Eagle, I don't want to form an alliance anymore.

Slava walked back to the table, picked up a pencil, and began to draw on the white paper.

This battalion is no longer organized according to the traditional three-tiered structure of company-platoon-squad, but is instead divided into several functional modules:

The unit comprises five combat detachments, each with approximately ninety personnel. Each detachment includes infantry, anti-tank missile gunners, mortar crews, and engineer teams, equipped with BMP-1 bombers and light vehicles. They are capable of independently conducting reconnaissance, ambush, harassment, and disruption missions without orders from higher command. The four detachments are geographically dispersed but maintain real-time communication via a data-sharing terminal; target information detected by any detachment is synchronized to all other detachments and the information center within thirty seconds.

PS: The combined arms battalion units here include more detailed platoons and related support elements.

Two directly subordinate reconnaissance platoons, sixty men in total. These were the eyes of the entire battalion—equipped with the best optical equipment and the most skilled reconnaissance soldiers, responsible for advancing to establish observation posts along the Red Army's possible routes of advance and transmitting target information back in real time. The drones were also used by the reconnaissance platoons.

There was also an information center, staffed by twenty people. This was the brain of the entire battalion—three cross-networked data-sharing terminals, all mounted on mobile vehicles, along with a constantly updated situational awareness map. The information center's task was to aggregate intelligence from all sources, analyze the Red Army's movements, and distribute operational orders to each unit.

The remaining personnel include the medical team, the logistics support team, and the communications support team.

After Slava finished drawing, he pushed the drawing to the middle of the table so that everyone could see it.

The meeting room was silent for about half a minute. Sokolov was the first to break the silence. He stood up, walked to the sand table, and gestured with his fingers on the terrain for a while, muttering something under his breath. Then he turned around, looked at Slava, and said something that made everyone present breathe a sigh of relief.

"Okay, let's do it."

The battalion commander has agreed, so what else is there to say? The battalion commander's decision is an order, and even if you may have a lot of reservations in your heart, you have to accept it.

“Go ahead,” Sokolov repeated, picking up the original standard training sheet from the table, folding it twice, and stuffing it into his pocket. “But I have one condition regarding training.”

“Speak,” Slava said, raising his eyebrows.

“You continue with the human-machine interface project, and you continue with the debugging of the communication equipment. But the training is my responsibility—you can tell my people what to do, but how to do it is up to me. You are the brain, and I am the fist; the brain shouldn't try to teach the fist how to clench its fist.”

Slava thought for a moment and nodded: "Okay."

Although he lacks ability, his greatest strength as a leader is his willingness to take responsibility and delegate authority to his subordinates, which is enough.

...

It was already evening when the meeting ended. Slava walked out of the command building and stood on the steps to smoke a cigarette.

There are less than two months until the start of the Western 81 exercise.

He had a lot to do in those two months: debug the five sets of data sharing terminals so that they could operate stably in field conditions; train the reconnaissance platoon on the usage procedures after the Tu-143 was transferred from the Kiev Military District; continue to urge Moscow to complete the application; cooperate with Sokolov to complete the reorganization of the entire battalion and the tactical training of the units; and also take time to go to the exercise site in Belarus to scout out the actual terrain.

One person can't do all these things.

He stubbed out his cigarette, went back to his dorm, picked up the phone, and dialed a number in Moscow.

"Director Nian, there's something I need to tell you—"

“I have already submitted your application. The people in the General Staff Equipment Department said that it needs to go through the procedures. I asked the KGB to put it in the line. As for the small drone project that is still in the laboratory, although I said that it is a project that Comrade Andropov is concerned about, they are still studying it. Don’t have too high hopes. We all know that scientific research cannot be rushed. It’s like killing you and you still can’t learn advanced mathematics.”

How did you know I was going to say that? I haven't said anything yet!

"Because you don't have much else to say besides this," came the sound of Director Nian cracking sunflower seeds from the other end of the phone. "Is there anything else?"

"I need you to keep an eye on something for me—the technical documents for the Tu-143 mention that the television camera on later models was manufactured by the Petrograd Optical Instrument Plant, model number KT-04. I want to know the specific performance parameters of this camera, whether image quality optimization can be done, and whether there is room for improvement in the data link bandwidth. Can you obtain this information through the KGB Technical Bureau?"

