Sword Point (11 page)

June,
GMT
)

With a thunderous roar, the bombardment of the Iranian positions commenced on schedule. The lead elements of the 67th Motorized Rifle Division were already unraveling from their assembly areas and deploying for the attack.

To their north, the summit of the Kuh-a Sahand looked down on the mass of

Soviet armor as it moved east, converging on a single point.

The Iranians had taken their time preparing their defensive positions before the town of Kaju. The town itself was of little importance.

What did matter was the rail line that ran through it. It was the main rail line running south from Tabriz, around Kuh-a Sahand and then to Tehran. The

Soviets needed it. To secure it, and the road system running south from

Tabriz, the 28th
CAA
had split at Tabriz, with one motorized rifle division and the tank division attacking straight south along the roads while two motorized rifle divisions swung west around the Sahand to clear the rail line.

The Iranians saw this splitting of forces as an opportunity to defeat the

Soviets. Everything that they could muster, including most of their pitifully small tank reserve, was concentrated either at Kaju, to block

Soviet efforts to clear the rail line out of Tabriz, or at Bastanabad, to block the Soviet advance along the roads leading south from Tabriz.

The

Iranians did not want to lose any more of the northwest than they had to.

Besides, the farther the Soviets pushed south, the easier the terrain became. The Iranians were gambling on a winner-take-all proposition.

The Soviets, on the other hand, welcomed the stand by the Iranians.

Instead of reacting to Iranians in small, isolated ambushes, the 28th Combined Arms

Army would be able to fight the kind of war it was trained and equipped for. The commander of the 28th
CAA
prepared to fight a battle of annihilation. His goal was to pin, trap and destroy every organized Iranian unit deployed against him. The plan was simple and well proven. It was, in fact, nothing more than an updated version of the German blitzkrieg.

Units of the 28th
CAA
would close up on the Iranians, feeling out their positions for weak points with air, ground and electronic reconnaissance.

Once the Iranian units had been located, weaknesses identified and command posts targeted, the point of attack would be determined and a breakthrough assault would be launched.

Soviet doctrine calls for the concentration of numerical superiority at the point of attack in attacker-defender ratios of at least five to one in infantry, four to one in tanks and seven to one in artillery.

Superiority is achieved by the use of artillery and rockets; air attacks including attack helicopters, electronic warfare including radio direction-finding and jamming on command and control nets; and masses of men and tanks on the ground. The well-orchestrated assault designed to break through the defender commences with a violent twenty-minute artillery attack at the selected point. Not only does the artillery kill some defenders and destroy equipment, it also covers the advance of the attacking force by pinning the defenders and obscuring their observation.

The main instrument for a Soviet breakthrough assault is the motorized rifle regiment. Its battalions, normally deployed two abreast in a first-attack echelon and one back as a second echelon, start in columns five to ten kilometers from the front. As a motorized rifle battalion approaches, it breaks up into company columns, with four tanks normally leading a company of ten to twelve armored personnel carriers. When the battalion reaches the five-kilometer point, it breaks down into platoon columns, with a tank leading each rifle platoon of three or four personnel carriers. Finally, at the two- to three kilometer point, the personnel carriers swing into line as the tanks cut on their on-board smoke generators, shrouding the advancing storm in smoke. All this occurs at a steady, un altering pace of twelve to twenty miles an hour. At this point, the artillery, which has been firing at a rapid rate on the enemy positions, shifts to the next series of targets. Each battalion now has twelve tanks in line, followed by thirty or more personnel carriers fifty to one hundred meters behind the tanks. If antitank fire is heavy, the infantry will dismount a few hundred meters from the enemy and assault on foot, and the tanks and the personnel carriers will follow with support fire. If the defender’s fire is of little consequence, the infantry will remain mounted and the battalion will roll through the defensive positions. Once through, the attacking unit will either continue to drive deep into the enemy’s rear or turn and envelop him from the rear.

