Different Result in Khafji

I seemed to have started a minor trend with my Gulf War thread, and I'll contribute to it once more.

In OTL, during the First Gulf War the Iraqi Army sent in units to assault Saudi Arabia, probing the Coalition defenses in the Saudi Arabian city of Khafji. Iraqi forces were able to hold on to the city for three or four days. Some historians state that if the Iraqis had initially committed several more armored divisions into the battle, it would have proceeded much differently as the Coalition had very few units in the area until the middle to end of the battle in OTL.

WI these historians are correct, and Iraq launches a full-scale attack on Khafji? IMHO I don't see them being able to cut incredibly deep into Saudi Arabia, but I'm sure they could cause a great deal of damage and cut Coalition morale down a peg or two. What would be the effects of an assault such as this? Would it change Allied strategy in the Gulf War? Most importantly, would a successful Iraqi assault into Saudi Arabia increase anti-American sentiment in that country in the years after the Gulf War (i.e., beliefs that the Americans knew about the attack and did nothing to stop it)?
 

CalBear

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The reason that the Coalition didn't push forces into Khafji was because that was exactly what Saddam (or at least his field commander) was counting on the Saudi's & Americans doing. He was attempting to create a "Fire Sack" or an ambush for Coalition forces to rush into and be destroyed. This was a tactic that the Iraqi Army had used to very good effect during the Iran/Iraq War.

The principal was to take someplace that the enemy was very likely to rush to defend, concentrating units in the location in the effort to dislodge the Iraqi forces. The Iraqi forces would then withdraw, drawing the enemy units with them while leaving an Iranian garrison to defend the the just recaptured town or facility. Once the Iranian force was in place the Iraqis would pound them with tube artillery, FROG's and even Scuds. It would allow the Iraqi forces to inflict serious casualties on the Iranian forces with very low losses. Interestingly, the Iranians never did figure out the tactic and were bled by it throughout the war.

At Khafji, the Saudi's were ready to rush most of their mobile reserve into the town to evict the invaders, or exactly what the Iraqis wanted. The U.S. command group on scene managed to talk the Saudi commanders out of over reacting, taking time to put together the firepower to flip the trap onto the Iraqi forces. This is exactly what happened, including Coalition TACair destroying the towed artillery that had been painstakingly emplaced to conduct the ambush.

To the wider point - The more forces the Iraqis wanted to take out of the prepared defenses behind the berm, the happier the Coalition would have been. The Coalition's biggest advantage was in overwhelming air power and advancing armored columns would be meat on the table for American A-10's, Coalition F-15E, F-16, & Harrier attack planes, and Apache helos. The more forces Saddam put into the open, the fewer the Coalition was going to have to dig out of the trenches.

I am reminded of Sherman's quote outside of Atlanta when he was told that Confederate forces was preparing to come out of the defenses and attack the Union Forces: "If he'll come as far as Franklin, I'll send him rations."

The Iraqi divisions would have been eradicated with little danger and with virtually no losses among Coalition units.
 
The attack on Khafji and the "elbow" on the Kuwait-Saudi Border was mounted by the Iraqi III Corps. If the Iraqis had waited for bad weather, the attack would've had more of a chance, as Allied air would have been limited. Still, one problem was that several Iraqi units got hung up in their own minefields, and were easy pickings for air attack. Instead of the full Iraqi 5th Mech Division getting into Khafji, it was only a single brigade, and the rest of the division was broken up by air attack. All the attack was a probe to check on Allied dispositions, provoke an early ground war, and get some American prisoners (the only thing that was really done, but all they got was a pair of Army truck drivers who got lost, and one of them became the first female U.S. POW since WW II). If they'd waited for some bad weather, they might have gone a little farther, but I MEF was waiting south of the covering force, and the Marines would have dealt the Iraqis a major defeat-on USMC terms and not the Iraqis.
 
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