As-Sulaymaniyah to the new front lines.
The entire Iraqi front collapsed around Kirkuk after four or five days of heavy bombing. Altogether, it was a total of about ten days of dedicated CAS missions, and the Iraqi units were overwhelmed with the intensity. There was no time for them to regroup or think of a strategyâthe bombing never ceased, and they could not even fall back in an organized manner. It was âcut and run,â every man for himself as they raced to make it to Kirkuk for a last stand with the Green Berets and the Kurds.
The 3rd SFG ODAs moved toward Kirkuk with thousands of Peshmerga soldiers. At a certain point, one operator commented, they had to finish off the Iraqis with a conventional attack. By this time, Saddamâs forces were too few and too scattered to be bombed anymore. âIt was like, we bombed them, we bombed them, and we bombed them.⦠The ones who were left were not giving up, so we knew it was time for a ground assault.â
The Green Berets had planned to perform ground assaults on the Iraqi Army all alongâit was standard practice. Once a target is destroyed, the SOP is to clear the objective before continuing onward. But before the Special Operators and their Pesh fighters could get there, the Iraqis who had not been killed in the bombing had already retreated. Only when the last of the die-hards remained, and there was nowhere to retreat, did the Green Berets launch a ground attack.
It wasnât easy for some ODAs, however, and there was some steady resistance among the Iraqis. It was never anything the Green Berets couldnât handle, but rather it was a little surprising, considering that the intelligence they had received had indicated that the Iraqis were ready to give up.
The ground attacks were organized by the Green Berets in what they deemed âtextbook Ranger School assaults.â This included two assault lines and at least one support-by-fire position to cover the assaulters while they moved across their objective. The discipline of the Ranger-style strikes eliminated the chance of fratricide among the normally wild Peshmerga, and maximized the chances of success with minimum casualties.
The PUK were broken down into 150 to 200âman assault teams, and mortar teams were organized for support-by-fire positions. The Green Berets supplemented this with vehicle-mounted MK-19 automatic grenade launchers. The Iraqis had never been on the business end of an automatic grenade launcher before, and it âreally spooked them,â said one operator. They either ran or stayed in their bunkers until the bunkers were destroyed by CAS. The CAS was provided by âfast moversâ as well as a B-1, a B-2, and a B-52 bomber. The B-1 and B-2 flew even higher than the B-52, with nearly invisible contrails. The only way the Green Berets could tell the bomber had dropped its payload was to count the seconds on their watches after the âBombs Away!â command had been heard over the radios. Almost to the second, the calculations of the Air Force crews matched up with the resultant explosions.
The Iraqis that were captured and became POWs were deathly afraid of the Americans. âThey thought we were going to execute them,â one Green Beret recalled.
Kirkuk fell quickly. The city, essentially a military depot because of its strategic importance, was so well equipped that every Kurd was literally driving around in a new army vehicle after the city fell. Everything had been abandonedâhundreds of T-55 and T-72 Russian tanks, ammo depots full of every imaginable weapon and corresponding ammunition, even uniforms. Thousands of Iraqi uniforms lay in heaps in locations all over the city, as the soldiers stripped and melted into the population. This virtual osmosis would play a big part in the insurgency later in the war, pro-Saddam and otherwise.
Operation VIKING HAMMER
Perhaps the largest Special Operations assault in history occurred a
The entire Iraqi front collapsed around Kirkuk after four or five days of heavy bombing. Altogether, it was a total of about ten days of dedicated CAS missions, and the Iraqi units were overwhelmed with the intensity. There was no time for them to regroup or think of a strategyâthe bombing never ceased, and they could not even fall back in an organized manner. It was âcut and run,â every man for himself as they raced to make it to Kirkuk for a last stand with the Green Berets and the Kurds.
The 3rd SFG ODAs moved toward Kirkuk with thousands of Peshmerga soldiers. At a certain point, one operator commented, they had to finish off the Iraqis with a conventional attack. By this time, Saddamâs forces were too few and too scattered to be bombed anymore. âIt was like, we bombed them, we bombed them, and we bombed them.⦠The ones who were left were not giving up, so we knew it was time for a ground assault.â
The Green Berets had planned to perform ground assaults on the Iraqi Army all alongâit was standard practice. Once a target is destroyed, the SOP is to clear the objective before continuing onward. But before the Special Operators and their Pesh fighters could get there, the Iraqis who had not been killed in the bombing had already retreated. Only when the last of the die-hards remained, and there was nowhere to retreat, did the Green Berets launch a ground attack.
It wasnât easy for some ODAs, however, and there was some steady resistance among the Iraqis. It was never anything the Green Berets couldnât handle, but rather it was a little surprising, considering that the intelligence they had received had indicated that the Iraqis were ready to give up.
The ground attacks were organized by the Green Berets in what they deemed âtextbook Ranger School assaults.â This included two assault lines and at least one support-by-fire position to cover the assaulters while they moved across their objective. The discipline of the Ranger-style strikes eliminated the chance of fratricide among the normally wild Peshmerga, and maximized the chances of success with minimum casualties.
The PUK were broken down into 150 to 200âman assault teams, and mortar teams were organized for support-by-fire positions. The Green Berets supplemented this with vehicle-mounted MK-19 automatic grenade launchers. The Iraqis had never been on the business end of an automatic grenade launcher before, and it âreally spooked them,â said one operator. They either ran or stayed in their bunkers until the bunkers were destroyed by CAS. The CAS was provided by âfast moversâ as well as a B-1, a B-2, and a B-52 bomber. The B-1 and B-2 flew even higher than the B-52, with nearly invisible contrails. The only way the Green Berets could tell the bomber had dropped its payload was to count the seconds on their watches after the âBombs Away!â command had been heard over the radios. Almost to the second, the calculations of the Air Force crews matched up with the resultant explosions.
The Iraqis that were captured and became POWs were deathly afraid of the Americans. âThey thought we were going to execute them,â one Green Beret recalled.
Kirkuk fell quickly. The city, essentially a military depot because of its strategic importance, was so well equipped that every Kurd was literally driving around in a new army vehicle after the city fell. Everything had been abandonedâhundreds of T-55 and T-72 Russian tanks, ammo depots full of every imaginable weapon and corresponding ammunition, even uniforms. Thousands of Iraqi uniforms lay in heaps in locations all over the city, as the soldiers stripped and melted into the population. This virtual osmosis would play a big part in the insurgency later in the war, pro-Saddam and otherwise.
Operation VIKING HAMMER
Perhaps the largest Special Operations assault in history occurred a
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