Warbot 1.0- AI Goes to War Read online

  “Let commanders command,” he would often say. “Staffs need to enable them to take disciplined initiative, not be afraid of it! Besides, what’s going to happen when they can’t communicate? If we have trained them to be timid instead of bold, we will have failed.”

  Major Megan Bennett, the battalion operations officer, or S3, and the rest of the operations and intelligence staff were with Gammon another ten kilometers farther north in the battalion’s Tactical Assault Command Post or TAC. Major Bennett, Viper 3, and her operations team were tracking the movement, intel feeds, and pretty much everything else from all three of the battalion’s line companies, its Recon and Strike Company, and its Headquarters, Support and Defense Company. While the “All Seeing Eye” enabled by her software permissions was a risk in some situations, it also enabled her as a competent S3 to serve as a magician, amplifying her ability to make sense of massive amounts of data—much of it contradictory—and still orchestrate complex battalion operations in real time. This also meant that Bennett had plenty of other things to do and was simply not interested in electronically hovering over Mike, Stacy and the other commanders at the moment.

  Stacy turned her attention to her team and queried her intel specialist sitting at his console a few meters away.

  “Smitty, what do we have on the Chinese scouts?”

  “Hey, ma’am, hard to say right now,” replied Specialist Five Jonathan Smith, a short, squat man from New York City with an exceptionally thick Bronx accent and a permanent five o’clock shadow. Smitty had remarkable strength of character demonstrated by his avowed citizenship in the Red Sox nation, which had nearly resulted in conflict with his family bordering on excommunication. “But I think that based on the intel feeds, it’s going to be a cat-and-mouse game among the scouts. Kinda like a blind man with excellent hearing trying to find a deaf man with excellent eyesight in a dimly lit room.”

  “What?” she asked, trying to decipher the indirect response through his thick accent.

  “I tried to frame it in terms of our scouts’ better thermals and optics, and their better acoustic sensors. I’m working on analogies this week,” he responded.

  The two lead scout vehicles were already creeping forward, mindful of the ever-present uncertainty and danger, but eager to find the enemy. Like its Vietnam-era predecessor, the Sheridan II armored reconnaissance vehicle was not designed to stand and fight, but to find the enemy, hide when it could, and if discovered, run like hell. It was a repurposed eight-wheeled Stryker vehicle capable of a top speed of ninety-seven kilometers per hour and whose most prominent feature was a lumpy, vaguely head-shaped sensor pod with a large thermal/optical sensor in the center. The bulbous pod was attached to “the snake,” a thin boom of articulated segments that was capable of bending enough to move the pod around obstacles and through both windows and doors; it could also extend fifteen meters above the vehicle to offer a view above most trees and small buildings. This pod was the inspiration for the vehicle’s goofy nickname, Cyclops. While not especially fear-inspiring, the name stuck with the troops and thus could never be undone.

  In addition to the sensor pod, each scout vehicle was equipped with multifunction ground and air drone racks, unlike most late-model vehicles, which were equipped with single, but more capable, air drones. When it came to combat vehicle design and drone augmentation, the choice between disposable swarming insects and more capable mammals was still an ongoing debate among both troops and weapon designers.

  The two scouts had just started deploying their booms when Smitty noticed that their electronic transmission feeds back to the TOC went blank.

  “Hey, ma’am, this ain’t good. They just clicked off or something. Best guess is EMP mines.”

  Of course they seeded the route with them, Stacy thought to herself.

  Muttering a string of mild expletives under her breath, Stacy reported back to the battalion TAC that while the actual damage was probably minimal, replacing a few fried parts and rebooting a few systems would take three to five minutes. With the data links to her higher headquarters still operational, Gammon, Bennett and the rest of the staff saw the loss of real-time situational awareness, or “blink,” in real time.

  The hair on Lieutenant Colonel Richard “Buck” Gammon’s neck began to stand up when he saw the blink, and for good reason. He wasn’t the only commander hard at work, on a timeline, or dealing with political constraints.

