Battlefield China

Chapter 7 Rangers Away

The drone of the jet engine on the C-17 Globemaster threatened to lull Sergeant First Class Conrad Price to sleep. He glanced around at the men of Third Platoon, faces painted, parachutes on, weapons and packs ready for their fourth combat jump of the war. He imagined that there were probably some guys from the other battalions who had gotten jealous of the amount of combat his battalion had gotten to see.

“Maybe they’re the lucky ones,” he thought. Then his mind went back to the handful of guys he’d had to pull from the platoon until they could get their minds and emotions back under control.

“Five mikes!” shouted the jumpmaster.

Price looked out the open side door. It was still dark — a good thing for this jump. It would be dawn in an hour. Hopefully, they’d have the objectives secured by then and the cavalry would be on the way to relieve them.

“Sixty seconds!”

“Lord, keep me and my men safe on this jump,” Price prayed silently. It was not uncommon for even the less-than-devout to speak to God before taking a leap into a freefall.

The first Ranger jumped out the door, quickly followed by the man behind him. The line of paratroopers on each side of the plane steadily made their exit to the black abyss below. Seconds later, Price was out the door, his static line yanking him hard as his main chute deployed, stopping his descent with a hard snap.

Looking below him at the city below, he spotted a few lights on, but overall, the dwellers below appeared to be asleep. Then, after a moment of drifting in silence, the sound of an air raid siren sent a shiver down Price’s spine. The defenders would all be awake now and anticipating an imminent attack.

“Come on, only sixty more seconds and I’ll be on the ground,” he said, trying to pump himself up and not expecting anyone else to hear him.

Bang, bang, bang, ratatat, ratatat!

Green tracers reached out into the night sky and a handful of floodlights turned on, illuminating targets for the antiaircraft guns to pick off.

“Thirty seconds and I’ll be on the ground,” Price thought, unconsciously crossing his fingers.

Just as Sergeant Price was starting to have a genuine glimmer of hope at his chances of making it to the ground, a search light suddenly popped on just below him. Without thinking, he immediately reached down, grabbed his Sig Sauer and fired at the light. He shot six times before the fixture suddenly sparked and blew out.

Unfortunately, although the threat of the light had been neutralized, the noise of his gunfire had given him away. A stream of green tracers reached out as if trying to grab him with monster’s fingers, and he heard the bullets from the machine gun whizzing in the air. Using the navigation cords on his chute, Price pulled himself into a tight turn.

A string of rounds tore through his canopy, riddling it with holes. Price got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach; he was still about a hundred feet from the ground. He did his best to recover control of the rapidly failing chute, hoping not to slam into the ground. A second later, he landed hard and rolled to one side, unable to stop until he’d made two full revolutions.

Zip, zap, zip, zap.

Bullets kicked up dirt and rocks all around him. He fought to disconnect his chute and dashed behind a nearby parked car.

“Where the hell am I?” he thought.

Price unzipped his rifle case, which was still strapped to the side of his individual body armor. With his rifle free, he pulled out a fresh magazine and slapped it in place, charging the bolt and placing a round in the chamber.

Bullets suddenly tore into the vehicle that had been shielding him. Shards of glass rained down on him, along with flecks of metal debris. When the deluge paused momentarily, he looked up over the rim of the vehicle’s busted window. With his night vision goggles still on from the jump, he could see three enemy soldiers, one of whom was still pointing in his direction. The other two seemed to have turned their attention to the paratroopers still falling from the sky.

Price switched his selector switch to auto and brought his rifle up to his shoulder. He took aim at the guy manning the machine gun and depressed the trigger just long enough to release a three-round burst. In fractions of a second, his mind had willed his body to move the rifle to the remaining two guys, lighting them both up. Before the enemy even had a chance to realize what was happening, Price had dispensed with them.

Searching his immediate surroundings, he didn’t see anyone else posing an immediate threat, so he moved forward to grab his ruck. He heard other voices nearby but quickly determined they were fellow Rangers and called out to them. Minutes later, three other paratroopers joined him.

“We thought they got you, Sergeant Price,” one of his squad leaders said.

Price shook his head, and then, in a voice that was almost cocky, he answered, “It’s going to take a lot more than that to kill me.”

