Patriot Dawn: The Resistance Rises

by Velocity, Max

Jack also had his team, and Jim in particular, look at the two bridges and the photos that he had a recon patrol take of their structure. He needed to consider dropping the bridges with demolitions to slow down any QRF moving to assist the FOB under attack.

  Once his team had decided that the plan was viable, Jack gave it the go ahead and they moved into battle procedure. Warning orders were issued to get things in motion. There was task organization, administration, logistics, weapons, ammunition and vehicles to ready for the operation.

  Jack decided against deploying down into the valley with a small recon team to conduct an additional commander’s reconnaissance. He did not want to risk compromise of the OP and he had sufficient information. He trusted the competence of his team. The OP would remain in place and the fire support base would link up with it prior to the operation. That would also allow passage of the latest information on Regime forces activities.

  Jack gave his verbal orders around a scale model of the Regime FOB and the surrounding area. The positions of his various elements were marked on the model and he was able to talk through the scheme of maneuver and the specific mission and tasks allocated to each of his subordinate elements.

  The plan was for a night attack, going noisy at 0300hrs. This was the time of the enemy’s lowest ebb, when most of them would be sleeping except for those on guard duty. The OP had also observed a pattern of life from the Apache squadron that they never conducted missions at this time. There was a window between around 0200hrs and the start of the next day’s operations at around 0500hrs when they seemed to do all they could to not be flying.

  Jack wanted to catch the attack helicopters on the ground, because if they were airborne, things would go badly for his fighters. This was a go/no go criterion for the attack and as such surprise must be absolute.

  The idea was to achieve surprise and concentrate force to fix the enemy on the FOB and destroy the helicopters in place. The priority was the destruction of the Regime Apache helicopters with the secondary objective of killing as many pilots, flight personnel and guards as possible.

  The night of the raid, the various elements had infiltrated, in small packets by multiple routes and staggered times, lights off, into an assembly area to the west of the objective.

  A courier pair went forward and linked up with the OP, gathering the latest reports. The operation was on radio silence; this would continue until compromised or when the operation went noisy as planned. Then, radio silence would not matter beyond OPSEC on the net.

  The fire support base consisted of the mortar and machine-gun squads. They were mounted in the pickups, which were not being used as firing platforms but simply to carry the heavy weapons and large amounts of ammunition needed for the operation. They moved up Route 698 from the west and then cut across the fields to a rally point in the dead ground west of the ridge. They were guided across the fields by a dismounted security party.

  The mortar squads stopped in the low ground behind the ridge and set up their mortars, stacking the mortar bombs ready, with the vehicles close by for a further resupply. The mortar fire controller stayed with the machine-gun squads as they walked up the back side of the ridge, where they linked up with the rear group from the OP. Their ammunition carrying vehicles stopped short of the ridgeline.

  The machine gun teams carried their 240s and .50cals up to the ridge, stopping short. They set up the tripods in the low positions and mounted the machine-guns on top. The gun teams carried the tripods with the guns mounted and stealthily moved into position atop the ridge. They carried first line scales of ammunition; the resupply would come from the vehicles which would be able to drive up closer once the raid went noisy.

  The machine-gun teams set up on the ridge, their guns mounted on the tripods set low to the ground. The .50 Barrett sharpshooters also set up, as well as the mortar fire controller. The other MFC would be with the assaulting party, ready to call for fire or switch fire as necessary.

  One of the key things about a night attack was the use of control measures to prevent fratricide. The Company had acquired limited amounts of night vision equipment, but not enough to rely on it for everyone. The raid would have to go noisy with the use of white light. They were unable to use measures such as IR glint tape as the Regime forces did in conjunction with their NVGs, so they would use phase lines to initiate switch fire. They would also use cyalume sticks hung out of windows to mark the progress of the clearance as the fighters fought through the objective.

