Reddit reviews Thunder Run: The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad

A great book about this armored charge is "Thunder Run". The book describes in grisly details the battle that took place, and the reasons for sending in an armored convoy to the heart of Baghdad. These brave tankers saved a TON of American lives by piercing through the concentric defenses of Baghdad and destroying them from the inside out.

Book: http://www.amazon.com/Thunder-Run-Armored-Capture-Baghdad/dp/080214179X

Including the name.

There are two ones I know about:

Thunder Run , which is the BDE perspective
https://www.amazon.com/Thunder-Run-Armored-Capture-Baghdad/dp/080214179X

Heavy Metal, which is by a Company CDR.
https://www.amazon.com/Heavy-Metal-Companys-Battle-Baghdad/dp/1574888579

The book written about this battle is pretty damn good.

Thunder Run: The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad

If you want to understand the nature of the war and the strategy used to fight it from the surge (2007) onward I recommend David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War by Fred Kaplan. This book will describe all the big names and texts that helped formulate modern counterinsurgency doctrine and will give you plenty of authors and publications to further explore. To further understand counterinsurgency, I recommend The Accidental Guerilla by David Kilcullen (this link downloads the file, it does not open it a new window) that has a great chapter on Iraq since he was the senior COIN advisor for a few months into the surge. You can also read FM3-24 the original 2006 version, but its a dense read and I recommend you familiarize yourself with the doctrine through other publications before tackling the field manual itself.

Fiasco by Thomas Ricks is a decent history of the run up to the Iraq war and the first years, I would say 2002-2005 is where it is strongest although it does discuss important history prior to 9/11 in the containment of Iraq and some detail into 2006.

From the Surge onward I recommend Ricks' follow on book The Gamble, and The Surge by Peter Mansoor. These books will detail the important changes and in strategy and operational practices that characterized the Surge and the post 2006 war effort.

These are the books I have personally read that best address your questions. Books that are more tactically oriented instead of focusing on the big picture include The Forever War by Dexter Filkins, which is a morbid book that does justice to the horror of the Iraq's sectarian civil war. Thunder Run by David Zucchino is worthy of being a masterpiece in terms of how well the author constructed an incredible narrative on the tank forays into the heart of Baghdad in the early weeks of the war. My Share of the Task by Stanley McChrystal is a great read on McChrystal fomented a significant evolution in JSOC's intelligence culture and operational tempo. This book is of value specifically to what you asked because his men were the ones that were tracking Abu Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, and was the first iteration of what is now known as ISIS. McChrystal describes the structure of Al Qaeda in Iraq, and much of ISIS's organization and methods can be traced back to Zarqawi's leadership.

I don't think you will find any books that will do justice to your interest in terms of recent events however I have some advice that I feel will help you immensely. Simply type in (topic of interest) and end it with pdf into google. This cuts out brief news articles and wikipedia entries and leaves you with top notch reports published by peer reviewed journals and think tanks. This is all free, and its very well researched work.

A report I'm currently reading that I'm sure you will find interesting is Iraq in Crisis by CSIS. It's of course long for a think tank report, but it has a lot of information and great statistics and charts that help the reader better understand Iraq's trends in violence and other challenges. Here are two more interesting reports by well known think tanks that pertinent to what you are looking for.

On the evolution of Al Qaeda and other salafi jihadists by RAND

Iraqi politics, governance and human rights by the Congressional Research Service

The Thunder Run M1A2 loss in 2003 Baghdad was from a recoiless rifle into the engine deck at close range. It caught fire. They did spend about 5 minutes attempting to put out the fire, but since the mission intent was to move through to the airport rapidly, the commander accepted the vehicle loss, ordered the tank destroyed by its sister platoon tank, and continued maneuvers to the Airport. Just short of the airport a Bradley was struck and if memory serves, the driver was killed, vehicle still operational. I do not recall a BMP-2 involved in that incident.

​

USCAV 19D - A 30mm cannon firing even older AP munitions will pen Brads, Strykers, and probably the rear skirts on M1A2s. They were not designed to be resistant to 30mm any more than the BMPs are to 25mm AP rounds. In the scenario so often talked about online, of head to head conflict, it matters much more who identifies and engages first. Which is why US Gunnery training focuses on time to engage and hit.

​

There are many good vids on youtube about the battle of 73 Eastings (Operation Desert Storm). Brads performed as designed. No vehicle is impervious, and in real life many other factors matter more than just the armor vs weapon debate.

​

If a brad was ever knocked out in Afghan. it would have been by IED, like almost all in Iraq. I have never heard of anything like that in Afghanistan because we did not really employ those vehicles there. Large enough mines will destroy any vehicle. It doesn't matter what country builds it. (There is also the whole debate on what is defined as destroyed, different countries count this with regards to different factors)

​

Source for first story: https://www.amazon.com/Thunder-Run-Armored-Capture-Baghdad/dp/080214179X Neat book, with first hand accounts.

Armored Cav (Tom Clancy's Military Reference)

Marine: A Guided Tour of a Marine Expeditionary Unit (Tom Clancy's Military Reference)

Into the Storm: A Study in Command (Commander Series)

Thunder Run: The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad

Heavy Metal: A Tank Company's Battle to Baghdad

For those who would like to learn more about this, there's a great book called Thunder Run:The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad.

Not specifically interesting on the technical side, but a phenomenal read:
Thunder Run

It describes how a US tank brigade captured Bagdad. It's much more than just an account of the battle.