by Harold Coyle
The personnel side was better, but not much. The dead and missing included Unger and his entire FIST team, Sergeant Pierson and the 34 tank, as well as Lieutenant Harding, wounded on LOG. That left the XO with the 55 tank, Garger with 31, Sergeant First Class Hebrock with 24 and Staff Sergeant Rhoads with 22. The tanks had nineteen men, including the crew of 66. Polgar had big 23 track with Staff Sergeant Flurer and 2nd Squad and the 24
track with Staff Sergeant Jefferson and the 3rd Squad. Each infantry squad had the driver, track commander, and six men, giving the Mech Platoon seventeen men. Team Yankee was now down to four tanks, two PCs, two Dragons, and thirty-five men.
The enemy had not yet reacted to the loss of Hill 214. After destroying the artillery battery, the tanks had had no contact with the Russians. It was, however, only a matter of time. The presence of Team Yankee on Hill 214 or in the area had to be known. Why else would the three tanks that 66 had encountered have been pulled out from the front and sent back to the rear in the middle of a battle? Bannon doubted that the Soviets knew how much, or how little, was on 214. His guess was that they would send in a small element first to locate the Team, discover their size and composition, and pin them. Once they had done that, the Soviets would strike and strike hard. It was the way they did business.
While Uleski and Polgar gathered up the Team leadership, all the track commanders this time, Bannon pondered their options. They could withdraw. As there had been no contact with battalion since the attack had begun and there was little prospect of achieving contact now, withdrawal would be acceptable. Team Yankee was obviously incapable of performing a Team-sized mission because of its losses. Ammunition was becoming critically low and Bannon had no idea when or even if battalion would link up. Although Polgar had informed him that LOG had been cleared, it could have been reoccupied by the Soviets. Only Harding and a few wounded had been left to hold that hill while they waited for Team Bravo to move up. That had not yet occurred when Polgar had left. To stand on Hill 214 and attempt to continue, knowing full well that the Soviets would be back, made no sense. But neither did a simple withdrawal. While there was almost no hope of holding Hill 214 against a powerful counterattack with the Team's current strength, there was no guarantee that the Russians would, or could, counterattack in strength. There was the possibility that they were in just as bad shape as the Team and could not counterattack. They might have pushed everyone forward and left no one to reinforce the flanks. The fact that the three T-62 tanks had to be pulled off the front to reinforce the rear hinted at this. To withdraw and learn later that there had been no
threat would
ensure that the deaths of the men in Team Yankee had been in vain. There was also the chance that the rest of the battalion would finally make it up and continue with the mission. It would be humiliating to be in the process of withdrawing against an imagined foe and run head-on into the rest of the battalion as it advanced up to Hill 214. Not that pride and humiliation were of prime concern to Bannon right now. It was just that such an occurrence was as likely, given his lack of information, as anything else. Besides, the order to seize Hill 214 was still in effect. It was decided, then. Team Yankee had taken this hill and was going to keep it until ordered elsewhere or thrown off. Bannon began to appreciate the old philosophy that once soldiers had paid for a piece of ground with the blood of their comrades, the value of that land became greater and transcended what cold logic would otherwise calculate. For Team Yankee, this ground was important. They would hold.
Now that it was decided, he had to determine how to hold Hill 214. With four tanks and two PCs, they could hold four to five hundred meters of front. But the Team was on its own and had to worry about its flanks and rear, not just the front. The Soviets might try a frontal attack once, but they would not do it twice. Besides, they might try holding the Team's attention to the front while maneuvering infantry through the woods to hit them in the rear. Flank and rear security were therefore critical.
Lt. Col. Yuri Potecknov prepared to execute his new mission in the exact, scientific manner that he had been taught and had used in Afghanistan. It was a simple mission and well within the capabilities of his unit. A small probing attack by some American tanks had penetrated the thin security screen on the Army's flank and was threatening a critical town named Arnsdorf. Colonel Potecknov was to wipe out the enemy force and restore the security screen.
