Israel's Next War

by Martin Archer

  What I didn’t realize at the time was just how vicious and extensive the ground war was going to become.

  One exception to the absence of air power over the battlefield, according to the intelligence reports I was getting, is Israel’s use of hunter-killer helicopter teams around the forward edges of the battle. Well before the sun even came up on the first day of the invasion a number of Israel’s small observation helicopters were beginning to carefully prowl along the forward edge of the enemy-held territory hunting for enemy tanks and vehicles, always trying to stay below the line of sight of the radar of the Coalition’s mobile missiles and out of the view of its SAM carrying infantry.

  When Israel’s scout helicopters find an enemy target they light it up with a laser beam; then a larger rocket firing attack helicopter waiting under cover behind the scout pops up from the radar clutter behind a building or tree or ridge line, fires, and instantly drops back out of sight to wait for its scout to find another victim.

  Israeli hunter-killer helicopter teams apparently practice this constantly and, according to Mr. Duffy when I finally got to speak to him the next day, are quite good at it. Even so, sometimes a scout helicopter gets too high or too close or an attack helicopter takes too long to locate the laser the scout is aiming at its target. Then one of the Coalition’s handheld SAMs or anti-aircraft units brings it down. It’s a cat and mouse game and the Israelis are very good cats; the mice, however, have sharp teeth and use them.

  ****** Dick Evans

  Harry and I are with General Makow’s Tenth Armored Brigade. When the war started the Tenth was on the heights and immediately behind the Golan Brigade. It had been there for three weeks because those were the weeks during which its reservists were long ago scheduled for their annual thirty days of intensive field training. The Islamic armies would have faced a different brigade backing up the Golan Brigade if they had waited and started their attack a few days later. The permanently mobilized 188th Brigade of the Israeli Army was further down the heights below the Tenth. Its men are all regulars and train constantly. The 188th and the Golan Brigade are among the finest armor units in the world and Yoram’s Tenth is right up there with them.

  By 0300 Harry and I were in our jeep heading south. Harry was driving with only the parking lights on and Si and Solly were sitting in the rear with their assault rifles ready. Oren and Joel are no longer with us. They’re good men—as soon as the fighting started they took the other jeep and immediately went forward to find their unit, the 4th battalion, and join the fight.

  The battle to our immediate rear is louder and more intense than almost anything I’ve ever heard. The only exception might be the battle for Chita between the Chinese and the Russians. It was just as unbearably loud and intense.

  Our intention is for the four of us to go to one of the Tenth Brigade’s rally points. That’s where Oren told us to go as he and Joel rushed out of the tent to rejoin their battalion. We think we know where the rally point is because we visited it last week during one of the Tenth’s practice moves. And we better be heading in the right direction and moving faster than the Iranians and Arabs; they seem to be seriously pissed off and as likely to shoot at us as not.

  At the moment we’ve moved off the dirt trail so we won’t be flattened by a fast moving column of Merkava tanks and missile equipped Israeli armored personnel carriers. They are moving up in the dark from the Israeli flatlands to join the battle. More precisely, we’re slipping and sliding down some rocky scree on the side of a little hill and can periodically see where we’re going by the light of the artillery flares almost constantly blossoming in the night sky—and getting closer and closer.

  ******

  A few minutes after we came down the rocky hillside we reached one of the brigade’s rally points at a little dirt cross roads where a couple of lady MPs were standing and directing traffic with flashlights despite the explosions periodically going off around them. After an extremely brief conversation with Si and Solly, one of the MPs waved us down one of the side roads. We bounced along for about a kilometer until an artillery flare popping overhead let us see a tent encampment near the left side of the road.

  There were a couple of lantern-lit medical tents and an armored personnel carrier with a lot of antennas on it parked a little ways off to the side. A couple of Humvees and an ammunition truck were parked by the APC. We pulled in and parked next to the Humvees. The guys got out and peed while I double timed over to the command vehicle to see if I could get access to a radio to call in a report to General Roberts. Damn I’ve got to go myself.

