Sword Point (51 page)

One at a time the units reported in, all except for Team Delta and the battalion commander. As soon as the battalion XO was on the net, Dixon had all units report their status. Neither team in the west with Dixon had been hit. At the last minute both Soviet battalions had gone into the eastern side of the W. Odds were that Team Delta had been overrun.

Referring to his map that showed the graphics depicting the battalion’s battle plan, Dixon recommended that both Alpha and Charlie counterattack from the west into the Soviets’ flank while Team Bravo held in place. In the meantime, the XO at the
TOC
should get everything he could from Brigade to hit the Soviet forces that had broken through. With little time to think and no time to discuss the matter, the XO ordered Dixon to lead the counterattack. The XO would do his best to get everything Brigade would shake loose.

While the XO was coordinating for air strikes and attack helicopters on the brigade-command net, Dixon issued his orders over the battalion-command net. They would attack to the east, with both teams forming a wedge. Team

Charlie would be in the north and Team Alpha in the south. Dixon would position himself in the center. When formed, the two companies would drive south of Team Bravo’s positions and head for Team Delta’s old positions.

Once there, the two attacking teams would swing to face the north and the follow-on Soviet forces. Someone else would have to take care of the Soviet forces that had already broken through.

Dixon ordered his driver to back out of the position and waited until Team

Alpha began to move past, then ordered the driver to follow the company commander’s tank. As they moved into the valley, Dixon monitored Team

Bravo’s reports to the battalion
TOC
. One at a time Team Bravo was losing its vehicles. What effect they were having on the Soviets was not known.

Whatever it was, it was insufficient to stop their movement south. A garbled and incomplete report from the mortar-platoon leader alerted the battalion XO to the fact that that 367 platoon was being overrun.

Attempts to regain contact with the mortar-platoon leader were cut short by the battalion forward air controller, who announced that friendly air was en route and would be on station in five minutes. The XO responded to this call, but his directions were cut short. Repeated attempts to regain contact with the XO or the
TOC
by Dixon and the Team Bravo commander failed. Absorbed in that effort, Dixon did not become aware until several minutes later that the counterattack was going astray.

What should have been a simple maneuver was not. As the teams moved into the valley that formed the western base of the W, they became intermingled.

Team Charlie, wanting to avoid Team Bravo, came too far south before turning east. Team Alpha, cutting straight across the valley, ran head on into Team Charlie while it was still moving south. This situation was made worse by the fact that drivers in both the M-1 and the Bradley did not have thermal sights. The smoke lingering in the low areas they drove through made navigation and maintaining position difficult.

Command and control were lost by Dixon and the team commanders. Then the quick death of the

Team Alpha commander by an unknown assailant destroyed all hope of sorting that unit out. The counterattack rapidly degenerated into a cluster as tanks and Bradleys groped about in the smoke, searching for the enemy and the objective. Both were eventually found, but not in the manner that Dixon intended.

Instead of a sledgehammer hitting the Soviets in the flank, the two attacking teams collided with the enemy one or two vehicles at a time.

The only thing that prevented complete disaster for the armored battalion was the fact that the Soviets were equally confused and muddled due to the firing into their flank from Team Bravo, obstacles that had not been cleared, scatter able mine fields that had been laid down by artillery, and their own artillery- and vehicle-generated smoke.

For the next twenty minutes a series of small battles erupted between vehicles lost on the valley floor of the eastern part of the W. The clusters of tanks and Bradleys rolled on toward Team Delta’s position, cutting across the path of the Soviet vehicles attempting to move south. Most engagements were therefore flanking shots. In this kind of fight, tanks had the upper hand. Their main gun could defeat anyone and everyone they ran into. Their armor could defeat at least some of the weapons being used. Whenever a

Bradley bumped into a T-80 and saw it first, the Bradley commander would fire his smoke grenades and back off into the nearest hole. This, however, was not always a good idea in the swirling melee on the valley floor. In more than one case, a Bradley backing up to avoid one T-80

tank backed into the sights of another unseen T-80 or
BMP
. The same happened to the Soviets.

