rwb@uunet.UU.NET (Rick Butland) (04/03/91)
From: viusys!rwb@uunet.UU.NET (Rick Butland) I spoke to my brother-in-law last night, having just returned from Iraq, and I found some of his recollections interesting, (some I'd just as soon forget.) Your mileage may vary. He's a physicians assistant with a combat engineering battalion in the 24th. He did two tours in the SF in SE Asia, so he's not prone to blowing smoke. "Border Skirmishes" - He made these sound a lot heavier than I'd heard before, but perhaps that's natural; a bunker he was working in, and had just left, was blown up by artillery fire. Screwed up his knee, needs surgery. He also said that while these attacks were fairly frequent, counter-fire, (specifically mentioned the Apache), quickly ended such attacks. Air Campaign - "I have to hand it to the Air Force, by the time we went over, the last thing on their minds was fighting us. The devastation was unbelievable, much more than has been reported", in his mind. He related that the first encounter with the Iraqis was with a rifle company, all prone, and weaponless. A single man stood up to wave the surrender flag. It got so bad that they stopped processing POW's, and simply handed them an MRE, pointed north, and told them to "go home." He saw one guy surrender five times, getting a ration each time. Weapons - "It made Vietnam look like Boy Scout camp." I didn't hear anything particularly new here, except that he was particularly impressed by the Apache; "Now there's an aptly named weapon - the Hellfire." He stated that the Iraqis couldn't hear it, nor see it, and that they didn't know it was there until things started blowing up. Engagements seem to be uniformly made at max range, no surprise, that's the doctrine. M1's, at 4000m, TOW's at 3000m, Hellfire's at 6000? He related the incident where a scout found a bunch of T72's on HET's, heading north. I don't remember the size of the unit, but they (M1's) deployed out of a phalanx formation, and caught them on a cigarette break. They caught them by surprise, opening up at long range, hitting the first and last vehicles. Then it was "turkey shoot time", destroying all of the vehicles, with the crews still inside. He seemed surprised at the effectiveness of the TOW, saying that he saw them blowing the turrets off of T-72's; apparently there was some concern here? Casualties - The one area with which I was somewhat ignorant. He found a large number of Iraqi soldiers, hands bound, either shot in the head, or in both knees, and left to bleed to death. Large numbers of dead on the battlefield, many there for a week or more. The part that he (and I) have a great deal of trouble with is the Iraqi civilians, after the cease-fire, a great many of them mutilated. The thing he can't get out of his mind, (nor I), is that there were "many" of them with their eyes gouged out, not dead, or otherwise wounded. Others were shot in the testicles or the knees. He had to treat many such casualties there in the field, performing amputations and such where he found them. Among these casualties were children. He was furious with the Army, (or at least some officers), for saying "ignore them, we can't help them", referring to the initial policy not to intervene. He apparently ignored such direction. He also said that of the 8 KIA in his task force, 4 were from friendly fire.
scott@xcf.Berkeley.EDU (Scott Silvey) (04/05/91)
From: scott@xcf.Berkeley.EDU (Scott Silvey) viusys!rwb@uunet.UU.NET (Rick Butland) writes: > Engagements seem to be uniformly made at max range, > no surprise, that's the doctrine. M1's, at 4000m, TOW's at 3000m, > Hellfire's at 6000? M1's can effectively engage that many tanks at 4000m?! I know the gun can fire that far, but is it THAT accurate? I thought the real effective range was something like 3000m and under. -- Scott Silvey scott@xcf.berkeley.edu