Meanwhile, I needed someone to call the British. Since they had a liaison element with us at the TAC CP, they knew what I knew at that point. But I needed to find out if Rupert Smith could adjust his movement from Area Ray forward fast enough to be ready to pass through the breach once the 1st INF opened it up and cleared out of the way.
I also needed a quick logistics estimate. Would log elements (more than 400 vehicles) be ready to go forward to establish Buckeye (then about 400 more vehicles), then through the breach and establish Nelligen to provide fuel for the enveloping units?
And finally, I needed to make an adjustment to CONPLAN Boot--the 11th Aviation Brigade attack planned for tomorrow night on the eastern flank. I wanted them to hit the Iraqi reserves there and speed the British exit from the breach. Could they go tonight?
Don Holder and Butch Funk arrived at about 1015. We huddled outside the TAC enclosure because Stan and the troops in there were burning up the comms lines getting all the orders out and getting input on what I had asked for.
I used butcher paper to sketch out my ideas for Butch and Don.
What I had in mind was to commit to FRAGPLAN 7 right away. Third AD would initially make a shallower attack that would drive almost directly east while keeping clear of the northern forward limits of the breach. This maneuver would very quickly place a major force just east and north of the planned British attack. Meanwhile, the 2nd ACR would attack in the center between the two armored divisions. They would then give up their cover mission and become an attacking force--actually, part of a smaller fist. If I could not come up with the third division for my fist, then they would continue the attack in the center--a risk. If I did find another division, I would eventually relieve them, and the added division would pass through them. And in fact, in the back of my mind, was the growing likelihood that the 1st INF would come out of the breach in a posture that would allow me to use them again against the RGFC.
There were other risks. The plan would require rapid adjustment by two major maneuver units, 3rd AD and 2nd ACR, which would take time to disseminate. It would also commit us early to FRAGPLAN 7. If two days from now the RGFC did something different from what we expected, we were out of options.
Still, I wanted to explore maneuvers quickly that could adjust our attack for the better without totally unraveling the corps. Such adjustments open new risks, and I was aware of that, but I also was aware that such risks were not so unusual. When you change your attack scheme, you have to look for possible adjustments. That's the nature of tactics.
After I finished laying out my concept, Don told me he could do it--but he didn't think it was a good idea. His operation was going well, he was building a successful momentum that he did not want to interrupt, and he thought our original maneuver gave us more combat power against the RGFC to accomplish our mission.
Butch also told me he could do it. It was a matter of adjusting his graphical control measures (drawing new lines, or boundaries, for the units) and of attacking shallower but he, too, was concerned about our combat power against the RGFC.
I listened to them, and I remembered my focus: Keep it simple. Don and Butch verified what I already knew: I could be introducing additional friction if I went forward with my change. I decided to stick with the plan we had made, after all, and to make only the adjustments, such as artillery preparation, movement of the British forward, and positioning of logistics, necessary to compress the time by fifteen hours. All these would introduce friction of their own. I did not need to add to it unless the tactical advantages far outweighed that disadvantage, and they didn't.
So I told both commanders to continue as planned, with one adjustment: I ordered Butch Funk to cover that eastern flank until the British got out there. That way I had the flank secured and could still remain focused on our objective: the destruction of the RGFC, in our sector.
The meeting lasted twenty minutes.
I went back inside to talk briefly to Stan and to tell him of my decision. It was my final decision that day concerning the scheme of maneuver. I'd figured I had a small window in which to adjust tactics, and had now used that window to consider the adjustment I had just rejected. Window closed. Decision made. I call this moment, and moments like it, the "good-idea cutoff time"--the point at which a large organization just cannot make any further major changes. One element in the art of command is to know when you've reached that point. I knew we had just passed it.
