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 ...
Good God, wow.
One case where we really got what we paid for.
"A T-72 tank weighs 50 tons"
WHAT A LOAD..!
Wikipedia (hahahaha) lists the T72B with a weight of 49.1 short tons.
Good thing we didn’t have a drunken powerful, beautiful, nurturing and honest [PBNH] crippled woman president...
Wow...I’d say that sucker is more like 35 tons, max.
NYT reports late; other media silent but hey, we’ve got a porn star to report on!
Want some, get some.
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.
Mattis knows his business. I wish he would fumigate the PC crap from the military, but we can at least be confident that he will aggressively act when necessary.
Holy $&*% !!!
Every reference I can find puts it in the 40-50 short ton range depending on variant.
No mention of the problem it’s not lawful for US troops to be in Syria.
Jeeez, REALLY..?
Dang, ok, I take it back.
Really surprised.
[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.]
[No mention of the problem it’s not lawful for US troops to be in Syria.]
So remind me: what are the strategic interests of the US in Syria, and why are we wasting taxpayer money and US lives there?
FWIW, the M1A2 Abrams is listed at 72 short tons. A full-load semi (USA) is usually 40 short tons.
We have no interests in Syria at all. None.
WUZ DEY PLAIN’ GOFF? DID ANYONE AXE DEM?
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