The President nodded, knowing this was a complex issue. He felt good that his people were on top of it for the time being. He’d have to check back with them over the next few days to verify their progress.
Then he turned to face the broader group. “I do not believe we addressed the initial problem McMillan brought up — that small pocket of American troops southeast of Kiev. How many soldiers do we have there?” asked Gates.
General Hillman took back over, standing up next to the map. “It’s kind of a hodgepodge of units. It’s being led right now by a Lieutenant Colonel, Brian Munch, the battalion commander from the 37th Armored Regiment. They are the first armored regiment from the 1st Armored Division that arrived in Europe three days ago. They hauled butt to get to Kiev and then ran straight to the front lines when hostilities started. The other unit is about half of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment’s brigade combat team. All in all, they have roughly 1,900 troops: about 64 Abram battle tanks, 46 Stryker vehicles, and 32 Bradley fighting vehicles. The 2nd Cavalry also had a battalion of Paladin self-propelled artillery guns. That unit has been providing them with the bulk of their fire support.”
“They’ve positioned themselves in such a way as to block the bulk of the Russian forces from capturing Pryluky or Kiev quickly. The Russians must either push through them, or find a way around them. The Russians already attempted to launch an attack against them, but after two hours, they were beaten back. Although our guys managed to stop them, we know that the Russians will hit them again… either with more forces, or most likely, they will go around them, leaving them completely cut off. While I would like to leave them in place, as they are buying us more time, we have virtually no way to resupply them or relieve them. We have roughly 8,000 soldiers in and around Kiev, but roughly 3,800 of them are combat arms. The rest are support units: supply, air-defense, engineers etc.”
Tracing his finger along the highways in Poland leading into Ukraine, General Hillman went on, “We have 12,000 combat troops traveling down these three highways, heading into Ukraine right now. They are at least twelve hours away from reaching Kiev, and that’s if they do not come under heavy air attack. The Polish are reluctant to release any of their combat units right now with the Russian 4th Army currently sitting in Belarus. It’s not clear what the intentions of the 4th Army are, but they are in excellent position to invade Poland if they want to. Mr. President, it is my recommendation that we order LTC Munch to have his forces fall back to Kiev and attempt to hold the city for the next twenty-four hours while additional combat forces arrive from Germany.”
Looking at his other generals, Gates asked, “Does everyone else agree with this assessment? Should we have them fall back?”
Several of the generals looked around at each other and then all nodded. It was sound advice. No one wants to give ground, especially if it looked like they might be able to win, but it was the prudent move to try and hold Kiev rather than this road junction.
The President was still unsure. “One last question, General. How many Russian forces are those guys blocking right now?” Gates was not sure if they could potentially hold out.
General Hillman frowned slightly at this question. “They are standing in the way of a Russian tank division and a motorized rifle division, so, roughly 48,000 soldiers. They are punching way above their weight class right now, but when the Russians throw the full weight of those divisions at them, they will be wiped out.”
The President nodded his head, more to himself than to anyone in the room. “OK, I understand now. If that is the recommendation of my military advisors, then have them pull back to Kiev. I want them to hold the city. No more falling back. The Russians never should have gotten the jump on us like this,” Gates said as he looked at his intelligence directors. “I can’t totally fault the military for this one gentlemen. It’s your organizations’ jobs to provide the generals and myself the needed information to prevent things like this from happening. We can’t have your organizations fumbling the football — not at a critical time like this.”
The President had been chastising his intelligence agencies since taking office. They had been one gigantic leak center. From classified conversations with world leaders, to meeting notes from key meetings, it had been a major source of frustration for the President. Gates felt like they had failed the country in a major way by not foreseeing that the Russians would launch this sneak attack. Something needed to be done, that was for sure.
Midnight in Moscow
Lieutenant Colonel Rob Fortney, “Pappi,” was hoping that the Russian air defense systems over Moscow did not detect them when they went in for their bomb run. They were less than ten minutes away as they crossed over into what their briefers had said was the most highly-guarded airspaces in Russia. This was not a comforting thought as he began the arming process of the two bombs he was carrying today. “What am I doing here?” he wondered.
After 25 years in the Air Force, he was set to retire in five months and join the ranks of United Airlines as a commercial airline pilot. However, instead of a cushy Boeing 747, that night he found himself flying the Spirit of America (a B-2 stealth bomber) into the heart of the Russian empire on a very dangerous mission — a mission his aircraft had specifically been built to conduct nearly thirty years ago.
In the 1980s, the B-2 had been designed to be a deep penetration stealth bomber that could rain nuclear missiles or bombs across the Soviet Union. Years after the Cold War had ended, Pappi was carrying two 30,000-pound bunker-busting bombs with 5,000-pound warheads in his aircraft, completing the plane’s original purpose; the Pentagon hoped this would be a decapitation strike. Decapitation strikes were always dangerous. They required use of new and sometimes untested ordinance, and the pilots would have to fly directly into the heart of enemy territory.
His bomber, along with another B-2 from his squadron, would be dropping the relatively new GBU-57B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) on the National Defense Control Center in hopes of killing President Petrov and crippling the Russian military leadership. These MOPs they were carrying could penetrate some of the deepest bunkers known to man; however, the B-2 could only carry two of these massive explosives, so a second bomber needed to accompany him on this dangerous mission.
The rest of the squadron had already fired off their AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles at the Russian air defense systems around Moscow and near the Ukrainian battle front. LTC Fortney hoped that these long-range cruise missiles, each packing a 1,000-pound warhead, would have taken out enough of the Russian Surface-to-Air Missile systems and anti-aircraft guns that he could survive this mission.
Colonel Fortney looked at his co-pilot, Major Richard “Ricky” James. “So… you think one of these bombs is going to kill that megalomaniac Petrov?” he asked his friend.
Ricky just grunted. “I don’t know. Maybe. Then again, who cares? The war will still continue on without him and right now, I just want to drop our bombs and get the heck out of here.” Ricky wasn’t too much of a talker. He was working on getting his Masters in Aeronautical Engineering and Fluid Dynamics, so he spent most of his time (including when they were flying) with his head in a book or writing a paper. Fortney didn’t fault the young guy for it. He had just made major, and everyone knew if you wanted to make the next grade, you had to get your master’s degree done. A lot of guys started this process when they were captains, but not Ricky.