Sword Point (9 page)

In a monotone, the chief asked, “How long before the Americans enter Iran?”

“Two weeks at the earliest, probably four at the outside.”

The chief of staff thought about that. He turned to Sulvina. “And when that happens, my friend, we will have a whole new war to fight before we finish the first.”

Somewhere in the Arabian Sea 2335 Hours, 2 June (1935 Hours, 2 June,
GMT
)

The pinging of the sonar on the hull of the submarine was clearly audible to the commander, Captain Vladimir Gudkov, and the crew. They had been found again. For the third time in sixteen hours the Soviet Oscar-class submarine had failed to penetrate the escort screen of the carrier battle group. A series of orders resulted in a rapid dive and several sharp turns as the submarine attempted to break contact.

The men in the control room looked to their captain. In the eyes of all of them Gudkov could see the same sense of frustration that was accentuated by fatigue. The cruise from Cam Rahn Bay in Vietnam to their patrol station in the Arabian Sea had been routine. Even their patrol had been routine until the captain opened his special orders on the twenty-fourth of May. After that, they played the same cat-and-mouse game with U.S. Navy ships in the area they had always played, but now they did so in deadly earnest. The threat of war brought new meaning to their games.

Daily the submarine, named the Iskra-Russian for “spark”-raised its antenna at a prearranged time to receive the code word that would tell the captain when to initiate hostilities and against whom. When the hard-copy orders had been written, the Red Navy did not know who, for sure, would be involved and when. To cover all contingencies, each potential enemy was given a color code word. “Black,” for example, meant the United States

Navy. “Blue” was for the Royal Navy. “Green” was for the French, and so on.

All Moscow had to do was send a simple message with the appropriate code word or words, and all ships on station would commence attacks against the nation’s warships and shipping at 0600 hours the next morning. To ensure that there were no errors and that commanders knew their communication systems were functional, code word “White,” which meant “Continue peacetime patrol routines,” was transmitted daily when there were to be no hostile acts the next day.

The Oscar-class submarine had received its White signal as usual, and continued its peacetime mission, which was to maintain contact with the carrier battle group operating in the Arabian Sea and place itself close enough to the American carrier to be able to strike it. The American escort ships, however, were keeping the Oscar-class boat from doing that. In order to strike, the submarine had to get close without being detected. Each time it was found, the submarine had to break contact, back away from the escorts, and try from a different angle.

Each attempt was time-consuming and wearing on the nerves. The crew knew that whenever the Americans found them, they could kill them with ease. Therefore every discovery was treated as a defeat.

The submarine continued to swerve and change depth in rapid and random patterns in an effort to break contact. As it was doing so, the captain decided to stop any further attempts until his crew could get some sleep.

He didn’t want to push them too much before hostilities. In the first place, there was always the chance that someone, on either side, just might get too excited and, in the heat of the moment, make a mistake and push a button too soon. In the second place, he and his crew needed all the rest they could get while they could. When war came, he wanted his men able to push the right buttons at the right time.

While the submarine wiggled and bobbed in an effort to lose itself in the dark, cold depths of the Arabian Sea, the pursuing destroyer escort commander pushed his crew in an equally determined effort to maintain contact.

Thus ended another day of “peace.”

Duty is the sublime st word in our language. Do your duty in all things.

You cannot do more. You should never wish to do less.

-
ROBERT
E.
LEE

Fort Hood, Texas 1445 Hours, 3 June (2045 Hours, 3 June,
GMT
) The two target panels rose up and locked into place. The crew of the MI tank, however, did not see them until the control-tower personnel set off, by remote control, at the target locations, explosives known as the hostile simulators. The flash and the puff of smoke from the simulators brought an immediate reaction from the crew.

Slewing the turret toward the targets by using his control handle, the tank commander began to issue his fire command. “Gunner, Sabot. Two tanks-left tank.”

