Chapter 658: The Fall of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment
All along, the US Air Force has been using the most force to search for Iraq's Scud missiles, which are the weapons that pose the greatest threat to them, but with little success, for a period of time, the Scud missile attack stopped, and the United States thought that it was because of their powerful air power that Iraq realized that the Scud missile could not continue to attack, so it had to stop fighting.
They don't know that these Scud missiles are all deliberately preserved by Iraq, and now, the Scud missiles have finally begun to fight back!
When the countless blazing flames rose, the reconnaissance satellites in outer space did not discover it at the first time.
The Iraqis are hateful, and just as Bush announced a ground attack on Iraq, Iraq set fire to all the Kuwaiti oil wells!
The creator is unfair, and if the Soviets saw it, they would definitely hate it.
The oil wells of the Soviet Union were all under the frozen soil of the plateau, and they needed to be drilled to a depth of several thousand meters and then pumped up, and the cost of exploitation was very high, so the United States used oil as a weapon to lower the international oil price, and the Soviet Union's export of oil became a loss-making business. And in the Middle East, even if it is reduced to a few dollars per barrel, they have to earn.
Because the oil fields here are all high-yield self-spraying crude oil, as long as you dig a hole in the ground and do not need any machinery, the oil in it can be automatically sprayed out, which is simply the most wonderful gift from Allah to the Arab world.
Now, these oil wells have been set on fire by Iraq!
Billowing smoke, flying into the sky, these thick smoke and flames, will bring great obstacles to the US Air Force in the air attack.
Originally, the Americans were not afraid of night battles, because the United States had advanced night vision equipment. For example, pilots on night attack missions. Many wear night vision devices, which allow them to see clearly what they need to attack at night as during the day.
But now, with the oil wells being lit, there are fires everywhere and smoke everywhere. The night vision devices could not look directly at those fires, and the pilot felt very uncomfortable.
Not only the pilots in the sky, but even the reconnaissance satellites in outer space feel very uncomfortable, where is the real target in these flames?
And so it goes, until the Scud missile is launched, before it leaves the ground and goes high altitude. It was only in the last ten seconds that the rocket engine was still igniting that the DSP reconnaissance satellite captured the flames.
Discover the target! The U.S. space command base is highly tense, and this batch of missiles has launched more than 20 missiles, where are they going to attack? Is it Riyadh? Or Dhahran? Still is?
More than 20 seconds later, with the continuous tracking of the trajectory of the Scud missiles, after solving, they finally got the result that shocked them: the target of these Scud missiles was the concentration of their own troops at a distance of no more than 200 kilometers from the border!
The Scud missile is to attack the 3rd Panzer Cavalry Regiment that is being resupplied!
"Quick. Quickly give an early warning and get those armored units to maneuver quickly! General Schwarzkopf, who got the news, also panicked. Give your own orders.
Damn, Scud missiles, when will they be able to attack the ground forces?
Due to the poor guidance accuracy of this backward ballistic missile and the long preparation time for launch, when the launch began, the moving target on the ground had long since disappeared. Therefore, although the Scud missile claims to be able to hit moving targets, in fact, the Scuds launched during the Iran-Iraq war were all aimed at fixed ground targets.
Joke! I can't even hit a moving target. How is it possible to move a target? Therefore, in order to guard against the Scud missile, the US military has increased the deployment of the Patriot missile battalion and is responsible for the air defense of key areas, so as to avoid another tragedy in Dhaheran.
But now, the Iraqis have actually changed direction, no longer hitting fixed targets, and are fighting their own troops!
Less than two hundred kilometers, only a few minutes, and a minute was wasted on monitoring the Scud missiles, and after the clapping of General Schwarzkopf, when the order reached the troops at the front, it was already too late.
Transfer! Transfer now! At this time, the M1A1 tank, the ability to informatize is not in place, the main orders, or rely on the radio to transmit, when the commander of the 3rd armored cavalry regiment in the radio loudly ordered, in the distant sky, there have been blazing bright spots.
The Scud missile, which has already dived down from a high altitude, looks so clear that the warhead has been violently rubbing against the atmosphere due to the speed of a few Machs.
At this point, Captain Mack forgot his fear, and he looked up at the few points of light that fell like meteors in the dark night sky, and his mind was full of doubts.
How did they know they were here when they arrived 20 minutes ago and were hit by the Iraqis Scud missiles?
