Warrior’s Rage: The Great Tank Battle of 73 EastingA New Book from the Naval Institute Press | |
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Experts warned Americans in 1991
that U.S. forces would suffer heavy casualties at the hands of Iraqi
forces who allegedly knew how to hold ground from years of fighting
Iranians. But the “experts” were wrong.
Late in the afternoon of 26 February 1991, the lead cavalry
troops of “Cougar Squadron,” the 2nd Squadron of the 2nd Armored
Cavalry Regiment, charged out of a sandstorm and caught Iraq’s
Republican Guard Corps in the open desert along the North-South grid
line of a military map referred to as the “73 Easting.”
Taken by surprise, the defending Iraqi armor brigade was
rapidly swept away in salvos of American tank and missile fire in
what became the largest tank battle in the history of the U.S. Army
since World War II.
Warrior’s Rage. The Great Tank Battle of 73 Easting
plunges the reader into the fight and its aftermath, explaining how
a victory won decisively by soldiers on the battlefield was lost by
a U.S. Army chain of command remote from the fighting, one that
never appreciated the power of its own armored force or the
enemy’s weakness.
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The true story of how the soldiers won the battle and the generals lost Iraq in 1991. |