Sadly, after the first fuel tanker was blown apart by a shell, only the two trucks parked closest to it were caught in the blast; the rest managed to roll clear of the danger radius at the last second.
Several drivers swerved off the road, trying to escape through the marsh.
Although the six-wheeler had drive on every wheel, a wheeled truck copes well only on ordinary rough ground. In this swamp—where even tracked vehicles struggled—leaving the rutted track was suicide.
The moment the trucks left the path their wheels sank into mud. Drivers stared in shock as half the tyre disappeared into a sink-hole. Loaded to the brim with diesel, there was no hope of driving out. After a few futile attempts they looked back: the base was already a wreck.
Like a red-hot iron pressed into cheese, the small assault team threw the 200-man garrison into utter chaos.
Gunfire crackled everywhere, punctuated by explosions. The rear-echelon troops were stunned by the sudden strike.
Yet many soldiers still snatched up their weapons and fought back bravely.
The greatest threat to Qusay's men was the Chieftain under repair. Having survived the opening salvo, the crew scrambled aboard and began dueling with the intruder.
Their edge was knowing every switch of a Chieftain; their weakness was that this particular tank was sick—its engine crippled.
Tank engines are powerful but short-lived, and the dry desert is especially murderous to them.
The tank had gone into action half-repaired: the huge air filter still sat on the shop floor. Unfiltered air, full of grit, was sucked straight into the cylinders, scouring pistons and liners. Black smoke belched from the exhaust.
No one cared; if they failed to wipe out the infiltrating Iraqis they themselves would die, and the loss of the base could doom the whole army.
Marwan's advantage was that his Chieftain was intact; his drawback, glaringly obvious, was that he barely knew the tank's complex fire-control system.
Still, at barely a hundred metres he could point and shoot.
The gunners hurried to lay the gun and destroy the rival Chieftain.
Use your own spear against your own shield—who wins?
In tank duels this is common, and the answer is set in stone: the spear always pierces the shield.
No armour, however thick, can stop a modern Armor-Piercing Shell; otherwise you could park the tank and let the enemy waste his shells.
There are exceptions—later wars saw T-72s fail to scratch M1A2s.
Even a non-penetration is terrifying: the hull rings like a bell and every optical device on the turret is shattered.
Almost simultaneously both Chieftains fired.
As the gun recoiled Marwan slammed the throttle and jinked to dodge the reply.
At this range a trained crew never misses—yet sometimes they do.
Marwan did not roll forward; he reversed.
The Iranian gun-layer had given a touch of lead, expecting the enemy to move forward.
Instead the Iraqi tank shot backwards.
The Chieftain's L60 engine is mated to the TN12 transmission: a centrifugal clutch, planetary gearbox, Merritt-Wilson differential steering and electro-hydraulic shift. Six forward gears, two reverse. Each gear gives a fixed turning radius; in neutral the tank can pivot in place.
With hatches shut the driver lies on his back. Instead of a stick he uses floor pedals that switch micro-switches and hydraulic valves to engage the brakes and shift the epicyclics—all electro-hydraulic. Second forward and first reverse can even be selected by emergency manual levers.
Thanks to Britain's industrial edge, the Chieftain already offered semi-automatic shifting.
Marwan slammed reverse and stamped the accelerator; the tank roared backwards.
The Iraqi Chieftain escaped by a hair: the Iranian Armor-Piercing Shell howled past the turret.
The enemy tank, by contrast, panicked: at the critical instant its sickly engine stalled.
The Iranian crew stared through the periscopes, saw the flash and knew their end had come.
Yet the shell that should have smashed them missed by a whisker—as if the Iraqis had deliberately spared them.
Marwan cursed: at point-blank range he had still failed to score—a disgrace.
He barked over the intercom, then yelled, "Brace yourselves!"
He engaged first gear and the crazed Chieftain lurched forward—straight at the enemy tank only a hundred metres away.
With its engine dead and turret jammed, the Iranian Chieftain was a steel coffin. The crew popped the hatches and tried to scramble out.
The driver unbuckled and stuck his head up—just as something felt wrong.
He looked up—and saw the gun-tube still smoking as the massive tank bore down on him.
allah above—had the man lost his mind?
CLANG! The two steel giants kissed, their huge hulls shuddering under the impact.
The collision dealt equal force to both, but the outcome was not equal: the Iranian crew, climbing out, wore no seat belts.
The driver felt a sledge-hammer blow; his head smashed against the hatch coaming and he slumped, blood streaming.
Even braced, Marwan felt the colossal jolt—his guts seemed to leap inside his ribs.
He cracked his hatch, pulled a Grenade and pitched it cleanly through the open turret of the stricken tank.
If an Armor-Piercing Shell can't kill a tank, a Grenade down the hatch surely will.
Thus Marwan wrought a miracle on the Iran–Iraq battlefield: like a performer on a giant stage he drove his advanced Chieftain, smashed the rival crew senseless, and—because their hatch stood open—lobbed in a Grenade and finished the tank.
One wonders what Leyland, the Chieftain's maker, would think if they knew their tank had ended up a mere infantry taxi.
Marwan slammed reverse again and roared away.
BOOM! The crippled Chieftain—its engine already sick—burned when fragments from the Grenade ignited fuel and ammo; the turret was hurled sky-high.
Two off-road trucks of Sidewinder Team were circling inside the base, hosing down Iranian soldiers with machine-gun fire.
After two circuits Qusay spotted the ammo dump: most stores had been hidden in a corner of the base under a camouflage net of marsh reeds.
"Marwan, bearing three-five-zero, stand by to fire," Qusay ordered over the radio.
No need to plant charges—one shell from afar would detonate the stack, sending every fuel truck and Iranian soldier in the base straight to allah.
Capturing this Chieftain had been a godsend; Qusay's original plan would have cost the team heavy casualties.
Now one tank and two trucks had pulled off the mission with ease.
Suddenly his eyes caught a streak of grey smoke on the flank.
Rocket Launcher!