They chuckled.

“Where’s the rest of the platoon?” he inquired. They needed to start forming up and moving to secure their objectives. There was only so much time left before dawn, and their job would get a lot harder once the sun was up. Night vision still gave them an advantage, and they had every intention of using it.

Boom, BOOM!

An explosion blasted nearby, and they all flinched. More machine-gun fire rattled, and someone shouted over in its vicinity.

“Let’s head in that direction,” Price said, pointing toward a growing fireball.

Price and the handful of soldiers he’d run into thus far made their way toward some of the heavier fighting taking place near the railyard. In minutes, their little group had rounded up another five friendly soldiers. When they reached the outer edge of the train station, they saw a ZBL-08 Snow Leopard firing away on a cluster of Rangers pinned down on the other side of the trainyard. A handful of PLA soldiers were nearby, adding their own volume of fire at the US soldiers as they looked to flank them.

Price turned to one of his squad leaders. “Have your two antitank troopers try to take that vehicle out,” he ordered. “When that’s blown up, we can advance from two different angles and take out the remaining enemy soldiers.”

The squad leader nodded, and the soldiers quickly went to work, getting themselves in position to execute.

One of the soldiers, who had been carrying a Javelin, made the antitank missile ready. Another soldier with a Javelin stood nearby, waiting to engage any other armored vehicles that might appear. The soldiers signaled to each other that they were ready.

Pop, swoosh.

The missile leapt out of its case and flew the three hundred meters in seconds, slamming into the side of the ZBL-08 Snow Leopard.

Boom!

Sparks and flame engulfed the vehicle and one of the enemy soldiers nearby. The rest of the Rangers nearby opened fire on the remaining enemy soldiers, doing their best to force the Chinese soldiers to keep their heads down while one of the fire teams advanced to close the distance.

Four of the Rangers ran thirty meters across two of the rail lines, taking cover behind an empty flatbed car just as a second armored vehicle they hadn’t spotted before pulled around the train station building, firing its 12.7mm machine gun at them. Bullets kicked up dirt, rocks and other fragments around the four soldiers. They did their best to make themselves as small as possible to avoid being hit.

The second soldier with a Javelin popped up from behind his covered position just long enough to get a lock on this new threat. Once he heard the tone indicating a missile lock, he depressed the trigger, and the missile leapt from the tube in a small flash of flame as the rocket motor ignited. In less than two seconds, the second armored vehicle blew up, ending its short shooting spree.

“Now! Everyone forward!” shouted Price.

The remaining Rangers jumped out from their covered positions and advanced in a line with their rifles at the ready, shooting any and all enemy soldiers they spotted as they moved in on the train station itself, clearing the railyard along the way.

“Look out!” shouted a soldier near Price.

He turned just in time to see an enemy soldier poke his head out from behind a cluster of trash cans. Fortunately for Price, he’d turned his rifle with his head. As he saw the eyes of the enemy soldier through his sight, his years of training kicked into autopilot and he reacted without even thinking. He squeezed the trigger just a fraction of a second faster than the PLA soldier did. He watched as his round flew fast and true, hitting the enemy soldier right in the center of his face. It snapped the man’s head back, and his body collapsed into a heap.

Turning to the soldier who’d called out the warning, Sergeant Price said, “Thanks, but next time just shoot the guy.”

The soldier, a new guy to the unit, just nodded. It was a humbling lesson, and fortunately, Price hadn’t had to die for him to learn it.

When their group approached the terminal building, they linked up with another squad from their platoon. The Rangers collectively made their way to one of the entrances. They shot the lock off the door and then proceeded to filter into the cavernous station, moving rapidly through it as they cleared it of any hostile soldiers.

They could still hear gunfire from outside as they continued securing their objective. It seemed to Price that it was starting to move closer to them.

Once they reached the north end of the station, one of the Rangers caught a glimpse through and window and shouted, “Sergeant Price, you need to see this!”

Several of the other Rangers also made their way over, and they all cautiously peered out the window. Through the pane, Price caught sight of three Type 89 armored personnel carriers less than 100 meters away. The back hatches of the vehicles dropped, and out ran nearly forty enemy soldiers.

“Oh, crap, that’s a lot of soldiers,” Sergeant Price thought.

