Al Khalid Main Gun Target Range

[sword9]

Thats why the Iraq maneuver into the Saudi town with armour was such a disaster. The strategy you are repeating is only useful against players who have similiar capabilities.

I repeat, Iraq's best strategy was to reduce its supply lines and reduce the length of its front by withdrawing from Kuwaits Southern borders to Kuwait City and establishing a defensive perimeter around the city backed with hundred of Artillery pieces and tanks.

By spreading their line so thinly and attempting to defend every square inch of Kuwaits barren desert, they opened themselves to flanking. Reduced their abiltiy to resist armoured punch of the allies and unnecesarily made difficult their resupply of Military units.

What exactly do you think the Iraqis did wrong then?

The Iraqis failed to understand the implication of world opinion. They should have pulled back into Iraq once they found a world military coalition forming up. At the same time they should have started a blitz of diplomatic maneuvers to reduce chances of a coalition attack. They just did not have the experience and capability of conducting sustained mobile offensive operations against a technologically superior force.

That being said, without air support the Iraqi ground forces just folded up.
The defence of Ra's al-Khafji (the Saudi border town attacked by the Iraqi 5th Mech Div) was not based on node point defense, it was an abandoned town.

 

[sigatoka]

The Iraqis failed to understand the implication of world opinion. They should have pulled back into Iraq once they found a world military coalition forming up. They just did not have the experience and capability of conducting sustained mobile offensive operations against a technologically superior force.

That being said, without air support the Iraqi ground forces just folded up.
The defence of Ra's al-Khafji (the Saudi border town attacked by the Iraqi 5th Mech Div) was not based on node point defense, it was an abandoned town.

It was too easy to just say that they should have withdrawn. I am not talking about politics and such, I am asking once Iraq had decided to fight, what was the best manner in which to fight.

Secondly the Iraqis did have experience in conducting large Mobile offensives but it was expected that they would have failed against this technologically superior force. Thats not the point, the point is why did they fail so utterly without being able to inflict any casualties.

Yes, the Iraqis didnt have Airsupport but that still didnt mean that they had to fail in such a dramatic manner.

Al-Khafji wasnt an abandoned town, it was guarded by Marines who got smashed. The Marines withdrew under fire, a tactical retreat. It shows that a force of around 3,000 Artillery and 2,000 modern MBT's can inflict tactical defeats even without airsupport if these pieces are used effectively.

I am not suggesting that Iraq could have won, but only that it could have lost without being routed in such an utter manner.

 

[Bull]

By spreading their line so thinly and attempting to defend every square inch of Kuwaits barren desert, they opened themselves to flanking. Reduced their abiltiy to resist armoured punch of the allies and unnecesarily made difficult their resupply of Military units.

What exactly do you think the Iraqis did wrong then?

Just one doubt, when the lines are spread thin,there is no need to outflank them right? You can just pierce throught it with out much effort.

So why was US outflanking them?and not going right thru them???

 

[sigatoka]

Just one doubt, when the lines are spread thin,there is no need to outflank them right? You can just pierce throught it with out much effort.

So why was US outflanking them?and not going right thru them???

Because the U.S. wanted not merely to defeat the Iraqi army but to utterly destroy it. By outflanking th Iraqi army they were able to block their route of escape by retreating.

 

[sword9]

It was too easy to just say that they should have withdrawn. I am not talking about politics and such, I am asking once Iraq had decided to fight, what was the best manner in which to fight.

They should have pre-empted the coalition attack, instead they allowed the coalition to build up at leasure, deploy, acclimatise carry out some training exercies. The Iraqis gave the coalition the initiative.

Secondly the Iraqis did have experience in conducting large Mobile offensives but it was expected that they would have failed against this technologically superior force. Thats not the point, the point is why did they fail so utterly without being able to inflict any casualties.

The Iran-Iraq war hardly had any examples of maneuver warfare.

Yes, the Iraqis didnt have Airsupport but that still didnt mean that they had to fail in such a dramatic manner.

In clear open desert country the air element is all that counts. As an example refer to the Dec 1971 battle of Longewal in Rajasthan, India. A flight of 4 Hunters attacking PA's 18 Div at intervels of 20 minutes (2 planes in each sortie), routed 18 Division.

Al-Khafji wasnt an abandoned town, it was guarded by Marines who got smashed. The Marines withdrew under fire, a tactical retreat. It shows that a force of around 3,000 Artillery and 2,000 modern MBT's can inflict tactical defeats even without airsupport if these pieces are used effectively.

Read the tactical account of the battle in the link below, and you will notice at it was only air power mainly that kicked the Iraqis out of Al Khafji.
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:O-rgbW9UckYJ:www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/awc-khaf.doc+Saudi+defences+in+%22al-Khafji%22++&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6

 

[sigatoka]

They should have pre-empted the coalition attack.


The Iran-Iraq war hardly had any examples of maneuver warfare.

In clear open desert country the air element is all that counts.


Read the tactical account of the battle in the link below, and you will notice at it was only air power mainly that kicked the Iraqis out of Al Khafji.

