The Battle of 73 Easting

This, the 25th anniversary of the Battle of 73 Easting, seems like a good time to talk about my first novel, A Line through the Desert.

Of all the great armored battles of the 20th century, and I suppose Cambrai was the first, 73 Easting was the last.

Fought on 26 February 1991, 73 Easting pitted the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment against two divisions of the Iraqi Republican Guard.

The 2nd ACR had for days been advancing ahead of General Fred Frnak's VII Corps, Schwarzkopf's 'left hook' into Iraq. Not until the 25th did the 2nd ACR encounter major resistance, engaging Iraqi strong points here and there. The next day the regiment's lead element, in that case Ghost Troop, occupied a position atop a low ridge which opened before a long wadi. It was here at aproxamatly 1700 hours that the battle began in earnest. 

Night was falling and a storm coming in. Ghost Troop engaged two Iraqi armored divisions in a driving wind storm which hampered visibility. It didn't matter. Ghost Troop repelled four separate waves of Iraqi armor. Ghost troop destroyed hundreds of vehicles and took thousands of prisoners in exchange for one Bradley destroyed. Overall the 2nd ACR lost ten dead.

The battle was covered at the time, here is probably the best contemporary account:

Kick watched them get shot three minutes later. "Boom. Hit. Hit and kill. He hit it. That's revenge for Sgt. Moller. You sonuvabitching Iraqis. God, I hate them. Sgt. Moller was a good guy. We killed them. That's four Iraqi PC's killed for this track alone."
Garwick's scouts told him that 12 more tanks were coming. Possibly as many as 25. Iraqis down in the valley would just leap from their personnel carriers and run at Garwick's platoon, firing rifles. Getting killed.
All Kick could see was rounds going downrange.
It went on like this — total chaos — for nearly four more hours. At one point, Spec. Chris Harvey looked out from the back of his personnel carrier.
"All I saw were things burning," said the 24-year-old artillery observer from Virginia Beach, Va. "For 360 degrees. Nothing but action."

This of course was the setting for my first novel, A Line through the Desert.

Colonel Douglas MacGregor, a participant in the battle, wrote an excellent history, here.

Here is a link to the Greatest Tank Battles episode on 73 Easting.