Sword Point

by Harold Coyle

  Robat-a Abgram, Iran 0215 Hours, 9 July (2245 Hours, 8 July, GMT)

  The Iranian major dressed himself slowly. The dim light from an oil lamp gave a soft yellow cast to everything in the small room that was nothing more than a hovel. A mattress on the floor and a chair comprised all the room's furniture. The major's worn flight suit was carefully draped across the back of the chair. How fortunate he was, the major thought, to be selected for this mission. Since the Soviets came he had resigned himself to dying. Doing so was easy. What concerned him was dying in a manner befitting his heritage as a Persian and in the service of Islam.

  His selection to fly an F-4, hidden for months, and strike at both Satans was truly a gift from Allah. The Air Force colonel in charge of the operation had personally selected him and asked him to fly the mission. The major had accepted willingly despite the colonel's warning that it would be a one-way trip. He had replied, with a smile, that it would be a trip to glory and martyrdom.

  The mission was simple. The major would fly the F-4 along a roundabout route to a point just north of Saadatabad. The Americans and the Russians were locked in combat there, busily hacking away at one another, according to the colonel. The F-4 would carry just one bomb, an atomic one. Once he reached the designated point, the major would hit a switch that would begin the chain reaction. It was not possible to drop the bomb.

  The device was too crude and the trigger mechanism needed for such a drop was beyond their capability. Even if the aircraft crashed, the device would not go off. Only a precise sequence of firing would cause it to detonate. The F-4 would, in effect, be a manned guided missile.

  Since little on the aircraft worked, that was about all it was good for.

  He did not ponder what would become of his family or the nation. When compared to what he was about to do in the name of the Islamic Revolution, those matters were unimportant. What was important was the punishing of the nonbelievers and those who had defiled his country. He knew that what he was about to do was right. He placed his trust in his skills as a pilot to get him there. Everything else after that was in the hands of Allah.

  Aliabad, Iran 0230 Hours, 9 July (2300 Hours 8 July, GMT)

  The day that had begun so well and had held so much promise for the 28th Combined Arms Army had turned bad before noon. The breakthrough and encirclement that should have taken place before in a matter of hours never happened. Instead of blowing through the American infantry deployed south of Harvand, the attacking regiment became involved in a slugfest. By the time the last of the die-hard enemy infantry had been dug out or had withdrawn, it was late afternoon and the 381st Motorized Rifle Regiment was combat ineffective.

  Even that had not spelled the end of problems for the 28th CAA. When the 127th Motorized Rifle Division finally committed its tank regiment to pass through the infantry melee and seize Tarom, it was greeted by an American battalion equipped with AH-64 attack helicopters.

  Constricted by the terrain and the narrow opening held by the 381st MRR, the tank regiment was an easy target. Volleys of Hellfire missiles rained on the tight tank formations and wreaked havoc without the tanks being able to strike back.

  Only through extraordinary effort and great sacrifices by the Red Air Force was the attack-helicopter threat finally checked. That success came too late for the 127th MRD's tank regiment.

  It wasn't until midafternoon that there appeared to be a slackening of the Americans' resistance. Air activity ceased. Troops broke contact and withdrew. For a while, Colonel Sulvina suspected that the Americans were preparing to employ tactical nuclear weapons. To prevent that, subordinate commanders were ordered to reestablish contact and stay close to the enemy. (You don't set off atomic weapons on your enemy when he is so close to your own forces that you will also be affected by your own weapons.) The army's intelligence officer reported, however, that there were few indicators other than the reduction of activity that pointed to imminent use of nuclear weapons. Instead, the withdrawals were felt to be part of a general retreat south to positions below Saadatabad. Still unconvinced, Sulvina ordered the army's nuclear-capable weapons to stand by for immediate use, just in case.

