by Richard Kemp
At the same time problems were developing in the south. The battle group’s Afghan National Army company were advancing in the open terrain beyond the Green Zone. Captain Moxey, the ops officer, told Carver he was concerned that the ANA were reporting they were about 6 kilometres forward of B Company. Like A Company in the north, the ANA were supposed to conform to B Company’s movements, keeping roughly in line to prevent the enemy exploiting gaps, and getting in behind the companies. Out on a limb in front of the battle group, the ANA company ran up against a strong Taliban grouping in the town of Zumberlay. With the ANA was an operational mentoring and liaison team, or OMLT, made up of six Grenadier Guards officers and NCOs. Their role was to advise and assist the Afghan commanders and act as a link with the Royal Anglian Battle Group headquarters.
The ANA, with the OMLT, were beginning to get drawn into combat with the Taliban in Zumberlay, and reports were flying in of multiple contacts. Carver sent orders on the radio to disengage and pull back. But the contacts continued, and the ANA were apparently finding extraction difficult. Carver also realized that the ANA were aggressive and determined fighters, and the instruction to withdraw, even as a temporary manoeuvre to gain eventual advantage, would not have been received with enthusiasm.
He began to fear the worst. Then, on the battle group command net, the Grenadier Guards commander reported that the ANA company and his OMLT were cut off and completely surrounded by Taliban.
South of the ANA company, the Brigade Reconnaissance Force, or BRF, made up of two platoons mounted in WMIKs, was providing flank security for the whole battle group. Normally a Task Force Helmand asset, the BRF had been placed by Brigadier Lorimer under Carver’s command for the first stages of Operation Silicon.
This was the only mobile reserve at Carver’s disposal, and he sent them north-east to help the ANA. The BRF stormed up on to a ridge-line and hammered the Taliban with their WMIK machine-guns. A bloody battle between the BRF and the Taliban followed. In the face of superior firepower, the enemy eventually melted away, allowing the battered and bloodied ANA to pull back into line with B Company.
Carver knew the ANA loved going forward and attacking, always itching to get to grips with the Taliban. He admired their fighting spirit, but on this occasion there had been a near-disaster, which could have resulted in many casualties and diverted the whole battle group away from its main effort in the Green Zone.
While Carver and Moxey were dealing with the situation in the south, and monitoring B Company’s battles in the Green Zone and the desert, the area around Tac HQ was also coming under attack. An 81mm mortar line from the Royal Anglians’ Mortar Platoon, positioned close to Tac, began to take incoming mortar fire from the Taliban.
The two Recce Platoon Scimitars, commanded by Captain Andy Wilde and Sergeant Jamie Hill, pushed out to try to locate the Taliban mortar position. They identified a motorbike with two riders. One had an AK47 slung over his back; the other was speaking into a radio, directing the Taliban mortar fire. Hill’s vehicle opened up with 30mm HE, killing the riders and destroying the bike.
10
In the Green Zone, Aston was getting increasingly frustrated. B Company was still under fire from Taliban positions to the south, and there had also been some sporadic fire from the north-east. 7 Platoon and Sergeant Nieves had identified the treeline that the fire was coming from, and the Vikings were aggressively engaging with their machine-guns. But the enemy positions were well prepared, and even the heaviest ground fire was having little effect.
As Aston had asked, the JTAC secured an attack helicopter. He transmitted the grid and target description to the Army Air Corps WAH-64 Apache Longbow commander sitting overhead, but so far the pilot had not been able to identify the enemy. Nieves and Nadriva had indicated the centre of mass of the target area with smoke bombs. The helicopter had been overhead now for more than an hour, but had not engaged.
The JTAC said to Aston, ‘He repeats what he told us before, he cannot fire until he has positively identified the target.’
Fuming, Aston replied, ‘Well I have PID’d the target. The Viking crews have PID’d the target. 7 Platoon has. How much more PIDing does he need?’
‘Sir, he says he needs to PID it himself before he can engage.’
