AN: Trying something different here as I am introducing some Russian Characters for this story, also note, short chapter this time. It should be noted that there are fictional aircraft as well as aircraft that exist in blueprints in this chapter. You get an internet cookie if you can figure them out.
It should be noted however, that the way Russian Names are portrayed is legally accurate. So you have the Surname first, followed by the First Name with a nickname in brackets if applicable, and finally a Patronymic Name.
August 13, 2016
1610 Hours
Lieutenant Pyorta Motyl
4th Black Guards Motorized Rifle Division, 21st Independent Tank Battalion
"For the Motherland"
The Russian Beriev Be-2500 had its ten engines howling as the massive ground effect aircraft came in for landing. Loaded down within its belly was a total of twenty T-95 Main Battle Tanks, sixty tonne behemoths arranged seven rows, six rows of three and one row of two. There were two whole companies of tanks being carried in this beast, a total of 1,200-tonnes was being carried by this aircraft alone. An entire battalion of T-95s could be carried in just two aircraft, with a third aircraft bringing along the battalion headquarters, logistics, and support formations. Indeed these huge blended wing aircraft simply revolutionized how you could transport armed forces around the world.
For Lieutenant Pyotra Motyl, a bear of a man with olive skin, black hair, and brown hair cut military short, he was currently resting in the commander's cupola of his T-95. He was a member of the Black Guards, the absolute best of the best for conventional military forces in the Russian Federation. His tanks would serve as the tip of the spear for the drive towards Fredericksburg, Virginia. Its capture would mean that any units driving north from the south would first have to go through his formation in order to get to Washington D.C, it was a strategy that put the better part of a division of Black Guard on the chopping block. But even if their unit was wiped out, they could easily take with them a sizable chunk of the American forces with them before going down. Therefore preventing the capitalist pigs from easily reinforcing the units in their capital city.
Pyorta snorted as he remembered the plan of attack, they were going to secure a foothold in the Delmarva Peninsula first, capture Dover and the AFB located there. Then they would push north since the bridges that connect the Peninsula would likely be destroyed by the Americans. As this was occurring the VDV would be sowing confusion in multiple areas so that way the Americans would be delayed in getting an appropriate response in order to the thrust that would obviously make its way towards Washington D.C to defend it given its proximity to the landing zones. But there was a lynchpin in all of this, any American military forces coming up from the south, if they wanted an expedited path would have to go through Fredericksburg. Hence the 4th Black Guards Motorized Rifle Division had been given the task of securing the town then serving as a roadblock.
It was an assignment that was considered by the men of the unit to be a suicide mission. It was a sentiment that Pyorta agreed with, but in many ways this operation was vital to the success of the invasion. If they weren't there, then the Americans could easily push their forces out of Washington D.C and Baltimore then drive a spike into the landing zones. That didn't mean that he didn't like it.
But he had made it clear to his men that if they were going to be fighting this war, while it was one of vengeance, they were going to fight it professionally as proper soldiers. The people of Russia may have been rallied for this war but he was a professional soldier, someone who would fight for his country. He wasn't going to take innocent lives just because he was driving a 60-tonne monster.
Although, privately, Pyorta was concerned about how civilians would react around his tank. Even with all of the features of the armored capsule his crew would be sitting in, visibility still wasn't the best and thus his worry was that civilians would do things that were rather stupid. All he knew was that they could end up running over some dumb civilian who decided to back their car out in a mad panic to evacuate out in front of his tank. Sixty-tonne tank versus some car that weighed maybe a ton, the car would be an ant, his tank a boot.
"Comrade Lieutenant," a voice said from beside his tank. Pyorta pulled himself out of the cupola and being mindful of the 152mm 2A83 main gun shimmed his way over across the top of the hull and over to the side of the tank where he had heard the voice. When he got there, he saw Private Mikita Harecki, the Senior Driver-Mechanic for his tank platoon.
"Yes, Comrade Harecki, what is it?" he asked, Harecki was of Slavic descent and overall looked like a typical Slav, he was fairly skinny, but that skinness hid the fact that he was quite strong.
"Our Ogre is ready for deployment, I just finished checking the anti-aircraft guns and their radar sight. We're good to go." Harecki said with a smile and Pyorta had to admit, that was good news.
"Good to hear, status of the other tanks in the platoon?" Pyorta asked, they were probably just a few minutes away from landing now.
"All good sir, we checked and rechecked the boresight on their weapons. Tank three needed to have its main gun re-boresighted again, I swear I've never met a machine that's more temperamental then that one when it comes to its main gun." Harecki said and Pyorta had to agree, that particular T-95 was certainly temperamental but it needed to be done.