When I walked up to him, Stan was busy with all the tasks that needed to be done and coordinating it all with John Landry at the main CP. In fact, things were breaking so fast that I had not told Stan that I was even thinking of making the adjustments I had discussed with Butch and Don, so it was important to tell him that I had decided to stick with what we had planned to do tomorrow, but that the time schedule had to be compressed so we could do it all today.
Before I left, Stan further heightened my concern that time was escaping us. "You know, boss," he remarked, "we might run out of daylight."
Night operations, even with night-vision equipment, are not the same as those during the day. They are more difficult. They take more time. There is more friction. You try to keep the tactics simple. You try to give troops time to plan and rehearse what they will be doing at night. I sensed all that--and kept on moving.
1ST INFANTRY DIVISION
At 1115, I flew twenty minutes out to the 1st INF Division. The weather was still good, although by now clouds covered the sky and the wind was picking up. Beneath us was vehicle movement as far as the eye could see. Although the units did not yet know that they would be attacking early, they were repositioning for the attack that they thought would be under way tomorrow.
When I arrived at the 1st INF TAC CP, I was met by Brigadier General Bill Carter, the assistant division commander. Tom Rhame was supposed to be there, too, but he was at the 1st INF main CP--a screwup of comms already. No matter. Bill could answer my questions about an early attack into the breach at 1500.
He outlined the status of the artillery positioning (at this point still aligned for the prep to fire the next day), the ammunition for the prep, the possibility of seizing Phase Line Colorado (the line where they would complete the breach) by nightfall if the division attacked at 1500, enemy activity and disposition, and the status of the lanes opened for the passage of the British (they had already begun marking these). The bottom line, Carter said, was that Tom Rhame felt they could go at 1500 with no problem or undue risk, but unless they went earlier than 1500, they would probably not finish by dark. They could go earlier if ordered. In fact, Rhame preferred that.
At the 1st INF TAC, I again ran into Brigadier General Creighton Abrams. (Creighton had a great knack for showing up at precisely the right time. Uncanny the way some people can do that.) Creighton told me there'd be no problem shooting the prep, but we'd have ammo available for only a thirty-minute attack.
I said, "OK, thirty minutes it is."
I knew the risk. Certainly, the Iraqi artillery in range of the breach, and able to fire chemical munitions, might not be silenced by a shorter thirty-minute prep--if we had thought two hours necessary before, then why was something less all right now? I also remembered the Iraqi artillery fire against the 1st CAV Division on 20 February in the action that had resulted in three soldiers KIA and six wounded. However, a few things had changed. What I'd seen so far today was how ineffective Iraqi artillery fire had been at the 1st INF in its move forward into the Iraqi security zone and at the 2nd ACR movement forward. I'd also seen our own artillery and witnessed its counterfire capability to rapidly silence Iraqi mortar and artillery fire. In addition, our attacks the past week had caused Iraqi artillery to take a severe beating. It was a risk--but it was acceptable.
That settled it. We could do it. We could go early. Though there were tactical risks, they were acceptable. In fact, the bigger risk now was in waiting. If we could go at 1500, we could go now. Since John Yeosock's call, I'd been feeling we were wasting dayligh
t. If we went right away, it would be no more risky than later--it might even be less so. Maybe we would complete the breach that day and pass the British the same night instead of the following night. That way we could save a whole day. I could see no advantage to VII Corps in waiting. I was seized with the urgency to get this thing going now!
"The wasted minute," Napoleon called it. In battle you cannot get it back. There are times when you just feel that time is getting away from you or that you are wasting time that would be a combat asset if you had it. This was one of those times, and so I was getting impatient.
Tom Rhame was feeling a similar impatience, I think. When I talked to Tom on the radio and ordered him to attack at 1500, he made it clear what Bill had already told me, that he wanted to go earlier, if he could.
"I'll see about that," I told him, "but for now plan on 1500."
If I wanted to go early, the first thing I had to do was put in a call to John Yeosock to get his permission. But when I walked over to my jump TAC nearby, the comms weren't working! I could not get through.
