GWOT I - Entry [US Navy Press Release]
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drewkittyGWOT I - Entry
(US Navy Press Releases series)
"Issue in doubt." - report on conditions, landing on Tawara, World War II
We did not have control of the port by the time my commandeered freighter reached the outer marker.
There is nothing more horrible than an amphibious assault.
Except watching one from a distance, unable to intervene.
The fleet was busy. Our carrier was the centerpiece of a rag tag assemblage of ships, mostly of three nations: the United States, Japan and most importantly Taiwan.
We'd attempted a helicopter assault on the docks.
A 'disabled' Chinese destroyer, half sunken at dockside, had shore power run somehow to her radar directed autocannon. Six helicopters lost in as many seconds.
Now it was a true wreck, burning.
Insanely short range close air support missions attempted to suppress the enemy land and air defenses. The beachside was a forest of rifles and machine guns; armor watched from among the condos and apartments that lined the hillsides above the port itself. And every time a Chinese tank fired, we destroyed it. But that one first shot still took its toll on any target we presented - landing ships and craft, our own amphib tanks trying to get up on the beach, groups of men trying to do anything.
The conventional answer was to cut off from behind and bypass. Allow the city to die on the vine.
Our own forces needed supply and reinforcements. Hovercraft and helicopters had carried our forces deep inland, the "Air Land Battle" so beloved of theorists who thought that general war would somehow not be nuclear. So we had to take the port, or our forces would be the ones dying on the vine.
The enemy knew this and had reinforced.
We were fighting for revenge.
They were fighting for their homes.
My ship had aboard 150 Marines, and our heaviest weapons machine guns. We were of no use in such a fight.
I thought about it for a minute.
That wasn't quite true.
"Helm, take us in," I commanded.
The sailor, from a handful provided who actually knew seamanship, flinched.
But it was an order and she was surrounded by Marines. She swallowed. Gestured for charts.
The ship's crew had no dog in this fight, although some were Chinese. Their freighter had been seized and sent out to attack - hopelessly - the American invasion fleet. We had seized it in turn. So the crew was very used to being told what to do at gunpoint, and thankful that we didn't shoot them out of hand.
I looked over the chart. It was in Chinese, of course, but a chart is a chart.
Part of the reason we had selected this port is that there were several deep sections, and that therefore no pilot was required to negotiate narrow channels.
Otherwise what I intended would be impossible, rather than merely very difficult.
"Where?"
Commercial ports on either side? No, too heavily defended. Military port? No, even trashed it was deadly. Tourist docks? Ferry terminal? Too obvious.
Humble. Every city has to have one, and large cities more than one.
I traced the shoreline. There. I pointed.
"Run us aground. There."
A tramp merchant ship, especially one as badly beat up as this one was now, was of little value in the affairs of nations.
But getting troops ashore would be an irritant and a distraction to the enemy defense commander. And maybe more than that.
Someone translated the two characters next to the marking for a pipeline, at a demand.
"Force main," was the verdict. "Sir, what the hell is a force main?"
"Septic outflow. Pipes. Moving water. Can't be mined," I said, only the last part a lie.
Actually, it could be - but not by most sensor mines. By command mines, but the control cables would be problematic. And underwater work is difficult enough without adding what comes out of a city's main sewers to the problem.
Who would expect enemy amphibious troops to wade ashore in such a spot?
They would have to shift their defenses around to destroy us.
This would open a vulnerability that our side could then exploit.
There were numerous advantages to having all our secure radios broken. No one could tell us not to.
I activated the ship's PA system again.
"Put the small boats over the side away from the city, towards the bow. Ladders and nets down. We are going to run aground, climb down, wade around, and hit the beach. Marines, let's get it on!"
Roars, and not all of them from my Marines. The refugees that had been brought aboard as human shields really didn't like what had been done to them. They didn't like us either. But the idea of getting off this floating death trap, even unarmed, appealed.
I wanted off this floating death trap too, before a lucky shot or an engineering casualty made it my last as well as my first floating command.
In retrospect the enemy command must have been relying on contingency plans, or lost cohesion at some point, because our landing was the very last type of landing I expected.
Unopposed.
The ship ran aground with a shudder, we picked up our equipment, and climbed down the nets, an assault detail in front and a security detail behind.
A city of explosions and gunfire, but none of it was directed at us.
We were somehow immune. Ignored. Not of interest.
I checked the map again.
Amazingly, I had my choice of targets.
The high value target that occupied my attention and my vision was technically civilian, but of so much military importance ... yet might not be heavily defended.
A city is an organism. We had landed next to its anus.
I proposed to disrupt the functioning of the city's heart, the S/A node that timed the beating of its function.
The power distribution yard, what in America would be called (incorrectly) a 'substation'.
