T-80 tanks standing off and attempting to provide cover fire for the mine rollers and plows were, in their turn, destroyed. Seeing no way around the obstacle and little chance of bulling through, the Soviets began to withdraw.
As the battle began to ebb, Dixon's assistant called him on the radio and asked if he had been monitoring the brigade-command frequency.
Dixon, caught up in the battalion's fight, had not. The assistant S-3 reported that the brigade was having difficulty contacting the 1st of the 503rd Infantry. That battalion had reported earlier that it was being hit by tanks and BMPs, and after several sketchy reports it had stopped answering the brigade's calls.
Dixon was concerned. If the infantry battalion had been hit by a regiment equipped with BMPs, odds were that the main effort was going in against the 503rd and not the 3rd of the 4th Armor. The fight that was dying out to his front was probably nothing more than a supporting attack whose purpose was to divert attention while the Soviets broke through the infantry battalion.
Dixon contacted his commander and relayed his conclusions. The battalion commander concurred and, in turn, contacted the brigade commander, with the result that the armored battalion was instructed to make physical contact with the 1st of the 503rd Infantry and clarify the situation over there.
With the scouts forward, Charlie Company still flushing out the Soviet survivors, and the battalion commander needed in the battalion sector, it was up to Dixon to make that contact. Besides, Dixon knew where the two battalions'
designated contact points were. Without giving it further thought, he ordered his driver to back the Bradley out of its position.
Even after the Bradley had moved into the infantry sector-having avoided enemy fire by traveling along covered and concealed routes-it inched along with caution. Since they were approaching the other battalion's positions from the rear and were five kilometers from where the front line should be, they had more to fear from a nervous U.S. infantryman armed with an antitank rocket launcher than from the Soviets.
As they moved forward through a narrow, twisting wadi, Dixon had a crewman in the rear compartment switch the radio to the battalion-command frequency of the 1st of the 503rd Infantry and attempted to raise someone on that net. There was no response. After three unsuccessful attempts, he decided to try a company command net in that battalion. Just as Dixon lowered himself onto his seat inside the turret and pulled out his code book to look up the company frequencies, his gunner screamed, "Jesus Christ! Back up-no, driver, stop! On the waaay!" This was immediately followed by a long burst of 25mm cannon fire as the gunner held his trigger down, pumping out rounds.
Dixon was startled. He looked at his gunner, who had now stopped firing, and shouted at him without keying the intercom, "What the fuck are you doing?"
The gunner didn't answer, but kept his eye glued to his sight. Then it dawned upon Dixon what had happened. Letting the code book fall to the floor, he popped his head up out of the turret and looked in the direction the 25mm gun was pointed. To their front, at a range of less than twenty meters, was a burning Soviet BMP, its 30mm gun aimed at Dixon.
Chapter 13
My center gives way, my right is pushed back, situation excellent, I am attacking.
Instead of diminishing, the volume of small-arms fire directed against the advancing Soviet formations was increasing. Isolated pockets of enemy infantry were coming out of hiding and engaging the men of the 1st Battalion, 381st Motorized Rifle Regiment. The Americans had not crumpled as before and had, instead, recovered from their initial attack and in some cases seemed to be counterattacking.
Neboatov's company had again been the second attack echelon of the battalion. As before, the preparatory artillery bombardment had silenced all resistance as the attacking force approached. Again the battalion had rolled over the American forward positions and driven for the regiment's objective. This time, however, the battalion had been hit by a combination of close-in antitank rockets and long-range antitank guided missiles. The antitank guided missiles, or ATGMs, had been set up behind hills and in wadis in the Americans' rear areas.
From these well-covered and well-concealed positions, the ATGM teams were impossible to detect before they fired.
Even when the positions were detected, by the time effective fire could be massed against them the ATGM teams were gone, moved to another hidden position farther up the valley.
While the American level of fire was insufficient to stop the attacking columns, it slowed the advance, delayed the commitment of follow-on forces and forced the lead regiment to turn against the resisting Americans. This task fell to the 381st Motorized Rifle Regiment. It was forced to dismount its riflemen, in order to clear the shoulders of the penetration in preparation for the commitment of the 127th Motorized Rifle Division's own tank regiment and the 33rd Tank Division.
The resulting fight pitted the regiment's riflemen, backed by their tanks and BMP-2 infantry-fighting vehicles, against an elusive foe that moved from one hidden position in the high ground to the next. American infantrymen, deployed on the lower heights, defended the antitank-guided-missile teams located farther up the hillside. When Soviet riflemen began to close on a position and threaten to overwhelm it, the ATGM teams would move while the infantry covered them. They, in their turn, would move to the next prepared position that covered the ATGM teams already in place.
The problem for Neboatov's battalion was to get past and around the Americans, isolate them. bring superior firepower and numbers to bear and then crush them. While they had the advantage of having BMPs to carry them, the vehicles were easily tracked and often frustrated by obstacles, mines or antitank guided missiles. A hit on a BMP by an antitank guided missile resulted in the dual loss of a fighting vehicle and a squad of riflemen.
Cutting off the Americans did not seem to bother them; they remained just as dangerous, moving about along concealed routes in small groups, infiltrating past the surrounding Soviet riflemen. On occasion, they would fall on the rear of Soviet riflemen who were maneuvering against another position. The result was a confusing swirl of battle that knew no front or rear, no friendly lines or hostile positions. Just chaos and sudden death.
After a failed attempt to destroy a pocket of resistance, Neboatov was trying to rally his men and plan their next move. After three hours of playing cat and mouse among the rocks and the wadis, he was running out of ideas and was frustrated. He ordered his driver to tuck their BMP into a small draw near one of his platoons so that they would be out of harm's way while he collected his command and his thoughts. No sooner had they pulled in than his battalion commander's BMP rolled up. Both officers dismounted from their vehicles and walked over to a spot near some large rocks to discuss the situation out of earshot of their men.
The crews of the two BMPs, exhausted and hot from driving about buttoned up, dismounted and took the opportunity to relax and eat something. Sitting on top of their vehicles, they picked at their combat rations, drank from their canteens and speculated among themselves what would happen next.