"You want to modify it?"

"I'm going to squeeze every last drop of potential out of this piece of junk! If the image quality isn't good, I'll lower the resolution to improve transmission stability; if the signal is weak, I'll add more relay nodes—in short, I want it to be able to at least enable the people in the information center to clearly see 'whether there are tanks over there' during the exercise. The directing staff will definitely be amazed by this amazing thing!"

Slava had no intention of stuffing a bunch of tanks into this battalion, because even if they won, it wouldn't prove that information technology was the right approach; on the contrary, it would only prove the importance of the armored onslaught. So he had to find another way.

There was a brief pause in the sound of Director Nian cracking sunflower seeds.

"You really intend to make this battalion the most capable fighting battalion in the entire Soviet Union, huh?"

“Ogarkov said—just give him a battalion’s worth of proof.”

"Okay, I'll take care of it. Take care of yourself, and don't get ambushed again." The call ended.

Slava put the receiver back and sat down at the table to refine the training content. He would have to talk more with the military commander tomorrow. The battalion commander was a veteran who had returned from Afghanistan, and he had some experience that would never be found in textbooks.

Chapter 16 West - 81

September 4, 1981, 4:15 a.m., somewhere in Brest Oblast, Belarus.

Slava crouched in a modified GAZ-66 command vehicle, in front of three data sharing terminals—two of which had indicator lights that were a steady green, while the third’s light was flashing between green and yellow, indicating that the data link between it and Squad Two was malfunctioning.

Sure enough, the equipment that worked perfectly in the lab broke down after being jostled around for half a day on the road. These electronic devices are really delicate.

"Squad Two, please respond." The communications officer shouted into the microphone for the third time.

A piercing electrical noise came through the headphones, followed by intermittent audio: "...Received...unstable signal...adjusting antenna..."

"It's like when it rains, it pours." Slava muttered as he turned to the page on equipment failure contingency plans in his notebook—it was filled with all sorts of possible problems and corresponding solutions. These were the results of repeated testing with the communications engineers over the past six weeks. But there's always a gap between the plan on paper and the actual battlefield, and sometimes that gap is wide enough to swallow the entire plan.

"I'll assume for now that the equipment itself hasn't malfunctioned catastrophically—asking them to move the relay node to higher ground is most likely a problem of terrain obstruction; the hills in this area aren't high, but they're enough to block the VHF signal."

Outside the command vehicle, the world was pitch black. Dawn in Belarus in early September doesn't arrive until after 5 a.m., and only the vehicle's headlights and the occasional flash of a military flashlight in the distance proved that humans were still around. In the distance, the low rumble of diesel engines could be heard occasionally—the Red Army's armored column warming up its engines in the assembly area dozens of kilometers away.

Today is the third day of the Western 81 exercises.

According to the exercise command's instructions for today, the Blue Force, representing NATO forces, deployed defensive positions on the western border of the exercise area, while the Red Force, representing Warsaw Pact forces, launched a large-scale offensive from the east, aiming to break through the Blue Force's defenses and advance westward to the pre-designated "line of victory." More than 100,000 troops participated, utilizing tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, self-propelled artillery, attack helicopters, marines, and even SS-20 medium-range missiles from the Strategic Rocket Forces for simulated launches—transforming the entire western Belarusian region and the Baltic coast into a massive battlefield.

As for what they were doing the previous two days? The previous two days the Red Army was retreating according to plan and launching a defensive counterattack.

That's right! The director's script was that NATO was the first to prepare to invade the Warsaw Pact, but the Soviet Union discovered it in time. Then the Warsaw Pact launched a defensive counterattack and successfully contained NATO's offensive. Then it turned into a counter-offensive and penetrated deep into West Germany. The Blue Army was forced to use tactical nuclear weapons - which means that conventional warfare was no longer viable. Then the Red Army launched a nuclear counterattack and destroyed 25 NATO troops.

Ultimately, the exercise will end in a resounding victory for the Red Army.

