Shanghaied - 2ACW

[James G]

118 – Pockets

Before the main attacking body of US Army North took the plunge into Arizona to continue their westwards offensive, elements of both the III & VII Corps moved to eliminate the last significant resistance inside New Mexico. The DAR Army had pulled much of what was left of the New Mexico Corps back out of that state yet there remained good portions of that once victorious force left behind. There were escape routes open for some of them should they be able to make the dash to the west. ARNORTH’s commander, Lt.–General Lambert, wanted to see that they didn’t make it out. Pockets of surrounded forces had already been formed from those who couldn’t get away but who hadn’t surrendered: Lambert wanted to see the tightening of existing ones and the creation of more. He wanted those trapped within the pockets to give up the fight too. Wiping them out, forcing their surrender when there were so few left able to fight, wasn’t desired. That would cost lives, those of both personnel with the US Armed Forces and the DAR Armed Forces as well, and he regarded such losses as being for nothing. Moreover, since he’d taken up his post as the senior commander of all ground forces setting out to liberate the West, Lambert had been made very much aware from SecDef Ferdinand back at the Pentagon – though Ferdinand was increasingly at Raven Rock instead due to fears over DAR targeting of the military leadership – of the wish back in DC for surrenders to occur. Those would be made much of in propaganda terms. Capturing equipment and supplies intact was also wanted and Lambert was fully onboard with all of that. Where he could surround and induce a pocket to surrender he would. Should those who refused to lay down their arms want to fight it out to the end, ARNORTH did give them all that they asked for though.

Elements of the 2nd Infantry Division in DAR service had failed to get out of New Mexico and fall back into Arizona. A good portion of one of that formation’s combat brigades as well as much of the combat support infrastructure had been forced into a retreat into the northwestern corner of New Mexico. They were north of Gallup and where Interstate-40 ran, and had moved onto Native American land. The Navajo Nation was the largest entity of its kind. Its autonomous territory straddled three of the states in the Four Corners area (they had no land within Colorado) with significant holdings within New Mexico. Relations between the Navajo and the Democratic American Republic had been strained from the outset. In many ways, they should have been natural allies. However, the Navajo – like so many tribal organisations in the West – hadn’t supported those in Las Vegas. Ties to the Republicans, President Mitchell especially, were new yet strong. The manner in which approaches came to them for support from Las Vegas was regarded as being one of contempt, as if there needed to be an acceptance of rule. There was no place for them within the DAR and a lot of that came about by the ‘state’s rights’ issue with how powerful the governors of the West were. The Navajo had land in Utah and faced the wrath of the illegal rule of Governor Clarke when they refused to do his bidding with regards to his ‘security concerns’. Protestations made got the Navajo nowhere and were returned with accusations that they were unsupportive of the DAR and instead loyal to the United States. Such a start in relations went down not very well at all for how things went afterwards. Without a military force or any real influence beyond their territory, the Navajo could do nothing overt to challenge what happened. There was contact made with their leader by US intelligence though and the Navajo in Arizona, where most of their land was located, was somewhere that secret operations were ran from: CIA officers and Green Berets used that area as a base of operations knowing they were among allies.

When bits of the DAR Army fell back onto Navajo land in New Mexico during their retreat, they found no support for them. No fuel was available nor anyone willing to co-operate so they could move easily through tribal land back to the west. Instead, active co-operation came from the Navajo leadership to assist with the US Army’s effort to pocket as many of those in retreat as possible. There was a serious and successful effort to see that DAR soldiers were caught in non-populated areas and that local people were evacuated far away from the edges of that. When a brigade of the 35th Infantry Division from the US VII Corps came forward to finish off surrounding their opponents and begin to pound them into submission, those United States forces had the full support of the locals. Artillery and air strikes were used against those who were trapped while infantry units kept them contained. There was no way out. A surrender came. At first it was one small pocket, then another before the largest group of trapped 2nd Infantry Division soldiers quit the war. They went into US custody while the locals looked out without having much damage done to their land. When more of the national guardsmen moved on across the state line into Arizona, they still had the support of the locals: there would be intelligence provided and no aid to the enemy from the Navajo in Arizona too.

