After coordinating their artillery strike, they readied themselves in their vehicles, waiting for the rounds to land and signal the start of the attack. Meanwhile, the Russians on their side of the river bank were shooting anything that moved… they were jumpy. An American spotter drone had discovered five additional tanks and twelve light-armored vehicles lying in wait on the other side of a number of buildings. They quickly relayed that information to the tankers below, giving them a bird’s eye view of where the enemy was hiding. Then, the screams of the artillery rounds flying over their heads began to sound. Seconds later, the smoke rounds began to detonate, throwing dozens of smoke canisters everywhere. This was followed by a barrage of twelve high-explosive rounds detonating over the Russian positions, killing a number of their infantrymen and destroying several light armored vehicles.
McQueen issued the order to his vehicles, “Move out!” In an instant, one of the American IFVs darted across the bridge unchallenged; then a Pershing quickly followed suit and began to engage the hidden Russian vehicles. Since they had survived their deadly game of chicken, a second Pershing rushed across the bridge to support his platoon mate. As a third Pershing was about one third of the way across the bridge, there was a sudden and loud explosion… the entire bridge was blown apart. The Pershing fell in to the river below and quickly sank until its antennas were all that could be seen. The river itself was not very deep; however, it was nearly impossible for the tanks to travel down the bank, into the river and up the other side.
Now McQueen had an IFV and two Pershings trapped on the other side of the bank. Using the spotting drone, he had his FIST LNO provide direct artillery to support to their comrades. Hopefully, this would keep them alive long enough for him to find another way across the river.
Looking at a map, he saw a park not too far from their location, where the river appeared to run through. McQueen was banking on the depth of the river being much lower there, passable for his tanks and IFVs to cross. Once across, they could maneuver behind the Russian units and finish them off, rescuing their trapped comrades. He ordered his Company and the QRF to follow his vehicle on their way to the park. Upon entering the grounds, they saw exactly what they were hoping for-a low lying bank on both sides of the river as it narrowed through the park. He ordered the vehicles to advance across the river and immediately fan out, looking for enemy soldiers and vehicles.
It was a strange sight, seeing three dozen armored vehicles tearing through a city park, running over park benches and anything else that got in their way. They quickly forded the river and immediately began to move to contact with the Russians. Scanning the images from the spotter drone, they could see that the Russian armored vehicles had changed to a new position, but were still in the same general area. Within minutes they had maneuvered around behind the Russian units, and had begun to engage them. They quickly set a loose perimeter and had the Russians surrounded, with the river bank to their backs now.
The battle was violent and quick, with the majority of Russian vehicles being completely destroyed. The Americans captured 63 prisoners, most of them wounded. All told, McQueen and the QRF had lost four Pershings, six IFVs and twenty-one soldiers killed, with another nineteen wounded. It had been a tough skirmish and they had really flattened this little area of the city in the process, but at the end of the day, they had secured their objective and removed a potential threat to their rear area and supply lines.
Grid Attack
Neven Jackson had found a way into the Chinese exoskeleton operating system and placed a zero-day malware protocol in place to disable them at the worst possible time, during an invasion when many thousands of soldiers would be wearing them. Now he had been given the task of supporting the NATO counter-attack in Germany against the Russians.
Neven was a gifted hacker, something of a prodigy. He also got bored quickly if he was not challenged, so his superiors had dreamed up a new experiment for him. He was to hack into the Russian air defense system and bring it down. He had two days and an unlimited supply of energy drinks and M&Ms to accomplish this task. In just five hours, he had found his way in. It was complicated at first, but once he found out who built the system, he looked around until he found a supplier to the air defense company who did not have a very good IT security structure but still had access to the systems. He had hit pay dirt with this one. Not only did the supplier have access to the defense contractor, it had nearly unfettered access. This was almost too easy.
He quickly navigated through the various security systems, ensuring that he was covering his tracks with each successive move, deleting logs and digital footprints as he weaved his way through the net. After spending nearly an hour looking through the various programs and projects with a Russian linguist sitting next to him, they found the specific program they were looking for. With a few clicks of his mouse, he was in. Neven alerted his supervisors, “Hey, I’m in. What do you want me to do now?”
His boss had thought this project was going to be nearly impossible, but somehow Neven had managed to break through the system in less than six hours. Now they had to coordinate with a few others and determine what in the air defense system they wanted to attack and when. It would do no good to take the system down if the Air Force and Navy were not ready to exploit the vulnerability.
The intelligence at hand revealed that the Russian air defense system for the country was broken down into various sectors, so they were able to develop a more precise cyber-attack. The goal was not to take down the entire Russian air defense; this would cause the Russian government to go into a panic, and potentially escalate the war from a conventional one to nuclear warfare, which they wanted to avoid. Instead, they would take down the air defense zones covering Germany, and then place backdoor access and zero-day malware in every other air defense zone across Russia. When the time was right, they could shut down an air corridor for aircraft or cruise missiles to fly through, undeterred. However, that attack would have to wait.
On the morning of the NATO offensive, Russian air defense operators all across Germany suddenly saw their computer screens go blank and then turn back on to show massive air armadas flying in from across the North Sea and Denmark, and then across Southern Europe. Just as the operators were scrambling all available aircraft to those locations, their screens flickered again and the images were suddenly replaced with a photo of David Hasselhoff, shirtless, laying on the ground with a bunch of puppies. The Russian operators did not know what to think or do.
The cyber-attack against the air defense grid had worked marvelously; it took the Russians nearly sixteen hours to get their backup system up and running. In that timeframe, the NATO air forces had mauled the Russian armored units all across Germany, destroying numerous enemy air bases and shooting down hundreds of enemy aircraft. The air campaign had been a huge success, making it possible for Field Marshal Schoen’s Army Group and the 2nd AD to punch a massive hole through the Russian lines and secure a new line that stretched all the way to Leipzig. This forced the 1st Shock Army to have to fall back to the Potsdam area, sacrificing months’ worth of gains they had previously made.
Fighting Retreat
By the end of October, the Chinese had managed to land nearly two million soldiers in Alaska. Prior to the full onset of winter, the Chinese had made one final hard push to capture the Susitna defensive line and the mountain ranges at Cooper Landing. During the ten-day battle that ensued, the Chinese were able to break through the Susitna line and drive the Americans back to the outskirts of Anchorage. With their northern flank collapsing, General Black was forced to withdraw his forces at Cooper Landing in order to avoid having them being surrounded and cut off. He ordered a full retreat of the American Second Army, falling back to the eastern most part of Alaska and the State of Yukon.