11th Marines OIF I
The Opening Gambit
11 Jan 2003. After months of intense training and anticipation, the Cannon Cockers’ participation in the eventual invasion of Iraq was officially set in motion when President Bush released the long-anticipated Deployment Order, Request for Forces (RFF)-177.
The Cannon Cockers deployed to Kuwait via amphibious, Military Sealift Command, and commercial ships; and strategic and commercially chartered airlift. On 17 January 2003, HQ Battery 1/11 set sail on the USS Anchorage (LSD-36) from San Diego as part of the seven ship Amphibious Task Force (ATF) West. Simultaneously, Advance Parties from 2/11 and 3/11 arrived in Kuwait to begin preparations for the offload of the two Maritime Prepositioned Ship (MPS) Squadrons that provided the preponderance of equipment for the 5th and 7th Marines.
In late January 2/11 reinforced by A and B Batteries 1/11 and 3/11 reinforced by R and T Batteries 5/11 began flowing via air to Kuwait where they fell in on the equipment from the MPS Squadrons. The lead elements of Headquarters Battery, 11th Marines and Headquarters Battery 5/11 deployed by air and would be joined in late February/early March by the remainder of their equipment that deployed via sealift. The Cannon Cockers were augmented by 2 Q-46 radar teams and a Target Processing Section from the 10th Marines and Battery I, 3/10 and Battery R, 5/10 along with two long range Q-37 radars in the Army’s XVIII Airborne Corps 1st Field Artillery Detachment from Fort Bragg, NC. Once in place the Regiment would reorganize for combat into its habitual four battalions.
USS Anchorage (LSD-36) departs San Diego on 17 Jan 2003 with HQ 1/11 embarked.
Feb 2003. As the 11th Marines deployed for OIF I they were faced with the challenge of taking on the identified strength of the Iraqi Army - its artillery. The Cannon Cockers took on this challenge and planned and trained to defeat this potent threat. Listen to the accompanying audio to learn how the Cannon Cockers developed and refined their plan to meet this challenge (Col Marletto Interview from USMC Oral History Collection).
The Cannon Cockers collocated with their supported maneuver units at Life Support Areas (LSAs) established in the Kuwaiti desert. HQ Battery and 5/11 were located at LSA Matilda. 1/11 collocated with 1st Marines at LSA Inchon, 2/11 collocated with 5th Marines at LSA Grizzly, and 3/11 collocated with 7th Marines at LSA Ripper. As batteries arrived in country and drew their equipment they moved to Udairi Range where they calibrated their howitzers and participated in a series of progressively larger firing exercises that culminated in a Regimental FIREX on the 17th and 18th of February. The sounds of Regimental Time of Target missions reverberated across the desert and could be heard in Iraq by the enemy forces that waited for the coming onslaught of the Blue Diamond.
11th Marines Commanding Officer, Col Marletto, describes how the Cannon Cockers planned to defeat Iraq's potent artillery threat.
March 16, 2003. at 160320ZMAR03 11TH MARINES ISSUES FRAG ORDER 20-03.
Mission: On order 11th Marines supports the destruction of the 51st Division artillery, III Corps artillery, and 6th Division artillery in order to allow the Division attack to maintain tempo.
Concept of Artillery Support. 11th Marines initially organizes and deploys for combat in order to engage Iraqi artillery with massed artillery fires in the Division’s zone. On order, the artillery organization for combat will change to establish close and continuous artillery support for the Division’s main effort. General support artillery will displace and aggressively position forward to continue the engagement of Iraqi artillery with massed artillery fires in the Division’s zone. 11th Marines will maximize its use of indirect fire locating radars and Marine aviation command and control attachments to engage remaining Iraqi artillery with artillery and/or air delivered counterfires in combined arms engagements.
Artillery Organization for Combat.
1/11 (155T, M198): GS o/o DS RCT-1
2/11 (155T, M198): DS RCT-5
3/11 (155T, M198): GS o/o DS RCT-7
5/11 (155T, M198): GS o/o GSR 3/11
7 RHA (105T, M118): GSR 2/11 O/O DS 16 PARA
(Positioning and fire planning by 2/11).
3 RHA (155SP, AS90): DS 7 BDE O/O GSR 3/11.
T 5/11 prepares to depart LSA Matilda.
11th Marines Task Organization
March 17, 2003. While folks back home were getting ready to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, the 11th Marines conducted their final Rehearsal of Concept (ROC) Drill in the Kuwaiti desert. The 11th Marines were joined by the British 3rd and 7th Royal Horse Artillery who provided reinforcing fires to the Cannon Cockers during the initial days of the Operation Iraqi Freedom I. Later that night, the Regiment received orders to move to its Dispersal Areas near the Kuwait/Iraq Border.
