The 3rd ACR in TAL'AFAR: Challenges and Adaptations

Abstract : The Third Armored Cavalry Regiment (3d ACR) is a self-contained, mobile reconnaissance force made up of Bradley fighting vehicles, Abrams tanks, Humvees, its own helicopters, and some 5,200 troops. Bristling with hi-tech weapons systems, its prototypical mission in conventional settings is to serve as a higher commander's eyes and ears by crossing the line of demarcation in search of enemy armor. Its full range of weaponry makes it perfectly capable of defending itself, or even of wiping out enemy armored units. The 3d ACR has spent the better part of the last 4 years deployed as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). In OIF the shooting war with the Iraqi Army was over before the 3d ACR made its way into Iraq in late April 2003, and, taking on the subsequent insurgency, called for tactics that would take them out of their customary fighting mode. As armored scouts, they trained and expected to fight from inside their tanks and Bradleys where their mindset and "unofficial motto is death before dismount." The counterinsurgency mode, to the contrary, called for them to leave their armored vehicles and move about as foot soldiers. Adjustment to these changes was rather uneven - some units in the Regiment handled it well, while others did not. The 10 months between the first and second deployments provided the new commander of the 3d ACR an opportunity to retrain and, in a sense, retool, for these altered contingencies on the ground in Iraq. In its second deployment, the 3d ACR was the central force in Operation Restore Rights, a mission to retake Tal Afar, a city in northwestern Iraq that had fallen under the control of insurgents. How the 3d ACR accomplished this mission has been touted as one of the success stories of the war in Iraq. In this paper, we draw on information from interviews and focus groups we conducted with 3d ACR soldiers to explore the conduct and implications of the Tal Afar campaign.