wrr~ THE I MARINE ExPED~l0NARY FORCE IN DESERT SHIELD AND DESERT STORM               85


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One of a battery of iraqi S7mrn antiaircrafl artillery pieces about eight kilometers east of the Al
Jaber Air Base seen on 3 March 1991. in the background are burning welihetas of the Burqan
Oil Field and treelines of the Ernir \s Far,n. iraqi tanks counterattacked the 1st Marine Division
out of this area ear~ on 25 February 1991.

Although Iraqi pilots had flown more than a hundred tactical aircraft to dubious
sanctuary in Iran and others had been shot down or destroyed on the ground
during the air campaign, the Iraqi Air Force was still capable of delivering
conventional and chemical weapons.
   Like air support, fire support went according to plan.             Since coordination
occurred at the lowest possible levels, the I MEF fire support coordination
center needed to perform relatively little "deconfliction".           Perhaps the most
serious incident in this area arose at 1st Marine Division around dawn during the
initial assault on 24 February.               A unit of Task Force Ripper mistook an
infiltrating element of Task Force Grizzly as Iraqi, and fired upon it, killing one
Marine before the situation clarified and the center was able to get word out to
cease firing.  These were the last fratricide fatalities involving Marines of the
campaign.     Division boundaries             and fire support coordination lines were
generally shifted promptly as the need arose.                There were instances later,
however, of Marine units attacking the enemy across division boundaries without
coordination when the tactical situations required immediate responses.           Both
divisions' artillery regiments, the 10th and 11th Marines, employed three main
types of ammunition in roughly equal proportions. Against armor and secondary
personnel, they fired dual purpose improved conventional munition rounds
containing 80 armor-piercing bomblets.            The standard anti-personnel round was
high explosive.   Long-range targets out to 30,000 meters were engaged with
rocket assisted projectiles.  Augmenting the force's standard M198 155mm
howitzers were    a dozen    larger           self-propelled  Mt tOA2  8-inch (203mm)
howitzers.
   The   Marine   artillery regiments           effectively  employed  AN/TPQ-36C/37
counterbattery radar out to ranges of 32,000 meters.             Rapid-response counter-