I was there. I was in 3rd platoon, Bcompany 2-70AR 1AD. I was probably one of those tanks that rolled up on the ridge in the day you mentioned.
I remember that day like yesterday, I was part of Iron Brigade, we were out front of 1AD that day, division was rolling in a diamond with our apache support roaming. Our battallion and company was at the head, my platoon was right side to our point platoon. We came up on the ridge and identified Medinah division tanks almost 2 miles ahead, our thermo really was the difference, their IR couldnt see us as well.
We were pretty well hidden on the low side of this ridge, so our entire brigade literally lined up across the ridge, something like 160 tanks and bradleys. We started moving forward slow on the line, I remember our brigade commander, no joke played the cavalry charge over the net. We started taking arty, it was dropping right behind us. We started engaging and tracers started flying. Tank next to me took a rpg to the front slope, didnt even phase it. Asked the driver later about it and he said it was like a gong, didnt even knew the tank got hit. First round my tank fired, I was loading at the time, gunner didnt use a fire command he just ripped it off and the blast back hit me and the TC in the face, it was so hot I thought we got hit and instinctively dropped down. I realized the gunner had shot then, he was looking over at me piecing together what happened and I cussed his ass out, still get a laugh at that. I thought I was screwed.
Apaches came in soon after the start, they literally hovered several hundred feet up from us ripping hellfires off. Ever hear one shoot a hellfire, it is so loud, screams at you. Some infantry iraqi were opening up on us, gunner picked them out and we both laid into them with the M240s, not sure how many we killed. We ended up shooting 7 rounds and killing 7 tanks, my gunner's nickname was Deadeye Clint, guy was very good gunner, he didnt miss. Funny because he wore glasses and I swear one of his eyes was always twitching.
I remember watching A10 swooping in way behind the lines taking out targets. During the fighting, we had heard it was shot down or maybe it was something else, an apache maybe. Either way, two blackhawks came flying in over us real real low, hauling ass. Supposedly they had some spec ops guys on board going in to get the down pilot. I heard later that they got him out in the middle of it, but that the pilot was dead. Not sure if that is true or not, still pretty amazing those guys went in there like that.
We rolled through them when the fighting was over, pressing on I guess. It was total carnage, those images will haunt me forever I think. BMP I think it was, we took out with a heat round, was burning, a body was hanging out the front hatch with basically the upper chest on up missing. A tank we hit, T72, the turret was 50 feet in front of the bottom part and the engine block was blow out the back by 50 feet. Those Sabot rounds were just nasty.
We killed a bunch of them, but quite a few surrendered. This one iraqi soldier, as we came up, he actually got his hand blown off by a .50 cal round, the guy on the tank manning it didnt realize the guy was trying to surrender at first and shot a burst at the guy. I think the guy actually lived, our medics assigned to my company worked on him. Those iraqis were so messed up, some of them were actually trying to get completely naked to show they were trying to surrender, it was pretty much unreal experience.
I think just about all of us from my unit got Army commendation medals, the officers and platoon sergeants got bronze stars for that fight. Nobody from my unit was even injured in the fighting, very much divine intervention considering the amount of fighting involved.
That was my take on that day, hope you enjoyed it.
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