Most of the 196th Infantry Brigade ended up pocketed to the east of Silver City. That unit was a training brigade before the creation of the DAR Armed Forces with elements spread through Pacific states and territories of the United States. From where the regime in Las Vegas had control, reservists out of the Pacific islands – Hawaii mostly – were called up for service and joined with the brigade when it went to California and then later into New Mexico. It had tanks and mechanised infantry assigned and had been quite the capable unit before US air power first ripped into it followed by the US Army too. When falling back across the Gila Wilderness, mutual contact was lost with the 189th Infantry Brigade (another training unit transformed into a combat force) and the 196th Infantry Brigade ended up being cut off. It was pocketed in the historic Fort Bayard Military Reservation. The soldiers serving within fought on. They came from Guam and the Northern Marinas as well as Hawaii with the addition of islanders from across the Pacific too who had previously served the United States and were recalled to uniform to fight for the DAR. Morale among them had been good ahead of seeing action further to the east, before they were hit as hard as they were by overwhelming fire power unleashed from a ‘safe’ distance towards them. Those who kept up with the retreat were worn down and in a sorry state when Texans with the 36th Infantry Division caught them in that trap. The 71st Airborne Brigade unleashed a night-time frontal attack the very moment their supporting artillery fire was lifted from forward positions. Shells burst in the rear while drones and armed helicopters swooped around but the Texans made that big attack. Lambert would hear about it afterwards and see to it that that didn’t happen again. He would be pleased with the results yet his orders had been bent, not broken per se, when it came to what was done: the divisional commander had decided that breaking the 196th Infantry Brigade meant an attack like that rather than continuing artillery. It all worked out though. The reservists folded. They couldn’t take any more of the punishment delivered from above, not when combined with that immediate ground attack. Not long after the attack started, the Texans were halted when a ceasefire was called. Most of the brigade command staff was dead and the previous Operations Officer, who’d taken over, saw no further need for any more deaths. He surrendered after an exchange of messages gave him assurance about the post-capture good treatment of his people.

National guardsmen from Hawaii and the Pacific islands were serving with the 29th Infantry Brigade as part of the DAR Army’s 40th Infantry Division. They were pushed aside and cut off from their parent division. When a mad dash, some would say reckless push forward, was made by part of the US III Corps’ 1st Cavalry Division to take the small town of Rodeo right up next to the Arizona state line, the 29th Infantry Brigade was effectively trapped behind the lines. Efforts were made to get the unit to surrender as more of the III Corps came forwards including more Texan national guardsmen. There was no way out for them, the propaganda messages came over hi-jacked radio channels, and Hawaii was back in the hands of the United States too. Against all expectations, the 29th Infantry Brigade broke through a thin line of those trying to pocket them and retreated back into Arizona to link up with what was left of the New Mexico Corps. It was quite the failing for ARNORTH to see that happen. Their escape was one which wasn’t made by a nearby non-combat DAR Army unit: the 224th Sustainment Brigade. California national guardsmen along with regular and reserve elements formed that large supply unit with a mish-mash of components who’d been supporting the 40th Infantry Division in battle. For the rest of that division, but those Hawaiians too, to leave the supply units behind was worse for the DAR cause than the loss of the combat units would have been. Those troops could have been replaced by freshly-created units which the DAR was almost ready to bring into battle yet the support forces were irreplaceable. State Route-80 became a ‘highway of death’ for trucks and trailers when first Gray Eagle drones and then Apache helicopter gunships closed it to leave so much of the 224th Sustainment Brigade stuck. There was no way through to the west for the brigade so the commander, Colonel Guillermo Cuarón Cacho, tried to go south. Hidalgo County lay just inside the border with Mexico, right in the very southwestern corner of New Mexico. It was rather empty and also dangerous for civilians at that time due to the complete destabilisation of the frontier. Alas, there was little progress made in the withdrawal. 1st Cavalry Division tanks were detached from their parent unit and assisted the Texans in smashing rearguard units. Those were non-combat troops tasked to do the impossible: stop a full-scale attack by the most capable bits of the US Army supporting combat experienced infantry.

Cuarón was a native Texan himself. He’d moved to California after completing his US Army service a few years beforehand and risen high within the Army National Guard out in California. He’d thrown his support in with the DAR, as so many in uniform out West had done at first, because he had believed it was the right thing to do faced with what he saw as the United States sliding towards fascism. Yet, fascism hadn’t happened in DC but rather, increasingly, in how those in power in Las Vegas were behaving. Before that tank attack came and then more Apaches arrived, Cuarón had been looking for a way out. He wanted to see no more bloodshed yet knew that most of his people were still committed to the cause because they didn’t share his outlook towards what was going on with the DAR leadership. Once they all witnessed their abandonment – something which looked deliberate but was in fact an accident –, Cuarón finally had enough of those with him who were willing to give in. they wouldn’t have blindly followed him into surrender due to politics but did agree to give in once it was clear that they had been routed. Any more fighting was just going to get many more people killed for no justifiable reason. The 72nd Infantry Brigade was in the process of pocketing the remains of the 224th Sustainment Brigade against the Mexican border when a ceasefire order came for them. Cuarón got a message out to the III Corps and arranged for his people to lay down their arms. For him, and those with him in the New Mexico desert, the war was over. Fighting for a lost cause had been something Cuarón had been unwilling to do any longer.

[gillan1220]

May 15, 2021 18:07:59 GMT James G said:

May 14, 2021 2:45:42 GMT gillan1220 said:

Makarov definitely knows how to take advantage of America tearing itself from within.

Yep, and he is causing chaos and division in Europe.

