Sword Point (38 page)

When the gunner complied, the ready-to-fire light came on. Capell yelled “Fire!” and stuck his head up to watch the flight of the missile. The missile launched. It popped out of the tube and went several meters before its, rocket motor kicked in and it began to pursue the second
BTR
, now cresting the rise. Seconds, mere seconds, meant success or failure, life or death.

For Colonel Sulvina, acting chief of staff of the 28th Combined Arms Army, the issue was decided in his favor, this time.

Harvand, Iran 0900 Hours, 9 July (0530 Hours, 9 July,
GMT
) An enemy that had come out of nowhere was suddenly everywhere. Wild reports from combat support and service unit personnel flooded a communications net that was rapidly collapsing as relay sites were overrun or moved. Rear-area personnel, unused to the proper reporting procedures and to being exposed to danger, added to the confusion rather than clarifying the situation. Some support-unit commanders requested permission to move. Others simply moved without informing anyone and clogged the limited road network. Panic became the order of the day.

Once at the headquarters of the 127th Motorized Rifle Division, the commander of the 28th Combined Arms Army ordered the commander of that division to move his entire unit north. They were to find, pin and encircle the enemy forces now rampaging throughout the army’s rear. The division commander said nothing at first. In his bewilderment, he turned to his staff, but got only looks of amazement or blank stares in return. The army commander, still hyper from his brush with death and faced with the prospect of losing his army to an unknown enemy, became enraged when his order was not immediately acted on. He jumped in front of the division commander and yelled, “Did you not hear me? I ordered you to attack. I expect you to attack-now!”

The division commander began to sweat. The condition of his commander and the serious situation overwhelmed him. He fumbled for words.

“Comrade

General, we, we .. .” The word “cannot” came hard to him. One did not tell one’s commander that one could not do something. There must be reasons for not doing things-unfavorable conditions, enemy activity, failure of a support element to be in place, and so on. Reasons.

For an awkward moment there was silence as the division commander faced his superior. Sulvina stepped in and broke the silence. “Comrade General, the 127th Division cannot attack. They have no fuel.” The army commander turned to him. Sulvina continued, “We diverted all they had to the 33rd Tank Division.” The army commander’s expression turned from anger to shock as it began to dawn upon him that all was lost.

Seeing that his commander’s mind was foundering under the weight of the disaster and grasping for a solution, Sulvina offered him the only practical one. “We must order the 33rd Tank Division to disengage and move north against the enemy in our rear. The 67th Motorized Rifle Division must also withdraw and assume a defensive posture facing south.”

Automatically the army commander refused to break off the attack or withdraw the 67th
MRD
. He insisted that they must continue the attack or at least hold what they had. Patiently, Sulvina explained that even if the Americans were cleared from the rear areas in the next twenty-four hours, the army would expend in that effort whatever supplies it had left. A continuation of the offensive was out of the question. “As we speak, Comrade General, the Americans are destroying our support elements and supply dumps. We cannot,

I repeat, cannot hope to reach the Strait of Hormuz and be able to stay there in our present state. It is time to save the army.”

For a moment, there was silence. Then the army commander, a tired and defeated man, gave in. He ordered Sulvina to issue the necessary orders and seek permission from Front Headquarters to withdraw. As the army commander sat down, Sulvina looked about him at the spartan headquarters of the 127th

MRD
. To himself he mumbled, That, Comrade General, will be a feat.

Northwest of Saadatabad, Iran 1145 Hours, 9 July (0815 Hours, 9 July,
GMT
)

The Soviet 68th Tank Regiment rumbled north at break neck speed. The poor condition of the trail that the tanks followed battered their already exhausted crews about. One of the gunners once compared the sensation of being inside a T-80 tank to that of being in a tin can being rolled down a rocky hillside. The driver, down low and covered with dust and dirt thrown up by the tank less than fifty meters to his front, drove mostly by instinct. The same dust that covered him hid the tank in front of him from view. The tank commander, perched higher above the ground, could see more, but also ate dust and dirt. In addition, while the driver sat and had the controls to hang on to, the tank commander had to grab whatever he could and do his best to sway the right way as the tank bucked and bumped down the road. When he erred in his judgment, his kidneys were bashed against the steel lip of the hatch opening.

