One by one, Leopards began dying under the harsh Saudi sun.
By the time the five surviving Apaches returned with their new loads of Hydra 70 rockets, fewer than thirty Leopards remained. One last anti-air missile was fired by a brave Qatari soldier who had burrowed into the desert sand, and it claimed an Apache that blew up with the huge thunderclap to be expected from the simultaneous explosion of seventy-six Hydra 70 rockets.
Ali’s remaining Bradleys were quick to direct cannon and machine gun fire to the spot where the soldier had been hidden, and no more anti-air missiles were fired that day.
Three hundred and four Hydra 70 rockets poured into the dust clouds that marked surviving mobile Leopards. Though the number fired at each was not perfectly divided, since the average number of rockets with HEAT warheads available per target was about ten, it hardly mattered.
Quarter was neither asked nor offered. The Qataris were on the Saudi battlefield because they believed the blockade and the construction of the Salwa Canal amounted to a declaration of war. The Saudis saw them as invaders who deserved no mercy.
Once the last Leopard had been destroyed, Ali’s armor and air assets began the systematic destruction of the remaining Qatari APCs and support vehicles. Finally, troops dismounted from the Bradleys and searched the battlefield for Qatari survivors.
There weren’t many, and they didn’t include Prince Bilal, who had died when his Leopard 2 had been hit by a 120 mm tank round and no fewer than nine Hydra 70 rockets. The survivors who were found were put into trucks that transported them to a prison that had been designated by the Interior Ministry. None were ever seen again.
Ali had left the battlefield with his M1A2 tanks and Apaches as soon as the last Qatari APCs had been destroyed, leaving the rest of the battle's aftermath to the Bradleys’ commander. He had been in contact with Jamal Al-Qahtani, the commander of the force confronting the northern invaders throughout the battle with the Qataris. The battle with the northern invaders hadn’t been going nearly as well.
And then all communication had been abruptly cut off.
The force Ali had left after the battle with the Qataris had been badly mauled. He had lost half of his Apaches, and well over half of his M1A2 tanks had been completely destroyed. An even two dozen tanks were immobile, and though some of those could be fixed, none would be able to rejoin him in time. That left him with just sixty-two M1A2 tanks and four Apaches to bring to the fight against the northern invaders.
As Ali had feared, the latest word from the M1A2 tanks en route from Yemen via highway with multiple refuelings was that they would be in Riyadh soon — about three hours after Ali calculated he would need them north of Riyadh.
Let loose in a city, a tank could do a lot in three hours.
Ali was headed to relieve Jamal at the best speed he could manage — assuming Jamal and the rest of his men were still alive.
Chapter Twenty Nine
Jamal Al-Qahtani was unlike most of the top Saudi military commanders in one key respect. He was not a prince, or in any way related to the royal family. His appearance was unremarkable, except that he was a bit shorter than the average Saudi male.
His father had a long-standing relationship with a prince as his advisor, which had helped him pass some of his colleagues as he moved up the career ladder. But that was not really the main reason he was now a Brigadier General, commanding the force about to engage the northern invaders.
Jamal had been promoted mostly because he was highly intelligent, hard-working, and a natural leader. The fact that he had advanced so rapidly helped explain how Saudi Arabia’s government had persisted as one of the very few monarchies left worldwide. Talent, even outside the royal family, was recognized and rewarded.
Being a more recent graduate of the Armor School at Fort Benning than Prince Ali by five years had some advantages as well. Jamal had been exposed to some of the most recent training offered by the US Army, that included hard-won lessons from their experiences in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of them applied directly to the Saudis’ use of armor in Yemen.
The contacts Jamal had developed had also been useful in securing and expediting a contract to provide the maintenance and spare parts needed for all Saudi armored forces in the far more advanced tempo of multi-year operations in Yemen. Since the only way to keep some M1A2 tanks on the field had been to take parts from others, getting this contract done had been key to keeping the Saudi Army in the fight.
Now, though, as Jamal looked over the force he commanded on its way to engage the invaders advancing on Riyadh from the north there was one question that he couldn’t get out of his head. Was he rolling into battle with a force of fifty M1A2 tanks and fifty-five M60 Patton tanks, plus forty Bradley APCs and five Apaches, because he wasn’t a prince?
Yes, Ali was Army Commander. And yes, he understood the argument that since the Qataris were sticking to highways they might get to Riyadh faster, though the Qataris’ last reported position made him doubt it. He could read a map.
But the Qataris no longer had S-300s, and their Air Force had effectively ceased to exist. Meanwhile, Jamal wondered how long his Apaches would manage to survive against the S-300 that had already shot down so many of the RSAF’s best planes, even one piloted by the Air Force Commander.
Yes, the Leopard 2s Ali faced were formidable opponents. But Jamal had absolutely no idea what he would be up against with these invaders from the north. But he could guess the camouflage that had been so effective against the sensors on drones would probably work just as well against the ones on anti-tank missiles and the M1A2’s thermal sights.
That didn’t mean Jamal was ready to give up. Far from it. In fact, he planned to surprise everyone and win this battle. Yes, he might have been sent rolling north to buy Prince Ali enough time to claim victory over both sets of invaders before they reached Riyadh. But Jamal wasn’t just going to survive. He was going to make the defeat of these invaders the basis for his next promotion.
The first step in Jamal’s plan was the elimination of the invaders’ anti-air missile launcher. He knew it had some sort of camouflage that protected it from missiles using radar or thermal locks. His attack wouldn’t rely on them.
Instead, Jamal was going to use his five Apaches to send unguided Hydra 70 rockets at the launcher, which they would identify by looking for the biggest dust cloud in the invasion force. Between them the Apaches would be carrying three hundred eighty rockets, and Jamal doubted that the launcher could withstand more than a couple of hits before its load of fuel and explosives detonated.
That assumed the Apaches survived to rocket attack range. Jamal had detailed cartography on his tablet covering the invaders’ route, which while still off-road was aimed straight at Riyadh. He smiled briefly as he thought about the level of detail, which was extremely high thanks to oil company surveys of nearly every inch of the Kingdom. Nice to know that even in areas like this one north of Riyadh where oil had never been found, the effort had not been entirely wasted.
Jamal had traced out a route for the Apaches that would allow them to approach the invaders by hugging an escarpment that would give them cover from the launcher. He had managed to find a spot where the Apaches could use their top-mounted radomes to peek over the escarpment before engaging the enemy. Jamal knew the invaders’ camouflage had been effective so far, but was betting that at a range of under a kilometer the Apaches would be able to get at least a general fix on the bulk of the enemy force.