China too is gladly sitting it out. The President of China would say this: "We became a superpower overnight. Just look at those American savages across the sea fighting each other. At the end of the day, no one would challenge them mighty Middle Kingdom. Not even the Russian barbarians up north, the Japanese devils to the east, and those pesky Europeans further out west."

[James G]

May 16, 2021 3:06:17 GMT gillan1220 said:

May 15, 2021 18:07:59 GMT James G said:

Yep, and he is causing chaos and division in Europe.

China too is gladly sitting it out. The President of China would say this: "We became a superpower overnight. Just look at those American savages across the sea fighting each other. At the end of the day, no one would challenge them mighty Middle Kingdom. Not even the Russian barbarians up north, the Japanese devils to the east, and those pesky Europeans further out west."

Secure in their empire, knowing it will last forever now. They've taken the South China Sea fully and expanded influence elsewhere. The economy will be booming too. On teh diplomatic front, they'll be having 'fun' pointing out events in America.

[James G]

119 – Running riot

The early hours of February 18th witnessed forced entry made into Arizona by the US Army North. Long before the sun came up that late winter’s day, the US III & VII Corps crossed the state line from out over in New Mexico and took the plunge in their westwards offensive. Battles were fought with what New Mexico Corps elements the DAR Army had managed to pull out of that state yet there was also the bypassing of other bits in the darkness too. Getting into Arizona and trapping the enemy behind them was the task of ARNORTH, while also beginning the process of liberating Arizona too. Air power in DAR Air Force service had been battered in the preceding days when Operation Hammerhead had so thoroughly smashed it up while on the ground. There was still some activity yet that was limited and well handled by the US Tenth Air Force: few air-to-ground missions got through against those on the advance. Low-flying attack helicopters and armed drones were more of an issue but they were fewer in number than seen further east in what had once been the DAR-controlled New Mexico. Those were also challenged at a lower altitude. ARNORTH had many flights of their own Gray Eagles up carrying a full complement of eight air-to-air missiles – nothing for strikes against ground targets – and those missile platforms were used to keep the skies clear as best as possible.

Those serving with ARNORTH units sought to avoid any real fighting around populated areas. Most of the very eastern stretches of Arizona was empty with scattered towns clustered near the main roads and especially alongside the two freeways. Interstate-10 and I-40 were both due to be the main supply routes for the advance westwards though, all the way to the Pacific coast out in California, and so they needed to be secured. Small and medium-sized towns along their corridors were entered. In many cases, there were liberation scenes. Civil Affairs and PSYOPS soldiers were on-hand to aid that and also broadcast images out live across the United States – later into the Democratic American Republic too – were arriving troops were warmly welcomed. In Chambers & Holbrook in the northeast, Alpine & Clifton in the east and Safford & Wilcox in the southeast, there some wild scenes. It was all quite unexpected for those involved. ARNORTH units which went into Arizona had previously fought in both Colorado and New Mexico where they hadn’t really met anything like that. In the easternmost reaches of Arizona though, they were treated as liberators. Shortages of food and medicines, as well as loss of power and water, had effected those towns significantly. Blame for that had been apportioned to the Las Vegas regime from a region which had never been in support of the secessionists there nor in the big Arizona cities such as Phoenix and Tucson. Those hardships had been brought upon them by United States actions though. That wasn’t talked about. What was important was that very quickly behind their liberators, as the troops moved onwards, FEMA convoys arrived. By road and sometimes in helicopters too, there was aid brought for the civilian population. It wasn’t much to begin with and certainly didn’t solve everything but it was a start.

First in Holbrook and then later in the far bigger Douglas down in the southeast, American troops met with criminal gangs and there were exchanges of gunfire. In the first small town beside I-40, there was a quick fight with an unorganised armed militia who had allegiance to neither Las Vegas nor DC but rather themselves to be had. The larger Douglas was a border town with the lawless Agua Prieta across that frontier. 1st Cavalry Division elements engaged parts of the DAR’s 40th Infantry Division north of there and continued running riot as they tore into Arizona. However, a battalion-sized task force, supported by a significant contingent of military police & military intelligence soldiers, were sent towards Douglas due to confirmed reports of a bad situation there. The DAR had long lost control over the border and there had been major violence in the two towns once separated by a border wall before parts of that had been blown up. Some of the reports had seemed fanciful yet surveillance footage from above and then a Green Beret recon mission had confirmed what messages were intercepted over DAR communications links. Douglas was in the hands of a Mexican drug cartel who’d started doing what they had done to Agua Prieta in the south to the American town in the north. M-1A3s and M-2A4s reached the town first. The tanks had no one to fire on without causing major collateral damage but their presence was enough to cover the infantry coming out of the infantry fighting vehicles. Those Bradleys did fire their stubby 30mm cannons as they covered American soldiers regaining control of Douglas from well-armed yet badly-trained criminals. Both Mexican nationals and Americans too were in the employ of that cartel who had established a strong foothold in Douglas and had been terrorising those people who hadn’t fled. Some prisoners were taken but not that many. Armed with a wide variety of hand-held weapons, the mercenaries who foolishly tried to make a stand against the US Army died in their dozens. There had been almost a hundred of them in Douglas and a good number fled across the border. The tanks and infantry were denied permission to chase them but Apaches and Gray Eagles were subject to not as many restrictions. More liberal use of fire was allowed south of the border too. By the end of the day, the combat soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division would move on once Texan national guardsmen arrived to support those specialist soldiers who’d come into Douglas after the fighting had finished. The few prisoners taken were interrogated and intelligence material gathered up. Military policemen established law-and-order while a FEMA convoy arrived to begin assisting civilians.

