It took them nearly twenty minutes to get his company to the other side. Once that was completed, they all moved forward half a kilometer and took up a defensive position while they waited for the rest of their battalion to catch up. In the meantime, refuelers drove by and continued to top off their tanks and the other vehicles as they showed up. An hour after Captain Diss’s unit had set up their defensive position, they got word that their battalion had fully crossed, and the other tanks were in the process of topping off their own fuel tanks before they moved forward.
Captain Diss reviewed his map while they waited. They had probably close to a hundred kilometers of terrain to cross before they would start to run into any PLA forces. Their last intelligence report was from a small reconnaissance unit screening for the larger brigade of tanks nearby. It was as if someone above them was moving the chess pieces on the board in anticipation of a much larger battle.
“I suppose that’s what the men with the stars on their collars do,” Diss mused.
The radio in their CVC chirped with the voice of the battalion commander. “All Mustang elements, move out. Begin moving in diamond formation.”
Diss depressed his own talk button, adding, “You heard the man. It’s time to earn our pay. I want everyone on the move, heads on a swivel. You see a target, call it out ASAP.”
Warhorse lurched forward as they took up their position in the formation. Sergeant Cortez, his gunner, searched the horizon for potential targets. Diss reached up and popped his commander’s hatch open, lifting it up on the spring and locking it in place. He then used his hands to pull himself up so he could stand in the hatch with a much better view of the terrain they were heading into.
Captain Diss tried not to dwell on the losses they had taken up to this point or the wasted opportunities of the past. They had finally been given permission to do what tankers do best, go kill other tanks and murder unguarded infantry. He nearly let out a sadistic laugh.
“I love the smell of napalm in the morning,” he thought with a smirk, remembering one of the lines from his favorite movie, Apocalypse Now.
His tank rumbled down the side of a two-lane road that was lined with trees, providing a semblance of cover. While he wanted his tanks to change into a single-file formation and use the trees for cover, he had a sick feeling that this ideally covered road was probably laced with tank-mines and other nasty surprises.
“No, we’ll stick to the more open ground, where we can clearly see what we’re driving into,” he resolved.
Lifting his binoculars to his eyes, he scanned the horizon several kilometers to their front, looking for anything out of the ordinary but spotting nothing. The only thing they had seen in the last thirty minutes was a lot of little kids and old men and women, standing outside their homes or near a road, just watching them drive by. Some waved and smiled at them; others stared daggers, aware that they were the enemy invading their homeland.
Nearly two hours had gone by since they’d crossed the pontoon bridge, and they were just now approaching their first major village, Bin'anzhen. It was a small village of maybe 15,000 people and sat at the crossroads of several major road junctions. Luckily for them, an advance party of military police had arrived ahead of them; MPs were staggered at different turns, bridges and roads to guide them through the village and back into the open fields that would lead them toward the enemy.
By then it was roughly 0900 hours. Their armored chariots rolled down one small road after another as they made their way out of the village. Many of the village inhabitants came out to see them, often lining the roads. Like earlier, some smiled and waved innocently enough. Others stared on in awe, and some oozed hatred at the sight of so many huge American battle tanks. These people had clearly never seen a tank up close, and the size, the creaking noises and the shaking of the ground beneath them gave testament to the awesome power these armored behemoths could project. In Diss’s mind, there really wasn’t anything close to being as impressive as the sight of several hundred main battle tanks rolling through your city in the middle of the morning. Still, Captain Diss made sure Sergeant Cortez was sitting in the gunner’s hatch with his hand on the crew-served weapon, ready in case they needed to use it.
Their next objective was the much larger city of Binzhouzhen, roughly sixty kilometers to the west. With the rest of his company now out of the small city, they resumed their diamond formation and again picked up speed. Despite the faster pace, everyone was on edge, maintaining a high level of vigilance as they moved through more and more farms and possible ambush points.
A squeak over the radio in Diss’s CVC helmet let him know someone was trying to break through on their coms. “Mustang Six, this is Darkhorse Six. How copy?” asked the voice, faint and a little garbled but still understandable. It must be their reconnaissance unit.
“Darkhorse Six, this is Mustang Six. I can’t hear you the best, but go ahead with your message,” replied Captain Diss. He shared a nervous glance with his gunner.
“We’re one kilometer from Binzhouzhen City. We’ve spotted multiple sapper units and missile teams set up on the northeast side of the city. We’re going to hit them with artillery. Recommend your unit advance on the city from the southeast side. Darkhorse Three spotted two T-08 IFVs near the edge of the city. Two kilometers to the southeast of the city, Darkhorse Three also spotted twelve Type 96 tanks, hull down with camouflage on top. How copy?”
Diss thought over his options. Missiles and sapper units awaited on the northern side of the city, and heavy armor on the southern side. He had to think a moment before he determined the best course of action.
“Well, we’re here to destroy tanks,” Diss finally decided. Knowing where the enemy tanks were would made it a lot easier to attack them. Plus, the last thing they wanted to do was run into was a swarm of antitank missiles and rockets that would force them to have to dismount their infantry.
He hit the reply button. “Darkhorse Six, this is Mustang Six. Good copy on the information. Mustang element will go after the T-96s on the southeastern side of the city. Proceed with artillery strike on missile and sapper units to the north. Out.”
Captain Diss switched over to the company net. “Attention all Mustangs, FRAGO follows: we’ve been given a heads-up by our recon guys on an enemy tank formation, approximately two kilometers to the southeast of our next waypoint. We’re going to change formation to a left-facing echelon formation. We’re looking for Type 96 tanks, hull down with camouflage on their turrets. If you spot one, identify it, pass it to the rest of the company, and engage it. Good hunting, Mustangs!”
Diss turned his attention to his crew next. “Cortez, when the shooting starts, I’m going to need you to identify and shoot. I’ll do my best to help when I can, but I’ve also got the rest of the company to manage, so you’re essentially going to have to run the gun for us, OK?” he asked.
“Roger that, Sir. I got it. Winters told me exactly what to expect and what to do. I can handle it,” he replied in a reassuring voice.
Diss took a minute to say a few words to his driver and loader, making sure they felt some love as well, then he switched over to talk with his platoon leaders. He wanted to make sure their platoons were falling in line with the new formation. They were less than four kilometers from making contact.
Less than twenty seconds later, the ground around their tank started to rattle. Then they heard the unmistakable crump, crump, crump of artillery rounds landing nearby. Loud pings and clangs rattled their ears as shrapnel bounced off their armor.