We Are The Mighty: ‘The last great tank battle’ was a slugfest of epic proportions
The men of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment spearheaded one of the American columns that invaded Iraq on Feb. 23, 1991. After three days of light fighting they stumbled into one of the largest Iraqi armored formations and annihilated it with cannons, TOW missiles and mortars in the Battle of 73 Easting, often called “the last great tank battle of the 20th century.”
Then-Capt. (now Lt. Gen.) H.R. McMaster, commander of Eagle Troop, 2nd Squadron, 2nd ACR, literally wrote the book on the battle and commanded one of the lead elements in the fight.
Helicopters buzzed over Eagle Troop as the ground invasion of Iraq began on Feb. 23. The mission of the 2nd ACR was simple in theory but would be challenging to achieve. They were to cut off Iraqi retreat routes out of Kuwait and destroy the large armored formations thought to be hiding in the flat, featureless desert.
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WNU Editor: M1 tanks vs T-72s .... not a fair fight. Then-Capt. H.R. McMaster is now a Lt. General.
This victory was nothing to b4ag about.
ReplyDeleteOverwhelming intel overwhelming firepower overwhelming ammo overwhelming and every advantage imagineable .
The fact that the republican guard stood and fought and took out 34 vehicles says more about them.
Lets talk about their ambush of dozens of apaches that shredded most up like swiss cheese.
The M1 is good but has faults too. One of them being it's a pig on fuel. Those T-72s at 73 Easting were not the best the model had to offer.
ReplyDeleteFaz makes a good point. The Republican Guard deserved respect for standing and fighting given the situation.
The M1 was designed for the central European battlefield against a hypothetical Soviet invasion, hence it weighs 30 tons more than a T-72 and uses a lot of fuel.
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