“This is Sidewinder, go ahead Thunderbolt.”
“Sidewinder, I see about 20 enemy infantry trying to surrender. I’m going to drive slowly towards them and push them up your way, get the MPs ready to secure them. Have them march them down to the airport and turn them over to the security forces there.”
“I don’t like this sir. It’s too dangerous.”
“I’ll be buttoned-up. They don’t have anything that can kill the tank from close in. Just cover my rear and make sure no one shoves an RPG up my ass.”
“Roger,” a reluctant lieutenant said.
Alexander pulled the hatch shut above him, “Driver, move out at a walking speed to the south.” He began sluing the turret back and forth slowly. Within five minutes they rounded up 26 dazed Chinese infantrymen, half were wounded. The six MPs in their two Humvees led them off on Pingchiung Street under the freeway overpass towards the nearby airport.
Alexander noticed his knees were beginning to shake and that he was getting a bad headache. His mouth was tremendously dry. He reached inside the turret for his web gear and canteens, found one and drained the quart of water in one long gulp. He went back on the vehicle intercom, “Everyone take a water break, we’ve been in some hard fighting. Good job men. Damn good job!”
In small city of Hsichih, midway between the Taiwanese port city of Keelung and Taipei, the commander of the 12th Tank Division was simultaneously pleased and disturbed. He had much to be pleased with. Since landing the 93 tanks and 45 infantry fighting vehicles of the 121st Tank Regiment at noon, he had quickly assembled them and moved them to the outskirts of Taipei, losing only three BMPs in the process to a solitary Taiwanese tank.
A few minutes before 1700 hours, with the other two regiments of his division now landing at Keelung, he decided to send a reconnaissance-in-force into Taipei with the limited mission of capturing Taipei’s airport to deny its use to the enemy. The area around the airport was open enough that he wasn’t worried about getting bogged down into house-to-house fighting with his mechanized forces. Further, if the enemy perceived a threat to his capital, it would make his true task — a link up with elements of the 10th Tank Division in the vicinity of Hsintien eight kilometers south of Taipei — all the easier. With the battalion at Sungshan Airport, the remainder of the 121st Tank Regiment would then be able to roll down Highway 3, skirting the eastern edge of Taipei with little fear of a Taiwanese counterattack.
Within two hours his plan was proceeding well. The lead elements of his main effort had already made it to the Taipei suburb of Musha and the town of Shenkeng two klicks to the east. Hsintien was only seven kilometers southwest of his armored spearhead making him 12 hours ahead of schedule (his armor was to arrive at Hsintien no later than noon tomorrow to relieve the 1st Airborne Division which was to begin dropping onto the city early tomorrow morning).
Meanwhile, the supporting effort had just reported reaching the bridges on the Keelung Ho. Sungshan Airport was in sight at the cost of only three BMPs from the combat reconnaissance patrol (knocked out by a solitary Taiwanese M60A3 tank that retreated to the northwest as the Chinese armor began to arrive). Then, chaos descended on the battalion. Within minutes, the battalion’s forward security element reported sighting a platoon of tanks — American tanks, flying American flags! The battalion commander lost contact with his forward security element in only two minutes. The general suspected the Americans were at the airport in greater numbers than the forward security element reported and called his commander, the chief of the 12th Group Army, to tell him so.
The 12th Group Army commander called him a coward and assured him that the Americans couldn’t possibly be on the island (but, just in case, he called PLA command in Beijing and demanded reinforcements to contend with the American threat).
The 12th Group Army chief then ordered him to take the remainder of the battalion he committed to take the airport and finish the job before nightfall — hence his discomfort. In war, a thousand praises can be wiped clean by one failure. He listened intently as the battalion’s main body approached the airport. With 28 Type 85-II tanks, 11 BMP-2s, and six 122mm self-propelled howitzers, he knew this was a force to contend with. Monitoring the battalion’s radio net he was shocked to hear the battalion’s mechanized infantry company team annihilated in less than ten minutes. The intelligence map displayed the sightings of American M1 tanks. A platoon at the center of the airport, another two tanks at the east end of the airport, still more north of the Sun Yat-Sen Freeway — at least a company of heavy American armor! This was far more than his remaining two tank companies could be expected to handle, yet… there was the 12th Group Army commander to deal with.
Alexander’s knees were still shaking, although now somewhat less. He was slightly nauseated too — he knew he downed his canteen too fast. The Chinese prisoners and wounded had been rounded up and he was about to head back towards the Keelung Ho and pass under the Sun Yat-Sen freeway bridge when he caught movement out of his left eye. It was one of the Chinese tanks only 50 yards away! As its turret was rotating towards him, Alexander dropped inside his tank in what seemed like a maddening eternity. He grabbed the turret control and jerked the turret around to face the threat, he used his other hand to steady himself and wasn’t able to use the intercom. He screamed, “Gunner, sabot, tank!”
Peña, still cradling his canteen of water, spilled it in his lap as he seized the control yoke.
Jones yelled, “We have a HEAT round loaded.”
Alexander roared, “Fire! Fire the damn thing!”
The enemy tank fired, its sabot round hit the American tank on the front of the turret and penetrated through four inches of armor before stopping. The reverberating clang was brutally loud.
Peña called out, “On the way!”
The breach slammed back and nicked Jones’s protective suit, tearing a small hole in the hip, “Shit!” The young soldier realized how close he came to getting his hips pulverized.
The HEAT round exploded against the enemy tank with tremendous sound and fury. The tank’s bolt-on reactive armor did its job, however, and the shot’s only effect was to shake up the enemy crew. Reactive armor, pioneered by the Israelis and the Russians, is a fairly cheap way to harden tanks against HEAT-type rounds. Reactive armor is a small metal box with sensitive explosives inside. Dozens of them can be bolted onto the side of a tank. When a HEAT round triggers the box (no other type of ammo will), it explodes outward, disrupting the shaped jet of super hot and dense metal formed by the HEAT round. Once triggered, however, it leaves a vulnerable spot where the box and its nearby companions are blown free of the tank.
Alexander, knowing that the HEAT round probably didn’t do the job yelled, “Gunner, reengage, sabot, fire at will! Driver, pull left and face the tank. Go! Go! Go!”
The Chinese tank crew, now down to two men since the gunner was blinded earlier in the battle (the Type 85-II tank had an auto loader so the tank only had a three man crew) shook off the HEAT round’s impact (with the gunner out of commission, the TC took his place while the gunner sat uselessly at the TC’s station). The TC selected another sabot round and depressed his gun tube, aiming for the more vulnerable flank of the M1’s hull.
Jones opened the blast door, grabbed a sabot round and slammed it home. He got out of the way and yelled “Up!”
The Chinese gunner was dismayed to see the M1’s hull pivoting around. He raised his gun tube and aimed for the vulnerable turret ring (the spot where the turret meets the hull). His autoloader finished ramming first the sabot round home, then the charge (unlike the American tank, his main gun did not eject a shell casing). He began to squeeze the trigger.