“I want more of these radars brought in from the States immediately. Also, get in touch with some reps from the manufacturers and see if they can figure out a way to get them incorporated into our heat seeking missiles. Get on the horn with whoever you need to, and get more of these radars in theater immediately.”
“Yes sir.”
“How is the rest of the air war going with the drones?” Wade asked.
The allies had nearly 12,400 fighter drones and 1,900 manned fighters in Europe. At the start of the war, the Russians had nearly 17,000 fighter drones and 3,600 manned aircraft. The primary advantage the Allies had was their railgun defensive systems. Both sides had fixed and mobile laser defense and missile systems, but only the Allies had railguns.
“It’s too early to determine how the air war is shaking out. Right now, the 1st Shock Army is rolling over the Romanian and Hungarian armies. We’ve directed both armies to fall back to their defensive positions as we speak. The 3rd Shock Army is being slowed down by General Schoen and the German 10th and 13th Panzer Divisions at Rzeszow, Lublin, and Radzyn/Pdlaski. During a running 24-hour tank battle, they destroyed over 1,200 Russian tanks before falling back to just 10 miles south of Warsaw.”
“The bigger concern we are seeing with some of the drone fighter squadrons is cyber-attacks. Not all of the squadrons are being affected, but in one instance the entire squadrons’ fighter drones simply went offline and crashed before the technical folks could figure out what was happening,” General Bryant said, a bit concerned with the report.
General Wade was very concerned about cyber-attacks as well. The IR had used them in Mexico and caused a lot of communications problems for his forces there. Those issues were supposed to have been fixed, and thus far, it appeared that the secured military communications grid ‘battle net’ had not gone down. However, the Air Force apparently still had some vulnerabilities in their drones that would need to get sorted out.
“I am also getting some reports from the civilian sector of massive cyber-attacks taking place all across the EU. Water treatment plants are being turned off, or in some cases destroyed. Some of the power plants are going off line and there are all sorts of other issues hampering daily life. But this issue with the Air Force drones is concerning. If we don’t fix that, we may not have anything left to save. Any word from the Air Force on what they are doing to fix the problem?” asked General Wade.
“Before I came in here, I spoke with a Colonel in the cyberwarfare division who said they believe they have identified the problem and are working to close the vulnerabilities as we speak. He also said we should expect many more cyber problems as the war progresses.”
“Great,” Wade replied sarcastically. “Well, stay on this. Actually, assign one of your deputies to make this his top priority. I need you focused on helping me run and coordinate the ground and air war right now. Make sure your deputy gets in touch with our NSA Liaison Office or LNO, and tell them they need to get this fixed or the Russians will be all over our tanks.” General Wade sat back down, and signaled for General Bryant to sit down as well. An aide walked in a second later with a cup of tea for General Bryant and a cup of black coffee for General Wade.
Wade knew things were going to get dicey; he also knew the EU Army had to hold the line for at least two weeks before the American Fifth Army would be at 100 % strength and able to take the 3rd Shock Army head on. They were stripping the Sixth Army of all of its equipment and personnel in order to get the Fifth Army operational immediately.
Bryant and Wade continued to discuss the ground war and how it was impacting the civilian populace as well. “I know it may seem like things are falling apart quickly; I assure you they will start to stabilize over the next forty-eight hours as the Russians start to run out of steam. The Reds are explosive in their attacks, but they lack the ability to sustain them. We just need to hold the line for a couple of weeks. The Fifth and Sixth Armies are coming.”
The US had rerouted 90 Pershing tanks that were originally heading towards Israel to reinforce the Fifth Army. General Gardner was not happy about losing such valuable MBTs, but understood the need for them in Europe if Fifth Army was going to have a chance at stopping the two Russian Shock Armies. The US had also agreed to a 96-hour ceasefire with the IR after the nuclear attacks; the halt had given General Gardner’s Third Army a chance to consolidate their gains in Israel and gave his forces a chance to rest.
Korean Peninsula
With the withdraw of US Forces from South Korea, the Koreans were feeling a bit apprehensive. The North was starting to sabre rattle again. China had been gobbling up the entirety of Southeast Asia; it was only a matter of time until they decided to finish the Korean War. South Korea had to act (and act soon) if they were going to secure their future.
Young Hee Guen-hye had been President of South Korea for less than two years. In that time frame, she had directed the military to prepare for a pre-emptive military strike against North Korea. Knowing that China was going to make a move against Asia at some point, she wanted to make sure they could prevent Seoul from being destroyed in the opening hours of a war with the North. North Korea had positioned over 15,000 artillery pieces aimed directly at South Korea’s capital. If the artillery were not taken out in the opening hours of a conflict, then the city and the people that lived within it would suffer horrific casualties.
When the Americans had withdrawn, all 495,000 South Korean active and reserve troops had been called up and placed on ready alert along the entire border with North Korea. The South Korean Air Force was flying additional fighter aircraft over the country, and the Navy had moved most of their ships to sea. The nation was as ready for war as they were going to get.
Since South Korea did not possess nuclear weapons like the North, they developed a small stockpile of chemical and nerve agents, geared towards a specific type of offensive operation. The preemptive strike would involve South Korea hitting the entire North Korean lines with artillery shells and rockets filled VX-nerve gas and sarin. The goal was to overwhelm the defenders quickly with a chemical attack. While they were dealing with the initial shock of such an attack, the Republic of Korea Air Force (ROKAF) would begin to Napalm all known artillery and rocket positions, destroying the equipment. This would quickly be followed up by the ROK Army advancing in their own chemical suits across the frontlines and securing the enemy positions, removing the threat of the North’s artillery against Seoul.
This attack would require an immense amount of VX and Sarin gas to be used quickly. The ROK artillery barrage would last for five minutes before the Air Force would swoop in with their own payload. The ROK Air Force would also hit every known nuclear weapons site in an attempt to destroy the North’s ability to launch their nuclear missiles. This would be the largest chemical weapons attack since World War One, and President Young Hee Guen-hye hoped they would be able to destroy a large enough portion of the North’s army to get them to surrender quickly. It was a risky attack using chemical weapons; her hope was they could knock the North out of the war fast enough that they would not be able to use their nuclear weapons against the South.
After much deliberation and discussion, it was agreed that the attack would begin on December 26th. This would give them 24 hours to get everything ready, and hopefully keep the North from finding out until it was too late. The longer they delayed in launching the attack once it had been agreed upon, the higher the likelihood of the plan being discovered.