuel-airs. Couldn't have had too good a fix on us. We'd never gave got off the ground."
...
"We've got a bird down," Parker's voice. Through the intercom.
"All stations, report in sequence," Taylor ordered.
"Bird down."
"It's One-five," another crew reported. "He's gone. Fireball."
Underneath the ship, a cushion of explosions buoyed them upwards, rocking the cabin. Taylor had to clutch the sides of his seat.
...
"You know," Taylor mused bitterly to Krebs, "their system must be in godawful shape. We must've really hurt them yesterday. By all rights, they should've gotten us back there." He could feel the sweat beginning to chill on his forehead. He stared out over the sea. It looked like steel mesh come to life. "The strike was too ragged. They should have hit us with everything at once.
One M-100 is lost in a massive rocket artillery strike whose initial impacts could be felt several kilometers away. The M-100 was also able to take off and gain altitude in spite of followup explosions erupting beneath them.
Once the surviving M-100s get in the air, Japanese "Bandits" Arrive to finish the ambush.
"Oh, fuck me," the old warrant said in disgust, glancing over at Taylor. But Taylor did not need any further information. The flashing monitor made the situation very clear.
"I guess they wanted to make sure," Krebs said.
"Bandits," Taylor called into the command net. "Nine o'clock high."
Krebs began to bank the ship upward to left.
"I'll fly," Taylor said, grasping the manual controls. "You do the shooting."
Taylor's ops indicator showed the remaining four ships of his raiding force following his lead. But the formation was too neat, too predictable.
"One-one, One-two, this is Foxtrot one-zero. Go high. Work a sandwich on them. One-three, One-four, stay with me. Out."
Meredith's voice came over the intercom. "Good fix. I've even got voice on them." Then he hesitated for a moment.
"What is it?" Taylor demanded.
"Japanese gunships. The latest Toshiba variant."
The M-100s are about to duel the latest variant of the infamous Japanese Toshiba Gunships, manned by professional veteran South African mercenary pilots and crews forty miles out and closing in.
"Roger. Execute countermeasures program." The opposing formations were closing rapidly. Forty miles. Thirty-nine. "What else, Merry?"
Again, there was a slight hesitation.
"The voices," Meredith said, "sound like South Africans."
Taylor gripped the controls. Time playing tricks. Above the Caspian Sea.
So be it, he thought.
"Confirm activation of full countermeasures suite," Taylor said. He was determined not to let it shake him. There was nothing special about the South Africans.
...
Suddenly, his battle monitor fuzzed.
"The sonsofbitches," Krebs said. "They've got some kind of new shit on board."
"Merry," Taylor half-shouted, struggling to maintain control. "Hank. Hit them with full power. Jam the fuck out of them."
"Twenty-eight miles," Krebs said. "And closing."
The target-acquisition monitor distorted, multiplying and misreading images.
"Going full automatic on the weapons suite," Krebs said. "Let's hope this works."
Taylor felt sweat prickling all over his body. Frantically, he punched override buttons, trying to clear the monitors.
"Twenty five-."
Taylor strained to see through the windscreen. The battle overlays were little help now. He struggled to pick out the enemy aircraft with his eyes.
"I've got them," Merry called forward. "Clear image."
"Transfer data to the weapons suite," Taylor ordered.
Other ships called in their sudden difficulties with their own electronics.
Remember, Tayor told himself, you're doing the same thing to the other guy. He's as frightened as you are. Stay cool, stay cool.
"Negative," Merry reported. "The weapons program won't accept the transfer."
"Range: twenty miles," Krebs told them all.
Abruptly, the M-100 bucked and began to pulse under Taylor's seat. The main gun was firing.
What does my enemy see? Taylor wondered. If the systems were functioning correctly, his opposite number was reading hundreds of blurred, identical targets, a swarm of ghost images in the midst of which the real M-100s were hiding. Or, depending on the parameters of his system, he might only be receiving static and fuzz.
Taylor slapped the eyeshield down from atop the headset.
"Laser alert," he said over the command net. Beside him, Krebs slid down his own shield.
The protective lenses darkened the sky, and the bucking of the M-100as it maneuvered forward made it even harder to focus. Nonetheless, Taylor believed he could pick out the tiny black spots that marked the enemy.
He took full manual control of the aircraft and pointed it straight at the enemy.
"Full combat speed," he ordered. "Let's get them."
"Garry Owen," a voice replied from a sister ship.
"Thirteen miles," Krebs said. "We're not hitting a damn thing."
"Neither are they," Taylor said. Below the insulated cockpit, the main gun continued to pump out precious rounds, its accuracy deteriorating with every shot,
"I've got good voice on them," Merry said. "They're going crazy. They've lost us. They're firing everything they've got."
"Ten miles."
Taylor looked out at the black dots. He counted ten. Be he could not see the slightest trace of hostile action. The sky was full of high-velocity projectiles and lasers, but the M-100s rounds were far quicker than the human eye, while the enemy' current lasers were not tuned to the spectrum of visible light. Around the lethal balls and beams, the heavens pulsed with electronic violence. Yet all that was visible was the gray sky, and a line of swelling black dots on a collision course with his outnumbered element.
"Seven miles. Jesus Christ."
"Steady," Taylor said, his fear forgotten now.
Dark tubular fuselages, the blur of rotors and propellers.
It was, Taylor thought, like a battle between knights so heavily armored they did not possess the offensive technology to hurt each other. New magic shields deflected the other man's blows.
"Four miles," Krebs said. "Jesus, sir, we got to climb. We're on a collision course."
No, Taylor thought. If they haven't hit us yet at this angle, they won't. But the first man to flinch, to reveal a vulnerable angle, was going to lose.
The M-100 threw another series of rounds toward the enemy.
"All stations," Taylor said, "Steady on course."
"Two miles-."
The Toshiba gunships were unmistakable now. Their contours had not changed much over the years. A mongrelized forward aspect, a helicopter with turboprops on the sides. Or a plane with rotors. Take your pick.
"Hold course," Taylor shouted.
The M-100's cannon pummeled the sky. To no effect.
"One mile and closing-."
Where horsemen rode at each other with sabers drawn, their descendants rode the sky in a long metal line, jousting with lightning.
Hit, goddamn it, hit, Taylor told the main gun.
He could see every detail on the enemy gunships now. The mock Iranian markings, the mottled camouflage. The low-slung laser pod.
"We're going to collide."
Taylor froze his hand on the joystick. Straight ahead.
In a buffeting wash of air and noise, the M-100 shot past the enemy's line.
"All stations" Taylor said. "Follow my lead. We've got a tighter turning radius than they do."