  Concurrent to this, a small party had moved up to the northern bridge and rigged it for demolition with explosives. The demolition had been planned and the team briefed by Jim, who had marked on the photographs exactly where the explosives needed to be placed. He had trained the demolition teams to be able to rig and drop the bridge. Once the bridge was rigged, the team sat in an over-watch position with the detonator attached to a command wire, waiting for the call.

  To the south east, Jack had allocated 2nd Platoon the task of demolishing the bridge and providing flank protections. This was the most likely route that a QRF force would come if they moved from the Harrisonburg FOB with the intent of reinforcing the garrison at the Airpark.

  The platoon rigged the bridge for demolition and then set an ambush overlooking the four hundred meters of dogleg road that led from the bridge towards the Airpark. They were able to get in and conceal themselves amongst some farm buildings that sat atop a slope looking down towards the dogleg portion of the road, from the north.

  The other two platoons waited in the two dump trucks, along with Jack’s tactical headquarters, in cover on the road to the south west. They had remained in the assembly area while the fire support elements had pushed forward to occupy their positions on the ridge.

  They had rigged the dump trucks for machine-guns. On the front wall of the armored truck bed were mounted two 240 machine-guns, and on the front ends of both sides were mounted two more, to make six mounted guns per truck. These guns were manned by a dedicated force, while the three squads of each platoon sat down in the back of the dump trucks. They had also fitted dozer blades to the front of the trucks, giving them a ramming capability.

  Jack was in the lead assault truck with his small tactical HQ including the MFC, and also Caleb’s 1st Platoon. Jim was in the second truck with a team of his demolitions guys and Alex Lambert’s 3rd Platoon.

  As 0300hrs approached, Jack moved the two vehicles containing his assault groups up to just short of the junction with Route 727, south of the FOB. It had been confirmed earlier while they in the assembly area, after the couriers had met up at the OP, that all eight Apaches were on the ground, no activity. The base was quiet. The assault force was one kilometer from the enemy FOB.

  Jack got on the radio, “Juliet One Five, this is Zero Actual, send.”

  The OP came back, “Roger, Alpha Golf,” the code that the birds were still on the ground, no activity.

  “Tango, Tango, Tango,” Jack said into his radio, the agreed code that the operation was a go.

  There was a pause, seeming like an eternity, as the silence persisted. Then, there was the detonation as a mortar round fired. An eternity later and there was a pop up in the sky as a parachute flare bloomed in the darkness, bathing the enemy FOB in murky light.

  Again, a couple of seconds delay as the gunners acquired their targets, before the fire base erupted in a wall of fire directed at the Regime base. The gunners had been allocated specific targets to ensure that the base was effectively suppressed, and the Barrett shooters were aiming in particular at the guard bunkers to kill or suppress the enemy gunners.

  The MFC up with the fire base called for fire from the mortars behind him in the low ground. Because they knew both their and the enemy’s location the initial salvoes of mortar rounds were fairly accurate, adjusted by the MFC to primarily suppress the rear area of the FOB where the Apaches were, not primarily to potentially damage the aircraft, but to deter any flight crews from attempting to start them up and take off.r />
  The enemy’s response was faltering. Fire was initially returned from the bunkers facing the fire base, but the gunners were soon suppressed or killed and it dwindled. The bunkers on the other sides were struggling to bring their weapons to bear in the right direction. The QRF was deployed into stand-to positions and the troops sleeping in the accommodation were rudely awakened, hustled out of bed by screaming NCOs to take up fire positions.

  Jack had planned for approximately five minutes of preparatory fire before moving the assault force, to suppress the guard bunkers and allow the mortars to bed in and adjust fire on their targets. Five minutes later, the MFC on the ridge got on the radio and confirmed that the mortars were on target. Jack got on the radio and gave the code word for the assault force to move, for the benefit of both them and the fire support base.

  As a response to Jack’s radio order, the demolitions team to the north fired the charges, blowing out the structural steel underneath the bridge and sending it crashing down into the river. To the south, the flank protection platoon sat in their ambush position, watching their bridge. One door was closed, the other remained open.

