After a quick consultation with Polgar, Uleski decided on a slight variation. Rather than trying to stop the Soviets before they reached the small open area in the woods, they would yield this small patch of open ground to the Soviets. Uleski hoped the Soviet commander would seize upon any opportunity that came his way to deploy his tanks and attack whatever threat he came across in mass. The problem with this, from the Soviet’s perspective, was that the lead tanks would need to slow down in order to allow the follow-on tanks to emerge from the woods at the eastern edge of the clearing and swing out to the left and right in order to get into line before attacking across the small clearing.
To meet this attack, he deployed the 3rd Platoon on either side of the trail right at the tree line on the western edge of that clearing. The Mech Platoon, divided into two groups, deployed on either side of 3rd Platoon in positions that would allow them to cover the kill zone with a deadly crossfire using their Dragons. It was a risky plan, one neither Uleski not Polgar felt completely comfortable with, for the kill zone was little more than a two hundred meters deep, east to west, and three hundred meters wide, north to south. If the Soviets were quick, they’d be able to overrun the 3rd Platoon and push on into the valley where the mech infantry companies were still in the process of sorting themselves out.
As Polgar was about to leave his side, Uleski put a hand out and stopped him. The XO felt as if he should say something, give the veteran platoon sergeant some last minute advise, or share a word of encouragement as Captain Bannon often did. But nothing came to mind. Polgar knew what to do, Uleski told himself. So did he. With that, the young officer wished him luck before heading back to Alpha 55, which was sitting right in the middle of the trail with its main gun oriented to the east.
The lead Soviet tank slowed, then stopped as soon as it reached the eastern edge of the kill zone. Uleski had no doubt its tank commander was reporting back to his commanding officer. Concerned that the Russian had seen Garger’s tanks, which the crews had had no time to camouflage, he gave the order to open fire.
As one, two 3rd Platoon tanks let lose, quickly destroying the T-72 and giving away their positions. As he watched the T-72 burn, Uleski got Polgar on the radio and told him to get his people into position fast. With the ambush sprung before he had planned, the XO knew it wouldn’t be long before the Soviets made their next move. As he waited to see what it would be, he reported back to battalion, requesting artillery further east along the trail where the Soviets were probably beginning to stack up.
As unhappy as Uleski was with the situation, the Soviet battalion commander was even more distraught. Every time he thought he was on the verge of breaking out of the cursed woods and into the open, something happened to frustrate him. Even worse, his regimental commander, who was pushing him to attack and seal off the breach the Americans and Germans had made would not listen to reason. With his battalion bottled up on the trail with little room to maneuver, he once more appealed to his regimental commander to allow him to pull back, regroup, and seek out another, more tank friendly avenue of approach. This request was greeted with a hail of threats and abuse, which were followed by a threat the battalion commander knew the regimental commander had every intention of making good on if he failed.
Realizing he had no alternative, the battalion commander ordered his remaining tanks, now down to eighteen, to close up under cover of the woods and wait until he gave the order to advance. When he did, he told the last of his officers they were to rush into the open area to their front, deploy on line as best they could, and attack the far tree line before pushing on and through it. He hoped they would be able to overwhelm the enemy with speed and firepower. He hoped some of his tanks would breakthrough to the open ground beyond even as he was reminding himself that hope was never a sound basis for a plan. Still, with no other choice, he prepared himself as best he could and gave the order to advance.
Major Snow blew up when he was ordered to turn around and fly back to attack the target he had just been told was no longer there. “Those people in flight operations have no idea what they’re doing,” Snow declared to his wingman over the air and in the clear so that everyone on the net would hear him. “If they wave us off one more time, we’re going to go back there and bomb the shit out of them.” His wingman, who was just as peeved with the way they were being jerked around, came back with the recommendation that they forget the mission and just bomb the controllers. Still, with little choice but comply, Major Snow simply shook his head and turned back to the heading they had just left. Maybe, just maybe, he told himself, this time there would be something there.
To Uleski’s surprise, rather than pull in their horns and look for another avenue of approach, the T-72s began to pour out of the tree line and fanned out to the left and right just as he had hoped. The only problem was Polgar and his people were still not yet in position. With so short a distance and so few tanks to stop the Soviets, Uleski had no doubt that some of the T-72s would make it to them. He knew as they began to fire that it was going to be a hard fight, one he could very easily lose.
During their run in, Snow could clearly see columns of black smoke on the horizon, causing him to wonder if he and his wingman were too late to join the party thanks to the way flight ops had bungled the mission. As they neared the target area, he began to spot numerous vehicles, some of which had already been knocked out, scattered about in a broad valley that ran south to north. But they weren’t where he’d been ordered to attack. Further east, in a saddle between two wooded hills marked by several columns of smoke, was where he and his wingman had been directed to.
Banking sharply to their right, the A-10s closed on that spot, which turned out to be a small clearing in the woods crowded with tanks. Neither Snow nor his wingman knew whose they were. Without a forward air controller on the ground to help, the only thing left to do was to overfly them and check them out. Commenting to his wingman that this was a hell of a way to do business, Snow dropped down and went in.
One pass was all he needed. With a firm handle on what was happening on the ground, he brought his A-10 up, circled around, and told his wingman to follow him in on the next run. The tanks lined up on the east-west trail that were spilling out into a small open area were Russians. Finally, they were going to get to kill something.
At first Uleski thought the aircraft that buzzed overhead was Soviet. It had come and gone too fast for anyone to see, not that anyone had been looking. The entire clearing was filled with T-72s. The 3rd Platoon was firing as fast as possible and receiving return fire from the advancing Soviets. When he reported the aircraft, the Team’s FIST came back and told him that they should be A-l0s he had requested. Not sure, Uleski continued with the business at hand and hoped for the best.
The A-l0s came in from behind the Soviets and opened up with their 30mm cannons. In a shower of armor-piercing and HE shells, T-72s began to blow up. As the two A-10s overflew the western edge of the tree line, Snow noticed the American tanks there firing on the Soviets. He cautioned his wingman to watch out for them. There was only two hundred meters between the US and the Soviet tanks. This, he thought to himself as they came around to make another run, was truly close air support.