86: Chapter 83 Iron Wall

October 1, 1980, Khuzestan Province, frontline positions.

Saddam Hussein's "two-week reassessment" ended earlier than expected.

On September 29, Iraq completed the reorganization of its Southern Military District, pulling three armored divisions and one mechanized infantry division from the Northern Military District, expanding its total force from the initial 70,000 to 148,000 troops.

The number of tanks increased from the initial 120 to over 300, and the number of artillery pieces quadrupled.

This was not an offensive; it was a steamrolling.

After receiving the intelligence, Reza did one thing—he pulled back all the troops from the frontline positions by five to eight kilometers, turning the first line of defense into an almost undefended "hollow shell."

Hassan did not understand this decision: "Are you going to cede the first line of defense to them?"

"Not cede," Reza said, "but redefine the position of the defensive line.

The position of the first line of defense is too far forward; our anti-tank firepower cannot cover the Iraqi artillery positions at that distance.

If our troops hold the first line of defense, they will be covered by Iraqi artillery fire.

But if I pull the troops back to the second line of defense, the Iraqi artillery must advance to hit us, and once they advance, they will enter the range of our missiles."

This was a classic firepower trap—trading space for time and creating opportunities through retreat.

"Then what about the first line of defense?"

"Post observation teams, but leave no main force.

When the Iraqis enter, they will find the first line of defense almost empty.

They will think we are retreating, that we are afraid.

Then they will accelerate their advance and crash straight into our anti-tank firepower net."

Hassan thought for a moment and said: "I understand."

"One more thing," Reza said, "bury all the Anti-tank mines in front of the second line of defense, but do not bury them in a straight line; bury them in a zigzag pattern.

This way, the Iraqi mine-clearing vehicles cannot clear the entire path at once.

Every time they clear a segment, there will be another new minefield ahead."

Hassan nodded and went to carry it out.

In the early hours of October 3, Iraq's second wave of the offensive began.

This time, Saddam Hussein did not choose to launch a surprise attack at midnight, but rather at 5:00 AM—just as dawn was breaking.

This was a tactical change, indicating that the Iraqi commanders had learned from the lessons of the first night battle and were unwilling to engage Iran at night.

The scale of the offensive far exceeded the first wave.

Three hundred tanks were divided into five attack groups, advancing simultaneously from five directions.

Before the offensive began, Iraqi artillery conducted a full forty minutes of preparatory fire, bombing every known firing point on Iran's first line of defense.

But most of those firing points were empty.

After the artillery fire stopped, the Iraqi armored groups began to advance.

It took them less than twenty minutes to occupy all the positions of the first line of defense, encountering almost no resistance.

When the frontline Iraqi commander's report reached Baghdad, it used the four words: "progress is smooth."

But Saddam Hussein was not happy.

He asked: "What is that prince doing?"

No one could answer.

At 7:00 AM, the Iraqi armored groups began to advance toward the second line of defense.

When the first batch of tanks entered the Anti-tank mines area, explosions came from three directions simultaneously.

These were not sporadic explosions, but continuous, dense explosions occurring every few seconds.

The power of the Anti-tank mines was not enough to destroy the tanks, but it was enough to blow off the tracks—once the tracks were broken, the tank became a pile of immobile steel.

In the first hour, Iraq lost over forty tanks; most were not destroyed, but had lost mobility after their tracks were blown off and were abandoned by their crews.

The Iraqi mine-clearing vehicles tried to open a path, but the zigzag minefield Reza had buried reduced the efficiency of the mine-clearing vehicles by at least sixty percent—every time they cleared fifty meters of path, there was another minefield in a different direction ahead, and the mine-clearing vehicles needed to constantly adjust their angles, with each adjustment taking time.

During this time, Iran's anti-tank teams emerged from their hidden positions.

The range of an RPG-7 is only 300 meters, but at this distance, its lethality against tanks is fatal.

The anti-tank teams' tactics were very simple—groups of two to three people would approach the tanks trapped by mines from the flanks, aim at the engine compartment or the side of the turret where the tank armor is thinnest, and take out one tank with a single RPG.

The Iraqi tank crews soon discovered that they were not facing a direct confrontation on the battlefield, but a type of guerrilla warfare they had never been trained for—the enemy would pop up from all directions, strike, and run, and you would never know from which direction the next RPG would fly.

At 9:00 AM, Reza received the first complete battle report.

Iraq had already committed over two hundred tanks, of which at least seventy had lost combat capability.

The losses on the Iranian side—seventeen killed, thirty-one wounded.

The exchange ratio was still lopsided, but it was worse than the first time.

"The Iraqis have gotten smarter," Hassan said.

"Their tanks no longer take the main roads, but are dispersed into small groups of three to five, covering each other.

Our anti-tank teams no longer face an isolated tank, but a small formation that supports each other."

"Then adjust the tactics," Reza said.

"Expand the anti-tank teams from three-person groups to five-person groups, and have each group carry an extra RPG.

At the same time, notify the missile units to prepare to strike the Iraqi command nodes."

"What target should we strike?"

"Karimi has already locked onto the location of the Iraqi frontline command post.

It's at a farm twelve kilometers east of Zubair, which is the temporary headquarters for their southern attack group.

One Persian-1 Type B is enough to raze that farm to the ground."

At 10:00 AM, the missile launched.

Eight minutes later, a chaotic conversation came through the Iraqi communication channels that Karimi was monitoring—intermittent, filled with profanity, and clearly communication under an emergency state.

The most critical sentence was: "Command post hit, commander lost contact."

The southern attack group lost its command.

What would an armored unit do when it loses command?

In most cases, they would stop and wait for orders.

And stopping on the battlefield to wait for orders meant giving the opponent enough time to surround and annihilate you.

Hassan seized this opportunity.

His rapid reaction force set out at 10:30 AM, targeting the flank of the southern attack group.

Fifty modified Toyota pickup trucks, each carrying three to four people and armed with RPGs and heavy machine guns, flanked the Iraqi attack group from the south, catching them off guard.

Pickup trucks versus tanks—it sounds like throwing eggs against a rock, but in the face of an Iraqi armored force that had lost command, was in chaotic formation, and had low morale, this fast, flexible guerrilla tactic achieved unexpected results.

The pickup trucks were fast and had small profiles, allowing them to complete flanking maneuvers and strikes before the tank turrets could rotate fast enough to keep up.

Over the next two hours, Hassan's troops destroyed or disabled at least fifteen Iraqi tanks, with their own losses amounting to three pickup trucks and seven men.