The operation begins with recon crossing the canal.
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As the recon generates contacts for the artillery the picture becomes clearer and clearer as to enemy dispositions in the area. With this the assault itself begins with amphibious vehicles from the first battalion making the first crossing under fire from enemy artillery
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Enemy artillery isn't the only artillery in the fight, ours is pounding one of the enemy strong points covering the canal as the first battalion starts surging across it.
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At one of the first objectives, the closest to the crossing point we are facing resistance, with both sides causing damage.
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While this happens the infantry begins their assault on the southern strong point.
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Though despite this the first objective, a small village is still contested.
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While the fighting continues along the canal zone the forward recon makes contact with an enemy strong point on the way towards the rear most objective.
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At the same time the final assault on the southern enemy strong point is starting to wind down with only a small enemy force left.
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While the enemy strong point is almost taken the objective nearest the crossing point is still putting up fierce resistance which in total losses to us eats up nearly a company.
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While the fighting still rages across the canal in the enemy strong points and in our objectives our second wave appears and starts the crossing under fire.
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The assault an hour and a half into the crossing.
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The crossing of the last elements of the assault group happens with some losses due to artillery...
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and is also slowed down by it due to bracketing by the enemy of the crossing point...
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but the crossing happens despite the will of the enemy in resisting us.
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The second battalion is ordered to assault the northern strong point, while this is happening the enemy starts a counter attack to blunt our advance and perhaps contest our southern objective.
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The attack turns out to be quite heavy
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Our response is artillery fire on the road the enemy is advancing down.
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The artillery however doesn't slow the enemy advance.
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ATGMs and artillery do blunt the enemy advance.
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First battalion starts mopping up survivors from the enemy force.
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Along with elements of second battalion hitting the enemy in the flank.
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Though another surprise appears, enemy tanks heading down the road.
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Lots of enemy tanks.
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Which promptly start taking the flanking force under fire.
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While this happens ATGMs start getting set up to counter the tank assault down the road.
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But they start turning off the road
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And start heading towards the northern strong point or the crossing point. At this point its unclear which.
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They start heading west towards the crossing point and just south of my company's ATGM section.
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The teams see the tanks and start firing, but miss due to the rolling terrain masking the tanks.
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The tanks start charging towards E company
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But get engaged despite the rolling terrain.
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And the counter attack is stopped. We decide to dig in and wait for more days of counter attacks. The crossing is successful.