The dart didn’t just disintegrate into ordinary shrapnel. Heated depleted uranium burns when exposed to oxygen, much like magnesium. Essentially napalmed shrapnel. As if that wasn’t nasty enough, hundreds of white-hot shards from the tank’s armor also shot inside as well. The interior anti-spalling Kevlar lining helped keep all these burning splinters from ricocheting…but only after they ripped through flesh and bone.
The driver, alone in a separate sealed compartment, made it out without a scratch on him. Instead of running from the burning track, as normal people would do, he did what a soldier does. He clambered onto the smoking turret, tore open a hot hatch and hauled the barely breathing loader out.
As an extra safety design feature, the Abram’s cannon rounds are stored in a separate compartment at the rear of the turret. In the event of an explosion, the compartment was designed to funnel the blast up and away from the vehicle and crew. A useful feature…if you’re inside. The driver had just dragged his buddy out the hatch when the fire reached the ammo closet and the world ended under his feet.
Above them, a company of six armored Apache gunships, each dangling 16 Hellfire missiles and packing 30mm automatic cannons, picked their targets from the rebel smorgasbord. Time to level the playing field. The crews didn’t know they themselves were targets until three disintegrated in a blaze of glory. The rest scattered and would be recalled back to base without ever firing a shot.
Even higher up, a pair of Florida Reserve F-16’s, equipped with their cutting-edge look down, shoot down radars rippled off Sidewinder missiles at the defenseless helicopters below. The choppers weren’t their primary mission. They slaughtered the Apaches en passé, without even deviating from their assigned objectives. These $18 million ultra-advanced, Terminator-style frightful killing machines were simply “targets of opportunity” to the enemy’s air force. Casually swatted out of the skies like so many mosquitoes.
Sunny Skies over Florida
Across several hundred square miles of sky above, dozens of federal and National Guard aircraft duked it out for air superiority. More streaked in low and fast, each trying to drop several tons of high-tech, high-explosive ordinance on the poor damn ants below. Florida’s surprisingly large and advanced network of ground based anti-aircraft weapons also began showing its full strength.
To make matters worse, in order to limit unnecessary losses, the Air Force’s protective screen of fighter aircraft had long since been scaled back to a bare minimum. It seemed a logical precaution, since all of Florida’s combat aircraft were successfully neutralized in the opening air strikes.
The first sign that the Feds’ intelligence was less than accurate were several volleys of long-range AMRAAM missiles slamming into their scattered Combat Air Patrols. Apparently, the enemy dispersed their aircraft far better than expected. The rebel’s victory wasn’t cheap, but presently the Guard’s surviving F-15’s secured local air supremacy. It might be short lived, since more Fed fighters were scrambling from Georgia and even some of the recently “liberated” air bases in Florida, but the next hour would be hell on the defenseless federal soldiers below.
For the first time since World War II, a large American ground force lay naked to enemy aerial bombardment without a single friendly fighter around. They didn’t even have much in the way of anti-aircraft weapons, since most of the division’s air defense assets were busy fighting for their lives up north. The rebels made the best use of this short-term advantage despite their limited resources.
This aerial counterattack involved more than just the Reserve squadron of F-16’s dropping cluster munitions on any clump of vehicles they could find. It was even more intense than the battalion of AH-64’s fanning out into pairs and providing direct fire support to units in contact. General Cooper, whether from luck or an uncanny feeling of the battle, shoved everything that could fly into the fight at the exact moment the enemy’s advance ran low on steam.
One slightly modified Florida C-130 even tried its hand at carpet-bombing. Unfortunately for everyone concerned, they were never given an opportunity to practice the mission beforehand. All 40 five hundred pound, unguided bombs rolled off the transport’s back ramp at far too high an altitude. They did nearly as much damage to the retreating guardsmen as to the federal infantry battalion close on their heels. Still, the shock value of encountering a threat not seen in generations threw the Army, to put it mildly, off stride.
What started out as a vast race had long since devolved into a grinding, running slugfest. After the shocks from the air, even that trickle of momentum faded fast. General McDowell’s grand plan was shattered as hopelessly as the morale of his scattered soldiers.
It is difficult to envisage the vast space modern mechanized battles take place in. Between elaborate communications systems and endless numbers of fast vehicles, small units today can effectively cover an area so large that one platoon could not even hear the shots of their brother platoon.
A single brigade in the Civil War might’ve barely occupied a mile long front when deployed for battle. Even unopposed, they’d be lucky to march 20 miles a day. This 21st century version here in Florida effortlessly strung themselves out over 50 square miles and advanced in just half an hour over what their ancestors covered in a day. The flipside to this breathtaking capability is the short reaction time leaders have to avert disasters.
While the astonished command staff up in Lake City hastily reconciled this surreal turn of events with their fantasies and tried to whip up a new plan on the fly, things only got worse. The more the situation worsened, the narrower their tunnel vision became. From general to lowest clerk, their attention was fully tuned to untangling the forward units and bringing their exposed support assets under the air defense umbrella at FOB Lake City.
The Air Force’s steady warnings about a significant militia force advancing from the east towards that same logistics center and their own command post weren’t taken too seriously. Only with the enemy minutes from town did anyone react. Finally, the division’s command staff absentmindedly deployed their only reserve battalion to screen their exposed flank and deal with this nuisance while the big brains focused on the “real war.”
Chapter 8
20 miles northeast of Lake City, Florida
1-6 Infantry Task Force raced east along Interstate 10. Racing, by the standards of armored vehicles, meant a convoy speed of 45 mph. Even at that breathtaking pace, they were less than 15 minutes away from the I-10/US 90 junction. Once they could occupy the intersection they’d cut off those small, retreating Guard units coming from Jacksonville and annihilate the militiamen pouring in from the coast. Slaughter they would; they were loaded for bear.
Even running in both directions of travel the unit couldn’t be all seen at once. The 30 M2 Bradley IFV’s, 14 M1 Abrams tanks, dozen M113’s, including a mortar platoon and 20 some odd trucks and Humvees bringing up the rear were still spread out over a mile. It was an impressive site to behold, and beheld it was.
As soon as the battalion entered the bottleneck of the Osceola National Forest, a series of spotters began making cell phone calls. The most lethal of which came from a forward air controller perched in a forestry fire watchtower. Without even setting down his cappuccino, Starbucks and not instant, since he wasn’t in the friggin’ Army, he ran the prey’s speed and location through his hand held computer. With a few short code words over his radio he ordered death as casually as regular people order a pizza.