[Hermit]

Our forces began rolling forward, being careful to avoid areas of artillery strikes in case a second barrage follows. After clearing the original launch points and travelling about 10 mins into the enemy territory, our troops stopped. We wanted to make sure any units spotted and who's position was called in by the Beast did not receive an unwelcome "hello" from the Chinese arty. Then divisional scouts were deployed to recon the ground in front of the advancing columns. Our own recon platoons were dropped in blind areas, near units spotted during the two transport helo's forward flight. One of them drew enemy fire as it lifted off, and was hit lightly in the fuselage. The pilot radio'd that he wasn't taking any chances and headed for the rear lines to get repairs. I hope the recon teams aren't discovered and overrun by enemy forces, because it will be difficult to extract them with only one helo. Two of the light attack helo's have been moved forward to provide fire support in a pinch, but that won't help if Chinese armor moves in. So far they have not reported any incoming fire, so we believe the covert infiltration was successful.

I don't know what's going on back there with our artillery crews, but so far they've been doing a pretty crappy job of counterbattery fire. The enemy artillery keeps hammering away, searching out our location. Fortunately they haven't been very lucky, but that's gonna change sooner or later. Our guys better get their act together soon.

About 20 mins after we launched, another "Beast" came zooming out of the sky, and made a pass about 1 km ahead of us. It began strafing and shooting it's AT rockets at the crest of a small hill, and all of a sudden there was a big explosion. The colonel did a quick radio check to get a sitrep on all our units, wondering who was so gung-ho that they'd charged out ahead of the main body. All units reported in OK, and none reported aerial attack. That's when we realized they'd just ice'd one of their own! When the smoke and debris cleared, we could see the silhouetted outline of a burning tank on the crest of the hill. Shouts and "wooo-hoo's" erupted from our lines until the officers told everyone to shut-up and keep their heads down.