(Haywood County)
"General Westgard’s plan was simple. He would have the 2/26 N.C. Infantry form in line with their armor support behind Hill 765 to the right of Black’s paratroopers, but behind the ridge line and out of harms way. At the last minute, he would switch the artillery fires from support of McClung to bombardment of Black’s clearing with a mixture of high explosive and smoke shells. At the same time, he would order the air support to do all they could against the same target. Parasiliti would come over the crest of Hill 765 and down the forward slope headed for the clearing. Peter Black and his 2/325 Airborne Infantry would climb out of their holes and move forward on the left as Parasiliti came abreast. Westgard made sure that Black’s attached tanks would come forward to join the assault. The two battalion teams would assault across the clearing to capture the entrances to the tunnels. After that, they would play it by ear. Westgard suspected that it would be necessary to go underground to dig the aliens out. It was not a thought he really wanted to face just yet." Pat Lang
————-
I wrote this a long time ago as an experiment in writing science fiction with a military theme. I have published it a couple of times before on SST. It illustrates well how a reinforced brigade tsk force would conduct a combined arms attack when supported by tactical air and artillery. pl
The photograph looked strangely compelling yet not-quite-familiar somehow. So I looked up Haywood County.
I lived from 0 to 15 years old in Knoxville, Tennessee. Dad would take us up into the Park on semi-regular occasions. So I could sometimes have been in Haywood County without realizing it at the time. I wonder if the mountains shown are a yet further range that I never saw, or if they are indeed the “mountains I know” seen from “the other side”. They look big, but not quite Smoky-big. But big enough.
It is 2037 and they still fly A-10s? 65 years after their first flight?
I like science fiction but it should have some realistic base 🙂
b
We are still flying B-52s and C-130s. In the US Army they would like to still have the A-10 around in 2037. It is the USAF that never liked the plane. You are just being difficult. pl
DC
It is Haywood County. pl
PA
Yes. The fuzzy wuzzies may look funny but they can kill you. pl
PA
b is a man. This is more merchants of death BS. If you had ever worked in DoD you would know that this is not how procurement actions are originated. The services state a requirement through DoD procurement channels and THEN there is a competition for the contract, a very serious competition. At the beginning of the Iraq War a lot of single source non-competed contracts were let on a non-compete system. This was an emergency situation but stopped a lot of years ago. Armored Humvees, MRAPS and the like were the fruits of those contracts. This was not a normal process. DoD intends to keep B-52, the MiAi tank and the C-130 around for a long time. There is no reason why all these end items of equipment can not be operated for a very long time since they are more or less continuously upgraded and essentially re-manufactured regularly. the same is true of the A-10 which is IMO the best ground support aircraft ever built. pl
Col. Lang:
I would think a star-faring alien invasion force would endeavor to establish itself in the Earth oceans and thus deny mobility to human beings.
I should think it extremely more difficult to fight a war underwater in depths that are inaccessible to humans; area denial.
Babak
I look forward to reading your story. pl
Nothing original; there was a novel of Earth’s invasion – The Kraken Wakes, please see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kraken_Wakes – but it was not a military science-fiction novel. Much of the story is told from the point of view of a civilian, in fact.
I think this is an area that science-fiction writers have not exploited much; war in three dimensions against an enemy who is more adopted to the physical conditions of the battle space than Man is.
“I think this is an area that science-fiction writers have not exploited much; war in three dimensions against an enemy who is more adopted to the physical conditions of the battle space than Man is.”
Some of the Kzin war stories do, the fantasy/sci-fi movie Outlander(2008), too.
IMHO the inherent weakness of such set-ups often is that you have to make a lot of compromises in order to maintain some logic. Personally, I like the clash of groups with completely differen moral framework.
Hello Sir,
The problem with including aliens is primarily deciding on a relative technological difference, then a difference in thinking, and then building a narrative that takes this effectively into account. The fiction that I find most compelling in this sub-genre is that in which the tech level is roughly the same between the two sides, and there are plenty of examples IMO where the combatants are all human. A good recent example is Richard K. Morgan’s book _Broken Angels_ (the second in a trilogy). I found it a worthy successor to the kinds of concepts that earlier writers like Gordon R. Dickson explored.
Your excerpt above makes me think of examples like that more than fiction that involves aliens because I don’t see it challenging my expectations of how a non-human adversary would act and react…
My $0.02,
mongo
mongo
To each his taste as the old lady said after kissing a cow. pl