Desert Storm - How to Plan an Air Campaign

[jhungary]

While I agree, based on that link, Iraq was well equipped, you have to look deeper into Russian equipment. A Pentagon report talked about the deficiencies of Russian equipment like armor sent to foreign countries that lacked proper plating and often used lower-grade material to compensate during production. So you were never getting what you paid for. Also, Iraq had its own in-house manufactured version of the T-72, which was of poor quality and didn't stand up to the Western tanks. Often tanks weren't used properly in maneuvering and instead as artillery pieces.

In addition, the terrain of Iraq wasn't favorable at all, with flat land and desert compared to the AfPak region.

One important aspect we must also consider is the structure of the armed forces; when I talk about depleting, it's not always the equipment but the manpower. During and after the conflict, Saddam murdered many ranking officers; under the pretext, they were gaining in popularity; I have personally met many Iraqis that escaped that vouch for that. In addition, he eliminated many trainers, so while they got leg-up equipment, they weren't as practical due to the brain drain within the armed force

The problem is, 1991 war in Iraq have a lot of tale-tell sign of the 2022 War in Ukraine. But what happened to Iraq does not translate to Ukraine, even when Ukrainian is probably a few step behind Russia than Iraq as to US/Allied back in 1991.

That problem specifically is why Ukraine can optimize their defensive posture and fend off Russian attack again and again, while using on-par/sub-par Russian equipment, when Iraq failed to capitalize on their defensive posture again using on par/sub-par equipment.

What we (or the allied) did to Iraq should be either in whole or in part translated to what the Russian did to Ukraine, but that did not happen. And that have nothing to do with whether or not Iraq equipment is outdated or US equipment is superior, or whether or not Iraq allowed the US/Allied to build up, because all those criteria also happened to Russia. Russia was allowed to build up their force uninterrupted. Russia is using superior equipment than Ukraine, in fact Ukraine was using old Soviet Equipment and with smaller number so there can never be actually on par in reality to the Russian.

The answer to that question is very complicated, and I can probably write 20 pages essay on that, because that would belong to Military Science study (well, i reckon someone probably already did in West Point or whatever) While I am not going to do that here, I am going to offer you a TL;DR version.

It's basically come down to troop deployment. As I said before with Oldman post. You will NEVER know the efficiency of your battleplan until it hit with your enemy, and by then you already cross the line of no return, because everything is committed, there aren't much room for maneuver, in turn that will make the war fighting capability, not just equipment, but as a whole when you combined all the factors and how to use your force, you need a person who have the necessary experience to understand every aspect of that war, you need to be able to expect what enemy action in return, and finally you need to be able to expect or anticipate failure and how you could turn them around in war, all those have to be included in your original battleplan, and that insight can only come from one's person own warfighting experience.

For example, if you put a Captain, 5 years into the rank, with no deployment history, it is going to have a different war plan than me at company level, because I would think of stuff that based on my own experience in war and I know what is practical and what is not because I had seen it happen, those are going to be absent from a person who have the same rank but without the experience,

On the other hand, you may think Allied invasion of Iraq is easy, or smooth, that mostly not because of Iraq is not a near peer enemy to us, but rather it was a direct result of a well thought out battleplan. Because we know what we need to do to inhibit Iraq from the 3 requirements of the battleplan I mentioned above.

A lot of people asked me why I can guess a lot of thing happened in Ukraine before it happened, I mean, for example, I was laughed at by almost everything on this forum by saying Russia is going to have a hard time to hold onto Kherson, and it would be lucky for them to still have control of Kherson by the end of year, and it does goes the way I said, it simply because of that anticipation, you know what is going to happen if the situation did not change, and once something was done, there are not much you can do to reverse it, and that is a clear thought if you actually went thru similar circumstance.

 

[NagaBaba]

I think you mean, one of the easiest Air campaigns ever right?

No, far from, but what made it great was mostly (but not entirely) the sheer scale and logistics required, the original shock and awe. They took a handful of combat losses too, and there's good stories about Iraqis putting up a dogged defence many times if I'm not wrong.

 

[gambit]

If Iraq in 1990 was so weak and easy to handle in a war, why several countries in the Middle East begged US to liberate Kuwait from Iraq? Not one country in the Islamic bloc was up to the task at the time? Perhaps not.

