by Harold Coyle
Now that it was decided, he had to determine how to hold Hill 214. With four tanks and two PCs, they could hold four to five hundred meters of front. But the Team was on its own and had to worry about its flanks and rear, not just the front. The Soviets might try a frontal attack once, but they would not do it twice. Besides, they might try holding the Team's attention to the front while maneuvering infantry through the woods to hit them in the rear. Flank and rear security were therefore critical.
Lt. Col. Yuri Potecknov prepared to execute his new mission in the exact, scientific manner that he had been taught and had used in Afghanistan. It was a simple mission and well within the capabilities of his unit. A small probing attack by some American tanks had penetrated the thin security screen on the Army's flank and was threatening a critical town named Arnsdorf. Colonel Potecknov was to wipe out the enemy force and restore the security screen.
While Potecknov was unhappy that his motorized rifle battalion was being diverted from the main effort of the army, he rationalized that it was for the better. His troops were still untried by battle. They had followed around in reserve for the last three days, awaiting the chance to pour through a breach in the American lines that never came. By sweeping up the enemy force at Arnsdorf, the colonel could blood his troops. The cheap victory would help instill some confidence in the battalion and allow him to see how well his officers performed under fire. This would be nothing more than a live-fire exercise with a few targets that fired back.
With Team Yankee's leadership assembled, Bannon went over their current situation, how they were going to hold Hill 214 and what he expected the enemy to do. There wasn't a lot to work with. What they did have had to be stretched to cover threats from any direction. The result was not the soundest plan he had ever made. It violated just about every tactical principle. But, given the situation and time, it was the best he could do. Once the orders were out, the Team began to deploy and dig in. The tanks still constituted their major firepower. Initially, they would fight from their present positions-for now, they were pulled into hide positions. A two-man outpost was established at the tree line to watch to the northwest.
From that position, the tanks were prepared to defend against an attack from Arnsdorf. They also would be prepared to occupy two other positions. The first was on the eastern side of the woods covering the open space between Hill 214 and a wooded lot to the southeast. A Soviet commander could use the lot as a staging area and rush across the open area onto Hill 214. The second position was on the crest of Hill 214 facing south. The Soviet commander might decide to seal off the Team's routes of escape and reinforcement, then hit it from that direction. The Mech Platoon was broken up into three elements. The two rifle squads dismounted and established an ambush along a north-south trail that ran through the center of the woods north of Hill 214. This protected the Team from a dismounted attack from the north through the woods, provided the Soviet commander used the trail to guide on.
The two PCs with only the drivers and track commanders under Uleski established an outpost on the crest of Hill 214 watching to the south. The third element was a two-man OP on the east side of the woods watching the southeast wooded lot. Bannon hoped that if the Soviets came from the south or from the east, the two OPs would be able to give the tanks sufficient warning and time to switch to the alternate positions.
It was the attack through the woods from the north that was, to Bannon, the greatest threat.
Polgar had a total of thirteen men to cover that area. This number included Folk and Kelp as there were no vacant positions on the tanks. The distance from the west edge to the east edge of the wooded lot was just a little over one thousand meters. With two men per foxhole and ten meters between foxholes, the most Polgar could cover was sixty meters. That left a very large gap on either side that the Soviet commander could move whole companies through, if he knew where they were. In all likelihood, however, a commander conducting a night attack through unfamiliar woods would stick to or near the trail for no other reason than to maintain orientation. If that happened, Polgar was ready and waiting with one of their Dragons, two M60 machine guns, two grenade launchers, and the riflemen. To provide an additional edge, antitank and antipersonnel mines were deployed to the front and flanks of the infantry positions. Command and control of the Team was simplified. First, there wasn't that much to command or control. Second, all radios were put on the company net. Bannon took over the XO's tank and stayed with the tanks. With his arm injured, Uleski could not fight 55. Besides, Bannon wanted someone dependable with the PCs covering the south. After the run-in with the T-62s in the morning, he was paranoid about the southern side of Hill 214.
The OP in front of the tanks had a sound-powered phone running back to 55 so that the men at the OP could pass information back to the tanks. The OP on the east side was also using sound-powered phones to maintain contact. Their phone line ran back to Polgar who in turn maintained contact with Bannon via a portable PRC-77 radio on the Team net. With the exception of Polgar, who had to run his dismounted infantry using voice commands, everyone in the Team could contact everyone else.
The afternoon passed in a strange and unnerving silence. The distant rumble of artillery hitting someone else far away had become so routine that unless an effort was made, it wasn't noticed anymore. Everyone was nervous and on edge. At the slightest sound or movement out of the ordinary the men would stop work and grab their weapons. Since the war had begun no one in the Team had had much of a chance for a decent, uninterrupted sleep. In the last thirty-six hours, no one had had more than two hours of sleep. While it was noticeable on everyone, this lack of sleep had its most telling effect on the leaders. Bannon found that he had to repeat orders two or three times. When the orders were being issued for the defense of Hill 214, one of the tank commanders had fallen asleep. Once, while Uleski was telling of his preparations, he stopped in mid-sentence, unable to remember what he intended to say next. The only way Bannon kept going was by constantly moving around. Even then, he sometimes had to stop and try hard to remember what it was he had been doing. The Team could not go on like this for another twenty-four hours. By tomorrow, Bannon thought, they would be at the end of their ability to endure and function.