Without power, water and sewer would stop working; signal and street lights go out; plug in equipment from computers and radios to Internet and speakers would go out; electric doors and building access systems would fail; and last but not least, the populace would be frightened.
I had the chart in my hand. I had a map on my phone, the same phone I'd used as a reader on ship, and I'd had jammed in a pocket during that first insane attack on the carrier.
I gave the oldest command in the history of warfare, calmly. So calmly.
"Follow me."
No gunfire, no explosions. Only Marines soaked to the waist with a mix of ocean water and sewage, entering a city where we were outnumbered thousands to one.
And again, they did.
No one was on the street. An abandoned taxicab; we took it, to carry heavy weapons. Route and formation, at the walk, occasional pauses as we found more vehicles and determined whether we could start and run them.
The first sign of resistance was two enemy technicals racing down the waterfront.
Mass aimed fire destroyed them. Hopefully before they got a radio call off.
Maybe they hadn't even been for us. Just shifting positions.
Marines started taking bicycles. Someone hotwired a motorcycle.
"Do you want me to scout ahead?"
"No, let's keep the element of surprise. But stay with me."
There were two unarmed men in uniforms at the gates of the power yard.
They looked at us. We looked at them.
They stood aside, hands carefully held at waist height. Even if they had panic buttons, they would be shot many times before they could reach them.
A corporal went inside the guard shack, found the gate control, opened it.
A Chinese man in a coverall with a clipboard came running out, shouting.
The content was clear even though I do not speak a word of Chinese.
Who opened the gates? We're on lockdown! I want to speak to your boss!
A pistol spoke and he stopped speaking forever.
We surged forward like a many celled organism, former guards ignored.
We would find the control room.
We would find operators and controllers. Or we would find breaker bars and open circuits. Or find forklifts and prime movers and break shit.
It ended up taking all three.
But after half an hour, there was an almighty CLUNK. Power down.
Just as there were diesel engines at the gates, and sustained gunfire.
The enemy had figured out we were here. A light anti-tank rocket put paid to the armored car; grenades took care of the trucks behind.
Free play was over. Now our task was to hold on.
Whatever we had done, keep the enemy from un-doing it. Even minutes were valuable. Every second we kept his engineers and technicians from restoring power, was a window for the invasion force to take advantage of.
More engines rumbled. Enemy armor.
We closed the gates and parked a forklift in the center, then raised the tines to put strain on the hinges from below.
How kind of the enemy, to allow us a fortress to fight from.
I didn't realize I'd said it out loud until Marines laughed.
Now we hold.
(US Navy Press Releases series)
"Issue in doubt." - report on conditions, landing on Tawara, World War II
We did not have control of the port by the time my commandeered freighter reached the outer marker.
There is nothing more horrible than an amphibious assault.
Except watching one from a distance, unable to intervene.
The fleet was busy. Our carrier was the centerpiece of a rag tag assemblage of ships, mostly of three nations: the United States, Japan and most importantly Taiwan.
We'd attempted a helicopter assault on the docks.
A 'disabled' Chinese destroyer, half sunken at dockside, had shore power run somehow to her radar directed autocannon. Six helicopters lost in as many seconds.
Now it was a true wreck, burning.
Insanely short range close air support missions attempted to suppress the enemy land and air defenses. The beachside was a forest of rifles and machine guns; armor watched from among the condos and apartments that lined the hillsides above the port itself. And every time a Chinese tank fired, we destroyed it. But that one first shot still took its toll on any target we presented - landing ships and craft, our own amphib tanks trying to get up on the beach, groups of men trying to do anything.
The conventional answer was to cut off from behind and bypass. Allow the city to die on the vine.
Our own forces needed supply and reinforcements. Hovercraft and helicopters had carried our forces deep inland, the "Air Land Battle" so beloved of theorists who thought that general war would somehow not be nuclear. So we had to take the port, or our forces would be the ones dying on the vine.
The enemy knew this and had reinforced.
We were fighting for revenge.
They were fighting for their homes.
My ship had aboard 150 Marines, and our heaviest weapons machine guns. We were of no use in such a fight.
I thought about it for a minute.
That wasn't quite true.
"Helm, take us in," I commanded.
The sailor, from a handful provided who actually knew seamanship, flinched.
But it was an order and she was surrounded by Marines. She swallowed. Gestured for charts.
The ship's crew had no dog in this fight, although some were Chinese. Their freighter had been seized and sent out to attack - hopelessly - the American invasion fleet. We had seized it in turn. So the crew was very used to being told what to do at gunpoint, and thankful that we didn't shoot them out of hand.
I looked over the chart. It was in Chinese, of course, but a chart is a chart.
Part of the reason we had selected this port is that there were several deep sections, and that therefore no pilot was required to negotiate narrow channels.
Otherwise what I intended would be impossible, rather than merely very difficult.
"Where?"
