Chinese than their own commander did.
Better yet, the leading regiment of the 201st Motor Rifle Division was only a few kilometers away, and the leading formation was the division’s steel fist, its independent tank regiment of ninety-five T-80U main-battle tanks.
The 265th was ready for the reinforcement, and its commander, Yuriy Sinyavskiy, proclaimed that he was tired of running away. A career professional soldier and mechanized infantryman, Sinyavskiy was a profane, cigar-chomping man of forty-six years, now leaning over a map table in Bondarenko’s headquarters.
“This, this is my ground, Gennady Iosifovich,” he said, stabbing at the point with his finger. It was just five kilometers north of the Gogol Gold Field, a line of ridges twenty kilometers across, facing open ground the Chinese would have to cross. “And put the Two-Oh-First’s tanks just here on my right. When we stop their advance guard, they can blow in from the west and roll them up.”
“Reconnaissance shows their leading division is strung out somewhat,” Bondarenko told him.
It was a mistake made by every army in the world. The sharpest teeth of any field force are its artillery, but even self-propelled artillery, mounted on tracks for cross-country mobility, can’t seem to keep up with the mechanized forces it is supposed to support. It was a lesson that had even surprised the Americans in the Persian Gulf, when they’d found their artillery could keep up with the leading tank echelons only with strenuous effort, and across flat ground. The People’s Liberation Army had tracked artillery, but a lot of it was still the towed variety, and was being pulled behind trucks that could not travel cross-country as well as the tracked kind.
General Diggs observed the discussion, which his rudimentary Russian could not quite keep up with, and Sinyavskiy spoke no English, which really slowed things down.
“You still have a lot of combat power to stop, Yuriy Andreyevich,” Diggs pointed out, waiting for the translation to get across.
“If we cannot stop them completely, at least we can give them a bloody nose” was the belated reply.
“Stay mobile,” Diggs advised. “If I were this General Peng, I’d maneuver east—the ground is better suited for it—and try to wrap you up from your left.”
“We will see how maneuver-minded they are,” Bondarenko said for his subordinate. “So far all they have done is drive straight forward, and I think they are becoming complacent. See how they are stretched out, Marion. Their units are too far separated to provide mutual support. They are in a pursuit phase of warfare, and that makes them disorganized, and they have little air support to warn them of what lies ahead. I think Yuriy is right: This is a good place for a stand.”
“I agree it’s good ground, Gennady, just don’t marry the place, okay?” Diggs warned.
Bondarenko translated that for his subordinate, who answered back in machine-gun Russian around his cigar.
“Yuriy says it is a place for a fucking, not a wedding. When will you join your command, Marion?”
“My chopper’s on the way in now, buddy. My cavalry screen is at the first fuel depot, with First Brigade right behind. We should be in contact in a day and a half or so.”
They’d already discussed Diggs’s plan of attack. First Armored would assemble northwest of Belogorsk, fueling at the last big Russian depot, then leap out in the darkness for the Chinese bridgehead. Intelligence said that the PLA’s 65th Type-B Group Army was there now, digging in to protect the left shoulder of their break-in. Not a mechanized force, it was still a lot for a single division to chew on. If the Chinese plan of attack had a weakness, it was that they’d bet all their mechanized forces on the drive forward. The forces left behind to secure the breakthrough were at best motorized—carried by wheeled vehicles instead of tracked ones—and at worst leg infantry, who had to walk where they went. That made them slow and vulnerable to men who sat down behind steel as they went to battle in their tracked vehicles.
But there were a hell of a lot of them, Diggs reminded himself.
Before he could leave, General Sinyavskiy reached into his hip pocket and pulled out a flask. “A drink for luck,” he said in his only words of broken English.
“Hell, why not?” Diggs tossed it off. It was good stuff, actually. “When this is all over, we will drink again,” he promised.
“Da,” the general replied. “Good luck, Diggs.”
“Marion,” Bondarenko said. “Be careful, comrade.”
“You, too, Gennady. You got enough medals,