That is the point that those who sought to minimize Desert Storm missed.

If you fight a near-peer opponent, it is because you had no choices. With a peer or near-peer opponent, your odds of victory diminished to 50/50 AT BEST. Granted, what is a 'peer' and 'near-peer' have a large measure of perception into the final analysis, but even that perception is fairly grounded, not speculative. So, if you have a chance of making your odds of victory greater than 50/50, why not take it? Of all of Iraq's neighbors, which had the most 'real' perception of the Iraqi military? Iran. Everyone else had to take the worst case scenario: That I cannot take on Iraq. Why did they not create their own coalition? ECOWAS created its own military force to intervene in civil wars to maintain regional stability. So why did the rest of the ME failed to do something similar? Because militarily speaking, none of them had the leadership capability. None of them alone were respected by the others. Each of them believed that Iraq was the greater force in a 1-1 scenario. And all of them knew they needed outside help.

Minimizing DS is about collective face saving. Nothing more.

 

[SQ8]

That is the point that those who sought to minimize Desert Storm missed.

If you fight a near-peer opponent, it is because you had no choices. With a peer or near-peer opponent, your odds of victory diminished to 50/50 AT BEST. Granted, what is a 'peer' and 'near-peer' have a large measure of perception into the final analysis, but even that perception is fairly grounded, not speculative. So, if you have a chance of making your odds of victory greater than 50/50, why not take it? Of all of Iraq's neighbors, which had the most 'real' perception of the Iraqi military? Iran. Everyone else had to take the worst case scenario: That I cannot take on Iraq. Why did they not create their own coalition? ECOWAS created its own military force to intervene in civil wars to maintain regional stability. So why did the rest of the ME failed to do something similar? Because militarily speaking, none of them had the leadership capability. None of them alone were respected by the others. Each of them believed that Iraq was the greater force in a 1-1 scenario. And all of them knew they needed outside help.

Minimizing DS is about collective face saving. Nothing more.

Those countries are fairly risk averse to a conflict in general - take the Yemeni intervention in general for which they have tried to utilize assistance outside of the GCC despite being fairly well equipped. Granted, their air forces have now really stepped up but the recruitment of security forces from both Egypt, Pakistan and other sources to be the ground element in the Houthi conflict shows their general approach to conflict.

DS isn’t so much a study about david vs goliath but about efficiency. The massive build up and subsequent rapid execution of the air war to the Iraqi withdrawal and surrender was done to ensure minimal casualties and achieve results in the shortest period of time. Plus if the GCC was willing to foot the bill on a large chunk of the operation it only helped motivate what was an operational test of a lot of the warfighting concepts developed initially for a potential NATO vs PACT conflict.

Doesn’t mean DS did not have its problems - fratricide incidents along with some ineffective ops due to both fog of war and coordination of such a massive force. A lot of the new technologies were key to DSs success as well including the F-117s and Tomahawks with carbon filaments

 

[baqai]

greatest air campaign of all time? they wrote the perfect dialogue for themselves

Maverick, your ego is writing cheques your body can't cash

the sooner they come out of this pesudo perception of being the greatest the better it would be for them else they would get a rude wakeup call just like that did in Afghanistan and Vietnam

 

[Abid123]

Great victory.... 35 countries in a military coalition against Iraq

 

[gambit]

greatest air campaign of all time? they wrote the perfect dialogue for themselves

Maverick, your ego is writing cheques your body can't cash

the sooner they come out of this pesudo perception of being the greatest the better it would be for them else they would get a rude wakeup call just like that did in Afghanistan and Vietnam

So when will Pakistan military hire you as a consultant?

Great victory.... 35 countries in a military coalition against Iraq

They all need the practice.

 

[Corruptistan]

Iraq wasn't a peer-level rival; I mean, seriously, half of Europe and the US v. Iraq; whoever taught Iraq would stand a chance needs their head checked.
One thing Iraq should have done was pre-empt a strike on the coalition forces to inflict death as much as possible; you knew full well the build-up happening in the region. So why stand there doing nothing? But most of all, this was a significant blow to the Arab world, and they would never recover. They've been left open to the raping the West has been giving them since the 1990s.

