“Yes, Comrade Colonel. Out.” He looked down at his crew. “Don’t expect supporting fire.” The weapons of World War III had just destroyed those of World War I.
“Shit,” the loader observed.
“We’ll be in the war soon, men. Be at ease. The enemy is now closer …”
“Five hundred meters,” the gunner agreed.
Well?” General Peng asked at his post atop Rice Ridge. ”We’ve found some bunkers, but they are all unoccupied,” Colonel Wa reported. ”So far, the only fire we’ve taken has been indirect artillery, and we’ve counterbatteried that to death. The attack is going completely to plan, Comrade General.” They could see the truth of that. The bridging engineers were rolling up to the south bank of the Amur now, with folded sections of ribbon bridge atop their trucks. Over a hundred Type 90 main-battle tanks were close to the river, their turrets searching vainly for targets so that they could support the attacking infantry, but there was nothing for them to shoot at, and so the tankers, like the generals, had nothing to do but watch the engineers at work. The first bridge section went into the water, flipping open to form the first eight meters of highway across the river. Peng checked his watch. Yes, things were going about five minutes ahead of schedule, and that was good.
Post Five Zero opened up first with its 12.7-mm machine gun. The sound of it rattled across the hillside. Five Zero was thirty-five hundred meters to his east, commanded by a bright young sergeant named Ivanov. He opened up too early, Komanov thought, reaching for targets a good four hundred meters away, but there was nothing to complain about, and the heavy machine gun could easily reach that far … yes, he could see bodies crumpling from the heavy slugs-
— then a crashing BOOM as the main gun let loose a single round, and it reached into the saddle they defended, exploding there amidst a squad or so.
“Comrade Lieutenant, can we?” his gunner asked.
“No, not yet. Patience, Sergeant,” Komanov replied, watching to the east to see how the Chinese reacted to the fire. Yes, their tactics were predictable, but sound. The lieutenant commanding them first got his men down. Then they set up a base of fire to engage the Russian position, and then they started maneuvering left and right. Aha, a section was setting up something … something on a tripod. An antitank recoilless rifle, probably. He could have turned his gun to take it out, but Komanov didn’t want to give away his position yet.
“Five Zero, this is Five Six Alfa, there’s a Chinese recoilless setting up at your two o’clock, range eight hundred,” he warned.
“Yes, I see it!” the sergeant replied. And he had the good sense to engage it with his machine gun. In two seconds, the green tracers reached out and ripped through the gun section once, twice, three times, just to be sure. Through his binoculars, he could see some twitching, but that was all.
“Well done, Sergeant Ivanov! Look out, they’re moving to your left under terrain cover.”
But there wasn’t much of that around here. Every bunker’s field of fire had been bulldozed, leveling out almost all of the dead ground within eight hundred meters of every position.
“We shall see about that, Comrade Lieutenant.” And the machine gun spoke again. Return fire was coming in now. Komanov could see tracers bouncing off the turret’s thick armor into the sky.
“Regiment, Five Six Alfa here. Post Five Zero is under deliberate attack now from infantry, and-”
Then more artillery shells started landing, called in directly on Five Zero. He hoped Ivanov was now under his hatch. The turret had a coaxial machine gun, an old but powerful PK with the long 7.62-mm cartridge. Komanov let his gunner survey the threat to his bunker while he watched how the Chinese attacked Sergeant Ivanov’s. Their infantry moved with some skill, using what ground they had, keeping fire on the exposed gun turret-enough artillery fell close enough to strip away the bushes that had hidden it at first. Even if your bullets bounced off, they were still a distraction to those inside. It was the big shells that concerned the lieutenant. A direct hit might penetrate the thinner top armor, mightn’t it? An hour before, he would have said no, but he could see now what the shells did to the ground, and his confidence had eroded quickly.
“Comrade Lieutenant,” his gunner said. “The people headed for us are turning away to attack Ivanov. Look.”
Komanov turned around to see. He didn’t need his binoculars. The sky was improving the light he had, and now he could see more than shadows. They were man shapes, and they were carrying weapons. One section was rushing to his left, three of them carrying something heavy. On reaching a shallow intermediate ridgeline, they stopped and started putting something together, some sort of tube …
… it was an HJ-8 antitank missile, his mind told him, fishing up the information from his months of intelligence briefings. They were about a thousand meters to his left front, within range of Ivanov …
… and within range of his big DshKM machine gun. Komanov stood on his firing stand and yanked back hard on the charging handle, leveling the gun and sighting carefully. His big tank gun could do this, but so could he …
So, you want to kill Sergeant Ivanov? his mind asked. Then he thumbed the trigger lever, and the big gun shook in his hands. His first burst was about thirty meters short, but his second was right on, and three men fell. He kept firing to make sure he’d destroyed their rocket launcher. He realized a moment later that the brilliant green tracers had just announced his location for all to see-tracers work in both directions. That became clear in two minutes, when the first artillery shells began landing around Position Five Six Alfa. He only needed one close explosion to drop down and slam his hatch. The hatch was the weakest part of his position’s protection, with only a fifth of the protective thickness of the rest-else he’d be unable to open it, of course-and if a shell hit that, he and his crew would all be dead. The enemy knew their location now, and there was no sense in hiding.
“Sergeant,” he told his gunner. “Fire at will.”
“Yes, Comrade Lieutenant!” And with that, the sergeant loosed his first high-explosive round at a machine-gun crew eight hundred meters away. The shell hit the gun itself and vaporized the infantrymen operating it. “There’s three good Chinks!” he exulted. “Load me another!” The turret started turning, and the gunner started hunting.
Getting some resistance now,” Wa told Peng. ”There are Russian positions on the southern slope of the second ridge. We’re hitting them now with artillery.”
“Losses?”
“Light,” the operations officer reported, listening in on the tactical radio.
“Good,” said General Peng. His attention was almost entirely on the river. The first bridge was about a third complete now.
Those bridging engineers are pretty good,” General Wallace thought, watching the ”take” from Marilyn Monroe.
“Yes, sir, but it might as well be a peacetime exercise. They’re not taking any fire,” the junior officer observed, watching another section being tied off. “And it’s a very efficient bridge design.”
“Russian?”
The major nodded. “Yes, sir. We copied it, too.”
“How long?”
“The rate they’re going? About an hour, maybe an hour ten.”
“Back to the gunfight,” Wallace ordered.
“Sergeant, let’s go back to the ridge,” the officer told the NCO who was piloting the UAC. Thirty seconds later, the screen showed what looked like a tank sunk in the mud surrounded by a bunch of infantrymen.