In addition to the tanks and the personnel carriers, the lead motorized rifle battalion will have two to four self propelled antiaircraft guns, a battery of six self-propelled artillery guns, and antitank-guided-missile carriers immediately behind the first line of personnel carriers. This force attacks with a frontage of fifteen hundred meters, just under a mile.

Two battalions abreast would give the regiment a frontage of three thousand meters. The third battalion, or second-echelon battalion, follows at a distance of five hundred to one thousand meters behind the two lead battalions and is ready to move forward to take advantage of a success of either of them. Soviet practice is to reinforce success. A battalion that fails to break through will be left to its own devices while all support goes to one that is having success or has succeeded.

Once a clean breakthrough has been achieved, the tank battalions, regiments and finally divisions are pushed through. It is the tank unit that is viewed by the Soviets as the decisive arm that strikes deep and smashes the enemy. The motorized rifle units that did not attack will continue to hold and pin the enemy down; they are the anvil. The tanks strike deep and swing around, hitting them in the rear; they are the hammer. To the Soviets, defeat of the enemy requires more than merely gaining ground or breaking through. The enemy force in the field must be defeated in detail, or, in simple terms, annihilated, preferably to the last man.

After almost two weeks of a painfully slow advance into Iran punctuated by brief but sharp encounters with an unseen enemy, the deliberate attack was welcomed by Captain Neboatov and the men of his motorized rifle company.

Neboatov tried vainly to maintain visual contact with all of his vehicles.

The smoke created by the tanks to his front hid many of his
BMP

infantry-fighting vehicles from his view. From what he could see, however, all appeared to be going well. The BMPs had swung into line and were maintaining proper distance. Through brief breaks in the smoke he could see that the tanks were beginning to fire while on the move. Their fire would be very inaccurate; its primary intent in such an attack was to suppress the enemy rather than annihilate him.

With the exception of a few stray mortar rounds and an occasional wild burst of machine-gun fire, there appeared to be a total lack of return fire from the direction of the Iranian positions. Neboatov listened intently on the battalion command net for the next order. Very soon the battalion commander would need to decide whether the infantry was to remain mounted or to assault on foot. Neboatov hoped the decision would be to remain mounted. There appeared to be no need to dismount.

To do so would cost them their momentum.

Suddenly the platoon leader of the tanks leading Neboatov’s company came over the net and reported he was stopped by an antitank ditch.

Neboatov swore. Though the ditch would be of little consequence, it would cost them their momentum and require his men to dismount.

Neboatov went on the air and ordered the tanks to cover and the BMPs to close up and prepare to breach the obstacle.

As his
BMP
pulled up next to the leader’s tank, Neboatov saw the ditch.

It was ten to fifteen meters wide and two meters deep. On the lip of the far side were rolls of 74 barbed wire. No doubt there were mines in the ditch or along the lip of the far side. Without waiting any longer, he ordered his 1st Platoon to dismount, cross the ditch, secure the far side and cut lanes through the wire. The 2nd Platoon would dismount and cover the 1st Platoon from the near side of the ditch.

Although he knew that the battalion commander would already be sending an
MTU
armored bridge layer that could span the ditch, the 3rd Platoon was ordered to dismount with shovels and begin to knock down the side of the ditch and build ramps for crossing. Better to do something with what you had than wait for something you might never get. Neboatov himself dismounted in order to better observe and, if required, direct the efforts of his men.

His supervision, however, was not needed. As he watched, his men went about their tasks quickly and with little wasted motion even though artillery fire was beginning to fall on both sides of the ditch.

Fortunately their own artillery, firing high explosive and smoke, continued to strike just two hundred meters beyond the edge of the ditch, suppressing most of the

Iranian positions and obscuring the Iranians’ ability to direct artillery fire accurately onto Neboatov’s company.

The 1st Platoon reached the ditch and went in with little difficulty, while the 2nd Platoon set up to provide cover. But when the 1st Platoon began to emerge on the other side and cut through the wire, effective fire hit them.

