Sword Point (52 page)

From here on in, we are going to make him react to us. Does anyone have any questions?”

No one answered.

“Good! Remember, think north!”

When you want to do battle, muster all your forces, not neglecting any of them; a battalion sometimes decides a battle.

-
ARTHUR
WELLES
LEY

DUKE
OF
WELLINGTON

North of Miabad, Iran 1830 Hours, 2 August (1500 Hours, 2 August,
GMT
)

Ed Martain’s eyes darted from his instruments to the ground they were skimming along. His damaged F-15E shook and vibrated every time he attempted the simplest maneuver. Only by reducing speed could he reduce the vibrations. But to do so only meant that it would take them longer to make it back across the forward line of their own troops. For better or worse, he pushed his aircraft as far as he dared. In the backseat, Martain’s wizzo sat tight-lipped. Most of his equipment was malfunctioning or simply out.

Whatever happened to him depended on Martain. There was nothing he could do except check their six, or rear, and pray.

The mission, like most of the others, had been hastily planned and came too soon after their last. At Bandar Abbas the ground crews were literally falling over from exhaustion as they tried to turn the squadron’s aircraft around in preparation for the next strike.

Maintenance crews did their damnedest to keep a high number of planes on line, but they were fighting losing battle as scheduled maintenance services, postponed too many times, were finally beginning to take their toll. This, coupled with losses to ground fire, had brought Martain’s squadron down to seven operational aircraft. The squadron had been slated to be replaced and pulled back to Egypt for rest and recovery, but the latest Soviet offensive had caused that plan to be shelved.

The current mission had been going fairly well until they neared the target. Coming in at one hundred feet to hit a supply dump, the flight of two aircraft making the run found themselves flying over a Soviet recon unit sitting in a wadi. The lead plane got through before the ground fire reached a high level of intensity or effectiveness, but Martain, in the trail aircraft, was not nearly as lucky. His plane caught the full force of the Soviet ground fire, which knocked out the right engine, tore great holes out of the wings and the control surfaces and screwed up most of the electronics. Fortunately, just before he entered the worst of the fire

Martain had dumped his entire load of bombs, exacting a large measure of revenge but doing little else. The punishing ground fire could not be avoided. That they were still airborne was nothing short of a miracle.

“Hang in there, Frank, we’ll make it. If I gotta hold this thing together with my bare hands we’ll make it.” A sudden shudder shook the aircraft.

“I sure hope you do a better job holding on to this plane than you did holding on to that blonde back at Langley. ”

Martain was thankful for the wizzo’s effort to relieve the tension. He looked down at his left leg for a moment. He had been hit. Some dumb Commie dogface, firing wildly, and probably with his eyes closed, had drilled him.

The wound, in his upper thigh, was bleeding and painful. Martain hadn’t bothered to tell his wizzo. Things were, after all, bad enough without heaping on more problems. Martain moved his leg slightly and was 376 rewarded with a sharp pain that racked his entire body.

Biting back the urge to scream, he answered his wizzo’s taunt.

“Thanks, pal. I really needed that vote of confidence. But I don’t think you appreciate the situation. As I remember-”

His story was cut short by the wizzo’s scream, “Two boggles, five o’clock!”

Martain cranked his neck around to the right and searched for the enemy. He caught a glimpse of them as one of them began a sharp dive in their direction. “Shit! No way in hell we’re going to get away from them. Hang on and get ready to punch out.” With that, Martain began to increase their speed and slowly turn away from their potential attackers.

The vibrations of the aircraft increased and were joined by a violent bucking. Martain could almost feel the frame pulling itself apart. The increased vibrations caused him a great blinding pain. He had no idea how long he could keep control. Ten seconds? Ten minutes? However long it took, he was hell-bent on pushing the plane and himself to the limit. The last thing he wanted to do was eject behind enemy lines.

If he did, he had no doubt how it would end for him. With the wound he had, he wouldn’t be able to escape or evade. Ejection was a last resort.

“What are they doing?”