While Potecknov was unhappy that his motorized rifle battalion was being diverted from the main effort of the
army, he rationalized that it was for the better. His troops were still untried by battle. They had followed around in reserve for the last three days, awaiting the chance to pour through a breach in the American lines that never came. By sweeping up the enemy force at Arnsdorf, the colonel could blood his troops. The cheap victory would help instill some confidence in the battalion and allow him to see how well his officers performed under fire. This would be nothing more than a live-fire exercise with a few targets that fired back.
With Team Yankee's leadership assembled, Bannon went over their current situation, how they were going to hold Hill 214 and what he expected the enemy to do. There wasn't a lot to work with. What they did have had to be stretched to cover threats from any direction. The result was not the soundest plan he had ever made. It violated just about every tactical principle. But, given the situation and time, it was the best he could do. Once the orders were out, the Team began to deploy and dig in. The tanks still constituted their major firepower. Initially, they would fight from their present positions-for now, they were pulled into hide positions. A two-man outpost was established at the tree line to watch to the northwest.
From that position, the tanks were prepared to defend against an attack from Arnsdorf. They also would be prepared to occupy two other positions. The first was on the eastern side of the woods covering the open space between Hill 214 and a wooded lot to the southeast. A Soviet commander could use the lot as a staging area and rush across the open area onto Hill 214. The second position was on the crest of Hill 214 facing south. The Soviet commander might decide to seal off the Team's routes of escape and reinforcement, then hit it from that direction. The Mech Platoon was broken up into three elements. The two rifle squads dismounted and established an ambush along a north-south trail that ran through the center of the woods north of Hill 214. This protected the Team from a dismounted attack from the north through the woods, provided the Soviet commander used the trail to guide on.
The two PCs with only the drivers and track commanders under Uleski established an outpost on the crest of Hill 214 watching to the south. The third element was a two-man OP
on the east side of the woods watching the southeast wooded lot. Bannon hoped that if the Soviets came from the south or from the east, the two OPs would be able to give the tanks sufficient warning and time to switch to the alternate positions.
It was the attack through the woods from the north that was, to Bannon, the greatest threat.
Polgar had a total of thirteen men to cover that area. This number included Folk and Kelp as there were no vacant positions on the tanks. The distance from the west edge to the east edge of the wooded lot was just a little over one thousand meters. With two men per foxhole and ten meters between foxholes, the most Polgar could cover was sixty meters. That left a very large gap on either side that the Soviet commander could move whole companies through, if he knew where they were. In all likelihood, however, a commander conducting a night attack through unfamiliar woods would stick to or near the trail for no other reason than to maintain orientation. If that happened, Polgar was ready and waiting with one of their Dragons, two M60 machine guns, two grenade launchers, and the riflemen. To provide an additional edge, antitank and antipersonnel mines were deployed to the front and flanks of the infantry positions. Command and control of the Team was simplified. First, there wasn't that much to command or control. Second, all radios were put on the company net. Bannon took over the XO's tank and st
ayed with the tanks. With his arm injured, Uleski could not fight 55. Besides, Bannon wanted someone dependable with the PCs covering the south. After the run-in with the T-62s in the morning, he was paranoid about the southern side of Hill 214.
The OP
in front of the tanks had a sound-powered phone running back to 55 so that the men at the OP could pass information back to the tanks. The OP on the east side was also using sound-powered phones to maintain contact. Their phone line ran back to Polgar who in turn maintained contact with Bannon via a portable PRC-77 radio on the Team net. With the exception of Polgar, who
had to run his dismounted infantry using voice commands, everyone in the Team could contact everyone else.
