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

158 The Road to Safwan
radio that one of the crew had brought along and it was tuned
into BBC. The command group heard for the first time how successfully
the war against the Iraqis was going. It sounded like
the Iraqi army was trying to flee Kuwait and get back into Iraq
as quickly as possible.
Bob Wilson’s mission that night had been to screen the division’s
northern flank and maintain contact with the 3rd Armored
Division. In the process, his troopers discovered part of
the force that had fought the 3rd Armored Division’s 4th
Squadron, 7th Cavalry, the previous evening and knocked several
of its Bradleys out of action. While an exact Iraqi order of
battle is difficult to determine, apparently two tank companies,
two mechanized infantry companies, an artillery battery, and
other assorted troops defended against Wilson’s troopers. The
Iraqi unit’s goal was to protect the supply route to its rear and
several logistics sites along the IPSA Pipeline road. As part of
the 1st Infantry Division’s violent assault, the Quarter Horse in
a series of defensive and offensive fire-fights that morning, destroyed
the tanks, the artillery, many infantry vehicles, and logistics
bunkers. The squadron arrived at its limit of advance
without a single casualty. 72
While there are a number of factors, including luck, which
contributed to Wilson’s success that night and next morning,
one of the main reasons was the integration of main battle tanks
into the squadron’s cavalry platoons. The M1A1’s ability to
identify and engage multiple, protected Iraqi targets in rapid
succession, in the dark, gave the squadron a technological edge
over its T-72-equipped adversary. In addition, during periods
of heavy combat, the tank’s heavy armor allowed the squadron
to slug it out with similar enemy vehicles. Without tanks, Wilson
would not have been able to launch his hasty attack against
the Iraqi logistics base.
By 0800, MG Rhame’s 1st Infantry Division had fought its
way across Objective Norfolk, leaving nine or ten battalions of
Iraqi armored vehicles burning in its wake. Because he had
augmented Wilson’s squadron with a company’s worth of armor,
he did not have to divert other combat power to support
the cavalry during the fight. It was a textbook example of a cavalry
squadron’s security operation in the main battle area.