Gunners, their eyes glued to their thermal sights, were normally the first to spot a target. Screams of “T-80twelve o’clock!” or “Two BMPs dead ahead!” galvanized the rest of the crew. Tank and Bradley commanders had no time to think. It was simply a question of fight or flee. Normal crew duties and fire commands fell by the wayside as target reports from the gunners were followed by either “Driver, back up!”or Fire! “Unable to command or control anything, and knowing hat he had no hope of doing either until he reached the positions where Delta had been, Dixon concentrated on fighting with his tank and surviving.

Maxwell, his gunner, was quick to pick up targets. “Tank-twelve o’clock! ‘

In their excitement and the heat of the moment, the crew lost track of the fire commands. Hearing the target report from Maxwell, Wilard responded with Up” as he armed the gun and cleared the path of recoil.

Dixon, hanging on, yelled, “Fire!” even though he was unable to get his eye up to the sight.

Maxwell screamed, “On the way!” as he pulled the trigger. Firing and impact were almost simultaneous, due to the close range. Dixon, popping his head out of the open hatch at the moment Maxwell yelled,

“Target!” watched the

Soviet tank they had just engaged blow apart as their tank passed it.

Maxwell’s scream of “Two BMPs -twelve o’clock!” brought him back.

Wilard, knowing that
HEAT
was the preferred round for BMPs, but having already loaded a Sabot round, yelled out, “Sabot loaded!”

Since there wasn’t time to unload the Sabot round, Dixon ordered,

“Fire

HEAT
. Load Sabot.”

Maxwell, responding without thinking, again yelled, “On the way” and fired.

His announcement of “Target!” was followed by the cry “
HEAT
indexed”

as his hand reached up and switched the ammo-select lever from the Sabot position to the
HEAT
position.

Wilard, following through with Dixon’s last order, loaded a
HEAT
round and announced, “
HEAT
loaded.”

Again Dixon ordered fire. Again Maxwell fired and responded,

“Target!”

Dixon reached down, caught Wilard’s arm as he was loading the next
HEAT

round and ordered him to load Sabot. Dixon did not want to run into a

Soviet tank while they had
HEAT
in the tube. Sabot would take anything out, no sweat.
HEAT
was, at best, questionable when it came to the T-80 tank.

The battle fought by Dixon and his crew was repeated time and time again in other MIs and Bradleys as they stumbled forward in the smoke toward the far ridge. Dixon could feel his heart pounding in his chest. He gasped for breath, almost hyperventilating in the effort.

The air he breathed was corrupted with the acidic smell of chemically produced smoke, burning rubber, diesel and flesh, and burnt cordite from the firing of the tanks.

Every stitch of his clothing was soaked with sweat. Questions without answers raced through Dixon’s mind: How much longer can this last? How much longer can I last? Where in hell is everyone? The tank rolled on, unstopping and seemingly alone as the horror show continued.

As it climbed up onto the high ground where Team Delta’s position had been,

Dixon’s tank came out from under the cloud of smoke-to be greeted by the sight of two BMPs off to the right. Dixon grabbed the override and began to issue a fire command, but stopped. The BMPs were not moving, just sitting there. It was obvious that they were destroyed. Letting go of the override, he turned his attention back to the direction they were moving in. Only the chance glimpse of movement through the corner of his eye alerted him to the fact that he had been wrong about the BMPs. Without further thought, he grabbed the override again and jerked it around, yelling his fire command,

“Gunner, HEAT! Two BMPs!”

Wilard corrected him. “Sabot loaded.” Maxwell followed with

“Identified!”

Again without thinking, Dixon yelled, “Fire Sabot. Load HEAT!”

Once the gunner was on target and heard the loader yell, “Up,” he ranged, screamed, “On the way” and fired. The Sabot flew over the
BMP
.

In the confusion, Maxwell had not changed the ammo-select lever from
HEAT
, where it had been set for their last engagement, back to Sabot.

