While the Saudis had better equipment, they had little experience using it. Most units of the Iraqi Army were equally raw, but the sheer mass of that army made up for any lack of prowess in battle. The ability of the Iraqi infantry to make massive attacks and infiltrate gaps in the line had been most effective.
Yet now the battle was rolling ever nearer to General Walter Conyers and his 82nd Airborne Division, one best trained in the US Army. There was a growing tension in the desert air, because if they persisted, Iraq and Iran would leave no doubt as to the fact that they were now at war with the strongest military on earth.
Unfortunately, most of that power was over 5000 miles away….
Chapter 20
Ivy Mike and Bram Stoker had another assignment that night. Even though their brigade was us at Al Jubayl on the coast, they had been assigned to the Division Intelligence pool, and sent well south this time, to report on suspected movement west of Highway 75. Earlier that day, air reconnaissance had seen a concentration of Iraqi forces around the old desert airfield of Hadhar, but the initial assessment had been that these were brigades reorganizing and resting after the intense fighting around Al Nairyah.
There was no paved road that led to Hadhar, just dirt roads that made their way through the shifting sands, there when they are used, gone when no one came that way. Lieutenant Ives tried to find a reported secondary road using satellite imagery, but all he could see was the empty desert.
Yet the relatively flat and open ground was easy going for tracked vehicles, except in areas of dunes or heavy sand. As highway 75 ran due south, it was fringed by rocky terrain to the west, an area of about 20 kilometers. But beyond that broken ground, things flattened out to empty, hard arid desert, and that was where Hadhar, and several other desert airstrips, had been set up. US planners at OMCOM were worried about it, because it looked like a natural route south.
What they did not know was that Iraqi special forces battalions had been scouting the way south all the previous day, and that night there was a major movement south by the Talwalkana, Nebuchadnezzar, and Al-Medina Divisions of the Republican Guard. They had followed thin desert tracks connecting these little used desert airstrips, to the southernmost strip at Muhaysh. There the ground became more difficult again, with dunes to the west and stony ground to the east, so the column stopped near Hill 1165 to rest, all lights blackened. At 03:00, they planned to move again, looking for the road east towards the junction of Highways 75 and 80.
Infrared air recon saw the long column glowing, and the alarm was raised at King Khalid AFB to get Strike Eagles up. On the ground, Lieutenant Ives and his sidekick Sergeant Stoker had checked in at the headquarters of Panther Brigade, 3BCT of the 82nd Airborne, and then they went up Highway 75 through the hamlet of Urayarah to a substation about 10 kilometers south of the Abwab Heliport. It wasn’t long before they spotted trouble.
The Iraqi 2nd and 3rd Special Forces Battalions had been operating on the ground all night, moving like shadows over terrain they found very familiar to that back home in Iraq. They had picked their way through rocky gullies to a small hill, labeled 912, and Sergeant Stoker spotted movement there before dawn on the 28th of November.
“Look there, LT, that’s infantry on that hill south of the road.”
“Right, Colonel Jenkins at Panther Den told me they tangled with our patrols last night. We need to get north up 75, and then get off the road to the west. Its rough country, but I think we can get through.”
They worked their way west of the highway, using hills marked on the map to guide them. Hill 1083 was the highest point on the map, and also easier to get to in the Hummer, so they were up on that hill at 03:00, just as the Iraqi Republican Guard column began to get moving. The silence of the desert was suddenly broken by the deep distant growl of big engines.
“Intel was right,” said Ives. “There’s got to be a big column out there, probably just beyond that high ground on the horizon. They must have used that open valley north of this air strip to get down this far last night, then tried to lay low.”
They watched for some time, until the sound of tanks was palpably evident on the cool desert air. It was a big column, bigger than a division, and that raised Sergeant Stoker’s hackles.
“These guys are heading right for 3rd BCT.”
“Damn right. Get on the radio and report it. This is serious. That’s got to be a full division.”
It was, in fact, the Al Medina Armored Division, led by its 14th Mech Brigade, with 2nd and 10th Armored Brigades following. What they did not know, was that three other brigades had already passed this point, and they were well to the east, two independent infantry brigades and the 10th Mechanized Brigade of the Talwakana Division. There was even more force at the tail of the column, as yet unseen.
“Rivet Joint, Panther One, this is Redtail. Major movement to your west and approaching Grid 988-7. Heavy, heavy. Over.”
Now they could hear the sound of helicopters, flying low over the ground bringing in more Iraqi special forces teams. It was clear to the Lieutenant that this was a major offensive advance, and he stated so in his urgent report to 3BCT.
The 82nd was put on notice, and now it was going to war.
For years, as the military missions began to shift away from anti-terrorism deployments, the TO & E’s of various US Army units began to change to reflect the growing “Great Power” competition underway. This was even reflected in the structure of the 82nd Airborne Division, which had begun by adding a so called “tank battalion” to its order of battle. It began with Alpha Company, 4/68 Armored, a new unit attached to the 82nd. The catch was that instead of “tanks” like the M1A2 Abrams heavy tank, it had light armored vehicles, the LAV-25A2, a vehicle the USMC was using.
After that first company found its way into the division structure, a new idea emerged from the RAND think tank for the conversion of an Airborne BCT into an “Airborne Light Armored Infantry” force. Since the LAV-25 could be deployed by parachute, or carried in C-17’s, the addition of 12 transport LAV’s and another 8 recon versions would add additional protection, ground mobility, and firepower to an otherwise air lifted brigade.
In this history, that concept was embraced by converting the 3rd BCT of the 82nd Airborne with this new TO & E, not just one battalion, but all three. That put 60 LAV-25’s on the ground at Rivet Joint One, which was the code name given to that vital road junction where Highway 75 and 80 crossed one another. The division also had the 73rd Cavalry Regiment, with a squadron attached to each of the three BCTs, and after moving by helicopter to their deployment zone, the were each assigned ten M1A2’s from prepositioned war stocks that had been in the Kingdom. So while the 82nd remained a light infantry force by design, it nonetheless had some teeth in its structure, and all the infantry battalions were also lavishly supported by Javelin and TOW AT systems.
That said, the warning sent by Lieutenant Ives was quite stark. He was advising 3BCT that a heavy column was heading their way with both APC’s and tanks. This deep envelopment was much bigger than anyone at OMCOM had surmised, and it got General Walter Conyers quite concerned. He had flown from OMCOM in Muscat to King Fahd Airport near Damman to get in the saddle for the fight that was drawing closer by the hour.
It soon became clear that the Iraqis had masked the entire front along the lines of the U.A.E. and Saudi forces, and then sent the bulk of their Republican Guard divisions on this big overnight maneuver east of Highway 75. What concerned him most was that the Saudi lines ended around the town of Hanidh on Highway 75, which was 75 kilometers north of the 3rd BCT positions. There was nothing on that road, which made that a big 75 mile gap now that there were strong enemy forces approaching Rivet Joint One. His 3rd BCT was an island, with no friendlies on either flank for miles.