At 0700, the tank crews heard the sound of outgoing artillery. It sounded like Grad 122mm rockets rather than tube artillery.[28]
The rockets smashed into the village on the rise three kilometers to the west. At this signal, Abdirov's divided tank company moved out in the lead to occupy overwatch positions at the two farms. The remaining three companies followed suit once Abdirov's tanks were about 300 meters in advance.
Abdirov reached the main farm first, and was the first battalion officer to get a clear picture of the battle area. The objective, the village of Pressbach, was clearly visible across the neat farm fields. Abdirov was a bit taken back by how flat the terrain was after all the trouble getting through the woods. The area in front of Pressbach was completely open, with little opportunity for cover except for a few small dips in the ground. The battalion would have a rough time getting across the terrain if the enemy was well entrenched. Abdirov saw little evidence of enemy activity in Pressbach. The rocket barrage had started a few small fires and left a good deal of dust hanging over the village. Abdirov watched his crews skillfully select good sites with clear fields of fire. There was not a lot to hide behind, except some rubble from the damaged farm buildings. But at 3,000 meters, the enemy would have a hard time hitting his unit's tanks.
The other half of Abdirov's company, commanded by Sr. Sgt. Vasily Levchenko, reached the small farm near Hill 320 at about the same time. They began moving into the wreckage of the farm buildings, but came under missile fire from the neighboring woods. The enemy antitank gunners had not been destroyed, only driven back by Larikov's earlier tank fire. One T-80M was hit in the rear in the engine, and the fuel began burning fiercely. The crew managed to get out, but came under small arms fire from the woods on Hill 320. Levchenko swung his tank toward the woods to face the enemy with the heaviest array of steel and explosive armor.
Another missile struck tank 421, but the blast was deflected by the reactive armor. A third missile hit the top of the engine deck of tank 422, setting it on fire. Levchenko, and Sergeant Shmurian in the other surviving tank, opened fire on the woods. The enemy missile teams distracted them from their main mission of providing overwatch coverage for the main attack. But if they abandoned their defensive positions the missile teams might very well catch them exposed and knock them out as well.
No one was paying any attention to the fighting around Hill 320. All eyes were on the main attack toward Pressbach Hill. As Krylov had feared, the unit they faced was not a spent German territorial mechanized infantry brigade, but the lead element of American reinforcements from the 1st Armored Division. The Americans facing them were two platoons of M1A2 Abrams tanks (the improved version of the M1A1, with depleted uranium armor), two M3A2 Bradley cavalry scout vehicles, and a platoon of M2 Bradleys with infantry. The people giving Levchenko's tanks so much trouble were the infantry platoon. The American force was located mainly on the eastern edge of Pressbach. Their tanks had had plenty of time to pick good firing positions, and the higher elevation of the town offered further advantage. The American tankers were outnumbered about four to one, eight tanks to fewer than forty. But their tanks were better, and they held terrain advantages.
The Americans also enjoyed a bit of support. As the 18th Guards Independent Tank Battalion came spilling over the rise and onto the fields in front of Pressbach, the Americans called in artillery. The American commander had surveyed the scene, and had noted the gully to the southeast of his position. He decided to try to block it by requesting some artillery scattered mines. He also requested a lighter concentration immediately in front of his position, to the northeast. If the Soviets noticed the mines, they would tend to move to the center of the town, where the heaviest concentration of American forces was positioned. The artillery dropped a load of FASCAM antitank mines in the two locations in front of Pressbach in the moments following the arrival of the Soviet tanks.[29]
Krylov's battalion saw the overhead airburst of the FASCAM, but, tightly buttoned up in their tanks, had no precise idea of what the airbursts were. The FASCAM strike was followed by some desultory salvoes of ICMs (improved conventional munitions). The ICM submunitions are grenades about the size of a film canister. They contain a small shaped charge that is large enough to punch a hole through the roof armor or engine deck of a tank. A lucky hit can start a fuel fire or break a track. But American troops had grown fond of them since they could be used to strip Soviet tanks of their reactive armor.
Krylov's concentration was upset by the sounds of explosions around him. The enemy's artillery was firing the much detested ICM rounds at them. Krylov saw the explosive panels on several tanks explode, but the tanks continued on, unimpeded. He hoped that no crews would panic like Abdirov's had done the night before.
The ICM attack was not decisive, but it was more than just a nuisance. Two tanks were hit on the fenders, and an ICM explosion shattered a track link. The tanks were moving at about forty miles an hour, so the split track quickly broke loose, embedding one side of the tank in the soft farm field. One other tank suffered a small fuel fire from an ICM hit, and at least three more had some reactive armor panels explode. The exploding panels did not cause the confusion of the night before, if only because in the daytime the crews could more easily see that their tank had not been mortally wounded. Combat in the daytime is far less frightening than at night.
Abdirov's tanks at the farm attempted to provide fire support for their attacking comrades, but the level of dust, smoke, and mist made it difficult, if not impossible, to pick out any targets at first. Abdirov hoped the situation would clear up once the enemy began firing.
The two American tank platoons held their fire as the Soviets charged forward. At about 2,500 meters, the Abrams began probing the Soviets with their laser range finders. Although they could hit tanks at such a range, the probability of penetration was reduced. As the Soviet tanks began approaching the 2,000-meter range, the American tanks began firing.
The Americans could clearly see the Soviets, since they were using their thermal sights, even though it was daytime. The turbine engines at full power kicked up an infrared exhaust plume, which silhouetted the tank against it when viewed through a thermal sight. The first salvo of eight 120mm APFSDS (armor-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot) rounds struck in rapid succession. There were seven hits of eight shots. Five hits were kills; the victims exploded in oily fireballs. Two other hits stopped the tanks, but failed to ignite internal stowage.
The APFSDS ammunition used by the Americans hits the tanks at a speed of a mile per second. The depleted uranium rod smashes its way through successive layers of steel, ceramic armor, and more steel. The projectile enters the tank hull like a gory sparkler, spewing a supersonic stream of incandescent metal fragments into the interior. The fragments ricochet off the inside armor of the tank, mutilating the crew and igniting flammable material.
The T-80 tank is an explosion waiting to happen. In the bow, there are fuel tanks on either side of the driver. At the rear of the fuel cells are stowage points for some of the spare ammunition.
The large carousel in the floor contains the remaining twenty-three rounds of ammunition in two layers, with the propellant on top. Behind the carousel is another fuel cell, and more ammunition. Once the propellant casings are ripped open and begin to burn, the tank is doomed. The propellant is difficult, if not impossible, to extinguish without an automatic fire extinguisher system. The Soviet system is manual. Once one propellant casing begins to explode, nearby casings begin cooking off in rapid succession. The large quantity of combustible materials, and the ferocity of the metal shards from the APFSDS projectile, create a volatile combination in the inside of the tank. A catastrophic explosion often follows after a few seconds of small-scale fires.
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FASCAM is the acronym for family of scatterable artillery mines. The antiarmor mines are called RAAM (remote antiarmor mine). A 155mm RAAM mine contains three of these mines, which are dispersed at some height over the ground by a proximity fuse.