United States Northern Command
Cheyenne Mountain Space Force Station, CO
“Beale is off the air, sir.”
Wilkes was getting frustrated. Everything they tried to do to understand the current situation was blocked in some way. “I don’t care what we don’t have. Tell me what I do have.” He raised his voice so everyone in the large ops center could hear him. “People, we are facing the most serious threat to our nation in our lifetimes. This isn’t about what missions a unit is SUPPOSED to do. Let’s focus on what we CAN DO. We need intel and we need it RIGHT NOW.”
“Sir, Johnson Space Center is answering. I believe that they have at least one WB-57 flight ready.”
OK, a fifty-year-old British bomber was not what I had in mind, thought Wilkes. However, when in need. “Give them the go, I want a flight along the US-Mexico border. Radar if possible, visual if not. We need to know if those reports about Chinese armored units in the Sonoran desert are true and if they are moving.”
“SIR! VP-4 reporting in. They are airborne, asking for tasking!”
Thank God. “OK, let’s get one of their birds overhead the Bougainville and another to the Mexico border.”
“Yes, sir.”
VP-4 or “Aircraft Patrol 4” in the unique naming system (V is aircraft) is a P-8 squadron based in Washington state. However, the P-8 is a maritime patrol aircraft. Great at finding ships and submarines, but not really designed for surface vehicle tracking. That mission had been trying to find a home since the retirement of the USAF JSTARS aircraft. Ideally, they would use drones flying out of Beale AFB in California, but Beale was off the air.
“Are any of them AAS-equipped?”
“Checking…. Yes, sir, one of them.”
“OK, have that one assigned to the border mission.” The obliquely named Advanced Airborne Sensor (AAS) was a side looking AESA radar developed to allow the P-8 to peer into places like Hainan Island. It should be able to detect any movements of armored vehicles from at least a hundred miles away. “Where are our E-3s?”
“We have two checking in from Europe and one just rotating out of Diego Garcia.”
“OK, recall all three. I want them up as far north as we can, West Coast Whidbey, East Coast Andrews.”
“Sir! JADOC reporting in.” JADOC, the Joint Air Defense Operations Command, is the only permanently manned SAM unit in the entire US military. It has the job of defending Washington, D.C. from potential air attack. Continuously manned since 9/11, it had the ability to track and engage anything within a hundred miles of Washington, D.C.
“Push our flight plans to them and put them in charge of FAA liaison. I want all commercial flights grounded.” Wilkes glanced at the main status board. No Air Combat Command (ACC) aircraft were showing there. “Is EADS or WADS online yet?”
“No, sir.” Eastern and Western Air Defense Sectors basically split air defense of the USA between the two of them. The two commands are part of Air Combat Command (ACC) but permanently assigned to North American Aerospace Command (NORAD). All of the structures, communications and processes so painstakingly created since WWII were supposed to protect the USA in case of an event like this but at the moment almost none of them were working.
“I want you to assign a team to walk down every fighter squadron in the USA. Start with those closest to the Mexican border and work your way north. I want EVERY SINGLE ONE deployed to a civilian airfield. Not a civilian field with a Reserve unit, I mean a civilian airfield. Got me?”
“Yes, sir.”
Wilkes pointed randomly to one of the army officers in the operations center. “I want you to do the same thing for Brigade Combat Teams. Start in Texas.” The BCT is the basic deployable unit for the US Army. Mobile and lethal, a fully worked up BCT could take on most formations up to and including a full-on Chinese Division. “I want to see a plan for army aviation. I want to see a plan to FARP them at least one hundred miles from the Mexican border with fallback positions 200 miles back.” An Apache attack helicopter has a combat radius of about 200 miles, so 100 miles was pretty much their maximum distance from the border if they were needed.
“Yes sir.”
“Any word from Fort Bliss?”
“No, sir.” Fort Bliss, Texas was less than ten miles from the Mexican border in El Paso, Texas. It was also home of an entire armored division, a big part of III Corps’ striking power. The pre-war battle plan had called for III Corps to take the brunt of any southern invasion simply because of the mass of firepower sitting there in El Paso. “I do have 1st Infantry. They are reporting strikes at Fort Riley, but they are mission capable.”
“OK, get them moving south, starting with their aviation units. Let’s assume for a minute that we have an invasion coming over the Mexican border. I want to hold the line at the Texas state line.”
“I Corps reporting in, sir.”
“Excellent. They are west coast. I want them in Northern California, Pronto. We hold the line at the central valley and all the way out to Las Vegas. Get them moving. In the meantime, see if we have any guard units we can place as blocking forces between San Diego and LA.”
“Blocking forces, sir?”
“If they do come north, there is no way we defend San Diego. Our only hope is to slow them down enough to allow I Corps to get positioned.”
“That will be rough on the guard units.”
“It’s them or we lose the LA basin without a fight.”
“Roger that, sir.”
Moving an entire Army corps was not a trivial task. It would probably take days if not a full week to get their forces in position. In the meantime, forces on the ground would be largely on their own until the USAF could get re-organized.
For the second time in a decade, the USA was headed to war. This time, it was going to be fought on American soil.