In the American E-3 AWACS to the north, a young Air Force captain leaned back in his chair, his eyes growing bigger than saucers as he watched the melee to the south. Unable to make sense of the cluttered screen, he threw his hands up and turned to his commander. "Geez-us Kee-rist, sir! What a rat screw! I have no fucking idea what's happening down there."
Neither did anyone else. Dozens of missiles, launched from the ground and from aircraft, flew hither and yon. To further confuse the situation, the pilots, now under attack, began to launch flares to deceive heat-seeking missiles or fire small buffs of aluminum strips called chaff to deceive the radar lock of radar homing missiles. Some of the missiles — those that had actually been aimed at something— lost their intended target, found another, then lost it. Others, by luck or through a good setup, began to find their marks. Across the Mediterranean, sophisticated combat aircraft costing as much as forty million dollars apiece were blown out of the sky. Some, when hit, blew up in gigantic fireballs. Others, clipped by the pursuing missile, lost a wing tip or part of a tail section, causing the aircraft to spin wildly out of control. The antiradiation missiles fired by the Mirage 2000s also found their marks. These missiles began to take out Libyan ground radar sets and stations in and around Tobruk, blinding the Libyan air defense commander. Unable to further influence the battle, he sat in his bunker, wondering what to do next.
In the space of a few minutes the battle was over. After the great maelstrom, there was a momentary respite as air controllers began to take stock of what was left. The Egyptians were the first to realize that they had won. Based on information from the EC-130H, the E-2 Hawkeye over Mersa Matruh, and reports from the flight leaders, the air controller determined that the Libyan air defense had been temporarily neutralized and the MIG threat was gone. The main strike force had been untouched by the melee that had involved the MIGs, the Mirage 2000s, and the F-16s. Satisfied that all was in order, the air controller gave the go-ahead to the strike commander to commence his attacks.
To the northeast, a radar operator aboard the Israeli E-2 Hawkeye cursed and pounded his fist on his thigh in disgust. Having lost his bet that the Egyptians would be stopped, he shook his head, reached into his pocket, pulled out five Israeli shekels, and handed them to his grinning friend.
The wailing of the air-raid siren drifted up from the city to the old Italian fort where Colonel Nafissi had established his forward command post. The concrete, steel, and sand complex insulated Nafissi and his staff from the sound of the air-raid siren as well as from the bombs that the approaching Egyptian aircraft would soon release on the port facilities and the nearby airfield and troop concentrations. The war Nafissi fought bore no resemblance to the one outside the bunker complex. Colonel General Uvarov knew this and felt uneasy sitting in the main briefing room next to Nafissi, listening to the morning update briefing. He was out of place and, as far as he was concerned, worse than useless.
Uvarov despised commanders who tried to run their battles through telephone lines from behind slabs of concrete. They neither saw nor understood what was really happening. The information they received was always old and filtered through layer after layer of staff officers and commanders. All too often, staffs of subordinate units told their next-higher headquarters what they thought they wanted to hear. Uvarov could never fight a war that way. He had to be there, up front, looking, listening, feeling. Many times in Iran he had made decisions or initiated a move based on what he had seen or after a brief conversation with a front-line commander. In a bunker miles from the front, it is impossible to gauge how much further one can push his troops or whether a report is fact or fantasy. No, Uvarov thought as he listened to the Libyan major's brief, this is not my kind of war.
Still, he had his instructions from Moscow and little choice but to obey. Officially, he had two tasks. As the senior Soviet officer in Libya, he was the chief military advisor to the leadership of the Libyan armed forces. As such, he had direct access to those military leaders and was free to render whatever advice and assistance he deemed necessary. He was assisted in this task by a structure of Soviet advisors who worked with Libyan field commanders at every level down to battalion.
His second task was that of commander of the North African Front. In reality, the North African Front was not really a front at all. A front, in the Red Army, normally consisted of two or more armies with attached combat and combat service support units such as engineers, signal units, transportation units, etc. At best, when all Soviet, Cuban, and East German ground, air, and naval personnel designated to fill out the North African Front were in place, he would have little more than a weak combined arms army.
Presently, the North African Front consisted of two incomplete Cuban motorized rifle divisions, a Soviet independent tank corps, a Soviet artillery brigade, a Soviet air defense brigade, two fighter regiments, one fighter-bomber regiment, and eight guided missile boats. All these were mustering in and around Al Gardabah. What worried Uvarov most was not what he had, pitifully little as it was, for a proper front. His concerns centered on what he didn't have. The combat support and service support units — in particular, engineers and helicopter units — were missing from his troop list, as were the transportation and supply units required to maintain his force in the field. These units, according to the plan, were to have been provided by the Libyans.
Even during the training exercise before the crisis, Uvarov had had surprise after surprise. Though he was prepared for the ordeal of dealing with the Revolutionary Council, he was not prepared for a lack of enthusiasm that bordered on apathy in the armed forces. Even as the Leader of the Revolution and his functionaries spoke of great, sweeping advances and preparations that would result in crushing defeats of the Egyptians, neither Uvarov nor his swarm of advisors saw any evidence of making those boasts realities. On the contrary, there was every sign that the Libyans were going to allow the Egyptians to overrun the Cyrenaica, the eastern desert area of Libya, and withdraw almost unmolested to the west. The best units of the Libyan forces, ground, air, and naval, were deployed west of El Agheila, preparing to defend the Tripolitania, the western desert. In effect, instead of backing up the Libyan army, Uvarov's North African Front was in front of the bulk of it.
As Uvarov became familiar with the situation and the personalities on the ground, he soon learned that Colonel Nafissi, the second-most-powerful man on the ruling council, had been charged with the defense of the Cyrenaica. For this he had been given a mix of regular army, Islamic Revolutionary Guard, and militia units. Air and naval support of this force was minimal despite the fact that the Libyans stood to lose many of their oil-producing fields and refineries. It wasn't until the chief of the Soviet KGB section in Libya briefed him that Uvarov understood. From the KGB Uvarov learned of Nafissi's role in the assassination attempt that had precipitated the crisis. He learned, too, that the naval incident of 9 December was also Nafissi's doing. The Libyan missile boats had sailed with orders to provoke a fight. The KGB theorized that Nafissi was trying either to embarrass the current Leader of the Revolution or win more popular support for himself. Regardless, it was well known that Nafissi meant to become the next Leader of the Revolution, at any cost. After meeting him, Uvarov had no doubt that Nafissi would do whatever he had to do in order to obtain his goal.