Suddenly the dim lighting of the cargo compartment was replaced by angry crimson lighting. He raised his voice in response. "MAN YOUR TANKS!" he shouted before working his way back to the commander's cupola and sitting himself down in the seat. He heard bangs on the roof of the hull as Harecki also climbed onto the tank and worked his way into his cupola a moment later.
"Don't start the engine yet." Pyorta ordered Harecki as he closed his cupola with a bang.
"Got it boss." Harecki replied as more noise echoed through the hull and then the gunner-operator, Private Janka Motyl slid down into the armored capsule.
"Can't wait to get going," Janka said and the commander nodded. If anything he was feeling the same way, he was extremely nervous to get going and actually get the operation under way. To help calm his nerves, he went over what the Division had at its disposal in terms of formations. To put it bluntly, there was a reason why NATO feared Russian formations, there MRD had three Motorized Regiments, a Tank Regiment, an Artillery Regiment, and a SAM Regiment. This didn't even go into the organic support that all of the tank and motor rifle battalions had, nor the fact that they had a MAZ-660 Command Vehicle which came with its own escort of infantry in BMPs.
Indeed, once they got dug in at Fredericksburg, it would take a concerted effort to dislodge them. Which was honestly a good thing all things considered. Still, this didn't go into the fact that given their position, they would probably rather quickly find themselves on the wrong end of probably at least one division of Americans. Maybe more to be honest, just because of how strategic a position they would be in.
Not an easy job to be sure, but one that needed to be done. "Should I load a shell sir?" Janka asked as he looked up from where he was tinkering with the radar gunsight for the tank.
Pyorta shook his head. "Not until we land, I don't want to shift the weight of the tank even slightly."
The massive aircraft lurched and began to slowly sink downwards towards the ground below. He knew that they were going to be landing near Fairway Beach Maryland. Which meant that there were plenty of civilians that they needed to be careful about. He had to admit though, he was curious as to why they weren't landing at Dahlgren, but he figured that it was one of the primary spots for VDV landing.
Regardless, it felt weird that this operation had gone ahead, keeping any sort of invasion force in the United States supplied was nearly infeasible without their immense Be-2500s and he knew that once the Americans had figured that out. They would start targeting the extremely vulnerable aircraft, unless a sort of safe corridor could be established, but there was also an inherent problem with that. Once they got within a certain distance of cities, the Americans couldn't engage them. After all, bringing down the largest aircraft in the world into a population center would be simply catastrophic, it would result in an inferno that would be near impossible to control without a lot of firefighters.
The pitch of the engines changed considerably. They were now landing, they had to be. He knew how weird it would look, Be-2500s didn't flare on the landing, it was far too large for it. Instead the aircraft would seem to float to the ground, almost as if it was levitating downwards like a magic carpet. Then came landing, the pilot wasn't particularly graceful, the plane landed with an audible whump and a harsh jerking motion.
The engines growled and he could feel the aircraft swinging around and beginning to come to the beach so it could offload its lethal cargo. Some minutes later, there was a lurch as the huge aircraft drove its way up onto the beach as with a reverberating whine the engines slowly wound down. Then there was a clank and the huge nose began to open, the evening daylight began to pour through the nose.
"Driver, crank it!" Pyorta ordered sharply and the 60-tonne monster came to life, its 2,500-horsepower V12 diesel engine bellowing its fury like an enraged bull. "Gunner, toggle HEAT."
Behind them, the autoloader rattled as it slotted the massive round into the breach which clanked shut. "Gun Ready."
The Company Commander raised his left arm and then made a sweeping forward motion. Engines howled and the Captain's tank lurched into motion, bluish-grey exhaust billowing from the exhaust as the tank lumbered forwards its tracks clattering loudly on the metal floor of the Be-2500. He knew protocol and he counted to five in his head.
"Driver advance!" Pyorta commanded and the huge tank lurched into motion, the tank seemingly shaking with the howling roar of the diesel engine that powered the T-100 came into life. Its advanced suspension makes the ride at the very least comfortable as its tracks clatter loudly upon the metal floor. It burst from the shadows of the landing bay and into the bright afternoon sun, its paint glittering. The tracks clatter and kick up a rooster tail of gravel as it grinds off the breach and starts carving deep ruts into the ground as the tank ground forth.
The rest of the two companies quickly followed in their wake, the suspension easily conquering the difficult terrain and then they came up onto a cul-de-sac and the clattering of the tracks shifted in tone and became harsher as the tracks began abusing tarmac. As they did so, they passed startled construction workers who had been building houses who were obviously wondering what the hell these things were. For once it actually brought a smile to Pyorta's face, it never got old seeing how civilians react to enormous tanks grinding down the street.
