Winds of Change.NET: The Battle of Thunder Run

December 12, 2003

The Battle of Thunder Run

by Joe Katzman at December 12, 2003 12:11 AM

We wrote at the time about "The Battle of Curly, Larry, and Moe." Now Trent Telenko directs our attention to an L.A. Times Magazine piece that reconstructs the pivotal battle of Operation Iraqi Freedom - one the Americans almost didn't win (login: laexaminer / laexaminer). The biggest factor in their success? Surprisingly, it may have been Iraq's infamous Information Minister:

"Nine hundred and seventy-five men invading a city of 5 million sounded audacious, or worse, to the U.S. troops assigned the mission outside Baghdad last April 6. Ten years earlier, in Mogadishu, outnumbered American soldiers had been trapped and killed by Somali street fighters. Now some U.S. commanders, convinced the odds were far better in Iraq, scrapped the original plan for taking Baghdad with a steady siege and instead ordered a single bold thrust into the city. The battle that followed became the climax of the war and rewrote American military doctrine on urban warfare.
Back home, Americans learned of the victory in sketchy reports that focused on the outcome�a column of armored vehicles had raced into the city and seized Saddam Hussein's palaces and ministries. What the public didn't know was how close the U.S. forces came to experiencing another Mogadishu. Military units were surrounded, waging desperate fights at three critical interchanges. If any of those fell, the Americans would have been cut off from critical supplies and ammunition....

"L�audace, l�audace, toujours l�audace." This time, it was the right call. Read David Zucchino's "The Thunder Run" in full, and you'll find a true story that few fictional thrillers could match.

UPDATE: See also Gizmag's May 3, 2005 article "Heavy Metal - A Tank Company's Battle to Baghdad"

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Comments

#1 from Slartibartfast at 4:03 pm on Dec 12, 2003

Awesome article. Makes me appreciate our men in uniform all that much more.

#2 from praktike at 4:03 pm on Dec 12, 2003

I still don't understand--larger questions aside--why we didn't just bomb the building in Mogadishu.

#3 from praktike at 4:03 pm on Dec 12, 2003

I still don't understand--larger questions aside--why we didn't just bomb the building in Mogadishu.

#4 from Rob Lyman at 4:14 pm on Dec 12, 2003

Praktike,

Given than our boys were denied armor for political reasons ("too provacative"), it isn't that surprising that we didn't blow up the building, with the attendant "civilian" casualties, etc.

#5 from Ron at 4:53 pm on Dec 12, 2003

While this may have rewrote American military doctrine on urban warfare, isn't that an Israeli tactic? Fight urban from the center out.

#6 from M. Simon at 7:57 pm on Dec 12, 2003

Note the snarky comment at the end of an otherwise great article.

#7 from FH at 11:40 pm on Dec 12, 2003

Seems to me that if this tactic is to be applied in the future, greater care needs to be taken to cover the supply lanes. If the Arabs were more competetent, they would have been able to cut the US forces off and then use attrition and friction to their advantage. Very dangerous move, if you ask me. I believe that there was something similar during WW2, on one of the Islands in the pacific theater, where US forces almost got cut off from supplies.

#8 from rt at 2:33 am on Dec 13, 2003

"... the last one in Iraq for a long time."

snarky is an understatement. otherwise, that article was straight, factual and right to the point.

that whole article is a jerry bruckhiemer film just beggin' to be made.

#9 from Tom K at 6:20 pm on Dec 13, 2003

praktike:

I still don't understand--larger questions aside--why we didn't just bomb the building in Mogadishu.

For the same reason we weren't allowed to use indirect fires (ie: mortars, arty) - political timidity in the face of potential civilian casualties, and a fear that we might be seen to be escalating the situation into something resembling a war rather than a "humanitarian" mission. Not commenting on the quality of these decisions, only the basis for them.

#10 from Marcel at 9:26 pm on Dec 18, 2005

The Abramses and Bradleys performed excellent.
The problem was being cut off-from supplies.

The problem with supplies is that its carried out by soft-skin wheeled vehicles.
These vehicles can't cross every terrain which the armored vehicles can cross or climb obstacles as good (because they are wheeled) and can't survive enemy fire because they are not armored.

What is needed is tracked armored supply vehicles.
Lots of M113s in storage, give them add-on armor(ERA, passive or both) and use them to transport fuel and ammunition and you have survivable supply vehicles.

If you have survivable supply vehicles then there would have been no danger in being cut-off from supplies.
Current supply vehicles are bombs on wheels.