The Coward's Way of War (47 page)

At one time he had been Force Recon, the USMC’s answer to the Rangers, but that had been too long ago.  A partial chute failure had put jumping out of perfectly good airplanes permanently off limits.  The doctors had done the best they could, but they also made it clear that one more drop like that and he would end up in a chair that he steered with his mouth.  A sympathetic officer had suggested that he transfer into armour and, eventually, he had ended up commanding a LAV-25, just in time for operations in the Middle East.  There were times when he had felt as if he’d spent more time in Iraq than he had at home.

“Five minutes,” the dispatcher snapped.  The LCAC was racing towards the Saudi coastline and every man’s mouth was dry.  No one had mounted a major amphibious operation for decades, outside training.  A single direct hit on the LCAC would kill everyone onboard.  It was time to button up. As the senior enlisted man in the company, Burtis was the platoon commander for 2nd platoon.  That meant that he was responsible for not just his car, but seven others as well.  He looked around to make sure everyone else was buttoned up and then did the same.

As he buttoned up he could hear the double cracks of the incoming naval artillery, shelling the enemy coastline.  The radio in his car was taking about armour in the open and fast movers were coming in to intercept, suggesting that the jet jockeys were earning their pay for once.  In what seemed like no time at all, the sound through the closed up car changed.  The ride changed subtly too. 

“Feet dry,” the radio squawked.  It came as no surprise.  They were kicking up so much spray he really couldn’t tell by looking that they were on dry ground for a couple of minutes by sight, but it sure felt different.  And then the sound of the drive dropped off, and the LCAC settled on its box, the gate dropped, and without waiting for orders the driver started the engine and got them the hell out of this target.

The LAV –
Mjollnir
, he’d named it - lurched as it came off the LCAC and then screamed off of the beach and up to the edge of a hillside full of wreckage.  As Burtis looked around through the periscopes of the turret, all he could see was bits and pieces of what used to be military equipment.  The Saudis had taken one hell of a pounding. 

Over the next half hour, the beach became filled with fighting vehicles and hummers.  A few enemy infantry had shown up, possibly the survivors of the tanks that were burning in the distance, and tried to fight.  They had not been given much of a chance to surrender, although it hadn’t looked as if they wanted to try; their suicidal attack hadn’t even been as dangerous as the attacks they’d faced while in the Sunni Triangle in Iraq.

When the bulk of the force was on the beach,
Mjollnir
was pointed south, and they were on the advance.  Infantry and artillery was left to maintain the beach while the rest of the 31st was brought in.  The Marines had an appointment in Al Jubayl.

***

Mjollnir was the second LAV in line on the run into Al Jubayl, the first one was one of the general purpose rigs
.  Burtis’ LAV was an anti-armour model whose job was to cover the lead vehicle’s rear from enemy tanks.  When they hit the outskirts of town, they started taking small arms fire, pinging off the armour.  The standard reaction to this was for the lead car to open up with its machine guns.  This stopped most harassment immediately, although it was - of course - rough on the house the firing came from.  The handful of civilians he saw seemed intent on heading away from the battle as fast as possible.

They were in industrial neighbourhoods almost immediately.  This surprised Burtis as he had expected something more like Iraq.  The Saudi city looked more like Houston to him.  As the lead car whipped around a curve in the road it was suddenly lit up with fire. The turret was blown free and went spinning up into the air; the rest of the car was burning merrily.  Burtis didn’t need to direct the driver; he was already headed for a building to hide behind while Burtis was grabbing the radio.

“Contact by red elements at this location,” he snapped, reading off grid coordinates from the GPS unit in front of him.  “Red one destroyed, I didn’t see what hit him, and I think we have tanks.”  He let go of the transmit key and looked down and aft for a second at the mounted infantry by the door.  “Stay under cover, keep your cameras on, but find me what did that.”

After the infantry dismounted, he got back on the intercom.  “Alright guys, we got something mean out there,” he said.  “That wasn’t a shoulder launch; about the only thing that will do that to this armour is a Sabot round.  Find me that fucking tank.”

“Got it, gunny,” one of the infantrymen said.  “I can just see the tip of the barrel on IR.”

Burtis scowled angrily.  The Saudis had positioned their tank behind fuel tanks, a tactical position that almost cancelled out the American advantages.  Still, there were always options.

“Laser it,” Burtis ordered, and keyed his radio.  “Battalion; Red six.  I have a tank, probably an Abrams, inside a tank farm.  Do you have air available?”

There was a tiny pause as strike aircraft were vectored onto the target.  An Abrams was a major problem for a LAV, even though the Saudis wouldn’t – he hoped – be up to American standards.  He wasn’t sure that the main gun on Mjollnir was quite up to taking on an Abrams, mentally cursing all the companies who’d sold America’s best and brightest to the Saudis.

“The pilot has been informed…and sees the target,” the dispatcher said.  “The strike is incoming…”

Seconds later, the Saudi tank vanished in a massive fireball as the fuel tanks detonated.  “I think we got him, gunny,” an infantryman said.  “He’s toast.”

Burtis nodded.  The scene was repeated many times on the drive to the docks.  By noon the lead elements of the 31st had linked up with the Royal Marine SBS.  The SBS had swum in to take the docks and hold them until they linked up with US Marines.  The allies didn’t hold all of Al Jubayl, but they held the docks and the roads out.  That was enough to start bringing in Army forces. The perimeter expanded outwards, crushing isolated pockets of resistance as they moved.

By evening the army had started to take over the perimeter in Al Jubayl, and the 31st stood down to rest and resupply.  The next morning they would be moving again, this time toward Kuwait, where they could link up with the 3rd Infantry Division. 