Pyorta laughed when a couple of them pulled out their phones, probably taking pictures. It was honestly amusing. His tank continued rumbling down the street. Slowly making a turn as it did so, up ahead he could see an intersection. The tank in front of him turned, the tracks on one side grinding faster than the other. "Driver, right stick at the intersection."
"Got it boss." Harceki replied to the order.
The majority of the journey after that was surprisingly quiet as they swept through the trees towards Virginia State Road 218. Then the Company Commander came on the freq. "We've been ordered to hold here. We're waiting for the Motorized Rifle formations to unload."
Lovely, they had to wait while the rest of the Division unloaded. God only knew how long that would take. Sighing, Pyorta pulled out a pack of cards, as he did so Janka turned to look at him. "How long do you think we'll be deployed sir?" the gunner asked.
Pyorta honestly didn't know. If he was to gander, if they didn't die, their deployment would probably end once the Northeast was almost fully secured. That is, if they succeeded in securing the Northeast, so who knew when that would be. Probably a couple of months from now to be honest. "Provided we don't die on our suicide mission? Probably a few months from now, but until then, guess we're going to be the victims of hurry up and wait."
Janka groaned, everyone no matter the military when on the offensive hated having to experience hurry up and wait. You'd rush to some point and then you had to wait for something to occur and then rush to the next point. They didn't really have this during the Great Patriotic War to his knowledge, of course back then generals also liked to be more on the frontline and not in the backlines. Of course, those generals also didn't have access to the tools that they had now.
Pyorta pulled out a pack of cards from his pocket and began to play solitaire. It was calming in a way and helped the time pass.
"Sir, I've heard that the VDV are out for revenge and killing civilians whenever they get the chance due to the massacre. What should we do?" Janka said after a couple of moments.
He paused to consider his choices, none of them were any good. Mostly because what could they do? He decided that if they saw any VDV doing anything unjust, they would give them a warning and if they didn't comply, well, accidents did occasionally happen on the battlefield. Still, he didn't like the idea of petty revenge. He keyed the short-ranged tactical radio and informed his platoon.
"I am going to make this clear right now, civilians are off limits as a target. If any of you engage civilians on purpose without provocation or explicit orders from me, I'll have you shot." Pyorta said sharply, making his intentions clear over how they were going to persecute this war.
Indeed, he was going to be professional and not let his anger over the massacre that had happened a year ago, the root cause of this war, go to his head. Like it had for almost everyone else. He was angry, sure, but it just wasn't right taking it out on people who in no way were responsible for it.
The radio buzzed as replies came through, he allowed himself to smile as everyone agreed. Though he could tell that at least one man wasn't happy with the decision, Senior Sergeant Bahdan Lyakh. But then again, Pyorta remembered, Bahdan had lost family in the massacre, however, that didn't justify killing helpless civilians.
"Comrade Lieutenant, I have to ask, how long do you think we will have to dig in before the Capitalists arrive?" Harceki asked cautiously.
Pyorta thought that over, he honestly didn't know. But he figured that the Americans were likely running around like a chicken with its head cut off. But they would get their act together, thus they would react eventually. "Probably at least a few days. Depending on how the Americans were arranged in their deployments before we arrived, if we're extremely unlucky, they could be on us like a crybaby on eye candy."
Harceki gave him a flat look. "I don't really like the thought of that." he said flatly.
Pyorta snorted. "To be frank, neither do I. But you know what, we're just going to have to live with it." he said, being rather truthful with himself and his men.
August 13, 2016
1645 Hours
Private Yuvelev Aleksandr (Sasha) Igorevich
4th Black Guards Motorized Rifle Division, 1st Motorized Rifle Regiment
The roar from the engine of the T-12 Heavy Infantry Fighting Vehicle was all consuming as it ground forwards, its tracks clattering on pavement. Private Aleksandr "Sasha" Igorevich clutched his massive PKP General Purpose Machine Gun tightly. He had light skin, a mop of strawberry blonde hair, and black eyes that at this moment were full of nervousness and fear.
He hadn't lost anyone at the massacre last year, but entire families had been exterminated. His blood was boiling for a fight and he knew that the Americans would provide. But he just wondered when said fight would come. He hoped it would be at their objective that they were supposed to hold.
The reasoning for it was that the town was the site of a battle back during the American Civil War. Once again, that town would be ripped apart by war and who knows, if they were lucky. They might force a unit to surrender there, now that would be lovely irony, since that was close to where the Confederacy had surrendered to the Union.
