The fourth company team, Team Delta, had given one tank platoon to the scouts. The other two platoons, both mech, were in positions behind the tank company in the center, which allowed them to fire their TOW missiles over the tanks.
If the Soviets continued to drive up along the western flank through the wadis there, they would have to contend with Charlie Company's dismounted infantry and face closein combat with the Bradleys' 25mm chain gun. If they went in the center, everyone would be able to fire on them. If the Soviets skirted the east, the tanks of both Team Bravo and Alpha Company would be able to deal with them, while Charlie Company's Bradleys on the west flank would have good TOW shots from across the valley.
Once the Soviets were committed, the battalion commander would have the artillery fire two scatter able mine fields, one in front of and one on top of the Soviets' column. While there was no doubt that the Soviets knew where the antitank ditch and mine field were, there was no way they could predict where and when the scatter able mines would go. If they were fired in conjunction with normal indirect artillery and mortar fire, direct fire from the tanks and the Bradleys and, if available, close air support from A-10s, the cumulative effect would be devastating.
Relentlessly the Soviets came on. Capell's scouts maintained a steady flow of reports on the Soviets' progress and actions. By the time the Soviet lead battalion deployed into lines with one company forward and others following the first, it had lost over ten vehicles to artillery and was having difficulty maintaining alignment. Capell's scout platoon and the tank platoon with them withdrew to either side of the advancing battalion without firing. Their primary mission, screening and reporting while the rest of the battalion deployed, had been accomplished. They would remain on the flanks and continue to report as Soviet follow-on battalions came into the fight.
Only when absolutely necessary would the scouts engage.
This bothered Capell. From the eastern flank he watched the Soviets moving south. His Bradley was hidden with only the turret exposed aboveground. His gunner, with the TOW launcher up and locked, was slowly tracking one of the Soviet tanks. It was a T-80 traveling by itself behind the first line of tanks and BRT-60 armored personnel carriers. It had to be the tank-company commander. For the next few seconds Capell debated whether he should ignore the order not to engage. It won't make a difference, he told himself. Who the hell's going to know?
A report from one of his section leaders broke his train of thought.
The second-echelon battalion was in sight, five kilometers behind the trail element of the first Soviet battalion. The report broke Capell's fixation on the T-80 they had been tracking and forced him to go back to his assigned tasks: observe and report.
The Soviets continued forward. Their orientation remained focused on the far-western side of the battalion sector. They were obviously headed there in an effort to skirt the antitank ditch and mine field.
Dixon could now see the Soviet companies, all fully deployed and following one behind the other, rushing toward his position. The Soviet tanks had cut on their smoke generators, creating clouds of white smoke that obscured everything behind them to the naked eye.
Thermal sights, however, cut through the diesel smoke. In another minute the lead elements would begin to encounter the broken-ground and wadi system where the dismounted infantry and the Bradleys waited. Artillery continued to fall about the Bradleys in spurts, taking its toll.
With nothing to do but wait until contact was made, Dixon began to notice small, obscure details. One of the T-80s in the lead was holding back and swerving from side to side. The tank commander, no doubt, was nervous and did not relish being with the lead element. For the first time, Dixon realized how nervous he was.
He could sympathize with that tank commander. How much easier it was to be sitting in the defense than running out across the open, knowing that everyone with an antitank missile was tracking you. Dixon looked down into his own turret. His gunner was calmly tracking a Soviet tank. Their TOW launcher was up and the ready-to-fire indicator was illuminated. All the gunner needed was one word.
The commander of Charlie Company gave that word as the lead Soviet tanks tripped across an imaginary line on the ground and entered Charlie Company's kill zone. Dixon watched as four Bradleys let fly their TOW missiles. The nervous T-80 was quickly alerted to the oncoming danger.
He fired smoke grenades and stopped moving, in an effort to screen himself.
The TOW that was targeted for him found its mark, however. The TOW gunner merely kept his thermal sight on the center mass where the T-80 had been and let the missile fly into the screen of smoke. A ball of flame followed by a rush of black smoke pushed the white smoke aside.
The T-80 was dead.
Not all the T-80s died from their first hits. Reactive armor, explosives in small metal boxes arrayed in front of the turrets of the T-80s, detonated with thunderous explosions and in some cases prevented the TOWS' warheads from penetrating the tanks' main armor. Dixon was amazed that crews were able to survive such a cataclysmic explosion.
Some did, rolling on, trailing a thin veil of smoke from smoldering scraps and hot steel. These successes were normally short-lived, however, as other TOWs marked the same tank and bored through. In less than a minute, all four lead tanks were burning or stopped: With the tanks gone, the Soviet BTRs came rolling out from under the smokescreen generated by the tanks. Their alignment was gone as they drove past burning tanks or zigzagged in an effort to confuse the Bradleys' TOW antitank guided missiles. But the Bradley gunners were not confused by the evasive maneuvers, and the BTRs, not protected by reactive armor, were easy prey: most of the TOW missiles found their mark and took their toll.
Despite the demise of the lead company, the next Soviet motorized rifle company rolled forward, past the foundering lead company. The second company had only two tanks in the lead and five BTRs. Artillery had already made its inroads. The folly of the Soviet deployment in column manifested itself as the second and third companies were, in their turn, smashed by
Charlie Company. Rather than hit in mass, the Soviets had presented themselves a little at a time. It reminded Dixon of watching a butcher feed meat into a grinder. Though each motorized rifle company drew closer to Charlie Company in its turn and was finally able to return fire, this gained it nothing but a quicker death as the 25mm chain guns came into play.
For a moment, there was a pause. The firing died down but did not completely stop. A few of the BTRs had made it into the wadis and their infantry had dismounted. A fight, pitting Soviet infantrymen supported by their BTR armored personnel carriers against Charlie Company's infantrymen and their Bradleys, now developed in the broken ground and wadis along the western flank of the American battalion's sector. Charlie Company had more than enough people and firepower to decide the issue if the Soviets were not reinforced. Dixon listened to the reports from the scouts as the second Soviet motorized rifle battalion entered the sector of the 3rd of the 4th Armor.
The Soviet second-echelon battalion apparently did not know that the first battalion had gained a foothold in the wadis. Instead of rushing forward and adding its weight to that fight, it rolled down along the eastern flank. The only reasonable explanation was that the regimental commander, surprised at the strength encountered in the west, had decided to try the left, hoping to find it lightly defended. Since the eastern side of the 3rd of the 4th Armor's sector was more open, the Soviets were able to deploy two companies forward, with the second company close enough to the first to support it by fire. The same openness also allowed the 3rd of the 4th to 235 mass the firepower of the remaining company and two teams, with telling effect. Once the Soviets were committed, Dixon called for the artillery to fire scatter able mines. These mines, in conjunction with the antitank ditch and the mines already in place, slowed and disrupted the well-orchestrated Soviet battle drill. Despite large volumes of artillery- and tank-generated smoke, efforts to breach the obstacles were frustrated by accurate M-1 tank fire. Soviet mine rollers and plows, along with MTU bridge layers, were destroyed as soon as they ventured forward.