Into the Line

Trench warfare had already reached full maturity during World War I. More than a century later, trench fighting was still waged the exact same way. Russia didn't deploy fighter jets or bombers because Ukraine's air defense network was no mere decoration, and the Russian Air Force's performance had been lackluster ever since the war began. Ukraine didn't have fighters either, leaving both sides essentially tied in air power—neither had any to speak of here. Both sides possessed surface-to-surface missiles, but neither would expend them on the trenches of Bakhmut. Another draw. As for tanks and armored vehicles, both sides had laid dense minefields of anti-tank mines, and the Ukrainian forces had dug comprehensive anti-tank ditches. When it came down to fighting for the trenches themselves, tanks and armored vehicles were useless as well. The primary firepower remained artillery, just like in the First World War. By 2022, the only real change to trench warfare was the addition of drones. Drones had genuinely transformed the Russo-Ukrainian battlefield at a fundamental level—one could even say they had changed the face of future warfare. The tank had been born in World War I and crowned king of land warfare in World War II, yet before World War III even arrived, it had been knocked from its throne in the Russo-Ukrainian War. The Russian military was far larger than Ukraine's, but the Ukrainian forces had the backing of NATO. Both sides were frantically buying up drones across the globe, to the point where dedicated military-grade drones were rarely seen anymore. The main workhorses on the battlefield now were civilian drones, modified for combat use. Even so, drones remained in desperately short supply for both belligerents. The rate of attrition was simply too high; production and procurement couldn't keep pace with battlefield losses. Whoever had more drones held the advantage. At present, the Ukrainians actually had more drones than the Russians, backed as they were by all of NATO while Russia labored under sanctions. In terms of drones alone, the Ukrainian forces held the upper hand. In drone numbers, the split was roughly thirty-seventy—thirty percent Russian, seventy percent Ukrainian. Russia, on the other hand, held absolute superiority in artillery, with at least ten times the firepower of the Ukrainians. Drones could sway the battlefield, but they couldn't decide it. Russian artillery was overwhelming, yet guns alone could never completely eradicate the Ukrainian trenches and fortifications. And so, the trench warfare in Bakhmut remained no different from World War I: in the end, it still came down to infantry clearing and holding ground. Gao Fei only knew that this was a massive battle—likely a general offensive across the entire Bakhmut front. But as a mere grunt, all he could see was the back of Glaski ahead of him and the trench walls reinforced with wooden boards and sandbags on either side. If even the communication trench leading from the forward position into the main line was this well-constructed, Gao Fei shuddered to imagine just how fortified—and how brutal to assault—the Ukrainian main position would be. Knowing how trench warfare had been fought in World War I meant understanding how it worked here. That was the advantage of being a military enthusiast; even if Gao Fei had never fought in one before, he understood the doctrine. Yet the more one understood, the more hopeless it felt. A trench network was arranged in at least three successive lines: the forward position, the main position, and the rear position. The trenches of a forward position were fairly simple—essentially a single jagged, zigzagging line. Machine-gun positions jutted forward, while communication trenches branched out to the rear, but taken as a whole, it was just one winding ditch with virtually no depth. Once breached, it was effectively taken. The main position was another story entirely. It consisted of trenches as well, but its depth—or thickness—could stretch several hundred meters. A main position contained a labyrinth of trenches, underground command posts, reinforced concrete bunkers, ammunition depots, and a multitude of machine-gun and mortar nests. Several hundred to a thousand meters behind that lay the rear position. Even if you took the main line, the enemy's surviving forces could fall back to the rear and immediately mount an effective defense. If an assault could truly overrun all three lines in one breath and completely wipe out the defenders, Bakhmut could practically be declared won, bringing the campaign to a close. The Battle of Bakhmut had begun in early August, and it was now late October—nearly three months in. The Ukrainians had had plenty of time to fortify their last and most vital line of defense. The penal battalion had become bogged down in vicious combat only after pushing into the Ukrainian main position; they simply couldn't take it. If the enemy was down to their last gasp and committing these final reserves would tip the balance, then the battle might end in victory—and more importantly, Gao Fei would stand a good chance of surviving. If, however, this was a grinding war of attrition, then Gao Fei couldn't even dare dream of walking away alive. The prevailing modern consensus was that room clearing was the most difficult combat and urban warfare carried the highest casualty rates. But in the face of trench warfare, CQB and urban fighting didn't even come close. Trench warfare combined the lethal intimacy of room clearing and urban combat with the crushing weight of heavy artillery, plus the inescapable overhead threat of drone strikes. In this new era of trench warfare, survival came down to luck. Pure, dumb luck. That was why the more you understood, the more despair you felt. "Entering the main position up ahead!" Sokholov's walkie-talkie crackled. Someone