By William Branigin and William Claiborne
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, February 22, 1991; Page A01

Post time line

WITH U.S. FORCES, NORTHERN SAUDI ARABIA, Feb. 21—American and British ground forces today fired their heaviest artillery barrages yet against Iraqi troops in Kuwait and Iraq as a prelude to a full-scale ground attack that had been expected within the next few days, according to military officials.

"Today was the heaviest day," said Army Capt. Hampton Hite, 30, of Emporia, Va., whose battery of Multiple Launch Rocket System artillery weapons pounded Iraqi forces.

With an ear-splitting roar, 12 missiles -- each packing 644 individual bombs -- shot from their tubes in a blaze of fire and smoke during one attack by Hite's unit. Within seconds, the launcher, which is mounted on a tracked armored vehicle, churned its way to safety across a desert criss-crossed with the tracks of other vehicles.

The soldiers who fire the rocket system, one of the Army's newest and most lethal artillery weapons, call it "steel rain." The tactic of launching the rockets and rapidly leaving the scene before Iraqi forces can pinpoint their location is dubbed "shoot and scoot."

Such artillery and rocket barrages against Iraqi troops up to 24 miles north of the Saudi border have intensified dramatically in recent days, according to field commanders.

"Everything we've done has brought us one step closer to ground operations," said British Group Capt. Niall Irving. "We're preparing the battlefield."

Those preparations became extraordinarily fierce today as British and U.S. forces fired hundreds of rounds of artillery rockets at Iraqi troops and equipment across the border. Field commanders said the targets included armor, infantry and artillery positions, air-defense systems, combat-engineering equipment and at least one brigade or battalion command center.

In one combined attack by British and U.S. troops, at least 200 artillery cannons and rocket-launch systems pounded Iraqi forces, according to military authorities. Other artillery attacks were waged at intervals along the northern Saudi border, officials said.

Reversing days of public denials, senior U.S. military officials confirmed today that substantial numbers of American troops also have been crossing the border into Kuwait and Iraq on reconnaissance missions to evaluate Iraqi military operations.

Brig. Gen. Richard Neal, deputy chief of operations for the U.S. Central Command, said American military officials have "no problem at all" in sending ground troops across the border to conduct reconnaissance-in-force operations of "varying distances" to identify Iraqi defensive positions.

Neal, in a briefing in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, said that "on occasions" U.S. and coalition forces had moved across the frontiers, adding that they "don't feel constrained" against making "these border crossings if and when we feel it will aid our effort" to define Iraqi deployments.

The spokesman for the Saudi forces, Col. Ahmed Robayan, said Saudi ground troops crossed the border today in company-sized strength -- about 120 men -- on a reconnaissance mission.

At one location on the border, the 1st British Army Division and American military units unleashed the biggest single artillery barrage yet in the 36-day-old war. British military spokesman Col. Barry Stevens said the British forces used 72 guns and 12 multi-barrel rocket launchers to fire more than 1,300 rounds. He said the American artillery force in the operation was even larger than the British component.

To illustrate the extent of firepower used in the exchanges, Stevens said the 72 British guns delivered four times more "weight of fire" against the Iraqis -- 50 tons in all -- than the British 8th Army's 882 guns used against the Germans at el Alamein in 1942.

In a smaller artillery attack waged by the U.S. Army's 1st Cavalry Division, Sgt. Michael Gilmartin, 32, of Wichita, Kan., noted, "I feel like we're in a sterile environment. We're firing, but we're not taking any incoming."

He said Iraqi return fire seemed to be directed mainly at U.S. "maneuver units" close to the border.

"I never like sending rockets down range," said Sgt. Joe Peveto Jr., 24, of Orange, Tex. "We know it's causing a lot of damage. I feel for the guys that are catching it."

Minutes before the launchers opened fire in a planned strike against targets as far as 24 miles away, two explosions blasted plumes of black smoke from a high sand berm along the border. One officer said the explosions could have been caused by incoming rounds missing their targets or charges set by U.S. engineers to blow holes in the high sand border berm to allow allied troops to pour through in a ground offensive.

Marines arrayed along the berm have tagged the shell-pocked no man's land behind the berms "Indian Country." It is littered with charred tanks, the torn hulls of armored personnel carriers and the twisted frames of trucks.

"It's like perching on the rim of hell and waiting for orders to jump in," said Lance Cpl. Joseph Edmond, 20, of Uniondale, N.Y., who is assigned keep watch over the border area.

Along some sections of the berms, American Special Forces psychological operations teams are blasting Iraqi troops with "heavy metal" rock music and entreaties to surrender.

"Dear Iraqi soldier," a taped message blares in Arabic, "pay attention and listen to us. The only way to end your suffering and guarantee your safety. . . . is by dropping your weapon, reaching for a white piece of cloth, waving it in the air and giving yourself up to the American armed forces."

Marine commanders have circulated leaflets with short, transliterated Arabic phrases to front-line troops who might come in contact with surrendering Iraqis.

Earlier this week, a group of Marines at an allied border post nearly fired on a dozen Iraqis who were approaching to surrender. In the initial chaos of the encounter, the Iraqis -- apparently fearing they would be shot -- ran off in another direction, according to pool reports.

Amid indications that the stepped-up ground operations and artillery bombardments might be a prelude to the start of the ground war, Neal said "battlefield preparations" by land and air units would be continued with intensity. The allied air forces flew 2,400 sorties, or individual aircraft missions, in the last 24 hours, bringing the total sorties to date to 88,000, Neal said.

The central command also provided more details on Wednesday's assault on a bunker complex in Iraqi-held territory, in which U.S. Army helicopters destroyed the battalion-sized position and captured 421 Iraqis, including the battalion commander and 19 other officers.

Neal said Army forces are continuing to mop up the position, revisiting the site 40 miles inside Iraq at will today and capturing 14 more prisoners without any Iraqi resistance. He said U.S. forces had found a locked bunker containing intelligence documents, which were being examined.

Neal said Iraqi prisoners had told interrogators that the battalion's officers had been forced to sign "documents of oath," in which they accepted responsibility for any troops who deserted. He said the soldiers also had been forced to sign oaths that they would not surrender to the coalition forces.

Air raid sirens reverberated through Riyadh today when, according to the allied command, the Iraqi army fired three Scud missiles at King Khalid Military City. The Scuds reportedly were intercepted and destroyed by Patriot anti-missile missiles.

The command also said the Iraqis fired two short-range Frog missiles at 2:30 a.m. local time today, one of which fell harmlessly in the desert and the other landing in a Senegalese army position. Eight Senegalese soldiers were injured, two of them seriously, military officials said.

Staff writer Molly Moore contributed to this report from Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.