With his eye to the primary sight, the gunner searched until he saw the targets while his right hand danced across the face of the primary sight’s control panel, arming the main gun, switching the ammo-select lever to

SABOT
and coming to rest on the magnification level. Without bothering to key the intercom, he yelled, “Identified!” as soon as the targets came into his field of vision. He then switched his sight to a higher magnification and began to track his first target.

The commander let go of his control and turned to watch just as the loader finished arming the main gun, moved out of its path of recoil, and in his turn announced, Up. >,

The tank commander shouted, “Fire!”

It was now up to the gunner and the driver. As the driver strove to maintain steady speed and course, the gunner laid the gun sight onto the center mass of the target. When he had a good sight picture, he hit the laser range-finder thumb switch. Before he could remove his thumb from the switch, the range readout appeared at the bottom of the sight. A quick mental comparison of the size of the target and the indicated range showed that the range was about right. Satisfied, the gunner re laid onto the center mass of the target, yelled, “On the waaay,” and squeezed the trigger on his right control handle.

Nothing. Nothing happened. The gunner announced, “Misfire. On the waaay.”

With that, he pulled the trigger on his left control handle. Again, nothing. “Shit! Misfire!”

It was now the tank commander’s turn to try. Grabbing his control handle and crouching down so that he could view through his sight extension, the tank commander laid the sight onto the target’s center of mass, hit the laser range-finder switch and watched for the readout.

Satisfied that he had a good range and sight picture, he announced,

“From my position-on the waaay,” and pulled the trigger.

Nothing. The tank continued to roll down the course road. The tank commander continued to track the targets. And the targets continued to stand, un hit Totally frustrated, the tank commander ordered the driver to stop, then called the tower to inform them that he had to clear a misfire.

In the control tower Major Scott Dixon pounded his fist on the table and let out a stream of obscenities. This was the third run that day that they had failed to complete. With their own equipment en route to the Persian

Gulf, the units of the 25th Armored Division had to train on borrowed stuff while they waited to be flown over. The whole arrangement was less than ideal. What they received from the Armor School was already well used when it arrived at Fort

Hood. No doubt the Armor School was careful to keep the better equipment to meet its own surge in training. Continuous use by different units did not permit serious preventive maintenance. The result was a high number of malfunctions and mechanical failures that frustrated the battalion’s attempts to prepare for combat.

The officer in charge of the range turned to Dixon. “Do we let him continue or pull him off?”

Without looking at the officer, Dixon thought for a moment before answering. “See if he can clear it through the tube. If not, pull him back and have maintenance find out what the problem with that one is.

In the meantime, push them through as fast as you can. We only have the rest of today and tomorrow to finish the battalion, and we aren’t even halfway through.” Then Dixon turned to the young captain and asked, “Paul, do you think you can get ‘em all through?”

Captain Paul Tait, the battalion S-3 Air, tried to think of something witty to come back with, but couldn’t. He simply replied that he would do his damnedest. With that, Dixon left the tower, signaling his driver to crank up his hummer-the new M-998 high-mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicle, or

HMMWV
. He didn’t know for sure where he was going to go. Wherever he went, it had to be more productive than standing around on the range watching tanks break down and, as the crews said, “go tits up.”

Hopefully the battalion was getting something from the crash training they were conducting instead of merely marking time while waiting for deployment.

Fort Campbell, Kentucky 1735 Hours, 4 June (2335 Hours, 4 June,
GMT
) Like clockwork the two A-10 ground-attack aircraft came rolling in on their run and began to fire on the crest of a hill. From the concealment of a stand of pine trees, four M-113 armored personnel carriers of a mech infantry platoon came rolling out. One thousand meters to their right,

the gun tubes from four M-60A3 tanks poked out and began to belch fire as they also engaged targets on the hill that was their final objective. The

A-10s had by now turned and were making their second, and last, run in, firing their 30mm. GAU-8 gun along the length of the hill. Satisfied with the results of their effort, they overflew the control vehicles, wiggling their wings as they skimmed along at treetop level.