His wizzo, body twisted and head bobbing from one side of the cockpit to the other, endeavored to keep track of their attackers. “I lost them. Can’t see the has There they are! Christ, they’re right fucking on top of us!”

Martain couldn’t fight the urge to turn and look. If he was going to get spattered, he at least wanted to see the sonofabitch that did it.

As he began to turn, the wizzo cried out again. “Oh my God, oh my God!

They’re ours! They’re ours!”

Two French Mirage fighters nosed forward, taking up station on either side of the crippled F-15. The pilot of the Mirage on the left, sun visor up and oxygen mask hanging from his helmet, smiled and waved at Martain, then gave him a thumbs up, signaling that everything was all right, that they would escort him in. Martain relaxed, sweat still rolling down his face. Despite his pain, he forced a smile and waved back. Yeah, everything will be OK now. We got it made, we got it made.

Clearing his throat, he continued the story that had been cut short.

“Like

I was saying, Frank, I don’t think you appreciate the situation back at

Langley. There I was…”

North of Miabad, Iran 1830 Hours, 2 August (1500 Hours, 2 August,
GMT
)

Slowly, and in a stupor, the young Soviet lieutenant made his way through the wadi that was littered with a maze of tangled and burning wreckage.

Fifteen minutes before, that wreckage had been a reconnaissance battalion.

In a flash it had been wiped away, smashed. Now it was nothing more than a collection of corpses and stunned survivors. Some of those survivors were attempting to save or help those who were wounded.

Others, in shock or simply despondent as a result of the speed at which disaster had struck, sat or wandered about in a daze. Even the lieutenant, a platoon leader and a veteran of many fights who was accustomed to seeing death, was appalled at the magnitude of the disaster. That, and the fact that he was the senior surviving officer, was numbing to all who survived.

When he came to the place where, just before the attack, the battalion commander had gathered the company commanders to issue orders for that night’s operation, he stopped and attempted to clear his head. His thoughts turned to the series of events that had led to the destruction of the unit.

Despite the fact that everyone knew better, the battalion had set up in a wide wadi. While the wadi kept them below ground level and therefore hidden from sight except when someone passed directly overhead, the vehicles were packed in too closely. All was fine until two jet aircraft, American F-15s heavy with bombs and missiles, flying low and fast, began to approach the battalion’s position. With the company commanders away from their units, some of the junior 378 officers had ordered the aircraft engaged because the

F15s looked as if they were preparing to attack the battalion.

The wild firing had damaged one of the F-15s, but not before they both released their bombs, resulting in catastrophe for the battalion.

Perhaps, the lieutenant thought, we can still carry on with the mission. In the vain hope of finding something that would tell him what their mission was, he began to search the charred remains of the bodies that had been the battalion’s leadership. The stench of burned flesh and the sight of bodies ripped and burned beyond recognition, however, was too much for him. Wiping his hands on his tunic as he backed away from the corpses, he fought the urge to vomit. Whatever it was that the division had wanted from them, someone else would have to do it.

In his confusion, it never occurred to the lieutenant that perhaps Division did not know that the battalion was now combat ineffective and no longer executing its assigned mission.

Five Kilometers North of Aliabad, Iran 1945 Hours, 2 August (1615

Hours, 2 August,
GMT
)

Within forty hours of commencing an attack that had been so well planned and prepared, the commander of the 17th Combined Arms Army found himself facing the same problems and grasping for the same solutions that the former commander of the 28th Combined Arms Army had faced. The waste of men and equipment was appalling Two motorized rifle divisions were totally combat ineffective, reduced to less than 40 percent strength. The other two had sustained heavy losses in exchange for little gain and no clean breakthrough. Even the two tank divisions, held back to exploit the projected break through, had suffered from American heavy bombers and attack helicopters. Faced with the prospect of losing the initiative and whatever advantages had been gained from the efforts of the motorized rifle divisions, the leadership of the 17th
CAA
decided to commit the two tank divisions As a hedge against possible problems, they also requested permission to use chemical weapons.