Into Douglas, and also those other Arizona towns which had been liberated, there also went teams of US Government officials. What had been done in Colorado and New Mexico was repeated in Arizona. The Department of Justice had officials supported by FBI agents and US Marshals who moved in to establish themselves and the presence of the federal government. Active participants in the secessionist regime, rather than just unwilling co-operators, were sought out first. There weren’t many to find in those small places near the state line but the presence was established and would be expanded upon behind the front lines of the war as those moved forward. Getting a handle on the local security situation through sheriff's offices and police departments was important as well. Douglas was a situation which needed soldiers in number to do that but elsewhere there were standing law enforcement officials who’d stayed in their jobs when others hadn’t. Everyone of them was a suspect in the eyes of the DOJ for a potential later criminal case yet the vast majority were realised to have probably done nothing at all but serve their communities. Investigations opened while those people stayed in their roles. It was politicians who more interest was directed towards. Arizona had been one of the weakest links in the DAR with limited support for the secessionist regime, in particular outside of the metropolitan areas. Nonetheless, active traitors to the United States were still sought out. The Department of Homeland Security also had people moving into Arizona. In a general sense they were looking to do the same as the DOJ in making sure that in liberated areas those who had betrayed their country were punished for that. However, their activities were less overt and there would also be the forced disappearance of suspected important figures, be they law enforcement, politicians or other civilians, should it be believed that they had an intelligence value to be exploited. From out of Douglas, the DHS removed from military custody one of those wounded mercenaries. He was not who he claimed to be – an America citizen who’d immigrated half a dozen years back from Eastern Europe – and instead believed to be a Russian national. Off to a black site he went with those holding him wanting to know what exactly he was doing working for a drug cartel inside what had been DAR territory and pretending to be someone he wasn’t.


The VII Corps had fought in Colorado at the end of January 2029 and had been responsible for the isolating and then securing of Denver. They’d been transferred to New Mexico and had pushed westwards through tribal land and along the I-40 corridor. That same mission was undertaken inside Arizona where they engaged surviving parts of the 2nd Infantry Division as well as the 189th Infantry Brigade which had managed to escape from disaster across in New Mexico. Both the 1st & 29th Infantry Divisions had come south from Colorado – the 10th Mountain Division had stayed behind to fight in the Rockies – and they had the 35th Infantry Division following for mopping up behind them. Great success was had in Arizona by the VII Corps upon their entry. They ran riot, blasting anyone who stood in their way. DAR soldiers across territory owned by the Navajo Nation and then throughout the Painted Desert were made mincemeat of. It was an unfair fight. Big Red One tanks and mechanised infantry ranged far and wide. The national guardsmen, especially those serving with the 30th Armored Brigade, kept up with them. The skies were full of friendly cover to give those below them all that they needed to strike deep and successfully far into Arizona. Initial objectives were reached long ahead of time and the VII Corps kept on going until they were at the desert’s western side, where the Little Colorado River ran. Flagstaff was just beyond when the 1st Infantry Division came to a halt. Those national guardsmen from the Carolinas and West Virginia with the 30th Armored Brigade reached Winslow with the rest of their division playing catch up. Behind those forward positions, there were the shattered ruins of the DAR Army scattered and smashed up all over the place. The victory there in the northeast of Arizona had been quick and complete though there was a large cost in terms of lives lost.

The diversion taken by a small portion of the 1st Cavalry Division to secure Douglas didn’t take away from the main mission of that unit nor the rest of the III Corps in the southeast. Engaging bits of the 40th Infantry Division across open terrain and also along the I-10 corridor – ARNORTH-assigned 48th Infantry Division soldiers doing that –, the III Corps took almost all of their objectives during their first day inside Arizona. The San Pedro Valley was reached. That ran north-south through southern Arizona, right across the line of advance. California national guardsmen falling backwards towards where the I-10 ran over a bridge to cross the small San Pedro River below were left trapped when their own side dropped that and other bridges in the Benson area. With the III Corps pouring onwards, the order came to do that for the engineers involved despite friendly troops away to the east. ARNORTH had anticipated that they would need to establish their own crossings though were shocked to see the bridges downed so early. Advantage was taken and a good portion of the 40th Infantry Division engaged by Army National Guard units out of the Deep South forming the 48th Infantry Division: those from Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana & Mississippi. Once again, in all of that mess, the Hawaiians and those from Guam with the 29th Infantry Brigade managed to escape where other 40th Infantry Division units didn’t. Their luck was incredible! Both the 1st Cavalry Division and the 2nd Cavalry Regiment missed those fights along the I-10 corridor and stayed north of the Mexican border as they closed up upon the San Pedro Valley. Bisbee and the historic Tombstone were liberated in the early afternoon before that valley was reached and a halt was made there. Naco was a smaller place than Douglas yet also down on the border and where there was a presence of cartel mercenaries reported. A different detachment from the 1st Cavalry Division, an infantry company riding in Blackhawk helicopters, went there yet found the place almost abandoned. The border was secured along with the American town. Across in the Mexican town of the same name, a big fire had hold of most of their Naco. It was unknown what was the cause of that conflagration. The next mission for the 1st Cavalry Division was to later on move to take Fort Huachuca, with the large town of Sierra Vista next to that military post which had recently been hit so hard from the air.

