The enemy soldiers were already in position, spreading out along the gully. Suddenly there was a roar and more than three dozen flames seemed to jab out from the lip of the wadi and the vehicles hull-down in it. At the receiving end, the effect was rather like being caught in a cloudburst, the hail of fire torrenting off the rocks and ricocheting across the gaps. In the middle of the hail, Admire saw a group of the enemy leave the protection of the gully and run forward to a new position. It was too quick for anybody to do anything but wait for the next one.
That didn’t take long, there was another torrent of fire and again, a group from the gully tried to run forward. This time the Marines were ready, the MMG lashed out a string of tracers and a couple of the men went down. More were hit by the rifle fire from the new M-14s.
The response was immediate, half a dozen of the enemy machineguns concentrated on the MMG position while others hosed down areas where muzzle flashes had been spotted. The Marines who survived learned a valuable lesson, fire a shot, get the hell out of Dodge.
Admire shook himself, his command was already taking a battering, he’d lost both his bazooka teams and one of his MMGs and the action was only a few seconds old. Out in front, the enemy were still edging forward, small groups of men dashing up, supported by the sleet of fire from the machineguns. As the enemy infantry were getting closer, their own fire was becoming more effective.
“Classic fire and maneuver. It’s what we teach but I’ve never seen it done this well before. Just who the devil are those people?”
On the Goat-Track, Sinai Coast, south of Gaza.
“Just who the devil are those people?” Jaeger cursed. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. The rules were quite clear, you’d hit the bad guys with mortars, charge them, give them a good blast with machinegun fire start to advance on them. Then the raggies would run away and his men could shoot them as they ran. Only it wasn’t happening. The men in the rocks were fighting hard. And well.
Already Jaeger was losing men to the enemy fire. He’s expected to have a couple hit by a machinegun if the enemy had one but his people were going down to rifle fire. On his command car, the nose machinegun was being tired by the driver, one of those infernal ritlemen had picked off the original gunner. He was beginning to run out of time as well, the devastating concentration of fire from the MG42s could only be sustained so long, barrels were overheating, ammunition was running short. As the volume of fire slackened, the enemy would be able to fight back more effectively and those damned riflemen could make each shot count.
“Don’t know sir. They aren’t raggies that’s for sure. Fight more like Russians. Sir, if they had experience to match their skills we’d be deep in hurt by now.”
Jaeger nodded. The enemy was inexperienced, that was clear, their positions were too obvious and too far forward and that had cost them badly. And their fire discipline had left a lot to be desired. But, the survivors would be learning fast. Which didn’t answer the question. Just who the devil were they?
“Sir, Panzers!”
“I know sergeant, they are out on our left flank.”
“No Sir, not ours, enemy coming out of the rockpile.”
Enemy panzers? Jaeger began to get a sick feeling of apprehension He focused his binoculars on the spot where the goat track entered the rockpile. There they were, tanks for certain. Jaeger twisted the focus on his binoculars, already sure what he was going to see. Sleek, low hull, five roadwheels, big flatsided turret with an absurdly long gun. M60A3s. American. And there was only one organization that could put heavy tanks onto a hostile beach. They were fighting American Marines. Jaeger shuddered and looked up at the sky, already expecting to see it turn black with SACs bombers. The stars still shone down though, through a desert-clear sky.
“Sergeant, we are fighting American Marines. We’ve got to get this finished before their air support arrives. Get the Landsers moving forward fast. This is going to cost us.”
M60A3 “Fox-Two-Five “ In Front Of the Rockpile
The tactical problem was that the track through the rockpile was the only way vehicles could maneuver. The rocks were too broken and jagged to allow the tanks across, they had to stick to the goat track. So they would be debouching on a narrow front. Fortunately the enemy troops that had been giving Charlie Two-Three a hard time were all north of the track. So he could swing his tanks south, form up then roll up the enemy position, south to north.
According to the fragmentary reports from Two-Three, they were facing infantry backed up with mortars, no big deal, the tanks could take them. Then, Fox-Two-Five hit a runnel in the track and lurched forward. Lieutenant Dixon bounced off the rim of the cupola and cursed. Once they were out of the rocks and off this apology for a path of course. Ahead of him, the long 120 millimeter gun come close to grounding with the lurch. The new gun had been a controversial feature of the M60 series, a lot of people preferred the faster-firing and more manageable 90 millimeter installed on the old M48 series. Eventually, supporters of the big gun had their way, the 90 was at the end of its development potential and the 120 had a much more effective HE shell.
The five tanks burst out of the Rockpile in line ahead and swung south, forming into echelon left as they did. Almost immediately Dixon’s thermal viewer picked up a shimmer above the dune line ahead of them.
“Uh-oh guys we have company. Vehicles ahead, I’m picking up their exhaust plume.”
That was a complication, with another vehicle force to the south of them, they would have to take that out before engaging the force to the north. So Charlie-Two-Three would have to hold for a little longer. The five tanks formed into line abreast, accelerating as they closed on the position to the south. The sand was a lot smoother than the track had been but it was soft and the treads weren’t operating to maximum efficiency. Even so, the M60 was a lot faster than the old M48 had been.
Peering through the commander’s station, Dixon saw the angular shape of a tank turret peeping just over the ridge. From what he knew of Caliphate armor, it would be a Chimp tank. That meant fast, well-gunned but paper-thin armor. He tried to get a range using the infra-red optical target tracking system but either he was unlucky or the Chimp tank had an infrared detector. As soon as he illuminated it, the tank backed out of sight.
A few seconds later another tank appeared, obviously taking over the watch. Illuminated - and disappeared. After a couple more brief visitors, Dixon realized the Caff tank crew had made a mistake, each time they reappeared, they did so in the same place. “Slow down, take them as they come over the ridge next time.” Dixon followed his own orders, slowed Fox-Two-Five down and trained the gun on the piece of ridge the Caff had used last.
At first he thought he’d fired, there was the same crashing noise and the same choking smoke. Only this time the smoke didn’t clear and the fire alarm was whooping. They’d been hit, an armor piercing shot had smacked through the side of the turret and the whole tank was burning. “Everybody OUT OUT OUT.” Standard rule, after the third OUT anybody who said “What?” was talking to themselves. His loader wouldn’t care, he was gone, smeared over the inside of the turret basket. Direct hits from AP shot tended to do that to a man.
Dixon went out through the cupola and jumped clear rolling as he landed. His gunner did the same. Two. Then Dixon heard the hammering from the driver’s compartment. When the tank hydraulics had caught fire, the 120 had pivoted downwards under its own weight and jammed the driver’s hatch shut. Dixon ran forward and jumped onto the burning tank, wrenching at the drivers hatch with his hands. He got it an inch open, then a couple of inches more but it was jammed tight. He couldn’t work out who was ringing bells, then saw it wasn’t bells after all. Somebody was machine-gunning the tank and the bells were bullets bouncing off the armor. He wrenched again at the tank, feeling his skin splitting and crackling with the heat in the metal. Then, there was a hammer blow in his back and he slid off the tank.