The afternoon passed in a strange and unnerving silence. The distant rumble of artillery hitting someone else far away had become so routine that unless an effort was made, it wasn't noticed anymore. Everyone was nervous and on edge. At the slightest sound or movement out of the ordinary the men would stop work and grab their weapons. Since the war had begun no one in the Team had had much of a chance for a decent, uninterrupted sleep. In the last thirty-six hours, no one had had more than two hours of sleep. While it was noticeable on everyone, this lack of sleep had its most telling effect on the leaders. Bannon found that he had to repeat orders two or three times. When the orders were being issued for the defense of Hill 214, one of the tank commanders had fallen asleep. Once, while Uleski was telling of his preparations, he stopped in mid-sentence, unable to remember what he intended to say next. The only way Bannon kept going was by constantly moving around. Even then, he sometimes had to stop and try hard to remember what it was he had been doing. The Team could not go on like this for another twenty-four hours. By tomorrow, Bannon thought, they would be at the end of their ability to endure and function.
As he was going over this in his mind, he decided, despite his previous decision, that if they had no contact with anyone from battalion or brigade by 0300 the following morning, he would take Team Yankee off Hill 214 and, under the cover of darkness, reenter friendly lines to the south. If someone was coming, they would be there by then. To try and hold on for another day would be beyond their physical capability. He could only ask so much of the men. During his rounds Bannon informed Uleski and Polgar of his decision.
It was during the last hour of daylight that the Russians came. A column of four T-72s and eight BTR-60PBs rolled down the road into Arnsdorf from the northwest. A motorized rifle company. Garger, Hebrock, and Bannon crawled out to the OP and watched them come. They drove down the road as if Team Yankee were a thousand miles away. The tanks led, followed by the BTR-60s. As this unit had T-72s, it was Bannon's guess that they were from a different regiment or possibly a different division than the Soviet unit the Team had overrun in the morning. The theory that the Russians had shoved everything forward and left their flanks weak seemed to be correct. Their coming from the northwest pointed to the fact that they were robbing the front line units to secure the rear areas. If nothing else, Team Yankee's attack had caused the Soviets to divert forces from their attack to the west.
As they lay there watching the motorized rifle company and tanks move into Arnsdorf, Bannon asked if anyone knew how many men a BTR-60 could carry. Without hesitating, Lieutenant Garger informed him that it could carry twelve passengers and had a crew of two.
For a moment Bannon put down his binoculars and looked at the young lieutenant. In the past three days he had done exceedingly well. His performance had been on par with that of McAlister and Harding. The fact that he had made it this far was a testament to his ability as a tank commander. Bannon had often heard stories about men who were complete zeros in peacetime but became tigers in
war. Garger seemed to be one of them. He was glad that circumstances had prevented his replacing him.
They watched and listened as the motorized rifle company pulled into Arnsdorf and stopped.
The vehicles cut off their engines. Orders given by the Russian officers could be heard as they dismounted. Chances were they would wait until dark before trying anything. Probably a dismounted recon and then an attack. The red setting sun seemed an omen of things to come.
From the edge of Arnsdorf, Colonel Potecknov, his deputy, his operations officer, and his political officer surveyed the hill to the southeast. They could see the debris of the artillery battery that had been caught in the open as well as the track marks gouged out by the American tanks. He tried to listen for any tell-tale signs of activity from the hill but could not because of the noise his men were making
in the town. He had ordered one company to do so in order to attract the Americans'
attention. If they were watching, which the colonel had no doubt they were, they weren't showing themselves. Turning to his operations officer, he said, "Very well. If the Americans won't show themselves, we will go in and find them. Prepare a patrol."
After the operations officer scurried to issue the necessary orders, the colonel turned back and continued to study the hill in the failing light. "A simple exercise. Easy. We shall squeeze this hill like a grape and see what comes out," he said, talking to no one in particular as he watched and waited.
