Post by MG Laura McArthur on Sept 17, 2017 23:21:32 GMT -5
Following the events in Alliance, American and Russian ground forces began making their way out of Albany, establishing a series of combat bases that would later either be - depending on the circumstance - turned over to any local survivors to use as a combat outpost or as a trading post/fort in a manner similar to the American experience in the Western Frontier from the late 1860's to 1900....after a week of steady progress, General McArthur, Admiral Sokolov and their combined ground forces now find themselves approaching the suburbs of Rochester, New York......
Current location of expedition forces; Locations A, B and C are combat bases COB Tulagi, COB Tenaru and COB Matanikau while Location D is Henderson Airfield
"Outstanding work, soldier...outstanding work," General McArthur said to the young corporal as they, along with several others, stood inside a guard tower inside COB Tulagi, a Roman-style outpost just north of what was formerly the New York State Thruway and just touching NY State 253 south of Rochester. The combat base, one of three built south and east of the city of Rochester, NY, were manned by troops of the 1st Volunteers (at Tulagi), 2nd US Regiment (at COB Tenaru) and by the newly-raised 3rd US Regiment (at COB Matanikau), while at the corner of the half-square that it anchored sat Henderson Airfield, where a squadron of Blackhawks sat along with 12 F$U Corsair prop-aircraft, protected by a Russian rifle battalion that had about as many individuals in it as did McArthur's Civil-War organized units . The Blackhawks were modern-day rotary aircraft that, through lots of maintenance and hard work, had managed to survive the past four years....the Corsairs, though, had been one of McArthur's projects the past two years....the prop aircraft, though about two generations or so out-of-date by modern standards, were rugged workhorses that could provide needed close-air support and were kept as far forward as possible. To McArthur's way of thinking, the fuel savings and long time on-station they provided more than offset the hard work needed to build and maintain them.
The combat outposts themselves were another part of McArthur's strategy as they moved west; in a series of conversations between her, President Michner and their Russian counterparts back at West Point in the runup to the Albany Operation, the basic plan was to connect West Point with the stronghold at Belle Isle via both an airbridge (to be established at the Coleman Young Airport) and a ground route that would go from West Point to Albany, then west to Buffalo, then across the Niagara River into southern Canada and through southern and southwest Ontario west to the Detroit River. Using as much information as they could get their hands on, they had decided to this route rather than a southern, all-American route that would gone into the western half of Detroit; in addition, using the northern route would give McArthur and Sokolov options on where to cross into Michigan once they arrived there. As they proceeded along, a series of trading posts and forts would be created, each run by a United States Marshal with full power and support to enforce American sovereignty over their respective locations, much in the same manner as frontier forts had done in the western frontier in the 35 years or so following the American Civil War. It was, McArthur would refer to it during their discussions over the subject, a uniquely American solution to the problem at hand.
For now at least, McArthur thought as she viewed the around around COB Tulagi, we control the area around Rochester and can maneuver at will and her comments earlier were in reference to just such thinking; earlier in the day, a three-Humvee patrol that'd left Tulagi had come under fire from a small group of bandits to the north on 253. It had been a short but dirty, the bandits ending up dead and only one soldier in 1st Volunteers wounded (a through-and-through 7.62 to the upper right arm) and in talking to the corporal who had led the patrol, the more McArthur was impressed with his quick thinking and assertiveness once engaged. No, McArthur did not believe in Leeroy Jenkins'-style movements-to-contact (she'd already relieved two section leaders 1st Volunteers for doing just that) but she believe in the fire-and-maneuver strategy of movement and this meant occasionally riding her subordinate commanders every so often while at the same time giving them the room to carry out plans in the manner best suited to the occasion. It was a balancing act that required the speed of Patton, the daring-do of MacArthur and the patience of Marshall....thus far, it was working well.
Before she could say anything else, her radioman called out, "Patrol reports engaging bandits just west of the 380 north of Lehigh Road." Looking at a map of the region she'd unfolded as the call came in, McArthur found the location (just over a mile away, McArthur thought) and listened as the patrol contacted Black Sheep Flight, a flight of four F4U Corsairs orbiting overhead whose primary job was providing close-air support when called upon. Listening to the back-and-forth between them, McArthur walked over to the tower's ladder and climbed onto the ladder, using a set of binoculars to look for the Corsairs as they came down over Tulagi and flew north, their radial engines putting out a sound that to McArthur was like hearing tens of thousands of angry hornets buzzing down on their target...as they passed overhead everyone in the tower - including McArthur, who'd climbed back into the tower - could hear what sounded like a malevolent whistling sound, a sound which someone remarked sounded as though the Grim Reaper was trying to whistle with someone lodged firmly in his teeth. McArthur shook her head in agreement; the Corsairs did sound like that when coming in onto their target and although they were a little too far away to see where the Corsairs were hitting, smoke rising in the distance pointed to a successful series of attack runs (Corsair pilots were taught to fly in pairs so as to maximize the target area being fired upon), along with the series of victory rolls the Corsairs made as they flew back over the combat outpost and banked to the east, presumably to fly back to Henderson Airfield to refuel and rearm and to be relieved by another four-ship flight of Corsairs. Picking up the handset, McArthur checked to make sure the radio was set to the Corsair frequency and said thusly, "Good shooting, Black Sheep....good shooting; Rocky Top out."
After acknowledging once more the corporal's work outside the wire - and making a mental note to mention his name in the daily dispatch that was flown to West Point every other day - General McArthur made her way down from the tower and continued walking around the outpost, talking to the soldiers there and learning as much as she could before flying back to Henderson Airfield, where her forward headquarters was located at; on her mind was a decision to make: did they bypass Rochester or did they move into the city environs themselves? And if they did that, she wondered, how did they accomplish that and keep moving westward?