from the Assault Platoon was passing the word back, and as a team leader equipped with a radio, Sokholov had to relay it to his team. In truth, Gao Fei and the others all had walkie-talkies now, but moving in tight formation like this, there was no point in turning them on. The communication trench made a turn, and four successive trenches appeared ahead. It truly was like a maze. Every trench looked identical, carved to the same width, differing only in direction, making it impossible to tell which way to go. Which trench had been secured by the penal battalion, which was still in enemy hands, which had been captured only to be retaken in a counterattack, and which had resisted every assault, waiting for men like Gao Fei to serve as the final straw that broke the defense—all of this fell on the platoon leader to judge and decide. As a mere soldier, Gao Fei couldn't possibly know the overall tactical situation, nor was he entitled to know. The platoon leader had certainly established contact with company command and presumably knew what lay along their specific axis of advance, but that was all. Even as a platoon leader, he had no clearance to know the broader operational picture. To put it bluntly and realistically: if a platoon leader knew the front was collapsing, what was stopping him from turning his men around and running? And if every low-level grunt knew just how horrific and bloody the coming meat grinder would be, how many would actually press forward? To charge forward knowing the odds were nine to one against coming back, or even to advance when certain of death—that required an army driven by pure ideological conviction. Wagner, however, was a mercenary outfit, and the penal battalion was worse. There was no shortage of brave men among them, but speaking of conviction or faith here was pure bullshit. If he had a choice, Gao Fei would have turned on his heel and walked away. Unfortunately, there was no choice. Knowing full well he was walking into hell, Gao Fei could only grit his teeth and push ahead. The squad leader raised a hand, signaling a halt and gesturing for them to step into a side trench to clear the path for the units behind them, pausing while they waited for the platoon leader's orders. The platoon leader came up and held at the junction connecting the forward position to the main line, awaiting instructions from the company commander. The gunfire had grown deafening; it was impossible to hear what the platoon leader was saying. Soon, the platoon leader waved his arm, and his voice crackled through Sokholov's walkie-talkie. "On me!" The platoon leader wasted no words. Choosing one of the trenches, he sprinted into it, the Assault Platoon filing in right behind him. The 1st Squad leader gestured, and Gao Fei's squad followed close behind the Assault Platoon into the chosen trench. Gao Fei couldn't resist asking, "Don't we have drones?" The gunfire was furious, but Glaski ahead of him caught the question and shouted back, "We do, but only at the company level! We have reconnaissance drones, and company command guides the platoon leader to where we need to go!" Wagner's command-and-control system was still somewhat outdated. The terrain was intricate and the trenches branched in all directions. With an aerial view from a drone, making tactical decisions would have been straightforward. But the Assault Platoon had no drones of its own, leaving the platoon leader to advance solely on directives relayed from company command. On the Ukrainian side, however, drones were pushed down to at least the squad level, and some elite units even deployed them to individual fireteams. If I ever get some money, I'm buying my own damn drone! Their formation had inevitably bunched up. If a shell landed now, or if a drone found them, it would inflict horrific casualties. Fortunately, the bunched-up advance didn't last long. Gao Fei estimated they had pushed forward a hundred meters at most in a straight line when they reached another junction where several trenches converged, and the platoon leader halted again. "1st Squad! Advance roughly fifty meters to the right and enter where you spot our white marking! Friendly forces are engaged ahead—your mission is to support the penal battalion and wipe out the remaining enemy pockets as quickly as possible!" Here, the force finally dispersed. A full platoon was clearly too large an element to commit into a single trench; from this point on, they would split by squads to infiltrate and fight. The 1st Squad leader bellowed, "1st Squad, on me!" Just then, Gao Fei heard a shout. The gunfire was so intense that being heard required screaming at the top of one's lungs. "I'm looking for 3rd Company, 2nd Platoon, 1st Squad of the penal battalion! Tell me where they are! Please, tell me their position!" It was Andrey screaming. He didn't want to fight alongside the Assault Platoon; he had truly only tagged along because they were heading in the same direction. Yet now that they had reached this point, finding his unit to rejoin them was no simple matter—he had no clue where his outfit was positioned. Wandering around alone on a battlefield like this wasn't merely suicidal—it was throwing your life away. The platoon leader had no time for Andrey. He pointed offhandedly in the direction Gao Fei's squad was heading, then continued shouting into his radio, "2nd Squad! Advance roughly a hundred meters to my left, take the second branch on the right into the line..." It was brutal. Trench warfare was simply brutal. The 1st Squad leader pushed off and took point. Gao Fei and the others followed close behind, all twelve men jogging quickly toward the trench the platoon leader had designated. At the corner of the trench, an irregular circle had been sprayed in white paint—a makeshift marking used in the maze-like terrain. A white circle meant: entered, but not yet secured.