  No use. I didn’t even bother to ask. One look at the harried men and women sitting at the little tables inside the APC and their continuous use of the phones and it wasn’t even worth asking if I could borrow one for a few minutes—our needs aren’t in the same league as theirs. Now what should we do?

  “What’ya think Harry? What should we do?

  We stood there for a few moments by our jeep listening to the noise and then the answer came to each of us at the same moment. A Humvee filled with Israeli wounded careened down the dirt road and stopped at one of the aid tents. In the light of the flares we could see two orderlies rush out with a stretcher and begin loading one of the men. Another tried to get out by himself and staggered on to his hands and knees as his feet hit the ground.

  “Christ, let’s go see if we can help,” I shouted over my shoulder as I started to double time towards the aid tents. “Damn right,” shouted Harry as both Si and Solly simultaneously said something I didn’t catch. The sound of the battle was becoming so intense it was hard to hear one another other talk.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Almost everyone in Israel was awakened in the middle of night as the “telephone tree” Israel uses to back up the mass email and cell phone texts it uses to call up its reservists moved into high gear, with each recipient of a call in turn calling the recipients on his own alert list. Within minutes the lights were going on in virtually every Jewish and Druze home and hundreds of thousands of Israelis rushed to put on their uniforms and get to their mobilization points. It went rather smoothly as it should—they’ve done it often enough.

  Most of Israel’s army and border police units finished forming up and began pulling out for the front even before the sun came up. And, as has been the case in every one of its previous wars, so many retired reservists began reporting to their old units that many of the Israeli companies and battalions were moving out with more than one hundred percent of their authorized strength. The men and women who couldn’t get to their units in time for one reason or another will catch up to with them as best they can.

  And there are more Israeli troops coming—within hours media around the world, particularly in the United States, the UK, Australia, and Canada, reported their airports were being overrun with tens of thousands of Israeli men, and women too, desperately seeking flights to Israel so they can rejoin their units.

  A relative handful of the reservists headed for Israel’s naval bases. And those that do report found, as they had fully expected, every operational missile ship, patrol boat, and submarine in Israeli navy already at sea. The Israeli navy, it seems, has a relatively high proportion of full time personnel. Every operational Israeli combat ship is required to always have a full complement of crewmen available such that it can put to sea for combat operations with one hour’s notice. The active duty crews all live on or near their ships. The reservists’ active duty time is primarily used to spell the regulars so they can take leaves and attend courses.

  ****** Dick Evans

  Harry and I spent the hours until the sun finally came up, and then a couple of more, carrying wounded Israelis into the tents where surgeons and medics, both men and women, worked feverishly in the din and confusion to triage the arrivals and save as many lives as possible. Those that could be evacuated we helped load on the empty Humvees and ammo trucks being flagged down and directed to us by the MPs as they came down the dirt tracks o
n their way to the rear to get more ammunition and supplies.

  The Israelis are bringing out their dead along with their wounded. Many times during those first terrible hours we carried what was left of a dead Israeli out behind the tent and laid him or her in one of the three ever lengthening rows of bodies. There were already bodies out there when we started.

  Just as the sun came up the surviving tanks and APCs from the Tenth and the Golanis, began arriving and being directed into previously prepared defensive positions around the field hospital by shouting and waving officers and NCOs. As soon as the tanks and APCs stop they begin taking on ammo and fuel from the waiting trucks and tankers. Some of the arriving tanks were pretty shot up and many of the Merkavas and APCs were carrying dead and wounded Israelis in their personnel compartments along with their infantry.

  About an hour after we arrived we discovered we’d somehow passed the Tenth’s first rally point in our confusion and had, instead, reached a Golani rally point further down the Golan.

  I’m not sure how we missed the Tenth’s initial rally point. We probably spent too much time looking back at the intense battle erupting behind us.

