Desert Storm, 3 Days Longer?

MacCaulay

Banned
When the ceasefire in Kuwait and Iraq was called in 1991, VII Corps (the mechanized fist of the Coalition) was positioned to the north and northwest of the Republican Gaurd moving out of Kuwait. The plan was to hit the mechanized Gaurd divisions with a 3 division armoured fist and destroy them in northern Kuwait/southern Iraq, thus denying them future use by Saddam.
This was unable to happen, though, as the ceasefire was called before the bagging could be completed. The Republican Gaurd escaped back to Iraq, brushing against VII Corps (1st Infantry Division in particular) in it's rush.

Many commanding officers that fought in Desert Storm felt that the ceasefire was called to early, and that they should have gotten the chance to finish off the Republican Gaurd divisions.

How would the battle have gone down, and what would the larger changes have been had the Republican Gaurd been for all intents and purposes neutered in southern Iraq in 1991?
 
Saddam would have a lot more problems on his hands, and might be more willing to use WMDs, assuming he had them in the first place, of course.
 
He certainly did have 'em in 1991: the UN Inspectors, for all their faults, certainly found and destroyed tons of CBW munitions (literally). IIRC the war plan that Schwartzkopf had going when the cease-fire was declared expected a six day campaign, with Basra the ultimate objective. If Basra fell, and the Republican Guard Forces Command gets wiped out in the process, the political consequences for Saddam would be...severe. If the Coalition did in six days what the Iranians were never able to do in eight years, the chances for a coup or general uprising suceeding are increased. And remember: the RGFC were Saddam's main coup fighters. No Republican Guard around to crush a coup, it more than likely succeeds.
 
Also without the Republican Guard would Saddam have had the military force to put down the Sunni and Kurdish uprisings?
And yeah he had WMD in 1991- they were used only a year or two earlier against the Kurds and Iranians.
 
In that case, assuming that Saddam had managed to somehow squirrel away some nerve gas, it becomes his preferred method of dealing with dissent... simply gas the entire area and be done with it.
 
I think that Divisions "Hammaurabi" and "Nebuchadnezzer" managed to escape across the Euphrades before the ceasefire, and that the bag was too late to catch them.

If somehow they are destroyed though I bet you'd see alot more use of groups such as the Saddam Fedayeen. I think that Helicoptors and regular army are more than sufficient though to deal with the uprisings. The small bonus for Saddam is that there wouldn't be any guards uprisings against him.
 

Bearcat

Banned
There is a decent chance of getting an independent Shiite state in southern Iraq if the Iraqi forces there are destroyed and the US takes a little longer to sort things out.


And the Kurdish north soon breaks away too, and comes under allied protection. Leaving Saddam sitting in Baghdad and little else. Not sure how things go from there. But I suspect the US is way better off with no occupation and no war in 2003.
 
In that case, assuming that Saddam had managed to somehow squirrel away some nerve gas, it becomes his preferred method of dealing with dissent... simply gas the entire area and be done with it.

Well there is the small matter of having the surviving technical efficiency to deploy it effectively. Should he have made the order without the metaphorical armor of the republican guard, who is to say some ambitious colonel doesn't see it as a sign of weakness.

That might be the only time Quayle "potatoe" said something that wasn't a Bidenesque gaffe or worse. :p

Have you seen the Onion's ongoing Biden dialog? I have to say its pure comedy gold:p
 
The 1st RGFC "Hammurabi" Armored Division was still south of the Euphrates River at the time of the cease-fire on 28 Feb. On 2 March, they were heading north, with one brigade having crossed the river, when the second brigade opened fire on scouts from the 24th ID (M). Maj. Gen. Barry McCaffrey unleashed his whole division in response, wiping out the brigade, and scaring the third brigade back to Basra. Elements of the 4th RGFC "Nebuchanazzar" Motorized Division had crossed before the cease-fire, but one brigade ran afoul of 24th ID on the afternoon of 27 Feb, and was wiped out.
 
