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Praetorium Honoris

Wednesday, October 20, 2021

Day of the Hog

US Air Force Photo

"I'm not buying it, it just seems too pat. I mean we've got the bastards on the run and suddenly agents from Taiwan show up? It stinks to high heaven." Ida Kasparian said to her husband as they walked out to the tool shed behind the house. Yesterday's Chinese visitor had been picked up a few hours after their arrival by a civilian helicopter. Jack Bishop and Frank Teller had stayed overnight and were still asleep after a long day.

Billy stopped walking and turned to Ida, "I never thought of that, I was just happy to think that we weren't alone out here. But yeah, what you say makes sense. I wonder where that Ye person was going next. Damn it!"


"Calm down Billy, Ye is legit. Right Jack?" Frank Teller had seen the woman's identification papers, they were real, or the best forgeries he had ever seen.

Jack Bishop sat on his cot, he looked terrible. He hadn't slept much in the past week. He wanted the Chinese woman to be legit, Hell, he needed her to be the real deal. But Ida had a point, did they believe her because they wanted to? A plant from the Chicoms wouldn't really be a stretch. The debit cards they'd received, it struck him, how the Hell were they supposed to use those? What was there to buy in this area that they needed those sort of funds for?

"We need to run some checks on this lady, Ida's right, this is just too convenient."


The General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper was loaded with two Hellfire missiles. It could carry four, but the Guard didn't have that many to go around. With two other drones airborne, both loaded with two missiles each, they wanted to keep the remainder of their missiles in reserve. All the intel they had received indicated that the Chinese wouldn't, in fact couldn't, reinforce their remaining units in New York. The Canadian forces were in open revolt against their government and were hounding the Chinese forces in Canada to death.

1st Lieutenant Marcia Hopkins was watching her screen intently, she moved the drone with deft, subtle movements on the controls. She had been selected to fly fighters in training, then the government decided that it had enough F-16 pilots, so she went to fly drones. Yes, she hadn't liked that at all, but like her Dad always said, "Don't get what you want in the Air Force? Keep fighting, don't let the bastards get you down." He, and his backseater, had died when she was still in high school when an engine died on takeoff in his fully loaded F-15 Strike Eagle.

"Hey Charlie, are you seeing this?"

Her intel analyst took a closer look at the screen, "Looks like a PGZ-04, late model from the looks of it. Just the one?" MSgt Kirk Bellows wondered what a UN peacekeeper force would need with antiaircraft weaponry. No doubt that vehicle had been smuggled into the country. So the odds were, there might not be many more.

"Yup, I didn't see any others. Great vis today, it doesn't look like the Chicoms are exercising really good camouflage discipline. Which seems suspicious all by itself."

"We're maybe seeing what they want us to see?"

Hopkins thought for a minute, then said, "F**k it, I'm gonna kill it."


The commander had wanted their vehicle moved closer to where the base's ammunition was stored, he was worried when reports had come in of American ground attack aircraft being reported at one of the American air guard facilities. With their logistics line to Canada having been cut, the commander was losing sleep over his ammunition and fuel reserves.

"Have you found the problem?" the sergeant was getting impatient with the driver. The vehicle had stalled when they were moving it from its original camouflaged position over to the ammunition dump. The driver had crawled into the engine compartment to figure out why.

"Ah ha, loose cable!" The driver connected it and climbed back into the driver's seat and cranked the engine, which started right up. As he poked his head up to tell the sergeant that the vehicle was ready to proceed, he noticed that the sergeant was running towards the nearest cover. Looking up, in the last moments of his life, the driver saw the exhaust from an American AGM-114 Hellfire missile.


The men going about their duties on the Chinese base, which the Americans called Fort Drum, heard the explosion and wondered what was happening. They had been ordered to prepare for both of two possible courses of action. They were to prepare defensive positions against a ground attack and to prepare to be ready to withdraw back to Canada at a moment's notice.

A number of the units had drawn their reserve ammunition and fuel to be ready for either eventuality. The one thing they weren't prepared for was an attack from the air. One man had seen one of the American drones up above because he had happened to be looking in just the right direction when the drone had fired a missile.

Word spread quickly around the base that they were being attacked by drones. As the men hunkered down, and stayed clear of any worthwhile targets, like anti-aircraft positions, of which there had been three, all of which been taken out by the drone-fired missiles, above the sound of explosions a few men heard an odd droning noise.

