Week 4
Before pushing against American lines once more, Commander Fox acquired more upgrades for his men. He added a specially trained marksmen to each riflemen squad to increase their effectiveness against enemy infantry and he gave each engineer squad fragmentation RPGs to increase their effectiveness against enemy vehicles. He also ordered a regular army platoon to join his forces to be used to defend key positions in the heat of battle, without sacrificing any of his men to do the same job.
Intel told him that the main focus of this week's battles was Shenandoah Valley, West Virginia and that American forces were gathering here. Assaulting this place would open up the route to assault Washington D.C. and eliminate the main power of American forces. He listened closely at the intel for this key battle. His battalion would be assaulting over land from a forward staging area. In the battle, our forces would have air cover from Grissom Airbase and Fort Campbell would lend us assets in range to bolster our defences. The enemy would also have air cover and regular army troops from their nearby military bases. The enemy commander, who was leading all of the troops assembled in the valley was Commander Jordan Taylor of the American 35th Airborne battalion. Due to the numbers of troops in that area, the uplink sites would not be a priority for this battle. The goal was to wipe out as many troops as possible. After all the preparations were made, the battalion moved out and marched to Shenandoah Valley to engage the enemy. When they arrived to make battle, it was exactly midday.
Two riflemen squads, Death's Head and Ironclaw, deployed first along with combat transports from Steelcage squadron and Dragonfly gunships. All of them advanced forwards immediately, eager to engage the enemy. Ironclaw advances to an uplink site to upgrade it to allow for airstrikes while the Griffon tank squadron deploys to the field. This is a fortunate move by Commander Fox as Dragonfly encounters enemy transports not too long after and has to pull away before the transports can open fire while Griffon squadron is ordered to move up and intercept the transports. Death's head had pushed up hard and fast and had secured the only uplink that had not been occupied at the start of the battle and were now fending off enemy regular troops as enemy artillery fire zoned in on them. Meanwhile, Dragonfly crossed the battlefield to engage an enemy tank squadron attempting to cross a bridge on the far left flank and in the process, they spotted the enemy artillery. Dragonfly takes out the tank squadron, leaving their smoking wrecks on the bridge as they move over onto the enemy's side of the battle to engage the artillery squad firing at Death's Head, but were startled to find that there were two artillery squadrons firing from the same position! This presented an opportunity that was simply too good to pass up and Commander Fox grinned at the idea. He calling in two airstrikes of the enemy artillery's position and moved Dragonfly back slightly, to avoid a repeat of what happened to Snow Owl, a decision that will hang over his head and bring him shame for a long time to come. The first airstrike's strafing run brought down the number of artillery pieces in each squad by half. The second airstrike takes out the remaining half of both squads and Dragonfly moves away from the scene to engage a large mass of regular infantry troops. As this is happening, Dragonfly squadron spots enemy riflemen squads dashing for cover out in the open. The break off the engagement and fly quickly to engage the riflemen. Their firepower and two airstrikes later, the riflemen squad lies dead in the middle of the road.
"Commander Fox, sir, this is Death's Head. Permission to abandon this uplink and push into enemy lines?"
*Static*
"Negative soldier. Your objective stands: Hold position and defend that uplink."
*Static*
"Copy that, sir."
Lance Corporal Volkov had a bandage wrapped around his head to cover his wound from when he smashed his head on concrete one week prior. The medic had told him that he was lucky to be alive. Either way, he was deemed still fit for combat and deployed with his squad again for this battle, despite his injury still effecting him slightly. He was visibly annoyed with the commander's orders for his squad. He trusted in his squad and knew they could handle going on the offensive while they had this window of opportunity, even if the commander disagreed. One of the Privates in the squad ran low behind cover over to him.
"Sir, what did the commander say?"
Volkov sighed before replying.
"We're to hold position here."
"But sir," the Private said, "Are we really just gonna lie around here without a damn thing to shoot at?"
A grin spread across Volkov's face.
"Hell no, soldier."
After Dragonfly had taken down the enemy riflemen and much debating between Commander Fox and Death's Head, Death's Head advanced to attack an enemy uplink. Ironclaw also pushes along the bridge where Dragonfly squadron had taken out the enemy tanks and move to secure a different enemy uplink, this time with the commander's approval. Griffon moves ahead of Ironclaw to secure the area in preparation for Ironclaw's arrival and they engage enemy regular troops taking cover in the woods. Dragonfly also takes on another riflemen unit who are taking cover in a building. Dragonfly calls in a single airstrike which Commander Fox authorises to weaken the riflemen and Dragonfly takes them out, but tragically lost a single one of their number in the process. As the infantry get taken down, enemy transport choppers fly overhead and begin deploying enemy engineers, so Dragonfly moves to engage and Death's Head and Ironclaw both secure an uplink.
"Soldier, what do you think you're doing?!"
"Assaulting enemy positions, sir."
"I gave you a strict order to HOLD YOUR POSITION!"
"Respectively, sir, we just took an enemy uplink for our own and pushed back the enemy."
Dragonfly squadron called in an airstrike on the enemy engineers as their deployed and Griffon tank squadron took out the remaining enemy regular troops in the valley as the engineers were gunned down. The enemy cannot reinforcement the area and they are pushed out of the valley. The entire American gathering in this area has been successfully wiped out. Victory!
Death's Head walked casually over to the large transport plane that was moving them back to base, chatting amongst themselves. As the boarding ramp leading into the cargo hold at the rear of the plane lowered, they were confronted by the very angry Commander Fox.
"Form up, soldiers!" he bellowed at them. They quickly dropped their packs and fell into line. He paced up and down the line of men, yelling in their faces as he passed.
"You disobeyed a direct order! You could have compromised the mission for the sake of your glory!"
He stopped at the end of the line and turned to stare directly into the eyes of Lance Corporal Volkov.
"YOU are responsibly for your squad! You may have cost a vital uplink just to advance. You directly ignored my orders!"
He glared at him for several moments before saying "Good work."
Commander Fox turned on his heels and strolled back to the plane. The entire squad breathed out a massive sigh of relief behind him as he walked away. They hadn't realised that they were holding their breath.
In the after-action report, only Griffon were promoted and they were officially labelled as a veteran squadron. No other unit received a promotion in this battle, much to the surprise of Commander Fox. He believed that such a successful operation to cripple enemy forces deserved many promotions for his men, especially because central command had informed him that he fought that battle with 100% mobility and combat skill also 100%.
Throughout the week, Russia was successful across all fronts. The European raid on Fort Levski was beaten back by Russian security and because Commander Fox's battalion had crippled American armed forces, Russia also took Springfield and Chattanooga with relative ease. Europe also took Pamlico from the Americans for the second time. With the large Russian push in America in the week, the road to Washington was open and in a last ditch attempt to distract Russian forces, American forces were flying out of Washington to raid Fort Campbell. Only time would tell if it was a futile effort, or a tide turning move.