Command Authority

73

To judge from enemy losses alone, the first forty-eight hours of Operation Red Coal Carpet had been a success. Twelve American and British special operations teams and eight scout helicopters had been deployed into the combat zone, each equipped with laser markers that could be linked to Ukrainian Air Force assets. These targeting forces, along with the lone armed Kiowa Warrior and the four armed Reaper UAVs, had registered 109 kills of enemy armor and weaponry. Among the destroyed equipment were nearly thirty of Russia’s main battle tank, the T-90, and two massive BM-30 MLRVs.

The 109 kills represented nearly fifty percent of all the targets destroyed by the Ukrainians, a remarkable number, considering that the United States was fielding less than one percent of all the forces in the fight.

Even though Russia completely occupied the Crimean peninsula by the second day of the invasion, after taking the border oblasts of Luhansk and Donetsk, their losses had mounted to the west, and by the end of the day they were effectively stalled by bad weather that grounded most Russian helicopters. The cloud cover also caused problems for Russian jets, as the majority of the ordnance used was general-purpose bombs and unguided rockets, both of which required good visibility to be effective.

But the Americans and British had taken significant losses themselves. Four MH-6 Little Bird lift helos used for transporting ground teams had been damaged or shot down, as well as one Black Hawk and one Kiowa Warrior. Five more helos of different types had been destroyed while on the ground.

Nine Americans and two British SAS soldiers had been killed, and another twenty had been wounded.

The JOC at Cherkasy Army Base had operated twenty-four hours a day since the opening hours of the conflict. The base had been bombed, but the Americans were in a hardened bunker that could survive everything short of the largest bunker buster or a nuclear detonation, and the bombs that had hit the base had been far enough away to be no major concern to Midas.

Even though the enemy was stalled tonight, good weather was forecast for the next three days, and everyone involved in the operation realized this meant the Russians would inevitably push west again.

Some had hoped that, after taking the Crimea, the Russians’ will to fight would wane, but so far no one in the U.S. defense and intelligence community had seen any real evidence of that.

The Russians were coming, and it looked like they were planning on moving all the way to Kiev.

Midas knew he couldn’t keep his operation here for much longer; there was even talk of moving the JOC to the west immediately, but he quashed the talk quickly. All the forward operating units still in the field had fallen back several times over the past two days, yet they were all still dozens of miles east. Midas determined he would move his JOC only if there was some compromise due to an intelligence failure or if there was a real risk his deployed assets might leapfrog past his position as they continued falling back in order to stay just ahead of the Russian advance.

Despite the fact that his op had significantly slowed the Russian attack, Colonel Barry Jankowski didn’t feel like things were going well, so he decided to change tactics after dark this evening. They desperately needed to cover more ground before the Russians consolidated after sweeping through the Crimea and pressing the fight in the direction of Kiev, so he made the decision to reduce each unit’s size. He turned his twelve teams in the field to eighteen by sending a few reserve Delta recce troops into two new positions up near the Belarussian border, and breaking some of the larger A-teams down into five-, six-, and seven-man units.

It would cost nothing as far as offensive firepower, as the men in the field weren’t using their own rifles, grenades, and pistols to engage the enemy. But Midas knew well it would deplete each force’s ability to defend itself if attacked.

He’d radioed each unit and told them they would be lighter and faster now, and they needed to use this as an advantage and not see it as a liability.

Midas had allowed himself a forty-five-minute catnap on a bunk near the JOC, and now he was back on duty, standing behind a row of men with computers in front of them. Beyond them, on the wall, was a monitor about the size of the average flat-screen television in an American home, but it suited their needs to give them a single digital map that everyone could point to with the laser pointers all the tactical operations men kept at their workstations.

One of the men in comms with a 5th Special Forces Group observation unit, call sign Cochise, motioned Midas over to his laptop. “Hey, boss, Cochise is reporting a long column of T-90s has made it behind the Ukrainian defense force T-72s in their sector, and they are now bypassing Cochise’s pos, moving up an access road off the M50 highway. They say there are no other Ukrainian ground assets that can engage them at this time.”

“Show me where they are now.”

The operator used his laser pointer to indicate the unit’s real-time position on the map.

Midas said, “These tanks are closer to Cherkasy than anybody, aren’t they?”

“Yeah, and they are supported by dismounts and dedicated air that’s keeping up CAS. They might lose air during the night, especially in this weather, but by tomorrow morning Cochise advises they will be within twenty miles of the JOC.”

“What’s the strength of the red column?”

“After the engagement with the T-72s, Cochise Actual puts their strength at fifteen T-90s, and another forty-plus APCs, MLRVs, and other support vehicles.”

“Cochise lost a couple of guys yesterday.” Midas said it to himself, but the controller took it as a question.

“Yes, sir. The captain leading them was KIA, and they had another troop injured in a hard landing in the initial helo insertion. There are four troops in total still out there, led by a first lieutenant.”

“But their SOFLAM is operational, right?”

“That’s right, but in order to engage the new column, they’ll have to break cover and head southwest. It’s going to take them away from the M50, and who the hell knows what else might be coming up that highway that they’ll miss.”

Midas saw the problem. From the Belarussian border down to the Crimea, he had only eighteen teams to cover about thirty-five possible attack vectors the Russians could be using. It was impossible to man them all, and although the Ukrainian Army was out there on the ground, their technology wasn’t giving them the punch in this fight they needed, considering their smaller strength and subpar training.

What Midas needed was another team to fire the laser. He looked down at the controller. “You talk to Ukrainian SF? They got anybody who knows how to do this?”

“Negative, sir. Their equipment is their equipment, and they are all deployed.”

He’d been told in no uncertain terms not to use the Rangers on base for forward operations. There simply weren’t enough men to protect the American helos and the JOC and also task them with operating the SOFLAM.

Midas thought it over. “Okay. Send the Kiowa, Black Wolf Two Six, and any Reapers that are in range.”

“That’s not going to be enough Hellfires to stop that attack.”

“I know. They’ll have to do a hit-and-run, try to slow them down tonight to buy some time for the Ukrainians to get their shit together and rush some tanks over there by morning.”

“You got it, boss,” said the controller, and he reached for his walkie-talkie.