As for how the Red Army performed in the exercise? In any case, Ogarkov admitted in his post-exercise analysis report that not a single division completed its combat mission. The exercise was portrayed as a resounding victory in the promotional videos, but the Chief of the General Staff himself admitted that all divisional units failed to meet the standards. What kind of logic is this? Is it just putting on a brave face?

Now that the winner and loser are decided, and Slava refuses to participate in match-fixing, the only option left is for his subordinates to use underhanded tactics.

...

Slava's Blue Army combined arms battalion, designated "Blue Army 117th Independent Combined Arms Battalion," was deployed at the southernmost end of the entire Blue Army defensive line, in an area interspersed with low hills, small patches of woodland, and farmland. Their mission was to "delay the advance of the Red Army's southern flank advancing group"—in other words, to act as a stumbling block, delaying them as long as possible.

The directing staff knew that this combined arms battalion, which was not equipped with tanks, would only end up as a speed bump when facing the Red Army's steel torrent on the plains, so they did not have high expectations.

What can a battalion delay? The opposing Red Army's southern flank group is a full-strength tank division plus a motorized infantry regiment, with over two hundred tanks alone. On the command post's sand table, this battalion would likely be marked as "annihilated" around D+3 (the fourth day of the exercise) and then erased from the situation map.

But Slava doesn't intend to follow their script.

At three o'clock in the morning, more than an hour before he climbed into the command vehicle, Sokolov had already set off with his reconnaissance platoon in the dark.

Their team split into several small groups, dressed in camouflage, and infiltrated eastward in the darkness. Their mission was to establish observation posts along the Red Army tank division's planned advance route. In addition to standard infantry equipment, each of them carried one more thing—a modified shortwave radio that could directly connect to the data sharing terminal of the information center, transmitting observed target information back in a preset encoding format.

This is not high-tech; in fact, from a technical point of view, this system is quite primitive. After the scouts observe the target with their naked eyes, they write down the target type, quantity, direction, and approximate coordinates as a set of codes, transmit it via radio, and the operator in the information center receives it and manually inputs it into the terminal. The terminal then generates a marker on the situation plotting screen. The entire process, from observation to marking, takes about two to three minutes, which is like a product of the Stone Age compared to a real digital battlefield.

But this is the limit that Slava can currently achieve.

What was the traditional Soviet reconnaissance procedure? After a scout observed the enemy situation at the front line, he would report to the battalion headquarters via radio. The battalion headquarters would record the report and then report it to the regimental headquarters. The regimental headquarters would then summarize the report and report it to the division headquarters. By the time the division commander saw the intelligence, more than ten minutes had passed. During this time, the observed tanks might have moved several kilometers.

Slava's system compressed this chain from "scout → battalion → regiment → division" to "scout → information center → all detachments", and distributed it synchronously—the scout of detachment number one discovered the Red Army's vanguard tank company, and within three minutes all four detachments and the information center could see this marker on their terminals.

At 4:50 a.m., communications for Squad Two were restored—they had set up the repeater antenna on a small hill, and the signal had stabilized. Slava breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the equipment signal markers for Squad Two light up again on his terminal screen, but he knew this was just the beginning. In the coming days, the system would be put to the real test, and he had no backup plan.

At 5:17, as the sky began to lighten, the reconnaissance platoon sent out its first intelligence report.

"Observation post A3 reports: bearing 15 degrees east of north, distance approximately 12 kilometers, a large number of armored vehicles are assembling, visually confirmed to be T-72 tanks, numbering no less than a battalion, accompanied by BMPs and self-propelled artillery."

The Red Army has invaded.

---

The day before the exercise, the Blue Army's 117th Independent Battalion did something that the directing staff had anticipated: instead of waiting for the Red Army to crush them on their pre-set defensive positions, they proactively abandoned their positions before the Red Army's advance troops arrived. They dispersed the entire battalion into four detachments and a reconnaissance platoon, and like a handful of sand scattered, they seeped into the hills and forests on both sides of the Red Army's expected advance route.

Although many generals in the directing staff did not support informatization, they understood tactics and knew that Slava was indeed right to do so.

