James Rosone - Battlefield Russia

“ That smoke may hinder the bunkers near the coast, but it won’t affect us, ” Lei thought as a devilish smile spread across his face.

As the landing force got closer to the shoreline, a pair of fighters flew in low and fast, releasing a series of long, tumbling bombs. They hit right on top of where Lei knew a line of bunkers and trenches had been built. The bombs exploded in thunderous flames that grew in intensity and stretched across the entire trench line. Horrible walls of fire intensified as the firestorm consumed everything in its path.

“ Dear God, is that what napalm looks like? ” Sergeant Lei wondered. His palms were suddenly very sweaty. The Americans had begun using that horrible weapon early on in the war, especially as the fighting had intensified in the Pacific.

Ten minutes went by, and then the first American landing crafts hit the shoreline, disgorging their human cargo. Lei watched in amazement at how many American Marines charged up the shoreline and how quickly they did so.

“Should we open fire, Sergeant?” asked one of the corporals who manned one of the machine guns. So far, none of the other bunker rooms had started shooting yet, so as not to give away their positions.

Lei shook his head. “Not yet. Our orders are to wait until the third wave of Americans lands. Then we are to unleash death and destruction on them.”

The corporal nodded, though he clearly wanted to start shooting at the American invaders. It felt like forever elapsed as they watched the first wave of Americans rush forward to be met by what remained of their initial defensive line; it was fascinating and terrifying at the same time. Watching those American Marines scream and charge their positions in such a ferocious and fearless way sent shivers down Lei’s back.

“ These men fight more viciously than the Taiwanese did, and they are more skilled ,” Lei realized nervously. He started to wonder if it would really be possible to make it out of the bunker complex alive.

The second wave of Marines landed and joined the fray. To Lei and his comrades’ horror, they watched as the Marines quickly overpowered and overwhelmed the first defensive line with speed and ease. Lei really earnestly began to question if they could hold this position, or if he was already surrounded by his tomb. This bunker complex they were in was manned by only 230 soldiers, and they only had five-gun bunkers. Once they were taken out or overrun, that was it for their part in the war.

Twenty minutes after that second group landed, the third wave of landing craft arrived. This wave brought with it multiple hovercraft or LCACs, which proceeded to offload dozens of eight-wheeled light armored vehicles and main battle tanks. Just as Lei was about to order his bunker to start shooting, he saw dozens of helicopters approaching the shoreline.

“Machine gunners, focus your fire on those helicopters!” he yelled. “When they come in to drop off more Marines, light ‘em up!”

One of the minigunners angled his weapon toward one of the Osprey tiltwing helicopters and let loose a string of bullets that looked more like a laser beam reaching out for the helicopter than it did machine-gun fire. In seconds, the Osprey was sliced through by hundreds of rounds, tearing it apart. The chopper blew up in spectacular fashion over the beach, crashing down onto the Marines below.

The corporal turned to fire on the next helicopter, although at this point, the cluster of helicopters took evasive maneuvers as they broke off their assault. However, Sergeant Lei’s bunker was not the only one to fire at the Ospreys—a total of three were downed before they managed to head back to the sea from which they had come. The soldiers manning the machine guns then switched to shooting at the swarm of American Marines who were moving inland.

Suddenly, the field phone attached to the wall rang. Lei grabbed the receiver, straining to hear who was on the other end and what they wanted. As he focused all of his attention, he could barely make out the voice of his captain. “I need to speak with you immediately,” Lei heard.

Shaking his head in confusion, Sergeant Lei responded, “I’ll be there shortly.”

He tapped on the shoulder of one of the other sergeants. “You’re in charge until I return,” he said.

The other sergeant just nodded and went back to making sure the four machine-gun positions continued to rain death and destruction down on the Marines who were now moving their way up the incline toward their position.

When Lei had traveled halfway down the hallway to where their captain was, the bunker complex shook violently, throwing Sergeant Lei to the ground. Parts of the roof above him gave way, dropping down chunks of rocks and dirt. Looking behind him, Lei saw a ton of smoke and debris coming from his bunker room. A single soldier emerged, stumbling out of the room before collapsing.

Lei quickly ran to his soldier and asked, “What happened?!”

“I don’t know what hit us,” the young private said, still in a state of shock. “One minute we were killing those Marines, the next moment the entire room was hit with something that blew apart the roof and walls. Had I not been on my way to get more ammunition, I’d be dead.”

As Lei got up, he tried to look into the bunker room and saw that most of it had collapsed. There was no fire, like he’d have expected to see from an explosion, just a lot of debris. Whatever had hit them had also caused a lot of damage to the rock, which Sergeant Lei hadn’t thought was possible without a missile or a bomb. In that one moment, all but one of his soldiers were gone forever.

Commander Mark Gray of the DDG-1001 Michael Monsoor was on his third cup of coffee, and it was only 0900 hours. When his ship had approached to the Taiwanese coastline, he’d insisted on being present either on the bridge or in the CIC. His ship was screening for the larger troop ships and would be employing its railguns for the first time as they identified targets of opportunity. As the invasion fleet approached the shoreline and moved into position, the coast stayed silent for several hours. No missiles or projectiles were fired at them, and it appeared as if the enemy had simply walked away from the beach in favor of a protracted inland fight.

The invasion appeared to be progressing smoothly, or at least predictably, according to the intelligence and operation planners. As the captain of the second Zumwalt -class destroyer in the Navy, now that the PLA Navy had been summarily destroyed in the Battle of Luzon, his task was to support the Marines’ ground invasion of Taiwan. While they had fired off some of their Tomahawk cruise missiles prior to the landings, their primary job now was to try and test their railgun against those hardened targets the ground forces were having a harder time destroying.

With that goal in mind, the camera monitoring of the landings by the CIC members was critical. As they found hardened points, the ground forces would call them, asking for a fire mission. Once the target had been identified, the Monsoor would fire one of its railguns and take it out.

As Commander Gray watched a couple dozen Ospreys and other helicopters head toward the beach, he suddenly witnessed the violent destruction of two of them. His stomach sank as the fireballs descended down to the earth below, right on top of some of the Marines. Gray scanned the horizon. His eyes were suddenly drawn to a suspicious area on the side of the rock.

One of the other battle managers in the CIC must have spotted the same thing seconds before him. “Zoom in on that position!” he shouted, directing everyone’s attention to the spot. In seconds, they all saw where the enemy fire was coming from. Carved into the side of a steep ridgeline was a heavily camouflaged bunker. Looking more closely, they saw what appeared to be several bunker positions.