by Harold Coyle
First he organized his group into two squads and distributed equally all the weapons, ammunition and food: That done, he got the men together and told them what they were going to do. He did not ask for opinions, he did not ask for a vote. As far as he was concerned, there was no alternative for them. They would fight. Duncan was honest with his men. There was no false bravado, there were no promises. The men watched and listened intently as he told them that they would move south, paralleling the road the Soviets were using. When the opportunity presented itself, they would ambush convoys or small patrols. Duncan made it clear that they were going to fight whenever and wherever they could get the drop on the Russians. He held the hope that they would be able to make their way back to their own lines, but stressed that that was only a hope.
The men accepted Duncan's decision in silence. That night there was no further discussion on the matter. They were at war. They were soldiers,
American soldiers, renowned for their ability to do things that defied logic. In the tradition of Valley Forge, the Alamo, New Market and the Bulge, the men of 1st Platoon followed their leader and prepared to exact their revenge.
Duncan watched as the BRDM leading the convoy rolled forward. He divided the platoon into teams. The first team consisted of three men armed with LAWS. On Duncan's order they would take out the BRDM leading the convoy.
Their firing would be the signal for the main team, deployed just off the road, to fire on the trucks nearest them. These men were further broken down into three-man sections. Each section was to fire on one truck, taking out the drivers and shooting the tires. Once a section managed to stop a truck and the immediate area appeared to be safe, two men were given sixty seconds to raid the truck for food, water and any types of antitank weapons they could find, while the third man covered them. The last team, located at the far end of the ambush, was the security team. Because the platoon was not large enough to deal with an entire column and could take on only a small chunk of it by isolating the lead trucks, the security team's job was to keep the rest of the convoy busy and provide covering fires while the ambush team rummaged through the stopped trucks. Once finished, all teams would withdraw to a predesignated rally point, then move to a hiding place where they would spend the following day.
Like most commanders leading men into battle, Duncan was nervous as he lay there watching the BRDM labor up the incline. His mind was filled with fear and apprehension. Had he thought of everything? Were his men really ready for combat? What happened if the BRDM wasn't knocked out by the team with the LAWS? Were the lead trucks full of supplies or Soviet infantry? Was the security team large enough to deal with the rest of the convoy? What would they do if his men didn't find any food on the trucks? Questions and concerns cascaded through his mind.
Despite the cool evening, he was sweating. He wiped his hands and watched the progress of the BRDM.
The image of his lieutenant's body, ripped open and quivering as its life force oozed out, flashed through Duncan's brain. His stomach began to turn and knot up. As he tried hard to compose himself, he wondered what he feared more, death or failure. Death was easier for him. Once he was dead, his problems were over. Failure was the more to be feared of the two. If he failed, his men would pay the price.
They would be ripped apart, just like the lieutenant. Other horrible images would crowd his mind. That, to Duncan, was more terrible than death.
The soldier next to Duncan nudged him and pointed. The BRDM was about to reach the point where the team with the LAWs could engage it. Duncan watched, waited and prepared to give the order to fire. In another second, it would be out of his hands.
North of Pariz 0035 Hours, 1 July (2105 Hours, 30 June, GMT)
A convoy of T-80 tanks of the 3rd Battalion, Soviet 68th Tank Regiment, moved through the darkness like a great mechanical snake. Its body turned and slithered along the road relentlessly, always going south.
This snake, however, was not alert. Hours of monotonous moving at the same unchanging, slow speed through a countryside that did not vary had drained the last ounce of vigilance from the young tank commanders and their crews. The rhythmic thumping of the tanks' tracks on the road, the steady vibration of the engines, and the silence of the radios and the intercom were more conducive to sleep than to alertness. Instead of standing in their turrets or peering through their sights, watching their assigned sectors, they struggled to stay awake, occupying themselves with thoughts of home.
Besides, with security forces out on the flanks and recon elements in front, the danger of an attack on the tanks was minimal.
As the long columns moved, it was not unusual for a tank to slowly drift off toward the shoulder of the road and into a ditch as its crew fell asleep. Sometimes the driver or the tank commander would feel the change in the vibrations of the tank as it moved onto the rough shoulder. When this happened, the driver, startled by the calamity he faced, would jerk the tank back into line, tossing the crew in the turret about. On other occasions, the crew never realized what was happening until the tank literally fell off the road.
Sometimes these incidents resulted in nothing more than a few bumps and bruises and a slight disruption in the column until the tank that had strayed climbed out of the ditch and back into the line of march. On other occasions the consequences were far more serious, particularly when the tank crew fell asleep as the unit was moving along a cliff.
Major Vorishnov came across a 2nd Battalion tank in which this had happened. The tank commander, unable to drop down into the safety of the turret, had been crushed when the tank rolled over on top of him as it fell off the cliff.
Vorishnov stopped to see whether there was something he could do. As he watched the recovery operation, he could not help but think what a terrible waste it was to have come so far from home, to have survived several battles, only to be killed in such a manner. Such nonbattie losses were more numerous than his superiors liked to admit. But to stop for rest was to lose their momentum and possibly the opportunity to end the campaign before the arrival of the bulk of the Americans' heavy forces. The decision was made to push on. Better to lose a few now by pushing hard than many because an opportunity was not taken.