  In the meantime, Sulvina decided to commit the 33rd Tank Division. If the intelligence officer was right about the Americans retreating, that was the time to hit and hit hard. Shortly after dark, the 33rd Tank Division rolled forward and began its advance on Saadatabad. As he waited for word from the lead elements, Sulvina considered all the options open to him and the Americans. If the. Americans succeeded in making it to Saadatabad intact and establishing themselves in strong defensive positions south of that town, the 28th CAA would not have the combat power or the ammunition to dig them out or conduct a deliberate breakthrough attack.

  With no fuel reserves, major flanking maneuvers were out of the question. All depended on the 33rd Tank Division catching the retreating Americans while they were still in the open and smashing them. To keep the pressure on, the 67th Motorized Rifle Division was ordered to move south along the main road from Hajjiabad to Tarom. The 33rd Tank, advancing farther to the west, was to race past the retreating Americans and hit them in the flank or, if possible, get around into their rear. All depended on speed.

  For the fourth time in ten minutes, Sulvina looked at his watch, then at the situation board. It had not been updated in four hours. He got up and walked over to the operations duty officer. "What word do we have from the 33rd Tank Division?"

  The major looked at his reports and began to read off the last status report received from that unit. Sulvina cut him short. "What time, Comrade Major, was that report received?"

  The major looked at the time entry and replied, "Twenty-two forty-five hours, Comrade Colonel."

  "Don't you think we should find out where they are now and what they have been up to for the last four hours?" Sulvina returned.

  "Of course, Comrade Colonel. We have been trying. However, most of the networks are being jammed. The Americans are concentrating most of their electronic jamming from both ground and airborne platforms, against the 33rd Tank Division. The rest are being turned on the 67th MRD. We are having great difficulty-'

  Sulvina's face went red as he pounded his fist on the table. He was so angry, spit flew as he yelled, "Damn you, Major! If I wanted an excuse, I would have asked for it. I want to know where in hell they are and what they are doing. Find out, now!"

  The major, taken aback by the sudden outburst, looked at the colonel, then simply replied, "Yes, Comrade Colonel, at once."

  Sulvina walked away and out into the cool night air. He was tired. As he stood in the darkness, smoking a cigarette, he looked at the stars and wondered what they saw to the south. How frustrating it was for him to be there, unable to influence the fight. He wished he were forward, with the lead column. At least there he could do something.

  Five Kilometers Northwest of Tarom, Iran 0305 Hours, 9 July (2335 Hours, 8 July, GMT)

  In the darkness Major Vorishnov walked along the line of silent tanks.

  Hours of waiting and dodging air attacks had been replaced by a mad dash south through the dark along goat trails and wadis. When they had finally been given the word to advance, it was greeted with a collective sigh of relief.

  At last they were going to have an opportunity to end the fight, once and for all. The speed of the move south strengthened that hope.

  Shortly after 0200 hours, however, that hope died. One at a time, tanks began to drop out of the column. Vorishnov, bringing up the rear, stopped at each. At first, he thought the crews were falling asleep. As he approached the first tank, however, he found the crew awake but dismounted.

  He immediately assumed that the tank had had a mechanical failure. The tank commander greeted him with news that was far more serious. They had run out of fuel. Vorishnov criticized the commander for not refueling and left without waiting for an excuse.

  Before Vorishnov's own tank had traveled a kilometer farther he came across a second stopped tank. Its crew
was also dismounted, and for the same reason: they were out of fuel. This time Vorishnov did not say anything. He returned to his tank and asked his driver how much fuel they had. The response sent a chill down his back. His own tank's fuel gage was reading empty. He immediately radioed the battalion commander and informed him of the problem. The battalion commander ordered the battalion to pull off the road and halt for ten minutes. That done, he radioed Vorishnov and ordered him to dismount and personally check each tank's fuel status and then report to him.

  By the time Vorishnov finished and approached the battalion commander's tank at the front of the column, the regimental commander was there.

  Vorishnov saluted the two colonels and reported, "As we suspected, the battalion is out of fuel. Half of the tanks' fuel gages, including nunc, show they are empty. A commander on one of those tanks said he had no idea what his tank was running on anymore.

