Battle of Phase Line Bullet

Infobox Military Conflict
conflict=Battle of Phase Line Bullet


caption=Iraqi "Asad Babil" abandoned to advancing 3AD forces
partof=the Gulf War
date=February 26, 1991
place=Southern Iraq
result=Iraqi pyrrhic victory
combatant1=flagicon|USA U.S. Army
3rd. Armored Division
7th Cavalry Regiment
2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment
combatant2=flagicon|Iraq|1991 Iraqi Republican Guard
9th Mechanized Brigade of "Tawakalna" Division
commander1=flagicon|USA Paul E. Funk
commander2=flagicon|Iraq|1991 Ayad Futayih Al-Rawi
casualties1=4 Bradleys destroyed and 10 damaged,
2 KIA and 12 WIA
casualties2=6 T-72 tanks and 18 APCs destroyed or abandoned

The Battle of Phase Line Bullet was one of the clashes which led to the destruction of the "Tawakalna" Iraqi Republican Guard Division, on February 26 1991, by a simultaneous attack of two US Armored Divisions (1st and 3rd), an Infantry Division (the 1st) and the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment.

The battle was one of the rare examples of a US armored force repulsed by a screen of Iraqi entrenched infantry, APCs and Iraqi T-72s tanks during Desert Storm. The incident involved American friendly fire casualties.

Background

The initial skirmishes between American and Iraqi Republican Guards units took place earlier that day around pre-established line 73 Easting, some 30 miles west of Wadi al Batin, where the 2 ACR managed to destroy two Iraqi Armored Brigades. The skirmishes in this sector were still going on when the 3rd Armored Division, positioned north, made the first contact with a brigade of the Tawakalna Armored Division around 3:30 PM.

The weather conditions were extremely poor, hampering visibility and identification of targets.

Flank screen maneuver

As the usual practice for armored reconnaissance, a platoon of M2 Bradleys (Alpha Platoon), belonging to the 4th squadron of the 7th Cavalry Regiment, was scouting ahead of the main tank force.The flank screen maneuver took place along the southern boundaries between the 2 ACR and 3rd Armored Division operational areas. Task Forces 4-34 and 4-32 were advancing from the rear. The general movement of the US forces followed an eastward direction. The fumes of hundreds of oil wells set on fire by the Iraqis, combined with an intense shamal, forced the US vehicles to use thermal sights.

urprising contact

At 3:00 PM, the 14 Bradleys strong platoon received information from the GHQ of the 3rd Armored Division that no enemy unit remained between them and the Kuwaiti border. Suddenly, they found a screen line of Iraqi APCs straight ahead, barely 300 meters to the east. The poor weather, along with burning oil fumes, reduced the visibility conditions to almost zero. The enemy screen line was part of the 9th Armored Brigade of "Tawakalna" Division.

A burst of small-arms and heavy machine gunfire, RPGs and Sagger missiles erupted. Initially, the American commander thought they were engaging dismounted infantry supported by BMPs, but later he realized that they were also receiving main-gun tank rounds. [See this of the Iraqi screen line] The US vehicles retaliated by firing TOW missiles, 25 mm cannon and machine gun fire. The contact lasted for about two hours, until the Bradleys, battered by enemy and friendly fire and running out of ammunition, were forced to withdraw.

US "Abrams" tanks from TF 4-34, positioned in the rear echelon, fired in support of the IFVs, destroying at least one T-72 and several Iraqi APCs. They also hit three Bradleys (A-22, A-31 and A-24), with two American KIAs. [] The 2 ACR also became entangled in the fighting from the rear right.

Another Bradley (A-36) was first disabled by a 12.7 mm round from an NSVT heavy machine gun which penetrated the transmission [From Wunderlich article:
*"SGT Jones (A-36 commander) picked up the narrative; "LT 'V' came over the net and said we had to move south about 800 meters. As we were shifting, my loader was reloading a TOW missile. When we took up position, we engaged another BMP and a tank. We were getting low on ammo, so I told my driver to pivot so we could reload. I realized we were still up front so we started backing up. It sounded like we lost a track, so I told him to stop. As soon as we stopped, we took a round in the transmission. Later, we found out it was from a 12.7-mm machine gun."] [Bin, Hill and Jones, page 195. Since the Bradley can withstand projectiles up to 14.5 mm, a ricocheting 125 mm sabot round splinter could also have been responsible, according to a more detailed account by Sgt Jones:
*"The weather was bad, and I couldn't see anything without the thermal sights. Just as I started to drop back into the hatch, I saw some sparks and dirt fly off the front of my vehicle-I knew we were being shot at. I told the driver to back up. He put it in gear, but all the transmission did was to whine."] and later shattered by a large caliber shaped charge impact in the turret's front. [By the somewhat flat path of the round Ronald Sneed, received some damage when near missed by a T-72 round. [Atkinson, pp. 431-432] All the remainder Bradleys were raked by machine gun fire and shrapnel, but they were still marginally operational. [For the overall action, see Atkinson, pp. 428-433]

Aftermath

The US armored forces were unable to find a breach in the northern Iraqi lines until the first hours of February 27. That morning, the 7th Cav scouts found the hulls of 18 APCs, mostly BMP-1, and 6 T-72s disabled or abandoned by their crews. The clash is one of the few recorded actions where a US assault was fenced off by Iraqi dug-in armored vehicles. The commander of Alpha troop, Captain Gerald Davie, later acknowledged that the cause of the fiasco was that "we were ten times too close to the enemy than we would choose to be." [Lowry, page 163]

Footnotes

References

* Atkinson, Rick: "Crusade, The untold story of the Persian Gulf War." Houghton Mifflin Company, 1993.
* Rostker, Bernard: "Environmental Exposure Report:Depleted Uranium in the Gulf". DoD Publication, 1998.
* "Lucky Scouts Dodge "Big Bullets" That Ripped Their Bradley" by Sgt. Tony Wunderlich, 3AD PAO. From "Armor" Magazine, May-June, 1991.
* Bin, Albert, Hill, Richard, Jones, Archer: "Desert Storm: A Forgotten War". Greenwood Publishing Group, 1998.
* Lowry, Richard S.: "The Gulf War Chronicles: A Military History of the First War with Iraq". iUniverse, inc, 2003.