The first two men of Neboatov’s company had just popped their leads up and begun to cut the wire when a well-aimed burst of machine-gun fire hit them and knocked them back into the ditch. The leader of the 2nd Platoon had managed to catch a glimpse of the Iranian machine gun’s muzzle flash. He directed his machine guns to fire on it. The tracers from the 2nd Platoon’s machine gun served to mark the target for a tank and the crews of two nearby BMPs. All three opened fire, the tank with its main gun and the BMPs with their 30mm. cannon. They were effective. The Iranian machine gun never fired again. With a little more caution, the men of the 1st Platoon popped up again and began to cut the wire. Once spaces large enough had been cut, the platoon leader led his men through and set up a shallow arc protecting a breach they had made. By this time, the 3rd Platoon was busy knocking down the side of the ditch with their shovels. Their efforts, however, were wasted. No sooner had they succeeded in completing a ramp that would allow a vehicle to descend into the ditch than the
MTU
arrived.

Neboatov himself leaped up and directed the
MTU
to where he wanted the bridge laid. The
MTU
moved to the edge of the ditch and stopped across from where the 1st Platoon had cut the barbed wire. The operator settled the
MTU
into a good position and began to play out the bridge.

Slowly the bridge extended until it reached across the ditch. When its far edge was past the far lip of the ditch, the operator allowed the bridge to drop into place.

Then he disconnected the
MTU
from the bridge and backed away. Now the tanks began to cross, joining the 1st Platoon’s perimeter. When all the tanks were on the other side, Neboatov ordered the 2nd and 3rd Platoons to remount and go over the bridge. As each platoon went over, the little bridgehead expanded until the entire company was on line again. The company moved forward slowly; Neboatov needed to give the rest of the battalion time to cross.

With the antitank ditch breached, the Iranian front lines, lacking sufficient antitank weapons, began to crumble. It was not noticeable at first. The tanks and the artillery from both sides were still creating so much dust and smoke that no one could get a good feel for exactly what was happening. Initially the commanders in the lead vehicles could see only a few hundred meters to either side and submitted only the sketchiest reports. Soon, however, there was a noticeable drop in the volume of fire being directed against them. As the first echelon of Soviet tanks and BMPs rolled through the Iranian positions and continued on, the firing stopped altogether with the exception of random artillery and mortar rounds. Even those stopped as the second-echelon battalion of the regiment reached the point of breakthrough.

Within thirty minutes of the commencement of the attack, the issue had been decided. Five days of work and the best forces the Iranians could muster had failed to stop the Soviet advance. The realization of this and the effects of being pounded by artillery took the fight out of many of the Iranians who watched the Russian tanks roll by.

Individually, and then in small groups, the Iranians left their positions and walked, crawled or ran to what they thought to be the rear and safety. The safety they sought was illusory, however, as the Soviet division commander committed his tank regiment to strike deep and smash any semblance of organization the Iranians had left.

The 28th Combined Arms Army finally was able to realize the success that had been eluding it and to achieve a victory which proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Iranian Army could not and would not be able to stop it. Tehran now seemed to be within easy grasp, and reaching the army’s final goal, the Strait of Hormuz, only a matter of time and logistics.

10th Corps Headquarters, Fort Hood, Texas 1700 Hours, 5 June (2300

Hours, 5 June,
GMT
)

The sharp report of the evening gun just outside his office window broke

Lieutenant General Weir’s train of thought. He had been studying so intently the material spread across his desk that he had not heard the duty officer play “Call to the Colors” over the outside PA system.

Slowly Weir rose and went over to the window. He looked out across the front of Building where the MPs were taking down the post flag. Another day had ended. Our last day of peace, Weir thought. For a while.

When the flag had been lowered, he glanced at his watch. Some quick calculations gave him the time in Egypt and Iran. He turned his head toward his desk and looked for a moment at the plan for the invasion of Iran, then turned back to stare out the window. As he watched the cars passing below him, carrying their operators home from work, he knew that somewhere over