Soon, the detachments, following Slava's plan, concealed themselves at their designated positions, maintaining contact five to eight kilometers apart via data terminals. The reconnaissance platoon's groups advanced to positions three to five kilometers ahead of the Red Army's vanguard brigade, constantly monitoring the Red Army's every move.

The information center, which was the command vehicle where Slava was crouching, was deployed in a valley hidden by a dense birch forest, two kilometers from the nearest road, making it almost impossible to spot from the air.

Around 9 a.m., the vanguard brigade of the Red Army tank division arrived at the original position of the Blue Army's 117th Battalion. Finding the area deserted, they continued their westward advance—perfectly in line with their script. The small Blue Army units fled in the face of the Red Army's overwhelming force, making it pointless to waste time searching for them. The main force continued its advance, aiming to reach the "victory line" within the timeframe set by the directing staff.

Their small reconnaissance unit failed to notice that two BMP-1 vehicles and more than thirty men were watching them walk by from a grove of trees about two kilometers south of the highway.

That was the third detachment, led by a lieutenant named Kornilov. He counted the vanguard: about thirty tanks and a dozen BMPs, with more vehicles following behind, the tail of the column disappearing into the eastern horizon. Kornilov transmitted the target information back to the information center in code. Three minutes later, the same marker appeared simultaneously on the terminals of the other three detachments—the location, size, direction of march, and speed of the Red Army's vanguard.

The squad leader of the first squad glanced at the data on his terminal, then looked at the dirt road in front of him that the Red Army's follow-up echelons were about to cross—his men were lying in ambush in a dry irrigation ditch by the roadside, less than eighty meters from the road surface.

He waited for twenty minutes. Twenty minutes later, the second echelon of the Red Army arrived, but this time it was a logistics column—tanker trucks, ammunition trucks, and communications vehicles, pulled by ordinary Ural trucks, with a BTR-60 armored personnel carrier in front and behind each of them. However, the crew members in the escort vehicles were obviously not very alert, and one of them even leaned half his body out of the hatch to smoke.

The first squad ignited the lead tanker truck and the rear BTR-60 with two AT-5 anti-tank missiles, and then used machine guns and mortars to bombard the entire column for less than three minutes. Under the exercise rules, these vehicles were deemed incapable of combat by the referee team. The referees arrived at the scene on motorcycles and affixed orange identification stickers to the destroyed trucks and tankers.

After the barrage ended, the No. 1 detachment immediately withdrew from the position and moved south, disappearing into the woods before the Red Army reinforcements arrived. The entire engagement, from opening fire to withdrawal, took no more than five minutes.

In the information center, Rislava watched as the cartographer, wearing headphones, moved the marker for the No. 1 detachment's position on the map southward. Simultaneously, a gray marker with an "X" appeared on the marker for the Red Army logistics column. The recorder immediately noted the time and results: 10:47, No. 1 detachment ambushed the Red Army logistics column, destroying 3 fuel tankers, 2 ammunition trucks, 1 communications vehicle, and 1 BTR-60 tanker. No losses on our side.

The same scenario played out repeatedly in different places over the next 48 hours.

Several detachments continued to attack the flanks and rear of the tank division. Detachment No. 2 attacked a Red Army temporary gas station in the early hours of the day, and the judges determined that two gas trucks and a field fuel storage point were destroyed, causing some tanks of the Red Army's vanguard brigade to have to stop and wait for supplies due to insufficient fuel. Detachment No. 4 ambushed a Red Army reconnaissance company at a T-junction, destroyed two BRD-2 reconnaissance vehicles with anti-tank missiles, and then retreated westward. The Red Army reconnaissance company was deemed to have lost one-third of its strength and had to shrink its search area.

The Third Platoon pulled off a brilliant maneuver—based on intelligence provided by the reconnaissance platoon, Kornilov determined that a forward command post of the Red Army's tank division was located in a village school. He led his platoon on a nighttime maneuver to an orchard less than two kilometers from the school and unleashed a three-minute barrage of mortar fire on the school.

After the referee team arrived, they assessed the distribution of impact points and kill radius, and determined that the forward command post had suffered severe damage.