One brigade was detached from the division, with the ‘Second Dragoons’ taking their place, and moved northwest to cross the San Pedro at St. David. The river was no real obstacle to them, not with mobile bridging equipment on-hand and a lot of air cover to ensure that it was uninterrupted. That same afternoon, the 155th Armored Brigade (Mississippi national guardsmen along with tankers from Kentucky in support), made their own crossing of the San Pedro north of Benson. Wolverine and Joint Assault Bridge vehicles were employed. Those were conversions of M-1 tanks with an AVLB fitted. Over the minor water barrier went tracked and then wheeled vehicles from both brigades. That national guardsmen and the regular soldiers from the Black Jack Brigade out of the 1st Cavalry Division formed themselves into Task Force Coyote. While everyone else in the III Corps – and the VII Corps too – came to a halt, TF Coyote was given the order to continue the advance. Their mission was to race towards Tucson. They were to charge hell for leather towards the southernmost reaches of that Arizona city to where the two big undamaged air facilities were located.

TF Coyote was to link up with the Rangers who’d grabbed control of Davis-Monthan AFB and Tucson International Airport in quite the daring coup de main.

[sandyman]

Great updates loving it

[James G]

May 17, 2021 16:44:36 GMT sandyman said:

Great updates loving it

Thank you, more to come.

[James G]

120 – Rangers lead the way

Delta Force made an attempt to snatch Kyle Harper when he was travelling through his home state and returning to Phoenix. Arizona’s governor was in a convoy of civilian vehicles on US Route-93 approaching Kingman in the western half of Arizona and on his way back from Las Vegas when those supporting the Tier One special operations unit made their move. The CIA had deemed the mission Operation Crossbow and it was theirs to lead. Delta and the US Army’s Intelligence Support Activity provided the majority of the manpower for the effort to get him into United States custody. Harper was willing to do that too. A defection from the Council of Twelve and his leadership position within the Democratic American Republic was something he was willing to go along with after a CIA mission had established contact with him. He wanted to help take his state out of that illegal country though his own safety was paramount to him: Arizona’s people came a distinct second. Unable to escape the watchful eyes of those guarding him for reputedly his own protection, agents of the Ministry for Public Safety, who had back-up from DAR Special Forces, the only way out was via a ‘rescue mission’. Back in DC, Admiral Miller at the Department of Homeland Security had argued that Harper was entirely untrustworthy and a better outcome would be for his death instead. That would have thrown Arizona’s political leadership into chaos, Miller had argued. Moreover, the DHS intelligence opinion was that Harper didn’t have anywhere near enough support to take Arizona out of the DAR. President Mitchell and others at the top of his administration in defence & national security roles didn’t agree with Miller on that note and Crossbow was given the green light.

It failed, miserably so… though not in Miller’s eyes.

Delta were unable to successfully get Harper into their custody. The ambush went wrong when conducted out on the highway linking Las Vegas to Kingman within the sparse Detrital Valley. A roadblock set up was spotted for the lie it was: the staged vehicle accident didn’t look real enough to those approaching. At once shouts came of ‘ambush’ from professionals and they prepared accordingly. Two ISA officers went down first in a fusillade of bullets with a CIA officer scrambling for his life under one of those stationary vehicles to avoid sharing their fate. Another trio of ISA personnel emerged from out of cover only to be at once engaged by well-aimed shots taken from moving vehicles by SEALs in the service of the DAR: they went down dead or injured. Return fire was given from an elevated position with the use of a pair of sniper rifles. Vehicle drivers of two of the four cars were meant to be killed by shots through reinforced windscreens. One of them was killed but Harper took the bullet meant for another. Arizona’s governor was killed by those supposed to be coming to save him. He was dead when the convoy ploughed onwards, minus one vehicle which soon flipped over, and even going off-road for a bit and tearing towards the Coyote Pass and Kingman beyond. It was only realised by Harper’s protective detail that he’d been shot once they were out of danger.

