Stan and I immediately huddled so that I could fill him in on the situation and on the orders I had given to the commanders, and then we talked over the best way to deal with placing the main TAC. Because the battle was rapidly moving east, we decided not to set up the TAC here, but instead to move forward to a location closer to where we anticipated the battles would be that night.
Meanwhile, 1st INF's arrival estimates had been pushed back even further, but the 2nd ACR was still doing well; continuing the attack was no problem.
At 1509, according to the 2nd ACR battle log, I called Ron Griffith and ordered him to 'move east, gain contact,' a reinforcement of the early-morning orders I had given him and a signal to anyone monitoring the command net of my intent for an increased tempo.
At 1513, I got Don on the radio and amended my previous order to him to stop at the 60 Easting. 'Recon forward. Gain contact,' I told him. I now judged that 60 Easting was too soon, that they'd have to wait too long there for the 1st INF Division… Remember, this was art, not science. You can always change your mind as the situation changes, and especially if you have a unit with the agility and the aggressive young leaders of the 2nd ACR.
With that, it was time to return to the 2nd ACR — who by then had engaged in a major battle with the Tawalkana.
1600 2ND ACR
Though by then the weather was marginal for flying, the high winds and sandstorms, having picked up, I got back to the 2nd ACR after a quick twenty-minute helo flight. I was glad that we had been able to make it back. There was an air of electricity in their TAC. Radios were alive and the noise level was high.
The 2nd ACR TAC was feeling great.
Meanwhile, what was to be called the Battle of 73 Easting was just getting under way. Here is what led up to that battle.
Almost immediately after first light that morning, as 2nd ACR had been nearing the vicinity of 50 Easting, they'd had enemy contact, and the contact had continued all morning. But as they had continued to push their attack east, they'd come into contact with, and destroyed, increasingly stiff defenses until they'd reached 60 Easting. At that point, they found themselves in between the now-destroyed security zone and the main defense of the Tawalkana, which appeared to be set somewhere east of them.
At 1400, regimental S-2 had picked up a report of eighty enemy vehicles moving north along 64 Easting. That gave them some warning that a major enemy force was close, though the precise nature of the enemy force was not clear. And in fact, after I amended my order and they resumed their attack east of 60 Easting, they ran head-on into the main defense of the Tawalkana, which began around 69 Easting. Tanks and BMPs faced them directly.
Because they had had no advance warning, other than the 1400 intelligence report, the 3rd and 2nd Squadrons found themselves in a meeting engagement. Though we knew the approximate locations of major enemy units, the troops on the ground who had to engage in close combat were essentially blind until they actually ran into the enemy. This was not a surprising situation. It happens more than we'd like it to.
Three things helped the 2nd ACR troopers: the boldness of their small-unit leaders, the training of their soldiers, and the weather. They attacked in a sandstorm. The Iraqis never saw what hit them until it was too late.
The Iraqis were in what is called a reverse-slope defense, a tactic they had used successfully against Iran. Taking advantage of the normal 50- to 100-foot undulations in the rolling desert, they had positioned part of a unit on the leading edge of a rise in the desert floor, while the remainder of the unit was concealed on the other side of the rise, or on the reverse slope. Their intent was to lure unsuspecting attackers into believing that they had to contend with only the small unit on the forward slope, but when attackers came over the rise, they would be hit by volley fire from the rest of the Iraqi defenders on the other side. It had been a good tactic against the Iranians. It did not work against our troops.
Though there were few bunkers, as this had been a hastily drawn-up defense, most of their tanks and BMPs were in horseshoe-shaped sand revetments — sand pushed up to about turret level on three sides of the vehicle, with the rear left open, so that the vehicle could back out. Some of the revetments had been dug out, some not. The revetments helped to hide vehicles, but they did nothing to stop the long-rod penetrator of the M1A1 120-mm cannon from destroying the Iraqi tanks. (After the engagement we found many 'notches' in the berms indicating where the penetrators had gone through to find their mark.) In other places, when they had time, the Iraqis would erect screens in front of their tanks to deflect HEAT projectiles. But they did not have time for that here. Likewise, though their artillery was in position behind the defense, they also did not have time to get very well coordinated. Behind the defenses by about fifteen kilometers were logistics vehicles.