After discussing for a few minutes, the staff of the directing department decided not to judge solely based on the firepower effect, on the grounds that "the Red Army command has certain protective measures and evacuation plans."

This assessment displeased Slava somewhat—if strictly according to the exercise rules, the effect of three 82mm mortars rapidly firing at a building without hardened cover at a distance of two kilometers for three minutes would be far more than just "serious damage"!

Moreover, if it were truly a state of war, the Blue Army's army group firepower and cruise missiles could provide fire coverage to this area based on the coordinates they obtained! NATO is fully capable of doing this.

But he also understood the directorate's predicament. West 81 was a heavily scripted exercise, and the final outcome had to be a resounding victory for the Red Army, with the Warsaw Pact's iron torrent crushing all NATO resistance—this was the established political objective, and it couldn't be rewritten because of the outstanding performance of a single battalion. If the judges determined that the Red Army's divisional command post was destroyed by a single battalion's mortar fire, then the entire schedule for the Red Army's group exercise on the southern flank would be thrown into chaos, and the directorate would have no way to explain it to its superiors.

Therefore, the attack by the Third Detachment was downgraded to minor damage, the Red Army's command center resumed operation after a brief interruption, and the tank division continued its advance.

But there were at least some things the directing staff couldn't change—for example, how Kornilov knew which school the Red Army command was located in. The Red Army generals noticed this during their debriefing:

The fact that a battalion-level unit of the Blue Army was able to accurately locate the Red Army's forward command post without any advanced reconnaissance methods (at least those they knew of) is itself a question worth pondering!

The answer, of course, is the combination of drones, ground observation by reconnaissance platoons, and information aggregation via data terminals—but the Red Army personnel were unaware of these details; they only vaguely sensed that the opposing battalion seemed to have launched an attack.

...

The real crisis will occur the afternoon after tomorrow.

According to the script, the exercise is now in the midst of a major counter-offensive. The Blue Army's defensive line has been torn apart by the Red Army's overwhelming force, and its main force has been scattered, leaving only small groups of troops fighting independently. The remaining Red Army troops are rapidly advancing towards the victory line.

Slava's tactics successfully delayed the advance of the troops. The Red Army division commander redeployed a reinforced tank battalion that was originally used to search for the remnants of the Blue Army. Together with a motorized infantry company and armed helicopters, they launched a grid search of the area where the Blue Army's 117th Battalion was operating.

The problem was that the Red Army's adjustment was much faster than Slava had anticipated—he had originally judged that the Red Army division commander would continue to prioritize the main force's advance and not divert troops to deal with a small Blue Army battalion, but he underestimated the damage that being constantly harassed by an enemy he had underestimated could do to the self-esteem of a professional soldier.

The Fourth Platoon was the first to run into trouble. They were spotted by Red Army attack helicopters at the edge of an open field—the Mi-24 pilots saw the track marks of their BMPs and a corner of the vehicle peeking out from under the camouflage netting from the air, and immediately called for ground troops. Within twenty minutes, a tank company flanked them from the east, and the Fourth Platoon found itself under attack from three sides.

The platoon leader attempted to retreat south along a nearby forest path, but the exit of that path was blocked by a Red Army motorized infantry platoon. According to the judges' assessment, the Fourth Platoon lost two BMP vehicles and approximately one-third of its personnel in the firefight. The remaining personnel were forced to abandon their heavy equipment and attempt a breakout on foot, barely managing to escape but having lost most of their combat effectiveness.

Slava watched from inside the command vehicle as the terminal signal of Squad 4 disappeared.

This was the first time he had lost a unit on the "battlefield." Although it was just an exercise and no one actually died, the feeling of being out of control was real—he could clearly see from the command vehicle how the Red Army was tightening the encirclement step by step. He issued a retreat order to the No. 4 detachment through the terminal. He did everything he could, but the distance was too far, the firepower was insufficient, and reinforcements couldn't arrive in time. In the end, he could only watch helplessly as they were crushed.

"Most of the fourth squad has been wiped out," the communications officer reported expressionlessly. "The referees have ruled that the remaining personnel are out of the exercise."

