Sword Point (8 page)

Evans wanted so badly to fire a mortar or something at them, anything.

People that stupid needed a shot in the head. But he had nothing. All he could do was sit and watch them mess all over themselves in the open.

The platoon leader defending the knoll was less patient. After seeing the troubles 2nd Platoon was having, he decided to add to them. He sent one of his squads down and around the rear of the attacking platoon. The idea was to have that squad trail the 2nd Platoon closely. When, and if, the 2nd

Platoon finally began its attack, the trailing squad would strike from behind. Stripping away one third of his force was a gamble, but the performance of the attacker up to that point made the risk seem reasonable.

The soldiers on the knoll had a difficult time staying awake as they waited for something to happen. They were beginning their second day in Egypt and had not fully recovered from the effects of jet lag. On top of that, they were having difficulty acclimating to the desert heat. Evans was glad that they had the time in Egypt to do so. Not that it was by choice. The 17th

Airborne Division had to deploy to forward staging areas before they jumped into Iran. It was not possible to stage and deploy from the States directly into Iran the size force required for the operation.

Because of this, any hope for surprise was lost. No doubt there were scores of Shiite Muslims watching the coming and going of the transport aircraft, counting the units and probably even monitoring their radio nets as the 17th Airborne did some last-minute unit training.

The training exercise had come as a shock to many in the company. They had expected to simply lie around and rest in preparation for the big jump.

Instead, less than three hours after landing, Evans had his platoons lined up with full combat gear and moving across the desert on foot.

While they were there Evans wanted to take every opportunity available to train and prepare. As he continued to watch the 2nd Platoon, he was glad they were doing so. The platoon leader of that unit was actually far better than his current performance would indicate. Second Lieutenant Hal Cerro had been with the unit for over six months and had participated in several major exercises. None of them, however, had been in the desert.

The desert is a harsh environment that has its own rules. People brought up in a sophisticated society in a temperate climate are unprepared for the sheer nothingness of the desert. Simple survival is a challenge. Maintaining unit cohesion and combat effectiveness and conducting active military operations in the desert border on the impossible.

Logistics, or supply operations, is indicative of the nature of the problem. Each man requires each day slightly over two gallons of water which weighs almost twenty pounds. Add to this six pounds of food, and, because the force is engaged in combat, ammunition to the tune of an average of twenty to forty pounds per man. This total of forty-six to sixty-six pounds does not include the weight of fuel required to haul the supplies to the soldier, the weight of repair parts required to maintain the trucks, planes and ships hauling the supplies or the supplies consumed by the people hauling the supplies while they are doing the hauling. When all of this is tallied up, it is quite possible to reach a requirement demanding the movement and consumption of two hundred pounds of supplies per soldier in the combat area per day. When all is considered, getting the combat soldier to the theater of operations is the easy part; keeping him there and keeping him functional are where the real problem lies.

For Captain Evans, the immediate problem was how to get his people over the severe case of the dumbs that they had suddenly come down with. The 2nd

Platoon had finally begun to move onto the rocky knoll it was supposed to have taken two hours ago. But rather than deploying for an attack, they advanced in two loose columns up the face of the knoll. What was even more disturbing was the fact that Evans could see the trailing squad coming up behind the 2nd Platoon. It was apparent that no one in the 2nd Platoon was paying attention to the rear. The defending platoon simply waited. They were going to let the 2nd Platoon get to within two hundred meters before they fired. Even this infuriated Evans. In the desert, you always take advantage of long-range engagements whenever possible.

The defending platoon was pissing away a one-hundred- to two-hundred-meter advantage.

With blank ammunition quietly supplied to the 17th Airborne Division from

Israel, the defending platoon opened fire on the 2nd Platoon. The initial reaction of the attackers was one of surprise and sudden paralysis.

