U.S. Troops Engage in ‘Scrimmage’ Before the Real Game Is Launched : Training: More than a week into the war, Army units practice in desert for the upcoming ground offensive.

Off they slogged into the mud, captains and lieutenants playing the part of an Army battalion and looking little different from a high-school football team at midweek practice, pacing off a play they hoped to use in the big game.

“This is not going to be easy to do,” warned Lt. Col. Stephen Smith, a battalion commander ankle deep in muck Thursday morning as he walked his soldiers step-by-step through the fundamentals of a night-time operation.

More than a week into the war, it is scenes like this that remain characteristic of preparations here for a ground offensive, where Army units from Europe are still arriving in the desert and soldiers are only now beginning to maneuver in the sands.

“I’m only kind of half-and-half here,” said Capt. Tracie Cleaver, 28, one of the officers marching through the desert in the rudimentary rehearsal. Of the Bradley fighting vehicles that give his infantry company its combat punch, fewer than half are now on hand.

“Not having our vehicles has really put us behind,” said Lt. Flip Hicks, a platoon leader in a sister company equally short of its armored vehicles. “We can train, but it takes some imagination.”

On this day, Hicks’ platoon was reviewing trench-clearing tactics on a sand-table, where pen-scrawled rocks represented Iraqi tanks and sugar-dappled sand served to highlight the deepest of the enemy bunkers.

The battalion is the last element in this Germany-based 1st Armored Division to reach full combat strength, with the last of its Bradleys and other equipment not expected to arrive in the desert until this weekend. But officers here said its still-incomplete status reflects a wider backlog that appears to have left the Army several days from being ready to launch a ground offensive.

“I hope I’ve been the exception rather than the rule,” said Smith, the mud-bogged commander, whose battalion’s armored vehicles and other equipment were split among seven ships as the unit sailed from Germany after being mobilized Nov. 9. The last of those vessels is only now pulling into port.

When some of the equipment unloaded in Saudi Arabia faced days of delay before being trucked northward to the front, an exasperated Smith ordered that the vehicles simply be driven to combat positions here, a two-day trek of more than 200 miles.

But other officers said that the battalion, part of a brigade from the 3rd Infantry Division now attached to the 1st Armored Division, is far from being the only one not at full strength. Among those still awaiting key equipment, they said, is the 3rd Armored Division, another of the Germany-based units trained to fight the Soviet army but added to the troop buildup here.

“Everyone may have forgotten this with all the bombs falling and all,” one Army officer said, “but we were never going to be fully up to strength by Jan. 15. And even if the war has started, we’re going to need more time.”

The concern over the late-arriving equipment comes as the unit’s officers were warned for the first time that terrorists have begun to operate behind U.S. lines near this forward-based American position. The officers declined to provide further details but said the official alert reflected a change from previous assessments that had found no indication of any such terrorist operations.

At the same time, some units in the 1st Armored Division were allocated body bags--a grim reminder of accelerating preparations for war even as units begin full-scale combat training.

Meanwhile, the 1st Armored Division imposed strict requirements that soldiers undergo new weapons-handling training after the second accidental discharge of a weapon in as many nights. Details remained sketchy, but some frustrated commanders made clear that they see the accidents as a breach of combat discipline that bodes ill.

“Losing a soldier as a result of our failure to train him in something so basic is one of the hardest things that you will have to live with,” the brigade commander, Col. L. C. Riley, said soberly at a briefing for his senior officers. “Losing a soldier to friendly fire is something that will cause you more sleepless nights than losing a soldier to enemy fire. . . . Commanders, you’ve got to get your arms around this one.”

With his armored vehicles taking longer than expected to arrive, battalion commander Smith, a 40-year-old from Fayetteville, N. C., insisted on walking his men through a maneuver anyway.

“This is our dive-left, our trap-right,” he said, accepting the football coach metaphor. “No matter what, we’ve got to get these basics right.”

In the unit’s Charlie Company, soldiers still without their armored vehicles noted that the first week of the war had given them the unexpected leisure to keep up with the news by radio and a nearby bank of satellite telephones. Many said they are becoming concerned by reports of the mounting size of anti-war protests back home.

“It doesn’t help morale that much to have people protesting,” said Pfc. Robert Skinner, 23, from Denver, “because we’re here defending their freedom.”

“I don’t want to go home and see people throwing rocks at me,” added Pfc. Anthony Beckman, of Waverly, Ohio. “If they do, I’ll throw rocks back.”

As speculation about the timing of a U.S. ground offensive mounts, troops of the still-incomplete unit said they remain hopeful that they will not be asked to launch an attack until fully ready.

“It doesn’t bother me at all,” said Cleaver, the company commander, “because I know they’re not going to send me across until I have what I need.”

“Let them Air Force boys keep dropping stuff on the Iraqis to hurt him,” said Hicks, the platoon leader. “They’re not going to let us go in there half-cocked.”

This report was reviewed by military censors.