He felt far more confident now. The M-100's airframe was of a design over a decade fresher than the Toshiba gunships. The M-100 had all of the maneuvering advantages.
...
"Complete the turn. We're only vulnerable from the back."
He looked at the monitor. The fuzz cloud that marked the enemy began to turn too. But they were slower. He could feel it.
"Flapper," Taylor said. "Turn off the autosystems. They're just canceling each other out. Take manual control of the main gun. And use a little Kentucky windage."
"The accuracy's breaking down," Krebs said. "We're just about shot out."
"You can do it, Flapper. Come on. We didn't have all this fancy shit when you and I started out."
Krebs nodded, doubt on the lower portion of his face left visible by the laser shield.
"All stations," Taylor said. "Open order. Go to manual target acquisition and manual fire control."
...
"Fire at will," Taylor said.
He guided the ship around as thought he were reining a spirted horse. Soon he could visually track the black specks of the enemy formation describing a long arc across the sky. They looked clean. Very disciplined fliers.
Every one of his crews would be flying for themselves now. The American formation hardly existed as such. Instead, five M-100s speckled the sky, each skeeking hte best possible angle of attack.
Taylor applied full throttle, trying to get into his enemy's flank before the Japanese gunships could bring their weapons to bear.
"I don't know," Krebs said, hanging on the weapons control stick.
"Fuck you don't know," Taylor said. "I know. Take those fuckers out."
Krebs fired.
Nothing.
"Just getting a feel for the deflection," he excused himself. He sounded calmer now that he was committed to the action.
Taylor flew straight for the center of the enemy formation. He watched the increasingly clear gunships coming into the last segment of their turns.
"Come on, baby," Krebs said. He fired again.
Instantaneously, a black gunship erupted in flames and left the enemy formation, its component parts hurtling through the sky in multiple directions.
Taylor howled with delight...
"Well, fuck me," Krebs said in wonder. He fired again, pulsing out rounds.
Another Japanese gunship broke apart in the sky.
Remember me, Taylor told his enemy. Remember me.
In quick succession, two more Japanese gunships blazed and broke up. The other American ships were hitting.
There was very little time. The enemy systems defined themselves with greatly clarity with each passing second. Taylor was afraid they would be able to come around at their own angle and sweep the sky with lasers in a crossfire effect.
Taylor stared hard at the enemy formation, trying to read the pattern.
"Flapper," he yelled suddenly. "Get the number three ship. That's their flight leader."
"Roger."
...
The old warrant officer followed the turn of the aircrtaft with his optics. He let go one round, then another.
The enemy's flight leader disappeared in a hot white flash. When the dazzle faded there was only black chunks of waste dropping in the sea.
Another of the enemy's aircraft exploded.
The remaining gunships began to abort their turns. Instead of trying to close with their tormentors, they were trying to escape.
Wrong decision, Taylor thought coldly. "All stations, right wheel," he called, slipping unconsciously into an old cavalry command.
Two of the enemy's surviving gunships exploded in tandem, as though they had been taken out by a double barreled shotgun.
Only two enemy ships remained. Taylor knew what they were feeling.
...
They were on the enemy's rear hemisphere now. The attempt to flee was hopeless, since the American aircraft were faster. But the enemy pilots would not know that. At this point, the only thing they knew with any certainty was that they were still alive.
Taylor felt Krebs tense mercilessly beside him. The warrant sent off another succession of rounds.
A gunship spun around like a weathervane in a storm, breaking up even before the fire from its fuel tanks could engulf it. Then the familiar cloud of flames swelled outward, spitting off aircraft parts.
A lone enemy survivor strained off to the southeast. Taylor could feel the pilot pushing for each last ounce of thrust, aching to go faster than physical laws allowed.
The lone black ship flared and fell away into a sputtering rain of components.
Five M-100s engage ten of the latest variant Toshiba Gunships and as their electronic warfare systems cancel each other out, they pass each other. The M-100 is revealed to have a tighter turning radius and after switching to manual control, six of the Toshiba Gunships are downed before they could complete their own wider turn back. The remaining four are downed trying to retreat. Like the M-100 the Toshiba Gunships rear hemisphere is vulnerable to sensors. Also the M-100 is faster.
The Toshiba Gunships also have a habit of exploding in midair when hit, leaving nothing but a rain of component parts.
Having survived the ambush with one M-100 lost on the ground to rocket artillery the remaining five continue on with their mission to Baku.
4 November, 2020
Aftermath of the WHITE LIGHT Electronic Warfare Strike Upon the Japanese Headquarters and the Hope of Rescue or Reinforcement for them
The communications center was a ruin. The intelligence officer speculated that the Americans had employed aircraft from their WHITE LIGHT program. But it was impossible to know with any certainty. The world was so full of surprises. The only thing that was definite was the burnt-out stasis of the magical talking machines that directed warfare in the twenty-first century. When the interference finally stopped, only two systems remained functional: an ancient vacuum tube radio set inherited from the Soviets- with which the staff had been able to contact a loyal garrison to the north- and the main computer system. The computer was Japan's pride. It had been built to withstand any imaginable interference. The computer was the castle of the new age, wherein the warrior sought his last refuge.
A relief column had been organized to fight its way into the city from the nearest loyal garrison, according to a message received over the old HF radio. But no one knew what obstacles and ambushes were out there waiting. Ideally, the helicopters and tilt-rotor aircraft would have provided reconnaissance as well as quicker relief ferrying in troops and ammunition and lifting out the wounded. But the jamming attack during the night had destroyed the electronics on virtually all of the tactical aircraft in the vicinity. The only option remaining was the dispatch of an armored relief convoy- which would have to drive blindly over mountain roads.
His shrunken staff labored to repair at least a few of the communications systems by cannibalizing others. He could have run the war through the master computer, but he recognized that such an action would be sheer vanity. He needed a functioning headquarters around him. For the moment, the rear had a broader capacity to sort out the damage and revitalize allied efforts. Given the present state of his headquarters, Noburu would have been shooting into the darkness. As it was, he could not even communicate with the rear command post by voice. So he elected to wait. To try to think clearly. He had transmitted only one firm order through the master computer: the Scramblers were not to be employed again without his personal authorization.
The Americans have taken off to perform their raid upon the Japanese Headquarters Fortress in Baku. The plan is to meet Soviet refueling vehicles in a Caspian Sea estuary that will allow them enough range to strike Baku and return to Russian lines.
The M-100s on-board sensors registered defunct tractors in place of tanks.
Kozlov looked down at the monitor displaying a visual survey of the designated refueling site. The steppe was embarrassingly empty. Where Soviet refueling vehicles should have been waiting, there was only the gray earth.
"We're going to have to put down," Taylor said. "Hank, call the other birds. We'll go to ground and wait. All we're doing up here is burning fuel."
