Koh Tang II: the day PGMs rained on the Americans
USS WASP, LHD-1 50 miles off the coast of the jungles of Southeast Asia
Why don't you go in at night?"
MG Henry Jenkins, 4th MEB Commander was on an inspection tour of the 22d MEU when the crisis erupted. He insisted that he personally fly in one the heliborne portion of the forced-entry, just like Marty Brandt had done with the O'Grady near-fiasco. It was his moment of personal glory, he could sense it..it felt like the day he earned his second General's star and had his men on alert to run his General's flag up the flag pole..."
"We are marines we don't go in at night. Its too risky doing heliborne operations at night, the risk of collisions is too great. The enemy will not want to fuck with us anyway, they know we are more than they can handle!"
"But, sir"
"This isn't rocket science, Son. We have been doing these kinds of contingency operations for years, I think we know more than you do about tactics, stick to collecting intelligence".
Intelligence says the enemy has 3 times as men as you have and can mass them faster than you can build up yours, once your ships are emptied they will still have thousands of men who can be brought into the battle. We are just a tiny reinforced battalion."
"Your objections are noted Lieutenant, now please leave us alone so we can coordinate our actions"
"Aye, Aye, sir!"
"We will clear from the LZ back to the beach, greeting the LCACs arriving with the LAVs.."
As the G-2 walked away the smug tone of the arrogant MEB Commander stuck in his mind. He thought to himself:
"Tomorrow he will either be a hero or a butcher".
*******************************************************
HMM-261 en route to Landing Zone Dove....
The 12 x V-22 Osprey tilt-rotors were a billion-dollar marvel....designed to take off like a helicopter and then fly like a fixed wing plane, they could go 100 miles per hour faster than a helicopter, this was going to be their first combat test. However, they had not been all that they had hoped for,
weight had increased as problems had to be corrected and now only 15 men could be carried instead of the hoped for 24. They also could not fly Nap-Of-the-Earth (NOE) to avoid enemy radar detection and they sure as hell weren't stealthy with all the sharp angles to trap bounce off radar waves...Speed to dart in and out was everything..if National intelligence means were correct there would only be a handful of infantry there easily dispatched by the tattooed marine "devil dogs".
The rebels were waiting in "spider" camouflage holes with vision slits covered by mylar space blankets to hide from thermal infared "heat" sensors the Americans liked to use. As the Imperialist tilt-rotors swung upright to hover down to a landing to offload the perimeter security force...the rebel LZ watchers were SMART. They had used civilian space surveillance satellite imagery to target the ships carrying the marines, their wakes clearly visible high in earth orbit. Then, they had anticipated from space likely beach and helicopter landing zones. Placing scouts there, they waited....The marines would fan out in a circle
and then flop down on their bellies and not move thinking the area was "clear" of enemy.
"First wave, no enemy in sight, LZ secure" radioed back the RTO of Company "A", 1st Battalion, 22d Marines.
Then came in the Second wave, V-22s with RSTs inside, essentially dune buggies with tough "recon" marines driving them off the rear ramps..and 4 lumbering CH-53E Super Stallions, the heroes of the O'Grady rescue. This time with unarmored, unarmed HMMWV cars slung underneath for BG Jenkins and his staff to have a mobile command post.
G-2: "National imagery means indicate nothing but a few light infantry there, you should be able to land and set up a beachhead for the MPF BDE and in a week's time march on the capital city and oust Gen Nguyen's rebel government and recover American citizens hiding out in the city.
EFOGM missile operator's view of Osprey before striking center wing fuel tank
At the very second the LZ was the most congested enemy scouts radioed code words for the general areas they were watching and volley after volley of backpack Enhanced Fiber Optic Guided Missiles (EFOGMs) fired from infantrymen in hiding 3-10 kilometers away, the missile operators acquiring their targets from the missile's nose tv cameras looking down, and top-attacking/destroying every V-22 into a flaming wreck, some RST dune buggies drove into each other and exploded into flames. As the RSTs toasted, they gave off huge columns of black smoke from their burning tires, other men on foot couldn't move to pull their comrades from the burning wreckages because of the enemy 120mm mortar fire dropping all around to finish off any survivors. They wanted to fight back but they shot their rifles and machine guns into empty jungle. Being infantry, they could only see problems directly in front of them and didn't understand to win the sensor/shooter fight you have to see the enemy FIRST and get into firing position FIRST, or all is lost. The entire V-22 squadron was destroyed, none escaped, as even a few flying away trying to escape the flaming cauldron were hit in mid-air. It was a massacre. All of the CH-53Es crashed and burned in the jungles beyond reach of the trapped marines. The smoke of their burning was visible 50 miles away onboard the USS Wasp.