He shook that feeling off, he was supposed to be a professional soldier dammit. He swept his gaze around the troop compartment at the seven other men who were in here. There weapons were AK-109s, one of which had a GP-30, his PKP, and an RPG-29. All in all, it was a hellish amount of firepower, the new AK-109s were more accurate and lethal than the AK-74s. This didn't even go into the lethality of the PKP.
Regardless, there was a small part of Aleksandr that felt like they didn't belong on American soil. That they should be waging a more conventional war against them using Tu-160s and Cyberwarfare. But the Premier had made his decision and now the sons of the motherland were unleashed, they would attack the Americans with a fury that hadn't been seen in centuries.
He was just excited to be part of it, but to be frank he wasn't too keen on his chances of survival. The United States Armed Forces was some of the best equipped and trained military forces in the world. They even had fully autonomous Unmanned Ground Combat Vehicles for crying out loud, vehicles that came with miniguns and ATGMs or Hydra Rockets.
This wasn't even going into everything else that they had. Regardless, he had his marching orders and thus he would fight here in the United States. But he didn't like it, he was over five thousand kilometres away from home. It just wasn't fair that he was fighting in the United States. He was a soldier and meant to give victory to the Motherland, but he had always assumed that would occur in Europe, not here.
But it still didn't feel right.
The Armata lurched and turned, the HIFV swinging its considerable bulk around as it turned. "Something wrong Sasha? You're looking rather down." A rifleman, Private Mirokhin Pavel Nikolayevich asked.
Aleksandr shook his head. "Just feeling a bit put out by this. I mean, if you know anything about Americans, we're going to be dealing with partisan groups all over the place once things settle down."
Pavel grimaced noticeably. "No shit, I do have to admit, what the hell were the Brass thinking when they authorized this? They do realize that there are more civilian owned firearms in the United States than there are actually Americans?"
Yeah...that was one of things that was true about the United States. When it came to gun laws, they were a bit more liberal and thus you could literally own military grade weapons. Throw in that local police were often surprisingly well armed and new areas like the back of their hands… you had the perfect recipe for Partisans. Lots of Partisans. Lovely. Just fantastic. Even if they were successful, this was probably going to turn into Afghanistan 2.0 for Russia.
Which meant they needed to hit them hard and fast if they wanted a chance at winning. But given that they were striking the homeland, this was unlikely. Thus they would likely have to go through the mother of all slogs. This was going to be painful.
"Yeah well, the Brass were blinded by anger and rage at the massacre. I mean, it makes no sense whatsoever. We all know what America's stance on terrorists are, I think that for once the conspiracy theorists were actually right. The reason we found a dead American who was confirmed to have taken part in it was that he infiltrated the group, got found out, and was shot dead at the end to catalyze a war allowing the perpetrators to escape without worry. Now we're going to be facing the consequences of that, God, I hope that I can see my parents again when this is all over." Aleksandr grumped angrily, that one Capitalist song, Requiem for a Soldier about how young men fight old men's wars was proving once again to be prophetic.
Pavel nodded grimly as the Sergeant shot us a look but said nothing. It just didn't feel right doing this. "I know, thus in the areas we secure, we have to work on getting civilians on our side. Otherwise we're going to have no end of misery." the other man said.
Aleksandr had to coincide with that point, but that was going to be difficult to say the least. Americans could be a truly unruly lot to deal with, let alone win over and just about everyone knew how Americans reacted to attacks on their soil. Pearl Harbor and 9/11 were both proof of that. But outright invading?
Aleksandr was confident that the brass had more than likely signed Russia's Death Warrant, the Americans likely wouldn't stop until an American Flag was flying from the Kremlin. "Agreed, but that's going to be difficult at best." the Sergeant added suddenly.
He had to agree with the man. It was highly unlikely that the Americans would welcome their presence. Which meant that they had a long difficult war ahead of them.
The T-12 lurched as it came around again, the engine howling as it did so as its tracks clattered on pavement as the forty-eight tonne machine came around. He knew deep down that this was easily one of the best protected IFVs on the planet, but even so he was jumpy. He'd seen everyone inside in a BMP-3 get cooked in a can by a single well placed RPG, this vehicle supposedly didn't have those problems. But that didn't mean that he didn't get jumpy just because there were no rebels running around with RPGs.
Yet.
"Comrade Sergeant? Where are we going to be along the defensive line at our objective?" Pavel asked.
