The engineers, along with hundreds of other engineers, had been busy all night creating defensive positions and obstacles that would never be used.
The men, used to hard work and doing things that ranged from not so smart to downright dumb, could not understand what in hell they were doing. First the captain told them that the Russians were charging down the road at full speed and the world was coming to an end; every man, he said, needed to do his job or the foothold held by the 13th Corps would fail.
Then he turned around and ordered them to plant a dummy mine field and dig ditches where there were no units. As hard as he tried, the captain could not make his men understand the importance of what they were doing.
Watching his men, he decided that it didn't really matter what they thought. They had done the best they could, given the time and resources available. The Russians would either believe them or not. It was no longer in their hands.
The situation that the 28th Combined Arms Army faced was deplorable and at the same time pregnant with possibilities. The lack of fuel had brought the attack by both divisions to a screeching halt. Only enough fuel for the recon elements had been scraped up. Most of that had been obtained by siphoning fuel from vehicles belonging to the army's second-echelon division. On orders from Colonel Sulvina, in the name of the army commander, the recon continued to push forward, maintaining contact, gathering information and searching out American weak points.
In all three tasks, they were successful. The information they provided confirmed the intelligence officer's projection.
Light-infantry forces, in conjunction with massive close air support, were conducting a delaying action south toward Saadatabad. Agents and an occasional recon flight indicated a great deal of activity south of Saadatabad by engineer units.
Fuel, so simple a commodity, normally so plentiful, had become the key to success or failure. How ironic, Sulvina had thought. Here we are in the middle of a region that contains most of the world's oil reserves, and we run out of fuel. History, no doubt, will laugh if we fail here. No one, however, was laughing that morning in the 28th CAA.
Everyone's full attention and energies were 266 geared to obtaining the fuel and pushing it forward.
The Red Air Force, depleted by the previous day's efforts, was being pressed by Front Headquarters to clear the skies and provide cover to transport aircraft flying fuel to makeshift airstrips or dropping it by parachute. Helicopters, loaded to maximum capacity, carried fuel drums right up to the front-line units. Despite continuous interference by and heavy losses to American fighters, fuel was being delivered. Anything that could carry fuel was being used.
Not all units were being resupplied. Priority went to the lead divisions.
On the basis of the intelligence picture being painted for him by the army's second officer, the army commander was gambling that two divisions would be sufficient to blow through the Americans' final positions and reach the Strait of Hormuz. All other units had to manage with what they had. As a result of such draconian measures, fuel was beginning to reach the forward combat elements in sufficient quantities. By 0900 the lead regiments would be refueled and ready to move. The logistics officer promised that both first-echelon divisions would be refueled and on the move by noon, provided no calamity befell the army. To ensure synchronization of effort and to leave some time for errors, orders had gone out to the lead divisions to reinitiate the attack commencing at 1000 hours with those units that were then refueled. Saadatabad was designated as the army's intermediate objective, with the final objective of the day being Qotbabad. Plans for a joint airborne and ground attack against Bandar Abbas on the eleventh of July were being worked out.
Both the commander of the 28th CAA and Sulvina were exhausted. Neither had slept for more than an hour since the beginning of the attack, on the eighth. Satisfied that all was being done and that the situation would soon be in hand, they walked out of the command post for a break.
Endless hours in an operations center with staff officers rushing about, radios blaring, phones ringing, and half a dozen conversations being conducted at the same time can best be likened to living in a pressure cooker. Stress and lack of sleep destroy a person's ability to think clearly or work effectively. An occasional break, just a simple walk outside, is required every so often in order to maintain sanity and effectiveness. Outside, the two officers stood fifty meters from the command post, not far from anSA-8 surface-to-air antiaircraft-missile battery. Neither said anything. They smoked their cigarettes and let their minds go blank as they watched a convoy of fuel trucks move south along the highway. Both knew that was a good sign.
From his perch, Capell watched a convoy moving south along the main road.
With his binoculars he could see that many were fuel trucks and that the escort was light, very light. Before leaving his observation point and returning to his Bradley, he made one more sweep of the area.
Though he didn't expect to see any, he searched for telltale signs of combat units or defenses. The only thing that came close was what appeared to be an air-defense unit equipped with missiles. They could do nothing to his scouts.
Satisfied, he slithered down off the rock pile he was on and trotted back to his Bradley, where he switched his radio to the battalion-command frequency and called the S-3. 'Bravo Four-five, this is Mike Eight-eight. Spot report. Over.'
'Mike Eight-eight, this is Bravo Four-five. Send it. Over.'
With the aid of a preprinted form in which he had filled in the blanks, Capell began to send his report. 'This is Mike Eight-eight. Two zero trucks with three BRDMs escorting moving south along the highway at grid four six five, nine eight five, and one air-defense unit located at three nine six, nine eight zero, time now. Request permission to engage. Over.'
After acknowledging, Dixon plotted the location on his map and considered Capell's request. 'Mike Eight- eight, 268 this is Bravo Four-five. Do you see any other enemy units or activity? Over.'
Capell replied in the negative. Dixon called the battalion commander, who had been monitoring the transmissions. Dixon recommended that the scouts lead off the attack by hitting the convoy. The battalion commander concurred. They had gone as far as they could expect to go without being detected. It was time to go in and begin hacking away at the Russians.
Capell, tired of sneaking about and reporting, was looking forward to doing some serious fighting. He did not need to be told twice.
With the six Bradleys of his scout platoon on line, concealed behind a small hill crest, Capell prepared to attack. He stood high in the turret of his vehicle, waved his arm over his head and then dropped it, pointing in the direction of the convoy of fuel trucks. Yelling over his intercom, he ordered his driver, 'Kick it in the ass!' The other track commanders in the platoon did likewise. Together, the six Bradleys lurched forward and began their attack.
The platoon crested the rise that had concealed them. Dead ahead, at a range of three kilometers, was the convoy. As the Bradleys began to accelerate, track commanders marked their targets and issued fire commands.
'Gunner-HEAT. Moving truck.'
With eyes glued to their sights and hands on their controls, the platoon's gunners searched for their targets and yelled out, 'Identified!' when the first truck they saw was in their sight.
Automatically the track commanders let go of their controls and let the gunners prepare to do their thing.
Rapidly the platoon closed. Two kilometers. Drivers in the convoy and men at the SA-8 battery, their attention drawn by the huge clouds of dust to the east, watched the six tracked vehicles racing at them and wondered what they were doing. Sulvina and his commander also watched.
Sulvina was angry that a BMP company commander would allow such a flagrant waste of fuel. He was determined to find out who their commander was and personally rip his rank off him.
Fifteen hundred meters. Two Bradleys strained to keep up, while another slowed to maintain alignment. Capeli stood upright in his turret. With goggles down and olivedrab bandana covering his mouth and nose, he held on and swayed with the rocking of the Bradley as it rolled forward. He could almost feel adrenaline pumping into his
