Gulf war 1990 without NATO and USA

I doubt Syria would side with the Saudis without American support and geopolitical concessions in Lebanon.

Syria didn't want its Iraqi rival to become stronger, so it would've sided with KSA for a lot of money and those concessions.

But that only happens if the Saudis can stay in the war. On balance I'd say they can with US logistical support.

Their soldiers didn't distinguish themselves in the OTL, '91...Without a lot of foreign troops they'd be highly vulnerable to an invasion, which could deprive them of their main oil producing area.

Most likely outcome - Iraq fractures in economic meltdown followed shortly after by Syrian and Iranian invasions. Iraq probably ceases to be a cohesive state and is split into occupation zones as per Lebanon.

I doubt that. Even after his armed forces were shredded in the OTL, Saddam smashed the shia uprising. Even after a decade of sanctions he was still firmly in power.
 
No US/coalition forces no war.
Iraq keeps Kuwait, Saudi Arabia goes “Cold War” with Iraq and buys more military equipment and keeping a better level of boarder protection.
Otherwise nothing much happens. Except sanctions against Iraq

But if the US stays out KSA will be virtually at the mercy of Iraq. If sanctions aren't lifted Saddam will march on KSA's eastern coast, or at least make some threatening moves.
 

Khanzeer

Banned
Again unlikely. Though in 1990 Pakistan still has the powerful formations on the Western border which opposed the Soviet’s, which were in the process of drawdown in OTK.
ITTL these would be sent most likely.
Like which formations ?
How many of them have seen real large scale combat ?
 
If Saddam invades Kuwait as OTL and the US/NATO only support logistically game over. A question is what does logistic support consist of - free or cut rate munitions, aircraft, tanks, or only what the anti-Saddam forces can pay for at market rates? Will the US/NATO draw down war stocks, transfer supplies from POMCUS in Europe etc as was done OTL because production rates would need to be ramped up to cover the supply if not, and that takes time in any case.

For the Saudis, and the other Gulf States, a very high percentage of maintenance on aircraft, tanks, etc was done by contractors. OTL under the umbrella of US/NATO protection they pretty much stayed put, without this a fair percentage will decide that having SCUDs coming down or even "old fashioned" air raids is not what they signed on for. This will cripple the Gulf Arab forces severely, and while the Egyptians or Syrians might do better, still an issue. (1, 2) Will the US/NATO have E-3s managing the air battle, if not the anti-Iraq forces are going to losr a biog advantage they had in the air war.

Even if the Saudis (and others) can recruit LARGE mercenary formations it will take time for them to arrive, get sorted out, and get logistics in place. Unlike the US (and to an an extent NATO) forces they may not have as much commonality with the logistics already in place in the KSA. Several thousand South Africans or Eastern Europeans are fine for a campaign against some tin pot dictator in a nowhere country, but for all its faults Iraq had a substantial military with decent weapons and a modicum of organization.

A final issue is that of geography. The distance from the KSA-Kuwait border to the causeway to Bahrain and the oil fields of eastern KSA is not really all that great and its pretty flat desert/scrub. Frankly had the Iraqis planned to keep going they could have gotten there even before the US could have sent more than part of the 82nd Airborne with limited supplies. Against the KSA military plus some Arab helpers from the Gulf States who get get there quickly...

(1) In the US military, tank crews can do a good deal to deal with mechanical failures or minor damage to their tanks. During the first Gulf War I heard stories over there how if a Saudi tank broke down, the crew made no attempt to fix it but immediately called for a recovery vehicle to take it to a maintenance area.
(2) The port of Al-Jubail, about 80 miles from the border, had a very nice modern hospital. Most of the medical staff were "Europeans" (specialist doctors and supervisory nurses etc). When Iraq overran Kuwait and it was unclear if they were stopping, all of these folks decided it was time to leave and the hospital stood almost empty with only minimal staff. An example of how dependent the Saudis and other Gulf States were on "Europeans" in many areas.
 