Such decisions, however logical, did little to lessen the impact on the men who had to lift a forty ton tank off the body of a twenty-year-old tank commander whose driver had fallen asleep.
Three thousand meters away, fiberglass tubes, protruding from under camouflage nets that fluttered lazily in the cool night air, followed the progress of the T-80 tanks. Under the nets, TOW gunners, their eyes pressed against the rubber eyepieces on the TOWs' thermal night sights, tracked the tank that each had selected for destruction. With ease and steadiness achieved through countless hours of training and practice, the gunners kept the cross hairs fixed on the tank as if they were glued to it. Across the road, in positions similar to those occupied by the TOW gunners but closer, were Dragon gunners. They, like their compatriots, watched through thermal sights as the Soviet column slithered south.
Second Lieutenant Cerro slowly lowered his night-vision goggles. For a moment he was blind, his eyes unable to adapt themselves to the darkness after being exposed to the bright-green light of the goggles.
As his night vision returned, Cerro rose slightly from his position and looked to his left. Somewhere, in a rough line on the west side of the road that extended over fifteen hundred meters, there were four TOW-missile launchers under his command. He could not see them, which was the way things were supposed to be, but he knew they were there, tracking the Soviet column as he was. Satisfied that the Soviets were unable to see his TOW positions, Cerro put the night-vision goggles back up to his eyes and looked beyond the column to the east, where six Dragon teams were hidden. They, like the TOW positions, were also invisible.
It had taken the company hours to move up to where they wanted to be and prepare their positions. Every time a column moved down the road, the men would have to stop work and flatten themselves
against the ground.. When they had scratched out positions that provided some cover, the TOW and Dragon crews draped nets over them. Once finished, they settled into the positions, set up their weapons and waited for the signal to fire.
Cerro, the acting company commander, had briefed them all on their roles and how the ambush would go down. When the unit was ready, he would designate the column to be hit. He wanted to go for tanks.
The signal to initiate the ambush would be a green star cluster sent up by Cerro. The TOWs would then fire, hitting the first, fourth" seventh and eleventh tanks in the column, after which the TOW gunners would go to ground and wait. If the Soviets reacted as Cerro expected, the remaining tanks would turn toward the TOWs. When they did, they would expose their rear decks to the Dragon teams. Each Dragon team would then take one shot and run for their designated rally point. Antitank mines lined the road on the Dragon gunners' side in case the Russians decided to turn and pursue them. If Cerro wanted the TOWs to take a second shot, he would fire a second green star cluster. If, however, the Russians appeared to be an immediate threat and the TOWs could not get another clean shot in, he would fire a red star cluster, the signal for the TOWs to withdraw to their rally point.
In support of the ambush a three-gun 81 mm. mortar section hidden in a wadi would fire high-explosive and smoke rounds. They would not kill any tanks, but would add to the confusion and cover the withdrawal of the company.
Helicopters hidden away in wide wadis not far from the two rally points waited for the ambush to be 207 sprung. Once the firing started, the pilots would crank up their machines, move to the rally points and pick up CerroIs men. With luck, the ambushers would be off the ground ten minutes after the first green star cluster was fired.
Cerro watched and waited. He passed the word to stand by. On the lip of his foxhole sat three star clusters, two green and one red, open and ready for use. The column to their front was theirs.
Unnoticed by the crew, the third tank in line began to weave back and forth across the road. In the driver's compartment, a young man not yet twenty fought to stay awake. His head bobbed up and down as he struggled to open eyes that no longer saw clearly. In desperation he called to his tank commander, to tell him that he was unable to keep his eyes open. The tank commander, however, was already asleep, his head resting against the mount of the 12.7mm. machine gun. The gunner had been out for over an hour. The driver, his head clouded from exhaustion, never noticed the tilting of the tank as it ran off the east side of the road.
Neither was he able to comprehend what was happening to him as the T-80 pushed the tilt rod of an M-21 antitank mine down, setting off its detonator. In an instant, the mine's penetrator was driven up into the belly of the tank, ripping through the ammunition stored below the turret floor. Sparks caused by metal ripping through metal ignited the main-gun propellant charges and gutted the tank with a flash fire in milliseconds.
In less time than it took the others in the column to perceive that something was happening, three men were dead and the entire length of the column was lit up by the sheet of flame that leaped from the turret of the disabled T-80 tank.
In an instant Vorishnov knew what was happening. He could see no sign of an antitank guided missile. He had not heard the high-pitched crack of a tank cannon. It had to have been a mine. And if there was a mine, there probably was an ambush.
Cerro was dumbfounded. At first he thought that someone had fired too soon.
But he had not heard a missile launch or the popping of guidance rockets.
A quick glance gave him the answer. A Soviet tank had wandered off the road and hit a mine. Already other Soviet tanks were maneuvering into firing positions. In the light of the flames coming from the hapless burning tank he could see the other tank commanders closing their hatches, preparing for battle.
