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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Counterbattery tactics in Tikrit |
| 2004-05-18 |
| Professor Robert Alt, posting at the Ashbrook Center website, prt of a series on his trip to Iraq: Not long before we left Tikrit, a firefight broke out just outside the base. It gathered in intensity, until it sounded like mortars were fired. The insurgents tend to fire mortars from the other side of the river in a marshland area, because it is hard to patrol. The base has a simple but effective response: they place Abrams tanks at the perimeter of the base, with optics that can fix on a target 3000 meters away. Then, they unload the 120 mm main gun—which they did in this firefight. The firefight ended before we left, and we traveled back to FOB Bernstein without incident. |
| Posted by:Mike |