"I want good dispersion on the ground," Taylor said. "The refuelers can shuttle around when they get here. And everybody deploys their camouflage before they so much as take a piss."
"Just the autocamouflage?" Meredith asked.
Taylor pursed his lips, then agreed. "Yeah. It's a tradeoff. But we need to be ready to move fast. And let's put these babies down a few clicks to the south so we don't have those fat boys coming in right on top of us. We'll guide them to the birds after we get them under positive control."
"The mission. There's a way we can still do it. Without the extra fuel."
"How?"
"Well, given that we don't have enough fuel to hit Baku and make it back to secure Soviet territory-."
"Given," Taylor agreed.
"Okay. Then were else could we go? After we hit Baku?"
Taylor looked questioningly at the younger man. Meredith's expression was that of an excited boy.
"What about Turkey?" the S-2 asked. "Okay, we don't have the legs to get back. So we just keep going. I've calculated the distance. We can just barely make it. Head west out of Baku, right across Armenia, and put down inside the Turkish border. Turkey's remained neutral-... We'll have to scuttle the ships as soon as we set down. But at least we can accomplish the mission. They'll intern us until the end of hostilities- but so what? We'll at least get to strike a blow instead of going home with our tails between our legs-."
The Impressive Range of the M-100s allows them to fly from Orenburg to Turkey despite delays. Then something arrives at the empty refueling site they were supposed to land at a few kilometers away...
Suddenly, a massive explosion colored the near horizon. The blast wave did not take long to reach them. Hot, rushing air pushed the southern wind aside. The noise, despite the distance of several kilometers, was deafening. The impact had been to the north, exactly where the Soviet fuelers had been designated to link up with the M-100s.
A second blast quickly followed the first.
"Ambush," Taylor shouted. "It's a fucking ambush. The Russians sold us out."
The two men ran for the M-100.
...
"Mount up, mount up," Taylor shouted, waving the helmet he still held in his hand.
Flapper Krebs had been quicker to grasp the situation than any of them. The M-100's engines were already whining to life.
"Merry," Taylor yelled, "get on the horn. Get everybody up in the air."
The large camouflage fans began to withdraw into the M-100's fuselage.
...
The M-100 began to lift into the sky.
Across the horizon two big bursts colored the steppes bright orange, yellow, red. A border of black smoke began to expand above the fires. In quick succession, half a dozen more blasts erupted. Each one came closer to the ship as it struggled to gain altitude.
...
"Foxtrot one-four. Airborne. Over," the first of the other M-100s reported in. Then another ship called in, the voice of its pilot reflecting how badly shaken everyone had been by the surprise attack.
A ripple of explosions chased the M-100 into the sky.
"Rockets," the copilot reported drily. "Standoff, air-launched, looks like. Compact conventional explosives and fuel-airs. Couldn't have had too good a fix on us. We'd never gave got off the ground."
...
"We've got a bird down," Parker's voice. Through the intercom.
"All stations, report in sequence," Taylor ordered.
"Bird down."
"It's One-five," another crew reported. "He's gone. Fireball."
Underneath the ship, a cushion of explosions buoyed them upwards, rocking the cabin. Taylor had to clutch the sides of his seat.
...
"You know," Taylor mused bitterly to Krebs, "their system must be in godawful shape. We must've really hurt them yesterday. By all rights, they should've gotten us back there." He could feel the sweat beginning to chill on his forehead. He stared out over the sea. It looked like steel mesh come to life. "The strike was too ragged. They should have hit us with everything at once.
One M-100 is lost in a massive rocket artillery strike whose initial impacts could be felt several kilometers away. The M-100 was also able to take off and gain altitude in spite of followup explosions erupting beneath them.
Once the surviving M-100s get in the air, Japanese "Bandits" Arrive to finish the ambush.
"Oh, fuck me," the old warrant said in disgust, glancing over at Taylor. But Taylor did not need any further information. The flashing monitor made the situation very clear.
"I guess they wanted to make sure," Krebs said.
"Bandits," Taylor called into the command net. "Nine o'clock high."
Krebs began to bank the ship upward to left.
"I'll fly," Taylor said, grasping the manual controls. "You do the shooting."
Taylor's ops indicator showed the remaining four ships of his raiding force following his lead. But the formation was too neat, too predictable.
"One-one, One-two, this is Foxtrot one-zero. Go high. Work a sandwich on them. One-three, One-four, stay with me. Out."
Meredith's voice came over the intercom. "Good fix. I've even got voice on them." Then he hesitated for a moment.
"What is it?" Taylor demanded.
"Japanese gunships. The latest Toshiba variant."
The M-100s are about to duel the latest variant of the infamous Japanese Toshiba Gunships, manned by professional veteran South African mercenary pilots and crews forty miles out and closing in.
"Roger. Execute countermeasures program." The opposing formations were closing rapidly. Forty miles. Thirty-nine. "What else, Merry?"
Again, there was a slight hesitation.
"The voices," Meredith said, "sound like South Africans."
Taylor gripped the controls. Time playing tricks. Above the Caspian Sea.
So be it, he thought.
"Confirm activation of full countermeasures suite," Taylor said. He was determined not to let it shake him. There was nothing special about the South Africans.
...
Suddenly, his battle monitor fuzzed.
"The sonsofbitches," Krebs said. "They've got some kind of new shit on board."
"Merry," Taylor half-shouted, struggling to maintain control. "Hank. Hit them with full power. Jam the fuck out of them."
"Twenty-eight miles," Krebs said. "And closing."
The target-acquisition monitor distorted, multiplying and misreading images.
"Going full automatic on the weapons suite," Krebs said. "Let's hope this works."
Taylor felt sweat prickling all over his body. Frantically, he punched override buttons, trying to clear the monitors.
"Twenty five-."
Taylor strained to see through the windscreen. The battle overlays were little help now. He struggled to pick out the enemy aircraft with his eyes.
"I've got them," Merry called forward. "Clear image."
"Transfer data to the weapons suite," Taylor ordered.
Other ships called in their sudden difficulties with their own electronics.
Remember, Tayor told himself, you're doing the same thing to the other guy. He's as frightened as you are. Stay cool, stay cool.
"Negative," Merry reported. "The weapons program won't accept the transfer."
"Range: twenty miles," Krebs told them all.
Abruptly, the M-100 bucked and began to pulse under Taylor's seat. The main gun was firing.
What does my enemy see? Taylor wondered. If the systems were functioning correctly, his opposite number was reading hundreds of blurred, identical targets, a swarm of ghost images in the midst of which the real M-100s were hiding. Or, depending on the parameters of his system, he might only be receiving static and fuzz.