Inside, the gunner was protected from dust being thrown in his face but from little else. The air he breathed hung heavy with dust that came down through the open hatch. It mingled with the smell of hot oil and grease. There was no air circulation. The sun, pounding down on the steel, pushed temperatures well beyond 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Every stitch of the gunner’s black uniform was soaked with sweat. With nothing else to do, the gunner hung on to anything that was fixed to the turret wall and, like the commander, swayed with the motion of the tank.

Major Vorishnov missed his
BTR
. The T-80 tank was small, cramped and impossible to work from. When the order came down that the regiment was going to move north and execute a movement to contact, to find and destroy the American forces, confusion reigned. A short preparatory bombardment to kick off the attack south had already begun. Requests to confirm the orders or repeat them were met with shrill blasts from harried commanders or staff officers. Apparently something had gone terribly wrong. Neither Vorishnov’s battalion commander nor he knew for sure, but their guess was that a large enemy force was in the army’s rear. Vorishnov’s effort to gain additional information or formulate any type of plan was frustrated by the speed of the move and the necessity of riding a tank. The T-80 he had did not have the proper radio nets, nor could he work effectively or think. As they raced north, all Vorishnov could do was hang on and hope to save his kidneys.

Turning a unit around and attacking in the opposite direction is a feat few commanders master. A combat unit is followed by a tail that drags behind it like a ball and chain. Immediately behind and mixed in with the combat units are combat-support units. These include the engineers and the air defenders. They maneuver at a set distance behind the lead combat elements, ready to rush forward, in the case of engineers, or to support by fire, in the case of the air defenders. Behind them are the artillery units.

Battalions and batteries of artillery leapfrog forward at a set distance in order to provide continuous fire support to the ground-maneuver units. In the case of a regiment making the main attack, the number of artillery battalions following and supporting is often greater than the number of maneuver battalions being supported.

Behind them are the combat service support elements: medical teams and aid stations, supply units, maintenance units, transportation units, signal units, military police units and so on.

On top of all these units are the headquarters of the regiment, the division, the division artillery, the combat service support units.

Finally, there are Army assets such as
FROG
rocket units, attack-helicopter units, Army-level air-defense units and such.

All those units are stacked up behind the maneuver battalions in a set order. All compete for use of the same roads, require enough space to operate properly in and must be supplied from the same supply route.

Simply giving the order “Turn around, attack to the other way” does not work.

While a company can do so with relative ease and a battalion with minimal coordination, turning a regiment or a division requires monumental efforts and coordination. As the Soviet 33rd Tank Division rushed north, staff officers at every level and in every unit scrambled to make sense out of the chaos. Planning and coordination that required a day, at best, had to be accomplished in hours. With little direction or information from the army staff, subordinate staffs made do with what little information they had. The situation would no doubt clarify itself once contact was established with the enemy.

Chah-a Qeysar, Iran 1525 Hours, 9 July (1155 Hours, 9 July,
GMT
) Outside a tumbledown building that had once served as a garage, the brigade command group caught up with the command group of the 3rd of the 4th Armor.

The impromptu meeting, called by the brigade commander, was for the purpose of getting an update on the unit and issuing new orders. While the tanks and the M-113 armored personnel carriers sat outside forming a small protective perimeter, the commanders and their key staff officers met in an open garage bay. Even in the shade of the building, the heat was oppressive. Men long overdue for sleep and given a break from the threat of sudden death or mutilation said little as they gathered. Some fell asleep waiting for the meeting to start.