  We also have three tanks that have completely run dry. The rest of the tanks are approaching empty." He was about to add that the battalion could no longer advance, but decided not to. That conclusion was obvious, but the decision had to be made by a commander, not by a battalion staff of cer

  The regimental commander spoke first. "We must continue. Continue until we can go no further. Fuel, I am sure, will make its way forward."

  The battalion commander did not hesitate to disagree. "Comrade Colonel, we cannot do that. If we run ourselves completely out of fuel, the battalion will be totally strung out and unable to maneuver.

  We will be nothing more than steel pillboxes dotting the road and easy prey for attack aircraft or a counterattack. We must stop now and laager here into a defensive position until fuel arrives. We should go forward only when we can do so with all the tanks and with some measure of assurance that we will not run out of fuel in the middle of a battle."

  "I cannot halt the attack. I do not have the authority to do that," the regimental commander said.

  The battalion commander shot back, slightly agitated now, "Comrade, either we stop the attack now, while we are still together and have some fuel to maneuver with, or we wait until the lack of fuel stops us when we are not.

  Your only choice, Comrade Colonel, is whether you want the regiment to be together and have some fighting capability or whether you want it to be scattered to the four winds. The lack of fuel has already stopped us."

  With a sigh, the regimental commander acknowledged that the other was right. Before he returned to his command vehicle, he ordered the battalion commander to assume a defensive posture to the west. The battalion immediately behind would swing to the east and do likewise.

  With the regimental commander gone, Vorishnov turned to his battalion commander and asked the question that neither of them had the answer for: "Now what?"

  Northeast of Saadatabad, Iran 0355 Hours, 9 July (0025 Hours, 9 July, GMT)

  The AWACS controller had been tracking a single-aircraft plot for over fifteen minutes, coming from the northeast. At first he thought very little of it. The plane was flying relatively slowly and very low.

  Then it dawned upon him that it was a recon flight. He informed the commander and immediately began to search the area for fighters providing high cover.

  There was none. Both he and the commander thought that odd. Sending in recon without cover was not a normal practice. A single one without air cover was as good as dead. Satisfied that all was as it appeared, the commander ordered the alert fighters from Bandar Abbas to scramble and intercept. The order of the day was to keep the Soviets from getting any air recon through.

  The Army was maneuvering about, doing something really weird, and didn't want the Russians to catch on before they were ready.

  The order to scramble caught Martain dozing. The entire squadron was dead on its ass after yesterday. Omaha Flight alone had gone up eight times, four of them in the ground-attack role, three times to provide cover for their own air-recon flights and once to squash a Russian recon flight. The men and the machines of the squadron were reaching their limits. Martain had once thought he would never reach the point where he would hate flying.

  He had been wrong. After yesterday, he was sick of it.

  Mechanically, he and his wingman did their preflight. Though the ground crew tried, they too dragged as they did their thing to get the two F-15s airborne. Because of exhaustion, the whole procedure took far longer than normal. When the F-15s were finally up and Martain checked in with the

  AWACS controller, the controller sneered, "Good morning. Hated to wake you guys up so early."

  Martain was livid. "Cut the crap, clown, and give me a vector."

  The commander on the AWACS, monitoring the transmission, got on both of them and ordered them to restrict 258 transmissions to proper radio procedures. Martain was about to tell him to fuck off, too, but decided against that. No need to piss off a full-bird colonel that early in the morning.

  Following the instructions from the controller, Omaha Flight closed on the boggy. Once they were in the area, Martain's wizzo switched on the radar and began to search for their target. They had no trouble finding it, for the boggy continued on a straight-line course, flying low and slow. While his wingman covered him, Martain went down after the boggy. As he tracked it, the wizzo called out, "Hey, Ed, this guy's a real zombie. He just keeps flying low and dumb. Let's play with him for a while."

  Martain thought about it but decided against it. "Screw that, Frank. This is too easy. Let's just bounce this clown and get back. No doubt today is going to be a real zoo, just like yesterday."

  The wizzo agreed and gave Martain the final information he needed for the setup. Martain took over, aligned his sights. When he heard the tone telling him he had missile lock, he held his fire for a moment.

