The Saudi-Iranian War

by Ted Halstead

  Of course, visual contact worked both ways.

  Many of the Leopards focused their fire on the M1A2 tanks, correctly judging them to be the greatest threat to their survival. As the battle progressed, though, and particularly once some of the Leopards began losing tracks to TOW II fire they started using some of their rounds against the Bradleys.

  Some of the M1A2 tanks survived Leopard hits against their frontal armor, though most did not. The Bradleys, on the other hand, had no chance of survival. The impact of a Leopard 2’s 120 mm round would not only penetrate its spaced laminate armor, designed for protection against RPGs and 30 mm shells, but often send it tumbling across the desert sand.

  The Bradleys also discovered some of the Qatari MOWAG Piranhas were equipped with 30 mm autocannons that quickly managed to punch through their armor, in spite of its supposed resistance to 30 mm shells. The answer was simple. While a single 30 mm hit was indeed unlikely to penetrate, the Piranhas’ autocannons were often able to deliver more than one shell to the same area of Bradley armor, particularly if its crew was focused on wire-guiding a TOW II missile to its target.

  The Apaches had at first been able to pop up and fire their Hellfires with relative impunity, but after the first two rounds the Qataris were able to deploy man-portable anti-air missiles against them. First one, and then two Apaches were hit. Neither were a total loss, with one able to limp back to base trailing smoke, while the crew of the other was able to escape with only minor injuries after a hard landing. Then a third Apache was hit, and this time exploded with an ear-shattering force that meant its heavy munitions load had detonated.

  Snarling curses, Ali ordered his Bradleys to concentrate fire on the locations where anti-air missiles had been fired. Though they were often unable to see the Qatari soldiers and their handheld anti-air missiles, a TOW

  II missile delivered to the general area where a missile had been fired before usually meant none would be fired again. A few launches spotted at shorter ranges from the Bradleys were dealt with by either its M242 Bushmaster 25 mm chain-driven autocannon, or its M240 7.62 mm coaxial machine gun.

  Once the remaining Hellfire missiles carried by the Apaches had been successfully launched, they moved on to the next phase of their orders. Ali had directed four Apaches be given an “anti-armor” load of sixteen Hellfire missiles, and the other four a “covering force” load of eight Hellfire missiles and thirty-eight Hydra 70 2.75-inch fin-stabilized unguided rockets. Two of the downed Apaches had anti-armor loads, so the two remaining returned to base to reload.

  The three surviving Apaches with Hydra 70 rockets on board prepared to use them on the remaining Leopards. Few undamaged Leopards left were the ones without camouflage, since fifty-one Hellfire missiles had been fired at them and nearly all had hit. Though not every hit was a kill, most were, and many other hits rendered the Leopard immobile. And any tank, no matter how well armored, that couldn’t move on a modern battlefield counted its lifespan in minutes.

  The strategy for using the Hydra 70 rockets on the camouflaged Leopards was simple. They might be difficult to target using the infrared sensor in a Hellfire, or in an M1A2 tank turret trying to see through clouds of dust. But, fire enough rockets into the center of that dust cloud, and you’d probably score some hits.

  Ali had also stacked the odds in his favor by choosing to arm the Apaches with Hydra 70 rockets containing the M247 high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) warhead. With a little less than a kilogram of Composition B, a 60/40

  RDX/TNT mixture, a single hit was unlikely to kill a Leopard. But the remaining Apaches had enough rockets between them to devote several to each surviving Leopard. It wouldn’t be enough to finish them off.

  Until that is, they were able to go back to base and reload to the “escort” maximum of no Hellfires — and seventy-six Hydra 70 rockets.

  Ali wasn’t having it all his way, as the continuing stream of damage reports coming over his headset reminded him. The Leopards’ gunnery skills were outstanding, and a hit from one of their cannons was far more likely to kill an M1A2 tank than the reverse. The MOWAG Piranhas were inflicting heavy damage on his Bradleys, as well as any Leopards that were finding them easy targets.

