ANTHOLOGY AND ANNOrATED BIBLIOGRAPHY                                     173

The artillery raid has received little attention in recent years, rating only the
most cursory mention in schools and manuals.  Yet, during Desert Storm, the
artillery raid proved to be one of the artillery's most important missions, and
almost the only form of ground combat between 16 January and 24 February.
In this article Lieutenant Colonel Sachtleben describes how the 5th Battalion,
11th Marines, which he commanded, prepared for and executed artillery raids.

Artillery Raids in Southwestern Kuwait

by Lieutenant Colonel James L. Sachtleben, USMC

Field Artillery, October 1991


   During early January 1991, the commanding general of 1 Marine Expedition-
ary Force (I MEF) decided that ground forces would be involved in pre-G-Day
operations to deceive and disrupt Iraqi forces operating in the defensive belts
along the southwestern Saudi-Kuwaiti border.   As the 1st Marine Division
analyzed its portion of this mission, the artillery raid seemed tailor-made for the
situation. It allowed for surprise, maximum destruction of enemy equipment and
a certain psychological impact on the Iraqi troops.  If conducted from Saudi
Arabia, we could accomplish all this without the political ramifications of having
ground forces conduct cross-border operations before 0-Day.

                                   Forces

   As the 1st Division Commander discussed the mission with the command-
ing officer of the 11th Marines (the division's artillery regiment), it became
apparent that the logical unit for the raid mission was the 5th Battalion, 11th
Marines (5/11), the division's general support (OS) battalion.
   This was true for two reasons.  First, as the OS battalion, 5111 had more
positioning flexibility than the direct support (DS) battalions that had to remain
in a position to  provide fires  for their supported maneuver task forces.
Secondly, 5/11 had an M109 battery.  At this point, because we still respected
the Iraqi counterfire capability, it seemed wise to employ the M109 battery
because of its overhead protection, on-board ammunition storage and rapid
displacement capability.
   The battalion had completed the transition from self propelled (SP) to towed
in June 1990.  However, the conversion of the battalion's associated preposi-
tioned equipment aboard the maritime prepositioning ships (MPS) squadrons
wasn't complete.  Therefore, 5/11 had two batteries of M198s (155-mm, towed
howitzers) one battery of M109A3s (155-mm, SP) and one battery of Ml lOAls
(203-mm) in SWA.