At Corregidor, U.S. forces sent up false smoke rings when their batteries were in action in order to confuse the enemy as to the true location of their artillery.
Here's what the look like when they're born.
Posted on 11/08/2004 8:39:55 AM PST by epluribus_2
NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq - More than 4,000 U.S. Marines and Army troops punched their way into northeastern Fallujah on Monday, kicking off a massive assault dubbed Operation Phantom Fury that seeks to put an end to half a year of insurgent control of the Sunni Muslim city.
The prelude to the assault on the Askari neighborhood was a crushing air and artillery bombardment of the city that rose to a crescendo by Monday evening, with U.S. strike jets dropping bombs around the clock and big guns pounding the city every few minutes with high-explosive shells.
Meanwhile, insurgents in Baghdad and nearby Ramadi tried to keep up the pressure on the coalition forces with new attacks, including one on a Catholic church in the capital.
Earlier Monday U.S. troops had fought their way into the city's western outskirts, seizing two bridges over the Euphrates River and helping Iraqi soldiers take the city's main hospital in the first stage of a major assault on the insurgent stronghold.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Sounds plausible though. Wish we would just use the A-10 for close air support, it would cut down on our casualties.
Mark for later.
I take it no truces will be accepted this time:
When asked whether there were any circumstances under which the assault might be halted, Rumsfeld asserted that "I cannot imagine that it would stop without being completed."
At Corregidor, U.S. forces sent up false smoke rings when their batteries were in action in order to confuse the enemy as to the true location of their artillery.
Here's what the look like when they're born.
Sounds like Baghdad Bob himself :)
http://www.jihadunspun.com/intheatre_internal.php?article=100422&list=/home.php&
Thank you for the deatailed response.
It's very educational.
Attention AP: That is a recoilless rifle!
Seeing as how we gave the women, children and noncombatants ample time to get out, let's rock! Kill every terrorist who refuses to surrender. Parade the prisoners and their captured gear past the Capitol in Washington on national TV.
BTW, I saw earliler figures that there were some 3,000 'insurgents' in Fallujah (pop. 30,000.) Doesn't sound like a popular mandate to me.
I thought that was a strange looking RPG.
So its some sort of large anti tank rifle?
Yeeouch! Serious piece of hardware there. A lucky (or skilled) shot will take out an Abrams.
(FYI the Abrams is optimized for mobility and not armor protection.) Maybe the Israelis will sell us some Merkavas for this operation.
Say- can we send in some SEAL teams disguised as AP/Reuters/Al Jazeera cameramen? They seem to find the terrorists with no trouble at all.
AFP: 11/8/2004
FALLUJAH, Iraq, Nov 8 (AFP) - As a battle for Fallujah opens, a psychological war has already been raging between the US military and fighters in the rebel enclave of western Iraq.
Insurgents claimed they had captured US and Iraqi soldiers, with Islamist leaders announcing over loudspeakers in a city mosque that 36 Americans and 107 Iraqi national guardsmen had been seized.
"Let us announce with joy the capture," the rebel claim said, adding that the prisoners would be paraded publicly and a video of their humiliation released.
Insurgents in southwestern Fallujah had also shot down a US helicopter, a symbol of America's military superiority over the often lightly-armed insurgents, said rebel leader Khaled Hammud Jumali.
For its part the US military, without confirming the claims, has accused the rebels of terrorizing the local population.
"Terrorist groups in Fallujah and Ramadi have increased their use of intimidation tactics and violence against innocent Iraqi citizens," the military said in a statement.
Putting further pressure on Iraqi soldiers -- often recent recruits to the country's fledgling military -- a leading Sunni religious group Monday warned them against taking part in the fight for Fallujah.
"The participation of Iraqi forces with the invaders against a Muslim city is a great sin that will provoke the anger of God against them," the Committee of Muslim Scholars declared Monday.
"We call on all Iraqi forces -- the national guard and others -- not to participate under the banner of the (Americans)."