Dumbstruck, the men simply stood where they were or fired from the hip or the shoulder. This was too much for Evans. Jumping up, he yelled for a cease-fire above the din of small-arms fire. The men, sensing their commander’s anger, stopped firing almost instantaneously. For a moment there was a hushed stillness as all held their positions and waited for further orders.

“Platoon leaders, form on me, now!”

In the darkness, two second lieutenants scrambled to find the source of the enraged voice, daring not to ask where it came from for fear of adding to its anger. They knew that their commander was, to say the least, less than pleased. To Lieutenant Cerro, it was like going to his father after he had been caught doing something wrong. Cerro could feel his stomach muscles tightening up. He knew that Captain Evans couldn’t whip him as his dad had done. But that didn’t lessen the effect of the brutal tongue-lashing he was about to endure.

His performance and that of his platoon since they had landed in Egypt had been less than satisfactory. It was almost as if during the flight to Egypt the men had forgotten everything they had ever been taught.

The men were apprehensive about going into combat. In a platoon of thirty-eight men there was not a single combat veteran. There was no one to whom they could turn for guidance or reassurance. While the first sergeant had been in

Vietnam, and both the CO and the first sergeant had been in Grenada, they were aloof from the men in the 2nd Platoon, not by intention but by necessity. The platoon therefore found itself facing the dark mysteries of combat for the first time with no idea of what it was really going to be like.

Rationalizing why the platoon was doing poorly was one thing. Doing something about it was another. One thing was for sure. If they didn’t do any better in their first battle than they had just done on the aborted attack on the knoll, there would be no second battle for the 2nd Platoon.

Captain Evans belabored that point as he drove home each error they had committed that night. While his men formed up and prepared for the fifteen-kilometer foot march back to their laager area, Lieutenant Cerro racked his tired brain for a method of getting his men over their fear of the unknown and ready for combat. He decided that the solution would come to him as soon as he had mastered his own fears.

Headquarters, 28th Combined Arms Army Tabriz Iran 0855 Hours, 2 June (0525

Hours, 2 June,
GMT
)

Despite the fact that Tabriz had been “officially secured” on 31 May, there was still sporadic gunfire throughout the city as snipers took pot shots at small groups of Soviet soldiers, even in daylight. At night the Soviets didn’t move unless they were in an armored vehicle.

The curfew, which ran from one hour before sunset to one hour after sunrise, simply stated that anyone seen on the streets at night would be shot. Nervous soldiers enforced this rule with a vengeance, often with deadly results for their comrades, since they fired at anything that moved, including friendly patrols.

As Colonel Pyotr Sulvina entered the headquarters of the 28th Combined Arms Army, he studied the two guards at the entrance. They were young men, neither one older than nineteen. They crouched behind their sandbag emplacement until Sulvina was too close to ignore. Both popped up and saluted, returning to their crouched position behind the sandbags as soon as Sulvina returned their salute. Their uniforms were dirty. Their faces were haggard from a combination of fear, anxiety and lack of sleep. With dark circles around their eyes and two days of stubbly beard on their chins, they looked more like the defeated than the victor.

Inside, posters that called for sacrifices in the name of Allah still hung on the walls. Sulvina couldn’t read all the messages, but found it amusing that posters calling for death to the godless Americans were almost as numerous as those aimed against the Iraqis.

None mentioned the Soviet Union. Fools, Sulvina thought. They feared the snake that was never there and didn’t see the bear.

His thoughts were interrupted by a warm greeting from the army’s chief of staff, Colonel Ivan Ovcharov. There were a few moments of small talk, the chief of staff asking how the weather was in Moscow and Baku as he walked

Sulvina to his office, where they could get down to business. Once the door was closed, Ovcharov’s jovial face turned cold. “Well, what is the verdict?” he asked.

Sulvina removed his hat and placed it and his briefcase on a chair. He then walked over to the window, considering his answer.

“It is not a good idea to stand before an open window like that, Comrade.

The army commander has already lost an aide in this building doing the same thing.”

Sulvina looked at the chief of staff with raised eyebrows as he slowly backed away. “Are they still that active?”