Taylor slapped the eyeshield down from atop the headset.
"Laser alert," he said over the command net. Beside him, Krebs slid down his own shield.
The protective lenses darkened the sky, and the bucking of the M-100as it maneuvered forward made it even harder to focus. Nonetheless, Taylor believed he could pick out the tiny black spots that marked the enemy.
He took full manual control of the aircraft and pointed it straight at the enemy.
"Full combat speed," he ordered. "Let's get them."
"Garry Owen," a voice replied from a sister ship.
"Thirteen miles," Krebs said. "We're not hitting a damn thing."
"Neither are they," Taylor said. Below the insulated cockpit, the main gun continued to pump out precious rounds, its accuracy deteriorating with every shot,
"I've got good voice on them," Merry said. "They're going crazy. They've lost us. They're firing everything they've got."
"Ten miles."
Taylor looked out at the black dots. He counted ten. Be he could not see the slightest trace of hostile action. The sky was full of high-velocity projectiles and lasers, but the M-100s rounds were far quicker than the human eye, while the enemy' current lasers were not tuned to the spectrum of visible light. Around the lethal balls and beams, the heavens pulsed with electronic violence. Yet all that was visible was the gray sky, and a line of swelling black dots on a collision course with his outnumbered element.
"Seven miles. Jesus Christ."
"Steady," Taylor said, his fear forgotten now.
Dark tubular fuselages, the blur of rotors and propellers.
It was, Taylor thought, like a battle between knights so heavily armored they did not possess the offensive technology to hurt each other. New magic shields deflected the other man's blows.
"Four miles," Krebs said. "Jesus, sir, we got to climb. We're on a collision course."
No, Taylor thought. If they haven't hit us yet at this angle, they won't. But the first man to flinch, to reveal a vulnerable angle, was going to lose.
The M-100 threw another series of rounds toward the enemy.
"All stations," Taylor said, "Steady on course."
"Two miles-."
The Toshiba gunships were unmistakable now. Their contours had not changed much over the years. A mongrelized forward aspect, a helicopter with turboprops on the sides. Or a plane with rotors. Take your pick.
"Hold course," Taylor shouted.
The M-100's cannon pummeled the sky. To no effect.
"One mile and closing-."
Where horsemen rode at each other with sabers drawn, their descendants rode the sky in a long metal line, jousting with lightning.
Hit, goddamn it, hit, Taylor told the main gun.
He could see every detail on the enemy gunships now. The mock Iranian markings, the mottled camouflage. The low-slung laser pod.
"We're going to collide."
Taylor froze his hand on the joystick. Straight ahead.
In a buffeting wash of air and noise, the M-100 shot past the enemy's line.
"All stations" Taylor said. "Follow my lead. We've got a tighter turning radius than they do."
He felt far more confident now. The M-100's airframe was of a design over a decade fresher than the Toshiba gunships. The M-100 had all of the maneuvering advantages.
...
"Complete the turn. We're only vulnerable from the back."
He looked at the monitor. The fuzz cloud that marked the enemy began to turn too. But they were slower. He could feel it.
"Flapper," Taylor said. "Turn off the autosystems. They're just canceling each other out. Take manual control of the main gun. And use a little Kentucky windage."
"The accuracy's breaking down," Krebs said. "We're just about shot out."
"You can do it, Flapper. Come on. We didn't have all this fancy shit when you and I started out."
Krebs nodded, doubt on the lower portion of his face left visible by the laser shield.
"All stations," Taylor said. "Open order. Go to manual target acquisition and manual fire control."
...
"Fire at will," Taylor said.
He guided the ship around as thought he were reining a spirted horse. Soon he could visually track the black specks of the enemy formation describing a long arc across the sky. They looked clean. Very disciplined fliers.
Every one of his crews would be flying for themselves now. The American formation hardly existed as such. Instead, five M-100s speckled the sky, each skeeking hte best possible angle of attack.
Taylor applied full throttle, trying to get into his enemy's flank before the Japanese gunships could bring their weapons to bear.
"I don't know," Krebs said, hanging on the weapons control stick.
"Fuck you don't know," Taylor said. "I know. Take those fuckers out."
Krebs fired.
Nothing.
"Just getting a feel for the deflection," he excused himself. He sounded calmer now that he was committed to the action.
Taylor flew straight for the center of the enemy formation. He watched the increasingly clear gunships coming into the last segment of their turns.
"Come on, baby," Krebs said. He fired again.
Instantaneously, a black gunship erupted in flames and left the enemy formation, its component parts hurtling through the sky in multiple directions.
Taylor howled with delight...
"Well, fuck me," Krebs said in wonder. He fired again, pulsing out rounds.
Another Japanese gunship broke apart in the sky.
Remember me, Taylor told his enemy. Remember me.
In quick succession, two more Japanese gunships blazed and broke up. The other American ships were hitting.
There was very little time. The enemy systems defined themselves with greatly clarity with each passing second. Taylor was afraid they would be able to come around at their own angle and sweep the sky with lasers in a crossfire effect.
Taylor stared hard at the enemy formation, trying to read the pattern.
"Flapper," he yelled suddenly. "Get the number three ship. That's their flight leader."
"Roger."
...
The old warrant officer followed the turn of the aircrtaft with his optics. He let go one round, then another.
The enemy's flight leader disappeared in a hot white flash. When the dazzle faded there was only black chunks of waste dropping in the sea.
Another of the enemy's aircraft exploded.
The remaining gunships began to abort their turns. Instead of trying to close with their tormentors, they were trying to escape.
Wrong decision, Taylor thought coldly. "All stations, right wheel," he called, slipping unconsciously into an old cavalry command.
Two of the enemy's surviving gunships exploded in tandem, as though they had been taken out by a double barreled shotgun.
Only two enemy ships remained. Taylor knew what they were feeling.
...
They were on the enemy's rear hemisphere now. The attempt to flee was hopeless, since the American aircraft were faster. But the enemy pilots would not know that. At this point, the only thing they knew with any certainty was that they were still alive.
Taylor felt Krebs tense mercilessly beside him. The warrant sent off another succession of rounds.
A gunship spun around like a weathervane in a storm, breaking up even before the fire from its fuel tanks could engulf it. Then the familiar cloud of flames swelled outward, spitting off aircraft parts.
A lone enemy survivor strained off to the southeast. Taylor could feel the pilot pushing for each last ounce of thrust, aching to go faster than physical laws allowed.
The lone black ship flared and fell away into a sputtering rain of components.
