"Brown, Dale - Fatal Terrain" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brown Dale)

But it was a farce, typical of the huge, bloated People's
Liberation Army bureaucracy, Sun thought. No member of the
lowly MCHTT would dare make any substantive changes in
the war plans drawn up by the Central Military Commission-
that would be an act tantamount to treason. Colonel Ai was
the commanding officer of the planning division of the
MCHTT, but he was such a junior officer that if he worked in
Sun's office of the chief of staff, his day would be spent mostly
making tea and emptying wastebaskets for all the middle- and
upper-class flag officers there. If the Central Military Com-
mittee wanted any changes made as to how Taiwan was to be
11 reunited" with the mainland, the CMC would tell the chief
of staff, who would tell Sun, who would tell the MCHTT to
make the changes. That process might take six months-six
months spent by each bureaucrat in order to make sure that
his superior wasn't trying to screw him, each bureaucrat mak-
ing sure that the orders made him look good if it worked and
made someone else look bad if it didn't work.
The initial thrust of the attack on the island of Formosa was
to destroy the island's thick air and coastal security units from

long range. Seven fixed bases and ten mobile presurveyed
launch points in east-central China were programmed to launch
up to twenty Dong Feng-15 intermediate- and short-range mis-
siles each on Taiwanese targets per day, that was one hundred
and fifty to three hundred missiles per day, an incredible bom-
bardment. The attacks were programmed to last as long as a
month, but of course would be halted right before the am-
phibious invasion began, or upon the rebel's unconditional sur-
render. The high-explosive missile attacks would be followed
by tactical air strikes to mop up any surviving targets, escorted
by waves of fighters to ensure air superiority and to fight off




20 DALE BROWN
an expected counterattack by Taiwanese air forces. An am-
phibious invasion was deemed unnecessary-the thought be-
ing that loyal Communists on Taiwan would rise up, throw off
their Nationalist oppressors, and welcome the People's Lib-
eration Army ashore peacefully-but the aircraft carrier Mao
Zedong, formerly the Russian carrier Varyag and for a short
time the Iranian carrier Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and its
battle group would be used to ferry troops and supplies ashore
if necessary, while providing air cover against any resistance.
"Hold please, Colonel," Sun finally said. "You show the
employment of seventy-five DF- 15 missiles on Longtian to
launch against Taoyuan and Hsinchu Air Bases on Taiwan."
"Yes, sir ... ?"