One Time, One Place

For the field artillery, particularly field artillery with a serious counterfire mission, the other indispensable technology was the Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS). This system locates itself, aims itself (after you tell it where the target is), moves with the speed of its Bradley chassis and engine, requires a crew of only three (in a pinch, two or even one), and can launch twelve rockets, with over 5,000 bomblets, more than 30 km (18 miles) at twelve different targets in about a minute. A battalion of twenty-seven launchers can launch 140,000 bomblets in that same minute, and did so on more than one occasion. Artillerymen, none of whom had ever seen an MLRS battalion TOT, were as much in awe of the trajectories and destructiveness of the MLRS in the Gulf War as anyone. The MLRS was the weapon of choice for counterfire, artillery preparations, and artillery raids.

Franks still wanted to implement his plan for a double envelopment with the 1st CD to the north and the 1st ID followed by the 2d ACR to the south, but at 2345 he received word that a cease-fire would go into effect at 0500. At 0300, ARCENT called to tell VII Corps that the cease-fire was pushed back to 0800 and that the offensive would continue until then. By 0800, the 1st (UK) AD and 1st ID had reached the Basrah-Kuwait City Highway, soon to be known as the “Highway of Death” because of the thousands of Iraqi and stolen Kuwaiti vehicles destroyed on it as the enemy fled north. At 0800, Franks called for the cease-fire.