The door of the courtyard house has been welded dead

The sun hung in the distorted sky, like a red-hot branding iron.

In the height of summer, the sweltering heat of the Shatt al-Arab plains bakes the earth into a deep reddish-gold color.

The air seemed scorched by the blazing sun, and vision began to distort, the scene before our eyes appearing hazy, like a mirage.

The horizon suddenly began to tremble, like a thousand horses galloping under the scorching sun, and the sand grains on the dunes kept sliding into the bottom of the slope.

A sudden surge of steel crushed the saline-alkali land, the roar of hundreds of tank tracks stirring up the yellow sand, and cannon barrels abruptly appearing on the horizon.

This was the largest armored battle in the Iran-Iraq War. The Persian army's MK3 and MK5 tank groups were tearing through the Iraqi defenses in a wedge formation, while the Iraqi Guard's 72 tank groups were closing in from the flanks like pincers.

In the distance, the wreckage of several destroyed tanks still emitted wisps of smoke by the roadside, adding a touch of grimness to the impending battle of steel.

On the Persian side, the vanguard of the 9th Armored Division had already broken through the first sandbank defense line. The 120mm rifled guns of the Chieftain tanks spewed flames that exploded into orange-red fireworks a kilometer away.

A command tank, numbered Persian Leopard, was rolling through a minefield hastily laid by Iraqi forces. The crisp sound of its tracks crushing steel anti-tank mines echoed repeatedly, and the gravel kicked up hit the tank body with a crackling sound.

Major Hamid, the tank commander, leaned halfway out of the command tower. His desert camouflage uniform was already soaked with sweat. He gripped his binoculars and looked at the Iraqi tank formation that had suddenly appeared ahead. His Adam's apple bobbed violently.

Behind him, the entire armored division stretched for kilometers like a giant steel python, each tank gleaming with a cold metallic luster in the sunlight, its guns pointing directly at the Iraqi positions. The temperature of the tanks after being exposed to the sun was high enough to cook an egg.

Along the roadside, one can occasionally see tank wreckage with cannon barrels dangling down, twisted steel bodies, and serial numbers that are no longer legible.

When the Iraqi 3rd Armored Brigade's T-72 tank group suddenly appeared from behind the sand dunes on the flank, the sunlight was just blocked by the thick sand and dust.

The first salvo of 125mm smoothbore shells pierced the air with a sharp whistling sound, and three plumes of black smoke instantly rose from the Persian tank formation.

Hamid witnessed firsthand that the friendly vehicle on his right was hit head-on, and the resulting secondary explosion occurred the next second. The heavy turret flew into the air as lightly as a tin can kicked by a naughty child, and hot metal fragments rained down on his hatch.

The neighboring car quickly turned into a burning wreckage, billowing thick smoke, and none of the occupants escaped.

That camel-numbered friendly vehicle was once the most valiant, having been the first to break through the Iraqi defenses in many battles. Now, right before his eyes, it had been reduced to a pile of scrap metal. The fate of the people inside was unimaginable. A trace of grief flashed in Hamid's eyes.

"Turn 30 degrees to the left! Load armor-piercing rounds!"

Anger made Hamid's roar exceptionally sharp, and it became somewhat distorted after being amplified by the car's intercom.

After years of competition, the Chieftain MK3 is inferior to the Bit 72 in terms of mobility, and its 120mm rifled gun is inferior to the 125mm smoothbore gun in terms of penetration. It can only barely match the Bit 72 in terms of accuracy. There is a clear gap between the two sides in terms of equipment.

Britain is a traitor! Her Majesty the Queen's former glory is now being violently rubbed into the ground by a polar bear with a cigar in its mouth in the Middle Eastern desert.

The Chieftain tank clumsily completed the turn, the gun barrel slowly rising under the drive of the hydraulic system, and the sight didn't even need to be specifically searched for; the shadow of the T-72 was everywhere.

When the rangefinder beeped urgently, Hamid pressed the firing button hard, and the huge recoil of the breech made the entire tank tremble.

The crew members gripped the handles inside the tank tightly, their bodies swaying with the tank's vibrations, but each kept their eyes glued to the sights and instruments, ready to deal with any situation that might arise.