  Efforts by the Leopards to push through the ambush, though, were being repeatedly thwarted by the Saudis’ superior firepower. Ali was working feverishly to coordinate fire by his armor and air assets on any attempt at a breakout. If he could just keep them pinned down long enough…

  One after another, Leopards were hit by missiles, rockets and tank rounds.

  The first to have their armor fail were ones that had suffered earlier hits from the bomblets deployed by the Tomahawks, but had remained mobile. Often the only damage they’d suffered was having their modular armor cleared away, but that made them far more vulnerable.

  One of the principal advantages offered by the 2A7+ Leopard model was modular armor, which improved frontal protection with a dual-kit on the turret and hull front. Without it, the Leopard’s integral spaced multilayer armor would eventually fail. Sooner, in the case of a direct Hellfire missile hit. Later, in the case of TOW II missiles, 120 mm M829A2 tank rounds, or Hydra 70 rockets.

  One by one, Leopards began dying under the harsh Saudi sun.

  By the time the five surviving Apaches returned with their new loads of Hydra 70 rockets, fewer than thirty Leopards remained. One last anti-air missile was fired by a brave Qatari soldier who had burrowed into the desert sand, and it claimed an Apache that blew up with the huge thunderclap to be expected from the simultaneous explosion of seventy-six Hydra 70 rockets.

  Ali’s remaining Bradleys were quick to direct cannon and machine gun fire to the spot where the soldier had been hidden, and no more anti-air missiles were fired that day.

  Three hundred and four Hydra 70 rockets poured into the dust clouds that marked surviving mobile Leopards. Though the number fired at each was not perfectly divided, since the average number of rockets with HEAT warheads available per target was about ten, it hardly mattered.

  Quarter was neither asked nor offered. The Qataris were on the Saudi battlefield because they believed the blockade and the construction of the Salwa Canal amounted to a declaration of war. The Saudis saw them as invaders who deserved no mercy.

  Once the last Leopard had been destroyed, Ali’s armor and air assets began the systematic destruction of the remaining Qatari APCs and support vehicles. Finally, troops dismounted from the Bradleys and searched the battlefield for Qatari survivors.

  There weren’t many, and they didn’t include Prince Bilal, who had died when his Leopard 2 had been hit by a 120 mm tank round and no fewer than nine Hydra 70 rockets. The survivors who were found were put into trucks that transported them to a prison that had been designated by the Interior Ministry. None were ever seen again.

  Ali had left the battlefield with his M1A2 tanks and Apaches as soon as the last Qatari APCs had been destroyed, leaving the rest of the battle's aftermath to the Bradleys’ commander. He had been in contact with Jamal Al-Qahtani, the commander of the force confronting the northern invaders throughout the battle with the Qataris. The battle with the northern invaders hadn’t been going nearly as well.

  And then all communication had been abruptly cut off.

  The force Ali had left after the battle with the Qataris had been badly mauled. He had lost half of his Apaches, and well over half of his M1A2 tanks had been completely destroyed. An even two dozen tanks were immobile, and though some of those could be fixed, none would be able to rejoin him in time. That left him with just sixty-two M1A2 tanks and four Apaches to bring to the fight against the northern invaders.

  As Ali had feared, the latest word from the M1A2 tanks en route from Yemen via highway with multiple refuelings was that they would be in Riyadh soon — about three hours after Ali calculated he would need them north of Riyadh.

  Let loose in a city, a tank could do a lot in three hours.

  Ali was headed to relieve Jamal at the best
speed he could manage — assuming Jamal and the rest of his men were still alive.

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  40 Kilometers North of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

  Jamal Al-Qahtani was unlike most of the top Saudi military commanders in one key respect. He was not a prince, or in any way related to the royal family. His appearance was unremarkable, except that he was a bit shorter than the average Saudi male.

  His father had a long-standing relationship with a prince as his advisor, which had helped him pass some of his colleagues as he moved up the career ladder. But that was not really the main reason he was now a Brigadier General, commanding the force about to engage the northern invaders.