  “All right, Yu, let’s get it on.”

  1.2

  1609150HSEP2033 (9:15 a.m. local time, September 16, 2033)

  Chinese National Assistance Task Force Headquarters, Manila, the Philippines

  Major General Yu Jai Bin of the People’s Liberation Army, or PLA, was roughly the American equivalent of a Brigadier General. His Western acquaintances had commented that the literal translation of his rank was “Junior General,” which seemed like an odd name for a military rank. To this he had responded that “Junior General” was technically more accurate in terms of function and lack of prestige than the American term Brigadier General.

  While he may have secretly doubted the wisdom of the aggressive political decisions of the party, he considered himself a patriotic professional and would carry out his orders to the best of his ability. Besides, he reasoned to himself, the perks of being a general aren’t bad, and the paycheck covers most of my wife’s insatiable shopping bills. And that turd, Commissar Xi, will be watching my every move to ensure that I remain “ideologically pure.” He’ll turn on me in a heartbeat if it serves his own interests.

  For his part, Commissar Xi had an incredibly annoying habit of repeating Mao’s trite phrase, “The party commands the gun.” It was his way of reminding Yu that the PLA was the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party, of which Xi was a member, and therefore not merely a national army.

  Regardless, Yu thought, success in this campaign will improve my chances for promotion. I deserve it after all this time in this mosquito-infested shit hole.

  To ensure that all went according to plan and that the promotion would be his, Yu had seen to the smallest of details, and none were too small for his attention. While he had heard rumors that his staff and his deputy, Colonel Deng, called him a nano-manager behind his back, he really didn’t care what they thought; he was in charge. He knew they would soon see why he insisted on such attention to detail.

  Kill the chicken to scare the monkey, Yu thought to himself. Those morons in Beijing certainly didn’t quite do that.

  The senior Chinese leadership had expected that, after making an example of the uncooperative Philippine government, the other nations on the periphery of the South China Sea would be far more open to Chinese diplomatic overtures. They also expected that no outside nation would choose to intervene in the aftermath of what would effectively be a fait accompli. Unfortunately for Yu, these two assumptions were not working out quite as planned.

  How could we have gotten them so wrong? he silently fumed. Incompetence at the top may yet cost us dearly.

  Looking at his digital map, he noted with disgust that the Allied invasion fleet landed at sites on the northwest side of Luzon, the same sites used by the Japanese in 1941 under Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma, and then by the Americans in 1945 under General Walter Krueger. How ironic, he thought. The Japanese were the first ones to join the coalition, then the Australians and the Kiwis. Then once there was a sufficient safety net, several of the small debtor nations who defaulted on their Belt and Road obligations followed along as well. Ingrates.

  Yu’s Intelligence Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Lee, had told him that the American forces would likely follow the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway southeast to Manila prior to a presumed attack on the capital. Yu had opted for a forward mobile defense and carefully chose an attack at the location where the expressway came closest to the Tarlac River. If successful, he would pin the Americans against the river, raise the cost of their intervention, and most importantly, buy him time. After carefully mars
haling a battalion of T100s near the village of Guimba for three days, he was ready.

  The Type 100 Main Combat Vehicle, or T100, was a marvel of Chinese engineering, and its numbering bore a special significance to the Century of Humiliation. It was fast and effective, and due to the modular design of its hardware and software, capable of both mass production and progressive automation. Its eight independently electrically driven and steered wheels were powered by a hybrid diesel-electric drive, and it carried both a deadly 125mm cannon along with a coaxially mounted machine gun.

  As he stood to address his task force staff, he was not even aware of his right index finger as it nervously scratched at the cuticle of his thumbnail. He began speaking in the flat, dull, nasal tone he was known for.

  “Today we begin what will indeed be a historic engagement. As the vanguard of the People’s Liberation Army, we will engage the forces of the Western Pacific Alliance. While the enemy’s commitment of ground forces was an unfortunate turn of events, we shall make their intervention even more expensive for them, wear down their domestic political will, and use them as live targets to test new technologies and tactics. The results will inform our decision-making in the later, decisive phase of this conflict. We will show the world that the People’s Liberation Army is now the most sophisticated, effective ground force on the planet.”

