move slowly, from left to right, as the gunner began his search for targets. Even the loader watched for telltale signs of the enemy.. The movement of one of Shippler's Bradleys simplified their task.
Like a hunting dog who has spotted game, the tank's main gun suddenly jerked to one side, then froze once it had its prey in sight. Even before the gun stopped moving, the tank commander, no doubt alerted by the gunner's acquisition report, had already disappeared into the tank where he could use the commander's extension of the tank's primary sight to control the engagement. Wittworth stood up, watching the tank prepare for action. Then he turned to the south, scanning the tree line where Shippler's platoon had disappeared. In the distance, Wittworth could see a Bradley move out from the tree line and begin to angle to the left toward Old Georgetown Road.
That maneuver presented the M-i tank next to Wittworth with a good quartering shot. But the tank commander was in no great hurry. He knew Bradleys rarely traveled alone. To kill the first one would only have served to warn the others that they were in danger. So he and the other tank commanders in the tank company, who had moved into fighting positions along the lip of the ridge after him, watched and waited. Just as the first Bradley reached Old Georgetown Road, their patience and discipline were rewarded as a second Bradley broke out of the tree line and began to follow.
Watching, Wittworth hoped that the tanks would fire soon. It was obvious that Shippler was using one section of two Bradleys, still in the tree line, to overwatch the movement of the two Bradleys now moving toward the road. While the two Bradleys in motion would have little chance of surviving the initial volley of fourteen tanks, at least the stationary Bradleys in overwatch would be able to return fire and take out one or two of the offending tanks. But even this hope was soon dashed as Wittworth and the tanks now lining the southern edge of Manning Mountain watched the last two Bradleys of Shippler's platoon come trundling out of cover and into the open. As if they had all the time in the world, the last two Bradleys began to move toward the road to join the others already there.
Still, the tanks held their fire. Every second they waited drew the Bradleys away from cover and closer to the tanks. With the MILES laser engagement system, the ideal killing range for the tanks was 1,000 to 1,500 meters. A well-trained crew with their MILES device well bore sighted and zeroed and with fresh batteries could score a kill out beyond 2,000. But this tank company commander wasn't taking any chances. He didn't need to, for Shippler's platoon, now formed in a wedge on either side of Old Georgetown Road, was gradually closing the range.
To Wittworth, it was like watching a bad movie, or a play that showed the actors casually walking into a trap that the audience knew of but couldn't do anything about. Unable to watch his own platoon any longer, Wittworth looked over at the tank to his left. The tank commander was hunched down in his cupola with only his head and shoulders showing.
As he watched the oncoming Bradleys without the use of binoculars — for there really was no need for them anymore — the tank commander spoke into his intercom microphone. There was no way for Wittworth to tell if he was giving last-minute instructions to his gunner or simply engaging in idle chitchat in an effort to pass the last few nervous seconds before they fired.
From the corner of his eye, the tank commander caught Wittworth staring at him. Ending his conversation with the unseen crewman, the tank commander turned to Wittworth. With the broadest, toothiest grin he could manage, the tank commander looked at Wittworth and gave him a thumbs-down, meaning that the Bradleys were about to die. This gesture pissed Wittworth off, and the tank commander, knowing who Wittworth was, meant it to piss him off. Wittworth could feel the blood rushing to his head and the hair rising on his neck as he shot a glare that could have burned through the tank's armor plate.
Wittworth's rage was still building when the tank commander's grin disappeared. Leaning forward, the commander's right hand went up to his helmet. For a second, he stood there like that, listening to something coming in over his earphones. It had been a radio call, for Wittworth saw his right thumb push the transmit lever forward into the position for transmitting over the radio. The tank commander shouted something into the mike, stopped, pushed the transmit lever to the rear, or intercom position, and shouted something to his crew. Turning from watching the tank commander, back to Shippler's platoon, Wittworth realized that the tank commander had, in all probability, just received the order to fire.
Shippler's platoon was about to be engaged.
