The radio message had been clear and to the point. At a certain point, they were to ensure that they – the teams – were to be at least two thousand yards away from any identified target consisting of greater than five individuals. The orders seemed uncomfortably paranoid, but Joe and his men had obeyed, withdrawing back to their prepared positions. No sensible soldier would have questioned the order.
Joe blinked in surprise as the first missile roared through the air and struck the Saudi positions. Secondary explosions billowed up, destroying most of the engineering teams and their hard work. The bombardment seemed endless, with naval gunfire adding to the torment as other missiles streaked overhead and headed west, towards Riyadh.
When the bombardment was over the SEALS looked at each other in shock. Everyone’s ears were numb, but the desert around them was totally silent, except for the far off sounds of burning and explosions as ammunition detonated.
“Edwards,” Joe asked when he could speak again, “did the cameras get that?”
“Yep,” Edwards said.
“Uplink it to Odin, with a report that damage appears to be total,” Joe ordered. “Tell them that they kicked major ass out here.”
***
“Men of the 31st MEU, sailors of Task Force Hammer,” the commander said, his words echoing throughout the task group. “Over the past two hours, our destroyers, our submarines, and our aircraft have destroyed the enemy’s ability to challenge us on the sea, and on the beach. This morning before first light, we will be conducting a combined air and sea assault on the beaches north of Al Jubayl. Resistance is expected to be light, and we have assets on the ground, in the form of Navy SEALS.
“After we establish a beachhead, the maritime pre-positioning ships will begin bringing in Army units to advance to the south. Our objective is to take and hold the Saudi coastline before we advance up to link hands with troops from Kuwait and advance against Riyadh.
“With the use of a weapon of mass destruction against our country, a blow directed against our families and friends, our wives and our children, the Rules of Engagement have been changed. We will give civilians and obviously inferior military units one chance to surrender. You will require surrendering personnel to strip to underwear before closing to twenty yards. Any surrendering personnel who are unwilling to strip will be assumed to be suicide bombers, and shot. Military forces of unknown strength or numerically superior forces will be met by overwhelming firepower.”
He hesitated. “Any member of the defending forces whom you see commit an atrocity against the population, either through using them as human shields or anything else, is to be shot at once.” He chuckled darkly. “Do bear in mind that your helmets will record what you see, so we’re trusting in your discipline. Enemy military personnel will be warned to behave themselves. We will hold them to account for their actions.
“Look to your men, to your brothers in arms, and remember; we come to avenge those killed in America. If they want to surrender, accept it; if not, give them hell!”
Major Jerry Prost coughed as the General put down the mike. “General, are you sure it was a good idea to say that to the troops?”
Major-General Lee Munemori snorted. “Major, every man out there has family who has been affected by Henderson’s Disease or knows someone else who has. The men fight better when they know what the hell they’re doing, and why they’re doing it.”
“But General, they know why they’re fighting,” Prost objected. “Because it’s what they’re paid to do. Your words could encourage an atrocity.”
Munemori sighed. “You didn’t come up through combat arms, did you?”
“No sir,” Prost said proudly. “Intelligence.”
Munemori grinned. It was the kind of grin that swam towards swimmers with a fin on top. “Well congratulations, Major,” he said. “You just got an opportunity for a learning experience.”
Prost gulped. “What does the General have in mind?”
“I need someone on the ground,” Munemori said. “You’re it; you go in with the second wave.”
“Yes, sir,” Prost said, “but why me? I’m not infantry.”
“Every man a rifleman first,” Munemori reminded him lightly. His voice hardened. “Because it’s what you’re paid to do. And because you have forgotten what the fuck it is we do for a living. Get your gear ready, report to Colonel Blue as an observer.” He paused. “Oh and Major, I hope you remember how to use a rifle, you may need it.”
