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independently target and engage enemy units without the need of another
helicopter or ground unit. Also like those helicopters in support of the
companies attacking to the left and right of 3rdbattalion, these Apaches each
carried sixteen Hellfire missiles and their chain gun& one hundred and
ninety-two Hellfire missiles supporting ninety-six Abrams tanks.
And we re going to need every bit of it, thought Colonel Gallagher. We re
charging hard into the teeth of eight hundred enemy tanks and all of their
support massed in that main body, not to mention this
Division to our front that we have to break through before we even get to play
with the big boys.
But the Colonel had no doubts that they would break through the initial
Division. Based on the radio traffic he was hearing and based on the JSTAR
support they had this morning, the Company assaults to his right and left were
having the desired effect on those portions of the GIR Division. Combined with
the
MLRS assault that should be occurring to his front in the next three to five
minutes they should have a fairly easy time of it with the two Battalions
immediately to his front. But he was sure that the approach in the main body
would be an entirely different matter.
Over the command net, and from thirty kilometers to his rear, Colonel
Gallagher heard the MLRS
battery commander confirm his attack.
Missiles away.
At the same moment, from the net monitoring their Apache air support, a
communication was received from one of the Apache flight commanders whowas
patrolling seven kilometers to their front.
Kingpin, this is Redman-2. Contact! I have eight tracked enemy units to my
front, rolling out of the kill zone. Command unit, T-80, top hatch open,
commander observing his front with viewing device& maybe infrared. He is
speaking into hismic now.Engaging.
There was a moment s pause as the Apache engaged the command vehicle and
ordered his flight to engage the rest of the advancing enemy formation. The
optics on the Apache flight commander s display automatically adjusted for the
bright flash that resulted from the impact of his hellfire missile. Where the
enemy commander had stood just seconds before in the hatch on his T-80,a
bright gout of flame now jetted into the air from the remains of the now
fiercely burning tank. The tank commander had simply disappeared in the
instant of the hellfire s impact.
When the Apache commander observed the results of his own Hellfire attack, and
as the units in his flight devastated the other seven enemy units, he
commented over the net.
Oh, baby, hot plasma!
And that action initiated a brief ten-minute fight with the portions of the
initial GIR Division in front of the
3rdof the 3rd. As a result of the few minutes warning of action based on the
flanking attacks and the GIR
Division commander s reaction to it, it was obvious that the GIR forces had
been caught off-guard and out of position when Colonel Gallagher s forces
barreled into them. A number of units were attempting to
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move to the right and left in support of their comrades under attack in those
sectors. These units were engaged by accurate MLRS barrages based on
information passed to them by the JSTAR aircraft. Only a few of these came
through those barrages and these were immediately set upon by Apache
helicopters.
A number of other enemy armor units, like those initial eight tanks engaged by
the Apache flight when the first MLRS barrage was fired, were moving forward
to probe for oncoming American units in their own sectors. And like the
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initial enemy units, most of these were engaged by the two flights of Apaches
patrolling in the front of the advancing 3rdBattalion for that very purpose. A
few did get through and were quickly engaged and destroyed by the advancing
M1A1 tanks. In addition, twenty enemy tanks from the main body of the GIR
battalions in the center came through the MLRS barrage and were engaged
piece-meal as the American force passed.
When the ten-minute running fight was over, Colonel Gallagher s Battalion had
suffered only four tanks destroyed and another eight damaged. The GIR had lost
over one hundred and thirty of their own tanks.
The two GIR Battalions holding the center were completely decimated and the
GIR Battalions to the right and to the left were being mauled by the American
mechanized Companies and their Apache support helicopters that had been tasked
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