Aleksandr was curious as to that as well, he had a feeling though that he wasn't going to like this one bit. Of course, this area wasn't really good tank country or well, good terrain for even something like the T-12 or the BTR-112s. They would have to rely upon infantry screens and even then in heavily wooded terrain, it would be all too easy to be ambushed.
The sergeant answered after a moment, having been apparent. "I don't know, for all we know we could be placed on tripwire duty near Thornburg." he said with a cringe.
Aleksandr sympathized, against the Americans, being placed on tripwire duty was probably the closest thing to suicide that one could be assigned to. But to their superiors, lives were currency, to be expended wisely. He had learned that much bitterly back during the Civil War. But in this terrain, an advancing formation could easily be hidden by the trees and thus would be more or less invisible to aerial observation unless you were using Thermals and even then that could be iffy. Thus they had to use older methods of finding the enemy.
Tripwire units and footslogging recon. In this area at least, the war was going to be fought in a more old fashioned manner. "I hate tripwire duty, if being in blocking position wasn't suicide then tripwire duty certainly is." Aleksandr said and nods went around the passenger compartment.
Their commanders treated them like currency to be spent. He hated the fact that his life was to be spent that way. But that was something he had to deal with.
"Don't worry Sasha, I got your back." Pavel said and Alexsandr smiled at his friend, it was good to know that he did have his back. After all, without him he probably wouldn't have survived a couple of battles.
Something began drumming on the armor of the Armata, it was faint but noticeable. He heard the Commander barking out orders, followed by the Gunner saying something about "Optimistic", then the autocannon opened fire, right above their heads. The 57mm weapon slammed out shots at a constant pace, causing the HIFV to shake.
A moment later there was another report, a hellish roaring crash that made the air inside the T-12 seemingly shake followed by a massive explosion. Alexsandr winced in sympathy. That couldn't have been fun for whoever had tried to more than likely block their way. An autocannon was one thing, the 152mm smoothbore high-velocity gun on the T-95 was an entirely different beast and it basically fired an artillery shell. Actually, that gun could fire artillery shells.
"Poor bastards." The sergeant said as the T-12 lurched back into motion, the echoing of its tracks clattering on pavement ringing through the troop compartment.
Alexsandr had to agree, a T-95 firing its main gun at any sort of infantry was hilarious overkill, actually that was true for shooting that gun at literally anything. He figured that they had just fired it at some over optimistic police who probably had made a barricade and weren't expecting well… T-95s and T-12s, a little bit out of their weight division.
"Look on the bright side, if we're assigned to tripwire duty. We're going to get at least some of the T-95s to work with." Pavel said and Alexsandr had to admit, the idea of actually working the fearsome tanks was quite a nice idea.
Alexsandr sighed, he had wanted to become a tanker but he had washed out and ended up being a simple footslogger. But he had to admit that the T-95 was extremely lethal, probably one of the most lethal tanks there was in existence right now. Its gun was simply phenomenal when it came to firepower, capable of gutting even the vaunted Challenger 2's armor at extreme range with ease. In fact that gun had so much range and power that the rangefinder wasn't laser based but radar based.
Shaking his head at the thought of being able to actually pull the trigger on that immense gun in order to smite opponents at incredibly long distances. He thought that he heard some faint talking in the crew compartment ahead.
"True, it's just I don't like our odds of facing the Capitalists when air support is likely to be a question mark for us and their air force is likely to be all over us." Aleksandr admitted.
The sergeant snorted and laughed. "I wouldn't be surprised if the brass decided to set up a S-400 somewhere in the Delmarva Peninsula. If they have then we don't have to worry about capitalist air power."
That was a happy thought, an S-400 in the Delmarva Peninsula would be a major problem for the Capitalists and while it would be the target for their feared Drakes. Not much could survive in the air space it controlled for long, thus just the mere idea that a monster like that was in the area… it was damn good news. Since it meant that they couldn't get royally screwed over by American A-10s, one of the two dedicated CAS aircraft in American service.
August 13th, 2016
1750 Hours
Captain Khlebnikov Nil Olegovich
10th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 2nd Guards Fighter Aviation Battalion, 28th Guards Composite Aviation Regiment, 3rd Guards Fighter Aviation Division
With a thunk, the landing gear of the Sukhoi Su-52, or as NATO called them, Fandance-F, locked into the down position. The long stretch of the captured Bangor Air National Guard's Runway 15/33 was nearly three and half kilometres of asphalt that was firmly under friendly control as was much of the surrounding countryside.
Nil was still rather against this invasion, but his unit had been sent overseas and thus against his wishes, he was someplace in Maine. But he had to admit, it had been a relatively busy day and as much as he hated to say it, a good day. In fact, he had made the outstanding achievement of making double ace in a day, ten aerial victories along with at least one probable; with one of those being F-19 Morgans of the USAF's 113th Wing. He had to admit that he was grateful that he had decided to not take the external hardpoints, of which his fighter could mount eight.