As he was going over this in his mind, he decided, despite his previous decision, that if they had no contact with anyone from battalion or brigade by 0300 the following morning, he would take Team Yankee off Hill 214 and, under the cover of darkness, reenter friendly lines to the south. If someone was coming, they would be there by then. To try and hold on for another day would be beyond their physical capability. He could only ask so much of the men. During his rounds Bannon informed Uleski and Polgar of his decision.
It was during the last hour of daylight that the Russians came. A column of four T-72s and eight BTR-60PBs rolled down the road into Arnsdorf from the northwest. A motorized rifle company. Garger, Hebrock, and Bannon crawled out to the OP and watched them come. They drove down the road as if Team Yankee were a thousand miles away. The tanks led, followed by the BTR-60s. As this unit had T-72s, it was Bannon's guess that they were from a different regiment or possibly a different division than the Soviet unit the Team had overrun in the morning. The theory that the Russians had shoved everything forward and left their flanks weak seemed to be correct. Their coming from the northwest pointed to the fact that they were robbing the front line units to secure the rear areas. If nothing else, Team Yankee's attack had caused the Soviets to divert forces from their attack to the west.
As they lay there watching the motorized rifle company and tanks move into Arnsdorf, Bannon asked if anyone knew how many men a BTR-60 could carry. Without hesitating, Lieutenant Garger informed him that it could carry twelve passengers and had a crew of two.
For a moment Bannon put down his binoculars and looked at the young lieutenant. In the past three days he had done exceedingly well. His performance had been on par with that of McAlister and Harding. The fact that he had made it t
his far was a testament to his ability as a tank commander. Bannon had often heard stories about men who were complete zeros in peacetime but became tigers in war. Garger seemed to be one of them. He was glad that circumstances had prevented his replacing him.
They watched and listened as the motorized rifle company pulled into Arnsdorf and stopped.
The vehicles cut off their engines. Orders given by the Russian officers could be heard as they dismounted. Chances were they would wait until dark before trying anything. Probably a dismounted recon and then an attack. The red setting sun seemed an omen of things to come.
From the edge of Arnsdorf, Colonel Potecknov, his deputy, his operations officer, and his political officer surveyed the hill to the southeast. They could see the debris of the artillery battery that had been caught in the open as well as the track marks gouged out by the American tanks. He tried to listen for any tell-tale signs of activity from the hill but could not because of the noise his men were making in the town. He had ordered one company to do so in order to attract the Americans' attention. If they were watching, which the colonel had no doubt they were, they weren't showing themselves. Turning to his operations officer, he said, "Very well. If the Americans won't show themselves, we will go in and find them. Prepare a patrol."
After the operations officer scurried to issue the necessary orders, the colonel turned back and continued to study the hill in the failing light. "A simple exercise. Easy. We shall squeeze this hill like a grape and see what comes out," he said, talking to no one in particular as he watched and waited.
While they continued to watch Arnsdorf in the failing light, 55's loader crawled up beside Bannon and informed him that Polgar had received a report from the OP on the east side that they had heard the sound of vehicles moving through the woods to the southeast. The Soviets evidently intended to hit the Team from both sides at once. As they crawled back, Bannon tried to figure out how to deal with the two threats. The Team could deal with one attack at a time from one direction, not two from entirely different directions. He began to wonder if the show the motorized rifle company had put on while entering Arnsdorf was, in fact, a deception. Perhaps the real attack would come from the east. There was less open ground to cover from that direction. It made sense.
Once back at 55, Bannon radioed Uleski. He ordered the XO to move from the hilltop and go over to where the infantry OP was sited on the east side.
He told him also that he was sending the two 2nd Platoon tanks over. Uleski was to organize the defense there but be prepared to send the tanks back if they were needed. Polgar and his men were to stay put for now, but he was told to be prepared to go either way to reinforce Bannon or Uleski. If the defense of Hill 214 failed, Polgar was to try to get back to his PCs or, if that was not possible, to escape and evade south on foot as best he could. The odds were not good. They had at least four tanks and probably more supported by upwards of two hundred infantry. But it was too late to have second thoughts about fighting or fleeing. The Team was committed. With the last light of day gone, all that was left for the Team to do was wait for the Russians to come. They didn't have long to wait.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Check and Checkmate
It was Sergeant Polgar and his thin line of infantry that were hit first. Just after 2300, movement was detected to their front. At first, it was just the faint rustle of leaves and the snap of a twig. Not enough to home in on or know for sure if there really was someone out there. But soon the infantrymen, using their night vision devices, could see a line of figures slowly advancing in a staggered column on either side of the trail. Polgar was pleased. Their formation and direction could not have been any better as far as he was concerned. He was going to let the lead man get to within ten meters of his foxhole before firing.