Current location of expedition forces; Locations A, B and C are combat bases COB Tulagi, COB Tenaru and COB Matanikau while Location D is Henderson Airfield
...Bakara, from the Black Hawk Down soundtrack.....
"Outstanding work, soldier...outstanding work," General McArthur said to the young corporal as they, along with several others, stood inside a guard tower inside COB Tulagi, a Roman-style outpost just north of what was formerly the New York State Thruway and just touching NY State 253 south of Rochester. The combat base, one of three built south and east of the city of Rochester, NY, were manned by troops of the 1st Volunteers (at Tulagi), 2nd US Regiment (at COB Tenaru) and by the newly-raised 3rd US Regiment (at COB Matanikau), while at the corner of the half-square that it anchored sat Henderson Airfield, where a squadron of Blackhawks sat along with 12 F$U Corsair prop-aircraft, protected by a Russian rifle battalion that had about as many individuals in it as did McArthur's Civil-War organized units . The Blackhawks were modern-day rotary aircraft that, through lots of maintenance and hard work, had managed to survive the past four years....the Corsairs, though, had been one of McArthur's projects the past two years....the prop aircraft, though about two generations or so out-of-date by modern standards, were rugged workhorses that could provide needed close-air support and were kept as far forward as possible. To McArthur's way of thinking, the fuel savings and long time on-station they provided more than offset the hard work needed to build and maintain them.
The combat outposts themselves were another part of McArthur's strategy as they moved west; in a series of conversations between her, President Michner and their Russian counterparts back at West Point in the runup to the Albany Operation, the basic plan was to connect West Point with the stronghold at Belle Isle via both an airbridge (to be established at the Coleman Young Airport) and a ground route that would go from West Point to Albany, then west to Buffalo, then across the Niagara River into southern Canada and through southern and southwest Ontario west to the Detroit River. Using as much information as they could get their hands on, they had decided to this route rather than a southern, all-American route that would gone into the western half of Detroit; in addition, using the northern route would give McArthur and Sokolov options on where to cross into Michigan once they arrived there. As they proceeded along, a series of trading posts and forts would be created, each run by a United States Marshal with full power and support to enforce American sovereignty over their respective locations, much in the same manner as frontier forts had done in the western frontier in the 35 years or so following the American Civil War. It was, McArthur would refer to it during their discussions over the subject, a uniquely American solution to the problem at hand.
For now at least, McArthur thought as she viewed the around around COB Tulagi, we control the area around Rochester and can maneuver at will and her comments earlier were in reference to just such thinking; earlier in the day, a three-Humvee patrol that'd left Tulagi had come under fire from a small group of bandits to the north on 253. It had been a short but dirty, the bandits ending up dead and only one soldier in 1st Volunteers wounded (a through-and-through 7.62 to the upper right arm) and in talking to the corporal who had led the patrol, the more McArthur was impressed with his quick thinking and assertiveness once engaged. No, McArthur did not believe in Leeroy Jenkins'-style movements-to-contact (she'd already relieved two section leaders 1st Volunteers for doing just that) but she believe in the fire-and-maneuver strategy of movement and this meant occasionally riding her subordinate commanders every so often while at the same time giving them the room to carry out plans in the manner best suited to the occasion. It was a balancing act that required the speed of Patton, the daring-do of MacArthur and the patience of Marshall....thus far, it was working well.
Before she could say anything else, her radioman called out, "Patrol reports engaging bandits just west of the 380 north of Lehigh Road." Looking at a map of the region she'd unfolded as the call came in, McArthur found the location (just over a mile away, McArthur thought) and listened as the patrol contacted Black Sheep Flight, a flight of four F4U Corsairs orbiting overhead whose primary job was providing close-air support when called upon. Listening to the back-and-forth between them, McArthur walked over to the tower's ladder and climbed onto the ladder, using a set of binoculars to look for the Corsairs as they came down over Tulagi and flew north, their radial engines putting out a sound that to McArthur was like hearing tens of thousands of angry hornets buzzing down on their target...as they passed overhead everyone in the tower - including McArthur, who'd climbed back into the tower - could hear what sounded like a malevolent whistling sound, a sound which someone remarked sounded as though the Grim Reaper was trying to whistle with someone lodged firmly in his teeth. McArthur shook her head in agreement; the Corsairs did sound like that when coming in onto their target and although they were a little too far away to see where the Corsairs were hitting, smoke rising in the distance pointed to a successful series of attack runs (Corsair pilots were taught to fly in pairs so as to maximize the target area being fired upon), along with the series of victory rolls the Corsairs made as they flew back over the combat outpost and banked to the east, presumably to fly back to Henderson Airfield to refuel and rearm and to be relieved by another four-ship flight of Corsairs. Picking up the handset, McArthur checked to make sure the radio was set to the Corsair frequency and said thusly, "Good shooting, Black Sheep....good shooting; Rocky Top out."
After acknowledging once more the corporal's work outside the wire - and making a mental note to mention his name in the daily dispatch that was flown to West Point every other day - General McArthur made her way down from the tower and continued walking around the outpost, talking to the soldiers there and learning as much as she could before flying back to Henderson Airfield, where her forward headquarters was located at; on her mind was a decision to make: did they bypass Rochester or did they move into the city environs themselves? And if they did that, she wondered, how did they accomplish that and keep moving westward?