"Damn! Just when I need them, the comms are not there."
I was frustrated, but there wasn't much I could do except get in the helo and go back to the TAC and the comms there.
ATTACK VII CORPS TAC CP
I got back to the TAC at about 1250.
Stan told me 3rd AD had said they were ready to attack right away--they were already moving. That was good. That gave me more proof that we might as well just keep this thing rolling.
I immediately called John Yeosock. I told him we were ready to attack by 1500, but we were also ready to attack now. It would be just as easy to go now. If there was urgency in Riyadh for us to attack early, I reasoned, then keeping tight coordination between the attacking corps was no longer necessary. We were ready now. We had five hours of daylight left. Based on what I'd seen myself and on what had already been reported by 2nd ACR, I thought we might get through the breach today if we got started now. And if we did that, we could put ourselves back to our original day-night scheme, only twenty-four hours earlier. We did not have a long discussion, but I was clear that we could go immediately if required.
But John said no. The CINC wanted to keep our attack coordinated with the Egyptians on our east, and they could not be ready before 1500. When I protested again that we were losing valuable daylight, no was still the answer.
At this point I was getting mixed signals. Go early, but not too early. Go early, but the coordinated attack--XVIII Corps, VII Corps, Egyptian Corps--still ruled. From all I gathered from the call to John, there was no unusual sense of urgency other than that, for some reason or other, the CINC wanted us to go a bit early. He still wanted us in a coordinated deliberate attack, and all the other pieces of the mission remained unchanged.
I turned to Stan. "Get the order out," I told him. "We attack according to the same plan, but at 1500 today. Artillery prep starts at 1430 for thirty minutes. I want to cheat with the 2nd ACR and start them at 1430."
"WILCO."
The order went out.
ACTIONS
Then the weather turned bad. While VII Corps units attacked, there were high winds and rain, which severely reduced visibility in some places to less than 100 meters. Though all this probably helped conceal our attack, and so worked to our benefit, the effect for me personally was to trap me for most of the afternoon at the TAC, where I listened to the radio transmissions of the battle reports. Here is what was happening.
1st INF Division
At 1430, an almost 6,000-round prep was fired for thirty minutes. This was fired by the division artillery of the 1st INF, the 42nd Artillery Brigade, 75th Artillery Brigade, 142nd Artillery Brigade, and the Regimental Artillery of the British: a total of over 260 cannons and 60 MLRS; 414 MLRS rockets were fired, and cannon accounted for the rest. It was an awesome display of firepower, and of coordination and soldier-NCO skill in getting it together in such compressed time. From a standing no-notice start at 0930, they had put it all together in five hours. Creighton Abrams, Colonels Mike Dotson, Morrie Boyd, Gunner Laws, 142nd commander Colonel Charles Linch, and Brigadier (UK) Ian Drurie were masterful in their teamwork and leadership.
Following the prep fires, the 1st INF attacked, with Colonel Bert Maggart's 1st Brigade on the left and Colonel Tony Moreno's 2nd Brigade on the right. Colonel Dave Weisman's 3rd Brigade was in reserve, to be committed when the division expanded the breach head to three-brigade width beyond Phase Line Colorado to New Jersey, at a distance of about forty kilometers.
The Iraqi defense was laid out like this: First there were wire obstacles, then mines (the wires and mines extended back about five or ten kilometers). Then came bunkers and trenches, extending another ten kilometers. This far west, there were no fire trenches, though they did have them in front of the 1st CAV and perhaps thirty kilometers west of the Wadi al Batin.
Tension was high as the two brigades attacked. Their mission was to clear the breach zone of not only direct fire that could be placed on the units following them, but also of Iraqi artillery observers who could send indirect fire from Iraqi artillery units. (I didn't want anything left--not artillery, not forward observers, not tanks, not RPGs, not even rifles or machine guns that could cause problems to, say, our 5,000-gallon fuel trucks.) They were also to clear and mark twenty-four lanes through the obstacle system, each wide enough--about four meters--for a tracked vehicle. The Iraqis were in bunkers and trenches behind the minefields and barbed-wire obstacle system. Some of their artillery was still operable, plus heavier weapons such as tanks thickened their defense.