From hidden positions along the southern edge of Manning Mountain, half a dozen loud booms announced the beginning of the engagement.
Below, Shippler's platoon continued forward for a few more seconds.
Then the MILES receivers on the Bradleys began to register hits and near misses. Even before they knew for sure whether or not they were 'dead,' two of Shippler's Bradley commanders cut on their on-board smoke generators and began a sharp 180-degree turn in an effort to hide in their own smoke. The other Bradley commanders, seeing the two turn away, also cut on their smoke generators and turned.
From where he stood, Wittworth listened to the radio in his Humvee tuned to Shippler's command net for the initial report. There was none.
Nor was there any kind of order from Shippler. Any actions taken within Shippler's platoon were the result of decisions being made by each Bradley commander, not by Shippler. Not that there was much that he could have done. The first volley of tank fire had 'destroyed' two of the Bradleys. As soon as the commanders of those two vehicles realized that the orange kill light was continuously flashing, they stopped, cut off their smoke generator, put their gun tube over the rear deck, and waited. The other two Bradley commanders maneuvered wildly in an effort to hide in their own smoke while seeking cover. The tanks, able to determine who was left, turned their attention to the two fleeing Bradleys.
The chase lasted less than a minute. In the next volley, the Bradley on the left was hit, its kill light flashing without pause. The last Bradley survived several near misses, indicated by three quick flashes on the kill light. In the end, however, despite the wild gyrations, sharp turns, and the efforts of the Bradley's puny smoke generator, it too was overwhelmed as every tank on the mountain that could.tracked it and fired.
Disgusted, Wittworth turned his back on the massacre of Shippler's platoon and walked back to his Humvee. As he did so, he pondered what he would say to Shippler when he saw him next. After all, Shippler's maneuver had been, according to the manual, correct. After crossing the Cowhouse Creek, he had regrouped, switched to bounding overwatch when they had reached the open area, and then moved into traveling overwatch with his whole platoon when there appeared to be no danger.
Wittworth had hoped that Shippler would make a high-speed mad dash for Manning Mountain. But that would have been unorthodox, a gamble based on knowledge gained from fighting over the same ground time and time again and not the application of sound tactics. And there was no guarantee that that gamble would have paid off. After all, the tanks had come on rather fast. For the gamble to succeed, Shippler would have had to depend on the tank company commander to make an error or be slow.
Basing one's plans on hope or depending on the enemy to make mistakes is a bad habit. Still…
When he reached his Humvee, Wittworth swung the door open and prepared to climb in. His driver twisted to the right in his seat, switched the two radios off to prevent the electrical surge of the ignition from damaging the radios, started the engine, and then turned the radios back on. Instead of getting in the Humvee, Wittworth stopped, told his driver to wait, and went back to the rock where he had been sitting to retrieve his breakfast. Approaching the rock, he noticed something moving on and around the brown aluminum foil package. Stopping, he looked down and watched as a horde of ants assaulted the remains of his ham and chicken loaf. With a sigh and a muffled curse, Wittworth kicked the foil package with all his might before he turned away and headed back to his Humvee.
As much as the slaughter of Shippler's platoon and the loss of his breakfast pissed him off, they were nothing to compare to what Wittworth knew awaited him back in the rear. Today was 'The Day,' the day when Second Lieutenant Nancy Kozak, the first female to be commissioned as an infantry officer, was to report to Wittworth's company. The there thought of females assigned to combat arms, let alone one assigned to his company, still was enough to send Wittworth on an emotional roller coaster that took him from blind anger to almost total despondency.
As he and his driver rode back to the rear in silence, Wittworth wrestled with his own feelings and beliefs. Though he had known that this great experiment in equal opportunity had been coming for over six months, he had done little to mentally prepare himself. The briefings by the Test and Evaluation Command officials and data collectors, Wittworth's chain of command, and the Equal Opportunity reps from the Department of Defense had explained how the twelve-month evaluation would work. They had even tried to provide a system for everyone
