contact the supporting artillery battalion and tell them to shift their fires to his front. Having anticipated that order, the artillery officer looked up at his commander and reported that he was having no luck at contacting the artillery battalion or its firing batteries.
In frustration, the battalion commander cursed, turning back to see how the two companies of his first assault echelon were doing. His eyes were greeted by the vision of burning vehicles, some still in the river, sinking or lazily turning around and around as they drifted downstream, out of control. Most of the first assault wave, however, had already reached the far shore and were beginning to pull themselves out of the water. With nothing further to be gained from staying where he was, the battalion commander ordered his driver to move out and join the second assault echelon, consisting of one company of infantry fighting vehicles, which were just beginning to emerge from their hide positions and head down to the river. With a little luck and some pushing, they could still succeed.
When the enemy infantry fighting vehicles reached the north bank of the river, they broke into two groups. One group moved straight for the woods where Gross and his dismounts were. A second group of eight vehicles to the left charged into a gap in the woods that led to the high ground where Gross's platoon sergeant was located with the platoon's Bradleys. Unable to control both fights, Gross concentrated on the group entering the woods while leaving his platoon sergeant to deal with the others running through the gap.
Though the dismounted infantry with Gross had managed to stop two of the assaulting BMP infantry fighting vehicles while they were in the river with their first volley of anti-tank fire and three more BMPs at the riverbank as they were pulling themselves out of the river, that still left seven Ukrainian BMP infantry fighting vehicles bearing down on the dismounted infantry of 2nd Platoon. Within seconds of reaching the riverbank, those seven BMPs were up, out, and right into the middle of the platoon's position. From firing ports along the sides and in the rear of the BMP infantry fighting vehicles, the Ukrainian infantry squads inside the BMPs opened fire as the BMPs entered the woods where the American positions were. Together with the fire from the mounted infantry, a 30mm cannon, and a 7.62mm machine gun mounted in its turret, each BMP laid down fire that began to have a telling effect on 2nd Platoon.
While the Ukrainian fire was wild and blind, its sheer volume, along with the chaos created when the BMPs themselves came tearing through their positions, was more than enough to break up 2nd Platoon's ability to offer organized resistance. For several terrifying seconds each of the dismounted infantrymen with Gross, as well as Gross himself, was on his own. The noise and confusion created by the appearance of the large steel fighting vehicles crashing through the woods only inches away, while spewing fire from every direction, was terrifying. For several critical seconds, each man and woman had to decide for himself whether to stay put, doing nothing while the Ukrainian BMPs passed, fight the BMPs as best they could, or flee.
To his left, Gross heard a piercing scream. To his right, someone was yelling for a medic. The shouts of squad leaders were punctured or cut short by the noise of gunfire and the grinding engines of enemy vehicles as they crashed their way through the woods. His platoon was taking casualties, and at that moment there was nothing that he could do to stop the enemy or help his people who were in trouble. Suddenly the real problems of being a combat leader hit home. For several critical seconds Gross would have to trust that his squad leaders and every individual rifleman in those woods would continue to perform their assigned duties while ignoring the pain and suffering of their friends and comrades. In those seconds, with enemy vehicles everywhere, there was nothing that Gross or the infantry squad leaders in the woods with him could do to control the people under their command. If he failed to keep his head and suppress his own fear and panic, or the discipline and cohesion of the unit failed, the platoon would fall apart and cease to be a fighting unit. If his nerve and the cohesion of his platoon held, then Gross and his sergeants had a chance to reorganize the platoon after the BMPs had passed and continue to resist. Jumping out of the path of a BMP that rolled on past him like a rogue elephant, Gross prayed that, one, he survived the next ten seconds, and two, he found something left to command at the end of those ten seconds.
The problem facing Ellerbee at that moment was, for him, equally distressing, though not nearly as hazardous. When he heard Kozak's order to flex his platoon to the right, Ellerbee yelled down to his driver to crank it up and prepare to move out. Turning off his radio during the starting sequence, Ellerbee held his hand on the radio's on-off switch while he waited for the sound of the engine turning over. When Wilk, his driver, hit the starter button, however, the only sound they heard was a clunk as the lights in the turret all but died out. 'JESUS, LIEUTENANT! THE BATTERIES ARE DEAD!'