  The boggy continued to fly straight and low, making no attempt to evade. "Jesus, Frank. That guy must be asleep. Or he's in a real hurry to meet his maker."

  "Well, Ed, if that's so, go ahead, make his day."

  Without further hesitation, Martain launched a shortrange Sidewinder air-to-air missile. Both he and the wizzo tracked it until it hit. In the predawn darkness, there was a slight explosion ahead and below them. Immediately after that, the plot disappeared, indicating that Martain had made his tenth confirmed kill.

  Chapter 14

  Men willingly believe what they want to.

  — JULIUS CAESAR

  Saadatabad, Iran 0440 Hours, 9 July (0110 Hours, 9 July, GMT)

  When the orders to attack were received by the 2nd Brigade, the brigade staff had no doubt that the staff of the 13th Corps was hallucinating.

  The orders came by courier shortly before 1900 hours at a brigade CP that was shadow of its former self. Most of the wheeled vehicles were still unaccounted for or lost. The signal platoon, unable to break down its multichannel equipment in time, lost much of it. The TOC itself, while it had not lost any of its M-577 command-post tracks, had little of its equipment left. Personnel losses were equally staggering. Many of the brigade staff who had not been on duty at the time of the attack were either dead, wounded or missing.

  Worse than the physical losses, bad as they were, was the psychological damage. The survivors suddenly found themselves face to face with the reality of war. "Battle" was no longer a paper drill of moving little markers about on a map or writing orders. The idea that their primary task was the cool analytical process of thinking about and debating tactics had been smashed. They had seen the face of war. It was the shattered remains of a body left in the dirt.

  It was Major Price, a first-class runner and all round jock, reduced to a helpless cripple with a severed spine. It was the smell of fear and the look of panic in the eyes of people with whom they had worked for so long. And, worse, it was the realization that only the dead had seen an end to the suffering and horror.

  This was the brigade staff-stunned by their introduction to combat, left with three M-577 command-post tracks, operating with an ad hoc communications lash-up which was less than ad
equate-that received the order to attack. Their reactions, though slow at first, were surprisingly positive. The senior officers and NCOs led by example and deed. "You're a soldier, start acting like one" was heard time and again. Old habits and training prevailed as the staff began to function. The brigade commander, along with the brigade S-3 and the assistant S-2, Amanda Matthews, analyzed the mission and developed several courses of action based on the enemy situation as they knew it.

  The status of subordinate units, their locations and their needs were reported and fed to the command group as the plan evolved. Orders went out to the units, instructing them to break contact with the enemy and move to tactical assembly areas. Combat-support elements were drawn into the plan and began to. position themselves. Coordination to refuel and rearm the combat elements was effected.

  The corps commander arrived shortly before midnight for the express purpose of ensuring that the brigade fully understood his intent and their role in the counteroffensive. With the brigade commander and his staff, Lieutenant General Weir reviewed the entire operation: The main Soviet offensive continued south toward Saadatabad with two divisions abreast, one division moving along the road and a second division to the west. The third Soviet division, heavily attrited by its attack and the combined efforts of the Air Force and attack helicopters, was now following the two lead divisions.

  Despite the fact that all the Soviet divisions were less than full strength and were experiencing difficulties with resupply, they were still more than capable of overpowering any defense the corps could create. There simply was not enough ground-combat power available to stop the Soviets. Therefore, Weir stated with a gleam in his eye, "Since we cannot hold 'em, we must attack."

  The reserve brigade from the 17th Airborne Division had the task of delaying the Soviet forces moving south against Saadatabad. With priority on all close air support from the Air Force until the 2nd Brigade actually made contact, they would act as a matador's cape being waved in front of bull. Their job was to hold the bull's attention and keep it in check, or at least controlled. In addition to providing close air support to the reserve airborne brigade's delay-and-deception role, the Air Force had the task of gaining air superiority and keeping Soviet tactical air recon in check. Nothing could be done to counter the Soviet surveillance satellites.