Five M-100s engage ten of the latest variant Toshiba Gunships and as their electronic warfare systems cancel each other out, they pass each other. The M-100 is revealed to have a tighter turning radius and after switching to manual control, six of the Toshiba Gunships are downed before they could complete their own wider turn back. The remaining four are downed trying to retreat. Like the M-100 the Toshiba Gunships rear hemisphere is vulnerable to sensors. Also the M-100 is faster.
The Toshiba Gunships also have a habit of exploding in midair when hit, leaving nothing but a rain of component parts.
Having survived the ambush with one M-100 lost on the ground to rocket artillery the remaining five continue on with their mission to Baku.
Last edited:
Chapter Twenty Four: 4 November, 2020
Chapter Twenty Four:
4 November, 2020
The Japanese Headquarters in Baku Remains Besieged and Largely Incommunicado After the WHITE LIGHT Electronic Warfare Attacks. But Renewed Electronic Warfare Jamming is Detected.
"Still no direct communication with the rear, or with Tokyo?" Noburu asked.
Akiro hung his head. "The situation seemed to be improving. Then, an hour ago, the interference began again."
"The same parameters as last night?"
"No. Different. The communications officer says that last night's attack was barrage jamming. He calls the present effort leech-and-spike."
What could it mean? In the course of his military career, Noburu had never been so utterly cut off from information. He had come to take ease of communication for granted. Now, at too old an age, he had been transported back through the centuries, to fight his last battles in darkness.
The Main Computer In the Headquarters Is Secured. It's considered so valuable that even the General in question who commands the theater cannot order its destruction.
They passed the room where the master computer culled through its electronic dreams, unperturbed. The ocmputer had been left running, but its consoles were locked so that no outsider could enter it without possessing an unbreakable complex of codes. For the mob the machine would be a useless prize. But if the Azeris did not physically destroy it, the computer would be invaluable after its recapture by the relief column.
...
The machine simply moaned to itself, ticked, and sailed off into galaxies of numbers.
Noburu, who still imagined himself to have been hardened by the years, found it uncharacteristically bitter to reflect that this machine was worth far more to his country than any combination of men. He himself, along with all of his principal officers, down to the assistant of the helper's helper, meant nothing beside the power and splendor of this machine. The machines made war now, while the men involved simply meandered through a waking dream of bygone glories.
...
Tokyo could still send a self-destruct message, if they should so choose. It was not up to him. It would have embarrassed him, even under the present circumstances, to reveal to Akiro that he, the senior officer in the theater of war, did not have sufficient personal authority to order the destruction of a master computer.
Extent of Japanese Headquarters Functioning Communications Equipment in the Wake of the Electronic Warfare and Jamming is Revealed. The Directed Localized Jamming of the U.S. Army Might've been jamming the old Soviet-era radio sets as opposed to the advanced WHITE LIGHT Electronic Warfare Birds.
Noburu followed him to an antique Soviet-built radio, something he might reasonably have expectred to see only in a military museum.
"And this- seems to work?" Noburu asked.
"It's the only way we were able to establish contact with anyone," Akiro answered. "It's an old VHF set. The loyal garrisons are using them. But the jamming is very bad."
...
"But no one has answered?"
"Not for hours."
The Mob Attacks the Japanese Headquarters With the Support of Three Tanks. The Headquarters Has No Anti-Armor Weapons
In the blaze of the firefight, Noburu saw one of his men dash from a side door, charging without a rifle. In the last seconds before the man threw himself on top of the tank, Noburu recognized the swell of the grenade in the man's hand.
The explosion drove the nearest members of the mob to their knees. But it did not stop the tank.
The Tanks Are Suddenly Struck By the Arrival of a New Force.
Noburu heard a noise that did not fit.
Something was wrong. There was a great hissing, a new noise for which he could not account. Up in the sky. As thought enormous winged snakes were descending from the heavens. Dragons.
The lead tank disappeared in a huge white flash that dazzled Noburu's eyes. A stunning bell-like sound was followed by an explosion. His vision of the world crazed into a disorderly mosaic. But he could see the tank burning.
"I can't see," the South African NCO howled. "I can't see."
The explosion had been as bright as a sun come to earth. The tremendous force of the impact made Noburu's head throb under its disordered bandage. He tried to see into the sky.
Two more explosions drew his eyes back to the earth.
...
The drone of engines began to emerge from under the cowls of their noise suppressors.
Someone had heard. Someone had monitored one of the radio transmission. Someone had managed to muster an air-mobile relief force.
...
The massed attackers wavered at the destruction of their armored support. The tanks had promised them a magic victory. Now the tanks were done. In the midst of the warm, high voices sang out prayer-like encouragements.
Noburu still could not see the relief aircraft in the darkened sky. He tried to place them by the sound of their engines. But his ears were ringing. The blast had shocked his senses. And his hearing was half-gone at the best of times.
Nonetheless, it annoyed him that he could not identify the hissing, descending ships.
...
The noise of the aircraft loomed heavily. A pillar of fire descended from the heavens, followed by another, then a third. Noburu recognized the accompanying noise; Gatling guns.
Heavy bullets rinsed over the packed courtyard. The rounds were so powerful that they did not merely fell their victims but shredded them and threw the remnants great distances.
...
the fury of the crowd turned to wails of despair. Noboru could feel the intruders scrambling to avoid the godlike weapons, and he would picture the oversize rounds rising back and forth across the courtyard. Sometimes the old weapons were the best.
Noburu went cold. Underneath him, the sounds of combat within the headquarters building punctuated his horror.
He had realized that none of the new Japanese systems in the theater of war mounted Gatling Guns.
The M-100s are revealed to be firing heavy caliber rounds from their Gatling Guns, which makes sense considered they set armored troop carriers ablaze earlier. They also have noise suppression cowlings which make the M-100s make a hissing sound when in the air.
As before, the M-100s are extremely loud as they land.
The sound of the aircraft was deafingly close now. He could begin to make out their swollen black forms against the deep blue sky. Each time one of the ships unleashed another burst from its Gatling gun, the cone of fire was shorter, closer. The Gatling rounds made a sharp crackling sound as they split the cobblestones amid the dead and the dying.
"Americans," Noboru said to Kloete.
Perhaps the noise was too much. The South African merely stared at him in incomprehension.
"The Americans," Noburu shouted, cupping a hand beside his mouth.
Kloete looked at him as if the general had gone mad.
The rotor wash began tearing at their clothes. The big ships were settling, looking for places to nest.
...
the roof erupted in a holiday of sparks. One moment he was watching the scrambling forms of the two South Africans. An instant later, their bodies disintegrated as the approaching gunship's Gatling cleared the rooftop helipad.
Noburu threw himself into the deepest corner of the passageway until the drilling noise of the gunnery stopped. He felt as though he had been stung by dozens of wasps. Masonry splinters, he calculated, glad that he could still function.
