2400 HOURS. 17 MARCH. AVIANO AIR BASE, ITALY.
One by one the turboprop engines of a fleet of C-130J Hercules aircraft were coming to life and final loadings through the rear ramps completed.
Colonel Dan Bradford stepped inside the lead Hercules which raised its ramp, closing off the mighty roars of warplanes where inside bathed in red light, were his Command Group and his Command and Control Gavin Medium Armored Vehicle rigged for low-velocity airdrop. Taking a forward seat, he closed the seat belt and began to mentally rehearse the events leading up to this moment as his beloved "Red Devils", 1st Battalion of the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment became the "tip of the spear" for the invasion of Treblestan.
As the mighty Hercules engines revved up and throttled down, his plane began to taxi forward into take-off position, he could feel the plane turn 90 degrees and he glanced at his wrist compass dial as it spun to the new direction....he always tried to stay positionally aware at all times...the engines gunned to full power, throwing everyone back towards the tail as the engines spun the 8-bladed propfans and they rose into the air like a jet.....circling and pulling positive gs his plane would circle until the entire force was in trail formation.....into the dark of night towards the war-torn capital of Treblestan---Christina.
Flashed across the world's media were scenes of Treblestan's rag-tag army shelling villages and burning homes of the ethnic minority muslim Tartanes. The reports coming out of the country were ugly: rapings, tortures and summary executions of all the male Tartanes in response to the the actions of their rebel Army seeking independance, the Treblestan People's Army or TPA. NATO was outraged and began an around the clock air bombing "campaign", but the savvy Treblestans refused to turn their air defense radars on and instead played "hide and seek" with our SEAD attempts. Unable to silence the threat of enemy air defenses NATO warplanes had to fly above 15,000 feet and only at night, the "Trebs" as they were called---were free to pillage and burn during the day and hid in the many village and towns during the night and there was not a damn thing NATO's air strikes could do to stop them.
"Tonight this would change".
Packed inside the mighty Hercules armada was an entire Gavin Armored Fighting Vehicle Battalion with Bradford's "Red Devil" Airborne infantry. Their mission: to take the high ground west of the town of Christina and cut off the ALL Treb resupply trickling in from their border with "mother" Treblinka and any forces coming south down the two main highways to terrorize the other towns/villages. Coming up these ridgelines that night would be the helicopter-borne Air Assault RSTA Ridgway AFV-equipped scouts and Gavin Mech-Infantry of the "Big Red One" who would run the ridges with small Ridgway Wiesel 2 and Gavin AFVs as the main heavy 2-D "armored fist" of the 1st Infantry Division pushed "balls-to-the-walls" towards the capital from the low ground. Come morning the Trebs would be waking up at gunpoint and herded into EPW compounds for war crimes trials or shot on the spot if they proceed to continue their rape of Treblestan.
"20 minutes!" the Jumpmaster shouted to the men.
The men stood up and quickly clipped on their new T-21 parachutes which were like ram-air parachutes with the reserve parachutes integral to their backs. After placing on your back, clipping the chest strap, the two split saddle straps were closed around the leg. That was it for the parachute. Then the rucksack was clipped with a lowering line and the M4 5.56mm Carbine in a pouch on the left side of his T-21 pack tray. A quick Jumpmaster Personnel Inspection (JMPI) and they were ready to jump......at 250 feet......BELOW enemy radar
The Hercules were now bucking and swinging in the dark flying only by FLIR and NVGs....they had stayed low over the mountain sides all the way, no pitch ups for the jump.....
At 10 minutes all 13 men hooked up their static line cables and stood watching the aircraft rear as their mighty Gavin was poised ready for airdrop with infared chemlights broken and shining---if you had NVGs to see them. At 5 minutes, the rear ramp opened to the pitch-black night air....green colored tracers were arcing up at their planes and then silenced as laser beams targeted them and burned their positions creating a small brush fire where the small arms fire was originating....on their flanks, not seen were two "Smoky birds" laying a smokescreen to guard their flanks for the drop.....
"1 minute!"
The Red light was on.
The USAF Loadmaster slapped everyone's backs...."Go get the bastards, ARMY!"
The green light went to ON.
The Loadmaster released the mighty Gavin which slide out the rear ramp into the cold dark, night...
Shuffling right behind the phantom Gavin were one stick of Red Devils with Bradford in the lead--he was the Jumpmaster.
"Follow me, RED DEVILS!"
He stepped out into the black abyss and his men stacked were right behind him to land closer together....
