Sword Point (7 page)

Doesn’t anyone do a threat analysis around here anymore?”

“Frank, we have no choice. There’s simply too much pressure to do something immediately. The
RDF
can get there faster than you can.”

“And do what, Bob, die? Sacrifice themselves in the name of political expediency? Damn it, Bob, you know that they can’t do everything that they’ve been assigned. At best, they can hang on to Bandar Abbas and a couple of hundred kilometers of the coast. To push them inland along the line of Kazerun-Shiraz-Kerman-Zahedan without the 10th Corps is insane.

They have neither the manpower to hold that line nor the transportation to keep it supplied. The Soviets will simply bypass whomever they don’t want to mess with and leave them to wither on the vine. Jesus, are we the only ones who see that, Bob?” Weir stopped and sipped on his coffee in an effort to compose himself.

“Frank, between you and me, the Vice agrees. He and I went in to the Chief and presented the same argument, a little less passionately, of course. The Chief, however, felt that the risks were acceptable. As he said, we need to “get there the fastest with the mos test ”

Weir pounded his knee with his fist, lowered his head and shook it from side to side. “Damn it. It takes twelve hours to fly from Washington to

Tehran. It only takes three hours to fly from Moscow to Tehran. How does the Chief expect us to get around that? And the Iranians? What about the

Iranians? Has anyone been watching the news lately? How the hell is the 13th Airborne Corps going to hold the Russians and fight the Iranians?”

There were several moments of silence as the two generals sipped their coffee and thought. To date the Iranian government had refused all offers of U.S. assistance. Daily demonstrations in Tehran condemned the United

States as fervently as they did the Soviets. Under the original plan, there would have been time to work out some type of arrangement or, at worst, allow the Soviets to get so deep into Iran that the Iranians would have no choice but to accept U.S. help. But the new plan didn’t allow any time. The

CIA
was projecting that U.S. forces would be met with armed resistance by the Iranians. Ground forces would be fighting with hostile forces to their rear as well as their front.

Finally, Weir broke the long silence. “Bob, I know you did your best.

Now it’s time for me to do mine.” With that he stood up and began to gather up his briefcase and hat.

Horn stood up also and walked across the room to bid his friend farewell.

With a few pleasantries, the two men parted. After Weir had left, Horn went to the window and stared out at the Potomac. He could not escape the thought that he had not only failed his friend but condemned him to death.

How easy, he thought, it had been in Vietnam when they were young lieutenants. At least they knew what they were doing then and didn’t have to bother with the politicians, both in and out of uniform.

i offer neither pay nor quarters nor provisions; i offer hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles and death. Let him who loves his country in his heart, and not his lips only, follow me

-
GIUSEPPE
GARIBALDI

Birjand, Iran 0135 Hours, 30 May (2205 Hours, 29 May,
GMT
) Lieutenant Kurpov’s scout-car platoon began to stir. The 89th Reconnaissance

Battalion had less than an hour to get ready and move out on its next mission. The promise of resupply by air and a twenty-four-hour rest halt had to wait until the airfield outside Birjand had been secured.

The battalion had closed on Birjand on the afternoon of the twenty-ninth after a trek of over three hundred kilometers through the desert. An attempt of the recon battalion, reinforced only by the advance guard, to rush the town and seize the airfield had been repulsed by Islamic Guards dug in along the approaches. Attempts to find a weak point north of the town had also failed. It was therefore decided to wait until the lead motorized rifle regiment and division artillery closed up before trying again. In the meantime, the recon battalion was to bypass the town to the west and check out an unguarded route that had been found the night before. If the route was clear, the recon battalion was to use it to lead a motorized rifle battalion past the town. Once south of the town, the rifle battalion would support the main attack by hitting the Iranians from the rear.