  The two assault trucks rolled down Route 727, heading north west towards the FOB. Jack was stood in the front of the truck bed between the central two gunners manning the 240s bristling out. He could see the red tracer arcing down from the ridge on the left, across the road and into the FOB on the right.

  One round in every five was a tracer round and it was deceptively harmless as it gracefully arced down into the objective, the sound a ‘tick, tick, tick;’ from the sonic crack of the rapid long bursts of the 7.62 guns and a slower deeper sound from the .50cals. It was like a laser light show, with tracer rounds sometimes ricocheting off the targets in the FOB and zipping off up into the night sky

  The guns were in the sustained fire role mounted on the tripods and were firing long bursts into the Regime FOB. Jack knew that the 240 gunners would be sat by the guns, their index finger and thumb the only contact as they pulled the trigger, sending the tracer down onto the enemy.

  The mortar squads were putting up constant illumination rounds from one barrel while the others worked under the direction of the MFC stonking bombs into the Regime FOB. Jack could see the flash of the detonations in among the enemy buildings and hear the concussive ‘crump’, distinctive to mortars.

  Short of the FOB the assault trucks took a right turn out into the field and headed diagonally towards the secondary ECP in the south east wall. They were moving into ‘danger close’ range of the mortars but it was a calculated risk to keep the enemy suppressed while they breached the walls, and the platoons were protected by the steel sides of the assault trucks. As they took the right turn Jack called the phase line over the net to let the fire support know.

  The trucks came line abreast and stopped out in the field two hundred meters from the wall, fifty meters apart. The machine-gunners opened fire on the FOB, suppressing the secondary ECP bunker and the one on the eastern corner. The two assault trucks then started to fire and maneuver in fifty meter bounds, one moving while the other covered, as the assault force closed with the enemy wall from the right flank.

  As the two assault trucks advanced on the enemy, the mounted machine-guns poured bursts of red tracer fire towards the Regime base, targeting in the main the guard bunkers and any muzzle flashes they could see in the semi-darkness of the mortar illumination flares. In return came the enemy fire, flicking over the top of the two assault trucks, red tracer coming back the other way, cracking overhead.

  Occasionally, the enemy fire would hit home, smacking into the armored sides and cab of the assault trucks, often ricocheting away into the darkness. Jacks gunners stood firm, firing at targets in the Regime FOB.

  Just before the last bound of his truck to the secondary ECP, the MFC with Jack called for fire to switch to the north to suppress the far side of the base. With the other assault truck suppressing, Jacks truck accelerated towards the secondary ECP, the gunners firing on the move. Just before they reached the MRAP blocking the gate, the truck slowed, Jack called “Brace, brace, brace!” and the assault truck hit the MRAP, gunning through and pushing the MRAP out of the way as they drove through the gate.

  Jacks truck pushed through and moved to halfway between the gate and the ‘L’ shaped barracks building, twenty five meters from the closest windows on the end of the building. The truck gunners were firing at any identified targets as their support fire from the ridgeline switched left away from them, concentrating now on the headquarters building and the remaining guard bunkers.

  They were in amongst a storm of fire, and as Jack stood in the front of the truck bed he could see the muzzle flashes of enemy fire coming from the windows of the building in front of him, the crack of the passing rounds just more noise amongst the cacophony around him.

  The second truck came through the gate and swung to the right to where the Apaches were parked. The truck drove over and through the Apache ranks, stopping on the far side with the gunners providing covering fire. The platoon leaped out of the back and took up fire positions in cover around the Apache park while Jim led his demolition team to the helicopters.

  Just then, the gunner just to the right of Jack was hit in the shoulder. He gave a gasp of pain and dropped back into the truck bed. Jack grabbed the 240 and started to send bursts of three to five rounds through the closest windows where he could see enemy muzzle flashes. Jack felt a hand on his shoulder and moved to the side to let one of his fighters take over the gun, allowing him to resume his command role.

