From the driver's compartment, Billy simply answered, "Yeah." He was nervous. As he sat there maintaining the engine at a steady idle, he sweated. Alone in the forward nose of the tank, he could see nothing, only the dirt of the protective berm that covered everything but the tank's sights. At least the three men in the turret, physically located in close proximity to each other, could draw comfort from that closeness. The driver had only steel, fuel cells and instruments to share his ordeal.
As they waited for the troop commander's order to fire, Pulaski issued his fire command to the crew. With his hand on the tank commander's override, he yelled out, "Gunner-Sabot. Two moving tanks. Left tank first."
The gunner, already tracking their intended targets, quickly responded, "Identified."
The loader had little to do. There was already a round in the chamber.
He armed the main gun and cleared the path of recoil, and his response of "Up" quickly followed the gunner's cry.
Now they waited. The gunner tracked his target. He waited, watched and sweated. The driver, keyed up, was ready to move the tank into its final firing position. The loader, hanging on to his guards, watched the breech, ready to spring up and feed another round into it as soon as the gun fired.
Pulaski, still standing in the open hatch, looked down at the two men in the turret, checking to ensure they were ready. The impact of artillery just behind the lead Soviet tank drew Pulaski's attention to his front again. Seeing the enemy approaching the troop's kill zone, he lowered himself and prepared for battle.
The radio came to life as the platoon leader issued his orders. "All Hotel elements-this is Hotel Nine-five. Occupy firing positions."
On cue, Pulaski called out, "Driver, move forward. Gunner, take over."
The gunner bent over to his left and looked through the auxiliary sight, simple telescope attached to the right side of the main gun, to watch for the tank's main gun to clear the dirt berm. He held the main-gun control handles. This would keep the fire control's stabilization system engaged and maintain the sight and the gun on target as the tank moved. The driver moved the gearshift lever from park to forward and hit the gas. The M-IAI shot forward and began to rise, its gun automatically depressing. Once the gunner could see over the berm, he yelled out,
"Driver, stop!"
No sooner had they moved into position and the gunner returned to his primary sight, than the platoon leader came over the net again, "All Hotel elements-this is Hotel Nine-five. Fire!"
Pulaski bellowed out, "Fire!"
The gunner, still tracking the target, hit the thumb switch on his right control handle, activating the laser range finder. A digital readout showing the distance between the M-lAI and its target came up into view.
The range readout looked right to the gunner. With the ready to-fire indicator showing all was ready, he yelled, "On the waaay" to warn the crew he was firing and pulled the trigger on his control handle.
In an instant the tank bucked and was engulfed in a cloud of dust from the muzzle blast caused by the exit of the 120mm. projectile and propellant gases. Inside, the breech block moved back, opening automatically and spitting out the small base plate of the expended shell into a box hanging from the breech. The smell of cordite mixed with those of sweat and oil.
Without waiting, the loader opened the ammo storage door and hauled out the next round. The dual screech of "Target!" from both the tank commander and the gunner did not stop or slow him. There were more Soviet tanks out there that needed to be destroyed.
From his position with the second-echelon battalion, Captain Neboatov followed the battle as it was joined. The scene unfolding before him was far cry from his first encounter with the Americans in late June.
Then it had been a walk in the park. He had not even realized that they had penetrated the Americans' main defensive positions.
Today, however, would be far different. Despite an impressive thirty-minute Soviet artillery barrage, the Americans appeared to be not only alive but quite unaffected. The Soviet first-echelon battalions were still in columns of companies when American artillery began to fall on them. At first the artillery fire fell behind the companies That error, however, was quickly corrected, with telling effect. The rounds being used threw out many small bomblets that hit the tops of the tanks and BMPs of the lead battalion.
Each bomblet had a tiny shaped charge that could penetrate the thin armor covering the tops of the vehicles. Every volley of American artillery engulfed a large portion of the lead battalions in a sudden cloud of black smoke and flame. As it cleared, T-80 tanks and BMPs could be seen staggering out of line or simply burning where they had been hit.
Neboatov saw multiple puffs of smoke and dust appear in the distance to the front. Enemy tanks and antitank guided missiles firing. He watched as near-misses threw great clouds of dirt up in front of tanks and BMPs in the lead battalions. There were, however, few misses.
Armor-piercing penetrators traveling a mile a second impacted with a large, brilliant white spark when they hit steel. Reactive armor on the T-80s detonated but did not deter the depleted uranium penetrator as it literally pushed its way into the tank it hit. As the penetrator did so, it also pushed a plug of the tank's own armor, the same diameter as the penetrator, into the interior of the tank. Both the plug of armor and the penetrator, superheated by the rapid conversion of kinetic energy into heat, ripped through everything in their path.
Crewmen, on-board ammunition, hydraulic lines and fuel cells were torn open. Flammables were ignited. Propellants of stored main-gun rounds, blowing up in the confined space of a tank with all hatches closed and locked down, rocked the tank with thunderous explosions.
Sometimes the explosions tore the fifteen-ton turret from the hull and threw it into the air as if it were made of cardboard.
The pace of the advance did not quicken. As the lead battalions moved at what appeared to Neboatov to be a painfully slow pace, they left in their wake a trail of shattered and burning hulks quivering from the explosions of their own ammunition and cremating their crews. There was little doubt that Neboatov's company, part of the follow-on battalion, would be committed early that day. Watching the number of burning and disabled vehicles increase by the minute, he realized they would be needed even before they had cleared the American cavalry screen and hit the enemy's main defensive positions.
The paratroopers were slow to form up into squads and disperse. Too many stood on the drop zone waiting for someone to tell them what to do and where to go. Senior Lieutenant Ilvanich seemed to be everywhere that morning, directing men where to go, yelling at those too scared to react and using his boot to motivate the slow and reluctant. Junior Lieutenant Malovidov followed Ilvanich's lead as the two officers struggled to establish some semblance of order after a near-disastrous jump. Their efforts were assisted by the faint light thrown off by the burning wreckage of a transport plane brought down by American antiaircraft missiles.
As he ran from group to group, Ilvanich couldn't help but think how few of the men he knew. Losses sustained during two combat jumps, two major air assault operations, several raids and numerous patrols and ambushes had made serious inroads in the company's original complement.
There were few men with the company that day who had jumped into Tabriz on 25 May.
Replacements and men from units that had been disbanded may have brought the company up to full strength, but did not make a coherent, combat-capable unit. The new officers and men did not know one another or the old members of the company. The trust and confidence between leaders and those they led that resulted from countless hours of training were missing. The men new to the unit knew the basics of soldiering but had never worked together. Simple combat drills that used to be easily executed by Ilvanich's old platoon required twice the time to perform and all of Lieutenant Malovidov's efforts to make happen simply because they had not had enough time to practice.