MG Henry Jenkins badly torn body was dragged to a Navy Corpsman with his arm missing and held together by a tourniquet, but bust applying a pressure dressing on a marine's chest completely burned black, all his "quick-detachable" MOLLE nylon web gear melted into a horrible mass fused together with an atrociously large backpack, another marine was futilely trying to hack off with his dull K-bar knife, since he didn't have a M9 Wire-Cutter Bayonet with a hacksaw edge. He looked like a giant piece of black burned plastic with blood gurgling out his mouth.
His rescuer, his G-3, CPT Blocker begged the Doc: "Can you save him?"
"Doc" Bailey looked him over quickly: He had a head wound, ICP---his brain was swelling...he was a goner.
The weary Doc asked: "Where was his helmet?"
CPT Blocker pulled out a bloody marine cap with Eagle, Globe and anchor ironed on the front...
"He wanted to wear his marine cover, faded and salty with his General's stars."
"He paid for it with his life, as the pressure builds he will slowly go insane...then die when the soft part of his brain swells onto the sharp edges of his spinal column..."
"Can't you relieve the pressure?"
"Don't have the training,. I'm not a REAL doctor, only doctors know how to relieve ICP".
"He's a bloody General"
"Too bad. Triage says he's EXPECTANT. Move him away from those that can be saved"
In the background the General was mumbling; "Koh Tang"...:"Koh Tang" over and over again...
"Koh Tang....Koh Tang....Koh Tang..."
"What's that?
CPT Bailey looked across the burning LZ, smoke in his eyes and he cried......
"A battle where marines in USAF helicopters were blasted out of the sky trying to land on open beaches in broad daylight...in 1975...trying to save American hostages from the containership SS Mayaguez and then covered up with propaganda as a great "victory..38 men dead, 50 men maimed/crippled, 18 men still missing...no hostages on the island....he survived that cluster fuck"
"He won't survive this one"
A flight of 4 x AH-1W 4-bladed Super Cobra helicopter gunships roared overhead
looking down at the flaming forest fire that was LZ Dove....
CPT "Wild Bill" Rakow called out to the men below, to the men in his flight, ANYONE:
"I have no targets! Give me a target!"
His wingman, CPT Ed Smith, the man who drank beer from his jungle boots at IOC, and bragged about carrying an extra pair in his ALICE backpack at all times called back:
"Where are they?"
KABOOM!!
Rakow's AH-1W bursts into flames, hit by a longer-range EFOGM fired from a small Chinese-made truck, used as an anti-helicopter Air Defense Artillery weapon. His Cobra exploded into Smith's and both went down into the jungle, another flaming aircraft wreckage to be forgotten.
USS Wasp
The acting Commander of the 22d MEU-SOC, Col "Jim" Gallagher was aghast. His CO, and the MEB Commander were gone, probably dead, no radio contact. Force recon had reported the LZ clear of enemy.He had only 2 UH-1N Hueys and a pair of AH-1Ws still reporting back of the devastation. On the water, the LCACs with more men, HMMWVs and LAV armored cars were going to land within minutes. Maybe they could fight their way to the "screening" force of survivors at LZ Dove.
He addressed the MEU-SOC staff:
"I have a battalion of marines trapped 5 miles behind the beaches"
Meanwhile another EFOGM was screaming down towards a Super Cobra...its pilot using the superb maneuverability of the 4-blades does a hard roll, evades the missile but flies into the ground, another flaming geyser and pillar of smoke.
Red beach 1
With the LCACs landing, beach watchers called in EFOGMs which hit them, as they are unarmored and without armament to strike back. All 4 of the LHD's LCACs stopped at the beach and destroyed, no naval guns in quantity to lay down a smokescreen, or saturate an area where enemy the could be hiding because the nation's 4 x Iowa class battleships lay in mothballs because the Navy would rather have several unarmored cruisers to increase budget share and give more opportunities for Annapolis Graduates to reach flag rank. In time of war, these tin cans full of fuel and missiles would have a convenient excuse not to venture into "littoral" areas, covering the "aft end" once again. Failure packaged niceley and sleekly by the "perfumed princes". See how long they "stick around" for this battle unfolding.
The enemy had not only bought Western EFOGMs (France/Israel/Brazil, the Israelis have already used their NT fiber-optic guided missiles in combat to hit/kill bad guys)
The Israeli NT is one of the most enigmatic systems on the market today; few details have been released. It is in fact a family of three missiles--Gill, Spike and Dandy--sharing some common fire control elements. The medium- and long-range versions use a fiber-optic command link for target correction after launch. This makes the NT the world's first missile to employ fiber-optic guidance. There are at least four fiber-optic guided missiles planned, all larger missiles intended for deep attack: the European Polyphem, the U.S. EFOG-M, Japan's XATM-4 and Brazil's FOGM.