As he waited for them, Polgarfs pulse began to beat harder and faster. The fear of premature disclosure of his position by one of his men increased his nervous anxiety, so he kept looking left down his line of positions, then right, then left again. The men, clearly visible through Polgarfs night vision goggles, were ready and like himself, tense. When they were thirty meters from Polgar, the Soviets stopped. His heart skipped a beat. Had his men been discovered? Had he lost the element of surprise? The two lead Soviet soldiers, now fully exposed and clearly visible to Polgar, turned and looked back. Another figure, ten meters behind them, waved a pistol and pointed it forward, whispering a command of some type.
The two lead soldiers turned back to the front and proceeded. They were the point element, and the one with the pistol was obviously the officer in charge.
When the lead Russian came to within ten meters, Polgar slowly released the safety on his M 16, raised it to his shoulder, and fired. The single shot knocked the Russian back and unleashed the well-rehearsed and deadly ambush drill. Three of the infantrymen hit the antipersonnel mine detonators, causing thousands of small round pellets to rip through the Soviet column. The machine guns opened fire along set sectors with a withering cross-fire that knocked down those still standing after the mines had detonated. The grenadiers plunked out 40mm grenades in their sectors. The riflemen surveyed their areas and, like the grenadiers, marked their targets and took them out.
The violence and shock of the ambush were overwhelming. The Russian officer barely uttered a word before he was cut down. The deadly and accurate point-blank fire ensured that any movement by any Russian who survived the first volley was his last. The darkness, the violence of execution, the loss of their leaders, and the resulting confusion were too much. Those lucky enough to be in the rear of the column withdrew back down the trail, pursued by a hail of bullets. Some made it.
The order to cease fire could be heard throughout the woods. As quickly as it had started, the firing stopped and quiet returned.
Polgarfs report to Bannon was matter-of-fact, accurate, and succinct. In his opinion, the Russians had been a platoon and were merely probing for positions and strengths. That discovery had been costly for the Russians. But they had the men available and could afford the price. While the Team awaited the next Soviet move, Polgar shifted his men back several meters to a new line of positions. If the Soviets decided to hit the Team in all directions, the survivors would surely lead the next group back to the point of the ambush.
The next group along the trail would be in attack formation. By dropping back, the next Soviet attack would hit an empty sack. If the Soviets didn't catch on to what, was happening and milled around the old infantry positions, Polgar might catch them off guard and have the edge again. With so few men, he needed every advantage he could get.
About forty-five minutes after the fire fight in the woods, two of the tanks in the village of Arnsdorf cranked up and began to move slowly towards the north, to where the trail entered the wooded lot. The slowness of the move gave the impression that the Russians were trying to hide the move. Any movement of tanks, however, is very difficult to hide. Bannon informed Polgar and told him to be ready for tanks. Smugly, Polgar simply replied, "Send'em, we're ready."
As the tanks moved to the north, the OP in front of the Team Yankee's tanks reported that there was additional movement just inside of that part of the village facing Hill 214. When Bannon radioed to Polgar that he thought both the tanks and infantry positions would be hit at the same time, Uleski also reported movement to his front. The Russians were putting on a full court press. The moment of truth was at hand. After ordering the OP back and telling Lieutenant Garger in 31 to move up as soon as he heard 55 crank up, Bannon wondered if the next move would be check or checkmate.
The incoming rounds simply began to explode. Instinctively, Bannon dropped all the way down into the tank and masked. Specialist 4 Newman, 55's loader, was already masked and looking at Bannon. In an almost matter-of-fact manner, as if he was discussing sports or the weather, he told Bannon, "Those don't sound like the shells we were hit with the other day. There's no whine before they impact."
"Mortars. They must be firing mort
ars. Probably 120mm mortars from the battalion's mortar battery. They can't do much to us." At least, Bannon didn't think they could.
Once masked and hooked into.the intercom, he had the driver crank up the tank and move up to its fighting position. As they moved forward, Bannon popped his head up and surveyed the scene. The mortar rounds were falling just to the rear of the tanks. The volume of fire was impressive but doing little more than creating noise. A check with Polgar and Uleski revealed that 55 and 31 were the only ones being shelled. Bannon guessed that the Soviet commander was attempting to draw their attention to the sector facing Arnsdorf.
Through their thermal sights, the crews of 55 and 31 watched a line of fifty or more Russian soldiers move out from the village and begin to advance toward the hill. They were followed by four BTR-60s and two tanks at a distance of twenty meters. Behind them came another line of troops followed by their BTRs. The Russians were coming in force this time. Bannon ordered 31 to engage the T-72 on the left on order. Tank 55 would take out the one on the right. They would be firing at the T-72 with straight frontal shots. Bannon wasn't sure how well the 105mm rounds of the M-l would penetrate the front slope of a T-72. He therefore instructed Garger to continue to engage until it burned. There was no time for second-guessing. He didn't want to have some Russian do to them what he had done to the T-62s.