  ******

  It’s been a couple of hours since the sun came up and Solly and I just returned from helping load some of the walking wounded into an Israeli deuce and a half after it had unloaded ammunition at some nearby tanks. I’m not exactly sure where Si and Harry are at the moment, just that they are nearby doing what we’re doing. But one thing is certain—if half of what the wounded are telling us is true, the Israelis are in real trouble.

  According to the men we spoke with, the Golani Brigade’s tanks were forced to fall back and hand the battle off to the Tenth; then the Tenth was forced to fall back and hand the battle off to the 188th. Now the 188th is falling back and trying to hand the battle off to a cobbled together defensive line based on what’s left of the Tenth and the Golani survivors.

  “The wounded are right. Things are really bad,” Si shouted over the earth shattering noise and the explosions starting to occur all around us.

  “Usually the fuel and ammunition reloads and ambulances are sent forward to the tanks and APCs; sending the armor back carrying the wounded instead of sending the fuel and ammunition carriers up to the front means the battalion commanders don’t think they are going to be able to hold here much longer.”

  ******

  The new Israeli defense line apparently runs right through where we are helping the medics near the bottom of the Heights. When we first got here we were seeing the tanks and APCs of the Golanis and the Tenth which had run out of ammunition. They arrived carrying dead and wounded Israelis when they came back to get more fuel and ammo and move into new positions. Now we’re in the midst of a huge storm of dust and smoke—and a great and somewhat disorganized mass of Israeli tanks, APCs, and running men is making it worse as they pour down out of the heights and desperately try to get into new positions on this side of the little ridge sheltering the aid station.

  One reason it is so dusty is Israeli assault helicopters are frequently flying a few feet off the ground immediately above us. The hospital tents periodically shake and are filled with dust as the helicopters hover over us and pop up to fire and then quickly drop back down again into the dust clouds they are constantly creating. One tent even blew down on top of a surgical team in the middle of an operation.

  About fifteen minutes ago the number of artillery rounds exploding behind us significantly increased and the Israeli attack helicopters began positioning themselves further south. Now the artillery rounds are passing over so close I can sometimes hear their paper ripping “whoosh” despite the ear shattering din of constant firing and explosions on the other side of the ridge.

  Uh oh, the Coalition armor must be right on the other side of this ridge.

  “Harry,” I shouted as he came by me helping a wounded man hobble to the evacuation truck we’ve been filling. “The Israelis are pulling back. It’s time to get the last of the wounded out of the aid station and boogie. The Israelis are taking their casualties past us. Where are Si and Solly?”

  Without waiting for an answer I grabbed up the wounded Israeli I’d been helping a medic work on and half carried him to the truck as he jumped along on his good left leg. Blood was dripping out of the jerry rigged tourniquet we’d made out of his belt and hastily tied above the knee of his shattered right leg. Harry was in the back of the truck and helped me hoist him in. When it was full with the last of the wounded I pulled up the tailgate and slammed in the pins to hold it in place.

  “I’ll drive. You help with the wounded in back,” I yelled to Harry above the din.

  Harry nodded and shouted something I couldn’t hear as I raced to driver’s door and jumped in. I threw the little on-off switch and the engine started as soon as I pushed the starter button.

  We’ve stayed as long as we can; it’s time to bug the hell out of here.

  Harry told me later that if I’d looked back as I jammed the gear shift in “low” I would have seen the upward sloping front of the first of the Islamic Coalition tanks start to come over the top of the ridge line that had been sheltering the aid station. It was a British-made Centurion with Syrian markings. According to Harry, the Syrian tank didn’t even get far enough over the top of the ridge for its nose to begin coming down before it was hit by a couple of armor piercing Israeli tank rounds and thrown back out of sight.

  As we started moving, one of the Israeli medics who had been loading wounded into the truck next to us literally made a running dive into the back of ours to join Harry and the wounded we were carrying.

