Operation Phantom Fury Live Thread

msnbc, cnn, various ^ | epluribus_2

[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.

[DollyCali]

Tommy Franks was a "surprise" guest/speaker at the presidents rally in Westlake, Ohio a few days before the election. About 24,000 people went ballistic when he was introduced.. and we thought the surprise prior of Bob Dole was kewl. tommy franks was hard hitting (like zell) on the stump.

The teens (thousands) were hoping for Barbara Bush (and not 43's mom)

went to sleep early last night.. and what is the old saying early to bed, early to rise etc... but getting up at 3 AM is ridiculous.

Think I will go to food store. No crowds, no lines.. and only a few mile drive.

cold here in NE Ohio..we had our first frost last night.

[norton]

"IMHO we need a slower, cheaper, much heavier armored tank for urban warfare."

IIRC - At Kursk the Soviets rolled their big, heavy, slow, un-maneuvrable, very heavily armored tanks (K7? T7?) into the middle of the fight, parked there, and blew the sh** out of the Germans. There does seem to be a time and a place for everything.

[DollyCali]

If you have never been to the profile page of Ragtime Cowgirl, you are in for a information bonanza..and beautifully presented.

http://www.freerepublic.com/~ragtimecowgirl/

She loves the troops and has mucho articles about them, the good stuff etc.

Ragtime can you help????

.. do you have the link to the tread that we had on Mike/Aprils (Geegar Guy) information & her posts?

His registration name was not Ceegar Guy, but something similar.

[Allegra]

We can hear very distant concussive noises coming from the west.

We're pretty sure it's coming from Fallujah.

[TexKat]

Got it this morning sdpatriot. Sorry I went to bed on you last night. I was more tired than I knew.

[TexKat]

Ceegar-Man US Marine (Freeper).

Michael Moore profiting off my husbands blood

Chance encounter brings teacher, soldier together

[najida]

Ohhhh thank you!

And it wasn't even my birthday.

[sdpatriot]

well, bless your heart TexKat!
that just makes my day... and many days to come..

i would have to say the eye patch makes Cee-gar man look even more wickedly handsome.. it's so good to see him looking very fit and healthy. Lordy, the United States Military is goodlooking.. i love looking at them.

thanks so much for posting this.. my best to him and April.. i appreciate all they have given so much.

[umbagi]

well, bless your heart TexKat!

Indeedy!

And here's a link to the new thread for today (maybe I'm the not only one who's been sitting there wearing out the F5 key, waiting for news ;-): Operation Phantom Fury ~~~ Day 2 ~~~ Live thread

[Ostlandr]

Ah, Kursk. The Russian KV-1 heavy tanks were slow, but they did have excellent armor. The T-34 (possibly the best tank of the war) was more like an Abrams- very fast, good armor protection, good (not great) gun.
What happened at Kursk is, the Germans delayed their assault for weeks waiting for the new Panther tanks (arguably the first true modern tank) to be delivered. This gave the Russians time to build up real serious defenses. Most of the Panthers ended up breaking down on the way to the battlefield (tranny problems.)
After the Germans fought their way through the Soviet defenses and began to advance, the Russians counterattacked with a huge armored force. Both forces came up onto the crest of a hill and right into the teeth of each other. It was a knife fight, the close range negating the German armor and gunnery. Imagine two thousand tanks swirling around each other like soldiers in a swordfight. Both sides took horrible losses, but in the end the Germans retreated- the first step in the long retreat back to Berlin.