Foreign Fiber-optic guided missiles with 60 km range
http://www.army-technology.com/projects/polyphem/index.html
They had improved upon them by making a home-grown smaller back-pack version: "a smart RPG". And they had literally thousands of them to shoot. The marine corps was not interested in fiber-optic missiles or assault guns on their LAVs because "..from the sea" they would land where the enemy wasn't"... The only people who were not where they were supposed to be were the enemy.
LAV armored cars were toasted, 11 men inside incinerated as their thin top roofs were easily burst and its internal fuel tank exploded. LAVs, HMMWVs aflame, burning bodies on the beach...
Red Beach 2
Being an impatient man, MG Jenkins had wanted everyone to go ashore at once, leaving no reserves...his reserves were burning on the water's edge as the multi-BILLION dollar Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAAV) rumbled ashore after a 50 mile jaunt that left everyone sea sick.... Once spotted, the enemy EFOGMs began to rain on them....one after one a quarter of an infantry company was dead and exploded all over the flaming waters...their smokescreens laid from their engines actually helping the EFOGM gunners zero in and guide to the kill.
A young marine just out of high school and graduate of the make-believe "crucible" cried frantically into the headset of the headless dead radio operator (the head was somewhere else) amidst the vehicle inferno:
"HELP ME! Men with rockets and guns are all around us! They are firing into dead bodies and stabbing us with bayonets! My God, where's my bayonet? Where's my rifle? They are closing in on the beach!!!
The radio operator on the Wasp heard the frantic cries.....
"Son, please tell me where you are at"
"They see me!" The sound of bullets at close range burst the radio receiver. A scream and then Oriental voices..then radio static.....
A pair of AV-8Bs flying overhead at 10,000 feet
"I can't engage they are too close to our men! I will fly lower
A SA-16 Surface-to-Air Missile hits the vulnerable vectored thrust nozzle/fuselage fuel tank area of the Harrier, exploding it into a ball of fire...the Harrier pilot is lucky, he ejects in time to swim in the ocean, hoping for a rescue that never comes....
The CIC on the Wasp
The Commander of the Amphibious Task Force (CATF) Admiral Guyton T. Smith: "Who is doing this to us?"
G-2: "The enemy is in the jungled hills, he cannot be seen after he fires..we can't give the Harriers any target coordinates"
CATF: Can we pull them off?
G-2: "I can't all the lift assets have been destroyed".
CATF: "All of them?"
G-2: "All of them...the LCACs from us, the ones from the LSD-41s, all burning on the beach or dead in the water..."
CATF: "Can we tow them in?"
G-2: "Not without getting in range of their fiber-optic missiles...want to lose an amphib, too?".
"It was a sucker ploy. They deliberately left the beach/water areas without mines to lure us in...."
CATF: "So they are stranded??"
Everyone in the room knew the answer.
G-2: "It gets worse, Sir. We are down to just 2 Harriers. We cannot control our own air space. We just shot down 2 MIGs trying to bomb the ARG. We have to disengage or we will be sunk".
CATF: "You mean leave the marines ashore?"
G-2: "We can't help them."
Just then a seaman at a console turns and reports:
"Sir, the Widbey Island reports missiles in the air towards them, high angle trajectory. Probably long-range EFOGMS, Sir"
CATF: "Tell them to take evasive action and disengage, we are leaving the area at once. Plot a direct course to 100 miles off shore so we are out of enemy missile range"
"Aye, Aye, Sir!"
CATF: "We need help..damn..."
At this point pride had evaporated amidst the horrible disaster....Precision Guided Munitions (PGMs) had exacted the same toll as a small nuclear device would have done to a landing force in the 1950s....technology had finally caught up with our fears and our arrogance had met its judge...
CATF: "We have to ask the Army...who is nearby?"
G-2 "We have an Airborne Combat Team 10 hours away..."
CATF: "Ask for them now!"
"...And get me Washington!"
The Geronimos
BG Savin was ready for this task: winning the sensor/shooter war. He had practiced sending scout teams ahead to target for his "hip pocket Close Air Support": his HMMWV mounted EFOGMs.
http://www.army-technology.com/projects/efogm/index.html
By the C-130 Hercules aircraft all chuted up with rucksack and M4 5.56mm carbine padded/taped, he was a 21st Century version of a WWII "Jumpin General"...as darkness began to fall he addressed his entire battalion.....
"Men we can't ask you to do what you are going to do....But we are..."
The men laugh.
"We have American servicemen surrounded, fighting for their lives...we KNOW HOW to fight surrounded...Paratroopers have always fought behind enemy lines and prevailed..hell it makes it easirer for us to find them"
They laugh again, more at ease....
