Though he knew he would make the Libyans pay a stiff price for their advance, Hafez also knew they would not win the war by retreating. The loss of Matruh to the Libyans without a struggle angered him. It was an insult to him as a soldier and an Egyptian. The mere idea of having to flee before the Libyans was repugnant. But retreat he did. To stand and fight outnumbered and die would do nothing to save Egypt. The Republican Brigade had to buy time for the 2nd Egyptian Army to complete its redeployment from the Sinai and stage west of Alexandria. Only when the 2nd Army had completed regrouping would a counter-offensive and relief of the 1st Army, surrounded at Bardia, be possible.
The report that the Libyans were approaching didn't surprise Hafez. Though reconnaissance vehicles from the Brigade's recon company were deployed well to the front of Hafez's position, the dust clouds created by the advancing Libyans could be seen by Hafez himself. It would be another ten, maybe fifteen, minutes before the enemy was within range. In the meantime Hafez passed word to his unit to prepare to engage.
To Hafez the Libyan tanks seemed to take an inordinate amount of time to close the distance between them. Being able to see the enemy at a great distance did nothing to change the range at which the battle could be joined. As the Libyans closed to within two thousand meters of the Brigade's recon elements, the recon leader reported the type and number of vehicles in the lead Libyan formation: four Soviet-built T-55 tanks. Introduced in 1958, and based upon the T-54 tank, the T-55 was obsolete by Western standards. As the T-55 was armed with a rifled 100mm main gun and a simple mechanical fire control system, Hafez's M-60A3 tanks were more than a match. The lack of special armor on the T-55s would allow Hafez to open the engagement starting at fifteen hundred meters or less and take shots at any angle, including head-on. Had the approaching Libyans been equipped with more modern T-72 tanks, the initial engagement range would have been much shorter and Hafez would have needed to maneuver the two tank platoons to where they could get flank shots.
Putting his binoculars up, Hafez watched the Libyans continue to move toward him on either side of the coastal road for several moments. Letting the binoculars down, he looked at his watch, then turned to look at the rising sun to his rear. In a few more minutes the sun would be clear of the horizon. So long as it was low on the horizon, the Libyans, advancing to the east, would have it in their eyes. That would make it difficult for them to see Hafez's tanks both before and after the battle began. He hated to lose that advantage.
Over the battalion radio net the commander of the two platoons reported that the Libyans were within two thousand meters. Keying the radio, Hafez instructed him to hold his fire until the Libyans were within twelve hundred meters. At that range the seven Egyptian tanks would be able to destroy all four Libyan tanks with one volley, two at the most. Quick destruction of the combat recon patrol would prevent the Libyans from reporting with any degree of accuracy. That would leave the follow-on forward security element ignorant as to the exact composition and location of the Egyptian forces blocking the Libyan advance.
The commander of the Libyan forward security element would then be faced with a decision. He could halt and wait until the main body of the following force closed before continuing. That would give the Libyans a fighting chance against any Egyptians they encountered. Another option would be to deploy and conduct a hasty attack with little information on the location and size of the Egyptian unit he was attacking. Finally, he could maneuver his force inland, looking for the flank of the Egyptian force. Of course, he still would not have any information on the location or size of the Egyptian unit he was facing. Not until the Egyptians chose to fire would that be established.
Any way he looked at it, Hafez would achieve his goal. The Libyans would have to slow or stop their advance. His mission — delaying the enemy — would be well on its way to being accomplished. Whether or not his efforts, and the sacrifices of his men, would buy enough time for the 2nd Army, however, would not be known for days. Perhaps it never would.
Standing to one side, Major Neboatov watched dispassionately as the Soviet air force personnel removed the metal casket from the rear of the truck. General Uvarov's body, by order of the Politburo, was going home. The air force personnel were in a hurry to finish loading the transport and return to the safety of their bunker. In the last twenty-four hours, the airfield had been hit twice by carrier-based aircraft and once by naval gunfire.
Neboatov, too, was anxious to get the casket onto the aircraft. As the general's aide, he would escort the casket. Though he was doing so under circumstances that were not the best, any reason to leave Africa at this point was acceptable to Neboatov.
A man could cheat death only so often before his luck ran out.
The night the general died should have been Neboatov's last. Had Uvarov stayed at front headquarters until dawn before going to find General Boldin, as the chief of staff advised, naval gunfire would have gotten them. Instead, the attack of the Egyptian Republican Brigade had taken only the general. Neboatov and the surviving members of the command group were left stranded in the desert for twelve hours as the battle swirled around them. That they survived at all was pure luck. The supply column from the 24th Tank Corps that found them initially mistook them for Egyptians and fired on them.
They were brought to General Boldin's headquarters in Tobruk, located five kilometers from Colonel Nafissi's. News of the deteriorating political situation and staff discussions there did nothing to cheer Neboatov. While arranging for transport of General Uvarov's body, he was able to determine that the political and military situation in the Soviet Union and Libya was at best confused. The sad story started with the ill-advised decision to actively assist the Libyans. It was a decision based on the misreading of the political situation in America and the perceived need to demonstrate the Soviet Union's ability to assist its client states in their time of need. The unexpected use of chemical weapons by the Libyans, coinciding with the introduction of Soviet and Cuban forces, resulted in the loss of valuable support from nonaligned nations and the world media as a whole. The crossing of the Egyptian border by Soviet forces, and the unrestrained advance of Libyan forces toward Alexandria, destroyed the claim that the conflict would be limited to the restoration of Libya's borders.
Finally, complicating this comedy of errors, the Politburo realized — too late — that there was a power struggle between Nafissi and the nominal head of the Libyan government in Tripoli. This placed Soviet forces, as well as the Politburo, in a quandary. Militarily, Soviet forces had to cooperate with Nafissi, if for no other reason than mutual protection from growing American air and naval attacks and, of course, logistics. On the national level, the realization that they were being used, and had no control over the political or military situation, angered the men in Moscow, who had once seen the exercise in Libya as nothing more than a show of national resolve.