Behind them, the surviving CIA and ISA team broadcast an emergency abort mission to the Delta detachment waiting nearby. The convoy hadn’t been stopped and in fact the ambush had been detected ahead of it being sprung. Delta operators stayed hidden in waiting ATVs nearby while those who were able to get away from the ambush site struggled to reach their own transport. MV-22s would later pick everyone up from two separate sites, finding despondent passengers who knew that they had failed. Delta had done nothing wrong themselves but their mood was dark afterwards because the mission was a failure overall. As to Harper, it was confirmed he was dead when he arrived in an Emergency Room at a Kingman hospital. No one there could do anything to save him, no matter how important those who carried him in there said that he was. The gunshot trauma was extensive and the man was very much dead. Miller would hear about that ahead of the CIA and the Pentagon and be the one to deliver the news about Harper’s fate to the Mitchell Administration. He afterwards looked forwards to seeing the political vacuum in Arizona, one which he was sure of was happening while that important DAR state was being invaded by US Army North.


While Crossbow was a failure, there was only success met with a special forces operation elsewhere in Arizona. Those ground forces from the US VIII Corps sent racing towards Tucson were given the order to do that once it had become clear that the Rangers sent in first had secured their objectives. If the lead elements of 1/75 RANGER & 4/75 RANGER had failed to gain control of Davis-Monthan AFB and Tucson International Airport, their orders were to make a fighting retreat rather than make a foolish last stand. Yet, that pessimism about their chances which many had wasn’t warranted. The Rangers led the way in gaining an important foothold far ahead of where everyone else was and they took those two key air facilities, ones which had only been lightly damaged by recent US air attacks, with seeming ease. The airbase was seized by 4/75 RANGER: a combat unit taking the designation of a (renumbered) training unit back in 2025. Two platoon-sized detachments had parachuted into landing sites nearby then moved in on foot alongside Green Berets. They bluffed their way past those tasked to stop a ground attack and, once inside, struck outwards against the defenders on the edges. Once the control tower was in theirs hands and supporting Reaper drones were flying above as air support for them, the initial Ranger party were joined by the rest of their battalion who flew in aboard a trio of heavily-loaded MC-130s. The rest of the Rangers could have jumped but the cost was deemed too high and instead that daring airmobile assault was made. Surprised, overwhelmed and outfought DAR Air Force ground personnel were either eliminated or surrendered. They lost the airbase outside of Tucson along with control over the famous Boneyard too. 1/75 RANGER took the airport in a similar fashion. It wasn’t as easy for them getting in and there was almost a calling off with the incoming airlift of the rest of their battalion but their supporting Reapers flown by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment fired Griffin and Hellfire missiles to allow them to gain control. Still, one of the MC-130s was hit by a sustained heavy machine gun fire upon landing, causing it to crash to a stop. A Reaper took out that HMMWV firing its M2 and there was a hasty evacuation from the smashed up transport aircraft of crew and passengers when a fire started. Five aboard lost their lives though the butcher’s bill could have been far higher if that gunfire had came earlier than it did.

Back when he was a younger man, President Mitchell had served with the 75th Ranger Regiment himself. He’d made the famous jump undertaken by 3/75 RANGER into Afghanistan during October 2001 when the War on Terror got going and fought near Kandahar right at the beginning of that conflict. He’d later seen action elsewhere in Afghanistan and too in Iraq. Shrapnel from an IED blast in Baghdad in 2004 had put pay to his military career, sending him into politics after that: a war hero he’d long been portrayed as. He was a wounded vet. too with small pieces of metal next to his spine. Metal detectors at airports, then at the White House upon his assumption of the presidency, went off when he went through them. Removing the shrapnel was regarded by doctors as likely to do him serious damage, enough to maybe put him in a wheelchair. He was sometimes left in pain at the most inconvenient moments by his wounds. Such a personal history made Mitchell take a special interest when the Ranger Recon. Company went into Colorado Springs at the end of January and then during the Tucson operations in mid-February. The attention he paid to ‘his fellow Rangers’ was thought by some at the top of the government, over in the Pentagon especially, to be a bit over-the-top. Nonetheless, they did have a president who had served in the US Armed Forces and who wasn’t willing to sit on his behind and watch it being destroyed as President Walsh had done. Mitchell’s press people made mention of his war hero status and his love of the Rangers in off-the-record comments a lot. The was presented better to the public than it was to the reporters themselves yet there had been criticism from a couple of Democrats about how that was always brought up. What could be done though? It was red meat for so much of the media, a good story to bring in the ratings.

