That same day, a Pioneer UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) platoon was attached to the corps's 207th MI Brigade. It began flying intelligence and target-acquisition missions two days later.
On 1 February, the 1st CAV began to assume operations up to the border, and from that day until VII Corps attacked on 24 February, the division fought what has become known as the battle of the Ruqi Pocket. Their mission was to conduct artillery raids and feints against Iraqi positions along the Wadi, to destroy Iraqi units and artillery in range of the breach, and to deceive the Iraqis that the Coalition main attack was coming north up the Wadi. As G-Day approached, the 1st CAV operation, by design, picked up intensity. Brigadier General Tilelli and his division kept constant pressure on the Iraqis by a combination of artillery raids, ground attacks up to brigade strength, and aviation attacks fifty to eighty kilometers deep.
Here are some of the notable events:
27 January—the 1st CAV captured five Iraqi deserters, the first of almost 1,800 captured during the next three weeks.
2 February—friendly fire. A U.S. HARM missile hit a 1st CAV radar site and wounded two soldiers.
5 February—the 1st CAV had its first exchange of fire across the border. Two days later, it destroyed an Iraqi border observation tower.
13 February—thirty-five EPWs (enemy prisoners of war, the new name for POWs) were collected. Later that day, sixty MLRS rockets were fired in two different strikes at targets determined by the 1st Brigade. The next day, the 1st Brigade began breaking holes in the twelve-foot-high border berm, and later that day 108 MLRS rockets were fired by the 42nd Artillery brigade under 1st CAV control. The following day, combat engineer vehicles used a variety of fire (165-mm demolition cannon, Copperhead laser-guided artillery, and TOWs fired by Bradleys) to destroy three Iraqi border observation towers.
15 February—in an operation named Redstorm/Bugle, the 1st CAV fired MLRS and cannon artillery, while the VII Corps 2/6 Apache battalion of eighteen AH-64s attacked approximately seventy-five kilometers deep into Iraqi positions.
17 February—using all of VII Corps's daily CAS (combat air support) allocations, the 1st CAV successfully destroyed numerous Iraqi artillery pieces, an MLR battery, a command post, and tanks in front of the division's sector. The following day, 1/7 CAV and 2/8 CAV, both battalion task forces of tanks and Bradleys, conducted a mounted reconnaissance forward, capturing enemy ammunition and killing defending Iraqi infantry. As they withdrew, they came under Iraqi artillery fire, which was quickly silenced by twenty-four MLRS rockets and close air support.
19 February—the 1st UK MLRS unit, under 1st CAV control, fired 192 rockets against nineteen targets. That night, 2/8 CAV ambushed an Iraqi MTLB and destroyed it with a TOW missile. It also took out a pair of enemy infantry squads with artillery fire.
20 February—Operation Knight Strike was launched by Colonel Randy House's 2nd Brigade, in the largest tactical fight of the war so far for VII Corps. In a running battle with Iraqi dug-in units, 1/5 CAV, a Bradley battalion, came under heavy fire, and both a Bradley and a Vulcan air defense track took direct hits from five Iraqi tanks in revetments, followed by mortar and artillery fire. The CAV struck back with artillery and close air support, destroying the Iraqi tanks and twenty artillery pieces. During the fight, a second Bradley was hit, an M1A1 tank hit a mine, and three 1st CAV soldiers were killed (nine were wounded). One of those killed in action was PFC Ardon Cooper, who threw himself over his wounded buddies to protect them from incoming Iraqi artillery fire. For this, Cooper was awarded a posthumous Silver Star.[17]
Even though Operation Knight Strike was successful, it showed that the Iraqis were capable of heavy concentration of fire if an attacking unit got into their prearranged fire area. But it showed as well that Iraqi fire could be quickly silenced and that they had limited ability to shift their fires from their prearranged defensive positions. The lesson was to keep them from getting set in a defensive position. You had to hit them without pause with massed combat power from an unexpected direction.
21 February—703 MLRS rockets were fired by an MLRS unit of the 1st AD under 1st CAV control at known and suspected Iraqi targets as part of the plan for all units of the corps to get into combat operations.
Meanwhile, 1st CAV armor and infantry units kept up almost continual direct-fire attacks against Iraqi units in the Ruqi Pocket area; they continued to break holes in the twelve-foot-high border berm, and they continued their relentless raids against Iraqi defending units. First UK artillery joined this fight on 22 February, and along with 1st CAV artillery, they conducted a massive artillery raid. Later reports indicated that this raid deceived the Iraqis into believing the ground offensive had started in this area.
The actions by the 1st CAV Division in the Ruqi Pocket were hugely successful. They deterred any attack south by Iraqi units, destroyed significant numbers of Iraqi units and artillery (some in range of the 1st INF breach), captured prisoners, who were a valuable source of intelligence, deceived the Iraqi command about the size and direction of the VII Corps attack, provided valuable lessons about how the Iraqis could and could not fight, lessons other units in the corps would use, and allowed the aviation and artillery units of VII Corps to be skillfully employed in the artillery raids (code-named Red-storm). These raids inflicted damage on the Iraqis and gave the rest of the corps needed combat experience. It was a masterful and selfless performance by the 1st CAV that contributed in a major way to VII Corps's battle success.
Earlier, during the first week in February, the corps began to position their logistics west to form Log Base Echo, which was to be the provisions center for the attack. To provide security for Echo, Franks moved an element of the 1st INF on the border in front of them, just west of the 1st CAV. Their orders from Franks were to show only reconnaissance units and aviation (he didn't want the Iraqis to know a force was west of the 1st CAV) so the 1st INF immediately began actions to guard the logistics site and cover the rest of the division move. VII Corps now had forces west from the Wadi approximately eighty kilometers.
On 14 February, a Scud missile hit Hafar al Batin, narrowly missing a 1st CAV shower point. That day Franks was twenty kilometers to the east at a COSCOM briefing and could hear the impact. There were no casualties.
More attacks were launched in front of the 1st INF on 16 February. Franks wanted to start to hit Iraqi artillery in range of the breach and to conduct some aggressive reconnaissance. He reasoned that by then the Iraqis would not be able to react very much anyway. And, besides, with the increased activity of the 1st CAV, they would not notice. But he kept the 2nd ACR and the two armored divisions hidden in the west until 23 February.
The next day was G-Day. Fred Franks continues from here.
CHAPTER NINE
Coiled Spring
VII CORPS MAIN COMMAND POST G-DAY 24 FEBRUARY 1991
I was up at 0400 after a good night's sleep, hoping my leaders and troops were as well rested. We would need our energy.
In a way, I was relaxed that morning — or at least relaxed in the sense that I knew we were ready and that we had the initiative. I did not think I would make any major decisions that day, one of those rare days in the last hundred when that was the case. Most of what we had spent those hundred or so days preparing was now ready to go. The main thing was we knew when we were going to attack: tomorrow, at about 0530, or BMNT. That seemed a sure thing.
This knowledge is a definite advantage for the attacker, one not available for the defense. You can get your unit both physically arranged and mentally ready. The defenders can only wait and wonder. After all those years