The order that committed the 68th Tank Regiment to an attack beginning at 2130 hours on 2 August was received by the staff with an air of indifference. They had been through the drill many times before. The process and procedures needed to move the unit were almost rote.

Major

Vorishnov noted the lack of enthusiasm with which the commanders and the staff of the battalion conducted their preparation. Even he found it difficult to muster the necessary motivation.

Reports coming down from Regiment were less than favorable and revealed a situation ominously similar to what had prevailed during the failed attack in July. The 68th Tank Regiment was to be committed into a situation that was, at best, ambiguous. The attacking motorized rifle division that the regiment was to pass through was no longer capable of offensive action. It had punched a small gap through the enemy’s main defensive belt but had been chewed up by incessant counterattacks and air attacks. Unable to penetrate any farther on its own, the division had faltered, stopped and finally held. To expedite the passage of the tank regiment through the stalled unit and steer it past pockets of enemy resistance, the recon battalion of that motorized rifle division would lead the tank regiment through the gap that had been created.

Vorishnov’s mind began to wander as he sat and listened to the second officer present the assembled commanders the current enemy situation in the zone in which the regiment would attack. How many times, he thought, can we tempt death before it consumes us? Perhaps we will succeed this time.

Perhaps we will perish. The differences between success and failure were no longer clear to Vorishnov. The fact that he was willing to accept either worried him.

Five Kilometers North of Tarom, Iran 2120 Hours, 2 August (1750 Hours, 2

August,
GMT
)

Ed Lewis paced back and forth in the battalion
TOC
, from the situation map hung from the
TOC
extensions at one end of the work area to the rear of the

M-577 command-post carrier and back again. Master Sergeant Ken Mayfree, sitting at a field desk, was monitoring the radios and recording a summary of all transmissions in a duty log. Although Lewis could listen to the same radio transmissions over remote speakers located near the map, he preferred to stand in front of Mayfree and listen there. The major’s nervous restlessness was contagious and annoying. Finally, while Lewis was standing in front of him, Mayfree looked his major in the eye and whispered, “Ed, if you don’t sit down and cool it, I’m gonna break your kneecaps. You’re makin’ me nervous.”

Lewis looked at Mayfree with a blank look, mumbled an apology and went over to the situation map, where he sat down next to the speaker of the battalion radio net. He sat there for all of five minutes before he was up pacing again.

The 2nd Battalion of the 354th Mechanized Infantry had crossed the line of departure on time at 2100 hours as part of an attack to support the corps’s main effort, also commencing at 2100 hours. The main attack, farther to the west, was being made by the 4th Armored Division and a British armored brigade. The 52nd Infantry Division, Mechanized, would follow. The 3rd

Brigade’s mission was to confuse the Soviets as to where the main effort was being delivered and pin as many enemy forces for as long as possible.

Since 2100 hours the only reports received at the
TOC
of the 2nd of the 354th had been that the line of departure had been crossed by the scout platoon, followed by the two lead companies. Either the enemy had withdrawn or they were sucking the battalion into a fire sack. While the unopposed progress was welcome, everyone knew that it would not and could not last.

The Soviets were out there, somewhere, waiting.

The battalion staff at the
TOC
was impatient. Every time the radio crackled to life, ears perked up and breath was held. Reports of negative contact did not bring sighs of relief, only heightened tension.

Until something happened, there was nothing for the people at the
TOC

to do.

Those staff officers with the command group, which was following the lead companies, were out there, moving forward, which at least gave them the sense of accomplishing something, doing something. The idle minds of the staff at the
TOC
, removed from the danger of battle, were fertile ground for nightmares and fear.

“Mike Four-four, this is Tango Three-two. Spot report. Over.”

Lewis turned to the board where the radio call signs were posted. It was the scout-platoon leader calling the S-3.

Tango Three-two, this is Mike Four-four. Send it. Over.” The in tell sergeant prepared to write the information down on a blank spot-report form. Lewis watched as Captain Norm Smithson, the assistant operations officer, stood near the map with grease pencil in hand, ready to mark the enemy locations sighted by the scouts.