‘Look I used to be in a helicopter recce squadron. I know how difficult it is to identify people from the air if they are well concealed, even with the kind of kit these fellas up there have nowadays. But we’re firing at the enemy, the Apache pilot can see our tracer. The enemy’s firing back at us, and the pilot can see their tracer too. What is the problem?’
The JTAC said nothing. He was equally frustrated and annoyed.
The helicopter circled overhead, searching for the enemy, valuable minutes ticking by. Aston, impatient to move on towards his objective, was getting increasingly angry.
‘What is he bothered about? Is it civvies in the area? There aren’t any. But if there had been, we’d have killed them all by now with our guns. Is it friendlies? Is he worried about a blue on blue? Tell him there are positively, positively no friendlies there. I can personally guarantee it.’
The JTAC spoke again into his radio link to the Apache pilot.
‘Sir, he says he cannot engage until he positively IDs an armed enemy – him personally, not us on the ground.’
Aston was raging. He refused to believe the Apaches had to work under such a ridiculous constraint – in this situation. He was desperate to get moving. But he couldn’t use any other aircraft while the Apache was overhead. He couldn’t engage with artillery or mortars either, because of the danger to the Apache of shells flying through the air.
He said, ‘Let’s get rid of him now. We’ll get something else on to it. Tell the pilot – repeat these words to him exactly from me – fire at the target now or get out. Got that? Fire at the target or get out!’
It was 1100 hours. Aston turned to Corporal Wilsher, his mortar fire controller. ‘The minute the Apache clears the airspace start engaging with mortars. I want HE up and down that treeline. Can you do that, or will the mortar line commander need to drive over here and do some PIDing in person?’
He turned back to the JTAC. ‘While he’s doing that, get me some proper close air support.’
Within a few minutes the mortars were pounding the treeline with 81mm high-explosive shells, blasting up enormous clouds of black smoke and grey dust, splintering the trees, and shaking the ground. But they seemed to have little more effect on the enemy than the machine-guns.
Forty-five minutes later the JTAC said to Aston, ‘GR7 now on task. Before I send the grid, please confirm.’
Aston checked the grid, agreed it, and a few minutes later the RAF Harrier GR7 jump jet released a 500-pound bomb.
‘Splash in five seconds,’ said the JTAC.
Watching the target area, Aston was amazed at what he saw. The Harrier’s 500-pound bomb hurtled into the enemy-held woodline. Huge lumps of dirt flew up into the air. But there was no blast and no bang.
‘What the hell’s that supposed to be, delayed action?’
The JTAC spoke into his radio and replied, ‘No, it was a dud.’ He listened to a message coming over his radio. ‘Sir, the Harrier only has a 1,000-pound bomb left. Our nearest troops are 350 metres. That is very close for a bomb that size – danger close.’
Aston and the JTAC discussed the implications. Aston concluded that there was a risk of residual blast or shrapnel, but his closest troops were under armour in the Vikings and therefore well protected at that range, and the others could get down in the ditches. Compared to the dangers of continued RPG and smallarms fire from the Taliban, he decided this was a risk worth taking.
‘Tell him to drop it,’ he said.
Moments later Aston was smiling for the first time in a while when the Harrier dropped a 1,000-pound Paveway II laser-guided bomb directly into the centre of the enemy position. There was a massive, deafening thunderclap explosion. The ground reverberated under the B Company
soldiers’ feet. A huge column of fire leapt up into the sky, followed by an enormous mushroom cloud of smoke and dust, which seemed to hang above the treeline for an age.
Aston doubted anything or anyone could have survived the hell that was created where the bomb landed. A lump of shrapnel was hurled all the way over the Green Zone and crashlanded into the dirt directly in front of the FSG, nearly 1,000 metres away to the north.
11
The airstrike ended the enemy fire from the south, and B Company started to move forward again. But almost immediately they were met with volley after volley of RPGs, coming in from the north, bursting overhead and exploding against the trees, sending showers of dirt, twigs and branches down on the forward troops, who had hurled themselves to the ground.
B Company was approaching the western outskirts of Deh Adan Khan, the mythical stronghold used by the Taliban for terrorizing the citizens of Gereshk, and they were not planning to let them in.