Saudi Arabia didnt have much of importance on their common border. A full invasion of Saudi Arabia would have destroyed the Political and Diplomatic argument that Iraq was pushing, which was that Kuwait was part of Iraq.

Iran-Iraq war did make use of large Tank battles backed by Artillery, Aircraft and Helicopter Gunships. If that isnt modern "maneuver warfare" i dont know what is.

Air element isnt all that counts in the open desert unless you send your troops without any Air defence weapons (which then turns it into a slaughter). Secondly There was no reason for the Iraqis to deploy in the desert unless they had you as their commander.

Saddam kept most of the Air Defence weapons in Bagdad which was a mistake. All such deployable weapons should have been given to the forward military units.

Yes, but it was Artillery backed by Tanks and soldiers that kicked out the Marines from Al-Khafji.

 

[sword9]

Iran-Iraq war did make use of large Tank battles backed by Artillery, Aircraft and Helicopter Gunships. If that isnt modern "maneuver warfare" i dont know what is.

Those were slugging matches nothing else. Most of the war was fought in Iraqi territory, that was poor example of maneuver warfare by the Iraqis.

Air element isnt all that counts in the open desert unless you send your troops without any Air defence weapons (which then turns it into a slaughter).

Saddam had no business running an army if he did not know that much.

Secondly There was no reason for the Iraqis to deploy in the desert unless they had you as their commander.

Just their bad luck.:?:

Yes, but it was Artillery backed by Tanks and soldiers that kicked out the Marines from Al-Khafji.

Why don't you understand? There was no deployment in the town, there were no defences in the town.

 

[sigatoka]

Saddam had no business running an army if he did not know that much.

Just their bad luck.:?:


Why don't you understand? There was no deployment in the town, there were no defences in the town.

Mmm.....dont you think that Iraqi commanders also should have shouldered some of the blame for their deployment of Anti-Aircraft assets?

Their good luck they didnt have you.

Thats U.S. propaganda, that town was guarded by Marines who retreated under fire. It wasn't an empty town.

 

[sword9]

Mmm.....dont you think that Iraqi commanders also should have shouldered some of the blame for their deployment of Anti-Aircraft assets?

Of course

Their good luck they didnt have you.

No need to get personal, this just a bloody debate.

Thats U.S. propaganda, that town was guarded by Marines who retreated under fire. It wasn't an empty town.

2 mech divisons and 1 armd div will push away any force in its way. The point is that large a force was kick back by air power.

 

[Officer of Engineers]

There are alot of errors and misconceptions in these posts. I will start with the errors. It was the Saudi Royal Guard, not the USMC who abandonned Al Khafji. There was a patrol that got caught inside the city but it was not a USMC garrison by any stretch of the imagination.

The Guard got caught off guard by an apparent Iraqi attempt at surrender. Iraqi tanks had their guns pointing backwards while driving forward. The armoured equivlent of raising your hands.

If anything, the USMC proved their worth in that battle where their light armoured vehicles with 25mm canons killed an entire Iraqi T-72 column. Two other columns were killed by air artillery. I, however, suspect an extreme lack of manintenance rather than design flaws for the 25mm effectiveness. I saw my own army's Leo C1s armour have areas where you can poke a pencil through after 10 years of dune buggy driving by my zipperheads.

The Iran-Iraq War was a study at best of mobile warfare; more adaptly positional warfare; not manouver warfare. There is a large misunderstanding that just because you can move automatically means you're manouvering. Far from the case. Manouver is to bring force on weak. The entire Iran-Iraq War was a study of force on force encounters. In fact, it has far more similarities to WWI than WWII; and nowhere close to AirLand Battle.

As for the Kuwait War. 1st thing, the Iraqis didn't stand a chance. VII Corps (my corps) was designed to fight against 2 to 3 Soviet Armies (at the time, we thought it would have been the 1st Moscow, 16Guards, and 32Guards) at barrack strength. When VII Corps reached Kuwait, it was at mobilized strength.

The Iraqis did have defence-in-depth centering around 3 lines. The Saudi-Kuwait border; Kuwait City; and the Iraqi-Kuwait border. There was nothing wrong with the setup and had the Americans did what the Iraqis anticipated; even with their superior airpower; it would have been a longer but not necessarily a bloodier fight.

However, VII Corps didn't do what the Iraqis expected and collapsed their Maginot Line in much the same manner the Wehrmacht did to the French.

And it was good luck the Captain (sword9) was commanding the Iraqis. The Captain would have been bald by pulling his hair out at the sheer inadept training.

 

[Officer of Engineers]

Another big misconception - that airpower was the war winner in the Kuwait and Iraq Wars. Far from it. Not one Iraqi division was rendered combat ineffective by airpower alone. Those tasks were accomplished by the ground forces.

 

[sigatoka]

As for the Kuwait War. 1st thing, the Iraqis didn't stand a chance. VII Corps (my corps) was designed to fight against 2 to 3 Soviet Armies

The Iraqis did have defence-in-depth centering around 3 lines. The Saudi-Kuwait border; Kuwait City; and the Iraqi-Kuwait border. There was nothing wrong with the setup and had the Americans did what the Iraqis anticipated; even with their superior airpower; it would have been a longer but not necessarily a bloodier fight.

