Greenies

brave fighting men as possible!'

'It is a rather unconventional approach to warfare,' Wilde agreed. 'And they are going to great lengths to hit our officers and leaders. Do you suppose they think they will be able to break down command and control enough with this method to prevent our envelopment of their positions?'

'They're thinking nothing of the sort,' Wrath said. 'They're just killing for the sake of killing. And when we do surround their positions and their cause becomes hopeless they'll simply surrender and try to say that all is fair in war.' He shook his head violently. 'Well they can just forget that. When this is over I'll see to it that every one of those special forces soldiers, every one of those Mosquito pilots and gunners are tried for multiple counts of murder and executed. We'll do it by military tribunal in front of live cameras!'

'Yes sir,' Wilde said soothingly. 'But in the meantime, we need to counter these attacks in some way, to minimize the damage they do. I have a few suggestions if you'd like to hear them.'

'I want the attacks stopped, not minimized!'

Wilde swallowed and took a few deep breaths, mentally counting to ten. 'I don't see any way to stop the greenie attacks completely,' he said at last. 'As you said, they seem committed to causing as much death and mayhem as they possibly can while active combat is underway. I do, however, think we can minimize the toll on our APCs, our officers, and our men to some degree.'

'All right,' Wrath said through gritted teeth. 'Let's hear it.'

'Well, in the first place we've got to stop having the officers broadcast on multiple channels. If the greenies can't identify them they can't directly target them.'

'How can they not broadcast on multiple channels? Colonels have to talk to lieutenant colonels and they have to talk to the captains. The captains have to talk to the lieutenants and the lieutenants have to talk to their squad sergeants. Are you suggesting that everyone blabber everything on one channel?'

'Well... no, obviously that won't work very well for the entire division to talk on one channel, but we can put each individual battalion on one channel with strict orders that absolutely no unnecessary communications will be broadcast. Everything above battalion level will be on another channel. All general orders will be broadcast on a monitor only channel from the landing ships.'

'How will the battalion and company levels acknowledge their orders?' Wrath asked. 'How will the platoon and squad levels do the same? This can't work.'

'We'll just have to repeat general orders several times and assume that everyone copied them.'

'We can't run a division that way! Communications are the key to success in any mission!'

'And the greenies are exploiting our dependence on communications,' Wilde said. 'We either cut our communications down drastically and combine channels or we continue to lose officers. There's no other way, sir.'

Wrath thought this over for a second and then nodded. 'Okay,' he said. 'I guess we do that. Nobody is going to like it though.'

'They're not out there to like their orders,' Wilde reminded. 'They're there to obey them. Now as for the route of travel, I think we made a mistake by having the division stick to the middle of the valleys. In every case the greenies were able to hit from both sides and the tanks were out of range to return fire when the ambushes started. They need to hug one side of the valley or the other, keeping as close to the hills as possible.'

'Close to the hills where they'll be attacked from? The hills where the Mosquitoes are diving out on them?'

'If you accept that our units are going to be attacked no matter what we do,' said Wilde, 'then it makes sense. We deploy all the tanks on the hill side of the march.'

'No vanguard of tanks?' Wrath asked. 'Are you insane, man?'

'The greenies aren't bringing their tanks out to counter us,' Wilde said. 'They're holding them at their lines for defensive purposes only. If we line our tanks up all along the flank that faces the hills, no matter where the greenies attack from we'll be able to instantly engage them. The reason our losses were so high today was because they were able to get off multiple shots from both sides without fear of return fire. They shot us up again and again from two directions while our tank units were racing to hit them back. If we do as I suggest the greenies may get off one shot, maybe two if they're very lucky, but as soon as we identify their firing positions we can start plastering them with eighty millimeter shells or even heavy machine gun fire.'

Again, Wrath had to admit that made sense. 'Okay,' he said. 'That's a very good point. We'll do it.'

'And when we are engaged by greenie forces,' Wilde said, 'we need to send the tanks after them to repel the attack but not try to engage them with dismounted infantry.'

Wrath had a big problem with this one. 'Not send infantry after them? Just let an enemy force hit us without responding? That goes against the very essence of the corps!'

'I understand that, sir,' Wilde said, 'but as we've seen, the greenies are very good at ambushing exposed ground troops. They have snipers out there who are able to identify officers and NCOs and they have no problems with taking them out. These same snipers are likely directing the mortar teams who are firing from beyond the hillsides, well out of range of any counter-strike we can launch at them. If the men stay in their APCs the snipers can't shoot them and the mortars can't blow them up. I suggest we order the APCs to continue forward at best possible speed when the ambush teams hit them and let the tanks deal with the situation alone. This will insure that each ambush will result in no more than four to eight APCs being hit.'

'That's fifty to ninety men per attack,' Wrath said. 'We're supposed to let that go unanswered?'

'Going after them with ground troops is exactly what the greenies want us to do,' Wilde said. 'That's why they send those snipers and mortar teams out there. If we do elect to keep trying to engage them with dismounted infantry we'll still lose the original fifty to ninety in the attacks, but we'll also lose another fifty to ninety to the mortars and the gunfire. In addition, this will continue to bog down the advance and give the greenies more time to launch even more attacks. We need to keep moving, sir, and get to those cities as quickly as possible with as many of our troops alive and capable of fighting as possible. The greenies want us to keep playing their game. They seem to have evolved their entire war strategy around hitting us when we do exactly what doctrine commands. They're trying to wear us down and break our morale and if we keep doing what they want, it just might work.'

'Impossible,' Wrath scoffed. 'You can't break the morale of a marine!'

Wilde looked at his commanding general pointedly. 'With all due respect, sir, that sounds good in the daily briefing, but it's simply not true in reality. I've talked to some of the wounded who have been brought up from the surface. Their morale is pretty close to the edge now and if this rate of attrition continues, it will sail right on over that edge. God only knows what the result might be if that happens.'

Wrath looked like he was about to go into a rage at his aide for this sacrilegious impertinence. But in the end he simply nodded. 'I suppose you're right,' he said. 'The order will go out. APCs are to keep moving no matter what happens. Tanks will deal with the attackers alone.'

'That's very wise, sir,' Wilde said.

'And what about the air attacks? Is there any way to stop them or at least slow them down?'

'No,' Wilde said simply. 'The effectiveness of the greenie airpower is perhaps the single most underestimated aspect of this entire operation. Quite frankly those Mosquitoes are able to operate with impunity as long as they stick to what is apparently their doctrine. They get a fix on our units from special forces units hiding in the hills and then they hug the ground as they approach their target. They pop into the open for no more than four or five seconds, fire off two shots, and then disappear back into the hills. Our anti-air units take an average of eight to ten seconds to get a lock and train their weapons on an aircraft. They were designed to deal with slow-moving hovers, not winged aircraft moving at more than seven hundred kilometers per hour.'

'So you're saying we just have to accept that these aircraft are going to be hitting us every thirty minutes or so the entire time we're marching?'

'I'm afraid so, sir,' Wilde said. 'However, there is one way we can cut down the ultimate number of APCs they wind up hitting.'

'How's that?'

'We need to decrease the time it takes to get to our objective.'

'Decrease it? How?'

'We need to push towards the cities without let-up. We need to operate at night as well as during the day.'

'Operate at night?' Wrath asked. 'When will the men get sleep?'