Yonkers opening shot

[rightwing401]

My story on the battle of Yonkers is almost done. Just wanted to show this beginning of the battle. I took the liberty of changing a few things about the actual battle itself. If you've read WWZ, then you'll recognize them. Anyway, here it is. As per pre-warning, violence and language ensue in said text. “Contact!” Without the slightest hesitation in his movements, Clyde brought his rifle up and rushed past the cute reporter to the edge of his squad’s firing hole. Less than five seconds later, the other men of his unit were right beside him, either squatting on two feet or holding themselves up on one knee. All had their weapons trained down the long, deserted expanse of road. Clyde wasn’t entirely sure, but he thought that he could just barely make out an outline at the extreme end of the freeway. “All units, activate LandWarrior. Standby.” At command, Clyde and the thousands of other soldiers all plugged their connectors into the portable batteries that powered the system, then flipped down their individual visors. Clyde’s piece was instantly flooded with a crushing magnitude of images in his left eye. It was very, very distracting. Along with tens of thousands of individual images he could choose to see through all the other soldiers eye pieces, he had the option of up linking to several satellite spy birds that were in high orbit over the battlefield at that very moment. He connected to one of the spy bird’s live video feed. Even looking at the one that was at the closest magnification range, he couldn’t make out a single G wandering through the river of wreckage that led up to their main line of defense. Clyde shifted from the satellite video feed to one of the ten enormous long range digital cameras that had been erected directly behind the line. Like LandWarrior, the cameras were trial prototypes. Designed to give sniper teams an extra edge by presenting them the option to see through the digital images without exposing themselves to hostile enemy fire. And here these new wonders of the modern digital warfare were, undergoing their first real life field test. Staring through his visor, Clyde was able to see what his bare eyes hadn’t allowed. Staggering slowly on a hobbled leg that was so badly mauled that bits of bone were visible, was the very first live G that Clyde had ever seen. Watching it through the video feed made it seem less real and more like a figment of movie imagination. It wasn’t clothed at all, which was why Clyde was easily able to tell that it had been a man. He saw its lips moving, but it was too far away for him to hear the soulless wail he had been told about. Comprehension that the walking abomination had once been a man was hard to process in his mind. A voice crack in over Clyde’s ear piece, ending any potential chance there might have been in his thought process about the greater meaning of life and the thing staggering towards their position. “Delta 2751, target is entering my designated kill zone. Requesting permission to engage.” Clyde leaned forward slightly at the request. He could feel every last strand of his muscles tighten with immense tension. With his breath held and his lips clenched tightly, Clyde did the only thing that he could do. Wait. And that, in his mind, was almost as much of a bitch “Engage.” Commanded an older sounding voice through the ear piece. Not more than three seconds after being given the go ahead, a thunderous boom echoed from behind Clyde. Even with his ears covered by the MOPP hood and helmet, the blast was still very loud. Even as Clyde’s body jumped slightly from the tremendous gunshot, the heavy 50 caliber round hit. The top of the G’s head above the bottom of its nose simply disintegrated in a fountain of dark red goo. It didn’t fall forward or fling back the way Clyde had seen in movies. The headless body…just dropped. A very small pool of thick, black fluid slowly seeped out the empty cavity that had once been the head onto the hot pavement. “Boom!” some unknown voice roared over the net. “Got him! Fucking headshot!” “Fuck yeah!” Clyde shouted into the net along with hundreds of other soldiers who equally couldn’t keep their excitement down.

[rgc2005]