Iraq is just one out of over 20 Arab nations, so not sure if it was a significant blow to the "Arab world" as such. If anything Iraq, by its idiotic invasion of a fellow Arab country (Kuwait) that had moreover aided them in their war against Iran, became de facto the black sheep of said Arab world to such an extent that only Gaddafi-led Libya and Saleh-led Northern Yemen supported them. The similarly Ba'ath-ruled Syria for instance was heavily against the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and Syria also took active part in the Desert Storm.

Iraq in 1991 was a dysfunctional country with widespread internal discontent and division. Many people don't really understand that by 1991, most of Iraq was headed almost exclusively by the Al-Tikriti clan (Al-Bu Nasir) and allied Iraqi Arab tribes and the ruling/dominating Iraqi Sunni Arab minority.

Iraq's heydays were in the 1970's. By 1991, it had become a devastated nation on most fronts. We know what has happened since 1991, but luckily better times are ahead now.

Saddam's Iraq (before, during and after Desert Storm) was essentially engaged in a Kurdish rebellion in the North and a Iraqi Shia Arab (majority population in Iraq) in the South as well as a 8 year long tiring war against Iran which had 2.5 times the population back then.

To compare that with Pakistan, it would be like Pakistan fighting a coalition of 35 countries (USA foremost military power included) after a 8 year long war with India (or at least a numerically stronger adversary) WHILE facing a Punjabi uprising and a Pashtun uprising in the North.

All while this invasion/war was being played out in terrain (mainly desert) that was to the advantage of the attacker and not the defender.

Iraq had no chance but no country would have had any chances to defeat that coalition back in 1991 without using nuclear weapons, something the Iraqis did not have.

 

[LeGenD]

greatest air campaign of all time? they wrote the perfect dialogue for themselves

Maverick, your ego is writing cheques your body can't cash

the sooner they come out of this pesudo perception of being the greatest the better it would be for them else they would get a rude wakeup call just like that did in Afghanistan and Vietnam

The "greatest air campaign of all time" claim is stretching it but it had its FIRSTS and moments. First BVR kills were produced in this air campaign as a start.

Historically speaking, some of the greatest air battles in history occurred in the 1940s and 1950s.

History's 5 Greatest Air Battles Ever

Short, frantic and bloody has been the history of aerial warfare. While human beings have killed each other on land and sea for millennia, air combat is but little more than a century old. Yet it quickly caught up with its older siblings. In 1903, the Wright brothers made their historic flight...

www.19fortyfive.com

Speaking of Vietnam, USAF virtually crippled Vietcong in 1972 with Operation Linebacker II. But Americans also left in 1972. It took Vietcong 3 years to recover from this blow and take over South Vietnam in 1975. Operation Linebacker II showed that US could win in Vietnam if it had come in the 1970s but this was not meant to be.

Afghanistan? What does Afghanistan have to show in air battles? Not much since the 1980s. US could not create a capable government in the country but it managed to dismantle Al-Qaeda Network and convince Afghan Taliban to not support it before leaving. This was the fundamental mission and pursuit. Rest was noise and profiteering business as usual.

And Indo-Pak Air War of 1965 was intense as well.

 

[Hellfire2006]

Unironically I think Pakistan's airwars against India are more inspirational in the aerial warfare world.

Did that air war achieve air superiority or destroy the enemy on the ground, if not, then it can hardly be called inspiritational. Pakistani air campaign did not produce any decisive results in any of the wars. If you're looking for something truly inspirational, then one can read about the Israeli air campaign or 67 and 82

 

[CLUMSY]

Great victory.... 35 countries in a military coalition against Iraq

Yeah, USA had political superiority while Saddam decided to rush for Kuwait like a troglodyte.
Desert Storm isnt the most impressive thing but one thing for certain is that Iraq certainly got their behinds kicked

 

[ROK]

Thank you! very interesting

 

[Abid123]

Yeah, USA had political superiority while Saddam decided to rush for Kuwait like a troglodyte.
Desert Storm isnt the most impressive thing but one thing for certain is that Iraq certainly got their behinds kicked

Iraq should have gone on the offensive earlier and attacked US airbases in the region.

 

[CLUMSY]

Iraq should have gone on the offensive earlier and attacked US airbases in the region.

Still wouldve lost

 

[PakFactor]

Still wouldve lost

Yes, they would have; however, at least they could've killed many more able-bodied men and women.