Outside the car window, an Iraqi tank was hit and stopped in place, its drive wheels still spinning futilely, throwing its broken track helplessly off the vehicle. Without one track, the tank could only spin in place.

The T-72 tank, which had been hit in the distance and lost power, could only spin around. It was quickly hit by an armor-piercing shell. The turret suddenly flashed with a blinding light, followed by a mushroom cloud rising from the exploded ammunition compartment.

Before Hamid could even catch his breath, a series of rapidly moving black bodies of earth suddenly appeared in the commander's panoramic view.

Iraqi BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles, made in the Soviet Union, were charging from the flank and rear. Their 73mm low-pressure smoothbore guns fired armor-piercing rounds, which were tearing a glaring trail across the side armor of the Chieftain tank.

These infantry fighting vehicles, like agile leopards, weaved through the armored torrent, constantly seeking opportunities to attack, causing considerable trouble for the Persian armored formation.

On the radio, complex Persian language could be heard continuously through the earpiece.

"Calling for Cobra backup! We might be in trouble!"

"In five minutes, the sandstorm will arrive, and the pearls will shine upon you!"

Hamid immediately directed the tanks to take defensive action and work together to deal with the sudden threat, while simultaneously contacting the forward command center at the rear via radio.

In the central area of ​​the battlefield, the saline lake area had long been boiled by the scorching sun, and the turbid lake water was covered with rust-colored foam.

Dozens of destroyed armored tanks were pushed up a slope by both sides before the battle, like cleaning up a junkyard, and then slid into the silt at the bottom of the lake, with only the gun barrels remaining above the water.

This steel graveyard surrounding the salt lake will undoubtedly see new graves added again today.

Not far away on the Tigris River, the pontoon bridge erected by the Persian engineers in their counterattack was under artillery fire. Infantrymen on assault boats were thrown into the lake by the blast waves, and the helmets and oil slicks floating on the water formed strange patterns.

Some soldiers who could swim struggled to reach the shore, while others could only helplessly float in the water, dragged to the bottom of the river by their heavy equipment.

Shouts, cries for help, and the sounds of artillery explosions mingled together, creating a horrific scene.

Suddenly, a Hussein missile (a Scud-like missile) from an Iraqi artillery position streaked across the sky, leaving a white trail as it swept across the battlefield.

The ammunition resupply point behind the Persian tank formation was directly hit. The shockwave from the chain explosion overturned trucks hundreds of meters away, and burning shells flew everywhere like meteors. The reactive armor of a T-72 tank bloomed into strange orange flowers the moment it was hit by the ammunition. The metal jet from the explosion was detonated prematurely by the reactive armor, leaving only a few charred marks on the surface of the vehicle.

Although this tank managed to escape, several other tanks that were affected by the blast were not so lucky; they were reduced to burning wreckage, with thick smoke billowing into the sky.

This terrifying scene made the crew members instinctively break out in a cold sweat. If it weren't for the reactive armor on the vehicle, the tank they were riding in would probably have been turned into a pile of scrap metal, and everyone inside would have been charred corpses.

The sandstorm arrived as expected at noon, sweeping across the entire battlefield. The yellow sand blown up by the strong winds covered the entire sky like a curtain.

In a sandstorm with visibility of less than 50 meters, the tank crews on both sides could only rely on infrared night vision equipment to hunt each other down.

Persian tank crews, thanks to the superior fire control system of their Chieftain tanks, accurately hit moving targets in the sandstorm, while Iraqi tanks relied on their numerical superiority to form a circular defensive perimeter.

The rustling of tracks grinding through sand, the roar of engines overloaded, and the clanging of shells hitting armor—all these sounds intertwined in the yellow fog, creating a symphony played by steel.

In this harsh combat environment, the soldiers on both sides were on the verge of adrenaline, intently watching for any movement around them, and dared not slacken their vigilance in the slightest.

In the sandstorm, the dark silhouettes of tanks could be seen flashing by from time to time, approaching the wreckage that was still emitting thick smoke after being destroyed, making it difficult for infrared night vision equipment to distinguish them.

A broken-down T-72 tank is parked on the leeward side of a sand dune, and the crew is trying to repair the broken track under the cover of a sandstorm.

Sergeant Muhammad, the tank commander, gazed at the faint muzzle flashes of gunfire appearing in the distant sand and fog, and suddenly began to sing "The Land of Mesopotamia" at the top of his lungs.

