stunning disregard of elementary strategy having located their fortress at the lowest point in the valley, on the site
of what had previously been Badwater, which was actually two hundred and eighty-two feet below sea level. When the nuclear
bombardment ended, it would be succeeded immediately by a continued hammering with conventional explosives, by artillery,
missiles and planes. These would include phosphorus bombs, again probably harmless to devils,but which would in any event produce immense clouds of dense white smoke, which might impair visibility for the enemy; his
own troops could see through it handily enough by radar, and would always be able to see the main target through the infra-red
telescope or ‘sniperscope’, since even under normal conditions it was always obligingly kept red hot. Under cover of this
bombardment. McKnight planned a rush of armour upon the city, spearheaded by halftrack-mounted laser projectors. It was McKnight’s
theory, supported neither by his civilian advisers nor by the computer, that the thermonuclear fireball had failed to vaporize
the iron walls because its heat had been too generalized and diffuse, and that the concentrated heat of four or five or a
dozen laser beams, all focused on one spot, might punch its way through like a rapier going through cheese. This onslaught
was to be aimed directly at the gates of course these would be better defended than any other part of the perimeter, but a
significant number of the defenders might still be flapping wildly around in the air amidst the smoke, and in any event, when
one is trying to breach a wall, it is only common sense to begin at a point which
already
has a hole in it.
If such a breach was actually effected, an attempt would be made to enlarge it with land torpedoes, particularly burrowing
ones of the Hess type which would have been started on their way at the beginning of Phase One. These had never seen use before
in actual combat and were supposed to be graveyard secret – though with profusion of spies and traitors with which America
had been swarming, in McKnight’s view, before all this had begun, he doubted that the secret had been very well kept. (After
all, if even Baines …) He was curious also about the actual effectiveness of another secret, the product of an almost incestuous
union of chemistry and nucleonics called TDX, a compound as unstable as TNT, which was made of gravity-polarized atoms. McKnight
had only the vaguest idea of what this jargon was supposed to signify, but what he did know was its action; TDX was supposed;
to have the property of exploding in a flat plane, instead of expanding evenly in all directions like any Christian explosive.
Were the gate forced, the bombardment would stop andPhase Three would follow. This would be an infantry assault, supported by individually airborne troops in their rocket-powered
flying harness, and supplemented by an attempted paratroop landing inside the city. If on the other hand the gate did not
go down, there would be a most unwelcome Phase Four – a general, and hopefully orderly retreat.
The whole operation could be watched both safely and conveniently from the SAC’s Command Room under Denver, and as the name
implied, directed in the same way; there was a multitude of television screens, some of which were at the individual command
consoles provided for each participating general. The whole complex closely resembled the now extinct Space Center at Houston,
which had in fact been modelled after it; technically, space flight and modem warfare are almost identical operations from
the command point of view. At the front of this cavern and quite dominating it was a master screen of Cinerama proportions;
at its rear was something very like a sponsor’s booth, giving McKnight and his guests an overview of the whole, as well as
access to a bank of small screens on which he could call into being any individual
of what had previously been Badwater, which was actually two hundred and eighty-two feet below sea level. When the nuclear
bombardment ended, it would be succeeded immediately by a continued hammering with conventional explosives, by artillery,
missiles and planes. These would include phosphorus bombs, again probably harmless to devils,but which would in any event produce immense clouds of dense white smoke, which might impair visibility for the enemy; his
own troops could see through it handily enough by radar, and would always be able to see the main target through the infra-red
telescope or ‘sniperscope’, since even under normal conditions it was always obligingly kept red hot. Under cover of this
bombardment. McKnight planned a rush of armour upon the city, spearheaded by halftrack-mounted laser projectors. It was McKnight’s
theory, supported neither by his civilian advisers nor by the computer, that the thermonuclear fireball had failed to vaporize
the iron walls because its heat had been too generalized and diffuse, and that the concentrated heat of four or five or a
dozen laser beams, all focused on one spot, might punch its way through like a rapier going through cheese. This onslaught
was to be aimed directly at the gates of course these would be better defended than any other part of the perimeter, but a
significant number of the defenders might still be flapping wildly around in the air amidst the smoke, and in any event, when
one is trying to breach a wall, it is only common sense to begin at a point which
already
has a hole in it.
If such a breach was actually effected, an attempt would be made to enlarge it with land torpedoes, particularly burrowing
ones of the Hess type which would have been started on their way at the beginning of Phase One. These had never seen use before
in actual combat and were supposed to be graveyard secret – though with profusion of spies and traitors with which America
had been swarming, in McKnight’s view, before all this had begun, he doubted that the secret had been very well kept. (After
all, if even Baines …) He was curious also about the actual effectiveness of another secret, the product of an almost incestuous
union of chemistry and nucleonics called TDX, a compound as unstable as TNT, which was made of gravity-polarized atoms. McKnight
had only the vaguest idea of what this jargon was supposed to signify, but what he did know was its action; TDX was supposed;
to have the property of exploding in a flat plane, instead of expanding evenly in all directions like any Christian explosive.
Were the gate forced, the bombardment would stop andPhase Three would follow. This would be an infantry assault, supported by individually airborne troops in their rocket-powered
flying harness, and supplemented by an attempted paratroop landing inside the city. If on the other hand the gate did not
go down, there would be a most unwelcome Phase Four – a general, and hopefully orderly retreat.
The whole operation could be watched both safely and conveniently from the SAC’s Command Room under Denver, and as the name
implied, directed in the same way; there was a multitude of television screens, some of which were at the individual command
consoles provided for each participating general. The whole complex closely resembled the now extinct Space Center at Houston,
which had in fact been modelled after it; technically, space flight and modem warfare are almost identical operations from
the command point of view. At the front of this cavern and quite dominating it was a master screen of Cinerama proportions;
at its rear was something very like a sponsor’s booth, giving McKnight and his guests an overview of the whole, as well as
access to a bank of small screens on which he could call into being any individual
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