  Yu paused for a moment, then said simply, “And now, let us begin.”

  He looked down at his thumb. It was bleeding.

  This “blink” had been all General Yu needed to insert twenty-seven targeting drones ahead of his main force. The drones, though older quadcopters of the Ningxia type, were still reasonably effective and derived their name from a 1949 battle in the Chinese Civil War. The Ningxias zipped past the blinded American scouts with a dull whirr as they snaked over and through the foliage, settling—or in some cases crashing—into predesignated locations throughout the expected battlefield. Even if their camouflage was only marginally effective and nearly twenty percent became disabled after entering the dense foliage, they were cheap and did their jobs well. Such was the beauty of embracing disposability.

  In quick succession, PLA combat vehicles began emerging in rapid succession from physically and electronically camouflaged assembly areas. The second T100 combat vehicle to exit Assembly Area 29 miscalculated and rolled over one of the small electromagnetic static generators with a loud crunch. As it left the relative safety of the electronic camouflage net, the T100 activated its individual, but less effective, jammer. They would need only about four minutes to cover the seven kilometers to engagement range.

  General Yu watched the battle’s preamble carefully. The PLA Navy and Air Force, operating out of bases on the mainland and several of the man-made islands in the South China Sea’s Great Wall of Sand, would be of little help to him. While they managed to sink several of the invading ships in the Lingayen Gulf, their losses in the opening phase of the conflict and new demands in keeping the Strait of Malacca open gave him little hope of significant support.

  To make matters worse, Yu had very limited access to the few Chinese reconnaissance satellites that had survived the opening days of the conflict.

  It’s okay though, he told himself. The Americans are more reliant on them than we are. They’re spoiled with their technology and emotionally dependent on seeing everything in real time. So now they will cling to their tactical drones like prized possessions.

  But he had a plan for them too. Yu looked down at the status report. The icon for his ground-based air defense laser battery was showing green.

  1.3

  160930HSEP2033 (9:30 a.m. local time, September 16, 2033)

  1st Battalion TAC, 95 km Northwest of Manila, the Philippines

  The crew of Lieutenant Colonel Gammon’s TAC grew quiet as they watched the video feed on Kill TV, as it was known. For anyone without an AR helmet, it simply looked like everyone with one was staring off in a random direction.

  Even with the dingy white walls fully extended when the vehicle was stationary, the command post wasn’t ever roomy. Now, with the vehicle on the move and the extensions retracted, the workspaces were cramped at best for anyone over six feet tall.

  The medium-sized Griffon drone peered into the distance and began its slow arc in the direction of Apache Company. No one was quite sure what was about to happen, but they kept one eye on the left flank where Captain Doss and her company were. Major Bennett saw it first.

  “Sir, I’m not sure what that is, but it doesn’t look good. You need to see this.”

  She quickly manipulated the command screens with her hologloves as Lieutenant Colonel Gammon slid into his command console. Until a few moments ago, he had been attempting to pour a cup of lousy coffee in the back of the jostling vehicle with the Executive Officer, Major Mark Verault. The spilled coffee added a slightly pleasant aroma to workspaces.

  Bennett was an exceptionally competent S3, having placed first in her year group’s competition for entrance into the Command and General Staff College. In addition to seeking the usual physical, mental, and character traits expected of future leaders, testing included assessing a candidate’s ability to achieve situational understanding based on multiple electronic inputs, and their ability to cognitively hyper-task responses. It was essentially a giant computer game.

  She was also a borderline workaholic and expected—or, more correctly, demanded—a lot from her junior officers. She didn’t come off particularly harsh, but a few of the junior captains figured that anyone at the rank of major or above couldn’t possibly understand what was really going on tactically. The fact that she had been one of these smart-ass captains only three years ago had not been lost on her.

  “What do you think?” Gammon asked her.

