“Sidewinder Five Niner, Sidewinder Five Niner, this is Thunderbolt X-ray, over.”
“Go ahead Thunderbolt X-ray.”
“You’ve got two tanks coming from behind you off the Sun Yat-Sen Freeway, over.”
“Roger, I can hear ‘em.”
“Stay low. Thunderbolt X-ray, out.”
More artillery struck a mile behind the American tank. This time, instead of the basic point detonation rounds that tear up the ground, the enemy had switched to the much more sophisticated and deadly DPICM round (Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions). DPICM is a terrifying tool of modern warfare. Instead of containing one large warhead, a DPICM round disperses dozens of little HEAT rounds on streamers. They kill two ways: if they strike the ground, they blow up, acting as grenades, if they strike the thin armor at the top of a tank or APC, they burn through the armor and usually destroy or disable the vehicle. Two aircraft were on fire now at the other end of the airport, including one of the C-17s. Alexander thought about the artillery barrage, the enemy still thinks we’re back there, between the brief communications they received from the vehicles we killed and the images that UAV sent back before we shot it down — good, maybe this will give us the advantage of surprise for a moment.
“Gunner, sabot, two helicopters, right helicopter first!” Alexander decided to down the trailing helicopter. Their wire-guided anti-tank weapons threatened the thinner top portions of his armor. Moreover, the helicopters would serve the enemy as valuable observation platforms. His survival hinged on stealth and speed. He couldn’t afford to have the helicopters reporting his position like the police and news choppers did back home during the innumerable L.A. freeway chases seen on local TV.
Fortunately, one of the best ways to kill a helicopter was with a tank main gun sabot round. The sabot dart traveled so fast and with such a flat trajectory, that hitting an exposed helicopter was no more difficult than hitting a moving tank.
Peña found his target immediately, flipped the TIS to ten-power, and lased the rotary wing aircraft to determine its distance.
Jones stuffed a sabot round in the breach and called, “Up!” He grabbed another sabot round while the ammo blast door was open and cradled it between his knees — with two helicopters airborne he wanted to be able to load the gun a couple of seconds faster.
“Fire!”
“On the way!” Peña pulled the trigger and, without waiting for results, switched to three-power, found the other helicopter, narrowed the field of view back to ten-power, and lased.
Jones yelled, “Up!” in record time — at 19, the youngest member of the crew was still very hyped.
Alexander watched as the first helicopter keeled over and headed for the ground. He could see no smoke or evidence of damage. “Fire,” the command was almost routine now.
“On the way!” Peña fired, and in less than one second, the sabot round struck the other helicopter square in its left engine. The shot tore apart the turbine. The combination of burning metal and fuel generated a fireball that consumed the entire aircraft. Just as this airborne fireball was heading earthward, its twin rose up from the ground just to its right. The two infernos passed each other. Both helicopters had been dispatched.
Alexander turned his attention to the bridge. The second tank was almost off the bridge and would likely dip out of sight in a few seconds. The APC would follow less than ten seconds later. He decided to get the APC, then the third tank. With luck, he could choke off the bridge, or at least make traversing it a slower process. “Gunner, HEAT, APC,” the commander called.
Peña smoothly went through the motions.
Jones grabbed the appropriate round of ammo and slammed it home. The breach snapped shut with a satisfying metallic sound. Jones barked, “Up!”
“Fire.”
“On the way.”
The HEAT round sped out and hit the Russian-designed and built BMP-2 tracked infantry fighting vehicle in the flank. The warhead devastated the lightly armored vehicle, killing the three crew and seven infantrymen inside.
The Abrams tank now had three shell casings loose on the floor of its turret. The acrid smell of burnt propellant was once again filling the air. The tank crew was now one with each other and with the tank. Each crewman performed his job with little thought — to think meant delay, delay meant death. This precision was the result of intense military training, drill, repetition and discipline — all of those things a free society finds distasteful about the military. Paradoxically, it was by sacrificing a bit of their freedom that these soldiers were capable of defending freedom for themselves and their fellow citizens.
From his open protected position just underneath his partially raised hatch Alexander called out the next fire command, “Gunner, sabot, tank.”
Jones opened the blast door, grabbed a sabot round by its base, and rammed it home. He clicked on his intercom, “Up!”
“Fire.”
“On the way.”
There were now two large fires on the bridge, one at the near end and one in the middle. Combined with the smoke of the burning helicopters, the evening battlefield was growing darker. Alexander wished for nighttime — a dark, cloudy night where his advanced TIS would give him a huge advantage over his opponents—if we can’t be seen, we can’t be killed — easily.
The laser warning signal went off. Alexander saw movement at the far end of the bridge a mile away. He sealed his hatch shut and scanned the bridge with the TIS. Just above the cement guardrail he saw a tank turret. “Gunner, sabot, tank.”
Jones began to load the 105mm gun.
Suddenly, the image on the TIS blossomed white. Alexander knew that he was the only American on the battlefield to have an anti-tank capability, unless the Taiwanese were shooting at the tank, this could only mean one thing…
A second after the thermal image of the tank was momentarily obscured, a piercing, horrible sound grated against the outside of the tank, causing the massive vehicle to jump, then vibrate briefly like a struck gong. A Chinese Type 85-II tank with its 125mm main gun fired a sabot round at the American tank. The shot hit the Abrams on the front of its turret, where the thickness of the armor had the equivalent effectiveness of more than three feet of steel. The Chinese tungsten dart impacted Traveller and deflected just enough to cause the dart’s long, thin shaft to shatter. The fragments hurdled onto the tank’s exterior, gouging small holes in the metal surface.
Jones only hesitated for an instant. In the back of his mind he knew they had been hit. He also knew that he was still alive and had a job to do. Modern tank warfare is violent and sudden. Until he was killed or injured, he’d stay at his station and load his gun. “Up!” Jones cried with the grin of a teenager who has just realized he cheated death and once again feels like he just might be invincible.
Peña ranged the enemy tank. On one level, he simply went through the steps he knew so well. On another level, his brain processed the fact that they had been hit and that, so far as he could tell, all their systems were still functional — for this, he was thankful. If they had lost a system, the laser rangefinder for instance, he would have compensated for it automatically, without thought. “On the way!”
The American sabot round with its extremely hard depleted uranium bolt shot out and struck the Chinese tank on the front of its turret in the same general spot as the Chinese tank had hit its enemy. There, all similarity of outcome ended. The superior American ordnance impacted the inferior Chinese armor (armor that was adequate by regional standards but wasn’t nearly as advanced as that sported by the M1). The metal dart penetrated through the bolted-on reactive armor boxes (meant only to defeat HEAT rounds and anti-tank missiles) and began to push aside the case hardened steel. When it reached the hard but brittle ceramic laminate, it simply pulverized it and drove on, only somewhat dented for the effort. Once the dart reached the last of the armor, it had shed many flakes of now white-hot uranium. When this material reached the tank’s crew compartment the result was spectacular, if predictable. The overpressure caused by the rapidly expanding gasses in the exploding tank caused the fifteen ton turret gun assembly to pop off the tank’s hull, up and over the bridge’s guard rail, and go crashing down to the river bank below.