Once order had been restored and the staff was sufficiently recovered from their shock, Sulvina had each primary and special staff officer prepare an update for the commander. He wanted to review the army's plan and capability once more before the battle was joined.
The second officer outlined all current intelligence on the enemy.
Reports from the division's recon that night had not yet had time to reach army headquarters. A more complete picture would be ready just before the attack at dawn. The logistics officer, always harried, presented a picture of gloom. Based on statistics on hand and projected, the army did not have sufficient ammunition to conduct more than one major breakthrough attack.
He stressed that raids and attacks all along their supply routes were not only keeping ammunition from reaching the army in the quantities needed but were degrading the army's ability to supply itself at all.
Each time an ambush hit a supply column, trucks that were needed to haul future supplies were also lost. Even more critical than the ammunition shortage was the fuel situation. The logistics officer stated that the Americans were hitting anything that looked like a fuel dump, and he warned that unless the situation improved dramatically the army would run out of fuel within ninety-six hours.
Sulvina waited to discuss the next day's assault until he was alone with the commander. The 127th Motorized Rifle Division would conduct the main attack through Harvand against light-infantry units. Once the breakthrough was achieved, the 33rd Tank Division would be passed through the 127th MRD, probably in the vicinity of Tarom by midmorning.
A supporting attack by the 67th Motorized Rifle Division would hold the American armored brigade in place around Hajjiabad until the 33rd Tank Division was able to cut them off and isolate them.
If all went according to plan, Sulvina said, the American brigade facing them would be crushed in the next twenty-four hours. If the flow of fuel was not diminished any further, they would be able to reach the Strait of Hormuz, seize Bandar Abbas and complete their mission. If, however, anything went wrong, there was little hope for success. All the divisions in the 28th Combined Arms Army were wearing thin. Not only were supplies problem, but equipment and personnel were also at a critical level.
The 17th Combined Arms Army and the 9th Tank Army, whose assigned mission was to push through the 28th when the 28th could no longer advance, were no longer following. Instead, their divisions were diverted to other tasks.
The puppet government that had been set up to run the Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan was unable to control the Turkic tribes and required two full divisions to maintain order in Tabriz and other towns. Another division was tied down in Tehran chasing the shadows of Iranian rebels.
The majority of the 17th CAA was stretched between Tehran and Kerman, fighting remnants of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard and pro-U.S. Iranian groups being supplied by air. In short, there was no one except the well-worn 28th CAA left to finish the mission.
For better than an hour Sulvina and his commander discussed the situation and their options. In the end, at Sulvina's urging, the commander gave him permission to draft and transmit a message to the Front Commander recommending that the 28th CAA be authorized to employ chemical weapons.
Sulvina, upon leaving his commander returned to his small work area, where he pulled a prepared message from his field desk. He called the duty officer over, handed him the original copy of the message and instructed him to have it transmitted to Front Headquarters immediately. He then called in the assistant operations officer, the intelligence officer, the chemical officer and the artillery officer. He told them to prepare a list of targets that were vulnerable to chemical attack and present it to him for his review and approval by 0600 hours that morning.
After checking the situation reports and the most current intelligence one more time, Sulvina was satisfied that all was in order. With nothing more to do, he left word to wake him in four hours and then went to get some sleep. The next forty-eight hours were going to be critical and hard. The first thing in the morning he would begin to plan the next battle, the one that would take the 28th CAA to the Persian Gulf.
The reduction in the level of activity hadn't been noticeable at first.
In fact, it wasn't until shortly before 0400 hours that Capell realized that the Soviets were withdrawing and that the number of reports had been declining for the past hour. Even then he didn't attach any special meaning to that fact. His mind, like everyone else's, was running at half speed from stress, fatigue and lack of sleep. The reduction in action was greeted with relief and not questioned or considered suspect. Only the assistant intelligence officer at brigade, Lieutenant Matthews, saw the pattern.
Together with the report from airborne surveillance radars, she made the correct assessment. The patrols and the probing were over. The Soviets were about to attack.
The warning to prepare for a major Soviet attack going down to the battalions coincided with reports coming up from the scouts of the 2nd Brigade that the movement of large numbers of tracked vehicles could be heard. In the sector of the 3rd of the 4th Armor, tank crewmen and infantry squads scrambled onto their vehicles. Without waiting for or needing permission to move, company commanders rolled their platoons from their hiding positions into fighting positions. Members of the command group, woken with great difficulty, listened intently while they dressed to an update of the current situation given by the intelligence and operations officers who had been on duty during the night. Outside, their armored vehicles were being cranked up.
Within minutes the entire battalion was in motion, winding itself up for the impending battle.
The Soviet artillery bombardment came just before the first rays of light began to herald the new dawn. For most men in the armored battalion the artillery barrage was nothing more than a curiosity.
Soviet intelligence and artillery officers, confused by the battalion's dispersed nature, and the seemingly random digging by engineers, erred in their targeting. Few units were hit as the Soviet artillery fell on positions where vehicles used to be. While not all companies and platoons were equally lucky, the effect of the bombardment was, on the whole, negligible. Even the Soviet smoke rounds were of little use, as the gunners in Capell's Bradleys and M-1s switched their thermal sights on and continued to scan for signs of the enemy's advance.
In the gray morning twilight, the scout section of the battalion's western flank caught the first glimpse of the advancing Soviet columns at a range of eight kilometers. A quick spot report was followed by a call for artillery fire. Within minutes, U.S. artillery rounds were thundering north. The grim task of killing was well under way.
Dixon's Bradley pulled up into its position as the scouts completed sending in their first series of corrections to the artillery. By that time the Soviet columns were within five kilometers and beginning to deploy into platoon columns. Initial reports showed that they were headed for the western flank of the battalion's sector, where Dixon was situated.
That suited him fine. The battalion, with two tank and two mechanized companies, had deployed in positions that looked like a huge horseshoe on the map. One tank pure company, Alpha Company, was deployed across the valley floor behind an antitank ditch and a mine field. A pure-mech company, Charlie Company, was deployed on the high ground to one flank, with a tank-heavy company team, Team Bravo, on the other.