The Road to Safwan: The 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry in the 1991 ...

92 The Road to Safwan
to fire, which they had to request through air defense channels.
Gross also believed that it had to do with it being a poorly rehearsed
action. Of course, the aircraft was also small and difficult
to hit under any circumstances. 21 What seems to have been
lost on the participants was that if the goal of the Iraqi commander
was to discover the location of the enemy troops by
causing them to react, then his mission had been accomplished.
The cavalry operation to destroy the building with the antennas
did not go much better. That evening the division sent
an AH-64 to destroy the antennas. It fired a Hellfire missile and
about 150 rounds of 30 mm ammunition at them. However, the
crew failed to destroy all of the antennas. At 1020 hours the next
morning, Wilson ordered a Cobra crew to launch an attack.
First they fired 2.75-mm rockets at the facility with no effect.
Then they tried to engage with the aircraft’s 20-mm cannon, but
the gun jammed. Finally, in frustration, they launched two
TOW missiles that struck the building and caused one of the remaining
antennas to lean.
That night (February 9–10) the RPV flights and jamming
continued, and scouts now observed at least five antennas in
and around the building. Carter ordered a flight of AH-64
Apaches forward. They engaged with several Hellfire missiles
and destroyed most of the building. However, it was obvious to
the aircraft crews that the Iraqis were still active. Frustrated
with the resilience of this target, BG Carter decided to use a
Copperhead laser-guided artillery round, fired from the 1-5
Field Artillery, to destroy the building. Of course, echoing LTC
Gross’s previous comments, the engagement had not been rehearsed.
The Copperhead was a complex weapons system that
required a combination of good weather and visibility, a trained
artillery crew, and a trained observer with a laser designator in
the right location on the battlefield. Neither the Apache gunner,
who would use his laser designator to identify the target, nor
the artillery battery that had to prepare and shoot the round,
had ever practiced this kind of engagement before. The helicopter
gunner initially identified the wrong building and then, after
the 155-mm Copperhead round was in the air, asked if he
needed to continue designating the target (which he did!). LTC
Gross recalls scared tank commanders slamming their hatches