While they continued to watch Arnsdorf in the failing light, 55's loader crawled up beside Bannon and informed him that Polgar had received a report from the OP on the east side that they had heard the sound of vehicles moving through the woods to the southeast. The Soviets evidently intended to hit the Team from both sides at once. As they crawled back, Bannon tried to figure out how to deal with the two threats. The Team could deal with one attack at a time from one direction, not two from entirely different directions. He began to wonder if the show the motorized rifle company had put on while entering Arnsdorf was, in fact, a deception. Perhaps the real attack would come from the east. There was less open ground to cover from that direction. It made sense.
Once back at 55, Bannon radioed Uleski. He ordered the XO to move from the hilltop and go over to where the infantry OP was sited on the east side.
He
told him also that he was sending the two 2nd Platoon tanks over. Uleski was to organize the defense there but be prepared to send the tanks back if
they were needed. Polgar and his men were to stay put for now, but he was told to be prepared to go either way to reinforce Bannon or Uleski. If the defense of Hill 214 failed, Polgar was to try to get back to his PCs or,
if that was not possible, to escape and evade south on foot as best he could. The odds were not good. They had at least four tanks and
probably more supported by upwards of two hundred infantry. But it was too late to have second thoughts about fighting or fleeing. The Team was committed. With the last light of day gone, all that was left for the Team to do was wait for the Russians to come. They didn't have long to wait.
CHAPTER SEVEN.
Check and Checkmate.
It was Sergeant Polgar and his thin line of infantry that were hit first. Just after 2300, movement was detected to their front. At first, it was just the faint rustle of leaves and the snap of a twig. Not enough to home in on or know for sure if there really was someone out there. But soon the infantrymen, using their night vision devices, could see a line of figures slowly advancing in a staggered column on either side of the trail. Polgar was pleased. Their formation and direction could not have been any better as far as he was concerned. He was going to let the lead man get to within ten meters of his foxhole before firing.
As he waited for them, Polgarfs pulse began to beat harder and faster. The fear of premature disclosure of his position by one of his men increased his nervous anxiety, so he kept looking left down his line of positions, then right, then left again. The men, clearly visible through Polgarfs night vision goggles, were ready and like himself, tense. When they were thirty meters from Polgar, the Soviets stopped. His heart skipped a beat. Had his men been discovered? Had he lost the element of surprise? The two lead Soviet soldiers, now fully exposed and clea
rly visible to Polgar, turned and looked back. Another figure, ten meters behind them, waved a pistol and pointed it forward, whispering a command of some type.
The two lead soldiers turned back to the front and proceeded. They were the point element, and the one with the pistol was obviously the officer in charge.
When the lead Russian came to within ten meters, Polgar slowly released the safety on his M 16, raised it to his shoulder, and fired. The single shot knocked the Russian back and unleashed the well-rehearsed and deadly ambush drill. Three of the infantrymen hit the antipersonnel mine detonators, causing thousands of small round pellets to rip through the Soviet column. The machine guns opened fire along set sectors with a withering cross-fire that knocked down those still standing after the mines had detonated. The grenadiers plunked out 40mm grenades in their sectors. The riflemen surveyed their areas and, like the grenadiers, marked their targets and took them out.
The violence and shock of the ambush were overwhelming. The Russian officer barely uttered a word before he was cut down. The deadly and accurate point-blank fire ensured that any movement by any Russian who survived the first volley was his last. The darkness, the violence of execution, the loss of their leaders, and the resulting confusion were too much. Those lucky enough to be in the rear of the column withdrew back down the trail, pursued by a hail of bullets. Some made it.
The order to cease fire could be heard throughout the woods. As quickly as it had started, the firing stopped and quiet returned.
Polgarfs report to Bannon was matter-of-fact, accurate, and succinct. In his opinion, the Russians had been a platoon and were merely probing for positions and strengths. That discovery had been costly for the Russians. But they had the men available and could afford the price. While the Team awaited the next Soviet move, Polgar shifted his men back several meters to a new line of positions. If the Soviets decided to hit the Team in all directions, the survivors would surely lead the next group back to the point of the ambush.