In addition to the reverse-slope defense, the Iraqis had some other devices. In some places (though not much in this engagement), they placed fifty-five-gallon drums out in front that could be heated at night and used as target reference points for their infrared night-sight equipment. They sometimes also (but not in this engagement) put out burning rubber tires to decoy laser-guided bombs or heat-seeking target designators away from their real targets.
In other words, the Iraqis were doing the best they could. They were not totally immobile, either. At 73 Easting and elsewhere they tried to reposition to meet the attack better, or even to counterattack. Thus, 73 Easting was a running three- to four-hour fight.
On this day, the weather was particularly bad, with visibility in the hundreds of meters, if that. The Iraqis never thought anyone would attack them in that kind of weather.
Captain H. R. McMaster, Troop E commander, offers this account: 'I was issuing final instructions to the troop when my tank crested another, almost imperceptible rise. As we came over the top, my gunner, Staff Sergeant Koch, yelled, 'Tanks direct front.' I then saw more of the enemy position that Magee and Lawrence had spotted. In an instant, I counted eight tanks in dug-in positions… on the back slope of the ridge… so that they could surprise us as we came over the rise and equalize their weapons' capability with ours. We, however, had surprised them… They were close. Koch hit the button on the laser range finder and the display showed 1,420 meters. I yelled, 'Fire, fire sabot.' The enemy tank's turret separated from its hull in a hail of sparks… All the troop's tanks were now in the fight. Eight more T-72s erupted into flames. Enemy tanks and BMPs… erupted in innumerable fireballs. The troop was cutting a five-kilometer-wide swath of destruction through the enemy's defense… In twenty-three minutes, Eagle Troop had reduced the enemy position to a spectacular array of burning vehicles.'
After he looked at the battle area the next morning, H. R. wrote, 'Our Bradleys and tanks destroyed over thirty enemy tanks, approximately twenty personnel carriers and other armored vehicles, and about thirty trucks. The artillery strike had destroyed another thirty-five enemy trucks, large stocks of fuel, ammunition, and other supplies, and several armored vehicles. We were faced with the gruesome sight of a battlefield covered with enemy dead. One of the enemy prisoners claimed to have commanded a Republican Guards mechanized infantry battalion of over nine hundred men, reinforced with thirty-six tanks. He said that forty of the prisoners were all who remained alive. Eagle Troop had taken no casualties.'
Captain Joe Sartiano, Troop G commander, gives this report: 'The ensuing move due east was based upon north-south grid lines. Ghost and Eagle moved abreast of each other. Eagle had contact at about the 70 Easting, and Ghost continued to move forward. Ghost encountered enemy vehicles dug in at the 73 Easting. After destroying the mass to our front, more enemy vehicles came into our zone, and the troop engaged them with assets available. The scout platoons went 'black' [ran out of ammo] on TOWs at 1800 hrs; each tank fired an average of fourteen rounds (14 x 9 tanks in troop = 126 tank rounds, each deadly accurate), the mortar section (two SP 4.2-inch mortars) fired 256. Early in the evening, due to the ammunition expenditure, Hawk Company (squadron's tank company) was to relieve Ghost Troop… Battle damage was unknown at the time due to the limited visibility during the day. The troop lost one soldier, Sergeant Nels A. Moller, when an enemy tank hit his Bradley with a main gun round… The troop closed in on its TAA at 0100 and stayed there until 1500. During this time, the troop held a memorial service there for Sergeant Moller.'
And Captain Dan Miller, Troop I commander, gives this report: 'Enemy tank turrets were hurled skyward as 120-mm sabot rounds ripped through T-55s and T-72s. The fireballs that followed hurled debris 100 feet into the air.