He immediately signaled to get the attention of his two squad leaders. “Second Squad, take the north side of the building. Third Squad, take the south side. We’ll let them walk into our crossfire and wipe `em out,” he ordered.

Sixty seconds went by as the Rangers ran to the opposite ends of the terminal and began to set up their fields of fire. In the meantime, several of the PLA soldiers busted open the front door of the terminal and made their way inside.

Price heard the commotion. “Everyone, hold your fire until you hear me shoot,” he ordered through his headset.

Seconds felt like minutes. More and more enemy soldiers filtered into the building, yelling out their own orders in Chinese. Sensing that the most opportune moment had arrived, Sergeant Price closed his left eye and sighted in on a man who was waving soldiers forward and directing them where to go; he was most likely an officer. Price applied pressure to the trigger until his rifle barked. Then he watched as the enemy soldier clutched at his chest and fell to the ground.

As soon as Sergeant Price fired his weapon, the two squads’ M240G heavy machine guns and their M27 infantry assault rifles opened fire.

Bang, bang! Ratatat, ratatat, zip, zap, zip, zap!

Red tracer fire crisscrossed from the southeast and northeast corners of the terminal, out toward the main entrance. Their fire completely enveloped the enemy soldiers in a fusillade of bullets that ripped and shredded everything inside the terminal.

Though he couldn’t understand the words, Price could tell the shouts from the Chinese soldiers were panicked. The PLA did their best to return fire and counter the ambush they’d walked into, hurling a few grenades toward the Americans.

Bam, BAM!

Sergeant Price grabbed one of the M67 fragmentation grenades from his pouch, pulled the pin, and lobbed it at a cluster of enemy soldiers that had taken cover behind one of the kiosk counters. The grenade exploded with a dull thud and a cloud of smoke, silencing the enemy attackers.

Just as the fire from the PLA soldiers was dying down, the north side of the building erupted in shards of wood, metal and glass. Green tracers tore through the walls of the building and anything they happened to hit. The three enemy vehicles outside had turned their 12.7mm machine guns on the terminal, lighting the entire building up. Price knew they couldn’t stay in the building much longer if those machine guns were going to continue to rake the structure with their heavy-caliber slugs — they’d tear the whole place apart.

Price looked around for one of his squad leaders and spotted one of the newer soldiers in their unit unslinging the AT4 he had with him. The young man ran toward one of the windows on the north side of the building. When there was a break in enemy fire near him, he jumped up, aimed the AT4 through the window, and fired.

Sergeant Price heard the usual small popping noise and a sudden swoosh of flame as the rocket flew out of the weapon. It landed squarely against the side of the enemy vehicle, thoroughly decimating it. The young Ranger ducked for cover and sprinted back deeper into the building, but the wall where he had just been standing was swiftly torn apart. A heavy-caliber round hit the soldier in the leg, completely ripping it off. Just as the soldier was about to tumble forward from his own momentum, a second round hit him in the back, nearly cutting the man in half. His body landed with a thud, motionless and suddenly devoid of life.

Before any of them could say or do anything else, two loud explosions outside rattled the entire building, blowing out any remaining glass. Shrapnel pelted the north side of the building. The enemy fire suddenly ceased, and an eerie calm took its place. Cries from the wounded suddenly broke the silence, as both friendly and enemy soldiers called out for medical aid.

“Secure the building!” shouted Price.

He ran to one of the blown-out windows to see what had happened. When he got there, he saw that the last two enemy vehicles had been blown up by something — maybe an Allied plane or drone overhead. In either case, it had saved their butts from certain death.

A few minutes later, the other two squads of the platoon arrived at the station, along with their captain. The next hour was spent securing the railyard, making sure no other enemy soldiers were nearby and then inspecting the tracks for any attempts at sabotage.

It took the Rangers nearly two hours to secure the city, but they had captured the critical railyard, highways and remaining critical infrastructure needed for the main army to arrive on trains. A battalion of Stryker vehicles and a company of main battle tanks arrived, relieving them and taking over security of the city while the rest of the Army group was trucked in by rail and heavy transports.

Over the next several weeks, Army Group One began the process of consolidating its forces in Inner Mongolia and preparing for their backdoor march on Beijing.