Posted on 06/01/2018 8:33:06 AM PDT by Zhang Fei
At the outpost, American soldiers watched a column of tanks and other armored vehicles turn and drive toward them around 10 p.m., emerging from a neighborhood of houses where they had tried to gather undetected.
A half-hour later, the Russian mercenaries and Syrian forces struck.
The Conoco outpost was hit with a mixture of tank fire, large artillery and mortar rounds, the documents show. The air was filled with dust and shrapnel. The American commandos took cover, then ran behind dirt berms to fire anti-tank missiles and machine guns at the advancing column of armored vehicles.
For the first 15 minutes, American military officials called their Russian counterparts and urged them to stop the attack. When that failed, American troops fired warning shots at a group of vehicles and a howitzer.
Still the troops advanced.
American warplanes arrived in waves, including Reaper drones, F-22 stealth fighter jets, F-15E Strike Fighters, B-52 bombers, AC-130 gunships and AH-64 Apache helicopters. For the next three hours, American officials said, scores of strikes pummeled enemy troops, tanks and other vehicles. Marine rocket artillery was fired from the ground.
The reaction team sped toward the fight. It was dark, according to the documents, and the roads were littered with felled power lines and shell craters. The 20-mile drive was made all the more difficult since the trucks did not turn on their headlights, relying solely on thermal-imaging cameras to navigate.
As the Green Berets and Marines neared the Conoco plant around 11:30 p.m., they were forced to stop. The barrage of artillery was too dangerous to drive through until airstrikes silenced the enemy’s howitzers and tanks.
At the plant, the commandos were pinned down by enemy artillery and burning through ammunition. Flashes from tank muzzles, antiaircraft weapons and machine guns lit up the air.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The details of the Feb. 7 firefight were gleaned from interviews and documents newly obtained by The New York Times. They provide the Pentagon’s first public on-the-ground accounting of one of the single bloodiest battles the American military has faced in Syria since deploying to fight the Islamic State.
Maybe Russia was about done with those “mercenaries” and thought letting the US kill them was a good way to get out of making the final payment on their contract?
I believe the below link is an early article of the 4-Hour Battle Between Russian Mercenaries and U.S. Commandos Unfolded in Syria.
‘They beat our a&&es’: Russian mercenaries talk about humiliating defeat by US in reportedly leaked audio
http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-leaked-audio-humiliating-defeat-by-us-forces-2018-2
[Maybe Russia was about done with those “mercenaries” and thought letting the US kill them was a good way to get out of making the final payment on their contract?]
“Next, who is trying to start the “Cold War”! again?”
Supposedly we “deconflicted” with the Russians, who said the mercs were not their “flag forces,” thereby disowning them. Open season.
What law says that?
BS. The Russians knew exactly what was going on. Everyone’s playing the proxy game. Puppet warfare.
Yes we do. We’re protecting the oil, which is on the eastern side of the Euphrates. When NY Times shows a map, they don’t show us there but we’re there. We don’t want the Turks, the Russians, ISIS, or Iran to grab Syria’s oil assets.
Since Amir Tsarfati already reported it, they put their reporters on the case. It took them some time.
They warned them that airstrikes were pending and inbound and the Russians did not notify their “mercenary forces” or their allies?
Good luck with that. The miscommunication was among the Russians. Mattis clearly stated that we warned them multiple times that they were about to get lit up.
That was about as one sided as it gets. 200-400 enemy casualties (depending on who you believe) and one casualty among our forces. Not exactly a point of pride on the Russian side - all downside (very embarrassing loss) and no upside. Someone on “their side” failed to communicate to higher HQ what they were doing.
I read an article about this last week. 20 Marines at the outpost. 20 Army and Green Beret at the command post that drove over to help.
500 attackers with tanks, etc.
300 attackers killed. None of our guys were killed. Maybe not even wounded. (I didn’t read the article again).
I love the term “force multiplier” used for our jets, drones, etc.
The Times report says Russia was warned, but it doesn’t say the mercenaries were warned. I believe Amir said the mercenaries were told not to advance any farther but they did anyway. I don’t think Americans would ever make a mistake like that, to not warn the actual people involved, whoever they were.
They spoke Russian. They were former elite forces in Russia. And Israel shipped the bodies back to . . . Russia!
It was not a mistake by us - we were protecting our own troops who were under heavy attack. A head on attack across open ground against a dug-in force with air superiority, artillery, and close air support is a bad idea.
Despite the fact that we are even more deployed now than we were then, there has not been another incident. They learned that lesson the hard way!
With air superiority for the U.S. and adequate numbers of aircraft and artillery present you have to be insane to attack U.S. forces head on. I think there was obviously some miscommunication on the Russian end of this as they did not appear to realize their “mercenaries” were part of the attacking force.
Or just arrogance. This battle is reminiscent of the first big battle at the Donetsk airport during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. There an over confident Chechen GRU unit was cut to shreds by the Ukrainian air force. I doubt these Russkies expected to get hammered by U.S. air power like they did.
I don’t think we made that mistake either. I think the Times only told part of the story. If they took all that time to get the story done, they should have known all the facts. They didn’t exactly say the Americans neglected to warn the would-be attackers, they simply didn’t mention it, and only mentioned the warnings to the Russians themselves. Surely they have contacts in Israel who would have told them everything. Most likely: the Times lied by omission.
That’s my story, but I’m not sticking to it. I’ll be glad to consider any further facts.
Thank you.
Additional background info + links etc here https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3632066/posts?page=81#81
The Russians agreed to the river as the demarcation line and were told we had special operations troops embedded with this particular unit and area.
The Russians knew full well what they were doing. That order to use Russian mercenaries comes from the top.
Putin was challenging and testing Trump.
Trump passed and Putin miscalculated and many lives and families are obliterated due to Putin.
Sounds like a hell of a battle!
No casualties on our side.
[Delta; SF, Rangers and Marines...
Sounds like a hell of a battle!
No casualties on our side. ]
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