The song echoed through the sandstorm, carrying a touch of tragedy and determination, expressing longing for home and a yearning for victory.

Not far away, a destroyed Persian chieftain tank was still emitting thick smoke, which flickered in the sandstorm, as if accompanying a song.

Before the song had even finished, an armor-piercing discarding sabot round precisely penetrated the side of the turret, and the high-temperature metal jet instantly ignited the ammunition inside the compartment.

The violent explosion hurled the turret more than ten meters into the sky, tracing a brief arc through the sandstorm before the gun barrel slammed into the ground.

Then everything fell silent again, leaving only the unfinished song drifting in the wind, and the Special-72 tank became a new burning wreck, gradually being covered by the yellow sand carried by the sandstorm.

Hamid's tank had already destroyed three tanks in succession, and the sand particles that had condensed on the gun barrel had even been scorched by the muzzle flames into glass-like crystals.

As he prepared to launch a new offensive, he suddenly noticed that the oil pressure gauge on the dashboard was dropping rapidly.

The engine emitted a piercing screech before finally stopping amidst a cloud of smoke.

Hamid pushed open the scorching hatch and saw that the cooling system had been pierced by stray bullets, and the green coolant turned into white mist when it came into contact with the hot engine.

Hamid frowned, knowing that his tank was probably no longer able to fight. He immediately organized the crew to get out of the vehicle, find cover, and prepare to deal with any Iraqi soldiers that might come.

At this time, another Persian force, the 12th Mechanized Brigade, was flanking the battlefield.

Their M113 armored personnel carriers sped across the desert, billowing thick smoke, their camouflage netting peeking through the sandstorm.

The roadside was littered with the wreckage of tanks and armored vehicles, some of which were rusty and likely destroyed two or three years ago.

Colonel Ali, the brigade commander, observed the battlefield situation through binoculars. As the sandstorm slowly moved, he discovered a weak point on the right flank of the Iraqi forces.

"Attention all personnel! Accelerate! Target the enemy's right flank!"

Colonel Ali gave the order via radio, and the M113 armored personnel carrier group rushed toward the target like arrows released from a bow.

The Iraqi army quickly discovered the movements of the Persian 12th Mechanized Brigade and immediately deployed some T-62 tanks and BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles to intercept them.

The two sides engaged in fierce fighting in the desert. Machine guns on the M113 armored personnel carriers spewed fire continuously, while BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicles sent by the Iraqi side also fired shells. The armored vehicles fired at each other at close range, like two boxers who did not care about defense and only wanted to kill each other.

A young Persian soldier lay prone on the roof of an M113 tank, firing a machine gun at the tank crew who were jumping out of the vehicle. His face was covered in sand and sweat, and he scattered the yellow-orange shell casings on the sand as if they were free.

Suddenly, a shell exploded nearby, and the blast wave threw the soldier off the armored vehicle. His body crashed heavily to the ground, and the soldier instinctively clutched his throat, coughing up blood. After struggling for a few moments, he fell silent.

The desert sunset dyed the sky blood red. As the sandstorm receded, the remaining armored forces of both sides continued their final battle.

A squadron of several Cobra attack helicopters from the Persian army swooped down from the clouds and arrived at the battlefield first after the sandstorm had passed.

The rocket pods spewed flames, and rockets flew out of the sky, wielding the scythe of death towards the armored formation.

On the ground, numerous tank wrecks appeared dark red in the setting sun. From the helicopter pilot's perspective, hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles lay buried there. Their chieftain had suffered heavy losses, and his eyes were bloodshot with rage.

Iraqi forces were on guard against the ZSU-23 anti-aircraft gun groups turning their guns around. The four-barreled anti-aircraft guns on the helicopters spat out tongues of fire, and the dense tracer rounds wove a deadly net in the twilight. A helicopter was hit and crashed into a sand dune, leaving a trail of black smoke. The resulting explosion overturned several nearby tanks.

The wreckage of the helicopter burned on the sand dunes, the flames reddening half the sky and the tired faces of the soldiers on both sides. This scene, resembling a graveyard of tanks and armored vehicles, added a tragic dimension to the battle.

In the clash of steel, neither side could decisively defeat the other; both suffered heavy losses. (End of Chapter)