With no time to waste, Cerro reached for a green star cluster. He had to start the ambush before the Soviets had completely recovered from their surprise. His men, equally confused by the sudden turn of events, were waiting for the prearranged signal to fire. In the darkness, Cerro removed the star cluster's cover, sliding it over the bottom of the tube. Firmly holding the tube, pointed skyward, in his left hand, he struck the bottom of it with the palm of his right hand, setting off the star cluster. Once the cluster was launched, Cerro dropped the tube, leaned over the front edge of his foxhole and brought his binoculars to his eyes.
He had no sooner done so than the entire area around him was bathed in a bright-red light from the star cluster he had fired. Cerro froze. He couldn't believe it. He looked down at the edge of his foxhole and saw two unused green star clusters sitting there. In his haste, he had given the signal to withdraw instead of the one to fire. He turned to his right. In the fading red light he could see his TOW crews leaving their positions in accordance with the plan. No doubt the Dragon teams were doing likewise.
Cerro pounded his fist against the dirt, shouting a string of obscenities.
His plan was going to shit and there wasn't a damned thing he could do about it.
The chatter of machine guns from the tanks on the road brought him back to his immediate problem. The tanks were firing wildly in all directions. The only thing Cerro could do now to influence the situation was order the mortars to fire. Their commander, confused by the single explosion followed by the red star cluster, was calling Cerro over the radio asking for instructions. At least the mortars could cover the withdrawal for a while.
Vorishnov and the battalion commander were at a loss as to what to do.
The ditches along the side of the road were obviously mined. It was therefore hazardous for them to maneuver the battalion off the road.
The red star cluster, fired from somewhere to the west, had obviously meant something, but Vorishnov had no idea what. Nothing had happened when it fired.
As he tried to sort sense out of chaos, small-caliber mortar rounds, a mix of high-explosive and smoke rounds, began to hit among the road bound tanks.
That explained the star cluster: it was a signal for the mortars to fire.
But that didn't make sense, either. What use were small-caliber mortar rounds, particularly smoke, against tanks? Though their aim was quite accurate and they did much to add to the confusion and the general pandemonium, the mortars were really doing nothing of any value. You fired smoke only when you wanted to screen something. What were they screening? Suicide squads? It had to be Iranian fanatics. In the past two months they had done some very strange things that defied all logic and explanation. Whatever they were up to, it was having no real effect on the battalion, except to cause panic and a rash of gibberish over the command radio net. In a booming voice, the battalion commander ordered silence on that net. In an instant, order was restored, at least on the radio.
It was easy for the men of the company-command group to follow their commander in the darkness to the rally point. All they had to do was follow the sound of Cerro's cursing. He had screwed up. The men in the command group knew it, and soon the entire company would know it.
At the rally point all the TOW-section leaders counted their men, then reported to Cerro when he arrived. All were present. Second Lieutenant Kinsley, in charge of the Dragon teams to the east, called in that all teams and personnel had reported in and they were in the process of loading up in the helicopters and preparing to lift off. Cerro gave him a roger-out. The mortar-section leader called in and reported that his section had broken down and was also moving to load onto its helicopters. Cerro's acknowledgment to the mortar-section leader was drowned out by the noise of the helicopters coming in to evacuate Cerro and the TOW crews.
As he watched the Blackhawks land, Cerro thanked God that at least the evacuation had come off without a hitch and the entire fiasco had been bloodless. He had read once that any battle you walked away from was a good one. That, unfortunately, was about the only positive thing he could say for this one.
Flames from the burning tank silhouetted Vorishnov and his
commander as they walked back to their vehicles. Neither one was able to explain the strange battle that had taken place there. The best that they could figure was that the tank that had exploded had prematurely started the action before the attackers were ready. Rather than stay and fight at a disadvantage, the ambushers had withdrawn. Vorishnov commented that that had been a wise move. It was, in his view, best to walk away from a bad fight and wait until you had the advantage. While the battalion commander agreed, he was quick to point out that even if the incident had been a botched ambush, it had succeeded in stopping them and delaying their advance for thirty minutes while the column got sorted out, the area cleared and the road swept for mines. They could not suffer too many such delays and reach the Gulf before the Americans had built up the strength needed to stop them.
The two men also agreed that they had been incredibly lucky. They knew that they were pushing their luck. The men were tired and the equipment needed maintenance.. Resupply was becoming an iffy proposition as the divisions moved farther south. Bypassed pockets both of Americans, now recovering from their initiation to battle, and of Iranian fanatics were beginning to hit the lightly defended supply columns with disturbing frequency. Fuel, critical to maintaining the advance, was becoming a scarce commodity. Even if the Americans were unable to mass enough of their tank forces to stop them, lack of supplies would keep the 28th Combined Arms Army from reaching the Strait of Hormuz. In a briefing to his commanders, the regimental commander had likened their situation to the stretching of a great rubber band. It was their task to stretch that rubber band all the way to the Gulf of Oman without its breaking. In the fading light of the burning tank, Vorishnov wondered if that could be done. And if it couldn't, then what?