Both Dixon and

Maxwell knew what had happened.

Dixon repeated the order to load
HEAT
. Wilard responded with “
HEAT

up!” followed by Maxwell’s cry of “
HEAT
indexed-on the way!” The second round hit dead center. Its jet stream entered the target’s side, cutting through the
BMP
, which blew up in a shower of sparks and flame, the explosion of on-board ammunition literally ripping it apart.

A thud followed by a wave of heat across Dixon’s back rushed into his partially opened hatch. He looked up to see that the second
BMP
had fired an AT-4 antitank guided missile at them. It had hit the side slope of the turret. There was, however, no visible effect within the turret. Dixon yelled, “Target-next BMP!”

The loader yelled out, “
HEAT
loaded!”

The gunner, eye glued to his sight, reached up and made sure the ammo-select switch was on
HEAT
. He didn’t trust himself anymore and wanted to be sure. Maxwell announced, “
HEAT
indexed-identified!” to which Dixon yelled, “Fire HEAT!”

The gunner’s “On the way” was followed by a second thud. As the tank recoiled from firing, Dixon turned to his left to see a third
BMP

sitting on the crest of the hill. When he heard the gunner yell,

“Target,” he grabbed the override, jerked the turret to the left and issued a new fire command without bothering to look back at the
BMP

just destroyed.

The
BMP
commander began to back down, firing his 30mm. cannon at Dixon in desperation. This did not deter Dixon, who continued to bring the turret around. Just as the gunner yelled out, “Identified!” the side and turret of the
BMP
was lit up by a rapid series of small explosions and sparks. Then the
BMP
blew up.

Dixon popped his head up out of the turret and looked to his rear to see who had killed the
BMP
. Two Bradleys, their barrels still smoking, were coming up fast behind Dixon’s tank. Behind them came an M-1. For the briefest of moments, Dixon felt relief. He was drained, mentally and physically. His body shook from excitement and the effects of adrenaline.

He looked at his watch. Only twenty minutes had passed since he had given the order to move. We made it, he thought. At least some of us made it.

Not many, however, did.

Headquarters, 10th Corps, 9otbabad, Iran 1925 Hours, 1 August (1555

Hours, 1 August,
GMT
)

“The commitment of the second-echelon divisions by the Russian 17th Combined

Arms Army into the 25th Armored Division’s sector commenced shortly after twelve hundred hours. Penetrations along the
FEBA
were sealed of by local counterattacks and commitment of the division’s reserve.”

Forty words organized into two sentences during the evening briefing to the corps commander summarized the battle that had consumed the 3rd of the 4th Armor.

What had happened that day, however, was no longer of any concern to the corps except that it had set the stage for the next phase of the battle.

The real emphasis of the evening briefing was on the options available to the corps as a result of the day’s fighting. These options were simple: the corps could remain on the defense and allow the Soviets to attack again; it could order the divisions to conduct local counterattacks to restore the original front line; or it could begin the corps counteroffensive. For several minutes, Lieutenant General Weir discussed all three options with the operations officer and the intelligence officer. He played the devil’s advocate, attacking each option from various angles. There was no clear consensus on what was the best option. The operations officer preferred to limit the next day’s operations to local counterattacks by the divisions. He felt that the situation was not sufficiently favorable for commencement of the corps counteroffensive.

The intelligence officer was even more conservative. His people were still sifting through the glut of information, some of it contradictory, that they had received from various sources ranging from satellites to spot reports sent in by soldiers on the forward edge. He wanted more time to clarify Soviet dispositions and intentions.

In the end, however, only the corps commander’s opinion mattered. As a commander, he and he alone was held responsible for the success or failure of his unit. For several minutes he sat staring at the map, slightly slouched down in his chair, his arms propped up on the table, the fingers of his hands intertwined. When he had decided, he turned to his operations officer. “We attack. H-Hour will be twenty-one hundred hours tomorrow night.” Standing up, he faced his assembled staff. “I’m tired of waiting for the Russians to decide what they’re going to do and reacting to them.