me from it (in all fairness to John, the mission south had not been a stupid or ill-considered idea: in addition to the possibility of getting the 1st CAV into the fight earlier, he had also been thinking that, by clearing the area, he could more quickly establish a log base in Kuwait that would give us a much faster turnaround time for fuel, in case we and XVIII Corps continued fighting in and around northern Kuwait and near Basra).
ENEMY FORCES
During the day, our main CP had been developing a clear picture of the Iraqis' activities, and after my phone calls, our G-2 folks gave Stan and me a quick intelligence update. This is what they reported at 2030:
'Tawalkana Mech Division and one brigade of the 52nd Armored Division will continue to defend along Phase Line Tangerine until approximately 26210 °C' — that is, at 2100 on 26 February ('C' stands for local time)—'at which time, Tawalkana Division has been ordered to withdraw to a subsequent defensive position. This subsequent defensive position will probably be reinforced by the remainder of the 52nd Armored Division and possibly the 17th AD. On 26 Feb, elements of the Medina Division moved out of revetments to orient forces to the SW. Similarly, up to 9 bns of the Hammurabi Division moved to the NE about 10–20 kilometers in positions to defend the Rumaila oil fields.' The oil fields were about thirty kilometers west and southwest of Basra, running north to south about ten kilometers; they were about half in our sector and half in XVIII Corps's. We thought they might be impassable for heavy tracked vehicles (it turned out we were wrong). 'Other Iraqi forces in Kuwait will continue to withdraw to the north toward the Iraqi border. The Iraqi goal will be to delay VII Corps and MARCENT[43] along successive defensive lines, while withdrawing the bulk of his armored and mechanized units into Iraq. Iraqi forces, particularly RGFC units, will remain capable of maintaining a defense in depth and conducting up to brigade-sized counterattacks. He will become increasingly vulnerable to Coalition air strikes as he withdraws from prepared defensive positions, as well as to rapid and coordinated fires and maneuvers.'
This statement was later included in the report that went to Third Army from our VII Corps main CP. What it meant to me was that the Iraqi strategic reserves were attempting to form a series of defensive lines between us and Highway 8, so that they could continue to move their forces out of Kuwait, that the RGFC was the HQ directing this defense, and that the Tawalkana and Medina RGFC divisions were still immediately in front of VII Corps.
The Tawalkana had their three brigades on line from north to south approximately along the 70 north/south grid line. These three brigades were the 29th MECH, the 9th Armored, and the 18th MECH. South of the 18th MECH was the 37th Armored Brigade of the Iraqi 12th Armored Division. Earlier in the night of 24–25 February, the RGFC had deployed the 50th Armored Brigade, with close to ninety tanks, in a security zone in front of this defensive line. That force had been decisively defeated by the 2nd ACR the day before, 25 February. Behind the Tawalkana defense were brigades of both the 10th and 12th Iraqi Armored Divisions. The Medina, meanwhile, was moving two armored brigades west, the 14th and the 2nd, to defend a theater logistics site just to the east of the 70 north/south grid line. They were being joined by two unidentified armored brigades moving up from the south. At this time, the Iraqis still had the ability to reposition brigade-sized forces and were doing so. The Adnan Division also appeared to be sending a brigade south to help the Tawalkana and Medina Divisions defend.
For some time, it had not been clear to me either how much of the Hammurabi was in VII Corps's sector or how much they would become involved in this forming defense, and that was still the case. Our VII Corps estimate was that they were moving out of positions to defend the Rumaila oil fields and would move forward to defend if the Medina could not hold our attack. The 17th Armored also was part of the defense. (Earlier, in chapter 1, we mentioned that some Iraqi units had been wrongly identified. That was true in this area. Thus, the 52nd Division was actually the 12th Armored.)
Clearly the RGFC were attempting to defend, and were positioning forces to do so. Though I did not know their precise strength at this time, I believed it was closer to 75 percent than 50 percent. Not only were they repositioning units, they were also attempting fairly crafty defensive tactics, such as the reverse-slope defense mentioned earlier.
I put the intel update together with the information my commanders had given me during my battlefield visits earlier that day, and they matched. From there my commander's running estimate led me to these conclusions:
I knew we had the Iraqi forces fixed. We had also surprised them with the speed and direction of our attack, and they were now scrambling to reorient and to thicken the defense. I needed to continue to press the corps attack so that the Iraqis could not get any more set than they already were. We had opened up a window of vulnerability in the Iraqi defense, and we needed to complete our mission before that window closed.
As for us, it was clear to me again that we had the right forces in the right combination at the right place at the right time. The decision to mass into a three-division fist, the changes in tempo, the rolling attack — all were proving correct.
By turning east into the forming RGFC defense, we also had opened an attack lane to our north for XVIII Corps. We had not pinched them out and tried to do it all ourselves — their combat power would also be in the fight. It would make the complete destruction of the RGFC a Third Army, not just a VII Corps, fight, and it would also facilitate the ground/air coordination needed to finish it off, since both commands were in Riyadh. Because CENTCOM, Third Army, and CENTAF were co-located in Riyadh, all the command elements needed to isolate and destroy Iraqi forces in the Kuwaiti theater were in one place.
In the air, CENTAF had all the aircraft necessary to seal off the escape routes. On the ground, Gary Luck and I had the combat power to completely destroy all Iraqi forces in the Third Army zone. It was all coming together, just as we had discussed in our war games. Now we just had to complete the execution.
It would not be easy. For the soldiers and small-unit commanders conducting the attacks, it would turn out to be a night we would all remember.
PERSONNEL AND LOGISTICS
Once I had looked over the enemy and friendly situations, I asked for a quick report on our logistics status. Because I did not have a staff section to track logistics at the TAC CP, I was not current on our situation, and did not have a good feel for our fuel posture.
I did know I had a talented group of logisticians who could do the fuel arithmetic as well as I could. An M1A1 tank uses about fifty gallons an hour. You refuel about every eight hours or less, or at every opportunity. The tank's turbine engine burns as much idling as it does rolling at forty miles per hour. Divisions consume about 600,000 to 800,000 gallons of fuel a day. We were rapidly moving away from our supply points, so the turnaround time for returning trucks was stretching out to as long as twenty-four hours, or over 200 kilometers. But with Nelligen now established, I thought that we were still all right.
Though fuel availability in the battle area was becoming increasingly short, the percentage availability of our major combat systems was still in the high eighties to low nineties — even after the 150-kilometer move and some combat.
The equipment losses did not bother me — the soldier losses did. Our casualties for the first two days were fourteen KIA and forty-six WIA. That was not just a number to me. These were individual soldiers who had come here to do their duty. I did not agonize over these last reports, but I paused a minute and thought about those soldiers and what we needed to do over the next hours and days to continue to get our mission done at least cost. You feel it all, and then you decide and go on.
DOUBLE ENVELOPMENT
Earlier that afternoon, even while paying attention to the current battles, I had been intermittently thinking about the next move. How would we end it?