The sky suddenly went silent as they heard the planes drone away....but the ak-ak sound of Kalishikovs could be heard in the distance answered by the brrrap-brrrap of M16s and M4s. Exiting at 250 feet they had no time but to check canopy lower combat equipment and prepare to land....1 one thousand---2 one thousand-----3 one thousand----4 one-thousand----Bradford felt his canopy open and looked up and saw it round....he disconnected his reserve static line lanyard since he wouldn't need his reserve but still counted----Check one-thousand----6 one-thousand-----7 one-thousand-----LOOK one-thousand----Bradford looked below and saw noone underneath him----LOWER--one thousand-----his rucksack fell from his body and stopped on a 15-foot tether....PREPARE one thousand-----Bradford figured his drift was to his rear, pulled his front two risers into his chest and placed feet/knees together..........He looked up at the horizon to not anticipate the ground coming up and whacking him.....
WHACK!
Bradford rolled and did a textbook perfect Parachute Landing Fall (PLF). He disconnected his chute cut-away bag, undid his chest strap and leg straps and broke open his M4 carbine......running his fingers along the lowering line he reached his rucksack, disconnected the line and threw the ruck on his back, running towards the outline of his Gavin. Reaching the Gavin first, he walked around and undid all the rigging straps....as he opened the rear troop door, his Driver, SPC Wilcox met him....
"Start the war wagon, Son"......
Wilcox crawled inside, Bradford closed the rear troop door as the young Paratrooper started the engine and lowered the rear ramp, the entire Command Group quickly ran inside, calling "All Clear" as the ramp was raised within seconds. They dropped their rucks at their feet and looked across at the map board as Bradford opened the GC's hatch and called for the ASP-30 30mm autocannon. The top troop hatch was opened and the mighty cannon was passed to him and mounted on his cupola behind the gunshield. Then a deadly 30mm armor-piercing, dual-purpose ammunition belt. Radio operator, SPC Mark Jones clipped his M249 Light Machine Gun into the right gun shield for extra fire support...
Bradford removed his NVGs from his chest pouch and mounted them on his helmet NVG mount. He clipped in his intercom cord to his helmet and flopped down the ear mufflers....he could see all of his Battalion mounted in Gavins forming up for the march to the high ground....After an intercom check with Wilcox, he radioed all Red Devil elements for a status check....all were ready and accounted for....
The RSTA Ridgway (Wiesel 2s) Troop securing the drop zone radioed in that all opposition was killed and that they were moving out towards the Objective Rally Point......in less than 15 minutes the entire Gavin BN was moving out cross-country behind enemy lines, mines and defenses towards the high ground towards Christina....it was just 0200 hours....and 25 miles away...
Christina 0200 HOURS.
The cries of the women had continued all through the night. The men of the city were being rounded up into the city square for a dawn mass execution to provide pysops video footage for the Trebs who would dress up in TPA uniforms. They had prayed to their God but "Allah" had abandoned them. They cursed the "infidel" NATO troops suspecting that they secretly wanted them to be slaughtered. Maria was only 20 and with a newborn baby and now she was to be a widow..so much killing..when would it ever stop?
Shots rung out across the street as the newborn baby cried in her arms....
The Trebs were coming...."Shut up that baby or we will shut it up for you!"
The High ground over Christina.....
"Pssst. Red Devil-6, ORP secured. Coup it, baby". This was the code word for "coup de main" to seize the ORP.
At 0400 hours, Bradford dismounted and scurried up over the ridge tops to look out onto the town of Christina, gunfire flashes visible in the black through his NVGs....he radios through his helmet for Company "A" to secure the ORP, Companies "B", "C" and the Bufords to take up their blocking positions immediately with one hour of darkness left. Plant mines and block the roads.
DAWN. D-DAY. THE BIG RED ONE.
The Americans were coming. As the Trebs awoke, to start their day of butchery and sadism, they began receiving increasingly accurate fire on their positions...men began to die....screams as explosions tore apart their bodies...but no airplanes......"Where are the airplanes????? the skies are clear??"
The Americans were already holding the high ground and calling Gavin 120mm mortars and HMMWV EFOGM missiles onto the Trebs as they uncovered themselves to move into the villages and begin their ethnic cleansing...
The word quickly reaches back to Christina that NATO was invading but it was too late.
The road to Christina....
As the Trebs in their former Soviet-supplied and copied armored vehicles began rumbling towards the city center from their hide sites, they began to explode one by one from missiles from nowhere!