The breach was to be made slowly, steadily, and deliberately. The 1st INF lead tanks were equipped with mine plows that had been fitted in front of each track to plow up mines and push them to the side. Behind the plows came tanks equipped with heavy rollers in front of each track to set off any mines missed by the plows. To be sure lanes were cleared, a tank with a full track-width blade followed the rollers to scrape the entire width of the lane. This ensured positive clearance for the many fuel trucks that would soon use the lanes.
Crews in the lead mine-plow tanks were the tip of the attacking VII Corps spear. In those vehicles tensions were way up. They were out front and ready.
While mine-clearing tanks did their work, the rest of 1st Brigade and 2nd Brigade kept up relentless suppressive fires on Iraqi positions, forcing the defending Iraqis either to die in their bunkers or to surrender. And 1st INF artillery continued to fire on Iraqi positions just in front of advancing tanks and Bradleys, as well as deeper, to silence the remaining Iraqi artillery. Apache helicopters joined the fight by firing deep over the top of the attacking brigades to destroy Iraqi tanks. It was a masterful coordinated combined-arms fight by those lead brigades and the division to get all the combat power of the division into operation.
The Iraqis never had a chance. The Iraqi 26th Division had been defending with two brigades forward, the 110th and 434th, each on a fifteen-kilometer front. They were surprised and stunned by the speed and violence of the 1st INF attack, and rapidly cracked. Though there was return fire, mostly small arms and some heavier weapons that were quickly silenced, the Iraqis could not effectively coordinate their defense; pre G-Day artillery raids had knocked out much of their telephone wire and they feared getting on radios, in the belief that U.S. forces would use the transmissions as a source to target. Their third brigade was to the north, refusing the western flank, and could not assist.
The Iraqi trenches were anywhere from two to six feet deep, and the bunkers had two feet or more of sandbag cover overhead. The Iraqis would come out of the deeper bunkers to man the trenches, and interspersed among their positions were heavier vehicles such as tanks and BMPs. Mortars and artillery fired sporadically. One of the units to receive mortar fire was Company C, 2nd Battalion, 34th Armor, and it quickly became involved in a typical situation. U.S. engineers and mortars fired smoke in an attempt to blind the Iraqi defense, and some of the smoke blew back o
n the attacking units, making progress difficult, although more of the smoke fell in front of the Iraqis and was helpful. Meanwhile, the mine plows tried to keep at a speed of five mph or less, and on line to clear the mines evenly in the twenty-four lanes, while other units fired over them to suppress Iraqi defenders.
Rather than send our own troops into the bunker systems when we got there, we had decided to put tanks with bulldozer blades on each side of the fortifications and run them alongside the trenches, burying whatever was in there under a wall of sand. The Iraqis were given the opportunity to surrender, and some of them did; others were buried. It was their choice. It made no sense for our troops to get tangled in the Iraqi trenches and bunkers.
The battle was sharp and violent, with a high sustained tempo of fire and movement from our side. This was just as Tom Rhame and the Big Red One wanted it to be.
Once on the Iraqi side, the fighting was sporadic. Faced with this overwhelming force, many Iraqis surrendered, yet some fought back the best they could. They returned fire. Some of them died in their bunkers. But it was no use.
At about 1630, the weather cleared enough to permit flight, and I went forward to see Tom Rhame at his TAC CP, which was still in Saudi Arabia at that point. When I met him, Tom was ecstatic over the success of his division and the courage of his troops. I told Tom I was proud of them and what they had done so far. I was also relieved that we had seen no chemical attacks. We were all so highly sensitized to the possibility that I listened for any indications, and I almost could not believe that the Iraqis had not used them yet.