by Harold Coyle
Kurpov was at a loss as to what to do. He stared through his vision blocks, trying hard to make sense of what was going on before him. But that was not possible. The flashes of gunfire, the bright streaks of tracers and the impact of artillery merged with blotches and fading images of rounds long since fired, distorting Kurpov's sight. Another bright flash and a streak of flame from the shadows of the hills sought out the second BMP. This time the impact of the missile resulted in a thunderous explosion as the BMP's own ammo and fuel ripped it apart, sending a ball of fire into the sky. Men were dying. His comrades.
And still Kurpov was at a loss as to what to do.
The Iranians were no fools. What appeared to Kurpov as random and uncontrolled violence was as methodical as it was deadly. They knew exactly what they were doing. The heavy antitank guided missiles were used to destroy the greatest Soviet threat, the better-armed and-armored BMPs.
With the BMPs destroyed, the BRDMs were no match for dug-in troops who could easily dispose of them with heavy machine guns and hand-held rocket launchers. The shower of tracers that mesmerized Kurpov came from dug-in50-caliber machine guns and from the BRDMs' own machine guns' returning fire.
It was an uneven contest as the Iranian machine gunners raked the thin-skinned BRDMs with telling effect while the BRDMs simply thrashed about, firing wildly and randomly. The platoon leader of the lead scout-car platoon never gained control of his three BRDMs. Each fought its own battle and died a hard, slow death. A burst of machine-gun fire hit the flank of the platoon leader's BRDM, killing the driver. It careened wildly, hit a shallow ditch and rolled over on its side. The panicked crew clawed at the hatches in an effort to escape, oblivious to the fact that all guns that could be brought to bear were now hitting the BRDM. As the first man emerged he was hit by a burst of well-directed machine-gun fire. He simply dropped, half in and half out of the vehicle, dead. His comrade behind him screamed and pushed on the body, not realizing the man was dead. With strength born of desperation and fear, the second crewman pushed the body clear and in his turn was killed as he began to emerge. The platoon leader could not reach the hatch. Machine-gun rounds, ripping through the bottom of the BRDM, had hit him. As he lay there against the side of his vehicle, bleeding to death in the dark, he blocked out the horror and noise of the battle outside and dreamed of his home and his family.
Gone from his mind were war and death. Before him were images of white puffy clouds racing across a blue sky above windswept seas of sunflowers rooted in the dark Ukrainian earth. For a moment, the young lieutenant smiled as he slipped into the dark abyss.
Without waiting for orders, Kurpov's platoon and the accompanying BMP had gone to ground, seeking cover in a shallow wadi. Kurpov's own driver, reacting to a strong sense of survival as well as to his training, had brought the BRDM to a halt in the wadi next to the BMP.
The destruction of the lead scout-car platoon and the two BMPs had bought time for Kurpov and his platoon to find cover and get a grasp on the situation. That was, after all, part of the recon battalion's job.
Somewhat composed now, Kurpov opened his hatch and stood on his seat in order to peer over the lip of the wadi they were in. The wild firing had died down. In the distance he could see the BMPs and the BRDMs burning. The stillness that had descended was punctured by random pops and detonations as on-board ammunition cooked off in the burning vehicles. Putting his binoculars to his eyes, Kurpov scanned the area.
Slowly he was able to construct a clear picture of what had happened and the approximate locations of the Iranian positions. Because only two missiles were fired from the same general area and only after a considerable interval, he was convinced there was only one antitank-guided-missile launcher. At least, that was all he could be sure of. All the machinegun fire had come from the area to either side of where the trail should have been when the lead platoon was hit. As best he could determine, there was no more than a single company dug in across the road and supported by a single antitank-guided-missile launcher. He called to his other scout cars for reports. What their commanders told him corroborated what Kurpov had already determined.
Only when he was sure he had as clear a picture as he was going to have did he call his company commander to report.
The company commander received the report in silence. When Kurpov was done, the commander asked a few short questions, which Kurpov answered with a simple yes or no. Satisfied, the company commander instructed him to continue to observe while he in turn reported Kurpov's information to the commander of the rifle battalion that was following.
As Kurpov waited for new orders, he took off his helmet and leaned against the open hatch, thinking about the fight. With a dirty rag he wiped the sweat from his face. His hand still quivered from the adrenaline in his system.
Five vehicles and their crews had been destroyed finding out information that took less than thirty seconds to report. And were it not for a simple decision by the company commander that the other platoon was to lead, it would have been Kurpov's platoon that paid for that information. A decision that had been so easy for the commander to make had such terrible consequences for the people who had to execute it.
A radio call from the company commander brought Kurpov's thoughts back to the present. He got his helmet on in time to hear that the rifle battalion was deploying and moving forward to assault the Iranian position. From behind, Kurpov could already hear the rumble of the rifle battalion as it began to advance. His job for that night was over. It was now up to others to flush out the enemy. There would be no need for Kurpov to guide the advancing elements of the rifle battalion forward toward the enemy's positions; the burning BRDMs proved to be good markers.