Simply because, if he did, then he would be dead, a Morgan had jumped his squadron shortly after they had hit the Pentagon, braving the Patriots as they did so. It had nailed the ones with the external hardpoints mounted before they had even known it was there and it had required a combined effort from the survivors to kill the Morgan. Frankly, that aircraft should have killed his entire squadron.
With a jolt the landing gear of his fighter kissed the ground as his fighter slowed and he began to guide it towards the taxiway, he noticed that roughly a half dozen An-124s and a trio of An-225s dominated the ramp; unloading various things, mostly air defense equipment in the form of Buk-M3s and Panstirs although he did spot at least one Griffon Railgun System, but there was also construction equipment. It looked like they were planning to length the runway so that they could land Be-2500s here, not exactly what he would have done given their closeness to population.
If the Americans shot down a Be-2500 on final approach to Bangor and the 'Sky Whale' as many pilots called it crashed in the city. To say that the damage would be catastrophic was an understatement. Those things had so much fuel onboard that they could start such a massive fire that would need aerial tankers to control or you would just have to let it burn.
The ground crew began directing him to a hangar. It looked impressive enough and probably could stop small bunker busters. Once his fighter was parked, he was given the signal to power down, the rumble of the immensely powerful engines powering his fighter died away to nothing leaving only silence in its wake. The canopy popped open with a hiss as he disconnected his oxygen mask and undid his straps. Then he very gingerly got out, even with Fly-By-Light controls and a g-suit, being a fighter pilot was extremely grueling work.
"Welcome to Bangor, Comrade Captain!" A member of the ground crew greeted as his feet hit the asphalt.
"Thank you Comrade," Nil looked around, "quite an interesting place. How did the fighting go, Comrade Colonel?" he asked, finally getting a good look at the man's rank insignia and his beret. He was part of the VDV, a Regimental Commander from the looks of things.
"The enemy fought hard but we caught them completely by surprise so they couldn't mount much of a defense although they were determined in areas that they could and succeeded in destroying one of the tankers here. The civilian population of Bangor didn't put up much resistance, same with the police, though I've heard reports of Inner Circle dressed as VDV causing trouble along with some of the other formations." The Colonel, his name tag read Yenotin Ludomir, replied.
Nil nodded as he looked up at his fighter, the aircraft was painted in a three-tone camouflage of greys and whites. Emblazoned on the nose was the number '035'. "My squadron got jumped by a damn Morgan after we hit our primary objective, it got four of us before we knew it was there and it took three more of my fighters down before we managed to kill it. Even then, I am not sure we managed to truly kill it, just force it to run for its life."
"Dammit, well, this is going to be your new home for the foreseeable future. It's got full amenities and even better the control tower and radar still functions. These bunkers were stuff that we found on site, we believe that they might be for the new UCAVs that the USAF is employing to guard their AWACS and Tankers. Although there are none here, we think that the unit that was here hadn't been given its drones yet." Yenotin explained after noticing that he was looking around the bunker.
Nil nodded, the US military was considered by many to be at the forefront of AI development and the employment of autonomous unmanned combat vehicles. The UCAVs that these bunkers were designed for was just further proof of that. It also indicated that they were extremely expensive things that the USAF didn't want to get broken.
He heard the scream of engines and watched as another flight came in for landing, these were painted in a drab grey and judging from the sound of their engines and number of hardpoints, these were MiG-35s, the newest member in the Fulcrum family. That made him wonder what else was going to be placed here, he doubted that they would see much in the way of bombers here since it was way too close to the front.
Still, it was another sign that the Motherland was taking this war seriously if they were forward deploying Category A formations to this place. He sighed and began trudging his way towards the barracks. "Am I going back up tonight?" Nil asked, right now he just wanted to collapse in a nice bed and rest his aching body.
Yenotin shook his head. "Don't know yet, Comrade Captain, but I wouldn't be surprised."
That was actually good news, it meant that he could rest for a bit before having to go back up in the air for another sortie. "Thanks, I am going to try and get a little bit of sleep before I have to go back up."
In many ways, a quick hot shower and a quick meal was what a fighter pilot on the frontlines could consider to be the height of luxury. Still, after he was satisfied with that, he went and watched more aircraft come in to land. Most of them were variants of Su-30s, although he did spot some Category B Su-27s coming in for landing as well, in addition to them there were a lot of Fulcrums landing.
