Charlie Company CP received an airstrike request from a Section Commander and Alpha Company passed on a fire mission from a Troop Commander. Neither CP told the other about it, and so it was that a pair of RAF Tornado’s arrived over the bottle neck that was thick with enemy APCs and Tanks at the same time as a full battery’s worth of improved munitions discharging Skeet submunitions. The leading Tornado was hit by a submunition and exploded in mid-air whilst the second aircraft sucked debris from the leader into an air intake, and trailing smoke and fire it made it to the brigade’s rear area where both crewmen ejected safely. From then on the NATO air force’s insisted on double checking with the artillery before accepting missions from 40 Commando, and the ensuing delays were the cause of missed opportunities.
No amount of digging could have reduced the casualties amongst the Royal Marines in their trenches; the Red Army had built its armoured warfare tactics around the use of massed artillery and used it without compassion, the Royal Marines were being thinned out and NATO artillery’s counter battery fire was wholly inadequate.
The frequency of calls from the battalion CP was evidence enough that they were concerned about events in the marines sector.
“We could do with an answering machine.” Big Stef replaced the handset again and checked the progress of the brew he was preparing. The water in a mess tin was boiling away nicely and he took it from small stove to transfer to a mug but the ground bucked beneath him and half the water was lost.
“What…!”
The ground heaved again and he dropped the mess tin, holding on to the walls of the hide for balance.
“It’s the gun line.” Bill had been taken by surprise with the first explosion and had swung his weapon from the crest by the sunken lane, around to the dead ground by the copse. He watched the effects of a second round scoring a direct hit on a gun's ammunition supply; it obliterated the howitzer, its tractor unit and its crew.
Stef crawled back into place beside Bill, peering through his scope. A third round landed, and it also struck the stacked rounds to the rear of one of the howitzers.
“Three rounds and three hits.” Bill observed.
“Bloody good shooting!”
“Good shooting, my arse!” Stef swung around the Swift Scope, looking for likely spots.
“Start looking for spotters mate, you can bet yer left bollock those rounds were laser guided!”
Stef informed the CP and the information was passed to the forward positions, where the Guardsmen and Paratroopers watched their fronts for the spotters and their laser designators. One by one the howitzers were destroyed but no one got the faintest sniff as to the spotter’s whereabouts despite dividing up the ground between them and scrutinising all possible hide sites. There was nothing to suggest the enemy spotter could be anywhere except to the front of the battalion lines, and why would you look over your shoulder to check if the designator was being used from within your own lines, anyway?
The invasion of the Philippines by the armed forces of the People’s Republic of China was proving to be a slow business. Thus far Cebu, Bohol, Negros, Siquijor and Palawan were the only islands of any size to have been taken. The largest islands of the archipelago, Luzon, Leyte and Mindanao where still being fiercely contested by the regular forces and Chinese losses were far and above those expected during the planning stage.
The PRC had amassed a huge army since the Second World War and had spent the previous decade modernising it, to the extent that they could drive their armoured forces like a vast steel encased carpet over any of their neighbour’s borders, swamping all resistance with ease. The problem they had with the Philippines was that it was not a single landmass, but rather a cluster of over a thousand islands, mostly hilly or mountainous and covered in forest or jungle over a high percentage of their area, and they did not lend themselves favourably to armoured warfare. There were no freeways, motorways or autobahns, there were just roads that were generally inadequate for normal peacetime use and easily put out of action. The Chinese needed leg infantry who knew how to fight in the jungle clad peaks that the home team found so easy to defend, and although China did have such troops, they did not have anywhere near enough of them. They had tried using armoured tactics on Luzon and for their troubles were now stopped dead in their tracks halfway across, and a similar situation existed on Leyte where the commander of the invasion forces had unwisely asked Beijing for permission to delay the landings on Mindanao, and instead use the troops earmarked for there to complete the job on Luzon and Leyte first.
The new commander of the Sixth Army had been briefed to keep moving forwards always, and had moved his headquarters, rather than his units, a half kilometre nearer the front within hours of taking over. The Political Commissar believed this was a sound tactical move for some odd reason, and reported it as such to his superiors. The real reason for the new commander’s decision was simply that his predecessor had been buried in too shallow a hole, upwind of the headquarters.
Guerrilla forces on all of the islands were sapping Sixth Army of manpower and equipment, as ‘conquered’ islands demonstrated that they were far from pacified. Forces that were sorely needed on Leyte, Luzon and Mindanao were instead being tied down patrolling or guarding against guerrilla attacks.
Air power was one area where the PRC should have had the upper hand, especially as their opponents had a tiny air force with which to challenge them for air superiority. U.S made Stinger missiles in the hands of both the Regular Filipino troops, and the Guerrilla’s, were having the same effect on the morale of the Chinese aviators as they had wrought on Warsaw Pact pilots in Afghanistan two decades before.
The fixed wing assets of the tiny but professional Philippines Air Force existed only upon Mindanao, where its two squadrons of F-5Es, a half dozen ancient and only recently reactivated F-8H Crusaders, Agusta S-211s and piston engined T-28D Trojans were backed up by a trio of Taiwanese F-16Cs. The Filipino’s had these precious assets spread about the islands fourteen suitable fields and the United States had provided enough Patriot systems to make a serious attempt at destroying the Filipino air force, a very costly business. As it was though, the PAF rarely sent these aircraft into harm’s way, and the Chinese assumption was that logistical problems were the cause of this. The PAF’s helicopter fleet on the other hand, was not restricted to Mindanao, and was supporting both regular and irregular forces on the islands. The machines use of small clearings as bases and the pilot’s intimate knowledge of the ground made them singularly difficult to deal with. The AGM-114C Hellfire missiles carried by the Filipino aircraft had originally been bought to deal with an invader who used armour in support of infantry operations, the aircrews had never dreamt of having such a target rich environment, and between them and the terrain they had managed to halt the Chinese ground forces for the time being.
Considering the sizes of the forces involved such a situation could only be temporary. In terms of numbers, the strength of the regular forces defending the islands was 160,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen, whereas the invading PLA Sixth Army had twice that number in infantry alone. It was only a matter of time before the commanders returned the infantry to their roots by getting them out of the vehicles in order to continue the invasion on foot. In the meantime the Chinese controlled the waters around the Philippines as well as the air approaches and this prevented any resupply in quantity of any of the staples of a fighting forces life. The general staff of the Philippines armed forces knew that with current ammunition expenditure rates, within a month the Chinese would quite literally have more troops than the Filipinos had bullets to shoot them with. Patrolling warships and combat air patrols enjoyed a free-fire zone around the islands, and frequently attacked without warning any vessel larger than a rowing boat. The islands were under siege and only once had that been quite obviously breached, the previous week, and probably by aircraft that had destroyed the CAP south of the Zamboanga peninsula. The commander Sixth Army was not concerned by such occasional breaches, after all, how much could an aircraft carry? Certainly not enough to make a difference, but he had directed the navy to place an air defence frigate off the peninsular anyway in order to strengthen the picket there.