From my perspective as a retired military officer most battle scenarios in fan fiction completely neglect one key component of modern battle tactics called the "Deep Fight". Simply put it is putting fire down on the enemy formations at the maximum distance (50k to 10K) to disrupt large formations and demoralize the enemy moving in to attack positions along your FLOT (Forward Line Of Troops). This component of the "Deep Fight" is usually conducted by the Air Force and Corps Level Artillery with MLRS systems. Once inside 20Km the enemy can be engaged effectively with 155mm Paladins, MLRS and F-16/A-10 Ground Support fires to target specific targeted areas called TAs. All of these missions would be called in by Air Force Forward Area Controllers (FACs) embedded with forward deployed Special Forces/Pathfinder/LRP teams and managed by the Fire Support Coordinator at the appropriate command level for the battle either Division or Corps. Without the "Deep Fight" atritting an approaching enemy during his approach march any static defense no matter how well prepared will ultimately fail. So your soldier in the Battle of Yonkers, using the LandWarrior tactical graphics overlay, would be able to watch the deep battle for at least a day before it got anywhere close to him. The concept of the LandWarrior was to provide the individual soldier with Squad/Platoon/Company level immediate Situational Awareness as to where his Buddies are in relation to enemy snipers. Also the sounds of artillery and aircraft directly overhead would signal the beginning of the "Close Fight". Additionally, any directly observed artillery strikes means he is fighting "Danger Close" and this battle was lost before it started. Regarding the part about every soldier seeing every part of the fight over the Tactical Network it is highly unlikely. That network is usually reserved for Command Use only since any data queries into the very limited system by thousands of soldiers at one time would bring the system crashing down. The only people who get to tap into direct feeds are directly supported Commanders, MI geeks and the TOCs (Tactical Operations Centers). He would probably see nothing over the applique system but operational graphics and one or two low resolution images if command made them available. An individual soldier in this situation would more than likely be using his iPhone to watch it all on youtube or CNN. So while Brooks got the up close and personal part of the battle almost 100% right the individual soldier would have a whole lot more information about what was going on and not suddenly overwhelmed by a 'Danger Close" horde of zombies from out of the blue. The Battle of Yonkers was lost way before the first zombie entered the EA (Engangement Area) and your guy in the foxhole would already know he was dead. In retrospect the "Army" knew it was lost before they dug in since the US Army always trains for a Mobile Defence and never wants its ground forces decisively engaged. This was more of a "Custer's Last Stand". Google "Fulda Gap Battle Plans", "OPLAN 52" Korean Scenario, or "The Last Soldier" for a historical slant on fighting retreats.

[krakenslayer]

It's been a while since I read the novel so can anyone remind my why Yonkers was this big pitched batter with a solid horde of zombies "coming round the mountain" so to speak to meet the soldiers? I can't really remember, so there might have been a good explanation for it in the book, but wouldn't the "war" against the undead be more of a guerilla-type situation? You know, with small hordes popping up here and there, with the odd zombie emerging from buildings and side streets, moving around in random directions and loose, nebulous formations that would be make it difficult to target large numbers at any one time.

[rightwing401]

Well Krakenslayer, I think the best answer to why there was no guerilla style warfare was that there were outbreaks occuring all across the country, plus you had that combined with all the bureacratic crap that politicians do to tie the hands of the military. Yonkers was supposed to be a double edge sword victory. It was meant to- 1. Contain the massive infestation of the Greater New York City region. 2. Reestablish confidence in the government. A lot of the reasons for the defeat are attributed to so much of a focus on a propaganda victory that any potential dangers were simply overlooked. Keep in mind, this was a straight up battled between just about every damn thing that the U.S. military has in its arsenal against a slow/stupid enemy whose only weapons are human teeth and nails. Who in their right might could possibly even think that the army could lose against that? And to rgc, you make some very damn good points. And while I do agree with you that the battle of Yonkers turning out the way it did, even before the battle began, was highly unlikely. However, I'm suspending disbelief to try to be as close to the original account of Yonkers in WWZ. Plus, I think readers would be more entertained by reading descriptions of MLRS impacting into crowds of walkers rather that just reading about a character hearing of it over a radio. I do, however, like your statement of how there would be a feeling of hopelessness before the actual battle began by seeing what was coming. I do address that right at the opening shots. I also thank you for the tactical info you mentioned, I'll seriously consider adding some of those points you made in the revised portion.

[zomtom]

I'm originally from Yonkers. I haven't been there in over 20 years tho I recall where the battle is supposed to take place. It was supposed to be on the Saw Mill River Parkway. If I remember correctly, it's a narrow four lane parkway which comes out of New York City (Yonkers is the next city to the north). Both sides of the parkway are woods so it would be obvious it would be a main thoroughfare for the zombies to head out of NYC. *A little bit of trivia. Many of you probably know Max Brooks is the son of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft. Anne Bancroft's parents lived in Yonkers. I'm sure Max visited his grandparents there and that's how Yonkers ended up in the story.