"There do you hear that, it sounds like a turbofan engine, doesn't it?" Corporal Wu listened and sure enough, he could hear it. As the noise of missile explosions faded, to be replaced by the sound of flames and secondary explosions, the sound of what had to be aircraft engines became more obvious.

"Anti-air positions! Incoming hostile aircraft!!" Wu screamed at his squad.


Major Josh Topher lined up on his target, all he had other than his cannon ammunition were four old AGM-65 Maverick missiles. On his display was what had to be a munitions dump.

"Boozer, I'm on an ammo dump, watch my six."

Captain John Walker replied, "Two." Then watched as his lead launched his missile. Expecting a streak of flame as the missile was pushed away from the rack, he sighed as it simply fell to earth, the rocket motor had failed to ignite.

"Camel, negative ignition on your Maverick."

"Copy, firing another."

This time the forty year old missile actually worked.


Captain Luo Shuren saw the two aircraft on their run, he saw something fall away from the lead aircraft, then saw the streak of fire as the aircraft launched a missile.

His duty station was in the ammunition storage area. Much of which had been pulled into the open for issuing to the troops. He realized in an instant that the missile seemed to be heading directly at him.

Luo, a secret Christian, began to pray in the last few seconds of life left to him, he prayed for forgiveness.


General Liao Yong knew that the People's Liberation Army's North American Expeditionary Force's time in America was coming to an end, at least in New York state. "Contact the Americans." he ordered his adjutant.

"Which Americans? The puppet government in Albany? The government in Washington, who are apparently being held captive by their military? Who do I contact, Sir?" Colonel Peng Yu wanted to know, he genuinely had no idea who to contact to open negotiations.

"Contact their military headquarters in Washington, the Pentagon. The duty officer there will know who we need to talk to." General Liao wondered if he would live to see his homeland. If the Americans didn't kill him, surely his own government would.




56 comments:

  1. With the Chinese potentially moved out of North America......what will happen in DC?

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    1. We're going to find out pretty soon. Might not be pretty.

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    2. Hopefully what should have been done a long time ago. And hopefully a full Supreme Court still packed with Constitutionalists is still alive.

      Though part of me would love to see some leftist twit have to swear in some uber-conservative as president, but I don't want things to get so bad that some leftist twit would be Chief Justice, as Roberts is bad enough, the waffling twit.

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    3. He makes invertebrates look stiff.

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  2. Air support certainly does help........but Captain John Walker.....really....:)

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  3. Still waiting for the BBBRRRRRRTTTTTT!

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  4. First time I ever saw an A10 was Wings Over East Texas. 1987... They were impressive. And the Apache was displayed, too.

    There was a contingent of USSR military observers there. Some one had a Yak 3 and it beat up GGG pretty well. The sovs were monitoring our destruction of napalm iirc some where out near Lufkin. But it could have been the Red River Aresenal. Too many years ago....

    Me and Patrick are still waiting for the same song....

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    1. Please add me to the list waiting for BRRRRRRRRRTT (longer burst there)!

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    2. That particular aircraft, and its' unique voice, has a very dedicated, if not fanatical following. Obviously you're not ranked among the zealots or, like Tom, you would show more reverence for the longer burst. (chuckle)

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    3. I meant that last for Sarge, not StxAR.

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    4. Patrick #1 - Sure it does, but I'm all about combat effectiveness, not sound effects. 🤣

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    5. Patrick #2 - I'm sure STxAR knew that.

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    6. If a target warrants a Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt, then you are in trouble. It should be, Brrrt Brrrt Brrrrt, especially since, in the scenario that our noble host paints, ammo is kinda scarce, most likely not a lot of refill available.

      But it sounds like the Warthog did its magic and the enemy is capitulating. Hopefully. And we'll see if the locals allow the enemy to capitulate.

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    7. The Hog and the Reapers kicked some serious Chicom ass.

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  5. BRRRRRT! BRRRRRT! BRRRRRRT!

    vs

    BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT!

    Former gets three targets. Ammo's scarce.

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  6. Drones are something we have not fully begun to appreciate in the next full blown escalatory war (whenever that turns out to be). They are being used in ways not envisioned by their creators then; I can only imagine how much more "creative" folks will be.

    I can imagine that age of technology (and its potential propensity to fail) would be an issue in such situations.

