Douglips:
Yes they really have the counter-battery radar. I don’t know how precise it is, but it will track artillery shell(s) in flight, compute their origin, calculate an artillery firing solution and download it directly into the fire-control computer of the guns tasked with counter-battery fire.
At a touch of a few buttons and loading the proper charge, the gun battery (6 Howitzers, usually 155mm M109A3 or later series) can return fire. The whole process, as described to me by a FISTer (FIre Support Team) takes less than a minute.
I can only guess as to the logic of the enemy fire-spotter, but our company commander was in “the line” with the other platoons, and therby indistinguishible from any other tank, whereas we were slightly behind the main body of our company, about 500m (and a cheery thank you, Captain Sir, for volunteering me and my crew’s collective asses to be the world’s most expensive duck lure :rolleyes: ).
Our unit was one of two firing up the towed AT guns, so the spotter may have assumed that we were one of the command tracks calling the shots, and called fire to rattle/destroy us (we were outside the effective range of the AT guns).
D-33’s crew assessed the situation fairly quickly (about 30-60 sec.), reset the Commo circuit breaker, and called in as being AOK. The medics , in a M113, about-faced and withdrew. Being as they were fairly close to the line and saw a hefty portion of a Rep. Gds. Regiment (a sub-unit of the Division in front of us) maneuvering to engage, I can hardly blame them.
The hole was only about 8in. deep; not a through-hole penetration, else D-33’s crew would’ve fared much worse from the spalling, white-hot chunks of armor blasted loose from the inner-turret wall at the site of penetration to zip about the turret, generally to the terminal detriment of the crew.
The turret probably could’ve taken another hit to the same turret facet, as long as it wasn’t too close (less than a foot-and-a-half or so) to the original impact. According to out BMO (Battalion Maintenance Officer).
The Bradley had just dropped their rear troop-ramp to dismount their infantry squad when the round struck. The driver and gunner were killed instantly, the BC (Bradley Commander) was burned pretty badly and thrown clear, and the infantry squad was wounded to a man by flying chunks of exploding Bradley.
The medics had just dismounted (under fire) when their track (an M113) was also hit from the same gun position, killing the driver and commander. But the medics (God Bless those guys) advanced on the wounded infantry, performed first aid under fire, and loaded them up and carried them back in another vehicle before returning to their own burning vehicle to try and rescue their crewmates. They had to be physically restrained and dragged away, as we were retreating in the face of a grossly superior force.
But two M88 recovery vehicle hitched tow cables to the burning vehicles and dragged them back, their crews sustaining 1st and 2nd degree burns doing so.
Everyone came home. One way or another.
Both the medics received Bronze Stars with Valor devices, and the crews of the recovery vehicles received Army Commendation Medals and Purple Hearts.
[Boring Military Analysis stuff]
The engagement, depending upon who’s after-action review you listened to, either validated or invalidated the mixed force Task Force concept.
If it had been an infantry/cavalry pure unit (Bradleys only), casualties could have conceivably been much higher. It was determined that the presence of two tank companies (28 tanks) suppressed the AT gun positions, allowing on orderly withdrawal, and discouraged pursuit by the Rep. Gds. units.
However, if it had been a tank-pure unit, then we could’ve seriously bloodied the nose of a (still) numerically superior force, possibly combat ineffecting them (casualties/losses too high to be a viable combat unit).
But tank-pure units don’t conduct reconnaisance-in-force in the U.S. Army, that role being reserved to the cavalry, who’s intent is to locate and estimate the enemy, and communicate that data to higher, preferably w/o even being seen. If seen, retreat before being engaged; if engaged, retreat before being decisively engaged.
But it wasn’t our unit’s (1st Cavalry Division) task to decisively engage the enemy; it was to engage, inflict casualties, and withdraw before becoming decisively engaged. We were supposed to convince Saddam and his generals that Gen. Schwarzkopf was going to launch his offensive right up the Wadi al Batin, through the Neutral Zone, straight for Basrah.
We were screening the movement of 7th Corps to our rear, as they moved westward along the Tap Line Road, to get set for the “Hail Mary”.
In other words, for the first time since Vietnam, the 1st Cavalry Division was once again Cavalry in more than just their name.
“Scouts Out!”