Sokolov thought for a moment and said, "The remaining three detachments will consolidate their defensive line, and the reconnaissance platoon will withdraw to the perimeter of the information center to establish a perimeter. The Red Army knows we are in this area, and they will come looking for our main force next. We need to find a way to move around."

Slava's gaze fell on the GAZ-66 command vehicle—all their high technology was in this vehicle: three terminals, communication equipment, and situation plotting. If this vehicle were destroyed, the entire battalion's information warfare capability would be reduced to zero.

“We don’t know exactly how many men the Red Army has assigned to encircle and annihilate us, but what if they get desperate and launch a massive search? Besides, we no longer have air superiority and rely entirely on our drones for information.”

For Slava, this was the first time he had experienced what the fog of war meant. Having lost air superiority, he could only rely on his few drones to gather information about the surrounding area, and even that information was often delayed. He had to constantly monitor the map's markers; there was no real "God's-eye view" whatsoever!

In reality, no matter how powerful you are, it's all fake because you only have one life. But in a game, your power is real.

Slava and Sokolov, along with the information center and the remaining three detachments, moved westward for about eight kilometers under the cover of darkness. Upon reaching their new position, they re-deployed their terminals and restored data links with the other detachments. Slava discovered that the second launcher for the Tu-143 had its launch rail damaged by a falling tree during the relocation. This meant that only one of their remaining drones was still operational—and that drone's television camera had already shown shaky footage in previous flights; who knew how many more times it could last?

He also underestimated the ground-based air defense capabilities of the era. The heavy machine guns of the Red Army units could easily shoot down the drones in his hands, which were only good for reconnaissance and made a lot of noise. However, the directing staff gave the Blue Army a boost, treating the battalion as if it already had experimental equipment.

Several hours later, the Red Army's search party located the Blue Army's previous command position—it was empty, of course, but judging from the track tracks and ruts left behind, the Red Army scouts determined that the Blue Army's command vehicle had retreated westward. They then adjusted their search direction and searched westward.

Around 2 p.m., the Red Army's tank company approached the outer perimeter of the Blue Army's new position.

This time, Slava made a decision—instead of having his platoons continue their hit-and-run tactics, he ordered Platoon One and Platoon Three to set up crossfire positions on either side of a narrow forest passage. He knew that in open terrain, a battalion couldn't hold off a tank company, but in this kind of passageway terrain, the numerical advantage of tanks would be greatly diminished—they had to pass through in columns, exposing only the frontal views of two or three vehicles at a time.

The ensuing battle lasted thirty-seven minutes, according to the judges' records. The Blue Army's anti-tank missiles destroyed the lead and third tanks of the Red Army's tank company at a distance of 600 meters, blocking the entrance to the passage.

The Red Army's follow-up tanks attempted to bypass the route but were blocked by the swamps on both sides, forcing them to stop at the entrance of the passage and return fire with their tank guns. A chaotic firefight ensued in the woods, with trees shedding leaves from the shockwaves of the shells, and the air filled with the smell of gunpowder from simulated ammunition and the exhaust fumes of diesel engines.

Thirty-seven minutes later, the judging panel determined that the Blue Army had destroyed four Red Army tanks and two BMPs in the ensuing attack, while losing three BMPs and approximately half of its personnel in its No. 1 squad. The Red Army tank company was forced to retreat and regroup, and the Blue Army seized this opportunity to relocate again.

But everyone knows this is only temporary.

The Blue Army's anti-tank missiles are dwindling with each use, while the Red Army's conscripts are endless.

D+6, the seventh day of the exercise.

The Blue Army's 117th Independent Battalion was marked as "severely weakened, with approximately 50% remaining strength" on the command post's situation map. Only two of the four detachments were still operational, with Detachment No. 1 having only 60% of its strength remaining.

The anti-tank missiles were all used up, and less than a basic quantity of mortar shells remained. The number of BMPs had decreased from the initial dozen or so to seven.

Theoretically, this battalion no longer has the ability to destroy tanks. The BMP's 73mm low-pressure gun is basically ineffective against the frontal armor of the T-72. Strictly speaking, Slava can surrender with dignity.