The terrain Ali had picked for this battle was no accident. There was a slight rise in elevation to the front and on both sides which Ali would use to conceal his forces. The Apaches would also be able to use their distinctive top-mounted radomes to obtain a lock on non-camouflaged Leopards before their targets even knew they were there.
To lure the Qataris into the range of his M1A2s’ cannons, Ali had ordered that the Qataris’ Fennek armored reconnaissance vehicles were to be allowed to move forward untouched. Though Ali knew he risked having his ambush spotted, he thought they had a good chance of keeping the Qataris moving forward until it was too late to escape.
Ali’s goal was not simply the defeat of the Qatari force. It was to destroy it, and do so quickly enough that he could hurry north to relieve the weaker force that had been sent against the northern invaders. No matter what the Crown Prince thought, Ali believed they still had a good chance of pushing through to Riyadh.
Once the Reaper operator informed Ali that the Leopards were coming into range, he ordered the operator to engage them with his entire payload of four AGM-114 Hellfire missiles and two 500 lb. GBU-12 Paveway II laser-guided bombs. No sooner had he given that order than he had his eight Apaches each fire a Hellfire against their locked targets.
Within seconds, dozens of 120 mm M829A2 rounds fired by Ali’s M1A2 tanks were headed towards the Leopard 2s as well. Many of the Leopards deployed smoke and attempted to evade the incoming fire, while others immediately fired back at Ali’s tanks.
Almost at once Ali began receiving damage reports, and could see with his own eyes Abrams tanks that were destroyed by a single Leopard round. He winced when one M1A2 tank on his left flank exploded with a violence that told him some of its internal store of munitions had been detonated by a Leopard round, but refused to let it distract him from his battle plan.
Ali had put his M2A2 Bradleys on the flanks, and now ordered them to fire their TOW II missiles against any target where they could get a lock. Because their TOW II missiles were wire-guided, Ali knew the Bradleys were going to be some of his most exposed crews against the Qatari force. Unlike the Apaches with their “fire and forget” Hellfire missiles, the Bradleys couldn’t quickly pop into and out of the fight. They had to remain in visual contact with their target until the moment of impact.
Of course, visual contact worked both ways.
Many of the Leopards focused their fire on the M1A2 tanks, correctly judging them to be the greatest threat to their survival. As the battle progressed, though, and particularly once some of the Leopards began losing tracks to TOW II fire they started using some of their rounds against the Bradleys.
Some of the M1A2 tanks survived Leopard hits against their frontal armor, though most did not. The Bradleys, on the other hand, had no chance of survival. The impact of a Leopard 2’s 120 mm round would not only penetrate its spaced laminate armor, designed for protection against RPGs and 30 mm shells, but often send it tumbling across the desert sand.
The Bradleys also discovered some of the Qatari MOWAG Piranhas were equipped with 30 mm autocannons that quickly managed to punch through their armor, in spite of its supposed resistance to 30 mm shells. The answer was simple. While a single 30 mm hit was indeed unlikely to penetrate, the Piranhas’ autocannons were often able to deliver more than one shell to the same area of Bradley armor, particularly if its crew was focused on wire-guiding a TOW II missile to its target.
The Apaches had at first been able to pop up and fire their Hellfires with relative impunity, but after the first two rounds the Qataris were able to deploy man-portable anti-air missiles against them. First one, and then two Apaches were hit. Neither were a total loss, with one able to limp back to base trailing smoke, while the crew of the other was able to escape with only minor injuries after a hard landing. Then a third Apache was hit, and this time exploded with an ear-shattering force that meant its heavy munitions load had detonated.
Snarling curses, Ali ordered his Bradleys to concentrate fire on the locations where anti-air missiles had been fired. Though they were often unable to see the Qatari soldiers and their handheld anti-air missiles, a TOW
II missile delivered to the general area where a missile had been fired before usually meant none would be fired again. A few launches spotted at shorter ranges from the Bradleys were dealt with by either its M242 Bushmaster 25 mm chain-driven autocannon, or its M240 7.62 mm coaxial machine gun.
Once the remaining Hellfire missiles carried by the Apaches had been successfully launched, they moved on to the next phase of their orders. Ali had directed four Apaches be given an “anti-armor” load of sixteen Hellfire missiles, and the other four a “covering force” load of eight Hellfire missiles and thirty-eight Hydra 70 2.75-inch fin-stabilized unguided rockets. Two of the downed Apaches had anti-armor loads, so the two remaining returned to base to reload.
The three surviving Apaches with Hydra 70 rockets on board prepared to use them on the remaining Leopards. Few undamaged Leopards left were the ones without camouflage, since fifty-one Hellfire missiles had been fired at them and nearly all had hit. Though not every hit was a kill, most were, and many other hits rendered the Leopard immobile. And any tank, no matter how well armored, that couldn’t move on a modern battlefield counted its lifespan in minutes.
The strategy for using the Hydra 70 rockets on the camouflaged Leopards was simple. They might be difficult to target using the infrared sensor in a Hellfire, or in an M1A2 tank turret trying to see through clouds of dust. But, fire enough rockets into the center of that dust cloud, and you’d probably score some hits.
Ali had also stacked the odds in his favor by choosing to arm the Apaches with Hydra 70 rockets containing the M247 high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) warhead. With a little less than a kilogram of Composition B, a 60/40
RDX/TNT mixture, a single hit was unlikely to kill a Leopard. But the remaining Apaches had enough rockets between them to devote several to each surviving Leopard. It wouldn’t be enough to finish them off.
Until that is, they were able to go back to base and reload to the “escort” maximum of no Hellfires — and seventy-six Hydra 70 rockets.
Ali wasn’t having it all his way, as the continuing stream of damage reports coming over his headset reminded him. The Leopards’ gunnery skills were outstanding, and a hit from one of their cannons was far more likely to kill an M1A2 tank than the reverse. The MOWAG Piranhas were inflicting heavy damage on his Bradleys, as well as any Leopards that were finding them easy targets.
Efforts by the Leopards to push through the ambush, though, were being repeatedly thwarted by the Saudis’ superior firepower. Ali was working feverishly to coordinate fire by his armor and air assets on any attempt at a breakout. If he could just keep them pinned down long enough…
One after another, Leopards were hit by missiles, rockets and tank rounds.
The first to have their armor fail were ones that had suffered earlier hits from the bomblets deployed by the Tomahawks, but had remained mobile. Often the only damage they’d suffered was having their modular armor cleared away, but that made them far more vulnerable.
One of the principal advantages offered by the 2A7+ Leopard model was modular armor, which improved frontal protection with a dual-kit on the turret and hull front. Without it, the Leopard’s integral spaced multilayer armor would eventually fail. Sooner, in the case of a direct Hellfire missile hit. Later, in the case of TOW II missiles, 120 mm M829A2 tank rounds, or Hydra 70 rockets.