“Go on,” McGraw said.
“I propose that you leave them to me.”
“You’d better explain what you mean.”
“It’s simple: my ten Behemoths against them.”
“Are you crazy?” McGraw asked.
“I’m not going to wait for them to launch a perfectly coordinated assault against me,” Stan explained. “I’m going to attack, but with the ten super-tanks bunched together. I’ll want plenty of artillery to help me. But those tubes can turn around later and assist our Second Tank Army.”
“The Behemoths are good, old son. I admit that. But you can’t take on two entire Chinese armies.”
“Burned out armies,” Stan said. “I’m guessing many of those soldiers have had their fill of fighting in the city ruins. Perhaps just as importantly, they’re now used to trench warfare. I’m going to give them mobile warfare and long-range destruction that they won’t believe.”
“You’re crazy, Colonel.”
“You’re going to have to give me several battlewagons as supply vehicles. I’m going to need everything in them: lubricants, penetrators, gas, 30mm shells and .50 caliber bullets by the ton.”
Battlewagon was an old term for a Navy battleship. The Army version were low, wide vehicles and heavily armored. They carried fuel, munitions and extra spares for radio equipment, AI components, loaders, calibrators and a host of other articles.
“With what you’re suggesting, your tanks will burn out,” McGraw said.
“I’ll let you in on a secret, Tom. They’re already burned out. The fight against the heavy lasers ruined their forward plates.”
“So how do you expect to face two Chinese armies then?”
“I already told you,” Stan said. “I’m going to attack, and I’m going to count on my beehive flechette launchers and the AIs to knock down most incoming missiles and shells. The armor will just have to hold against shrapnel and bullets, and that the stressed plates can still do.”
“Go over your plan in greater detail,” McGraw said slowly.
Stan had. Now he was out there alone with his ten Behemoth tanks. He was north of Colorado Springs. He had a plan all right. He’d read so much military history that there was always a battle he could go to for inspiration. This time, it was the battle of Leuthen in 1757.
Frederick the Great of Prussia with 36,000 soldiers had decisively and crushingly defeated the Austrian army of nearly 80,000 troops. Napoleon had said of the battle: “His (Frederick’s) Oblique Order could only prove successful against an army which was unable to maneuver.”
That’s something Stan was counting on. He didn’t think the Chinese Tenth and Fifteenth Armies could maneuver as they used to. For one thing, most of their tanks had gone north weeks ago. Two, a large number of their vehicles had perished in Greater Denver. Finally, as he’d told McGraw, these soldiers had been fighting siege battles for weeks on end. A soldier became used to that. He began to turtle, and built a shelter he loved. Now they were supposed to maneuver quickly and boldly as they had this summer. No. They would be sluggish, if not downright slow in reacting to his plan.
Stan recalled reading about Frederick the Great explaining the oblique order of attack: “You refuse one wing to the enemy and strengthen the one which is to attack. With the latter you do your utmost against one wing of the enemy which you take in flank. An army of 100,000 men taken in flank may be beaten by 30,000 in a very short time…The advantages of this arrangement are (1) a small force can engage one much stronger than itself; (2) it attacks an enemy at a decisive point; (3) if you are beaten, it is only part of your army, and you have the other three-fourths which are still fresh to cover your retreat.”
Stan had a small force all right: ten Behemoths with artillery well to the rear. He would not so much withhold part of his force, as let depth of space hold the enemy. He was counting on sluggishness and suspicion to keep the Chinese from pouring into that empty space. He was also counting on dummies and some U.S. deception troops traveling back and forth behind trenches, giving radio signals as if there were whole divisions waiting for the Chinese. Hopefully, the Chinese would take time to deploy for a combined-arms attack instead of just rushing forward into the otherwise empty space.
The key to the plan was to attack from a flank. With the ten Behemoths, he could concentrate an unbelievable amount of firepower in once place. His plan was to concentrate that firepower one spot at a time against the enemy.
The other key to his plan was the Southern Rocky Mountains. The Chinese could not escape into them. Instead, those mountains would act as a wall. If this worked, he would drive the Chinese into them, demolishing the enemy as he drove into the flank of Army Group A.
It was a bold plan. It was a preposterous plan. It also adhered to the idea of “Audacity, audacity, always audacity.”
Lastly, he hoped to prove to the full the great superiority of these monstrous tanks. Kept together under tight control, he believed he could overwhelm the Chinese in detail faster than they could turn around to swarm him with materiel.
It was the test of a lifetime.
“Are you ready, Professor?” Jose called up.
Stan scanned the snow. One hump showed a branch poking out: a small bush of some sort. He glanced around at the ten tanks. Then he darted down into the Behemoth, with a bang, closing the hatch behind him.
The inside of a former Wells Fargo bank bustled with activity. Headquarters staff hurried back and forth, while others watched on screens. In the center of all the hushed speech and clicking shoes was the main situational map. Marshal Liang with his Chief of Staff studied the computer images.
“The Americans are putting up much stiffer resistance than expected,” Ping said.
Liang couldn’t believe this. Army Group C seemed to have hit the Great Wall of Second Tank Army. The Jefferson tanks darted forward against the T-66s as if the American commander didn’t care about losses. For the first time in battle, the Americans were living up to their legendary image of vast expenditures of firepower. Missiles in abundance, artillery shells like a downpour and massed tank cannons roaring as if they were ancient dragons roused from sleep hit his force.
In stunned silence, Liang watched the computer map. The Second Tank Army chewed through his hastily formed Army Group C. It was like throwing wood into a blazing furnace.
“I’m beginning to believe the Americans have put everything they have against Army Group C,” Ping said.
Liang’s eyes blurred red from having studied hundreds of different Intelligence reports. He recalled one strange paper that spoke about vast dummy emplacements to the north of Colorado Springs. Other reports had impressed Liang with the American ability to erect a defensive line in days. Had the Americans been so bold as to use everything against one side of his assault?
The enemy had the interior position. He could shift from side to side. Was the strange report correct whose writer had insisted little stood against the Tenth and Fifteenth Armies?
“We must light a fire under Army Group A,” Liang said, speaking as if coming out of a deep sleep.
A man ran to Chief of Staff Ping and handed him a note. Ping read it and looked up.
“What is it?” Liang asked with a sick feeling in his stomach.
“The Behemoths, sir,” Ping said. “We’ve finally found out where they’re hidden.”
“Where?” asked Liang. “Put it on the map.”
Ping adjusted a set of controls. Red images appeared to the east of 5th Division, the easternmost formation of Tenth Army.
“The Behemoths are flanking us,” Liang said. “They’ve put themselves badly out of position.”