"OK, you Geronimos, load up and let's save the day, you didn't have anything else planned for this evening, did you???!"
There was a roar, a cheer from all the ranks as their beloved leader and them with steely determination loaded their planes in stick order for their rendezvous with the night skies...
Each plane's engines came to life...one, then two....then 3 as they taxied into formation for a sequenced take-off....
Red beaches 1 and 2
Meanwhile back at he beach, the gyrenes had moved to a stone church huddling on the edge of a tiny shanty town made from the ruins of French Colonial settlers...The villagers had been stabbing wounded marines and throwing garbage on them...huddled into several buildings. The civilians signal the rebels with burning tires and an EFOGM hits the church, killing everyone.
Other places RPGs ring out and finish off the last LAV-25s which wad ineffective 25mm guns, there were no 90mm/105mm assault guns to demolish buildings to stop snipers from picking off the wounded or to stop gunmen from shooting RPGs at helicopters flying by with wounded aboard.
Marines have to open fire on a "human shield" of women and children to get at the rebels so they can fight back to their comrades. At least now the survivors of both beaches were together IF someone could come and pick them up.
As the night skies criss crossed with tracers, planes were heard overhead....many had already died from blood loss as marines don't have combat lifesavers in their squads to put IVS in the wounded to keep them alive....
Assault Zone Freedom
The Geronimo Airborne Combat Team drops in force, its flanks covered in Airborne smokescreens from low-flying C-130s to mask them from enemy EFOGMs...
Combat team Geronimo secures a pocket and a landing zone along a stretch of highway 3 miles south of Red Beach 1 for C-130s to come in and pick them up after they return to base and refuel. Conducted like a RAID, the Airborne has just 6 hours to break through to the marines, recover them and their dead and get back to the landing strip. Cargo parachutes with M113A3 Gavins Armored Personnel Carriers and M8 Ridgway light tanks underneath smack into the sandy soil as their users de-rig them for the fight. The AirborneMECHANIZED force under the cover of darkness will swiftly drive cross-country under jungle foilage to reach the trapped marines. Enemy EFOGMs are unable to target the swift vehicles as they move off the road net and under vegetation. 120mm mortars burst harmlessly off their metal sides as they close in on the massacre scene. Finding the church, they fire in all directions, and form a protective circle around the building. The Ridgway light tanks blasting any building that shows muzzle blasts with a single round of 105mm High explosives. The Gavins pouring Mk-19 grenades into the open to clear out armed mobs. The Gavin's rear ramps go down as the marines rush inside dragging their wounded. The ramps close up and the force darts along a different route to get back to the Assault Zone...
The AIRBORNEmechanized force fights its way to constant enemy fire but armor protection enables them to make it back to AZ Freedom.
Meanwhile the Assault Zone is secured by hunter/killer teams which hit enemy EFOGMs with our own HMMWV mounted EFOGMs. Using "bait" tactics they set off flares to get the rebels to call for EFOGM launches and have AC-130U Spectre gunships flying overhead look for launch flashes for immediate suppression/kill by its own weaponry or from ground EFOGMs.
As dawn approaches, the C-130s land and the marines loaded first, then the Paratroops and lastly the Gavins and Ridgways.....
After accounting for everyone, a MC-130 Combat Talon drops a 15,000 BLU-82 bomb to annihilate the enemy as he over-runs the Assault Zone...
This Scenario is fine except for one thing....U.S. Army INFANTRY branch cancelled EFOGM.
There is no "happy ending" to this story.
We are out-gunned.
The marine force was annihilated. Sending more troops in was not politically acceptible because they would fare no better in the jungle. The on-scene commander was over-ruled by Washington. Afterall, they had the same kinds of weapons. Our worst nightmare was realized: when the enemy had "high-technology", too we had lost. He had been buying these things for years
while we chose to continue "business as usual" waiting to relive Desert Storm in the open desert, the enemy just didn't play according to our heroic script. He "Desert Stormed" us without even using aircraft.
A cease-fire was arranged to evacuate the dead/wounded American marines on condition that the rebel government be accepted as legitimate. It was the most humiliating defeat in American military history. U.S. super power status in the Pacific was dead and gone. China was the new king-maker/breaker. Congress voted even more billions to "fix" the obsolete ship-based marine corps and develop an anti-EFOGM defense system for the V-22. The Army was blamed for the marine defeat for not buying our own EFOGMs. The gyrenes who died were declared "great heroes" who showed "tremendous courage" and had monuments built to them. The operation was declared a "Victory" for the marine corps since it had showed our "resolve" to the rebels as we sailed away excusing it all away as an aberration.
E-mail 1st TSG (A) itsg@hotmail.com
FEDDBACK!