Unfortunately, no one answered his question, and the personnel of the fuel truck, in a panic, pulled out the fuel pipe, started the car and frantically wanted to leave, while the tank closed the hatch and started the engine with a bang.
Scud missiles, want to attack this tank unit of your own? Dream! If it was a multiple rocket launcher attack by the Soviets with a covering blow, this would still be possible, and now, there are just a few Scud missiles, no matter how high the hit accuracy of this missile is, the power is limited, plus the accuracy problem, those who can be bombed are all unlucky guys!
In the tens of seconds that the Scud missiles flew overhead, the ground troops were moving rapidly, but because of panic, several tanks collided together, and one tank directly knocked over the tanker.
"Boom!" Just before the warhead of the Scud missile reached the ground, it had already exploded in the air, and a huge fireball appeared in the sky in an instant, so bright and so hot.
Almost at this moment, Captain Mack suddenly reacted that these Iraqi Scud missiles were equipped with fuel-air bombs! This is a weapon specially prepared for large-scale killing!
On an area of several square kilometers, the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment of the 18th Airborne Corps of the United States suffered a devastating blow.
More than 20 warheads, 15 of them, flew accurately over the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, which was being restocked, and the explosion of each warhead brought death, the blazing flames burned the oxygen in the surrounding air, and countless American soldiers hiding in the tanks, trying in vain to rely on the strong armor of the tanks to resist the high-explosive warhead attacks of ballistic missiles, covered their necks in pain.
Even the tanks for nuclear, biological and chemical protection need oxygen supply, and without oxygen, they are holding back one by one so that their lips are purple, their eyes are bulging, and their deaths are quite tragic.
At the same time, the explosion of these ballistic missiles also ignited the fuel in those fuel trucks, which was supposed to supply the armored troops to the front line, but now all of them have become burning fuel, and there are fires everywhere, and there is a miserable situation everywhere.
On the right flank of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, the French were also frightened, the French 6th Light Armored Division, originally planned to attack Kuwait with the Americans, and the scenery was a good one, but now, seeing that the Iraqis had wiped out the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment with ballistic missiles, the first reaction of the French was to quickly leave here and find a safe place!
Just now, a missile-fired Scud missile, almost grazing the edge of the 6th Light Armored Division, crashed into the desert next to it, but fortunately, the warhead did not explode!
And following the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, the 24th Mechanized Infantry Division, which also belonged to the 18th Army, had another reaction, they wanted to avenge their comrades!
When the 3rd Panzer Cavalry Regiment suffered heavy losses from a Scud missile attack, General Schwarzkopf's face suddenly turned pale.
That's an armored regiment, a whole thousand troops! Damn Iraqis!
On this night, Iraq fired more than 100 Scud missiles, focusing on attacking the invading US Army, but most of them flew away, and only this one unit hit very accurately.
Before the offensive began, it suffered such heavy losses that an armored regiment was about to be canceled! The United States is angry, and the consequences are serious!
The attack was half an hour ahead of schedule, and at half past three in the morning, the general offensive began!
The Fifth Route Army, which entered southern Iraq and Kuwait at the same time, and the 3rd Panzer Cavalry Regiment was attacked by ballistic missiles and suffered heavy losses, so that these armies all cheered up, do not stay in the same place for more than twenty minutes, you must advance, advance, advance!
In the sky, warplanes are whistling by, and air supremacy has completely fallen into the hands of the coalition forces, and their key task is to continue to search for Iraq's mobile Scud missiles and destroy them!
Since the start of the war, except for the beginning of the Iraqi Air Force launched a few stubborn resistance, after being crushed by the coalition forces, the Iraqi Air Force began to be passive and did not make any achievements, and after Iraq's long-range radars and field radars were destroyed by the coalition forces, Iraq did not even have ground-to-air missiles, so now the entire Iraq, including the airspace over Kuwait, is the coalition forces.
Four F-16 fighters flew through the air, carrying six Maverick air-to-surface missiles under the wings, and two Sidewinder missiles for self-defense on the wingtips, and their mission was to patrol and search for Iraqi Scud missiles.
The Maverick missile is a low-cost, and at the same time effective air-to-surface missile, which can easily destroy tank vehicles, and even light warships, against several missile launchers, it is too easy, as long as the target can be found, it can be launched at any time!
From south to north, they were conducting an aimless search, and there were more than a dozen of them in such a four-plane formation at the same time.
They don't know that their doom is on the horizon. (To be continued.) )