Sometime later another group of fighters caught his eyes in the gathering gloom. The lethal sleek shapes revealed themselves to be Felons; they had been designed as essentially cheaper versions of the hideously expensive Su-44 series. But it was hard to tell if they were being successful or not, regardless he wasn't surprised to see them at all.
The lethal fighters had a digital white, grey, and black paint scheme that wore the proud red star of the motherland. He sighed as the aircraft began taxiing off the runway as more aircraft, Su-34s by the look of them began taxiing onto the runway for another sortie. He looked at them and frowned, he had seen the network go crazy earlier when that blasted American Drake had gone live. So there was at least one of the blasted things operating, if it was still in the same general area as those Su-34s were going to, they wouldn't be coming home.
The engines of those aircraft spun until they were howling with raw power and they blasted down the runway, they quickly pulled up and were out of sight in a matter of moments.
Nil thought about the men in his squadron that had died already today. He'd lost half of his squadron in a matter of minutes, pulling some of the intense maneuvers he had ever pulled. It hadn't been an easy battle, but it had given him a new found respect for the EML that was standard on the Su-44 family, every member of its family save the carrier variant mounted two of the lethal weapons.
He shook his head and pushed those thoughts out of his head before turning on his heel and heading towards the barracks where he could actually get some rest before his next sortie. The barracks was about what one could expect for a military base. He climbed into an unclaimed bed and spent more time listening to the coming and going of aircraft and fell asleep.
But it seemed like he was asleep for naught but a few seconds before he was shaken awake. "Comrade Captain, wake up. Our squadron just got a sortie order." a man with Lieutenant's stripes said quickly. It took Nil a moment to place the voice to a face.
"Thanks for waking me Comrade Lieutenant Orlav." he stated as he groggily got out of bed, a quick check of his flight chronometer revealed he had about three hours of sleep and that night had well and truly fallen.
Lovely, this was going to be a night sortie, he normally loved flying at night, finding it so beautiful. Not tonight though, it was much harder to spot long range missiles streaking towards you at night if you didn't have an HMD with the proper software to highlight them. Plus night fighting made short-range missiles and SAMs that much more scary all things considered due to the fact that the glow from their engines blazed brilliantly through the night.
He grabbed a cup of coffee on the way to the briefing room. It was fresh and steaming, the smell helped to kickstart his mind, as did the burnt taste of the energy giving liquid. The briefing room that he walked into literally wouldn't have looked out of place back at the airbase his unit was normally based at back in Russia. He noted that the remaining pilots of his squadron were here as were the crews of a pair of Su-98s, Russia's newest strike fighter.
That drew a frown to his face, lovely they were going to be running an escort mission for strike aircraft that didn't have the best stealth characteristics, something that was sort of needed these days. This mission was going to be the epitome of stress because of that fact. He just hoped that this mission was worth it then and that it wasn't something that would result in a loss of lives.
He sat down, still sipping his coffee and waiting for the briefer to walk in. He had a feeling that this mission, while it would probably be stressful, was also going to be fun. Regardless, where could they be going? He couldn't think of any major targets within range that probably didn't already have Patriots guarding them to hell and back already.
"I wonder where we're going that requires Su-98s?" Orlav asked curiously to his left.
"I don't know, Comrade Lieutenant, but it must be pretty major." Nil replied, thinking about what could require the lethal aircraft and there ability to haul some major ordnance.
"There can't be many targets left that aren't heavily guarded right now and that are worth hitting." Orlav said and Nil had to agree, but then again he knew that some places would likely slip through the cracks. But he didn't know what those places could be.
The door opened and the briefer came in, a full Major. "Attention!" someone shouted and with a semi-synchronous thunder everyone came to their feet. The Major of the Aviation Battalion strode purposefully down the aisle between the rows of seats until he reached a podium at the front of the room and called "At ease."
Nil, along with everyone else, sat down and turned their attention to the man. The lights dimmed and a projector flicked on, a username and password were quickly entered then the view flicked over to a map displaying the North American continent. Most of it shone in an angry red, but there were portions that were in a soothing blue of friendly held territory.
"This is a priority strike, we're going to be hitting an area in Wisconsin." the Major began, the flicked over to an area near Green Bay. What the hell was in that area besides the port that could be a viable target?
"To be specific, the target is in Marinette. There is an American Shipyard that is producing their Small Surface Combatants, to be specific the Freedom class variant. Current intel places that there are a total of five ships there, two fitting out, one just launched, and two more under construction. This is a precision strike, the shipyard is surrounded by a small city. The ships are constructed indoors and then rolled out, the buildings themselves appear to be warehouses. Hence Kh-29s have been considered overkill for this mission," the Major looked at the Su-98 crews, "Gelb Team will be carrying four Kh-38s between them, at minimum your to destroy the slips, its believed that there is a NASAMS Two battery in the area so stay on your toes."
