General Shinzo cleared his throat. Knowing this might be the last time he saw either of these men in person, he looked each of them in the eye and said, “Gentlemen, the future of Japan rides on our success over the next several days. I know we have traditionally been an ally of America, but those days are behind us. We need to do our duty to Japan to preserve our way of life and that of our families. Everyone is depending on us. I expect you to do your jobs and win. Dismissed.”
All three stood up, and bowed to each other before walking out. Shinzo followed his men out of the building as they each headed off towards their respective commands. He wished them luck…he knew the odds of this invasion being successful were long, but he was determined to succeed.
Twenty minutes later, Lieutenant Colonel Ota (one of Colonel Tenaka’s battalion commanders) was leading his column of twelve Type 29 Main Battle Tanks (MBTs) and thirty-four Type 31 infantry fighting vehicles as they passed the exit for Hwy 91 and east Compton. They continued down I-710, towards City Hall and downtown LA. As they drove past an exit, two of his T-31 infantry fighting vehicles made their exit and set up a road block. Once I-710 was secured and cleared of traffic, it would give the JDF and PLA an easy route to move troops throughout the valley quickly.
So far, they had not encountered any resistance. Then again — what could a car or truck really do to stop a sixty-ton main battle tank? Traffic on the highway was light as it was still early in the morning on Christmas Eve; most Americans were either off work for the holiday or traveling out of the city to see family. His column was making good time as they moved along the interstate; however, when they reached I-105 and Morton, the traffic became a bit more of a problem. Ultimately though, this turned into a minor inconvenience; those cars that failed to move out of the way of the armored column were either pushed aside or run over by the tanks.
Once they reached the correct junction, Colonel Ota had to leave one of his tanks and four infantry fighting vehicles behind to make sure they had the key node secured. Stopping the traffic was not very difficult; the hard part was going to be clearing all of the cars that were already on the road off of it.
As Colonel Ota stood in the commander’s hatch of his tank, he could see the expanse of the city as it unfolded before him. It was a beautiful and sprawling city. Tall sky scrapers covered in glass reaching for the clouds in the downtown area gave way to block after block of homes and smaller buildings. He couldn’t help but think to himself, “This is going to be an absolute nightmare for our JDF and the Chinese to try and secure. All of these people…and each one potentially has a firearm. Too bad we aren’t landing in Great Britain instead, where the worst I’d have to fear is a nightstick.”
As his tank raced down the road, he suddenly heard an announcement over the radio. “Colonel Ota, we have a couple of police cruisers approaching our roadblock. Do you want us to engage?”
“Yes, suppress any resistance quickly,” he ordered.
He heard a series of loud booms, and there was an eerie silence for a moment before someone came back on. “Sir, our T-31s made short work of the vehicles and the approaching officers. We did not sustain any casualties or significant damage to our equipment.”
“Excellent. Please continue to use force as needed,” Colonel Ota replied. He was elated that their first encounter had ended so well.
The T-31s were built by Mitsubishi to be a lightweight infantry support vehicle to the T-29 main battle tanks. They were armed with a 30-mm autocannon, four anti-tank missiles, a .50 caliber machine gun above the commander’s hatch, and had the capacity to hold twelve infantry soldiers inside. In contrast, the T-29 main battle tank had a 135-mm cannon able to penetrate the American M1A4 and M1A5’s armor (as well as the new formidable Pershing tanks), but only carried a crew of three: the driver, gunner and tank commander. The T-29 made use of an auto-loader system, similar to the ones that the Chinese and Russian tanks used. This would be their first operational fielding of the new tank round. If it worked well, then it would go into full production and be disseminated to the European front, which was much more of a tank war than Alaska.
As the column of tanks and infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) continued to race down the roads heading towards City Hall, word must have gotten around; as they crossed the Los Angeles River on East 1st street, they saw half a dozen police cars and several SWAT vehicles blocking the road. Speaking quickly into his headset, Colonel Ota ordered, “Lead vehicle, engage the SWAT trucks with your main gun and continue through the roadblock on your way to south Spring street and City Hall.”
He also radioed his infantry commander. “Have your fighting vehicles engage the road block. I want your last three vehicles in the column to stop, dismount their infantry and clear the rest of the intersection. We need to keep the road clear for additional reinforcements.”
The fighting at the intersection was brief and fierce; the column slowed down to 10 mph as they changed formations from a single file line to an arrowhead with three tanks, followed by three infantry fighting vehicles and then the rest of the group staying in a single file column. The tanks and IFVs used their heavy machine guns to fire on the police and SWAT vehicles and quickly decimated all that was before them, shredding the police officers instantly. None of the lead vehicles had to open up the hatches for the infantry to emerge, and they took no casualties in the brief engagement before plowing through the burning vehicles, continuing their way to City Hall.
Colonel Ota climbed back up through the commander’s hatch again so he could have a better field of view. He looked back briefly at the armored vehicles behind him and saw the black smoke of the vehicles they had just destroyed start to rise into the sky, marking their brief engagement. For nearly a mile, his armored column stretched across the city as they moved quickly through the highway and streets of LA.
Bring Me to Your Leader
Mayor Jose Perez had been the mayor of LA for nearly twenty years. He was not a fan of President Stein; however, he did have to agree that the President had really turned the country’s economy around and that newfound prosperity had greatly benefited his city. In addition, despite the fact that Perez was a lifelong Democrat, the President had been nothing but professional and courteous when dealing with him. He had made many critical infrastructures projects in L.A. a key priority, and had agreed to include several high-speed rail projects in Southern California, with several of them running through LA.
Where he and the President diverged was their opinions concerning the direction of the war and the choice to annex Mexico. L.A. had been the victim of several large terrorist attacks: there was the one that destroyed the police headquarters, the attack against the Universal Studios complex, and several wildfires in and around L.A. county that were most likely arson. Mayor Perez agreed something needed to be done, but was utterly appalled by the President’s nuclear response to the destruction of New York and Baltimore. He was concerned the President’s aggressive actions would bring more countries into the war (and not on America’s side). As the casualty reports began to roll in, the invasion in Alaska began to really frighten him. Tens of thousands of young men and women were being killed each month and it appeared America was losing. He feared the Freedom Party was going to be the death of America.