11th Marines conduct their final ROC Drill.
On March 20, 2003 the 1st Marine Division was in position in northern Kuwait along the border with Iraq poised for the planned attack north that was scheduled to begin at dawn on March 21st. Since early March, engineers had been preparing breach lanes through the berm and fence built by the Kuwaitis to protect their border from an Iraqi incursion. These efforts were protected by 11th Marines firing units and radars that had positioned forward. The 1st Marine Division Commanding General (CG), General Mattis, had issued verbal guidance that any indirect fire from Iraq into Kuwait was to be considered an act of war and the Cannon Cockers were authorized to immediately return fire.
War is a two-sided affair and the enemy is not bound to conform to the friendly plan, expected timeline or sequence of events. Military leaders and planners are taught that they must always be cognizant of this truism and remember that, “The Enemy Gets a Vote.” At 201130ZMAR03 Iraqi mortars cast their vote by engaging Marine forces in Kuwait. The mortar fire was instantly detected by 11th Marines Counterbattery Radars. Following the CG’s guidance, the 11th Marines immediately engaged with massed fires from 1/11 and 2/11 and destroyed the threat.
The accompanying video captures the sights and sounds of that first fire mission from the Beast Masters’ (B Battery, 1st Battalion, 11th Marines) position. The Battery was receiving final pre-battle instructions from their Commanding Officer and had to quickly return to the gunline to answer the call for fire. The video captures the excitement and confusion that goes with any initial engagement. The fire commands don’t exactly follow approved doctrinal procedures, but they got the rounds down range. Great video Bravo Battery, but 2/11 beat you and the rest of 1/11 to the punch and captured the honor of firing the first rounds of the ground war.
B 1/11 participates in the first fire mission of OIF.
March 20, 2003. Adapting to the Fog and Friction of War.
The 1st Marine Division’s time of attack (H-Hour) was originally planned for 0300Z on 21March 2003. In response to reports that the Iraqis were planning to set fire to facilities in the Ar Rumaylah oilfields, higher HQ decided to accelerate the time of attack. At 1500Z on 20 March, the division issued a fragmentary order (FRAGO) altering the timing of the attack. Regimental Combat Team 5 (RCT-5) was to start its attack to seize the key gas-oil separation plants in the Ar Rumaylah Oilfields at 1730Z, nine and one-half hours earlier than planned. In response to this order, 1/11 and 2/11 immediately displaced forward to their planned firing positions. At 1700Z, the 11th Marines initiated the 1st Marine Division attack against the enemy with a 30-minute counterbattery program against the 51st Mechanized Division and III Corps Artillery defending the Ar Rumaylah Oilfields.
Because the weather conditions on 20 and 21 March reduced the number of close air support (CAS) sorties flown, the 11th Marines had to fill the gap in fire support. Firing at targets previously planned for aviation attacks, the Regiment fired with deadly accuracy nearly non-stop throughout the night, destroying several high-payoff targets (HPTs). The HPTs included two Iraqi artillery D-30 battalions, a Type 59-1 battery, a regimental command post, armored vehicles, tanks and an entrenched infantry battalion.
The Cannon Cockers were able to react to the nine and one-half hour acceleration of the start of the attack because of the detailed planning and rehearsals carried out by the regimental staff and subordinate commands. Adopting General Dwight Eisenhower’s adage that “The plan is nothing, but planning is everything,” the 11th Marines rapidly reset its plan to meet the emerging demands of the battlefield based on the common expectations, understanding, and situational awareness that its planning effort produced. Shortly before 1500Z General Mattis polled his commanders on how quickly they could be ready to attack. Colonel Joe Dunford, the Commanding Officer of RCT-5, responded that he was ready to go “now.” Based on the detailed planning within the Regiment, the 11th Marines Commanding Officer (CO) knew that in order to clear the way for the RCT-5 the Iraqi artillery in zone had to be addressed and this required the execution of a 30 minute schedule of fires prior to the RCT-5 commencing their attack. To get into position to deliver the fires required two hours for firing units to displace from their dispersal areas, move and emplace in their forward position areas as reflected and tested in the Movement Table prepared for the 11th Marines order. Based on this the 11th Marines CO recommended, and the CG approved, setting the new H-Hour for 1730Z. This decision set in motion the movement of the Regiment and at 1700Z the first rounds impacted on target – a testament to both the planning effort and the ability of the 3200+ members of Regiment to translate the plan into action.