  Jack gave the order and his truck advanced to the ‘L’ shaped building, parking right up against the end of the foot of the ‘L’. Caleb’s platoon was waiting in the truck and as soon as it stopped they were up and posting grenades through one of the end windows, their chosen breach point.

  As soon as the grenades went off, the entry team was in. They used white light flashlights mounted to their weapons once they were inside the building, and Olson pushed his squad through to clear through the first few rooms.

  Caleb’s squads started to systematically clear the upper floor of the building. The squad leaders controlled their men, breaking down into four man teams to clear the rooms. As they went they hung cyalume sticks out of the windows of cleared rooms to show their progress to those providing fire support.

  As soon as the last of the assault platoon was inside the building, Jack moved the dump truck away from the building, off to the left, to where the gunners could suppress into the depth of the FOB and also cover the lower floor of the ‘L’ shaped building and any escaping enemy..

  In the building, there was a central corridor with rooms off to the sides that had been offices but now had been largely co-opted into accommodation. Some of the rooms had entry points only off the corridor, others had internal connecting doors. This gave the squad leaders the choice of moving through the connecting doors if they were available, or room to room down the corridor if they were not.

  It largely came down to communication and the use of link men, with leaders sequencing and organizing the teams to flow through the rooms. They had to hit each room with aggression and try to seize the initiative through the use of aggression and grenades while they still had a supply.

  The rooms were not that large and they usually used a single team to hit each one, a two man assault team breaching the room with the team leader following rapidly on their heels. The fourth man would act as link and cover man in the corridor. If there was a connecting door the next team in sequence would usually flow through the room and that door, or if not they would move down the corridor to the next door and breach through it.

  Coordination had to happen between the teams clearing each side of the corridor to ensure the team on one side did not pass an un-cleared room on the other.

  It was tough fight inside the building, room to room, blasting their way through initially with high explosive fragmentation grenades and then moving to flash-bang stun grenad
es, until they even ran out of those. Sometimes if a room looked like it would be a tough breach the team leaders would step in to lead the entry by example, but in general it was more effective with them in a command and coordination role.

  At one point Olson’s team rotated back to point squad and they pushed down the corridor to breach the next door on the left. They had already turned the corner and were clearing the long side of the ‘L’. McCarthy and Phillips were the breach pair up front with Gibbs behind him as the link/cover man. McCarthy and Phillips stacked on the door with Olson close behind them. Gibbs pushed out right so he could cover down the corridor.

  McCarthy checked the door while Phillips prepped his high explosive grenade. The door was locked. McCarthy moved out in front of the door, looked at Olson, who nodded. McCarthy then looked at Phillips, nodded, and front kicked the door. It went flying inwards and Phillips tossed the grenade low through the door just as McCarthy moved back into cover. The door hit the wall and rebounded. As it came flying back, a burst of fire from inside punched a series of holes in it. Just then, the grenade exploded with a concussive crack.

  Olson screamed, “Go, Go, Go!”

  McCarthy went through the door, followed closely on the heels by Phillips. He shouldered the door aside to the right and went left, swinging his barrel through the center of the room and then towards the corners. His white light illuminated the room as it arced across, furniture scattered around, the smoke from the detonated grenade still obscuring the air. Phillips went right, mirroring the procedure. Olson came in and stepped to the left side of the door, the ‘fatal funnel’.

  No targets, no enemy.

  The room was cluttered with furniture. McCarthy and Phillips moved towards the opposite corners. As he moved along the wall, McCarthy hit his shin on a cot bed, tripped, and went flying forwards over it, ending up in a tangled heap. As that happened, there was a burst of fire from the far left corner, from behind some sort of filing cabinet. The burst passed over the top of McCarthy, stitched along the wall, and hit Olson in his ballistic plate, also hitting the bolt assembly on his M4, disabling his rifle.