The chief of staff looked at him quizzically. “Still? After last night, there is every indication that it is getting worse. We have already commenced reprisals. It will be several days, however, before that has any effect.”

Reprisals, Sulvina thought. What a useful term for making the practice of shooting civilians in retaliation for the shooting of Soviet soldiers seem justifiable. Perhaps it is necessary. War has its own rules.

“So, are you going to tell me the results of your trip to see our intrepid

General Staff officers at
STAVKA
and Front Headquarters, or must I guess?”

“I am afraid, Colonel, you already know the results. All plans remain the same, and the forces committed will not be reinforced. Our losses do not yet justify that. Nor do we have authorization for the use of chemical weapons yet.”

The chief of staff considered for a moment. “Yes, I expected no less.

And

STAVKA’s appraisal is correct, we have not been handled too roughly. We have succeeded everywhere we have gone. But it is taking us too long.

Do you realize that it has become a common practice now to stop at every roadblock and conduct a deliberate attack against it with artillery and tanks? Do you know why? It is because we no longer have any recon units able, or willing, to go forward without an artillery preparation being fired on the high ground overlooking the roadblock.

It is saving us men but consuming tremendous amounts of ammunition and, more important, time. We no sooner clear one roadblock than a few kilometers down the road there is another. Even when we place airborne or air assault forces behind the

Iranians, they still build their roadblocks-”

The chief was angry and frustrated. Sulvina was one of the few officers in the army he could trust, which was why he had been selected to go to Front

Headquarters to report on the army’s situation and why the chief could talk freely to him. One had to be careful what one said. No doubt one or more of the 28th Combined Arms Army’s staff officers was
KGB
, which was probably how
STAVKA
had found out about the army’s slow progress.

“What about ammunition? We are now using three times the amount of ammunition that had been projected. Are we going to get any relief in that area?”

“Colonel, I am afraid that even if Front was willing to increase its allocation of ammunition, which it will not do, it does not have the means to deliver it to us. As it is, attacks against supply columns have taken terrible toll of the trucks we have for resupply. Air resupply will be increased for some critical commodities, but bulk shipments of fuel and ammunition will still have to come over the roads. To relieve pressure on the supply system,
STAVKA
intends to delay the movement of the 17th

Combined Arms Army south behind us. Even they understand the need to keep our lines of communication clear and supplies flowing.”

“Roads,” the chief interrupted. “Roads that require continuous guarding and siphon off combat troops from the front. On one hand the 17th
CAA
would help by guarding those roads, and on the other they would block them with their own units and supply columns. Either way, we suffer.”

“When I mentioned that, the Front Commander merely remarked that we have yet to use a fraction of our men at the front, making the argument for commitment of parts of the 17th
CAA
or an increase in ammunition resupply weak.”

“Perhaps the Front Commander would change his tune if he had been here when we stormed this miserable excuse of a city.” The chief stopped for a moment. Ignoring his own advice, he went to the window and looked out.

Without turning to face Sulvina, he continued. “What news of the other fronts?”

“In the east, Mashhad has fallen, but only after a bloody fight. The 89th

Motorized Rifle Division is hung up around Birjand. Because they need the road that runs through it and the airfield for resupply, they have comsnenced a siege of that city. The bridgeheads along the Caspian continue to build up, but, as with us, forward progress is slow. The Elburz Mountains they face are far more formidable than the ones we have to deal with. And in the west, our good allies the Iraqis attacked, as planned, and lost ground, as expected, without tying down any appreciable Iranian forces, as hoped.”

Still looking out the window, the chief asked, “And the Americans? What about them?”

“
STAVKA
is less sure about the Americans’ intentions than it used to be.

There is now an airborne brigade in Egypt, with more on the way. A Marine brigade is being flown into Diego Garcia. Air Force units have also been reported in Egypt. Naval activity in the Arabian Sea has increased, and the addition of a carrier group is expected.”