Nil filed that information away as he nodded in response. He'd already braved NASAMS today, in fact he'd watched them butcher their decoys, S-70s, with appalling ease and even then they had still managed to sling a few missiles there way when they were dropping on their target. The AMRAAM variant that they used was horrifically lethal and had managed to damage at least one aircraft in his squadron, which was probably how that blasted Morgan got vectored onto them.
"Furthermore, it's entirely likely that we'll see intervention from the Wisconsin Air National Guard; they were in the middle of transitioning over to the F-22A from the F-16. While they aren't as maneuverable as the F-22B, keep on your toes." the Major continued and Nil resisted the urge to groan. The Su-52 and F-22A were roughly comparable in terms of stealth, which meant any battle was more than likely going to be a dogfight in a telephone booth. At night, were visibility was low and the aircraft involved were wearing low visibility paint, he wouldn't be surprised they lost aircraft to collisions.
On the other hand, he felt really sorry for the poor sorry bastards flying F-16s, they weren't stealth by any stretch of the imagination and while they were dangerous thanks to their AMRAAMs. They could only use them if they detected them, the radar on the Raptor more than likely could detect a Su-52, though probably not enough to generate a radar lock, the radar on the Grand Raptor was another matter entirely.
"Grizli Team, your objective is to fly top cover for Gelb Team, keep Wisconsin ANG off their backs while they destroy the shipyard. As a further note, if any of the ships aren't destroyed by the Kh-38s, you have approval to hit them with your EMLs." the Major paused for a moment before adding. "Other than that, make sure you come home alive, clear?"
"Yes sir!" They all chorused.
"Good, dismissed!"
They all stood up and walked out of the briefing room, Nil had his helmet under his hand as he fast walked to the flight line. His Su-52 had already been pulled out of its hangar and was sitting on the ramp ready for its final check. All of the various hatches were open revealing its many armaments, the dual Gsh-30-1 cannons were located behind the cockpit like on the Su-27 series but the Su-52 had one on either side behind the cockpit, in the wing roots were the two EMLs, each had sixteen rounds that were thirty millimeters in diameter and the rough length of a 7.5-ounce soda can, then there was the missile bays.
Nil nodded as he inspected the wingroot bays, each one had two R-74M2s inside, the lethal little missiles had enormous off-bore capability and an impressive range. He didn't quite trust the ground crew and checked to make sure that each missile was properly secured and once he was satisfied, he continued his walkaround. He noted the discoloration on the engine nozzles, it was beginning to get pretty bad which meant that this bird would need an engine haul out soon. Then he looked at the centerline bays and found the expected R-77Ms, lethal active radar homing missiles with a range of nearly two hundred kilometres. After climbing the ladder, he checked the ventral bays and nodded at the R-77Ts that were sitting in the bays.
Then he got himself settled into the cockpit of his Su-52, after flicking a few switches, the weapon bays on his fighter clacked shut as the ground pulled the chocks which would allow his aircraft to move. He then engaged the starter turbine which in turn spun a gearbox that would allow all the pumps and such to start. The two massive Kuznetsov turbofans spun up to their idle speed and then he engaged them, with a shrieking whine that quickly turned into a thunderous earthshaking roar as the engines spoke with the voice of forty thousand pounds of thrust. As the sound of the engines was building he closed his canopy and the roar became manageable.
He whispered to himself in his native tongue after requesting permission to taxi and receiving it, releasing the brakes as he did so. [Though I am about to fly into the valley of death, I shall fear no evil, for I am carrying twelve thousand kilograms of fuck you.]
The fighter prowled across the taxiway as it swept towards the runway, the other members of Grizi Team following behind his fighter like ducklings. "Tower, Grizi Leader requesting permission for takeoff." Nil said as he swung his fighter onto the runway.
There was a pause. "Permission granted Grizi Leader," ATC then rattled off climbing instructions, "have a nice night."
"Affirmative Tower, Grizi Leader rolling." Nil said and advanced the throttles, the roar from the engines increased considerably and his Su-52 began to accelerate down the runway, picking up speed at an incredible rate until the aircraft auto-rotated and leaped into the sky. He shot through a thousand meters in mere seconds and continued climbing rapidly into the night sky.
Shortly afterwards other dagger-like aircraft streaked into the heavens, they formed up and began heading west with devastation enacting acts in mind.