There was a long delay — much longer than necessary for the satellite relay. When Dekker replied, he didn’t ask for an explanation. He had obviously been watching things in the Far East closely.
‘You got it, Nate. I’ll call in the staff tonight and take it to Himself in the morning. I’ll get you the Big Red One — 1st Infantry Division — and the 3rd Marine from Okinawa. We won’t leave you out there by yourself. You’ve got my word on that.’
When Clark hung, up, he sat there in the quiet of the former Soviet military base ten thousand miles from home. His mind’s eye roamed the frigid wastes of Asia. The tiny pockets of humanity that were his troops were scattered, isolated, vulnerable. They were no match even for random mortar attacks, much less for… what? For the Chinese?
Would two additional divisions do the trick? Six? Sixteen?
He hit the intercom button. ‘Get me Major Reed,’ he said to the man.
Nate Clark had led a mechanized infantry division into combat in the Persian Gulf. Of all the briefings, planning sessions, and operations and logistics reviews that led up to their attack into Iraq, none had been like this one. An oppressive weight hung over the large conference table around which were gathered senior officers of half a dozen nations.
Major Chuck Reed, Jr., rose. He was easily two pay grades the junior of any other officer in the room. He was also the best briefer Clark had ever run across. ‘The People’s Liberation Army,’ Reed began, ‘is trained to hold fire and fight close-in. That reduces the advantages of superior enemy weapons and brings to bear the Chinese advantage in numbers. But the Chinese tactics require the extreme confidence and courage of their troops. They are an infantry army. Their spirit — their willingness to fight, to sacrifice, to die — is the key to their effectiveness. Lin Piao — Mao’s defense minister — used to say that at ranges under two hundred meters, the PLA was the equal of any army in the world. To defeat the PLA, therefore, UNRUSFOR would have to win the war beyond two hundred meters. We would have to shatter the confidence, the courage, the morale of their troops before they get into range of small-arms fire, or risk being overwhelmed by an attack in the main.’
The attention of the room was riveted on the junior officer. The normal order of a briefing — ‘METT’ — had gone straight to ‘Enemy’ and noticeably skipped the first subject, ‘Mission.’ That was left to the defense ministries in Europe and North America, and defining UNRUSFOR’s mission was looming as a monumental task.
‘The PLA has three million men under arms,’ Reed continued. ‘They also have a militia variously estimated between seven and twelve million and fifteen special border divisions. Those have infantry capability but little integral heavy weapons or transport. The most recent battles fought in the theater began on March 2nd, 1969 along the Ussuri River.’ Reed’s silver-tipped pointer went to the map. It ran north and south along the border between Vladivostok and Khabarovsk. On the Russian side there were strung tiny beads of blue — company- and battalion-sized units of German and Belgian paratroopers and American Marines and support troops. ‘The first two battles on March 2nd and 4th were Chinese victories, killing almost a hundred Russian soldiers in small border outposts.
On March 15th, however, the Russians moved heavy missile forces forward and fired across the border on a town deep inside China. The town was destroyed and several hundred Chinese civilians died. In total, the PLA lost approximately four thousand killed in combat.’
Heads were turned at the numbers of casualties incurred in such a low-intensity border skirmish.
‘The PLA has two direct avenues of approach into the Russian Far East,’ Reed went on. ‘Both would stage at Harbin. Both would have a single Main Supply Route up the central valley. One turns east through the Manchurian highlands. It crosses the border in the Ussuri River valley north of Vladivostok but chokes off nicely at some mountain tunnels east of Suifenho. It’s the lesser threat. The other route is more difficult to interdict. It continues north through the Lesser Khingan Range and crosses the Amur to the west of Khabarovsk. There are enormous distances to defend.’
Reed waited as senior officers sketched their own maps. Clark watched. He knew what his subordinate commanders were experiencing. He’d lived it on nights, after duty hours… for months. He knew their study of Siberian maps. It was the study of distance. Of thinning lines. Of resources stretched due to nothing more than empty space. Their next question was universal, he was sure. Are my people in harm’s way?
It was an attitude that would ensure defeat.
‘Rates of advance?’ Nate asked Reed although he’d already heard Reed’s answer.
‘A mechanized army with good engineering support — one hundred kilometers per day — except during severe winter conditions or the summer thaw and flooding. The Chinese troops, however, are only motorized. They’re transported by truck and dismount to fight, and those trucks are very soft targets. They’d also be slowed by their poor engineering support. Attrition could reduce them to cross-country foot-slogging supplied only by strong backs and pack animals. At most they could make three kilometers per day. And keep in mind, without survivable tanks, they’d have no way to rapidly reduce fortified positions.’
‘Point one,’ Nate interrupted, ‘for you to take back up your chains of command. We need engineers. As many units as you can get out here. And I know that means call-ups. We’d probably call the entire Army Reserve and National Guard. You know we won’t lose Nine Corps to the Chinese. The U.S. Army does not lose an entire corps. So we need engineers to prepare positions. To map terrain obstacles. To build and maintain our road/rail network. And for engineering reconnaissance of the Chinese.’
‘Without engineering,’ Reed said, ‘the Chinese would be canalized. Single echelons down a limited number of routes. With the exception of Lake Khanka — which is more trafficable — the infantry would have to chop those supply lines out of the forest. And vehicular traffic over makeshift roads would degrade them till they’re impassable. Maintenance would tax engineering resources. When forward resupply grew infrequent, their momentum would be gone.’
‘What about our engineering?’ Clark asked.
‘We need extensive surveying. But the most difficult engineering problems would be bridging the rivers between Vladivostok and Khabarovsk. So instead we’ll use airmobile troops. We’ll organize battalion or even brigade-strength raids. We’ll choose the timing and stay till we win. Then we’ll pull back and choose another mission. To manoeuvre, the Chinese would have to open trails twenty meters wide… with manpower. In the dead of winter. With total air supremacy by the enemy.’ Most kept their heads down. Their thoughts were probably of the mass death their operations would reap.
‘The objective in the air is total victory,’ Reed said. ‘Not a single Chinese plane flying in theater, in fifteen days.’
The talk went on. Commanders taking more control. Mixed accents but a common vocabulary. Easily understood talk of engineering maintenance. Elaborate directional aids for drivers sent through trackless forests on routes open day and night. Through blizzards that would leave ten-foot snow drifts. In the deep woods, the engineers proposed, they could build corduroy roads out of lumber. The armored people said no way. A battalion of tracks would destroy it completely. Better that their fighting vehicles knock down saplings. The engineers could improve from behind. But neither the Amur nor the Ussuri was fordable, the engineers reminded. Plus their men weren’t infantry fillers, they forewarned the combat commanders.