DougM

Donor
The war doesn’t happen without the US or other major power leading it. KSA will park troops along its boarder but will only fight if attacked. And the rest goes from there.
I can’t really blame KSA they don’t want to lose their own to try and protect thier small neighbor. After all what had Kewait done for anyone? I am sure in principle they didn’t like what happened And they SURE didn’t want Iraq to get more power or wealth or access but it was not something worth risking themselves for.
With a major power such as the US or NATO or a combination of say France and Germany then the KSA would feel safe and be willing to fight but alone or only with local allies? Not going to happen
 

Khanzeer

Banned
If they do fight i.e Saudis assume best case
how will they fare in
Air war ( without mercenary pilots)
Naval blockade of iraq
Ground war to halt any Iraqi armored thrusts
Saudi able to sustain logistics for their airforce and army
How will they respond to SCUD attacks ?

Please give your opinion based strictly on the military aspects
 
Air War: Assuming no E-3 support and reduced maintenance support, KSA does fair job defending Saudi air space, but not complete. Little if any air attacks in Iraq, few if any in Kuwait. CAS poor at best.
Naval Blockade: KSA and Gulf States should be able to do this. Issue is with foreign flagged ships - who do they force to stop or even fire on.
Ground War: KSA has better equipment, but issues with being significantly outnumbered and poor quality of troops (certainly not significantly better than Iraqis, and none have combat experience). Iraqi advances relatively slow, more constrained by logistics.
KSA logistics: Problematic as stores run low. Resupplying from USA/NATO may be constrained in terms of where resupply can come in (not anything on Gulf side port or airfield). Saudi logistics system also somewhat dependent on contractors so as they may leave it gets worse.
SCUDs: The Saudis don't have Patriot batteries, and can't get them and train to operate quickly. Even with US recon assets their AF really not capable of quick reaction strikes, even US/NATO had difficulties "SCUD hunting".
 
Not necessarily when it came to offensive armored moves.
Iraq's main contribution to the 73 war was sending an entire armored division into an Israeli fire 'box', and losing 80 tanks in a matter of minutes. Afterwards, they 'cooperated' with Syrian and Jordanian forces on the northern front, where the three Arab sides managed to shoot each other with artillery strikes... apparently because their top commanders didn't get together and discuss plans. But this was all in 1973... by 1990, the Iraqis had learned some bitter lessons in the Gulf War...
Iraqi defenses were very formidable--they took an awful toll in the Iran-Iraq war.
very true. If the allied Arabs go attacking headlong into prepared Iraqi defenses, they're bound to get a bloody nose. Hopefully, they'll listen to the NATO advisors...
 
...
by 1990, the Iraqis had learned some bitter lessons in the Gulf War...

They learned something in the '73 war, so IIRC preferred to avoid frontal attacks in 1980.

very true. If the allied Arabs go attacking headlong into prepared Iraqi defenses, they're bound to get a bloody nose. Hopefully, they'll listen to the NATO advisors...

Unfortunately no arab army was particularly good at maneuvering, for example to bypass a front and attack a flank. They would've failed at that too, unless things were carefully scripted.
 
Again unlikely. Though in 1990 Pakistan still has the powerful formations on the Western border which opposed the Soviet’s, which were in the process of drawdown in OTK.
ITTL these would be sent most likely.

Yes that's the troops I am referring to - I used the term mercenary tongue in cheek
 
Like which formations ?
How many of them have seen real large scale combat ?
XII Corps out of Quetta. OTL was drawn to just Corps HQ and one Division.
A armoured division was disbanded and its constituent brigades split amongst other formations.
Plus a division plus already in KSA.
In 1990 all senior commanders and a good percentage of the Colonels have experience
 
some two cents but no big picture to offer . . .

I remember during Desert Shield/Storm . . .

