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Phase 18: War Fever
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Part 6
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The General Secretary issued an ultimatum to North Korea, demanding an immediate ceasefire. He threatened grave consequences in case the Kim Regime continued the 'unprovoked and insane' aggression against South Korea.
Xinhua
Between the civil war in Iran and Wakanda's naval interdiction efforts, the economic impact of the ongoing conflicts is potentially going to be catastrophic. At this time, the Suez Canal is closed for commercial shipping. There are many cargo ships stuck in the Red Sea or the Mediterranean, crippling trade between Europe and Asia. The Wakandan efforts also mean that critical food and aid shipments to Africa are on standby, guaranteeing famine and starvation in various African countries.
Forbes Magazine
EU heads of state, foreign ministers, and representatives of the European Central Bank will hold an emergency meeting in Brussels this Friday. They will negotiate a new economic and defense framework for the EU, reflecting the ongoing war and existing and emerging threats.
Euronews
In an emergency session this afternoon, the Senate will discuss and vote on a possible declaration of war against North Korea. Considering the ongoing Wakandan War, we might be looking at World War III unfolding before our eyes…
USA Today
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the Pentagon, Washington, DC
Earth
Admiral Frederick Tillman, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sat in a bunker below the Pentagon, pondering his options. It was three days after the world went to hell in a handbasket, with little chance of things improving anytime soon, even if he didn't have to deal with any new wildfires.
Around-the-clock air strikes in Iran, all the assets bound in protecting sites around the globe from Wakandan air assault, and now, the Norks deciding to commit what might very well be the most expensive suicide in human history… For decades now, the US military has taken pride in being able to fight multiple wars across the globe and win. These days that boast was put to the test, and the Admiral wasn't sure they were up to the task in a manner that mattered.
Iran was a foregone conclusion. Air strikes and some more missiles from the naval assets in the region would see the loyalists' military win. After that, it would be up to the politicians on both sides to figure out something everyone could live with. Ideally, Iran would choose a moderate path and invest in rebuilding instead of financing terrorist groups all over the place. For all intents and purposes, that place was now a sideshow that could be mostly ignored.
Wakanda couldn't be ignored because if those crazy bastards wizened up, they could still cause catastrophic damage before going down. While crippled, their air force was still potent, and all countermeasures against it were incredibly manpower and hardware intensive. The sheer number of assets bound in place due to Wakanda was unbelievable. That, combined with terrorists with dangerous weapons running all over the Middle East and Afghanistan, further stretched the Coalition forces.
Unfortunately, the cupboard was relatively empty when North Korea erupted. The sheer intensity of the fighting there dwarfed even some of the most pessimistic but credible projections, making the situation worse.
Tillman looked at a constantly updated map of South Korea and the one of the globe beside it, showing the best-known dispositions of friendly and enemy forces.
All available marine units were sailing towards Korea with naval escorts. Federalized National Guard units and elements of the First Armored Division were racing toward transport ships. Until then, the only ground forces that could make a difference were the Marines from Okinawa and Guam.
Due to the heavy artillery and missile strikes the Norks were still capable of, the forces from Okinawa had to disembark at Busan, and it might still be a couple of days before they could engage the enemy. It would take longer for the meager reinforcements from Guam to get in place and at least another week for further reinforcements to land.
In theory, that wasn't a catastrophic delay. The most critical area around Seoul was shielded by water. For all the ongoing issues on the front, there wouldn't be a successful North Korean amphibious assault.
Despite that, Seoul and its suburbs were an anchor tied around the necks of the South Koreans and the US forces in the theater of operations. A significant portion of the enemy's artillery was concentrated against the city while covered by the best anti-air assets the bloody bastards had. Even with evacuation starting a few days before the war, there were still millions of civilians stuck in the area. Some were lucky enough to be reasonably safe within shelters. However, most of the population was busy evacuating under fire, which pinned in place a significant portion of the South Korean military and emergency services. Most of the available precision ammunition, cruise missiles from naval assets, and the invaluable Jericho missiles Stark made were expended against the glut of artillery aimed at Seoul.
The Admiral glanced at the long lists of confirmed losses and destroyed enemy assets, with those of claimed kills near it. At best, in the three days of vicious fighting, the Norks had lost nearly four thousand artillery pieces of all kinds, something that would have broken almost any other army on the face of the planet.
In this case? It wasn't enough. Precision ammunition in the theater was running out. Part of it was the incredible intensity of the fighting. The rest was the sheer number of enemy artillery striking all over the place, with a murderous focus on ammo depots and vital military facilities.
Many of Fifth Fleet's elements had to fall back for resupply, with only air strikes from the carrier in the area still going strong, burning through long-range weapons as if they were going out of fashion.
At the end of the day, Korea wasn't a prominent place. The nature of the DMZ meant many forces had to be stationed to hold apparent positions. The nature of the beast robbed the allied forces in the region of some of their most significant advantages. It didn't matter as it should have that they had the edge in command and control, mobility, or precision weapons when the enemy had the massed firepower to remove square grids of the map that had to be held.
There were mobile artillery systems that proved themselves invaluable again and again until they simply ran out of ammo and had to retreat, seeking resupply. Others were merely unlucky, finding themselves under barrages. It was clear that the enemy's battlefield intelligence gathering wasn't great. However, some sneaky bastard had accounted for it, using the volume of fire to smash grid squares where SPGs might be. It was wasteful, with a tremendous amount of shells expended against empty fields. At other times, villages and towns were smashed for no good reason. As if that wasn't bad enough, the enemy kept getting lucky due to the sheer volume of fire they could still sustain even after days of heavy fighting.
The Admiral stared morosely at the maps. The ongoing Nork efforts were unsustainable in the long run. But frankly, that was a moot point. They already caused a tremendous amount of damage, and the price for taking them out for good would be even higher.
Seoul was safe from a ground invasion, and why would the enemy bother taking place when they were busy reducing it to a burning ruin? Most of the North Korean army was focused east of the capital, taking advantage of the better terrain. While those regions were fortified deathtraps, the forces in place to hold them were suffering heavy casualties from artillery of all kinds, and that wasn't going to change in the next few days.
Tillman had a simple, terrible choice regarding recommending a strategy to the President. They could redirect air assets and artillery away from Seoul, sacrificing what was left of the South Korean industrial heart and potentially tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of civilians, to relieve the pressure of the forces holding the DMZ. It was either that or continuing to focus on the artillery aimed at the capital and the anti-air systems covering it.
Unfortunately, the same geographical features that shielded Seoul from a ground invasion meant that raids across the DMZ without a tremendous preparatory effort would be a pointless bloodbath.
The Admiral looked at the reinforcements already en route and all the cargo ships with ammo and relief supplies. At least those weren't much of an issue, especially the latter. Convoys were leaving European harbors with military and relief aid, heading for South Korea as well. That would help in the long run.
The bigger problem would be getting the supplies and reinforcements from the reasonably safe harbors to the front and all the people fleeing the fighting. Hell, most of the military police in the continental United States would be deployed to ease up logistics and help the Koreans keep things under a semblance of control.
Then there were the Chinese. Tillman had no idea what way they were going to jump. If the State Department could be trusted, the Chinese would not support the Norks in their suicide attempt. That was well and good. However, it wasn't something the Admiral could count on until all was said and done. The way things were going, if the Chinese intervened, there wouldn't be enough forces left to conventionally stop them from taking a leisure ride all the way to Busan.