Aston rattled out quick battle orders to Seal-Coon, and 7 Platoon lined up behind the cover of the lead Vikings, ready to assault a compound to the north where some of the fire was coming from. Howes’s 5 Platoon had closed up behind 7 Platoon, ready to push through when 7 took the compound, or to reinforce should the enemy decide to hold it in strength. As 7 Platoon prepared to move in, a torrent of machine-gun, rifle and RPG fire fell on 5 Platoon, coming from another position, further north.
It was now clear that early this morning the Taliban had been surprised by the audacity and strength of the battle group operation, something they had not experienced before. But, demonstrating their resourcefulness and fighting ability, they had now rallied forces and were doing everything they could to inflict damage on the advancing British troops.
5 Platoon section commander Corporal Si Thorne heard the rapid crack-crack-crack-crack-crack of bullets flying overhead and then several whooshes in quick succession as RPGs shot towards them from a compound 200 metres away. The men hit the ground, then immediately got on to one knee to return fire. Seconds later there was a distant rumble, followed by a series of ear-piercing crumps as Taliban mortar bombs landed 40 metres away, spewing up dirt, ripping down tree-branches and hurling jagged shards of shrapnel in every direction. Hearts in their throats, Thorne’s men jumped straight into a deep water-filled irrigation ditch.
Aston, standing near by, saw an engineer fall backwards into a ditch as an RPG exploded 4 metres from him. Fearing he had been killed or wounded, Aston rushed over, but before he got there, the soldier had climbed back up and dusted himself off. He looked shocked and stunned, but unhurt.
The firing and the mortars stopped, and Thorne called to his men, ‘Get back up, out of the ditch.’
They tried to scramble out, using tree roots to claw themselves up the steep, muddy bank so they could get some fire back down.
‘Get that GPMG up on to the top,’ shouted Thorne. ‘Get some rapid fire down.’
As the GPMG gunner struggled up the side of the ditch, Thorne slipped, sliding back down into the water. A burst of fire splattered into the bank exactly where his head had been. Unable to believe his luck, he scrabbled back up the bank and deployed his men to cover the firing position to the north: ‘Scan the area. Any movement, any sign of enemy – open fire.’
To the right, the Vikings opened up with their GPMGs on the compound 7 Platoon were about to assault, keeping the enemy’s heads down as Seal-Coon led his troops forward.
Corporal Stuart Parker, one of Seal-Coon’s section commanders, moved in with his men under the protective fire from the Vikings. To get to the compound they had to wade across a putrefying, muddy irrigation canal, 3 metres wide. As they reached the bank, automatic fire peppered the far side and splashed into the river. RPGs burst overhead and detonated in the soft ground near by, hurling up shrapnel and lumps of earth. They threw themselves to the ground, just short of the canal.
As he lay pressing himself into the dirt, Parker thought how amazing it was that he could actually see the RPGs. He always assumed they would be flying too fast. One of the senior corporals in the battalion, Parker had been in the Army for many years but never before had an RPG fired at him. In his typical unfazed and sardonic manner, he thought, Another first to tell the grandchildren about, I suppose.
The rocket- and gunfire was coming from a small but solid compound, 70 metres away to the left. Parker and his section stayed down as the nearest Vikings traversed their guns and began to shoot up the compound, ripping fire across the front of Parker’s section. Despite the hail of magine-gun bullets blasting in from the Vikings, the enemy fire continued undiminished.
Captain Goodman, the Viking troop commander, in one of the forward vehicles, radioed to a Viking further back along the track to the west, calling for a Javelin to engage the compound. Lance Corporal Michael Auckland, a member of the Royal Anglians’ Anti-Tank Platoon attached to B Company, jumped from the vehicle. He reached back in and grabbed an olive-green, 1-metre-long Javelin missile tube and his command launch unit, or CLU. Capable of engaging out to a range of 2,500 metres, the missile contained tandem shaped-charge warheads. The Javelin tube would be discarded after the missile was fired. The CLU was a portable TV-sized, cube-shaped black box with a vertically mounted black hand grip either side, with optics and numerous switches. It contained the sight unit and operator’s controls, and was retained for further missile firing.
