James Rosone - Battlefield Russia

It took them a few minutes of driving around to actually locate the airport, and eventually the front gate, but once they did, they rolled right up to a couple of Special Forces-outfitted JLTVs and a squad of Rangers who eagerly greeted them.

An officer was there to meet them, and he quickly directed them to where he wanted the company to marshal so he could speak to them all at once. Ten minutes after their arrival, they all milled around outside their vehicles, waiting for whoever was in charge of this little operation to come over and tell them what the plan was. Finally, someone walked up to Captain Wilkes to introduce himself.

“I’m First Lieutenant Martinez. I’m the platoon leader of the Rangers who seized this airfield.” Martinez extended his hand to Captain Wilkes.

After they shook hands and finished introductions, Martinez got right down to business. “First, I want to thank you guys for getting here on such short notice,” he said. “I’m sure you saw on the way into the base that we’re not exactly looked upon very nicely by the locals here. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that we bombed the base into a stub before we got here. What I need from your soldiers, Captain Wilkes, is for them to establish a defensive perimeter around the base. We have to make sure this place is as secured as we can make it until additional soldiers and the engineers arrive to help us fortify it.”

Captain Wilkes nodded.

Martinez continued, “Once your unit has the perimeter secured, my platoon needs to expand our footprint of the area and see if there are any enemy units in the area. We have a few surveillance drones up, but they have a limited range. Intelligence says there’s an Indian army base roughly 120 kilometers from here. My unit needs to get eyes on it and see if we have any enemy units headed our direction.” He paused briefly. “How soon do you believe your guys can get this place secured so my platoon can get moving?” he asked.

Thinking for a moment, Wilkes made the decision that he’d rather have these Rangers out scouting for possible enemy units than showing his men around the base. They’d figure it out soon enough. “Lieutenant, why don’t you guys go ahead and go? We’ll sort things out on the base,” Wilkes suggested. “We’ve got the rest of our battalion arriving throughout the rest of the day, so we’ll be fine. If you find any enemy units heading in our direction, please contact us. I’m going to assign my Fourth Platoon, headed by Lieutenant Slater here, to be your QRF if you need it. He’s seen a ton of action in Korea and his platoon is hard-core—they’ll be able to help you if you need it.”

Slater extended his hand, and the two talked for a minute before the Rangers headed out. With the business of handing the airfield over complete, the men of Alpha Company went to work exploring their new home.

Bengaluru, India

Once it became clear the Global Defense Force was going to attack India, the Prime Minister ordered Lieutenant General Nirmal Chander’s XXI Corps to the south of India, so they could be rapidly deployed to deal with a potential Allied invasion force.

While many in the government didn’t believe the GDF would actually invade India, General Chander was not going to take any chances. He moved his Corps headquarters to Bengaluru, which essentially placed most of his forces in the center of the country, where he could easily direct them to meet the enemy.

With a large percentage of the active Indian Army committed to the Russian front, the only other available forces to defend the country were along the Pakistan-Indian border, leaving only his Corps to defend much of the interior of India. Fortunately, his force had been heavily augmented by the activation of the Reserves and the raising of a citizen militia force. With most of the reserves having been assigned to his command, he had 350,000 reservists and roughly 200,000 citizen militiamen in addition to his regular Army force of 67,000 career soldiers. His biggest challenge was moving his forces to fight the enemy and making sure they were properly equipped, fed and housed.

A young major who was helping to run Chander’s operation center ran up to the general and signaled for his attention. “General Chander, reports are coming in that the Americans seized the Arakkonam Naval Air Station. Our intelligence says it’s a very small unit that has taken over the air base, but they expect more Americans to show up soon. What do you want me to tell the scouts to do?” he asked.

General Chander held back his emotions so as not to give away his feelings in front of the young officer. “ The Allies captured that base a lot faster than I thought they would ,” he thought. Though he was cool on the exterior, he was panicking a bit inside.

“This is to be expected,” Chander said nonchalantly. “The Allies will look to expand their forces inland now that they’ve secured a port. We need to move our forces quickly though to deal with them.”

Chander turned to face the Commander of the 36th Infantry Division, Brigadier General Singh Ghuman. “General, you need to get your division on the move. Order your militia and reserves to attack the Americans at the naval air station. I’m going to have the rest of the Corps move around you to attack the enemy formations in Chennai before they’re able to get themselves organized outside the city. Timing is going to be critical—rush your forces forward, even if it means sacrificing many of your militiamen. They need to tie the Americans down while we get the rest of our army in position. Is that understood?”

“Yes, General. We’ll overwhelm them with our sheer numbers,” General Ghuman responded with a wicked grin on his face.

Banavaram Reserve Forest

It was nearly morning as First Lieutenant Martinez sat with Sergeant First Class Price, poring over the images being fed to them by their reconnaissance drone. They were nervously monitoring the movement of an enemy force heading toward them. The number of enemy soldiers and vehicles showing up was scary.

For the past twelve hours, Martinez had been watching the enemy build up around the city of Ranipet. On three separate occasions, he had tried to call in for an airstrike, only to be told the available air assets were busy dealing with an Indian armor unit further to the north. Desperate for some fire support to break up this enemy buildup, he tried to get some friendly artillery units to do the job. Unfortunately, the battery of 105mm artillery guns were still being towed to the airfield they had captured thirty-six hours earlier. While the capture of the airfield was a huge tactical boon, it had also placed them very deep behind enemy lines, well beyond the initial fire support bases the Allies had set up outside of Chennai.

“I wish we had armed drones. At least we could feel like we’re doing something,” said the sergeant operating their little surveillance drone. They watched several busses drop off another large batch of soldiers at the edge of the city.

Patting the guy on the shoulder, Sergeant Price responded, “The gun bunnies will be set up soon enough. It doesn’t look like these guys are getting ready to move anytime soon.”

“I can’t believe how many enemy soldiers are amassing like this. If we had proper air assets available to us right now, these guys would be toast,” mused Lieutenant Martinez.

The rest of the company had finally made it to the base twelve hours ago. They’d been working with the regular Army units getting the base perimeter expanded beyond the airfield to include enough flat ground for two batteries of artillery. An engineering unit had also arrived and was quickly working to get fortified bunkers, gun positions and trenches built, while an Air Force Red Horse unit was getting the airfield operational.