Lest we forget, the B-52's were carpet-bombing the retreating Iraqi Army. (Though this could have a negative impact on the US...A friend of mine's brother helped fly a B-52 on those missions- the one mission he had any doubts about.)
 
I think the biggest result is the complete and utter devastation of the Iraqui Army as well as a likely collapse of Saddam's government after the war. There might be a possible chance of Iran attacking Iraq after this happens.

The main reason why the coalition forces halted when they did was because their main reason for fighting was to get Saddam out of Kuwait. They weren't there to invade Iraq (not that it wasn't a good idea).
 
I think the biggest result is the complete and utter devastation of the Iraqui Army as well as a likely collapse of Saddam's government after the war. There might be a possible chance of Iran attacking Iraq after this happens.

The main reason why the coalition forces halted when they did was because their main reason for fighting was to get Saddam out of Kuwait. They weren't there to invade Iraq (not that it wasn't a good idea).

Whilst I agree the main reason was to get Saddam out of Kuwait. I think the ceasefire was hasty - made so by the press coverage of the 'highway to hell' - the carnage inflicted on retreating iraquis from Kuwait that had been bombed to oblivion on the main road.
I suspect that if Margaret Thatcher was still PM, rather than John Major, she would have told Bush, that there was a job still to be done - ensuring that they couldn't do it again.
 
It's become a cultural meme to say the war ended early because of media criticism. But I find that hard to believe. For one the news coverage of the Gulf War was overwhelmingly positive. I watched the coverage of Desert Storm and don't remember anything about the Highway of Death on the evening news. I'm sure it was reported, but let's think about this, DS was 100 hours long, the attack on the Highway of Death was toward the end of that operation. Does anyone believe a few hours of negative press changed operational objectives?

IMO the real reason it ended when it did was because Colin Powell thought the military objectives had been completed and that the Iraqi army was already in the bag. He simply failed to anticipate the Republican Guard had not been as badly damaged as thought and could still manage an effective evacuation.

Besides the top command were suffering from end of war-itis. They had succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. A war that some thought could generate 20,000 casualties with thousands of dead was won with only 200 some American deaths. They didn't want to push the enemy into a corner and double or triple casualties on the last day thereby wrestling a PR defeat from the jaws of total victory. Powell even said they had the satisfaction of winning a war in less time than the Israeli Six Day War. I don't think he was entirely joking.

They made some bad decisions due to the fog of war and covered their asses by blaming the media.
 
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It's become a cultural meme to say the war ended early because of media criticism. But I find that hard to believe. For one the news coverage of the Gulf War was overwhelmingly positive. I watched the coverage of Desert Storm and don't remember anything about the Highway of Death on the evening news. I'm sure it was reported, but let's think about this, DS was 100 hours long, the attack on the Highway of Death was toward the end of that operation. Does anyone believe a few hours of negative press changed operational objectives?

IMO the real reason it ended when it did was because Colin Powell thought the military objectives had been completed and that the Iraqi army was already in the bag. He simply failed to anticipate the Republican Guard had not been as badly damaged as thought and could still manage an effective evacuation.

Besides the top command were suffering from end of war-itis. They had succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. A war that some thought could generate 20,000 casualties with thousands of dead was won with only 200 some American deaths. They didn't want to push the enemy into a corner and double or triple casualties on the last day thereby wrestling a PR defeat from the jaws of total victory. Powell even said they had the satisfaction of winning a war in less time than the Israeli Six Day War. I don't think he was entirely joking.

They made some bad decisions due to the fog of war and covered their asses by blaming the media.
Not Only that, But they Fell Prey to The Fallacy of Base-10 Mathematics as Well ...

You See, President Bush thought there was a Certain Symmetry to a War Lasting EXACTLY 100 Hours ...

To Extend The Analogy to The Breaking Point; if The ASBs Swooped in and Gave Everyone Involved 12 Fingers, Then The War would Thus have Lasted 44 Hours Longer and The Republican Guard would have been Destroyed!

:confused:
 
We would also have done better if Franks had not been McClellan part deux.