The Americans establish a perimeter around the headquarters in the air and on the ground and begin advancing into the headquarters building itself. You also get the first real glimpse of the dragoons or army infantrymen that most M-100s carry finally seeing combat.
other M-100s settled across the parade ground, their Gatling guns sweeping the living and the dead across their chosen their landing zones. American soldiers leapt from the lowering ramps and hatches, their short automatic rifles clearing each fire team's path toward the headquarters building. Protected by lightweight body armor and face shields, here and there an American fell backward, knocked down by the force of a bullet, only to rise from the dead and follow his comrades into the fight.
One M-100 is holding off multiple armored relief columns entering the hostile city but enemy aircraft are also on their way.
Even as the raiding force approached Baku, enemy relief columns had been shooting their way into the city from multiple directions. The lone M-100 flying cover shifted its fire from axis ro axis in the ultimate economy of force effort, striking the lonb columns selectively, blocking as many streets as posible with burning combat vehicles. But all of the main guns desperately needed recalibration now and the Gatlings, too, were down to their last reserves of ammunition. Here and there, the combat vehicles from the relief columns snaked their way inevitably into the labyrinth of streets. Worse still, the strategic down-links feeding the M-100's on-board computers showed a fleet of enemy aircraft over the Caspian Sea, flying on an axis whose aim was unmistakable.
After some prolonged close quarters combat within the facility, which was geographically laid out earlier in the book as the Japanese General traveled to and from the Computer and Radio Room, the Americans arrive in the Computer Room and with the intelligence gleaned from the previous accessed Japanese operational 'brain' the Soviets acquired, are able to access the computer itself.
"Those are control nodes for the Japanese space defense system, the what-do-you-call-it? Satsee or something?"
"SAD-C," Taylor corrected automatically. "Okay, so what does it mean?" No sooner had he spoke the words than he began to realize why the warrant officer was so excited.
"Well," Ryder said happily, "we knew the Japanese had programmed all their tactical stuff so it could be order5ed to self-destruct. But we never dreamed-"
Taylor put his had on the young man's shoulder, anchoring them both to reality.
"You're telling me," Taylor said, "that this computer can order the Japanese space defenses to self-destruct? The home islands shield?"
"Well," Ryder said, "they probably won't blow up or anything like that. The self-destruct order will probably just destroy the electronic circuits. The satellites will still be up there and all. They just won't be able to do anything."
...
Meredith interrupted. "Do it," he begged. "Stick it to the bastards while there's still time. If we take out the space defenses, Japan won't be able to defend itself against shit. It changes everything."
Yes.
It changed everything.
"Is it hard to do?" Taylor asked Ryder.
"Piece of cake," the warrant officer said, as though he had been surprised at the question. "You want me to do it then, sir?"
Taylor listened to the sounds of battle above their heads.
"Absolutely. How long will it take?"
Ryder didn't answer. He began to punch keys. The screen changed, and the warrant office began to sort his way through a parade of numbers.
...
Ryder slapped at the keyboard one last time, then swiveled around to face Taylor and Meredith.
"Ready to do it then, Chief?" Taylor asked.
"It's already done," Ryder said nonchalantly. "No more Japanese space defenses."
Taylor looked at the warrant officer, unsure whether he was joking or not, unable to quite believe that things could be this easy, after all the years of struggle, of failure, of dreaming of a better day.
The American Intelligence Officer Tries to Access the Tactical Self-Destruct Programs.
Ryder's face had turned pale. He looked up at Taylor with an expression of helpless loss.
"What's the matter?" Taylor said calmly.
"I- I can't tell which system is which," Ryder said. "I don't have the right key."
"Fuck it. Just destroy them all," Taylor said, beginning to lose his patience.
"Ryder shook his head. "Sir- the way the program's set up- you have to destroy each system individually." He half-turned back to the console. A flashing star identified an alphanumeric. Ryder tapped a key. The alphanumeric disappeared and the blinking star moved down to the next number.
"See?" Ryder said. "All you have to do to destroy something is t ap the control key. Right here. But you might destroy anything. Maybe a tank. Or just a radio set. Or one of the scramblers. I can't tell. But you have to hit the key for every number. And there are thousands in the data base." Ryder tapped the key again, erasing another number, destroying another unidentified system out on the distant battlefield. "It's going to take a while," he said. And he hit the key again.
With the multiple relief columns closing in on the Headquarters along with enemy aircraft, someone has to remain behind to man the computer and destroy the unidentified systems.
"Get out of here," Taylor said. He could no longer look at any of them. He roughly pulled Ryder from his chair before the computer and took his place. He turned his back to them all.
They left. In a local silence. With the lulls and sudden eruptions of combat shaking the building above their head. They moved slowly as they exited the room. Then Taylor could hear them running down the corridor, with Meredeth shouting at them to move, move, move... Then Taylor lost the sound of them in the clamor of battle.
He pressed the code key. Again and again.
...
The door opened behind his back.
Taylor did not sway. He continued to press the control key at the required cadence. Fighting to the last, as best as he knew how.
...
Taylor's finger punched the wonderful key again. And again. Hundreds more systems had been destroyed. It was impossible to keep count. Perhaps the Scramblers were already gone.
I am the destroyer, he said to himself, recalling the disembodied quote but not its source. Poetry? An Indian religious text? It was all the same.
I am the destroyer.
Japanese Relief Forces Finally Arrive and We Get Our First Look of an Actual Japanese Combat Soldier, as it was mostly support staff and security personnel at the headquarters itself and other areas.
a wiry Japanese commando stood with his legs spread, weapon at the ready. He looked at Taylor, then at the computer. He shouted a single word in Japanese.
Taylor drew the pin from the grenade without removing it from his harness. In the seconds before it exploded, he had time to appreciate his opponent, who was young, clean-featured, and obviously well-trained. The commando stood helplessly in the doorway, frozen by the inevitability of the moment. Unable to fire, as long as Taylor sat framed by the precious computer. The commando had the look of a healthy, magnificent animal. Ready to kill, but restrained by a higher authority. With his dark, hyperalert eyes and the feel of brutally conditioned muscles beneath the fabric of his uniform, he was the perfect example of what a soldier should be. Taylor pitied him, understanding him as well as any man could ever understand another.
Taylor felt wonderfully peaceful as he waited and waited for the grenade to do its work. He even smiled at the recognition that his opponent's face was, after all, identical to his own, and that it had always been his own face on the other end of the gun.
