Grim images of burned Iraqi corpses, their charred hands curled in death, seemed to serve as object lessons in the perils of challenging the might of the world’s “good guys.” Swarms of Iraqi soldiers were reportedly surrendering without a fight. News reports showed fleets of allied tanks roaring across the desert like a stampede of buffalo, routing Iraq’s Russian-made tanks, blasting them into plumes of fire and smoke. Allied troops were thoroughly trouncing the forces of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, overrunning their positions and chasing them out of Kuwait, the small, oil-rich country Hussein’s army had invaded the previous August. In three epic encounters-dubbed 73 Easting, Medina Ridge, and Fright Night (officially known as the Battle of Norfolk)-armored behemoths from both sides relentlessly went muzzle-to-muzzle, turning the sprawling desert into history’s most concentrated tank shooting gallery.įor the millions of Americans who stayed glued to their TVs in late February 1991, the news coming from Kuwait was unrelentingly triumphant. After advancing a mere eight miles, the German attack ground to a halt.Please be respectful of copyright. To make matters worse, the Germans were now coming under fire from ground-attack aircraft. He had survived arrest, torture and imprisonment during Stalin’s purge of army officers in 1937. Soviet Commander of the northern sector of the Kursk salient. He was mortally wounded in an attack by Ukrainian nationalists in February 1944. Soviet Commander of the southern sector of the Kursk salient. He committed suicide at the end of the war. Nicknamed the Führer’s Fireman, Hitler considered Model one of his best generals. He had been key in the defeat of France in 1940 and, earlier in 1943, had stabilised the front after German failure at Stalingrad.Ĭommander of the northern German pincer. Between them, these four men commanded around 2.8 million men, 8,000 tanks and 4,200 aircraft…Ĭommander of the southern German pincer.
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