This, in Schwarzkopf's biography he basically says that Franks whole plan was simply too cautious and un-agressive from the very beggining. The man had a full US Armoured Corp on the flank of an enemy whose supply routes had been interdicted for the past six months, and had no effective intelligence assets or aircover whatsoever yet Franks operational plan acted like he was about to slug it out against a Soviet mechanized corp along the Fulda Gap. If Schwarzkopf would have denied Franks request for a reserve division he may have been forced to act in a more aggressive manner but he may have become even more slow and plodding. Of course giving Franks a few more days lets him bag whatever bit of the Republican Guard hadn't slipped away but if he would have advanced at the tempo Schwarzkopf wanted him to than completed the encirclement inside of one hundred hours.
 
This, in Schwarzkopf's biography he basically says that Franks whole plan was simply too cautious and un-agressive from the very beggining. The man had a full US Armoured Corp on the flank of an enemy whose supply routes had been interdicted for the past six months, and had no effective intelligence assets or aircover whatsoever yet Franks operational plan acted like he was about to slug it out against a Soviet mechanized corp along the Fulda Gap. If Schwarzkopf would have denied Franks request for a reserve division he may have been forced to act in a more aggressive manner but he may have become even more slow and plodding. Of course giving Franks a few more days lets him bag whatever bit of the Republican Guard hadn't slipped away but if he would have advanced at the tempo Schwarzkopf wanted him to than completed the encirclement inside of one hundred hours.

I'd take everything a general says in his biography with a pinch of salt.

In this case it's actually quite funny;
Frank's biography (written by Tom Clancy) iirc has it that Schwarzkopf wanted him to assault with his armored cav regiment leading, without his divisions, which would still be changing direction.

Besides, isn't it a) very easy afterwards with hindsight to claim he should have moved faster and b) wasn't Schwarzkopf's role akin to that of Eisenhower in W-Europe?
 

MacCaulay

Banned
We would also have done better if Franks had not been McClellan part deux.

This, in Schwarzkopf's biography he basically says that Franks whole plan was simply too cautious and un-agressive from the very beggining. The man had a full US Armoured Corp on the flank of an enemy whose supply routes had been interdicted for the past six months, and had no effective intelligence assets or aircover whatsoever yet Franks operational plan acted like he was about to slug it out against a Soviet mechanized corp along the Fulda Gap. If Schwarzkopf would have denied Franks request for a reserve division he may have been forced to act in a more aggressive manner but he may have become even more slow and plodding. Of course giving Franks a few more days lets him bag whatever bit of the Republican Guard hadn't slipped away but if he would have advanced at the tempo Schwarzkopf wanted him to than completed the encirclement inside of one hundred hours.

I'd take everything a general says in his biography with a pinch of salt.

In this case it's actually quite funny;
Frank's biography (written by Tom Clancy) iirc has it that Schwarzkopf wanted him to assault with his armored cav regiment leading, without his divisions, which would still be changing direction.


Precisely, Dutchman. The big thing to remember here is that if VII Corps had just kept going without that operational pause or without 1st Cav being released to them and then the war would've gone into it's final phase (like we're projecting here), VII Corps wouldn't be attacking on a southwest-northeast alignment like they needed to be: they'd be attacking on a southeast-northwest axis going east while straightening their lines.

Had the Corps just kept moving without a stop, then the Republican Gaurd wouldn't have been hit by 3 divisions at once. It would have been hit by 1 after another, going from east to west as they arrived on line and the battle was joined.
Would the Coalition forces have won? Almost surely. The Republican Gaurd would've been caught between a wheeling VII Corps above them and the Marine and Arab Corps to their south. There would be literally nowhere for them to go. But that doesn't mean that this battle might not have been at least a bit more even, especially if they were able to deal with one division at a time from VII Corps.

Chances are very good those single divisions that the Republican Gaurd would've run into would've either been 1st UK Armoured or 1st Cav, as those were the two divisions Franks was preparing to send out as pincers to hold the Gaurd in place so his armoured fist could hit them.
 
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