No sooner had the aircraft cleared the area than 155mm. artillery firing high-explosive and white phosphorus rounds began to hit the hill. The first mech infantry platoon was joined by a second platoon that followed it out from the tree line and came up on its left.

Together, the two platoons advanced on their objective as the tanks and the artillery continued to work it over. This continued until the M-113s of the two mech platoons reached a predesignated point less than five hundred meters from the hill.

When they did, the artillery-fire-support officer issued a curt order to the firing battery. On cue, the guns lifted and shifted fires to a new target beyond the hill. The tanks continued to fire, but now concentrated on targets on either side of their objective.

With the fire lifted and only two hundred meters to go, the M-113s stopped and dropped their ramps. Infantrymen of the Tennessee National Guard came pouring out, running to either side of the M-113s in staggered lines. On signal, the M-113s and the lines of infantry began to advance. Only when the dismounted troops and the M113s masked the tanks’ fields of fire did they cease fire. The track commanders of the M-113s stood upright, firing their .50-caliber machine guns while the dismounted infantry fired from the hip as they went into the dust and smoke that now shrouded the hill.

From their observation point the battalion commander and the executive officer of the 2nd Battalion, 354th Infantry, watched the end of the last run of the day of the company combined-arms live fire exercise.

Turning to his XO, the battalion commander asked why they had never been able to do that in Tennessee. The XO, Major Ed Lewis, simply stated, “When the Army got serious about sending the unit to war, all kinds of wonderful things were possible.

The last ten days are ample proof of that.”

After being mobilized, the battalion had assembled at Fort Campbell in accordance with its mobilization plans. Surprisingly, its first mission was to prepare its equipment and ship it to New Orleans for embarkation. This was quickly accomplished, but left the unit nothing to complete its post mobilization training with. Initially, the battalion had been slated to move immediately to Fort Hood to join its parent Active Army unit, the 2nd

Brigade, 25th Armored Division. This, however, was canceled. Fort Hood was already overcrowded with units trying to train with small amounts of borrowed equipment. Instead, the 2nd Battalion of the 354th Infantry was left at Campbell. Heated discussions between the unit commander, the state, the National Guard Bureau and anyone who would listen did not change the ill-conceived peacetime mobilization plan.

Instead of training for war with its parent unit, the battalion was left to its own device”, training in isolation while the rest of the 25th Division rushed to complete its preparation for war.

Training at Fort Campbell, however, did have its advantages. With the 12th

Infantry Division in the throes of deploying, there were plenty of maneuver areas and ranges available. The 2nd of the 354th, being a round-out unit and high on the deployment list, had a higher priority over other Guard and

Reserve units assembling at Campbell. Equipment, including a fully manned tank company with which to train, was borrowed from the Kentucky National

Guard. Although the personnel carriers were the old M-113s instead of the

M-2 Bradleys, they were better than nothing.

In addition to equipment, ammunition for live fire training was not a problem. Whatever the 12th Division left at the ammo storage point on

Campbell was given to the 2nd of the 354th. It was in live fire training that the battalion spent most of its time. The commander felt that the men needed to get used to handling their weapons and getting the feel for what it would be like when everyone was blasting away. Men who had been assigned to the unit as
TOW
and Dragon antitank-guided-missile gunners for years finally had an opportunity to fire a live missile. Sometimes the results were quite embarrassing, as when the shock of firing their first live missile caused the gunners to jump and send the missile spiraling into the ground. As Lewis, the battalion XO and full-time training officer, said,

“Better to miss at Campbell and be embarrassed than miss in Iran and be dead.”

While training was progressing well, Lewis was worried about what was coming next. It was all well and good to get their equipment off to the

Persian Gulf as soon as possible; and, likewise, using the time while the equipment was in transit for post mobilization training made sense.