IR scanner. In all cases, the blazing rocket motors wrecked their night vision, but none of the pilots looked away, as they’d been trained to do, and instead watched their missiles streak after fellow airmen who did not yet know they were under attack. It took twenty seconds, and as it turned out, two missiles were targeted on the same Chinese aircraft. That one took two hits and exploded. The second died from its single impact, and then things really got confusing. The Chinese fighters scattered on command from their commander, doing so in a preplanned and well- rehearsed maneuver, first into two groups, then into four, each of which had a piece of sky to defend. Everyone’s radar came on, and in another twenty seconds, a total of forty missiles were flying, and with this began a deadly game of chicken. The radar-homing missiles needed a radar signal to guide them, and that meant that the firing fighter could not switch off or turn away, only hope that his bird would kill its target and switch off his radar before his missile got close.
“Damn,” the lieutenant observed, in his comfortable controller’s seat in the E-3B. Two more Chinese fighters blinked into larger bogies on his screen and then started to fade, then another, but there were just too many of the Chinese air-to-air missiles, and not all of the Chinese illumination radars went down. One Russian fighter took three impacts and disintegrated. Another one limped away with severe damage, and as quickly as it had begun, this air encounter ended. Statistically, it was a Russian win, four kills for one loss, but the Chinese would claim more.
“Any chutes?” the senior controller asked over the intercom. The E-3 radar could track those, too.
“Three, maybe four ejected. Not sure who, though, not till we play the tape back. Damn, that was a quick one.”
CHAPTER 51 Falling Back
Senior Lieutenant Valeriy Mikhailovich Komanov learned something he’d never suspected. The worst part of battle-at least to a man in a fixed emplacement-was knowing that the enemy was out there, but being unable to shoot at him. The reverse slopes of the ridge to his immediate south had to be swarming with Chinese infantry, and his supporting artillery had been taken out in the first minutes of the battle. Whoever had set up the artillery positions had made the mistake of assuming that the guns were too far back and too shielded by terrain for the enemy to strike at them. Fire-finder radar/computer systems had changed that, and the absence of overhead cover had doomed the guncrews to rapid death, unless some of them had found shelter in the concrete- lined trenches built into their positions. He had a powerful gun at his fingertips, but it was one that could not reach over the hills to his south because of its flat trajectory. As envisioned, this defense line would have included leg infantry who’d depend on and also support the bunker strongpoints-and be armed with mortars which could reach over the close-in hills and punish those who were there but unseen behind the terrain feature. Komanov could only engage those he could see, and they-
“There, Comrade Lieutenant,” the gunner said. “A little right of twelve o’clock, some infantry just crested the ridge. Range one thousand five hundred meters.”
“I see them.” There was just a hint of light on the eastern horizon now. Soon there would be enough light to see by. That would make shooting easier, but for both sides. In an hour, his bunker would be targeted, and they’d get to see just how thick their armor protection really was.
“Five Six Alfa, this is Five Zero. We have infantry eleven hundred meters to our south. Company strength and moving north toward us.”
“Very well. Do not engage until they are within two hundred meters.” Komanov automatically doubled the shooting range at which he’d been trained to open fire. What the hell, he thought, his crews would do that in their own minds anyway. A man thinks differently when real bullets are flying.
As if to emphasize that, shells started landing on the crest immediately behind his position, close enough to make him duck down.
“So they see us?” his loader asked.
“No, they’re just barraging the next set of hills to support their infantrymen.”
“Look, look there, they’re on top of false bunker One Six,” the gunner said. Komanov shifted his glasses-
Yes, they were there, examining the old KV-2 gun turret with its vertical sides and old 155-mm gun. As he watched, a soldier hung a satchel charge on the side and backed away. Then the charge went off, destroying something that had never worked anyway.
The bad part was that now he had perfect targets for his supporting artillery, and those old six-inch guns would have cut through them like a harvester’s scythe. Except the Chinese were still hitting those positions, even though the Russian fire had stopped. He called Regiment again to relay his information.
“Lieutenant,” his colonel answered, “the supporting battery has been badly hit. You are on your own. Keep me posted.”
“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.
— then a crashing
“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.