  Jamal had been promoted mostly because he was highly intelligent, hard-working, and a natural leader. The fact that he had advanced so rapidly helped explain how Saudi Arabia’s government had persisted as one of the very few monarchies left worldwide. Talent, even outside the royal family, was recognized and rewarded.

  Being a more recent graduate of the Armor School at Fort Benning than Prince Ali by five years had some advantages as well. Jamal had been exposed to some of the most recent training offered by the US Army, that included hard-won lessons from their experiences in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of them applied directly to the Saudis’ use of armor in Yemen.

  The contacts Jamal had developed had also been useful in securing and expediting a contract to provide the maintenance and spare parts needed for all Saudi armored forces in the far more advanced tempo of multi-year operations in Yemen. Since the only way to keep some M1A2 tanks on the field had been to take parts from others, getting this contract done had been key to keeping the Saudi Army in the fight.

  Now, though, as Jamal looked over the force he commanded on its way to engage the invaders advancing on Riyadh from the north there was one question that he couldn’t get out of his head. Was he rolling into battle with a force of fifty M1A2 tanks and fifty-five M60 Patton tanks, plus forty Bradley APCs and five Apaches, because he wasn’t a prince?

  Yes, Ali was Army Commander. And yes, he understood the argument that since the Qataris were sticking to highways they might get to Riyadh faster, though the Qataris’ last reported position made him doubt it. He could read a map.

  But the Qataris no longer had S-300s, and their Air Force had effectively ceased to exist. Meanwhile, Jamal wondered how long his Apaches would manage to survive against the S-300 that had already shot down so many of the RSAF’s best planes, even one piloted by the Air Force Commander.

  Yes, the Leopard 2s Ali faced were formidable opponents. But Jamal had absolutely no idea what he would be up against with these invaders from the north. But he could guess the camouflage that had been so effective against the sensors on drones would probably work just as well against the ones on anti-tank missiles and the M1A2’s thermal sights.

  That didn’t mean Jamal was ready to give up. Far from it. In fact, he planned to surprise everyone and win this battle. Yes, he might have been sent rolling north to buy Prince Ali enough time to claim victory over both sets of invaders before they reached Riyadh. But Jamal wasn’t just going to survive. He was going to make the defeat of these invaders the basis for his next promotion.

  The first step in Jamal’s plan was the elimination of the invaders’ anti-air missile launcher. He knew it had some sort of camouflage that protected it from missiles using radar or thermal locks. His attack wouldn’t rely on them.

  Instead, Jamal was going to use his five Apaches to send unguided Hydra 70 rockets at the launcher, which they would identify by looking for the biggest dust cloud in the invasion force. Between them the Apaches would be carrying three hundred eighty rockets, and Jamal doubted that the launcher could withstand more than a couple of hits before its load of fuel and explosives detonated.

  That assumed the Apaches survived to rocket attack range. Jamal had detailed cartography on his tablet covering the invaders’ route, which while still off-road was aimed straight at Riyadh. He smiled briefly as he thought about the level of detail, which was extremely high thanks to oil company surveys of nearly every inch of the Kingdom. Nice to know that even in areas like this one north of Riyadh where oil had never been found, the effort had not been entirely wasted.

  Jamal had traced out a route for the Apaches that would allow them to approach the invaders by hugging an escarpment that would give them cover from the launcher. He had managed to find a spot where the Apaches could use their top-mounted radomes to peek over the escarpment before engaging the enemy. Jamal knew the invaders’ camouflage had been effective so far, but was betting that at a range of under a kilometer the Apaches would be able to get at least a general fix on the bulk of the enemy force.

  Everything depended on coordination. The Americans’ Triton was still feeding them the invaders’ general position and speed. Jamal had to try to confront them with his armor at the same moment the Apaches launched their attack, to give the attack helicopters the best chance of success.