Ras Banas, Egypt 0015 Hours, 30 May (2215 Hours, 29 May, GMT)
The progress of the attacking platoon was painfully slow. From his position with the defending platoon, Captain John Evans could see every move that they made. The three-quarters moon and the exposed route the 2nd Platoon's platoon leader had selected made it almost impossible to miss them. For the last hour Evans had been tracking their progress with nothing more than ordinary daylight binoculars. Impatiently he watched as the platoon first moved out of a wadi and arranged themselves in a tight formation. Next he watched as they marched across the open desert and away from the rocky knoll that was their objective and where the defending platoon waited. It took over forty minutes for them to figure out their error and another ten to sort out their true objective.
Evans wanted so badly to fire a mortar or something at them, anything.
People that stupid needed a shot in the head. But he had nothing. All he could do was sit and watch them mess all over themselves in the open.
The platoon leader defending the knoll was less patient. After seeing the troubles 2nd Platoon was having, he decided to add to them. He sent one of his squads down and around the rear of the attacking platoon. The idea was to have that squad trail the 2nd Platoon closely. When, and if, the 2nd Platoon finally began its attack, the trailing squad would strike from behind. Stripping away one third of his force was a gamble, but the performance of the attacker up to that point made the risk seem reasonable.
The soldiers on the knoll had a difficult time staying awake as they waited for something to happen. They were beginning their second day in Egypt and had not fully recovered from the effects of jet lag. On top of that, they were having difficulty acclimating to the desert heat. Evans was glad that they had the time in Egypt to do so. Not that it was by choice. The 17th Airborne Division had to deploy to forward staging areas before they jumped into Iran. It was not possible to stage and deploy from the States directly into Iran the size force required for the operation.
Because of this, any hope for surprise was lost. No doubt there were scores of Shiite Muslims watching the coming and going of the transport aircraft, counting the units and probably even monitoring their radio nets as the 17th Airborne did some last-minute unit training.
The training exercise had com
e as a shock to many in the company. They had expected to simply lie around and rest in preparation for the big jump.
Instead, less than three hours after landing, Evans had his platoons lined up with full combat gear and moving across the desert on foot.
While they were there Evans wanted to take every opportunity available to train and prepare. As he continued to watch the 2nd Platoon, he was glad they were doing so. The platoon leader of that unit was actually far better than his current performance would indicate. Second Lieutenant Hal Cerro had been with the unit for over six months and had participated in several major exercises. None of them, however, had been in the desert.
The desert is a harsh environment that has its own rules. People brought up in a sophisticated society in a temperate climate are unprepared for the sheer nothingness of the desert. Simple survival is a challenge. Maintaining unit cohesion and combat effectiveness and conducting active military operations in the desert border on the impossible.
Logistics, or supply operations, is indicative of the nature of the problem. Each man requires each day slightly over two gallons of water which weighs almost twenty pounds. Add to this six pounds of food, and, because the force is engaged in combat, ammunition to the tune of an average of twenty to forty pounds per man. This total of forty-six to sixty-six pounds does not include the weight of fuel required to haul the supplies to the soldier, the weight of repair parts required to maintain the trucks, planes and ships hauling the supplies or the supplies consumed by the people hauling the supplies while they are doing the hauling. When all of this is tallied up, it is quite possible to reach a requirement demanding the movement and consumption of two hundred pounds of supplies per soldier in the combat area per day. When all is considered, getting the combat soldier to the theater of operations is the easy part; keeping him there and keeping him functional are where the real problem lies.
For Captain Evans, the immediate problem was how to get his people over the severe case of the dumbs that they had suddenly come down with. The 2nd Platoon had finally begun to move onto the rocky knoll it was supposed to have taken two hours ago. But rather than deploying for an attack, they advanced in two loose columns up the face of the knoll. What was even more disturbing was the fact that Evans could see the trailing squad coming up behind the 2nd Platoon. It was apparent that no one in the 2nd Platoon was paying attention to the rear. The defending platoon simply waited. They were going to let the 2nd Platoon get to within two hundred meters before they fired. Even this infuriated Evans. In the desert, you always take advantage of long-range engagements whenever possible.
The defending platoon was pissing away a one-hundred- to two-hundred-meter advantage.
With blank ammunition quietly supplied to the 17th Airborne Division from Israel, the defending platoon opened fire on the 2nd Platoon. The initial reaction of the attackers was one of surprise and sudden paralysis.
Dumbstruck, the men simply stood where they were or fired from the hip or the shoulder. This was too much for Evans. Jumping up, he yelled for a cease-fire above the din of small-arms fire. The men, sensing their commander's anger, stopped firing almost instantaneously. For a moment there was a hushed stillness as all held their positions and waited for further orders.
"Platoon leaders, form on me, now!"
In the darkness, two second lieutenants scrambled to find the source of the enraged voice, daring not to ask where it came from for fear of adding to its anger. They knew that their commander was, to say the least, less than pleased. To Lieutenant Cerro, it was like going to his father after he had been caught doing something wrong. Cerro could feel his stomach muscles tightening up. He knew that Captain Evans couldn't whip him as his dad had done. But that didn't lessen the effect of the brutal tongue-lashing he was about to endure.