Ali Hussein Jumali, a leader with the rebel group Mujahadeen of Fallujah, said Iraqi soldiers must desert or face "extermination".
Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi acknowledge Monday that there had been "one or two" instances of soldiers fleeing, but said "that is normal in military operations all over the world" and dismissed reports of mass desertions.
Allawi on Monday afternoon gave the formal go-ahead for the 20,000 US-led multinational troops camped around Fallujah to launch the assault.
At the same time, he announced a raft of emergency security measures, including a curfew in the city and the temporary closure of the airport and the borders with Jordan and Syria.
US-led forces seized a hospital and two bridges on the western edge of the city overnight but clashes with the insurgents holed up in Fallujah were fierce, with a barrage of rocket, mortar and gunfire raining down as they tried to raise the new Iraqi flag above the hospital.
About 230 Iraqis were found by marines still living in a building complex in the northwest edge of the city, some milling about in their underwear.
The military has accused insurgents of preventing Fallujah residents from leaving the city before it is engulfed by the fighting.
"Residents of Fallujah informed Multi-National Forces recently that terrorists in the city are preventing families from leaving Fallujah," the military said.
"According to residents, terrorist elements plan to use citizens as human shields then claim they were attacked by Multi-National Forces."
The military also claimed that insurgents would use mosques and schools to transport arms and stage attacks.
During the press conference where he announced the assault on Fallujah, Allawi showed maps he said were found on foreign fighters that proved the insurgents would violate holy buildings.
He also showed pictures of arms and explosives he said were found in a mosque and youth center in the flashpoint town of Ramadi.
"They planned to bomb the Al-Haq mosque and blame the US-led forces. They (insurgents) say they are against the multinational forces but they kill the Iraqi people.
"These forces are bent on destroying Iraq. They think Iraq is weak but I warn them from this podium their time has come."
I'll conjecture that model is a 106mm
"can we send in some SEAL teams disguised as AP/Reuters/Al Jazeera cameramen? They seem to find the terrorists with no trouble at all."
........or have Col. West do some persuasive interrogation work on these boys.
Iraqi troops urged to abandon fight From correspondents in Baghdad November 9, 2004 Iraqi Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada SADR today condemned the US-led assault on the city of Fallujah and appealed to Iraqi soldiers to abandon Americans in the fight.
"Let us condemn the invasion of Fallujah and ask our sons in the national guard and police force not to become instruments of the occupation forces," Sheikh Abdel Hadi Darraji said.
US and Iraqi forces have unleashed an all-out offensive to seize Fallujah from the hands of rebels, with marines advancing toward the city centre following massive strikes by artillery and warplanes.
Shortly before the attack, Prime Minister Iyad Allawi rallied Iraqi troops at the main US military base of Camp Fallujah, telling them they needed to avenge the deaths of innocent Iraqis.
"You need to avenge the victims of the terrorists like the 37 children who were killed in Baghdad and the 49 of your colleagues who were slaughtered," he said, referring to two of the deadliest attacks unleashed by insurgents loyal to Iraq's most wanted militant and al-Qaeda frontman Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Bump
The population of Fallujah is/was 300,000.
I love this Allawi guy.
AFP: 11/8/2004
BAGHDAD, Nov 8 (AFP) - A car bomb exploded outside the emergency unit of one of Baghdad's main hospitals in the southwest of the Iraqi capital late Monday causing an unknown number of victims, an official at the Yarmuk hospital said.
"A car bomb exploded at the gate of the emergency department, there were a lot of people wounded and dead," the official told AFP.
Patients, staff and guards were among the victims, said the official, who declined to give his name.
Just hours early, Yarmuk hospital recieved three dead and 45 wounded after suspected car bombs exploded just minutes apart outside two churches in Baghdad.
The attacks came as US and Iraqi forces stormed the rebel enclave of Fallujah in an operation to crush the insurgency in Iraq ahead of elections planned for January.
IIRC we only lost two M1 Abrams in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
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