WrrH THE 2D MARINE DIvISION IN DESERT SHIELD AND DESERT STORM            51

of the division were necessary to the success of the campaign. Even during the
earliest moments of the ground campaign, the exploitation of tactical situations
and rapid execution of orders had become the standing operating procedure for
the division.
    The resistance encountered in the breach area was sporadic and occasionally
heavy but not as intense as had been expected. The assault elements encountered
small arms, indirect fires, and tank engagements, but all were generally easily
and quickly suppressed. Also, Iraqi artillery frequently interdicted the breach
lanes as the division's elements moved through them. This fire did not appear
to be observed. It seldom shifted to new targets, and after a volley, would cease
firing. Two factors were probably responsible for this effect. First, the Iraqis
expected the aflack to come from the northwest sector of the division's area of
operations, and had oriented their artillery to that direction.1~ Because their
communications were destroyed or interrupted and their forward observers were
missing from the area, the Iraqis were incapable of adjusting their fire. Second,
the division's counter-battery radars could quickly acquire the Iraqi guns as
targets when they did fire, and the division's artillery immediately suppressed
them. The incoming fire which was received did not hold up the engineers or
the assault battalions for long.
    The first day of battle had gone exceptionally well, although it was not
without casualties. The combat engineers had the greatest equipment losses,
incurred while clearing the breaches: seven M6O tanks, two AAVs, and one
MiAt tank.L69 Personnel losses for the day were two killed in action (one
Marine and one soldier of the Tiger Brigade) and 12 wounded in action.~~~ There
were some Marines who recalled one of `Murphy's laws of combat," which says
that when your plan is working perfectly, you are walking into an ambush. Most
optimistically believed, however, that with the minefields passed and the division
in the open terrain to the north, there might yet be hard work ahead; but the
division could now complete its mission.
    By the afternoon, the division's front was an echelon of battalions from the
6th Marines (the 1st Battalion, 6th Marines; 2d Battalion, 2d Marines; and the
1st Battalion, 8th Marines) running northwest to southeast. The 3d Battalion,
6th Marines, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Arnold Fields, was in reserve,
behind the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines.!?I Flank security was a concern, and so
some corrections had to be made. On the right flank, the proximity of Al Jaber
airfield (in the 1st Marine Division's zone), was a recognized threat because of
a large concentration of enemy forces. A special task force, named Vega, bad
been created to operate on the flanks, in the area between the two minefields.
This force was composed of a reconnaissance company reinforced with a section
of TOWs detached from Headquarters Battalion, and it would guard against
counterattack from the east. On the left flank there also was a considerable
screen. The division's western boundary was with the Joint Forces Command
North (JFCN); in the absence of a physical link-up, this flank was "in the air."
But the operation plan called for attacking through this area with the Tiger
Brigade, whose large numbers of armored vehicles and mobility would provide
necessary 5~~~r~~y~1fl However, until the brigade came through the breaches and