. . . General Schwarzkopf getting caught (by the media) commenting off the record that the Syrians were the only force that showed any
cohesion and from whom we could except any success . . . he had to do the usual back-walk on that one, but it makes you think about the other available forces

. . . that the Saudis (during Desert Shield) had an unsuccessful tank battle with the Iraqi and it look to most of us at the time that they KSA couldn't handle what was in font of them

. . . that everyone was hoping and praying the Israel would stay out of it.


OK, I got one thought: maybe it makes the Iraq-Iran cold war hot again. If the West is willing to look the other way and let Saddam keep Kuwait, why shouldn't Tehran not replace Saddam; in this time-line the West still shouldn't react.

If Tehran can control Kuwait they can cut off the Iraqi Corridor and control access to the Persian Gulf.
 
Regarding E-3 Sentrys, Saudi Arabia had 5, delivered between 1986 and 1987. Whether those flew with Saudi crews I don’t know. Also, Saudi crews coordinating all those desperate air forces might be a stretch, especially if they had never trained together before. I heard an anecdote that I cannot attribute now, of an American controller on an E-3 during the Gulf war having to talk a Saudi F-15 pilot into Sidewinder range of an Iraqi plane, and then talk him through the launch process. The Saudi pilot could not have done it by himself.

Iraq had 8 Republican Guard Divisions in 1990: 2 Armoured, 3 Mechanized, and 3 Motorized, plus a Special Forces Division. These forces fought well against the Coalition in OTL Desert Storm, meaning they actually stood and fought, and sometimes launched counter attacks. I would expect they would do better ITTL.
 
If NATO does nothing, there would be hardly anything stopping the Iraqis from reaching Mecca if they wanted to, assuming Syria and Iran stay neutral
 
@YYJ : I was over there at the time and heard the same story about the Saudi F-15 being vectored in. In fact, several US fighters were waved off by the E-3 controllers to make sure the Saudi got the kill. even with all Saudi crews in the E-3s (which I doubt) they have US military/contractor maintenance crews so that becomes problematic. NATO uses common procedures for air control, the various Arab air forces have some commonality but limited, for example the Syrians operate on the Soviet not NATO model.
 

Khanzeer

Banned
If NATO does nothing, there would be hardly anything stopping the Iraqis from reaching Mecca if they wanted to, assuming Syria and Iran stay neutral
I don't think Iraqis had the logistics nor the will to go after the holy cities , more likely they would go for the eastern oil rich provinces
 

Khanzeer

Banned
some two cents but no big picture to offer .

OK, I got one thought: maybe it makes the Iraq-Iran cold war hot again. If the West is willing to look the other way and let Saddam keep Kuwait, why shouldn't Tehran not replace Saddam; in this time-line the West still shouldn't react.

If Tehran can control Kuwait they can cut off the Iraqi Corridor and control access to the Persian Gulf.
Iran was severely mauled by 1988 so For them to recover so quickly as to openly challenge saddam that they need open support of the United States and a massive influx of modern arms
 
@YYJ : I was over there at the time and heard the same story about the Saudi F-15 being vectored in. In fact, several US fighters were waved off by the E-3 controllers to make sure the Saudi got the kill. even with all Saudi crews in the E-3s (which I doubt) they have US military/contractor maintenance crews so that becomes problematic. NATO uses common procedures for air control, the various Arab air forces have some commonality but limited, for example the Syrians operate on the Soviet not NATO model.

Heard the same story from an RAF E-3 crewman - a pair of RAF Tornado F3s were pulled off to allow the Saudis to get a political kill and they almost messed it up and let the Iraqis through to attack whatever it was they were aiming for, from what he said.
 

Khanzeer

Banned
Heard the same story from an RAF E-3 crewman - a pair of RAF Tornado F3s were pulled off to allow the Saudis to get a political kill and they almost messed it up and let the Iraqis through to attack whatever it was they were aiming for, from what he said.
Where is the roll my eyes emoji
 
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