As they reached the main road a huge number of green mounds were blocking the way....what the? They were the thellie camouflage covered Gavins and M8 Buford Armored Gun Systems of the Red Devils. As their Gunners looked into their thermal sights they saw no heat sources. "What were they?" "Haystacks?" Explosions of 105mm shells answered their questions before their lives ended in flames and torment.
In the city center the men were waiting for their death sentences as small-arms fire broke out around the city...
Bradford had taken "B" Company and a few Bufords and busted into the town center shooting up Treb gunmen as they went. He turned on his loudspeaker and played a tape in ethnic Treb dialect saying: "WE ARE AMERICANS. GO BACK TO YOUR HOMES. IF YOU ARE ARMED YOU WILL BE SHOT."
Bradford called for his smoke generator equipped Gavins to cover the town so the young men could escape.
Then he pulled his company out of the town center to the edge.
Christina was surrounded. The Trebs were fleeing towards the countryside where they were either gunned down by ASP-30 cannon or surrendered. Bradford radioed to dismount infantry and dig in. He kept "B" Company with him at the town's edge and had them set up a defense oriented towards the north where the Treb Army would come to try to "reopen the door" back to their province. The EPWs were rounded up and placed in the city center and guarded.
Up from the high ground, the RSTA reports in to Bradford:
"Serb tanks coming down from the north. Request air strikes vicinity grid 08S CG 34575 89025".
Bradford showed the point on his map in his Gavin. He told his S-3; Jim Graves; "Get us the A-10s to stop the lead and end columns, then hit 'em with HIMARS...."
As the incredibly large Treb tank Army approached, tensions rose....a sniper shot out from the square hitting one of the Red Devils....his comrades threw smoke grenades and pulled him in for rapid emergency arterial surgery in the Gavin field hospital vehicle.....Treb snipers were firing from the industrial buildings off to their right....Bradford ordered the Company "B" Commander, Captain Steve Smith to take out the snipers using the attached BN sniper squad's EOCM vehicle to pinpoint their optics and suppress/kill with their own sniper fire.
"Steve, I am also giving you the Urban Assault Section with two Gavin-High-Angle Elevated Assault Teams (HEAT) to take down those buildings..."
"Airborne, Sir".
The Gavin Elevated TOW vehicles and EFOGMs began to fire on the approaching Treb tank force from long range....
"Where were the damn A-10s?"
Bradford radioed to the 2d Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Division moving up from the south....
"This is Red Devil-6. We need immediate A-10 support. Treb tank force estimate a Regiment approaching my position. Request priority HIMARS fires afterwards. Do you copy?"
"Romeo Delta-6, A-10s inbound, can you hold?"
Treb tanks were now exploding as they ran over Red Devil AT mines. They were beginning to fan out into assault positions.....they were getting close...soon Bradford's men would be decisively engaged by the Treb Army juggernaut....
RSTA Air Troop commander radios in....
"Red Devil-6, Recon-AIR."
"Go, Recon-AIR".
"Engaging enemy tanks with HELLFIRES. Ordnance expended. Can stay on station for laser targeting only..."
"Stay Recon-AIR......help is on the way"
The Buford AGSs began to fire their 105mm cannon and move at the approaching Trebs....their infantry dismounting and fanning out running for the city...Bradford's men open fire from the city buildings....
Bradford orders the Final Protective Fires...
Gavin 120mm mortars top-attack begin to fall at the rearward columns of enemy tanks waiting for the bottleneck of flaming tanks ahead to clear....more Treb tanks and APCs begin to explode....
RSTA Air Troop calls in...
"Red Devil-6 we have them trapped......request the HIMARS before they get too close......"
SWOOOOSHHH!
A flight of 12 A-10s peel off and drop cluster bomb ordnance catching the Trebs in the open......they then peel off in pairs and 30mm gatling gun the remaining tanks.....
The Red Devil Paratroopers cheer!
The A-10 commander radios Bradford: "Have a nice day, ARMY".
Bradford replies: "Clear skies to you, AIR FORCE."
As the Trebs were flushed into the open and either shot or captured, so were their hidden Air Defense weapons, the AF was now free to fly low and hit hard......
White flags began to emerge from the dozens of enemy tanks and surviving infantry hiding in the rocks....
Shots rung out to Bradford's rear as the industrial sniper problem was silenced......
As darkness fell over the smoking battlefield, the distant rumble of guns from the south were heard approaching...
It was the heavy Abrams tanks and BFVs of the 1st Infantry Division's 2D Brigade Combat Teams approaching....meanwhile on the ridges above the BIG RED ONE's main body their terrain-agile Gavin Battalions had made contact with the Red Devils.....the slaughter of the innocents had ended....