Commercial ports on either side? No, too heavily defended. Military port? No, even trashed it was deadly. Tourist docks? Ferry terminal? Too obvious.
Humble. Every city has to have one, and large cities more than one.
I traced the shoreline. There. I pointed.
"Run us aground. There."
A tramp merchant ship, especially one as badly beat up as this one was now, was of little value in the affairs of nations.
But getting troops ashore would be an irritant and a distraction to the enemy defense commander. And maybe more than that.
Someone translated the two characters next to the marking for a pipeline, at a demand.
"Force main," was the verdict. "Sir, what the hell is a force main?"
"Septic outflow. Pipes. Moving water. Can't be mined," I said, only the last part a lie.
Actually, it could be - but not by most sensor mines. By command mines, but the control cables would be problematic. And underwater work is difficult enough without adding what comes out of a city's main sewers to the problem.
Who would expect enemy amphibious troops to wade ashore in such a spot?
They would have to shift their defenses around to destroy us.
This would open a vulnerability that our side could then exploit.
There were numerous advantages to having all our secure radios broken. No one could tell us not to.
I activated the ship's PA system again.
"Put the small boats over the side away from the city, towards the bow. Ladders and nets down. We are going to run aground, climb down, wade around, and hit the beach. Marines, let's get it on!"
Roars, and not all of them from my Marines. The refugees that had been brought aboard as human shields really didn't like what had been done to them. They didn't like us either. But the idea of getting off this floating death trap, even unarmed, appealed.
I wanted off this floating death trap too, before a lucky shot or an engineering casualty made it my last as well as my first floating command.
In retrospect the enemy command must have been relying on contingency plans, or lost cohesion at some point, because our landing was the very last type of landing I expected.
Unopposed.
The ship ran aground with a shudder, we picked up our equipment, and climbed down the nets, an assault detail in front and a security detail behind.
A city of explosions and gunfire, but none of it was directed at us.
We were somehow immune. Ignored. Not of interest.
I checked the map again.
Amazingly, I had my choice of targets.
The high value target that occupied my attention and my vision was technically civilian, but of so much military importance ... yet might not be heavily defended.
A city is an organism. We had landed next to its anus.
I proposed to disrupt the functioning of the city's heart, the S/A node that timed the beating of its function.
The power distribution yard, what in America would be called (incorrectly) a 'substation'.
Without power, water and sewer would stop working; signal and street lights go out; plug in equipment from computers and radios to Internet and speakers would go out; electric doors and building access systems would fail; and last but not least, the populace would be frightened.
I had the chart in my hand. I had a map on my phone, the same phone I'd used as a reader on ship, and I'd had jammed in a pocket during that first insane attack on the carrier.
I gave the oldest command in the history of warfare, calmly. So calmly.
"Follow me."
No gunfire, no explosions. Only Marines soaked to the waist with a mix of ocean water and sewage, entering a city where we were outnumbered thousands to one.
And again, they did.
No one was on the street. An abandoned taxicab; we took it, to carry heavy weapons. Route and formation, at the walk, occasional pauses as we found more vehicles and determined whether we could start and run them.
The first sign of resistance was two enemy technicals racing down the waterfront.
Mass aimed fire destroyed them. Hopefully before they got a radio call off.
Maybe they hadn't even been for us. Just shifting positions.
Marines started taking bicycles. Someone hotwired a motorcycle.
"Do you want me to scout ahead?"
"No, let's keep the element of surprise. But stay with me."
There were two unarmed men in uniforms at the gates of the power yard.
They looked at us. We looked at them.
They stood aside, hands carefully held at waist height. Even if they had panic buttons, they would be shot many times before they could reach them.
A corporal went inside the guard shack, found the gate control, opened it.
A Chinese man in a coverall with a clipboard came running out, shouting.
The content was clear even though I do not speak a word of Chinese.
Who opened the gates? We're on lockdown! I want to speak to your boss!
A pistol spoke and he stopped speaking forever.
We surged forward like a many celled organism, former guards ignored.
We would find the control room.
We would find operators and controllers. Or we would find breaker bars and open circuits. Or find forklifts and prime movers and break shit.
It ended up taking all three.
But after half an hour, there was an almighty CLUNK. Power down.
Just as there were diesel engines at the gates, and sustained gunfire.
The enemy had figured out we were here. A light anti-tank rocket put paid to the armored car; grenades took care of the trucks behind.
Free play was over. Now our task was to hold on.
Whatever we had done, keep the enemy from un-doing it. Even minutes were valuable. Every second we kept his engineers and technicians from restoring power, was a window for the invasion force to take advantage of.
More engines rumbled. Enemy armor.
We closed the gates and parked a forklift in the center, then raised the tines to put strain on the hinges from below.
How kind of the enemy, to allow us a fortress to fight from.
I didn't realize I'd said it out loud until Marines laughed.
Now we hold.