***
The air and sea around the amphibious assault force swarmed with chaos; organised chaos, but chaos just the same. Harriers were taking off and orbiting, as were Ospreys and other aircraft. As soon as they took off, they would nuzzle up to a tanker and top off. This was especially important to the Harriers as they had to burn a lot more fuel getting off the deck of the Essex. In addition the deck of the Essex was now filling up with Chinook heavy lifters for the second wave of airmobile assault. The sea was filled with LCACs and Landing Craft forming up for the rush into the beach. All of this was done in the dark, with no lights to speak of, including navigation lights. The plan called for everything to hit simultaneously, so that the defenders had no idea which way to turn. Of course, plans don’t usually survive contact with the enemy.
Somehow no one hit anyone else, no one crunched anything, and soon the LCACs headed for the beach with gunships overhead. A few minutes later the troop ship Ospreys headed for their LZs with more gunships escorting them.
***
Joe could hear the LCACs before he saw them. They were fast, but noisy, noisy enough to worry him. He would have hated to travel in such a vulnerable – and obvious – assault vehicle.
He had his men spread across five hundred yards of beach, watching his back. He was going to be bringing them in himself. Further down the beach other five man teams were doing similar tasks. Inland were more teams marking landing zones. The whole landing area would be thirty miles across, with thousands of Marines landing and taking enemy positions.
The bombardment had left very little intact in the area. There were chunks of wrecked steel and scraps of tank traps all over the beach but nothing remained intact enough to damage an LCAC. The Saudi troops seemed stunned, although some officers were clearly trying to organise resistance, encouraged by the clerics Joe could see shadowing them. Two tank units had shown up, and dug in, covering themselves with sand and tarps. Joe had informed his seniors that they were there, but he was fairly sure that the Marines wouldn’t have needed the warning. The Saudis had not done a good job of concealing them from outside observation.
He had no sooner thought that when the second bombardment began, spearheading the assault. The bombardment lasted for fifteen minutes, while the LCACS closed the distance. One of his team was yelling something about tanks in the open, but he couldn’t understand what was said, not over the noise of the incoming weapons. The SEAL signalled frantically, just before the bombardment patterns shifted; aircraft were roaring out over the beach, opening fire with rockets and machine guns. The bombardment had smoked the enemy tanks into the open and the aircraft had wiped them out.
By now, the LCAC he was guiding in was close enough to signal, so he flashed it with an IR beam. They responded and he started calling them in by IR light. Joe relaxed slightly, just before the aircraft roared overhead, far too close for comfort. Seconds later, he felt a terrible hammer blow and then nothing. The F/A 18’s moving overhead in a ground support role had mistaken his team for Saudi infantry and strafed them. There were no survivors.
***
Brent watched the data unfold in almost real time as the Allied forces invaded the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The 31st MEU had established a firm beachhead north of Al Jubayl, covering thirty miles by ten miles. Resistance had been almost non-existent, and casualties were very light. They expected to take the docks at Al Jubayl within hours, which would allow the Army to start bringing in the real heavy gear. The 31st could then pivot northwest. The 11th had taken a beachhead north of
Duba, and were advancing in good order towards Tabuk. They had taken a slightly heavier set of casualties, the hills overlooking their beach had been pocketed with artillery, and not all of it had been destroyed. One LCAC and three LCMs had been destroyed on the way in, or at the beach.
Still, the butcher’s bill was pretty light, unless you’re the family of one of the casualties, he reflected.
In addition, SF units had captured the oil fields mostly intact. Casualties had been heavier there, due as much as anything to the fact that they couldn’t shell the defenders out of something you wanted to capture intact. The Saudis had put up a savage fight, but the odds had been stacked against them from the first. The defenders had eventually given up and surrendered.
***
“I'm getting too old for this,” Gunnery Sergeant Dean Burtis muttered to himself. A LCAC was almost as noisy as standing next to a passenger jet at full throttle and no one would hear his words. “I really am too old for this.”
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.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
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.”
Ju
stin 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.
The Coward's Way of War Page 36
