are invincible in battle and their cause doomed to ultimate failure.”
Stan sat in the commander’s seat. For a three-hundred ton monster, there was surprisingly little space within the Behemoth.
So far, the engine worked and the treads stayed on the suspension system. They had been working hard these past days in Fresno, making sure all the little problems stayed away.
The Behemoth was something completely new. It was big because its engine was
The Behemoth didn’t use conventional gunpowder shells, although it had several .50 caliber machine guns and used the auto-cannons and beehive flechette launchers. It was a walking—rolling—supergun. There was nothing like it on Earth.
The rail gun was simple in a way. It had two magnetized rods lining the Behemoth’s cannon. The projectile or “shell” completed the current between the two rods. The direction of the current expelled the round, firing the shell and breaking the current. The great difference was the incredible speed at which the electromagnetic cannon could eject the solid metal round.
Like the Abrams’s sabot round it used kinetic energy, the same kind of energy that sent a bullet smashing through a man’s body.
An M16 rifle fired a bullet at the muzzle velocity of 930 meters per second. The Behemoth’s cannon fired its round at 3,500 m/s, over three times as fast. That was approximately Mach 10 at sea level.
The Behemoth’s penetrator size and weight was much lower than an ordinary sabot round. It could therefore carry much more ammo onboard than otherwise. Nor did the crew need to worry about explosives in the tank. The greatest benefit was that at this velocity the rail-gun had much greater range, less bullet drop, faster time on target and less wind drift. In other words, it bypassed the physical limitations of conventional firearms. In fact, the rounds flew so fast, they ionized the air around them.
The Behemoth rail-gun theoretically fired farther, faster and with greater penetrating power than any comparable conventional gun. Its range was also much greater than the targeting precision, meaning it was easily possible to fire a Behemoth round over one hundred miles.
Stan blew out his cheeks and cracked his knuckles. The Behemoth clanked onto the desert sands, the treads rolling over a cactus so moisture squelched onto a nearby rock, wetting it. Captain Reece’s tank followed behind them by fifty yards.
“How far are we going?” Jose asked.
“Eh, what’s that?” Stan asked.
“How far are we going?”
“Several miles,” Stan said.
No one talked after that. They listened to the steel monster rattle and clank. The Behemoth could theoretically perform marvels. Unfortunately, on the testing grounds the giant vehicles had broken down all the time.
Stan now pulled up a map and began studying the terrain. If he could find a level—
“Hello,” Stan said.
Jose arched an eyebrow.
Stan got on the radio with Reece and they talked things over. Ten minutes later, the two giant tanks parked fifty yards apart.
There was a thin, last ditch screen of Americans ahead of them. Coming hard against these shreds of Tenth Division were the lead elements of two T-66 divisions.
“What else is there out here?” Reece asked over the radio.
“It’s just us now,” Stan said, “with artillery support once we call for it.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing, Higgins,” Captain Reece said.
“I hope the Colonel knows what he’s doing,” Stan replied.
Captain Reece said nothing to that.
Stan studied the data on his screen. They had a high-flying drone in position. Ah, look at them, Chinese T-66 tanks plowing head-on. Using the computer to study the enemy, Stan counted one hundred and eleven tri-turreted tanks, seven miles out, a bit more than eleven thousand meters. They were just beginning to appear on the same horizontal plane as the two Behemoths and almost in effective range.
“I’d say we give them another eight hundred meters,” Stan said, trying to sound more confident than he felt.
He knew it was important to get the maximum advantage out of a technological surprise as one could. The Germans had failed to do that during World War II with their newest Panther and Tiger tanks in 1943. Hitler had ordered the new tanks into combat before all their teething problems had been overcome. The Panthers and Tigers were supposed to be new wonder weapons, helping the Germans defeat the much more numerous Russian tanks. The new tanks had been thrown in too soon into the giant cauldron of the Battle of Kursk, the greatest tank battle of the war.
If America lost California, but had time to prefect the Behemoth and enter battle for the first time with a hundred of them instead of twenty, or the two out here—
Stan shrugged. It didn’t matter now. He was out here. On his screen, he watched the last Americans of the Tenth Division standing their ground in the desert and dying.
“Are you boys ready?” Stan asked his crew.
Jose, the gunner and the air/radio operator nodded or muttered a yes.
“Captain Reece,” Stan said, “I suggest we open fire on the enemy.”
“We should order some artillery down on them first,” Reece said.
“Agreed,” Stan said. He was feeling surreal. He was about to enter combat again. He hadn’t fired in anger since Anchorage.
Thirty seconds later, American artillery began to pound the enemy, who used onboard defensive armaments to shoot down the vast majority of artillery shells.
Stan checked the Behemoth’s batteries. They were at full power. “Okay, rev up the engine.”
The driver did just that.
“Target the nearest tank, Jose.”
“Roger,” Jose said, with his brow pressed against the high-powered thermal scanner.
The Behemoth had an auto-loader, which just dropped a round into position.
Stan’s hands were clammy. They weren’t in danger yet from the enemy. The T-66s had conventional ranges.
“Fire,” Stan said.
The giant electromagnetic gun hummed with power. Then the current pumped the twin rods in the cannon. The round fired, and it exited with a hard surge that rocked the Behemoth. It was one of the reasons the tank needed its incredible weight. For every action, there was an equal reaction in the opposite direction.
Stan watched on the thermal screen. The round’s flight time—it was incredibly short. Within two seconds, a T-66 lit up on the screen and exploded.
“Fire at will,” Stan said. He felt as if his spirit stood outside of his body, watching him at work.
Stocky Jose proceeded to do just what he did best: target, laser-wash the enemy, wait for the chambered round and the crack of the shell going supersonic before it even exited the gun. The Behemoth rocked with violent force, expelling another of its incredibly hyper-fast rounds, reaching out around over ten thousand meters or six and a half miles.
Stan grinned at first, hit! A T-66 blew up. Seven seconds later, hit! On the thermal sights, a second T-66 lay on its side like a dead beast. Every seven seconds another hard surge sent a shell screaming across the desert, slamming into a Chinese tank.
