You wonder why I bitch so much about the state of Marine Corps armor? Its part of why I told you the story of Colonel Dowdy, and while I like Mattis, I also hate him. What you see below is what Colonel Dowdy was confronted with when he received conflicting orders to push the assault through ANOTHER Iraqi city or bypass it.
Mattis got pissed because Colonel Dowdy took an operational pause to sort out the situation and relieved him of command. But wait you say....Marine officers are suppose to be aggressive in the attack.
Take another look at the pics below. That is aftermath of a hasty assault thru the shooting alley known as Nasiriyah. 8 vehicles melted down. Numerous Marines killed and injured.
Now do you understand? Isn't it clear why I think the Marine Personnel Carrier to be so important?
Leadership can forget. Marines cannot. Improving Marine armor is paramount!
Mattis got pissed because Colonel Dowdy took an operational pause to sort out the situation and relieved him of command. But wait you say....Marine officers are suppose to be aggressive in the attack.
Take another look at the pics below. That is aftermath of a hasty assault thru the shooting alley known as Nasiriyah. 8 vehicles melted down. Numerous Marines killed and injured.
Now do you understand? Isn't it clear why I think the Marine Personnel Carrier to be so important?
Leadership can forget. Marines cannot. Improving Marine armor is paramount!
As soon as I saw you mention that town's name, I thought "A-10 friendly-fire".
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"The bloodiest day of the operations for the Marines was also 23 March, when 18 men of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines, were killed and eight Amphibious Assault Vehicles disabled in heavy fighting with Iraqi forces around the Saddam Canal. The Marines were engaged by RPGs, mortar and artillery fire, as well as four Iraqi tanks hidden behind a building.
A friendly-fire incident occurred when two A-10s from the Pennsylvania Air National Guard strafed the Amphibious Assault Vehicles of Charlie Company by mistake, killing at least one Marine and perhaps as many as seventeen over the course of multiple passes at the canal and in Ambush Alley proper. An article in Salon magazine put the friendly-fire death toll at ten. The A-10 strike was cleared by the battalion's forward air controller, who was with Bravo Company, bogged down on the eastern outskirts of the city and did not have contact with Charlie Company and was unaware that Marines were so far north.
Two other Marines, from the 6th Engineer Support Battalion Corporal Evans James and Sgt. Bradley S. Korthaus drowned while trying to cross the Saddam Canal under fire the following day.
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But yeah, even without the A-10 friendly fire, it was harder than it should have been. Tanks would have helped.
harder than it had to be? you understate it by orders of magnitude. it should have been a deliberate assault. better recon would have helped. but it wasn't the JTACs fault, it wasn't the fault of the A-10, it was just a bad day. it happens.
ReplyDeletewhats important is to not forget the lessons that were learned in spilled blood.
By coincidence, I was reading 'Generation Kill' just a short while ago and Colonel Dowdy's dismissal was mentioned and it seemed like an injustice. I had wanted more information. Thank you for this post, it confirmed it for me since you do appear to be in the know regarding US Marines matters.
ReplyDeleteI will go read Nathaniel Fick's account next.
I had earlier read Bing West's account too.
If You want to Protect against that type of attack...the one thats shown in the pictures, nothing less than the Namer will do. And that this is not amphibous.
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