  The Crown Prince had promised Jamal personally that if he could knock out the anti-air launcher, he would have RSAF support minutes later. True to his word, the Crown Prince had already ordered that two F-15 squadrons be loaded with Mark 82 unguided bombs, each containing eighty-nine kilograms of Tritonal high explosive. Given the chance, they could deliver enough firepower to the battlefield to end the invasion on the spot.

  Jamal’s strategy for confronting the invaders’ armor depended heavily on his M60s. Though he knew most tankers looked down on them, M60s had performed well in combat in Yemen, and were still a match for most of the tanks actually deployed in the Middle East. Jamal had often pointed out to grumbling crewmen assigned to M60s rather than M1A2s that over five thousand Pattons remained in service in the armies of nineteen countries.

  It was true that many of those countries, like Turkey, had invested in upgrade packages that replaced the M60’s original cannon. Before retiring the Patton the Israelis had gone further and added armor, as well as replacing its hydraulic system with an electrical one. This cured one of the original M60s’ problems- when a shell penetrated its hydraulic system, the fluid would often burst into flames.

  Well, Jamal thought, nothing was perfect.

  But most of the Pattons the Saudis still had in service were the M60A3 upgrade with an improved engine, turret armor, IR sights, ballistic computer, and a Halon fire suppression system. It also had a crude built-in smoke screen capability achieved by recycling its diesel engine exhaust, called the Vehicle Engine Exhaust Smoke System. All of the Pattons Jamal brought to this battle were the M60A3 upgrade version.

  His plan was to put the M60s up front against the invaders’ armor to serve several functions. First and most obvious was to do whatever damage they could. Its M68 105 mm cannon would be firing an M152/3 HEAT round capable of penetrating the armor of most tanks, including all but the most modern. It also outgunned any APC. If the invaders were foolish enough to leave their anti-air launcher within its range, a single hit from a round carrying a full kilogram of Composition B explosive traveling at a velocity of over a kilometer per second would probably be enough to destroy it.

  The second was to help Jamal solve a puzzle that had vexed him and all the other top Saudi commanders from the start. What were they facing? The Americans had only been able to say that from their analysis of the images captured by the Triton the invaders were not fielding a “uniform force.” That meant there was a mix of different types of armor, but that wasn’t much help.

  Once the M60s actually engaged the enemy, Jamal was confident he would quickly be able to pick out the easier and more difficult targets, camouflaged or not. Then, he would prioritize them between his M60 and M1A2 platoons.

  Having seen tank combat in Yemen, where the Houthi rebels actually had their own M60 tanks, Jamal knew that identifying the enemy’s advanced tanks was critical. Against a T-55 or its equivalent, he knew the Patton could hold its own. But if the invaders had advanced tanks like the T-90
, Jamal would have to push his M1A2s forward quickly before the M60s were slaughtered.

  Jamal rode in the cupola of his M1A2 tank as he and the rest of his armor rolled towards the invaders, and chewed his lower lip as he thought about anything else he could do to improve their chances. Finally, he shook his head.

  He had done all he could. Very soon, he would find out whether it had been enough.

  45 Kilometers North of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

  Colonel Hamid Mazdaki nodded at the scout’s report. It was about time the enemy showed himself. He frowned, though, at the estimate that half the tanks he was facing were M60 Pattons, with the other half the M1A2s he’d been expecting as his sole opponents. Since elements of the M60s Iran had bought from the Americans before the Revolution had been used to develop the Zulfiqar-3 he was sitting in, it’s not that he dismissed them as a threat.

  No. Instead, Hamid’s first thought was that the force in front of him was a decoy, intended to distract him while another armor force struck him on the flanks.

  Hamid shook his head as he read more reports. Part of his purpose in staying away from highways most of the way had been to avoid a surprise flanking attack, and the terrain he’d picked for his approach to Riyadh had effectively guaranteed against one. There were escarpments on both sides of his force that would halt any flank approach.

  By tanks. Hamid froze in his cupola as he thought to himself — What about helicopters?

  He dropped into the tank to access its communications console.