The IFVs began to take heavy fire from the railguns, with more than half of them being destroyed. The remaining vehicles began to disgorge their infantry, who attacked the American missile and gun positions. Tanks and IFVs can provide great direct fire, but they are vulnerable to AT equipped infantry and the larger caliber AT railguns, which is why they travel with their own supporting infantry.
“Everyone — begin firing at those infantry!” shouted Sgt. Nelson as he raised his own rifle and took aim at the several dozen infantry about 800 meters in front of his position. As Sgt. Nelson was engaging one enemy soldier after another, an artillery round landed in the center of a small cluster of enemy soldiers, throwing their torn bodies into the air and across the ground like rag dolls. The smell of smoke, cordite and burnt flesh was starting to permeate the entire valley.
Within an hour of continuous firing across the American lines, it was becoming apparent they were going to have to fall back to their secondary positions. The IR was attacking with massive human wave assaults and continuous direct fire from the hundreds of MBTs and IFVs supporting the infantry. The second and third waves began to arrive. The casualties and damage caused by the twenty-minute barrage had weakened numerous positions along the American and Israeli positions, creating multiple gaps that the IR were starting to exploit.
Despite the carnage and numerically superior Islamic army, the training and equipment used by the American and Israeli forces showed why they were the most formidable soldiers in the world.
Eric Clarke, the SecDef, and General Branson, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, were still being fed data by their aides about the attack underway in Israel, trying to ascertain the status of US Forces, when Mike Williams, the National Security Director, and his two aides walked into the room. They quickly took their assigned seats and began to assimilate the same information the SecDef and General were looking at.
The situation was starting to look grim particularly with the 5th Fleet in the Gulf of Aiden near the Horn of Africa. Jim Wise, the Secretary of State, walked in with Monty and appeared to be in a heated discussion. “Those dirty, heartless swine! They really attacked our Embassy and executed the entire staff, including the Ambassador?” asked Monty in a rather loud voice.
All conversations stopped, and everyone looked at Jim Wise for clarification. Just then the President walked in; he surveyed the room and walked to his seat at the head of the table. An aide quickly placed a half frozen 20 oz. Red Bull on the table for the President. A can that large usually meant the President had a stressed-induced headache, which he liked to pacify with excessive amounts of caffeine. Not being a coffee drinker, his choice of poison had been Red Bulls — always had been throughout his life.
“Jim and Monty, sit down and tell us first what happened to our Embassy. Then we will get right into the rest of the information.” The President sighed deeply, thinking to himself, “Perhaps we should have acted sooner and prevented this; we lost the advantage and now we are paying for it.”
“Mr. President, our Embassy in Riyadh has been taken over and burned to the ground. Just as the attacks were getting underway, the Embassy said they were coming under heavy attack by several armored vehicles and a tank. The walls were quickly destroyed and soldiers stormed the building.”
“The Marines put up a heck of a fight and managed to destroy all the classified data and the servers before they were killed. One of our diplomats was on his way to the Embassy when he saw the attack begin, and he moved away to a point where he could observe the situation and relay it back to us. Shortly after the IR forces had secured the Embassy, they walked everyone out of the building that had surrendered,” Jim Wise said as he continued.
“The Ambassador was among the nineteen people captured. They were lined up against a wall as news crews began to film, and an officer walked up to each person and shot them in the head. They killed everyone at the Embassy. Our diplomat filmed it with his video phone and managed to send the video and a short message before he too was apprehended. We have not heard anything from him since,” said Secretary Wise, sounding tired but seething with anger.
The President sat back in his chair, looking up at the ceiling for a second before turning back to face everyone at the table. “First things first, I want everyone at their Embassy arrested and detained. We’ll figure out what we are going to do with them later.”
“I know the situation is bad from the looks on your faces, and from what I can see on the screens. Of course, it does not help that the media is giving the world a front row seat as well. General Branson, start from the beginning and bring us up to speed on the situation on the ground and how we are faring.”
“Around midnight Israeli local time, the Islamic Republic launched an all-out attack against Israeli and American Forces, starting with a massive rocket and artillery barrage.”
“Intelligence was alerted minutes before the attack, allowing the air and rocket defenses a couple of minutes warning, but not much more. The majority of the IDF airbases (and the two airbases we are operating out of) have been temporarily taken out of commission until the runways can be fixed. The IR also conducted a massive cyber-attack against the Israeli energy grid, causing further problems with our Command Control and Communications (C3),” explained General Branson as he continued his update.
“Vice Admiral Todd from the 6th Fleet thought something was odd with the behavior of the IR forces in Egypt and brought her fleet to battle stations, ordering her Air Wings to get airborne. Shortly after that, the IR fleet and land-based systems began to launch a massive barrage of cruise missiles at the fleet. Over 300 IR aircraft also vectored in to attack the fleet.”
“Because she had brought her fleet to battle stations and had her Air Wings already above the fleet, they were able to interdict over 95 % of the incoming missiles. They destroyed over 50 IR ships and shot down 247 IR aircraft. The rest fled the area back to their home bases—”
“—I sure hope she was able to hit them back,” interjected the President.
“She was. The fleet attacked every airfield in Egypt and destroyed the naval ports. She also ordered the Marines to secure the Suez Canal Zone and attack the IR forces attacking the IDF in the Sinai.”
“This is great news, General. Tell her to keep beating the tar out of them,” said the President, showing a bit of excitement at the thought of really hurting the IR.
“Mr. President, I need to interject something. Sorry, General Branson, but I need to talk to the President about the 5th Fleet. I just received a FLASH message from Admiral Todd,” said Admiral Lewis Juliano with a look of sheer horror on his face.
“What is it Admiral?” asked the President.
“Sir, I just received word from Admiral Todd. The 5th Fleet has been destroyed; they were hit with multiple nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles. We’ve lost the supercarriers George H. W. Bush and the Enterprise, along their entire support fleet. 13,370 Sailors and Marines are gone,” said the CNO as he sunk into his chair.
The room fell silent for a minute as everyone began to digest what they were just told. The loss of two supercarriers and more than 13,000 Sailors and Marines was a lot to take in.