As the officers of the recon company received last minute instructions, the crews of the
BRDM
armored cars and
BMP
reconnaissance vehicles began to crank up their engines and check their weapons. Sand, heat and lack of water were greater problems than the officers and men in the recon battalion had expected. The division had deployed from a garrison in

Poltava in the Ukraine to the desert and then into the attack with little time for acclimation. Neither had they received any special instructions on desert warfare or how to deal with the conditions they would find. It was therefore natural that the men would continue to operate as they had been trained while in the Ukraine. The result was a high number of maintenance failures and weapons stoppages. The light coat of oil that had protected their machine guns from the spring rains in the Ukraine attracted sand that jammed them in the desert. During their first serious run-in with an

Iranian roadblock on the second day of the invasion, Lieutenant Kurpov’s platoon was embarrassed when only one machine gun in the entire platoon fired. In a panic the platoon pulled back into a wadi, where in record time the crews broke down their weapons and cleaned them. Since that time, the men faithfully checked their weapons and kept them clean and free of oil.

Kurpov watched impassively as the other scout-car platoon moved out of their laager and headed west. Behind them went two BMPs. Kurpov’s platoon would follow at a distance, ready to lead the rifle battalion through or swing farther west if the route taken by the lead platoon was blocked. This suited Kurpov fine. He had grown tired of being in the lead, always out front, always the first to find the enemy or be found by him. On two separate occasions his
BRDM
had barely survived a direct hit by rocket-propelled antitank grenades. It would be a welcome relief to follow someone for a change. A bright three-quarter moon made it easy to track the progress of the lead scout-car platoon. Kurpov felt as though the whole world were staring down on them as they swung west onto a narrow dirt track.

Through his vision blocks he monitored the progress of his other vehicles and the rifle battalion’s advance guard behind them. It was following far too close. If the Iranians hit them, the rifle battalion would have little room to maneuver or back out. They were becoming sloppy, too lax.

The BMPs, now about one thousand meters to his front, turned slightly to the left and continued forward into the shadows of the surrounding hills.

Ahead of them the BRDMs had already entered the dark void and were out of sight. Despite the cool of the night, Kurpov could feel the sweat roll down his spine. This was no good, far too easy. It was inconceivable that such a route would be left open.

A flash, a streak of flame and the detonation of an antitank missile on a

BMP
raped the stillness of the night and heralded a rush of pandemonium and violence. Contact. Green and red tracer rounds crisscrossed as Iranians engaged the lead scout-car platoon and were in turn engaged by the BRDMs and the remaining
BMP
. The reports coming from the platoon leader of the scout-car platoon betrayed his confusion and panic. The recon company commander yelled back, demanding a clear and accurate report, but got no response as artillery began to strike.

Kurpov was at a loss as to what to do. He stared through his vision blocks, trying hard to make sense of what was going on before him. But that was not possible. The flashes of gunfire, the bright streaks of tracers and the impact of artillery merged with blotches and fading images of rounds long since fired, distorting Kurpov’s sight. Another bright flash and a streak of flame from the shadows of the hills sought out the second
BMP
. This time the impact of the missile resulted in a thunderous explosion as the BMP’s own ammo and fuel ripped it apart, sending a ball of fire into the sky. Men were dying. His comrades.

And still Kurpov was at a loss as to what to do.

The Iranians were no fools. What appeared to Kurpov as random and uncontrolled violence was as methodical as it was deadly. They knew exactly what they were doing. The heavy antitank guided missiles were used to destroy the greatest Soviet threat, the better-armed and

-armored BMPs.

With the BMPs destroyed, the BRDMs were no match for dug-in troops who could easily dispose of them with heavy machine guns and hand-held rocket launchers. The shower of tracers that mesmerized Kurpov came from dug-in50-caliber machine guns and from the BRDMs’ own machine guns’ returning fire.

It was an uneven contest as the Iranian machine gunners raked the thin-skinned BRDMs with telling effect while the BRDMs simply thrashed about, firing wildly and randomly. The platoon leader of the lead scout-car platoon never gained control of his three BRDMs. Each fought its own battle and died a hard, slow death. A burst of machine-gun fire hit the flank of the platoon leader’s
BRDM
, killing the driver. It careened wildly, hit a shallow ditch and rolled over on its side. The panicked crew clawed at the hatches in an effort to escape, oblivious to the fact that all guns that could be brought to bear were now hitting the
BRDM
. As the first man emerged he was hit by a burst of well-directed machine-gun fire. He simply dropped, half in and half out of the vehicle, dead. His comrade behind him screamed and pushed on the body, not realizing the man was dead. With strength born of desperation and fear, the second crewman pushed the body clear and in his turn was killed as he began to emerge. The platoon leader could not reach the hatch. Machine-gun rounds, ripping through the bottom of the
BRDM
, had hit him. As he lay there against the side of his vehicle, bleeding to death in the dark, he blocked out the horror and noise of the battle outside and dreamed of his home and his family.