Technical hitches meant that Mitchell didn’t see the Rangers in action when he wished to witness the seizure of both locations on the outskirts of Tucson. The video feed was recovered though when the first friendly tanks arrived. Mississippi national guardsmen serving with 1/98 CAV, out ahead of the rest of the 155th Armored Brigade, reached Davis-Monthan to link up with the Rangers. Not long afterwards, at the nearby airport arrived more reinforcements when 1st Cavalry Division tanks from their Black Jack Brigade turned up. They got there as part of the US Army North rush to support the Rangers and defeat any DAR Army effort to retake each site. No serious effort was made though. There was no ground attack made because the DAR didn’t have the troops nor armour at hand to try that. Nearby, what was left of their 40th Infantry Division bypassed Tucson in their withdrawal westwards: the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment also didn’t rush towards the two captured airheads. The fear of an armoured counterattack had been behind the mission orders for the lead Ranger units to pull out if that happened and also why friendly tanks raced to get there. Only afterwards did those back in DC at the Pentagon understand that their enemies realised far too late what had gone on and were also too busy trying to salvage what they had left of an army in Arizona to have a go at the Rangers and what they held. Both of those airheads were soon utilised. More transport aircraft flew in and ground convoys would arrive. The US Tenth Air Force set about turning them into airbases for their own air power after they’d seized them from the DAR Air Force. Missile attacks did come though. Land-fired Tomahawks from out of California struck Davis-Monthan hard – less so the airport – and there was a marked failure from US Army SM-6 air defence missiles to intercept them. It was a targeting issue with the software which caused that inability to down the cruise missiles. The Glow-worm computer virus was, as feared, spreading further throughout the very best equipment available to the US Armed Forces.

[James G]

Next update: a defector comes over with goodies. But can he be trusted?

[gillan1220]

I'm just wondering when will Americans stop fighting and realize that the true threat to world peace is the People's Republic of China.

[sandyman]

I am sure that China will be scoping up everything it can I can picture Chinese operators crawling all over the West

[gillan1220]

May 18, 2021 14:44:06 GMT sandyman said:

I am sure that China will be scoping up everything it can I can picture Chinese operators crawling all over the West

MSS agents are already operating within the USA and the DAR.

[James G]

May 18, 2021 3:24:43 GMT gillan1220 said:

I'm just wondering when will Americans stop fighting and realize that the true threat to world peace is the People's Republic of China.

They'll finish when one side wins the political argument. All the death and destruction is taking a second place to being proved right.

May 18, 2021 14:44:06 GMT sandyman said:

I am sure that China will be scoping up everything it can I can picture Chinese operators crawling all over the West

Oh, they are busy. But so too are the Russians!

[James G]

121 – Source code

Project SPEEDWAGON paid off for the Defence Department. SecDef Ferdinand and the Joint Chiefs, including the Chair of that body General Dowd, approved an intelligence operation to get their hands upon a temporary solution to the Glow-worm computer virus which was causing havoc with the US Armed Forces’ missile targeting systems. They had the original source code, after that had been rung out of the National Security Agency, but wanted to get their hands on the modified version of which the Democratic American Republic had used themselves. With that, there was the intention to slow the virus down by knowing how it operated before ultimate reversal. The DAR’s own source code for Glow-worm would be made use of not to necessarily repair everything in time ahead of an expected successful conclusion against that illegal nation – doing that fast would be a bonus –, but so that the general rot was reversed and American could retain its global power status by having functioning global war-making capability. The SPEEDWAGON effort saw the Defence Intelligence Agency locate a deserter from the DAR Armed Forces, who had weeks beforehand defected to them from the US Space Force, up in Canada. There was cooperation with the Canadians in that endeavour including their permission to deal with him on their territory at first though with their over-watch. Ferdinand called the Minister of National Defence to smooth over difficulties which cropped up early on in the operation while the DIA worked with their Canadian counterparts on-site. The defector had made claims that he had been intimated involved in fine tuning the version employed to target the United States, and that was something supported by both documented proof and pre-gathered human intelligence. He said that upon his decision to flee from DAR service, he had taken with him a copy of Glow-worm. There was a description of how he evaded the security operation to do that and what he had. Taken to an isolated site just inside British Columbia, on Canadian soil, he showed both the Americans and Canadians who escorted him where they could find that hidden package. The DIA used a computer they had brought with them to investigate whether what they were being told was true. It was a ‘clean’ computer, one not connected to anything external and never having been used before. The defector’s promises were regarded as genuine. He was judged to have delivered what the Pentagon wanted. President Mitchell was brought in to smooth over the transfer of custody personally from the Canadian Army back to United States military control for that defector. The Prime Minister had to give her approval of that and have the decision signed off by her Cabinet. Out of Canada he went afterwards, following the USB stick which had gone on ahead. The defector was held at a secure site by the DIA where he explained his reasons for turning his back first on the United States and then the DIA afterwards. At the direction of the new Director of National Intelligence, Mitchell’s pick Anna Ellis, the CIA spoke with him too.

The National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security were left out of everything, not even given any hint about what was going on.

