The Chinese air force, in turn, hurled every plane they could muster at the American and Taiwanese jets. Their pilot corps had been depleted by the normal attrition of war, as well as the brutally effective attacks by the Lafayette Initiative on apartment complexes near the main Chinese air bases. Very few of the J-20 and J-31 jets could be called upon, and so the People’s Liberation Army-Air Force had to put older Su-30 and J-10 fighters into the field against more advanced F-22 and F-35’s. Even the older F-15’s could do passably well against the older Chinese models.
The result was another victory for the American/Taiwanese air forces. Twenty-one PLA aircraft were shot down, and only two made it beyond the F-22’s and F-35’s to harass American attack planes. Three American and Taiwanese F-35’s were shot down, none of the precious F-22’s.
As news of this final assertion of air superiority percolated down to me and whoever was now commanding PLA forces, a few obvious conclusions emerged.
The PLA commander would realize that, for the remainder of the war, the Chinese would have to look to the sky with fear. Every major troop movement would be observed and pounded from the air within minutes. With every passing hour, the intensity of air attacks would increase. Time had already been the PLA’s enemy with American heavy units en route to the battlefield, but now it was a blood nemesis, implacable and inescapable.
That left one obvious conclusion. The attack would come soon, probably in the next hour, certainly not later than two hours.
One hour and fifteen minutes later, I got a warning call from the Taiwanese. Thirty PLA bombers were en route, much of the Chinese strategic bomber reserve. They were making a mad dash for Citadel, and though most would be shot down, a few would likely get through.
As it happened, three bombers, one trailing smoke, made it to Citadel. It was still not quite dawn, but spotters on Devil Hill could see the bombers approach from about three minutes away. They didn’t use smart bombs to make targeted strikes. Instead, knowing that there wasn’t much in the way of air defenses in Pinglin, the bombers rained down huge loads of unguided bombs, effectively carpet bombing. The three bombers all focused to the west, leaving little doubt about where the attack would come.
With the advance warning, I made a snap decision. “Western garrison, emergency pull back to Phaseline Bravo, repeat, emergency pull back to the second defensive lines. Run as fast as you can.”
My logic was simple. With three minutes, I thought all of the defenders would make it to the second line in good time. The bombers would probably be targeting the front defensive works, the ones that Chinese satellites and drones had seen them occupying for days now. Casualties would be much less if my soldiers weren’t there to be plastered.
Just as the bombers were reaching Pinglin, dozens of Chinese artillery batteries fired on the town. The artillery battery commanders must have known that they’d be wiped out in short order by the Taiwanese missiles, but this was the last attack — no sense saving anything for tomorrow.
The entire city rocked with the explosion of so much ordinance in so short a time. Twenty tons of explosives detonated on the western lines, Devil Hill, and Teatime Hill within a thirty second span. I had moved to the basement of the cafe, and I felt guilty knowing that I was escaping the worst of the barrage.
As soon as the drone of the bombers had passed, I climbed back to the cafe and looked up. I saw the Taiwanese counter-battery missiles shooting through the sky overhead, at least fifty or sixty of the things seeking out the PLA artillery and silencing it. Many of the Chinese batteries got off a second shot, a very few got off a third, and none got off a fourth as more and more Taiwanese missiles swarmed to silence them. As for the bombers, the last three were shot down within two minutes of dropping their loads on the town.
“Gettysburg, Atlanta, Shiloh, report in,” I radioed, asking for status updates from the western line, Devil Hill, and Teatime Hill respectively using my preferred Civil War codenames (all Union victories).
“Gettysburg here, minimal losses, one dead, three wounded. We’re moving back to assess damage to our lines, if the emplacements are too damaged, we’ll move back to Phaseline Bravo.”
Having to fall back to the second defensive line so early was not good news, but the very slight losses meant the retreat had worked as I hoped.
“Atlanta here, about a twenty dead or wounded.”
“Shiloh, same here.”
The hills had fared a little worse, but they had only faced a relatively short bombardment from the Chinese artillery thanks to the Taiwanese missiles.
The Chinese had played the only tricks they could. Now the seventy-thousand infantry would attack, one last tidal wave of men whose lives might buy victory. There was no reason to wait.
Sure enough, the Taiwanese called in a warning. “Satellites show at least five divisions moving to attack, three coming from the west, two moving in from the north. We will send in all the air support we can. Call if you have any specific targeting requests, but we’ll assume you just want us to cut down as many of the infantry as possible.”
“Good guess,” I said back with a little sarcasm. “I’ll call you in an hour. Let me know if the Chinese surrender. Out.”
True to their word, the Taiwanese had prepared everything they could to support us. Flights of American F-16C’s raced overhead to drop cluster munitions on the advancing Chinese infantry. Taiwanese and American F-35’s targeted command posts, and even the F-22’s that had run out of missiles came by and strafed the approaching Chinese with cannons. A flight of four ancient B-52’s, sitting ducks in a modern threat environment, had their moment to shine with PLA air defenses having been wiped out by this point. They dropped napalm and thermobaric weapons to the west, trying to create a literal firewall to protect the western side of Pinglin. An AC-130 gunship, literally a flying artillery platform, joined in, blasting away at the approaching Chinese troops with 105-millimeter artillery shells and a 40-millimeter cannon.
All of that air support exacted a heavy toll on the approaching Chinese. A third of the seventy-thousand PLA soldiers approaching Pinglin were killed or wounded before they were even within rifle range of my soldiers. However, that still left almost fifty-thousand coming in to fight our three-thousand Airborne and nine-hundred Taiwanese militia.
Most armies suffering such grievous losses would retreat back, but the PLA was not most armies. By that point in the war, Chinese infantry was experienced, battle-hardened, and well-equipped. Though many of their leaders had been killed in the air attacks, they did not need complicated maneuvering at this point. The objective was clear: take Citadel, end the war. There would be no more battles for them if they could win, and no goal could be as sweet for a soldier as the ability to go home.
The Chinese wave crashed first on the northern side of the town, the strongest part of our defenses. The mission of the twenty-thousand PLA on that side would be simply to engage the Airborne forces on Devil and Teatime Hill, preventing them from coming to the rescue of the western garrison. If they could take the hills, that would be a bonus, but if the western defenses could be cracked, the victorious Chinese attackers could then assault the hills from all sides and overrun them at will.
Rifle fire crackled on Devil and Teatime Hill as Airborne snipers began targeting officers while the enemy was still over a mile away. The Chinese now moved forward more quickly. Some PLA infantry deployed mortars, trying to put some more pressure on the Airborne defenses.