Timurkalay Engagement

A small column of humvees and five-tons set out north from Loy Manara at noon, the sun beating unmercifully down on the soldier's heads. The low for the day was in the hundreds, forcing the men to sacrifice some ammunition space for packs of lukewarm bottled water, but the mission was there regardless of the sweltering sun.

1st Platoon was tasked with capturing Timurkalay from insurgents and turning the now deserted village into a strong point. When their company commander had demanded to be given free reign to secure the heights around it, he'd been ordered to keep quiet and execute the mission.

Timurkalay lies at the bottom of a valley, the deadly bottleneck of Narran Darre Pass (Also affectionately known as Ambush Site 001) leads to it from the south before it opens into a mass of open desert scrub. The village itself is no more than a hundred yards wide, with perhaps some thirty buildings,  mostly residential homes made of  uniform adobe surrounded by six-foot high and half-foot thick walls of the same material.

To the northwest the terrain scales up to Takistan's highest peak, Gur Dur, and to the north constricts into the usual mountain pass towards Garmarud. Main Supply Route (MSR) Oregon runs from Loy Manara in the south through Timurkalay all the way up to Bastam in the north, making it an important post along the supply line. While most supply was done via aircraft at this point in the occupation, the lower costs of running trucks appealed to bureaucrats back in Virginia. The town would have to be held if the rumbling monstrous HEMTTs were to get the much needed ammunition, water, fuel, and food through the outposts dotting MSR Oregon.

Delta Company (Referred to as Dog Company by many, a holdover from the old 1940s era US Army Phonetic Alphabet) was split up along MSR Oregon over the next week, micromanaged by brigade command and left in static positions to take punishment daily. 1St Platoon was tasked with Timurkalay, but 2nd was sent to Garmarud and the 3rd Platoon was stretched from Imarat to Bastam along the MSR. The company's weapons platoon was detached and then put under Bravo Company for operations around Feruz Abad and Falar to the west for the next month, leaving Delta spread thin and under strength without their supporting weapons.

Expecting the enemy not to oppose the riflemen of Delta Company, all other support was issued priority over them, this would prove to be a mistake.

As the platoon leader went down his checklist and waited for his crackling radios to alert him to his unit's readiness, the Takistani Insurgents in the region were emplacing heavy weapons in the heights around Narran Darre Pass. It was in that pass where a number of Private Military Contractors had been killed recently in a well planned ambush, and while the company commander had fretted over the area as a threat he had been told to focus on the given mission.

Ten minutes later, the column was rolling out, and in twenty minutes machine gun rounds tore into the front of the lead humvee. The gunners in the vehicles swung their fifty caliber machine guns around and belched their thick munitions back to the right flank, tearing chunks of rock from the hills near the enemy gunner positions and kicking dust up with bright tracers. A few trucks with guns mounted in the beds trundled out of hiding places further up the pass to block off the road, but were dispatched by the dismounting riflemen of the platoon, their M16s ripping 5.56mm rounds through the thin doors and windows.

As they dismounted, the men did what they were trained to do, the gunners forming a wall of lead and explosives to pin down or kill (Killing is the best form of suppression, they say) the enemy while the others bounded forward to finish them off. First Squad took the base of fire roll, with Second sweeping up the right on the high ground, quickly catching their ambushers at a ninety-degree angle and showering them with enfilade fire. It took about fifteen minutes to wrap up, with the riflemen chasing off insurgents with light machine gun fire from the heights. However the ground dropped off to the northwest before it rolled into the valley, where more men waited to ferry them out of the killing floor and into the hills around the village.

The ground plateaued a bit before the valley as the road switchback eased the descent, and as the column resumed movement the riflemen of 1st Platoon noted the four clouds of dust zipping north away from them across the scrub. It didn't matter if they called it in, command wouldn't have sent anything to hunt them down, so the drivers eased their trucks forward again as they lurched from their stopped positions on the searing hot blacktop.

Within the village, more militiamen were knocking holes in the walls of houses to push rifle barrels through. A strip of open ground on the outskirts had been mined, set with pressure activated explosives in bottles and boxes filled with gunpowder or mortar shells and hand grenades. Only ten men held the village itself, but they would put up a stubborn fight.

As the platoon snaked down the slope, they drew a few defiant potshots from insurgent snipers, the men hopped out again, taking positions here and there in the craggy rocks on the slope. The potshots turned to volleys of rockets and machine gun fire within minutes, ordnance sailing across the plain and around the humvees. The gunners began peppering the first row of buildings in the village with fire, Mark-19 automatic grenade launchers letting loose volleys of metallic crunchy ejection followed by deadly popping in the distance, fifty caliber machine guns spitting rhythmic strings of rounds tearing chunks out of the flimsy clay walls. Dust and smoke obscured the village as second squad creeped up in the underbrush, their bodies low in case enemy fire began to pick up again.