Yes, you are right. VII Corps are very effectively destroying the 3 Soviet Armies that is right now defending Fallujah, Bagdad and Samara. In fact it wont be long before these Soviet Armies are totally destroyed.

There was everything wrong with the Iraqi defensive lines. The Saudi-Kuwait border had no reason to be defended and unnessecarily increased the the length of the Supply lines for Iraqi forces and diluted their forces from the main task of defending Kuwait city.

The Americans didnt do much differently from what the Iraqis expected apart from the length of the Bombing campaign.

20,000 insurgents armed with small arms have inflicted 4,500 casualties on the U.S. military, are you seriously suggesting that 250,000 battle hardened Iraqi troops backed with serious heavy Artillery and 2000 modern MBT's couldnt have inflicted more casualties?

 

[Officer of Engineers]

You know alot less than you pretend to know.

VII Corps was disbanded after the Kuwait War. V Corps was the one that invaded Iraq.

There were alot of things wrong with the Iraqi LOC. Length, however, wasn't one of them. Good Heavens, man, they had over 6 months to build their trenches. Any problems with length was solved a long time before the Americans dropped the 1st bomb.

VII Corps did everything the Iraqis didn't expect and didn't see. They were blind to the fact VII Corps moved west and flanked the Iraqi lines. The USMC provided the feint of punching through the Iraqi lines. It was to everyone's surprise the Marines advanced as fast and as far as they did. It was only at the Battle of Kuwait Airport that the Marines were finally stopped and not because the Iraqis won that battle. They lost but the Marine's momentum was stopped.

If you're just going by casualties; then I will give you a stat. The US DoD ordered 10,000 body bags before the war. However, I will give you another stat. There were 75,000 Iraqi EPWs. The Iraqis didn't have the stomache to face such an overwhelming force. The few Iraq divisions that tried were steamrolled and I mean steamrolled. The Tawakalna Division died in less than a day.

 

[sigatoka]

Good Heavens, man, they had over 6 months to build their trenches. Any problems with length was solved a long time before the Americans dropped the 1st bomb.

VII Corps did everything the Iraqis didn't expect and didn't see. They were blind to the fact VII Corps moved west and flanked the Iraqi lines. The USMC provided the feint of punching through the Iraqi lines. It was to everyone's surprise the Marines advanced as fast and as far as they did. It was only at the Battle of Kuwait Airport that the Marines were finally stopped and not because the Iraqis won that battle. They lost but the Marine's momentum was stopped.

There were 75,000 Iraqi EPWs. The Iraqis didn't have the stomache to face such an overwhelming force.

What I meant was that the U.S. military which was meant to take on and destroy 3 Soviet Armies is struggling to impose order in front of 20, 000 sandal wearing 3rd world rebels armed only with small arms.

Digging a little trench and filling it with soldiers is not going to stop any advance, after all the tank was invented in world war 1. Pulling those soldiers back into the city gives force density. This force density is important for the reason that an army of 1,000 is more than 1,000 times more powerful than an army of 1. Due to the 3 Dimensional nature of an Urban battle field like Kuwait city, a higher density of soldiers can be accomodated before overcrowding occurs than for example in a trench or open desert. By overcrowding I mean soldiers starting to get in each others way.

Secondly deploying in Urban environment gives greater protection because the opponent is forced to inflict greater collateral damage. This reduces the effectivness of the bombing camapaign.

Kuwait City was the prize, without freeing Kuwait City U.S. could not have claimed to "liberated" Kuwait. Yet Kuwait City was not well defended by the Iraqis. Instead they had deployed their troops so thinly and widely that the U.S. was going thru them, over them and around them.

I dont see how the Marines advancing was anything suprising, what else is an oppoenent to do? If pakistan and India went to war and Indian troops advanced would analysts sit there and say "that was suprising"

250000 didnt have the guts then yet 20,000 now do against an opponent which is better armed and trained?

 

[sword9]

And it was good luck the Captain (sword9) was commanding the Iraqis. The Captain would have been bald by pulling his hair out at the sheer inadept training.

Lol...guess you are right sir.

What I meant was that the U.S. military which was meant to take on and destroy 3 Soviet Armies is struggling to impose order in front of 20, 000 sandal wearing 3rd world rebels armed only with small arms.

250000 didnt have the guts then yet 20,000 now do against an opponent which is better armed and trained?

Sig,
You are deviating from discussing the flaws in the Iraqi deployment to the current insurgency. However, here too your figures are flawed. Characteristics of urban guerilla warfare does not permit the deployment of 20,000 insurgents at any level. Such high numbers cannot be fielded even in mountainous and jungle terrain of J&K without being exposed and picked off by the security forces. If one goes by the type of attacks (i.e bomb attacks) in Iraq currently, this only indicates that small terror capsules of 10-20 men, totally approx 100-200 in each major city/ town.