Gone from his mind were war and death. Before him were images of white puffy clouds racing across a blue sky above windswept seas of sunflowers rooted in the dark

Ukrainian earth. For a moment, the young lieutenant smiled as he slipped into the dark abyss.

Without waiting for orders, Kurpov’s platoon and the accompanying
BMP

had gone to ground, seeking cover in a shallow wadi. Kurpov’s own driver, reacting to a strong sense of survival as well as to his training, had brought the
BRDM
to a halt in the wadi next to the
BMP
.

The destruction of the lead scout-car platoon and the two BMPs had bought time for Kurpov and his platoon to find cover and get a grasp on the situation. That was, after all, part of the recon battalion’s job.

Somewhat composed now, Kurpov opened his hatch and stood on his seat in order to peer over the lip of the wadi they were in. The wild firing had died down. In the distance he could see the BMPs and the BRDMs burning. The stillness that had descended was punctured by random pops and detonations as on-board ammunition cooked off in the burning vehicles. Putting his binoculars to his eyes, Kurpov scanned the area.

Slowly he was able to construct a clear picture of what had happened and the approximate locations of the Iranian positions. Because only two missiles were fired from the same general area and only after a considerable interval, he was convinced there was only one antitank-guided-missile launcher. At least, that was all he could be sure of. All the machinegun fire had come from the area to either side of where the trail should have been when the lead platoon was hit. As best he could determine, there was no more than a single company dug in across the road and supported by a single antitank-guided-missile launcher. He called to his other scout cars for reports. What their commanders told him corroborated what Kurpov had already determined.

Only when he was sure he had as clear a picture as he was going to have did he call his company commander to report.

The company commander received the report in silence. When Kurpov was done, the commander asked a few short questions, which Kurpov answered with a simple yes or no. Satisfied, the company commander instructed him to continue to observe while he in turn reported Kurpov’s information to the commander of the rifle battalion that was following.

As Kurpov waited for new orders, he took off his helmet and leaned against the open hatch, thinking about the fight. With a dirty rag he wiped the sweat from his face. His hand still quivered from the adrenaline in his system.

Five vehicles and their crews had been destroyed finding out information that took less than thirty seconds to report. And were it not for a simple decision by the company commander that the other platoon was to lead, it would have been Kurpov’s platoon that paid for that information. A decision that had been so easy for the commander to make had such terrible consequences for the people who had to execute it.

A radio call from the company commander brought Kurpov’s thoughts back to the present. He got his helmet on in time to hear that the rifle battalion was deploying and moving forward to assault the Iranian position. From behind, Kurpov could already hear the rumble of the rifle battalion as it began to advance. His job for that night was over. It was now up to others to flush out the enemy. There would be no need for Kurpov to guide the advancing elements of the rifle battalion forward toward the enemy’s positions; the burning BRDMs proved to be good markers.

Ras Banas, Egypt 0015 Hours, 30 May (2215 Hours, 29 May,
GMT
) The progress of the attacking platoon was painfully slow. From his position with the defending platoon, Captain John Evans could see every move that they made. The three-quarters moon and the exposed route the 2nd Platoon’s platoon leader had selected made it almost impossible to miss them. For the last hour Evans had been tracking their progress with nothing more than ordinary daylight binoculars. Impatiently he watched as the platoon first moved out of a wadi and arranged themselves in a tight formation. Next he watched as they marched across the open desert and away from the rocky knoll that was their objective and where the defending platoon waited. It took over forty minutes for them to figure out their error and another ten to sort out their true objective.