US special forces fight Russians in Syria

 Army Times:

Explosions flashed in the fog hanging over the Euphrates River like a coming summer storm.

The continuous thunder of Russian guns pounded the American positions in a burned-out natural gas refinery in eastern Syria. Tracers crisscrossed the Syrian sky. The Special Forces soldiers felt the rumble of the explosions through the armored cabins of their trucks.

Overhead, America’s most lethal aircraft — F-15E strike fighters, AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, and MQ-9 Reapers—pounded the Russian guns and enemy formations below.

The Special Forces team had been in combat against ISIS fighters for months, but this was different. ISIS, for the most part, was a few mortar rounds or spray-and-pray potshots from an AK-47. This was a trained Russian force with artillery and armored vehicles.

This was a fair fight, and the U.S. troops were driving into it.

“It looked like New York City on New Year’s Eve,” Chauncey, a former Special Forces team sergeant who helped lead a quick reaction force (QRF) to the refinery, tells The War Horse. “By far, the most chaotic battle scene that I’ve ever observed, let alone be a part of.”
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As the Special Forces convoy approached the refinery, the Russian mercenaries and Syrian forces attacked the outpost, using a mixture of tank fire, large artillery, and mortar rounds.The air was filled with dust and shrapnel. The commandos crouched behind trucks or dirt berms as the Russian mercenaries advanced behind the artillery barrage.

One Predator was on station when the attack started. It fired all of its hellfire missiles, destroying the enemy artillery so the U.S. troops could focus on the ground fight. Then the Predator lingered over the battlefield to provide a video feed of the fighting to battle captains in the command center and officials in Washington.

For the first 15 minutes, American military officials in Washington worked to contact their Russian counterparts and urge them to stop the attack. When the Russians denied it was their forces, American troops fired warning shots at a group of vehicles and a howitzer, but the troops continued to advance.

The Wagner mercenaries had a surface-to-air system that made it impossible for American aircraft to press the attack. Only after officials in Washington talked to their Russian counterparts did the surface-to-air system get shut down, allowing American aircraft to return and attack.

The SDF truck leading the Special Forces convoy stopped short of the compound as artillery shells rained down on the refinery. Up ahead, the sky flashed with explosions and tracer fire. The SDF soldiers in the unarmored truck leading the convoy took one look, turned around, and took off.
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Miraculously, the small team of American troops emerged unscathed, with only one allied Syrian fighter wounded. The commandos’ commander was relieved to see the team.

“We’re just hiding behind the trucks eating artillery,” he told the Special Forces team.

But that was just the start. The Russians had a combined arms battalion of about 500 soldiers, tanks, armored personnel carriers, and artillery with support elements close by. The Americans now had a half-dozen trucks and fewer than 50 guys.

“The scale of this thing is a big part of this and why the air support was so critical,” Josh says.

Another wave of fighters were inbound, but not on station yet, as the Russians advanced.
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The Russian mercenaries left their vehicles and moved toward the outpost on foot. The Special Forces team used joysticks to fire the heavy machine guns in remote turrets on the roof.

Hey, these guys must think that they just annihilated this location, Chauncey remembers thinking as he watched the Russians approach. They’re just going to walk up and take it.

There were no friendly forces in front, so the gunners didn’t have to worry about hitting civilians. If it moved, it was likely an enemy, and they were cleared to engage.

“Let’s open up and let ‘em know we’re here,” Chauncey said.
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The Apaches arrived just in time. Josh vividly remembers hearing the chain gun go off and then more rockets striking the tanks.

“I’m a full believer that without the air that responded to us on station, we all would’ve been a bunch of grease stains on the earth in a line in an oil field in Syria.”
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There is much more.

The special ops team prevailed without casualties and those on the Russian side had about 350 casualties and eventually lost 10 tanks.