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    1. There is a growing concern in some military circles about our over-reliance on technology. Not just because of it's propensity to fail (usually at the most inopportune time), but also an adversary's ability to spoof it or neutralize it.

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    2. And our dear leaders are buying ChiCom drones for use by Homeland and other not-mil internal police forces. Not cool.

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    3. And our over-reliance on tech means we can't afford very many. Quantity has a quality all of its own as the saying goes. The ChiComs may not have the best stuff, but they sure have a ton of it.

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    4. Tuna, you're looking at this all wrong. The phrase you seek is "target rich environment". Sorta like the guys who mistakenly surround paratroopers. "Those poor bastards"... (NOT the paras, I mean) ;)

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  7. "As it simply fell to the earth"... good imagery! I never thought of the rocket like that just not working.

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    1. Rocket motors degrade over time, and, as always, shit happens.

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    2. As covered in "Debt of Honor" by Tom Clancy, as the aged Phoenix missiles mostly worked. It is a problem. Buy expensive missile without refurbishing them, and they tend to go bad. Buy them during war-fighting and they get used, so you don't need refurbishment. Buy missiles with a refurbishment program and you can't buy as many missiles. And that's before politics gets involved, and one state builds the missiles, another refurbishes them, another stores them, another controls the transportation of them, and many many congresscritters and lobbyists and senior 'Gon officials line their pockets.

      If it is more complex than simple solid ammo, you've got to have a refurbishment system in place.

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    3. When I flew the Deuce at Itazuke AB, we occasionally had a missile that needed firing. It was probably during an ORI or something. I recall that a high percentage of them were "sand seekers". The 2.75 FFARs always seemed to work and were a lot more fun to fire. The missiles were mounted internally on racks that extended once the doors opened during the firing sequence. The rockets were inside the doors on either side. Most of the time it seems like we used the missile bays for carrying the wooden bowls and velvet paintings we bought at Clark AB on the occasional trip down there to stand alert for their squadron of drinkers.
      The Phantom was something else. As an IP, I sat in the backseat quite often to observe Sparrow shots. I'm trying to remember whether every stud got a missile to fire at the end of the course. The Sparrows always came off the aircraft, they didn't always track, however. I can remember flying the T-Bird too, as the tow for the target. It was amazing how often the O-6's came out to fly when there were "clean" Phantoms on the schedule. 45 minute mission - off, out, shoot, ACM your way back to George.

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    4. Ah yes, the sand seekers, I had forgotten that term. 😂

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  8. Even without the sound effects I'm just glad they've GOT gun ammo.
    BG

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    1. There are always those annoying holdouts. And the annoying politicians.

      And, well, would love to see an Antifa/BLM peaceful protest receive some Brrrt. Or a cluster bomb. Or both.

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    2. Napalm sticks to protesters. Just sayin'...

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  9. Since the American Civil War, he who controls the sky controls the ground. Little known is the roll of observation balloons used for, well, observation and spotting of artillery as early as 1862, and the roll of said balloons in the success at Vicksburg and other sieges.

    Something that the American Military immediately wanted to forget after the war. Idiots.

    Glad the ChiCom commander sees the ways of reality. Unfortunately his family is now dead even if he is repatriated. The ChiComs don't allow failure to go unpunished. They are much like Mexican cartels in that respect. (We used to call a semi-load of seized drugs 'dead Mexicans' because you know whole families would get wiped out over a big load being confiscated. Sad but true, and dark humor is the only way to really survive it.)

    Also glad someone decided to get interested in Ye's credentials. I hope she's real. And I hope the Republic of China lasts.

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    1. Control the sky, control the fight.

      Until the gorram politicians give it away.

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    2. It dies seem odd, how she just appeared.

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  10. First aircraft I saw/heard after 9/11 air shutdown was a pair of A-10s. Very distinct sound. Used to have a DCMA QAR who had been a maintenance chief for a squadron of A-10s. He had some interesting stories. Would not want one of those aircraft mad at me.

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    1. To me the sound of those engines is scary, makes you think about what's coming!

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    2. Sarge, you know this, but the A-10 and the Mighty War Hoover (S-3B Viking) share the same engines. Although the USAF burns them hotter and a little faster than we do.

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    3. Well, the A-10 isn't the fastest bird in the sky. Now I have to figure out who would win a straight race, the Hoover or the Hog?

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    4. (Don McCollor)...I remember hearing the legend that the A-10 takes bird strikes from the rear...

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