Casualties so far had been light; two LAVs had been destroyed with all hands, another one damaged to the point of depot repair by some bright Saudi trooper who had figured out how to drop a high tension power line on it.  A few men had been killed by snipers and one major, an intelligence specialist, was in the hospital due to an accidental self-inflicted wound.  He had shot himself in the leg trying to draw his pistol.  He was expected to keep the leg, but just barely.

“Bravest thing an intelligence guy ever did,” a private commented. 

Burtis could only agree. 

The American way of war WORKS!

- General Mujahid

Saudi Arabia

Day 38/39

“
I have fast air incoming,” the radioman said.  “The Saudis aren’t doing shit to stop them.”

Justin nodded.  The air war had practically been won on the first day, although the remaining sections of the RSAF were trying to fend off the Americans as best as they could.  Now that they’d lost most of their IADS, their ability to prevent the American aircraft from roaming at will over Saudi Arabia had been badly compromised.  A handful of ground-based radars had lit up long enough to illuminate and fire on American aircraft, but they always drew fire from drones and prowling fighter jets.

“Good,” he said, shortly.  The Saudi patrols had come closer than he cared to admit to uncovering their hide, although they’d managed to pick off enough young soldiers with sniper rifles to convince them not to hunt too enthusiastically.  The Saudis had deduced that the team had to be lurking somewhere near their base, but so far they hadn’t been able to localise them.  “Let’s see the targets.”

From their position, they could see into the military base, picking buildings and hangers that would serve as targets for the incoming air strike.  The Saudis were trying hard to conceal what they had on the base, but they’d clearly never considered how difficult it was to conceal anything from satellite observation, let alone the teams on the ground.  His men powered up their laser scopes and illuminated targets, beaming them with light that was invisible to the naked eye, yet easy for an incoming warhead to detect.  The bombs would lock onto the lights and follow them down to their targets.

“All targets illuminated,” he reported.  He could hear the sound of jet fighters in the distance.  “Come and get them, boys.”

The Saudis opened fire as the American jets swarmed closer, firing a mixture of SAM missiles and gunfire into the air.  Some of the gunfire looked to be random from his point of view, for the Saudis didn’t seem to be using their radars.  It was a smart choice under some circumstances, but with the base a target, it was largely meaningless.  King Khalid Military City was going to be bombed anyway, even if they kept their radars turned off.  He couldn’t see if they hit anything, but in the end, it hardly mattered.  The American bombs had started to fall.

When humanity had first learned how to fly, bombing had been a very imprecise science and – despite exaggerated claims – had consisted mainly of dropping the bombs by dead reckoning and hoping for the best.  A large target – like London, during the Blitz – was fairly easy to locate; a tiny target like a single building was almost impossible to locate and hitting it would be nothing more than a matter of luck.  As technology had advanced, it had become possible to target bombs more accurately, bringing them down right on top of their targets.  There were still accidents, still moments when the bombs lost their locks and hit the wrong targets, but overall the USAF could devastate an enemy target without causing much collateral damage.  When media and PR considerations had become more important than tactical considerations, precision targeting had become vitally important.  A single accident could ruin the entire war effort.

Justin wasn’t too concerned as the first bombs started to explode.  King Khalid Military City was a massive military base, not a genuine city.  There were few civilians in the base to be caught up in the explosions, even under the less restrictive ROE the US had incorporated after Henderson’s Disease.  The entire base was a legitimate target.  The only reason it hadn’t been smashed to powder was that it could be pressed into service by American and Iraqi forces, the latter of which were now massing on the border and preparing to advance.

“I think we pasted them,” McDonald said, as the fighters withdrew.  The Saudis kept firing after they were gone, although Justin had no idea just what they thought they were doing.  Perhaps it was to make them feel better, or perhaps their clerics were making the men continue firing, although it was completely ineffective.  Indeed, it was hurting them; a bullet fired now couldn’t be fired against the American military when it finally reached the city.  “The brass is going to want some post-damage assessment.”

Justin shrugged.  The Saudis had tightened up their security after the war had begun, making him reluctant to risk running his people through the base again.  He’d been tempted to repeat the Saudi trick of sending commando groups through the main gates and opening fire, but he didn’t have the numbers – or the mindset – to risk his men on a suicide mission.  The team would assess the damage for CENTCOM and the President, yet they’d be doing it at a distance.  Even so, it was clear – just from the fires blazing away in the distance – that the flyboys had hit something vital.  The base’s use as a military centre had been reduced.

His lips tightened as he watched the Saudis scurrying like ants, trying to put out the fires and repair the damage.  There was no way to know just how badly they’d been hurt, though, not until they captured the complex.  The fighter jets had hit them, but what had they hit?  He’d been on the ground during operations in Iraq and knew that even direct hits didn’t always destroy the target, or inflict lethal harm.  If higher authority took the destruction of the base’s facilities for granted, they might be in for a nasty surprise.

“Yeah,” he grunted.  “I guess they will want to know what they hit.”

***

The Americans had designed and built his base, which suggested
– very strongly – to General Mujahid that they would know exactly where to hit to do the most damage.  Accordingly, he'd taken the precaution of moving his command and control centres around and hiding them in harmless storage buildings, buildings he’d deduced the Americans would probably want to use themselves when the base fell.  The clerics hadn’t been so keen on moving out of the luxury compartments provided for senior officers, but they wouldn’t have had a chance to regret it.  The Americans had blown up that building and, quite by accident, done the Saudi defenders a vast favour.