  “Still not sure, sir. Might be a probe, might be an attack. We’ll need a few more minutes to figure it out.”

  Gammon continued looking pensively at the integrated Common Operating Picture, or COP. He shifted off his weak leg, a wound from his lieutenant days, and rolled his wrist inside the black aluminum band he habitually wore on his left arm. Gammon quickly scanned what was essentially an interactive AR map that displayed all known information about friendly forces and their condition, supply and ammunition status, the terrain, civilian structures and population, weather, and the enemy. Touching a couple images with his hologlove, Gammon adjusted a few parameters and settled back in his console. As he pulled off his command helmet, the images disappeared, and he began scratching behind his ear. He slowly wiped his sweaty forehead with the back of his sleeve and took a deep breath, which he slowly exhaled. Looking at his command helmet, he mused that even the term “helmet” was a misnomer. It offered virtually no ballistic protection and was really little more than a headset with integrated glasses and a bit of protective Kevlar to hold it all together.

  “Full screen,” he said. “Get me a visual with the brigade commander, followed by the Chief of Staff.”

  The old-school 3D image generator came to life, and soon the face of Gammon’s boss, the Brigade Combat Team commander, appeared. Brigadier General Viale was a capable leader who had been commissioned as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were winding down. Gammon noted that not only did Viale seem to hate having to use AR helmets and hologloves, he also appeared almost clumsy with them.

  Should have played a few more rounds of Fortnite or Overwatch, Gammon mused to himself. But I do appreciate his bluntness and earthy humor.

  “Buck, our turd just lost a little more of its frosting. You saw the latest update from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. We were sent to accomplish a mission, but the President’s casualty tolerance has moved to somewhere near zero. Body bags on the news will collapse political will faster than a punctured whoopie cushion. If that happens, this all may be for naught, as well as the sacrifices so far …” Viale’s voice tapered off slightly, as if he were momentarily distracted. “Just be careful, whatever you do. Don’t get decisively engaged before we get the Philippine Army
to the gates of Manila.”

  “Roger, sir. We’ll do our best to stay out of trouble,” responded Gammon.

  They quickly concluded the discussion, and as Viale’s image faded out, another face emerged. “How’s it going, Buck?”

  Colonel John P. Gruninger was the Brigade’s Chief of Staff. He had the insanely difficult job of not only corralling the staff chaos around him, but also making the central nervous system of the unit work so that the “Team of Teams” wouldn’t act like it had epilepsy. Without a doubt, it was a brutal, thankless job.

  Gammon and Gruninger had been close friends since their lieutenant days. John, a year senior to Buck, was a gifted leader who moved up the ranks quickly. Buck had noted years ago that Gruninger had the rare ability to be immediately trusted by nearly everyone he met.

  “Buck,” Gruninger began, “we’ve lost some of our intel platforms, so our situational awareness kinda sucks right now. The Chinese got a couple more of our drone resupply ships in the gulf, so our supply situation is still iffy. Don’t expect it to improve. The other battalions burned through a lot more drones than we expected moving inland, and I doubt you’ll get more Lances for a while.”

  “Roger, sir,” Gammon replied. “The attack’s progressing adequately. My company commanders are motivated, but Doss and Hester are still pretty green.”

  The bags under Gruninger’s eyes and the furrow in his forehead told Gammon that the chief of staff was under intense pressure. Just before deployment, the brigade had been equipped with several new systems and software applications that weren’t quite ready for prime time. This left about half the brigade’s subunits with older legacy vehicles and technology, while the other half had brand-new classes of combat vehicles and systems.

  “I’ve got the new CTO, Colonel McClellan, here with me also. Any questions for him?”

  The Chief Technical Officer was a new position in the brigade. While the CTO lacked operational experience, this really wasn’t his fault. He was an Acquisition Officer by trade and had been pulled on short notice for the deployment from an Army Technical Liaison unit in Silicon Valley. His value to the unit was that he was far better equipped than the other senior leaders in the brigade to understand the “magic” and get it to work.