The smoke, dust, machine guns and grenades seemed to choke off the resistance, and the riflemen managed to advance far enough to let loose a volley of smoke grenades from their underbarrel grenade launchers, the acrid white smoke hanging in the desert air. When they felt comfortable, twenty or so bodies rose and dashed forward, sometimes pausing to raise a rifle and loose an explosive grenade at the buildings or snap a few rounds into the haze. The humvees rocked forward again, crawling up to keep pace. Their lone five ton truck full of sandbags, razor wire, landmines and building supplies waiting nervously to get in there and dump his cargo so he could get back to the relative safety of the base.

As the riflemen reached the outskirts, the ground rocked in front of them, dirt and stones showering them from the front—the minefield on the plain in front of the town had been detonated prematurely, saving them from what would've been a massive loss of life. Instead of tearing countless men to bits, it simply wound up disorienting a few and spattering the rest with clay and mud. Not knowing what had happened, the soldiers did what they were trained to do—get to solid cover and out of the open. They rushed forward like demons into the billowing smoke, rifles at the hip. In twos and threes they flushed the buildings with grenades and rifle fire in well-practiced drills. By the time it was over, second squad had killed nine enemy and captured a tenth. First squad and the engineer truck pulled into town and first squad set up security.

The platoon split in half, each squad giving about half its combat power to digging and filling sandbags, putting up hesco barriers, blocking off areas with wire and throwing together fighting positions for their humvees. The other half set to emplacing their machine guns and checking the rest of the village for anything useful or threatening. A quick check yielded some hidden explosives, which normally would have to be reported and sent back to base for the intel guys to examine, but instead they stashed them for use themselves. 1St Platoon was at the bottom of a giant bowl surrounded by dominating heights without support, they'd need everything they could get.

The first ragged groups of insurgents were spotted in the east, their jerky little movements caught in the scope of one of first squad's machine gunners. They were far out, too far to hit with the weapons they had. Luckily the ridge that overlooked the village was well within range of machine guns, and the men shifted their weapons to the eastern flank. The first RPG smashed into the minaret of the abandoned mosque, and the riflemen sent an AT-4 rocket back. The US response sailed high over the ridge, but it sent the insurgents scrambling out of their rock cover for the chattering M240 medium machine guns to begin more accurate work. While the insurgents were content to spatter the village with inaccurate fire, the soldiers below set about firing volleys of rounds into their enemy, adjusting their short three or five round bursts to shower enemy weapons teams with fire.

The routine became rather simple—build, stop, shoot—but the troops continued until they felt relatively sure their positions afforded them good cover. Working in shifts, they managed to even plan and build two back up positions for their medium machine guns, but supplies dwindled. After six attacks, the ammo was getting low. Their company commander agreed to send what he could, but all that was authorized was a single sortie-and it’d have to be escorted by a team from 1st Platoon, meaning they’d have to risk sending a team out and stripping their defensive perimeter even thinner. Cutting twenty to sixteen was risky, but first squad cut its strength in half and sent two humvees out.

As they tore out of the village back towards Narran Darre Pass, a few more rockets slapped into the ground around the blacktop highway, forcing the humvees to put the pedal to the floor-engines roaring and straining to afford the drivers their desired speed. The gunners swiveled to and fro, peering through their magnifying scopes in search of the RPG crews in vain. By the time they reached the craggy overlook south of their new combat outpost, they were safely out of range and wouldn’t need to worry about anything in that area for a while--they’d only have to fret over AK-wielding gunmen in the hills of the pass.

When the detachment met up with the supply truck, the driver refused to go on ahead without more escort, forcing the exasperated riflemen to improvise. Realizing they wouldn’t be able to convince him to drive into an area they’d already been engaged in, they chose to relieve him of his supplies. After a heated exchange they started dragging heavy boxes from the supply truck and loading their own humvees up until the chassis sagged under the weight of the cargo.

They gave a terse goodbye and an even more sarcastic thank you before taking off, their humvees significantly slower under the new weight and the engines laboring to get up the steep hills. It took them forty-five minutes to return with everything.

Resupplied with water and bullets, the men set back into their routine of digging and shooting. The first rest shifts started, maintenance was done on a few worn out machine guns, and things quieted for an hour or two. They’d held their objective, but it would be three long weeks of enemy attacks without any meaningful support before they were pulled out as the brigade strategy shifted from defending the MSRs. In one day, the platoon had worn down the local enemy insurgency a bit and stood tall faced with a difficult tactical assignment. The men who rose from the ranks of 1st Platoon would never allow such a mission again, pushing for less micromanagement from higher ups and more concern for the combat support and logistical sustainment of troops. Lessons were learned, resourcefulness hailed, and good drill tested.