12:17 PM, direction of Ozham.
The first sound of artillery finally shattered the heavy silence.
The artillery positions of two brigades of the Iliko Governnt Army simultaneously opened fire, and the storm at the muzzle of 155mm howitzers raised walls of smoke several ters high from the surrounding sand.
The shells, with a shrill whistle cutting through the air, poured towards the forward positions of the 1515 ard forces, fifteen kiloters away.
The heavy tracks of the M1A1 "Abrams" main battle tank crushed the dry, cracked land, trailing a long dragon of dust.
They deployed in standard wedge formation, each tank followed by three to four BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles, with machine gunners on top tensely scanning the hills on both sides.
"Hound group, advance as planned. Watch the flanks, maintain spacing."
The voice of Brigadier General Sayif, the front-line commander of Iliko Governnt Army's 9th Armored Division, ca through the encrypted channel into the helt earphones of the main crew commanders on the frontline.
His command post was set up in a reinforced observation point further back, receiving shared images from drones and AWACS via data link.
For the initial ten minutes, the advance proceeded smoothly, unsettlingly so.
The tank column rolled over the barren desert, the turrets rotating slowly, the 120mm smoothbore guns pointing towards potentially threatening directions, but did not fire—there seed to be no one ahead.
"Stay alert, vanguard battalion. Reconnaissance units, move forward."
Sayif supplented orders into the microphone.
A chanized reconnaissance unit of the governnt army in light armored vehicles accelerated from the right rear of the column, spreading out to the flank for reconnaissance.
Then, the first M1A1 hit a mine.
Not a standard anti-tank mine, but an improvised explosive device (IED) made from a 152mm shell.
The massive explosion suddenly lifted the sixty-ton steel behemoth upward before it crashed back down.
The left track was completely blown off. Thick smoke and flas burst from the bottom of the vehicle.
"Hound 11 hit a mine! Left track disabled! No serious injuries, vehicle intact!"
Almost simultaneously with the sound of the explosion, the previously dead silent front and flanking hills erupted with dozens of tongues of fire!
Pre-determined mortar rounds began to rain down, though not highly accurate, they were enough to create chaotic smoke and fragntation zones between the tanks and infantry fighting vehicles.
More deadly were the anti-tank missiles launched from the reverse slopes of the hills on either side—aged Soviet-made 9K111 "Bassoon," trailing slender guidance wires and spewing orange tail flas, precariously flying towards the thinner armor of the BMPs.
A BMP-1 was hit on the side, its thin aluminum alloy armor torn open like paper, igniting the ammunition inside, turning the entire vehicle into a rolling fireball with a dull explosion, the turret catapulted several ters high by the force of the explosion.
"Anti-tank missile! Two o'clock direction, hills! Smoke bomb!"
The Active Protection System (APS) of the M1A1 tank was not triggered.
The tank crew reacted instinctively based on their training, deploying smoke bombs, while the main gun and coaxial machine gun fiercely retaliated towards the suspected missile launch locations.
120mm high-explosive rounds blasted dirt-yellow craters on the hills, but the attackers seed to hit-and-run.
Before the counterattack could reach them, they had already relocated their positions.
The advance was hindered, suddenly stalled.
The vanguard tanks found themselves not facing a continuous line of defense, but vertical and horizontal anti-tank trenches up to three ters deep—
These trenches cleverly used natural ravines, widened and modified to force tanks to seek narrow pre-set passages or roads cleared by engineers, each passage under crossfire from both sides.
"They're buying ti, intending to wear us down."
Sayif stared at the screen, his face grim.
The artillery barrage seed fierce, yet appeared to have little effect against those cunning 1515 elents akin to sand rats.
The truly lethal obstacles remained mostly intact.
And his troops, after encountering substantial resistance, seed to be trapped in a procedural reaction—calling for artillery support and then standing still on the spot.
Performance.
This word concurrently erged in the mind of Colonel Kote at the "Outpost" command center in the distance.
A show for Washington, possibly also for certain people in Baghdad.
"Sir, the 'Sentry' AWACS reports detecting vehicle movents at the enemy's rear, presumably a reserve heading towards the front."
An intelligence officer reported in Kote's command center.
"Transmit the coordinates to the Air Force and also forward to General Sai Fu's front command."
Kote ordered, but his mind was no longer on this frontal battle line.
The frontal assault on Ozham was part of the planned distraction; the real focal point was Titrick.
He glanced at the ti: 2:40 PM.
Still over three hours until dusk.
Almost simultaneously with the artillery barrage resounding in Ozham, 400 kiloters north, on the western outskirts of Mosul City near the border area of Afeer Town, an abandoned textile factory warehouse.
Samir stood at the warehouse door, watching his n load the last batch of wooden crates onto five worn Toyota pickups.
The crates contained 7.62mm rifle rounds and RPG-7 grenades from Turkey's black market, funded by the Persians and smuggled here under the arrangent of "Musician" defense.
Currently, Samir is recruiting and expanding his power daily.
This is the task Song Heping gave him.
He must expand his forces to over ten thousand n, and train these new recruits to beco seasoned veterans who won't wet their pants on the battlefield, under the strategy of veteran-led-training.
Now, he is the top commander in the Mosul Region, truly controlling the key highway section that connects Mosul to the western linkage route.
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