His performance and that of his platoon since they had landed in Egypt had been less than satisfactory. It was almost as if during the flight to Egypt the men had forgotten everything they had ever been taught.
The men were apprehensive about going into combat. In a platoon of thirty-eight men there was not a single combat veteran. There was no one to whom they could turn for guidance or reassurance. While the first sergeant had been in Vietnam, and both the CO and the first sergeant had been in Grenada, they were aloof from the men in the 2nd Platoon, not by intention but by necessity. The platoon therefore found itself facing the dark mysteries of combat for the first time with no idea of what it was really going to be like.
Rationalizing why the platoon was doing poorly was one thing. Doing something about it was another. One thing was for sure. If they didn't do any better in their first battle than they had just done on the aborted attack on the knoll, there would be no second battle for the 2nd Platoon.
Captain Evans belabored that point as he drove home each error they had committed that night. While his men formed up and prepared for the fifteen-kilometer foot march back to their laager area, Lieutenant Cerro racked his tired brain for a method of getting his men over their fear of the unknown and ready for combat. He decided that the solution would come to him as soon as he had mastered his own fears.
Headquarters, 28th Combined Arms Army Tabriz Iran 0855 Hours, 2 June (0525 Hours, 2 June, GMT)
Despite the fact that Tabriz had been "officially secured" on 31 May, there was still sporadic gunfire throughout the city as snipers took pot shots at small groups of Soviet soldiers, even in daylight. At night the Soviets didn't move unless they were in an armored vehicle.
The curfew, which ran from one hour before sunset to one hour after sunrise, simply stated that anyone seen on the streets at night would be shot. Nervous soldiers enforced this rule with a vengeance, often with deadly results for their comrades, since they fired at anything that moved, including friendly patrols.
As Colonel Pyotr Sulvina entered the headquarters of the 28th Combined Arms Army, he studied the two guards at the entrance. They were young men, neither one older than nineteen. They crouched behind their sandbag emplacement until Sulvina was too close to ignore. Both popped up and saluted, returning to their crouched position behind the sandbags as soon as Sulvina returned their salute. Their uniforms were dirty. Their faces were haggard from a combination of fear, anxiety and lack of sleep. With dark circles around their eyes and two days of stubbly beard on their chins, they looked more like the defeated than the victor.
Inside, posters that called for sacrifices in the name of Allah still hung on the walls. Sulvina couldn't read all the messages, but found it amusing that posters calling for death to the godless Americans were almost as numerous as those aimed against the Iraqis.
None mentioned the Soviet Union. Fools, Sulvina thought. They feared the snake that was never there and didn't see the bear.
His thoughts were interrupted by a warm greeting from the army's chief of staff, Colonel Ivan Ovcharov. There were a few moments of small talk, the chief of staff asking how the weather was in Moscow and Baku as he walked Sulvina to his office, where they could get down to business. Once the door was closed, Ovcharov's jovial face turned cold. "Well, what is the verdict?" he asked.
Sulvina removed his hat and placed it and his briefcase on a chair. He then walked over to the window, considering his answer.
"It is not a good idea to stand before an open window like that, Comrade.
The army commander has already lost an aide in this building doing the same thing."
Sulvina looked at the chief of staff with raised eyebrows as he slowly backed away. "Are they still that active?"
The chief of staff looked at him quizzically. "Still? After last night, there is every indication that it is getting worse. We have already commenced reprisals. It will be several days, however, before that has any effect."
Reprisals, Sulvina thought. What a useful term for making the practice of shooting civilians in retaliation for the shooting of Soviet soldiers seem justifiable. Perhaps it is necessary. War has its own rules.
"So, are you going to
tell me the results of your trip to see our intrepid General Staff officers at STAVKA and Front Headquarters, or must I guess?"
"I am afraid, Colonel, you already know the results. All plans remain the same, and the forces committed will not be reinforced. Our losses do not yet justify that. Nor do we have authorization for the use of chemical weapons yet."
The chief of staff considered for a moment. "Yes, I expected no less.
And STAVKA's appraisal is correct, we have not been handled too roughly. We have succeeded everywhere we have gone. But it is taking us too long.
Do you realize that it has become a common practice now to stop at every roadblock and conduct a deliberate attack against it with artillery and tanks? Do you know why? It is because we no longer have any recon units able, or willing, to go forward without an artillery preparation being fired on the high ground overlooking the roadblock.
It is saving us men but consuming tremendous amounts of ammunition and, more important, time. We no sooner clear one roadblock than a few kilometers down the road there is another. Even when we place airborne or air assault forces behind the Iranians, they still build their roadblocks-"
The chief was angry and frustrated. Sulvina was one of the few officers in the army he could trust, which was why he had been selected to go to Front Headquarters to report on the army's situation and why the chief could talk freely to him. One had to be careful what one said. No doubt one or more of the 28th Combined Arms Army's staff officers was KGB, which was probably how STAVKA had found out about the army's slow progress.
"What about ammunition? We are now using three times the amount of ammunition that had been projected. Are we going to get any relief in that area?"