  There was no sense even trying to use the dirt road. It was absolutely jammed bumper to bumper with retreating armor, trucks, and Humvees, and even some running men who’d given their places in the troop carriers to the wounded. So I bounced us straight down over the rough pasture land and tried to miss the most obvious holes and bumps.

  Everything worked for me until five or six hundred yards later I came to an irrigation ditch. There was nothing to do but turn so I turned right—and that was a mistake because I almost immediately came to another ditch. There was nothing I could do but cut a wheelie and go back the other way. I’ve got to get us out of this fucking field.

  ******

  I was on my back and far overhead I could see the sky filled with twisting white contrails as the rival air forces desperately fought it out for control of the air.

  “Dick. Dick. Can you hear me?”

  “Hi Harry. Look up there. Must be a hell of a lot of planes up there.”

  “Okay Buddy. You’re gonna be all right. Hold tight for a moment while I finish putting this sticky bandage on. Then me and the boys here are going to pick you up and carry you over to that truck and we’ll all get the fuck out of Dodge.” Why is he doing that?

  “Why are you doing that?”

  Then everything sort of faded away and next thing I remember is lots of noise and bouncing along in the back of a truck with Harry and a bunch of wounded Israelis.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The leader of the flight of four Iraqi French-made Mirages was having trouble despite the bright morning sunlight and the good visibility in the cloudless sky. He had a serious problem—he couldn’t understand the Iranian controller in the old Iranian AWACS. The two men were both speaking English, the universal language of pilots, but their accents and lack of fluency in English made communication between them more than a little difficult.

  The Iranian AWACS was an old Boeing 707, one of several converted to an AWACS in Seattle many years ago and given to Iran when the Shah was in power. The technologically obsolete AWACS’s position wasn’t helping either. Its transmissions were breaking up because it was equipped with ancient radios and circling as far north of the battlefield as possible in an effort to stay away from Israeli fighters.

  Its controllers, however, were persistent and determined.

  “Is two enemy. Location is north from Dama
scus. Is thirty-two thousand. Is type unknown. Is possible F-15s. Repeat. Is two enemy fighters. Is thirty-two thousand. Is over Damascus. Is heading is south. Is Jews F-15s. Is you turn right to one-ninety to engage.”

  “Blue Sword three to Control One. Say again. You are breaking up.”

  “I say is enemy fighters. Is number is two. Is heading is south. Position north Damascus is. Altitude is thirty-two thousand. Is type unknown. Is possible F-15. Repeat. Is two enemy F-15s. Is thirty-two thousand. Is north Damascus. Is heading south one seven five. You is engage is turn one niner zero. Repeat you is turn one niner zero.”

  Finally the Iraqi flight leader understood the message when one of his pilots broke in and explained it. He gave a terse command and the four planes in his flight were just beginning to turn when all their missile warning lights came on at almost the same instant.

  All four of the Iraqi pilots screamed “missiles” as they’d been taught and began evasive maneuvering. Two of them even remembered to fire their flares. They were much too late. The Iranian controller watched in rage as the blips on his screen for three of the Iraqi planes blossomed into white flecks and disappeared. “Goddamn useless Iraqis.”

  Only one of the four survived; the flight leader’s wingman. The recently graduated Iraqi lieutenant, the most junior and inexperienced of the four, had been so scared when the missiles started flying that he pissed in his pants and instinctively stuck close to his older and much more experienced flight leader. And that saved him – the exhaust from his flight leader’s plane attracted both of the heat seeking Israeli-made Python missiles fired by one of the old Israeli-made Kfirs equipped with the latest state of the art electronics and weapons.

  Then the Iranian controller made another mistake. He didn’t know the Israelis had been producing their own high performance fighters and had been doing so for years, let alone how well equipped they are or that they carry twice as many missiles as F-15s and had been modified with droppable fuel tanks to double their combat range. He assumed the two Israeli fighters were F-15s and followed procedure by carefully counting the number of missiles each fired. They’re out of missiles and heading south towards Israel because they are getting low on fuel, or so he thought.