A B Company soldier followed Auckland out of the Viking, carrying the Javelin tripod. As the two exited the vehicle, bullets sliced through the air and RPGs exploded near by. Running to the side of the Viking, Auckland slammed the teeth of the CLU into the matching grooves in the missile housing, locking it in place. The other soldier had positioned the tripod on the ground, bedding it into the dirt to make a solid platform, and Auckland snapped on the CLU, securing it and the missile to the tripod. Auckland clicked the power switch to day mode, grabbed the handles and traversed the CLU until he could see the target building, 90 metres away, through the x4 magnification sight. Through loopholes in the compound walls, he could see muzzle flashes very clearly.
He squeezed the trigger on the left handgrip. Three seconds later, as the Javelin missile’s seeker head activated, the picture turned green. Auckland was now viewing the target through the missile itself. Hearing a whining noise from the missile, he knew he had ten seconds before the seeker head cooled. He waited patiently for what seemed like an age, stinging sweat dripping into his eyes and blurring his vision. The amber light in his sight picture went out, and the track gates appeared – graticules making up four corners of a square. With his thumb Auckland manipulated the Xbox-style direction pad, or D-pad, on the top of the right handgrip to adjust the track gate, bringing the four corners close in around the image of the compound. He squeezed and held the left hand trigger. Will it lock on first time? he wondered.
It did, and the track gates disappeared, to be instantly replaced by a solid green crosshair. He left the missile on its pre-set top attack mode, hoping it would climb over the wall and explode inside the compound. Top attack was intended for targets at 150 metres and beyond, but Auckland hoped it would work at 90. He knew it would be a waste of time flying the missile directly into the compound wall, where it would explode without harming the enemy within.
He pulled the trigger on the right handgrip. Auckland had no further control over the Javelin. There was a loud whoosh as the missile screamed forward and seemed to dip towards the ground directly ahead. Immediately the second-stage propellant ignited, and the missile climbed steeply, flying towards the building, guided by its inbuilt imaging infrared seeker.
12
Still lying beside the ditch, with bullets coming in, Parker was impressed to see the Javelin missile plunge down and score a direct hit on the enemy firing position. There was a blinding flash, and a huge explosion and clouds of smoke billowed upwards and out of the loopholes. All firing stopped.
Job done, thought Parker as he led his men to the bank and down into
the canal. They waded across, brown, stagnant water up to their chests.
The men, sweating and weighed down by their heavy and now water-logged equipment, dragged themselves up the steep and slippery mud bank then headed right towards the target compound, behind Corporal Steph Martin’s section, stacked up along the wall waiting to break in. As they moved into position a volley of RPGs exploded near by and others zoomed overhead. On the ground again, Parker watched as two of the Vikings traversed their machine-guns and simultaneoulsy let rip at the Taliban firing positions with a loud staccato blast of bullets.
Job done again, thought Parker.
Waiting to move through, Parker and his section piled into an alleyway. Private Aaron McLure, Parker’s Minimi gunner, said, ‘I can hear voices.’
Parker looked at him quizzically. McLure was one of his top soldiers, not one to hear voices that weren’t there. He took his point man, Private Robert Foster, and went to check the right-hand side of the compound. They rounded the corner and were greeted by a burst of automatic fire from the undergrowth to their front, cracking into the wall behind them. Foster immediately fired thirty rounds back in rapid succession. Private Josh Lee ran forward, dropped to one knee and thumped out three rifle grenades. At the same time, the whole area in front of them was ripped up by a GPMG raking to and fro from the turret of a nearby Viking.
The assaulting section blasted their way into the compound at attack state red, with bar-mines, hand grenades and automatic fire. Parker and his section raced in behind. The compound was empty. The Taliban fighters had left, using carefully reconnoitred and concealed routes through the opposite side.
Parker heard Corporal Jimmy Naylor, Aston’s signaller, send a SITREP on the command net. ‘All stations this is Two One Alpha. Ugly callsign reports they have engaged and killed six Taliban with heavy machine-guns and mortars moving away from callsign Three Zero.’