Battle of the Bridges
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| Battle of the Bridges | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Gulf War | |||||
| |||||
| Belligerents | |||||
 Iraq |
 Kuwait | ||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||
|
Col. Ghazi Muhsen Marzouq Col. Ra'aad Majeed Al-Hamdany |
Kuwait Col. Salem Masoud Al-Sorour | ||||
| Strength | |||||
| 1st Hammurabi Armoured Division and Al-Medina 2nd division Tawakalna 3rd division 150 T-72s and 60 T-62s several BMPS and T-55s |
7th & 8th Battalion of 14 Chieftain tanks of 35th Armoured Brigade One company of 57th Mechanized Infantry of BMP-2 APCs One artillery battery | ||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||
|
25 T-72s destroyed 7 buses 10 soldiers 15 T-55 and T-62 |
30 tanks 35 soldiers wounded 4 soldiers killed in action | ||||
The Battle of the Bridges also called the Battle of Jal Atraf or Kuwaiti Bridges was a battle that took place on August 2, 1990, in Kuwait following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
At 04:30 on August 2, 1990, the Kuwaiti Army command ordered the 35th Armoured Brigade to stop the columns of the advancing Iraqi Republican Guard in the city of Al Jahra, west of Kuwait City. It was only around 05:00 that the first Kuwaiti Land Forces unit, a battalion of Chieftain tanks, moved out of its base and towards Al Jahra. Led by Col. Salem Masoud Al-Sorour, they entered Al Jahra with the intention of mounting a delaying action. Due to lack of preparedness, the armored brigade was only able to mobilize one of its two Chieftain tank battalions, a company of BMP-2 armored vehicles and a single 155-mm artillery battery.[1] The entire 35th brigade were made up 80 to 95% of bedoons.[2][3] The Iraqi force consisted of the a full strength division of the Iraqi Republican Guard, the Hammurabi Armoured Division. The Al-Medinah Al-Munawera Armoured Division entered Kuwait City by 05:30, its T-72s and BMP-2s racing down the main streets, only to become bogged down in a series of traffic jams.[4] The single battalion of Chieftains from the 35th Armoured Brigade did cause some delays in advance of Iraqi units in the west.[5]
The Iraqis were moving in convoys rather than deployed in pre-battle formations and as a result, when the attack came it caught them by surprise and the Iraqis were stopped from crossing the Sixth Ring. The last few Kuwaiti Chieftain tanks of the 35th Armoured Brigade fought until the afternoon of August 4. Running low on ammunition and lacking the administrative support necessary to effect a resupply, the Kuwaiti brigade withdrew to Saudi Arabia.[6]
See also
References
- ^ http://users.lighthouse.net/danvaught/eyewitness01.html
- ^ Arms and oil: U.S. military strategy and the Persian Gulf By Thomas L. McNaugher p 141
- ^ Mercenaries, Pirates, and Sovereigns: State-Building and Extraterritorial p 90 By Janice E. Thomson
- ^ http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_213.shtml
- ^ http://al-shorfa.com/cocoon/meii/xhtml/en_GB/features/meii/features/main/2011/02/25/feature-02
- ^ Nelson, Robert (1995). "Major" (PDF). Armor. CIV (5): 26–32. Retrieved 15 January 2012.
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External links