17 Sep 2015, 21:33
I told him the Iraqi army didn't reach the proper city of Dezful but he insisted !!!
Well, hand at heart, he should have - in theory. In practice, he just never could, because they were stopped cold outside Dezful.
The story of the Iraqi advance on that town (and the nearby TFB.4) is one of most absurd, ironic, tragy-comic, perhaps - a little bit - 'mysterious' too of that war.
Namely, Iraqis have deployed an entire corps of their army for advance on Dezful. This included the 3rd and 10th Armoured Divisions, 1st Mechanized Infantry Division and several independent brigades. Total of about 45,000 troops and 500-600 T-55 and T-62M tanks...
The first unit of the Islamic Republic of Iran Army (IRIA) they encountered was titled 'Task Force 37'. Sounds 'great', in theory, then a 'task force' is usually a relatively powerful combined arms body consisting of several battalions (1 battalion = 1000 troops, 30 or so tanks or APCs). In this case it was the shameful 'rest' of all the main battle tanks and armoured personnel carriers the 37th Armoured Brigade IRIA could put into the field.
Namely, the TF.37 had exactly 6 M47Ms (two were actually inoperational and had to be towed) and 5 M60A1s (one non-operational) when it went into action for the first time, on afternoon of 22 September. By the evening of that day, it knocked out 18 Iraqi tanks, but was down to 2 operational M60s and 1 M47M. Nevertheless, it successfully evacuated all the 8 tanks damaged in fighting.
The next day Iraqis re-started their advance, so the TF.37 continued fighting 'holding action'. They knew they couldn't stop the Iraqis: there were far too many of them. All they could do was to slow down Iraqi advance, buy time for the rest of the IRIA to mobilize... So, they went into action again, knocked out another 15 Iraqi tanks. In return, not a single of Iranian MBTs was operational any more: the TF.37 was subsequently surrounded by Iraqis while defending the crossroad between Dehloran and Ein-e-Khosh - and destroyed. Iraqis thus captured the IRIAF's early warning radar site in Dehloran and then continued their advance on Dezful...
The next IRIA unit the Iraqi corps run into was the '2nd Brigade' of the 92nd Armoured Division. This had exactly 5 M60A1s and 3 M113 APCs equipped with BGM-71A TOW ATGMs. And these were still facing several hundred of Iraqi tanks, plus some six artillery regiments...
The M60s and TOWs knocked out about 20 Iraqi tanks, but the 2nd Brigade had to withdraw and thus by 25 September, the Iraqi army approached to only about 20km from Dezful (for a while, it even managed to shell TFB.4). That's when the IRIAF went into action. The CO TFB.4 had 77 operational F-5Es under his command and he ordered all ofthem into the air. F-14s from 81st and 82nd TFS (TFB.8, near Esfahan) provided top cover, RF-4Es and even old RF-5As from TFB.1 (Mehrabad/Tehran) flew recce...
The TFB.4 launched its 'counterattack' on the morning of 27 September 1980, and saw F-5Es plastering Iraqi mechanized formations with CBU-57/Bs and Hunting BL.755 CBUs all the way from Dasht-e-Abbas, via Naderi Bridge, Mussian, Dehloran, to Fakkeh. The Iraqi 42nd Armoured Battalion was most heavily hit: it broke and fled, losing over 100 vehicles of all types in the process. On the next day, F-5Es hit two Iraqi columns that nearly destroyed wahtever was left of that '2nd Brigade' (this was menawhile down to 2 operational M60s and 2 M113s). They destroyed 62 Iraqi vehicles of all types...
By the morning of 29 September, Iraqis understood what's going on, so they stopped and dug in. Thus, the F-5-pilots found fewer targets. 'Only' 60 Iraqi vehicles were knocked out that day... And so on...
Make no mistakes: yes, Iraqi Army suffered extensive casualties and its advance was stopped cold. And yes, F-14s prevented but even a single IrAF fighter bomber from approaching this battlefield. But, this was no 'overwhelming' Iranian success or something: no matter how good their pilots were, Iranians had no ground troops to defend. All they could do was to continue launching F-5s into ground attacks: but, air power can't 'occuppy' or 'hold' positions on the gorund. Plus, they've lost one F-5E (and their pilots) on 27 and 28 September each.
This is just the story - and then one of best-documented in Iranian history of this war (there are extremely precise maps of these operations, supported by recce photos: one can really count every single Iraqi tank that was destroyed) - of how the Iraqi advance on Dezful was stopped, i.e. how that town and its air base were saved. Still, it was only the start of what became the 'Battle of Khuzestan'...
Point is: the person you met can boast as much as he likes, but Dezful and its crucial air base never fell into Iraqi hands.
