Capt. Clay Lyle, commander of the Apache Troop, spoke with CNN late Friday about a major tank engagement as his crew rumbled along a highway west of Baghdad. Despite being outnumbered, the U.S. group vanquished the Iraqi Republican Guard force within minutes, thanks to superior armed vehicles and devastatingly powerful ammunition. "My commander called me, gave me the warning order to be prepared to conduct an attack on 22 stationary T-72s [Soviet-built tanks used by the Iraqis] that the [U.S.] Air Force had identified," Lyle said. "I selected a force, tank heavy, almost all the tanks in my troop, with some Bradleys [armored fighting vehicles] to go with it." After U.S. aircraft assailed some Iraqi tanks, Lyle's squad, despite encountering an additional battalion of hidden Iraqi tanks and being outnumbered two to one, lumbered up the six-lane highway with guns blazing, turrets swinging from side to side. The T-72s were a formidable presence, dug in and well protected behind barriers, anywhere from a range of half-mile to a mile away. "It's different from small-arms and RPGs [rocket-propelled-grenades.] That can be intense, but there is the relative safety of being in a tank," Lyle said. It is quite a different feeling when you are "staring down T-72s dug in, in fighting positions." The fire fight was forceful but brief. It was "10 minutes of probably the most intense fighting," Lyle told Rodgers and CNN anchor Aaron Brown. The main gun rounds from the Iraqi tanks, for the most part, fell short or flew too high, Lyle said. But the U.S. cavalry squadron hit its marks, destroying an estimated 20 or more armored Iraqi adversaries, without the loss of a single U.S. vehicle. U.S. Bradley fighting vehicles, despite being lighter, wiped out some of the Soviet-vintage T-72 tanks, a significant military milestone. The secret for success? The Bradleys fired smaller shells, but they were of a particularly punishing variety made with depleted uranium, which pierced the armor of the heavier Iraqi vehicles. "I had two Bradleys... One destroyed three T-72s and the other destroyed two," Lyle said.
Originally posted by Siaf__csf The iraqi news agencies probably reported that the T-72's suffered minor scuffs and several coalition vehicles were destroyed..You can't trust the media during wartime. Might aswell listen to bed-time stories.
