Story 3

by Rich Clark

We flew through the dust kicked up by the M1 platoon we were tasked to support, as it advanced at speed towards the phase line. Behind us, friendly artillery was firing; ahead, a platoon of T-72's was dug in hull-down on a ridgeline, and somewhere beyond, another enemy tank platoon with mobile anti-air support was on the move.

We had to manoeuvre quickly to find a vantage from which we could lase those T-72's without exposing ourselves unnecessarily; neither I nor my wingman had radar -- the only remaining Longbow-equipped Apache at our FARP had been heavily damaged during this morning's enemy offensive, and we wouldn't have a replacement for two more days.

We were able to dispatch the T-72's, but almost immediately two Iranian Cobras popped onto our TADS three km to the north. They weren't heading towards us, and I surmised from their slow progress that they were sticking close to some ground units moving west through a ravine I quickly charted on my Nav map. A Stinger for each -- I could see their flares fountain into the sky as they detected the incoming missiles, too late -- and we headed up the ravine to deal with what turned out to be a a mixed column of tanks, APC's and AA units, all scattering into the rocky terrain at our approach.

Three of the tanks were too slow to escape the trio of Hellfires I and my wingman lobbed at them, but three more vehicles made it to the other side of a ridge to our west; one of them appeared on my TADS as a ZSU, which could definitely ruin my evening.

I considered calling in an air strike, but A-10's are expensive. There were only three bad guys; I figured we could handle it.

As we slowly eased our way over the top of the ridge, however, the Iranian tank and the ZSU suddenly exploded, almost in our faces. In their haste to escape us, they had exposed themselves to the very M1's we were supporting; the US tanks had nearly reached their objective while we were screwing around on the other side of the ridge to their east, and our prey had rolled right into their sights. The BMP put up a feeble struggle with his machine gun as he scrambled for cover, but quickly fell to my wingman's cannon.

The welcome confirmation of "mission complete" came over the radio, and we decided to head northeast to see if we could help out the Apaches from FARP 1, who were still engaged in a deep strike mission. ABCCC had located an artillery emplacement not far from their target, between us and them, and where there's arty there's usually AA. But that's another story...