11th Marines Opening Gambit Movement Table
CNN Headline News – Thursday, 20 March 2003. U.S. Marines in northern Kuwait used artillery to pound Iraqi positions across the border in southern Iraq with a fierce barrage continuing all night into early Friday.
March 21, 2003. The Cannon Cockers planned and executed a fight that exploited the range advantage its long range munitions gave over the Iraqi artillery. The Regiment’s firing batteries could standoff out of range of the Iraqi artillery and administer a one way long range pounding.
The accompanying video shows the 5th Battalion, 11th Marines in action on March 21, 2003. In the video, the howitzer section is firing at a long range target causing the M198 howitzer to recoil to its full length. Due to the length of recoil and the blast overpressure from the high propellant charge, the crew is using a 25-foot lanyard to fire the howitzer. Not shown is one of the effects firing high charges had – it became impossible to find a howitzer section prime mover (i.e. truck) in the Regiment that did not have its windshield blown out from blast overpressure.
In the preparation for a potential Iraqi chemical attack, the crew is in Mission Oriented Protective Posture 2 (MOPP-2) that consists of wearing the charcoal impregnated chemical protective over-garment and the universally hated rubber boot coverings that cause uncontrollable sweating of the feet. The gas mask and rubber protective gloves required for higher MOPP levels 3 and 4 are carried. The tape on the arms and legs is a chemical detector tape that changes colors if exposed to a chemical agent. The Regiment remained in MOPP 2 for almost three weeks. On the bright side, the charcoal lined over-garment served as a giant “odor eater” in the absence of showers.
The accompanying clip comes from a video shot and produced by the late SgtMaj John R. Racine, Battalion Sergeant Major of the 5th Battalion, 11th Marines during OIF I. RIP and S/F SgtMaj.
5/11 in action engaging a long range targets.
The combined arms approach that the division adopted to counter Iraqi artillery provided a menu of attack options to deal with the enemy under varying weather and terrain. Additionally, the complementary capabilities of artillery, air and, finally, maneuver forces resulted in the enemy facing an unrelenting dilemma. Fixed-wing aviation hunted the enemy deep, artillery and rotary-wing air punished him in the close fight, and maneuver forces closed and overran any surviving firing units. The road from Kuwait to Baghdad was littered with the carcasses of enemy indirect fire systems. The division's combined arms approach ensured that the deadliest job on the battlefield was that of Iraqi mortar, artillery, or rocket crewman.
All source intelligence was used to drive the targeting process. In 2003, remotely piloted and unmanned aerial vehicles and drones were not ubiquitous as they have become today. The division relied on a limited number of Pioneer Remotely Piloted Vehicles (RPV) for a real time visual view of the battlefield beyond the line of contact. The accompanying video clip shows a feed from the thermal camera of a Pioneer RPV as the Cannon Cockers engage an Iraqi Type-59 130mm gun battery at long range with M864 Base Burn Dual-Purpose Improved Convention Munitions (BBDPICM) designed for extended range engagements. Secondary explosions from enemy munitions stored on the gunline result in the thermal camera “washing out.”
The M864 is capable of delivering 72 dual-purpose (anti-armor/anti-personnel) grenades to the target area. The M864 features a base bleed system that extends range without the inherent inaccuracy limitations of rocket assist motors. The M864 delivers a payload of 72 M42/46 Grenades to 28.4 km, and provides over a 200% increase in area coverage over the M483A1 DPICM projectile.
Base burn technology was developed to reduce the amount of base drag on a projectile, thereby increasing the achieved range. The drag is reduced by a burner unit located on the base of the projectile. This extended range system consists of small amounts of combustible material in an enclosure that is attached to the base of the projectile. After firing, the combustible material is exhausted through holes in the base of the projectile thereby increasing pressure in the base region and increasing the range of the round. Once ignited, the base burner unit bleeds hot gas which causes the flow of air at the base to be less turbulent. The decrease in turbulence causes less base drag. (Base drag accounts for about 50 percent of total drag.) The amount of thrust produced by the base burner unit is negligible and does not serve the same function as the rocket motor on the Rocket Assisted Projectile (RAP).
The Cannon Cockers fired just under 7,000 BBDPICM rounds during OIF-I. It was a bad time to be an Iraqi artilleryman.
11th Marines destroy a Type-59 130mm Battery with BBDPICM.
M549 Rocket Assisted Projectiles and M864 Base Burn DPICM ready to go.