The Japanese did have a self-destruct command apparently all of their systems, accessible by the master computer located in their Baku Headquarters within a computer that was impossible to access or hack into. Even when the Americans access it, they didn't have a key to interpret the alphanumerics used to identify the Japanese tactical systems in the self-destruct program thus resulting in the Americans being forced to press the same key over and over again and hoping for the best. It's unknown what other programs the Americans might've unloaded into the main computer system or if they downloaded/copied any data as well which was part of the plan since their main priority was destroying the Scramblers.
4 November, 2020
The Japanese Headquarters in Baku Remains Besieged and Largely Incommunicado After the WHITE LIGHT Electronic Warfare Attacks. But Renewed Electronic Warfare Jamming is Detected.
"Still no direct communication with the rear, or with Tokyo?" Noburu asked.
Akiro hung his head. "The situation seemed to be improving. Then, an hour ago, the interference began again."
"The same parameters as last night?"
"No. Different. The communications officer says that last night's attack was barrage jamming. He calls the present effort leech-and-spike."
What could it mean? In the course of his military career, Noburu had never been so utterly cut off from information. He had come to take ease of communication for granted. Now, at too old an age, he had been transported back through the centuries, to fight his last battles in darkness.
The Main Computer In the Headquarters Is Secured. It's considered so valuable that even the General in question who commands the theater cannot order its destruction.
They passed the room where the master computer culled through its electronic dreams, unperturbed. The ocmputer had been left running, but its consoles were locked so that no outsider could enter it without possessing an unbreakable complex of codes. For the mob the machine would be a useless prize. But if the Azeris did not physically destroy it, the computer would be invaluable after its recapture by the relief column.
...
The machine simply moaned to itself, ticked, and sailed off into galaxies of numbers.
Noburu, who still imagined himself to have been hardened by the years, found it uncharacteristically bitter to reflect that this machine was worth far more to his country than any combination of men. He himself, along with all of his principal officers, down to the assistant of the helper's helper, meant nothing beside the power and splendor of this machine. The machines made war now, while the men involved simply meandered through a waking dream of bygone glories.
...
Tokyo could still send a self-destruct message, if they should so choose. It was not up to him. It would have embarrassed him, even under the present circumstances, to reveal to Akiro that he, the senior officer in the theater of war, did not have sufficient personal authority to order the destruction of a master computer.
Extent of Japanese Headquarters Functioning Communications Equipment in the Wake of the Electronic Warfare and Jamming is Revealed. The Directed Localized Jamming of the U.S. Army Might've been jamming the old Soviet-era radio sets as opposed to the advanced WHITE LIGHT Electronic Warfare Birds.
Noburu followed him to an antique Soviet-built radio, something he might reasonably have expectred to see only in a military museum.
"And this- seems to work?" Noburu asked.
"It's the only way we were able to establish contact with anyone," Akiro answered. "It's an old VHF set. The loyal garrisons are using them. But the jamming is very bad."
...
"But no one has answered?"
"Not for hours."
The Mob Attacks the Japanese Headquarters With the Support of Three Tanks. The Headquarters Has No Anti-Armor Weapons
In the blaze of the firefight, Noburu saw one of his men dash from a side door, charging without a rifle. In the last seconds before the man threw himself on top of the tank, Noburu recognized the swell of the grenade in the man's hand.
The explosion drove the nearest members of the mob to their knees. But it did not stop the tank.
The Tanks Are Suddenly Struck By the Arrival of a New Force.
Noburu heard a noise that did not fit.
Something was wrong. There was a great hissing, a new noise for which he could not account. Up in the sky. As thought enormous winged snakes were descending from the heavens. Dragons.
The lead tank disappeared in a huge white flash that dazzled Noburu's eyes. A stunning bell-like sound was followed by an explosion. His vision of the world crazed into a disorderly mosaic. But he could see the tank burning.
"I can't see," the South African NCO howled. "I can't see."
The explosion had been as bright as a sun come to earth. The tremendous force of the impact made Noburu's head throb under its disordered bandage. He tried to see into the sky.
Two more explosions drew his eyes back to the earth.
...
The drone of engines began to emerge from under the cowls of their noise suppressors.
Someone had heard. Someone had monitored one of the radio transmission. Someone had managed to muster an air-mobile relief force.
...
The massed attackers wavered at the destruction of their armored support. The tanks had promised them a magic victory. Now the tanks were done. In the midst of the warm, high voices sang out prayer-like encouragements.
Noburu still could not see the relief aircraft in the darkened sky. He tried to place them by the sound of their engines. But his ears were ringing. The blast had shocked his senses. And his hearing was half-gone at the best of times.
Nonetheless, it annoyed him that he could not identify the hissing, descending ships.
...
The noise of the aircraft loomed heavily. A pillar of fire descended from the heavens, followed by another, then a third. Noburu recognized the accompanying noise; Gatling guns.
Heavy bullets rinsed over the packed courtyard. The rounds were so powerful that they did not merely fell their victims but shredded them and threw the remnants great distances.
...
the fury of the crowd turned to wails of despair. Noboru could feel the intruders scrambling to avoid the godlike weapons, and he would picture the oversize rounds rising back and forth across the courtyard. Sometimes the old weapons were the best.
Noburu went cold. Underneath him, the sounds of combat within the headquarters building punctuated his horror.
He had realized that none of the new Japanese systems in the theater of war mounted Gatling Guns.
The M-100s are revealed to be firing heavy caliber rounds from their Gatling Guns, which makes sense considered they set armored troop carriers ablaze earlier. They also have noise suppression cowlings which make the M-100s make a hissing sound when in the air.
As before, the M-100s are extremely loud as they land.
The sound of the aircraft was deafingly close now. He could begin to make out their swollen black forms against the deep blue sky. Each time one of the ships unleashed another burst from its Gatling gun, the cone of fire was shorter, closer. The Gatling rounds made a sharp crackling sound as they split the cobblestones amid the dead and the dying.
"Americans," Noboru said to Kloete.
Perhaps the noise was too much. The South African merely stared at him in incomprehension.
"The Americans," Noburu shouted, cupping a hand beside his mouth.
Kloete looked at him as if the general had gone mad.
The rotor wash began tearing at their clothes. The big ships were settling, looking for places to nest.
...
the roof erupted in a holiday of sparks. One moment he was watching the scrambling forms of the two South Africans. An instant later, their bodies disintegrated as the approaching gunship's Gatling cleared the rooftop helipad.
Noburu threw himself into the deepest corner of the passageway until the drilling noise of the gunnery stopped. He felt as though he had been stung by dozens of wasps. Masonry splinters, he calculated, glad that he could still function.