Stupid decisions had been made at the Pentagon since the Second American Civil War had started. Certain errors of judgement had been quite serious. However, they weren’t all idiots there at the Defence Department. Only a fool would take that USB stick and commence a full-scale system-wide upload straight away. That wasn’t done. Following on from the initial investigation done on the ground up in Canada of whether what the defector had given them, there were more tests done back in the United States. The idea that the whole matter was a clever trick by the DAR to do more damage was seriously considered and guarded against. Those tests were run through independent systems not allowing for there to be any break of the ‘air gap’ between those systems being used and the ones in wide-spread use. No hint came that there was any hidden, malicious being part of what had been handed over. At Ellis’ direction, the CIA were allowed to thoroughly go through everything that the DIA had and also talk extensively with the defector about his motives too. They found nothing to be suspicious of in him, his story nor what he brought over. Naturally, they covered their own behinds over at Langley and made sure that the pointed out repeatedly that that was a DIA operation and anything that went wrong was on them, not the CIA, yet they found nothing at all to justify that: they were just being careful about their own reputation. In addition, while the Canadians knew more than others, there was a partial sharing of the intelligence bundle with Five Eyes partners. Australia, Britain and New Zealand had been extensively cooperating with the United States and Canada over the matter of Glow-worm alongside other key matters of mutual concern. They were all asked to play their bit in helping to prove or disprove whether there was a hostile intelligence operation being run against the United States with that defector: the British also provided limited assistance looked at the apparent source code for the DAR-specific version of that weapon. Again, nothing was found to give any concern. Ferdinand – who spent most of his time at the Raven Rock facility rather than at the Pentagon – paced up and down the carpet of his spartan office below ground there in that nuclear bunker while he waited, and waited, for the word to come back that it was safe to try what had been brought to them. That was a long wait too!

Finally, the all clear was given. At that point the NSA was brought in. They created the weapon, one meant to be used against America’s adversaries and certainly not on home soil, and were given instructions through Ellis and Ferdinand to check it out themselves. The tweaks made were something that impressed the tech geeks from Fort Meade. That USB stick didn’t come onto their (bomb-damaged) complex to be stupidly plugged into their systems because, they like everyone else, were still wary of it. At an outside location, keeping the air gap intact so there was no direct physical interaction, confirmation was given by the NSA that there was nothing that they could find that there was anything sinister about what SPEEDWAGON had achieved. The Defence Department had found themselves a way out of the mess that they were in. Ferdinand briefed Mitchell and the National Security Council that soon enough, targeting systems for cruise missiles, as well as other long-range weapons including ABM defences, were going to be repaired. It would be no easy process, he assured them, but was something that could be done with enough time following the acquisition of a copy of the raw virus. Admiral Miller was at that meeting, in-person unlike the SecDef, and did what pretty much everyone expected in voicing extreme scepticism… which was why he wasn’t told until such a late stage. He reminded the president of the recent information regarding the appointment of Sarah Eaton by the Las Vegas regime to head up their new national intelligence agency out there in the West. She was ex-CIA and regarded as damn fine intelligence specialist with an extensive background in successful foreign operations duping the unweary of America’s enemies into shooting themselves in the foot. Miller asked for time for the DHS to look into the whole matter of the defector and what he had brought over: he wouldn’t accept all that he was hearing about nothing suspicious being found. Ellis, who’d been put in place by Mitchell to bring Miller’s activities under control, and who he had a personal feud with due to how the two of them operated in such different ways, convinced the president to limit what the DHS could see and do as well as cause no delay. Miller was furious at that yet bit his tongue – unusual for him – because he regarded the stakes as too high even for his own personal feelings there about what Ellis was up to. He urged the president to wait, to give the DHS time to check everything out. Nothing which he heard sat right with him and he wanted to dig even deeper than the DIA, the CIA, overseas allies like MI-6 and also the NSA had too.

The 50th President refused.

The following day, the supposed fix to Glow-worm went live. Far away in distant Las Vegas, Eaton heard about all that had gone on through a complicated – and only partially complete – intelligence pipeline which ran to the Pentagon through people there whose loyalties to the DAR hadn’t been uncovered. What she heard made her stop pacing about in her own office. She went as far as letting out a little cheer, causing her secretary to look up in momentarily surprise upon discovering that Eaton actually had a bit of personality about her. Without telling him what it was all about, she stood over his desk at the new headquarters for the Directorate of State Intelligence and said to him that ‘the idiots fell for it’. Glow-worm was given a booster shot, not something that would kill it. The mistake made by the desperate Defence Department was catastrophic.

[gillan1220]

I was reading this comic called The Recount where in a terrorist group called The Masses calls for the American public to rise up against the politicians in D.C. It kind off reminds me of Cordis Die from Call of Duty: Black Ops II. If you read the comic, it is an eerie parallel to the Years of Lead.

[James G]

May 19, 2021 2:00:16 GMT gillan1220 said:

I was reading this comic called The Recount where in a terrorist group called The Masses calls for the American public to rise up against the politicians in D.C. It kind off reminds me of Cordis Die from Call of Duty: Black Ops II. If you read the comic, it is an eerie parallel to the Years of Lead.

A lot of people have predicted Years of Lead / Troubles type scenarios. With hope, all of that is just speculation and will never happen outside of fiction such as that and this.