Startled by that announcement, Ellerbee let go of the radio's on-off switch, leaned down, and yelled, 'WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THE BATTERIES ARE DEAD?'
'THEY'RE DEAD! DRAINED! NO POWER TO START THE TANK. WE NEED A SLAVE.'
While Ellerbee sat there dumbfounded, Tinker Shildon turned around in the gunner's seat, faced Ellerbee, and began to pull his crewman's helmet off. 'There's a slave cable on Rourk's tank. I'll go get it.' Though his voice wasn't excited, Shildon was up and out of his seat in a flash. Squeezing past Ellerbee, the breech block of the 120mm main gun, and the loader, Shildon didn't stop until he was halfway out of the loader's hatch. Then his voice betrayed his shock and surprise. 'WHERE IN THE HELL ARE THEY GOING?'
Shildon's comment threw Ellerbee. As he scrambled in an effort to get his head up and out of his hatch to see what Shildon was yelling about, Ellerbee yelled, 'WHO? WHERE'S WHO GOING?'
'Sergeant Rourk and the rest of the platoon. They're moving out!'
Like a floating toy held under water in a bathtub and suddenly released, Ellerbee popped up and looked about just in time to see the taillights of Rourk's tank and his wing man disappear in the woods to their right. Instinctively Ellerbee reached up and keyed the push-to-talk lever on the side of his crewman's helmet to activate the radio. When nothing happened, he suddenly remembered that he had switched the radio off and had failed to turn it back on in the confusion following Wilk's announcement that they had no power. Just as he was prepared to drop down and turn the radio on, Ellerbee saw his own wing man's tank, A32, go screaming right behind him. Jumping back up, Ellerbee pointed at A32 and yelled to Shildon, 'STOP HIM, TINKER. STOP HIM.'
Pushing himself up and out of the loader's hatch, Shildon scrambled to the edge of the turret roof, climbed over the crew's personal gear stored in the bustle rack at the rear of the turret, hit the back deck with both feet, and took a flying leap onto the frozen ground, yelling at the top of his lungs as he did so. His efforts, however, were for nought. By the time he got up and began chasing A32, that tank, like Rourk's and his wing man's, was gone, swallowed up by the dark woods. Stopping, Shildon looked at the woods where A32 had disappeared, then back at the dark form of Ellerbee, who was hanging halfway out of his hatch. In the distance, both Shildon and Ellerbee could hear the battle at the riverbank.
Remembering that the engineer platoon was down the road a few hundred meters, Ellerbee yelled over to Shildon, 'TINKER. Go down the road. Find the engineers at that farmhouse and see if they have someone who can come up and give us a jump start.'
Looking through the woods toward the road, Shildon paused for a moment as he considered going back to the tank for his field jacket and helmet. A series of explosions from 2nd Platoon's positions and the thunk-thunk- thunk of 25mm cannons firing told him he didn't have time for that. Turning, he began to run. As he had before, Ellerbee sat there and watched Shildon disappear into the darkness, like the other tanks in his platoon had. Bad luck, he thought, piled on top of more bad luck, had left him and his disabled tank on the hill while Gross and the infantrymen in his platoon fought for their lives. Pounding his fist on the edge of his open hatch, Ellerbee began cursing out loud at Kozak and the incredible bad luck that had brought him to this spot.
No one in 2nd Platoon, or Kozak, realized that Ellerbee was out of the fight. Even Rourk, who had acknowledged Kozak's order and had passed it on to the platoon, had no idea what had happened to his platoon leader. What he did know was that the infantry was in trouble and that his platoon leader had failed to respond. Assuming that his lieutenant was too busy trying to get himself and his tank ready to move, and that he would follow when he could, Rourk took over the platoon and moved out in response to Kozak's order. There would be time later, if they won, to listen to Ellerbee's excuses. Right now, all Rourk knew was that the grunts were in deep shit and needed help.
Clear of the river and in the woods, the commander of the Ukrainian company that was overrunning Gross's dismounted infantry had three simple choices and not much time in which to make his decision. He could stop in the middle of the American position in the woods, dismount his own infantry, and try to wipe out the enemy. Since he really didn't know how many of his BMPs had made it, and his own company was as disoriented and confused at that moment as the enemy they were overrunning, he quickly decided against that. His next option was to move out of the woods and stop there. By doing so, his company would be clear of the enemy positions and in the open. The