While the battalion commander and the staff officers spoke, the brigade commander studied them and listened. He could see that they were tired or, more correctly, exhausted. The success of the day, however, added positive notes to their briefing. Overall, their units were in far better shape than could be expected. The day before, the brigade had fought a battle in the morning and conducted a withdrawal under pressure in the afternoon; that night they had planned an operation, conducted a fifty kilometer movement and rolled in the attack at 0500

hours. Since then the entire brigade had been on a rampage, spreading out and smashing anything and everything it ran across. While their losses had been minimal to date, they could not count on their good fortune lasting much longer. The Soviet divisions that had been poised to strike south for the Gulf had turned around and were beating feet north in a mad dash to clear their rear area and crush the 2nd Brigade. The brigade had accomplished its mission. It was time, the brigade

S-3 said, “to take the money and run.”

The brigade commander himself stood and began the orders briefing.

“Gentlemen, a situation that was hopeless less than twenty-four hours ago is now simply critical.” He paused for a moment while those present chuckled. “Good, I’m glad to see some of you are still alive.” More chuckles. Turning serious, he began to outline the next operation with the aid of a map board propped against the wall. “Radio intercepts and what little information Corps has been able to get to us show that the tank division that was headed south has been turned around and is charging back north. No doubt he is going to be looking for us. I do not intend to be here when he gets here. We’ve had our fun and have done what we were sent to do.

Commencing immediately, the 2nd Brigade will withdraw to the southeast along the same general route we used this morning. Upon reaching a point northeast of Tarom, we will link up with the 4th of the 4th Armor, now there, and turn either north toward Hajjiabad or south toward Tarom. That decision will be based on the enemy situation at the time. From that point on, our orders are to conduct a movement to contact. Once we have made contact, we will develop the situation. If we encounter only a light screen, we will push on until we find his main defensive belt. When we do find it, we stop, deploy and hang on.

The one thing we cannot do is become involved in a slugfest. There are simply too few forces in the country yet to afford that. While we have crippled the enemy and stopped him for now, he ain’t dead yet. Be aggressive, but don’t piss your units away. There’s plenty of fighting left to do.” He stopped and let that sink in before he continued. “Now that I have totally confused you, the S-3 will explain what I just said.”

With that, the brigade commander sat on a wobbly chair while his staff went over the details.

North of Aliabad, Iran 2015 Hours, 9 July (1645 Hours, 9 July,
GMT
) In the gathering darkness the 3rd Battalion of the Soviet 68th Tank Regiment completed its pivot, deployed and began to sweep to the east.

The 2nd Battalion was to the south of Aliabad, and the 1st was following the 2nd. Security patrols had been flung out on both flanks to protect against a surprise attack. Patrols from the regimental recon were deployed well forward, seeking any sign of enemy activity or presence.

While they did not find the Americans, they found ample signs that they had been there. Smashed vehicles and equipment dotted the desolate countryside.

Scattered around the wreckage were the bodies of Red Army soldiers.

Here and there groups of survivors came out of hiding upon seeing the advancing

T-80 tanks. This, however, was dangerous. The tank crews, exhausted from two continuous days of movement, physically beaten by extremes of heat and bad roads, were on edge. They were moving into an area overrun by the enemy, an enemy they now sought; everything was suspect and assumed hostile. More than a few Red Army soldiers, relieved to see friendly forces and anxious to make contact, died that night at the hands of their saviors.

To Vorishnov’s horror, the opposite was also true. On three separate occasions the battalion had been fired on by soldiers whom it had bypassed and who were expecting the Americans. Such encounters were generally harmless to the tanks of the battalion, thanks to their reactive armor and the inept handling of antitank-rocket launchers on the part of the combat service support troops. Some of the men firing the antitank rockets, however, paid for their error with their lives.

Vorishnov looked forward to the end of the current operation. He began to pray that they would not be the ones who found the Americans, if they were still in the area. He longed for a break from the stress of endless operations, the threat of imminent combat and the pressure of having to produce plans and orders with little or no guidance. How good it would feel to be able to lie down and sleep. That, above all else, was what he wanted, needed. He looked at his watch, then glanced at his map. He couldn’t let his mind wander too far. They were out there somewhere. Still, if all went well, the battalion would reach its objective just east of Dasht-e Bar in another two to three hours.