The Americans establish a perimeter around the headquarters in the air and on the ground and begin advancing into the headquarters building itself. You also get the first real glimpse of the dragoons or army infantrymen that most M-100s carry finally seeing combat.
other M-100s settled across the parade ground, their Gatling guns sweeping the living and the dead across their chosen their landing zones. American soldiers leapt from the lowering ramps and hatches, their short automatic rifles clearing each fire team's path toward the headquarters building. Protected by lightweight body armor and face shields, here and there an American fell backward, knocked down by the force of a bullet, only to rise from the dead and follow his comrades into the fight.
One M-100 is holding off multiple armored relief columns entering the hostile city but enemy aircraft are also on their way.
Even as the raiding force approached Baku, enemy relief columns had been shooting their way into the city from multiple directions. The lone M-100 flying cover shifted its fire from axis ro axis in the ultimate economy of force effort, striking the lonb columns selectively, blocking as many streets as posible with burning combat vehicles. But all of the main guns desperately needed recalibration now and the Gatlings, too, were down to their last reserves of ammunition. Here and there, the combat vehicles from the relief columns snaked their way inevitably into the labyrinth of streets. Worse still, the strategic down-links feeding the M-100's on-board computers showed a fleet of enemy aircraft over the Caspian Sea, flying on an axis whose aim was unmistakable.
After some prolonged close quarters combat within the facility, which was geographically laid out earlier in the book as the Japanese General traveled to and from the Computer and Radio Room, the Americans arrive in the Computer Room and with the intelligence gleaned from the previous accessed Japanese operational 'brain' the Soviets acquired, are able to access the computer itself.
"Those are control nodes for the Japanese space defense system, the what-do-you-call-it? Satsee or something?"
"SAD-C," Taylor corrected automatically. "Okay, so what does it mean?" No sooner had he spoke the words than he began to realize why the warrant officer was so excited.
"Well," Ryder said happily, "we knew the Japanese had programmed all their tactical stuff so it could be order5ed to self-destruct. But we never dreamed-"
Taylor put his had on the young man's shoulder, anchoring them both to reality.
"You're telling me," Taylor said, "that this computer can order the Japanese space defenses to self-destruct? The home islands shield?"
"Well," Ryder said, "they probably won't blow up or anything like that. The self-destruct order will probably just destroy the electronic circuits. The satellites will still be up there and all. They just won't be able to do anything."
...
Meredith interrupted. "Do it," he begged. "Stick it to the bastards while there's still time. If we take out the space defenses, Japan won't be able to defend itself against shit. It changes everything."
Yes.
It changed everything.
"Is it hard to do?" Taylor asked Ryder.
"Piece of cake," the warrant officer said, as though he had been surprised at the question. "You want me to do it then, sir?"
Taylor listened to the sounds of battle above their heads.
"Absolutely. How long will it take?"
Ryder didn't answer. He began to punch keys. The screen changed, and the warrant office began to sort his way through a parade of numbers.
...
Ryder slapped at the keyboard one last time, then swiveled around to face Taylor and Meredith.
"Ready to do it then, Chief?" Taylor asked.
"It's already done," Ryder said nonchalantly. "No more Japanese space defenses."
Taylor looked at the warrant officer, unsure whether he was joking or not, unable to quite believe that things could be this easy, after all the years of struggle, of failure, of dreaming of a better day.
The American Intelligence Officer Tries to Access the Tactical Self-Destruct Programs.
Ryder's face had turned pale. He looked up at Taylor with an expression of helpless loss.
"What's the matter?" Taylor said calmly.
"I- I can't tell which system is which," Ryder said. "I don't have the right key."
"Fuck it. Just destroy them all," Taylor said, beginning to lose his patience.
"Ryder shook his head. "Sir- the way the program's set up- you have to destroy each system individually." He half-turned back to the console. A flashing star identified an alphanumeric. Ryder tapped a key. The alphanumeric disappeared and the blinking star moved down to the next number.
"See?" Ryder said. "All you have to do to destroy something is t ap the control key. Right here. But you might destroy anything. Maybe a tank. Or just a radio set. Or one of the scramblers. I can't tell. But you have to hit the key for every number. And there are thousands in the data base." Ryder tapped the key again, erasing another number, destroying another unidentified system out on the distant battlefield. "It's going to take a while," he said. And he hit the key again.
With the multiple relief columns closing in on the Headquarters along with enemy aircraft, someone has to remain behind to man the computer and destroy the unidentified systems.
"Get out of here," Taylor said. He could no longer look at any of them. He roughly pulled Ryder from his chair before the computer and took his place. He turned his back to them all.
They left. In a local silence. With the lulls and sudden eruptions of combat shaking the building above their head. They moved slowly as they exited the room. Then Taylor could hear them running down the corridor, with Meredeth shouting at them to move, move, move... Then Taylor lost the sound of them in the clamor of battle.
He pressed the code key. Again and again.
...
The door opened behind his back.
Taylor did not sway. He continued to press the control key at the required cadence. Fighting to the last, as best as he knew how.
...
Taylor's finger punched the wonderful key again. And again. Hundreds more systems had been destroyed. It was impossible to keep count. Perhaps the Scramblers were already gone.
I am the destroyer, he said to himself, recalling the disembodied quote but not its source. Poetry? An Indian religious text? It was all the same.
I am the destroyer.
Japanese Relief Forces Finally Arrive and We Get Our First Look of an Actual Japanese Combat Soldier, as it was mostly support staff and security personnel at the headquarters itself and other areas.
a wiry Japanese commando stood with his legs spread, weapon at the ready. He looked at Taylor, then at the computer. He shouted a single word in Japanese.
Taylor drew the pin from the grenade without removing it from his harness. In the seconds before it exploded, he had time to appreciate his opponent, who was young, clean-featured, and obviously well-trained. The commando stood helplessly in the doorway, frozen by the inevitability of the moment. Unable to fire, as long as Taylor sat framed by the precious computer. The commando had the look of a healthy, magnificent animal. Ready to kill, but restrained by a higher authority. With his dark, hyperalert eyes and the feel of brutally conditioned muscles beneath the fabric of his uniform, he was the perfect example of what a soldier should be. Taylor pitied him, understanding him as well as any man could ever understand another.
Taylor felt wonderfully peaceful as he waited and waited for the grenade to do its work. He even smiled at the recognition that his opponent's face was, after all, identical to his own, and that it had always been his own face on the other end of the gun.
The Japanese did have a self-destruct command apparently all of their systems, accessible by the master computer located in their Baku Headquarters within a computer that was impossible to access or hack into. Even when the Americans access it, they didn't have a key to interpret the alphanumerics used to identify the Japanese tactical systems in the self-destruct program thus resulting in the Americans being forced to press the same key over and over again and hoping for the best. It's unknown what other programs the Americans might've unloaded into the main computer system or if they downloaded/copied any data as well which was part of the plan since their main priority was destroying the Scramblers.
Last edited: