Hussein get’s lucky

The Marines will DEMAND to go in, either amphibiously or at the tip of the spear. (This would be worse than Beirut.) Schwartzkopf will no doubt agree. Anthony Swofford may actually get to kill a guy...and have no qualms about it.
IOTL it was a big deal when 28 Pennsylvania NG members were killed when a Scud struck their barracks.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
http://www.northropgrumman.com/anal...ations/assets/honest-performance-analysis.pdf

That night Tarawa had 2,793 aboard.

I haven't been able to find anything on other ships, and just a vague thousands at the ammunition dump.

Assuming that 3000 to 5000 killed and wounded is the right number, it would profoundly change the perception of the war from a easy win to an expensive, but necessary war. These losses will change the political dynamic for how Clinton and Bush II use force, assuming they are still elected. I can easily see something like the Bosnia intervention or Black Hawk Down being butterflied away. It will also increase spending on SAM able to shoot down missiles, wreck many admirals and general careers, etc. It is mostly about the butterflies. Hussein still loses, and Bush I probably still does not drive to Baghdad.

There are few minor units still being unloaded near this date, so for example, the one of the British Divisions has a few less artillery battalions, and the commander will have to make some adjustments to his battle plan. These adjustments should be fairly easy since the war was going so well anyway. Maybe a few more days airstrike to give the ground forces a bit more time to adjust the plan, but I think anything over a 48 hour delay on the ground assault would be unlikely.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
The Marines will DEMAND to go in, either amphibiously or at the tip of the spear. (This would be worse than Beirut.) Schwartzkopf will no doubt agree. Anthony Swofford may actually get to kill a guy...and have no qualms about it.
IOTL it was a big deal when 28 Pennsylvania NG members were killed when a Scud struck their barracks.

The Marines will demand, but I think Schwartzkopf sticks to the plan. Losses are to be expected, and most of the time, experience Generals don't panic because they lose 1% of their forces. I would not be surprised if that even with this event, the losses were still below plan. I was in the National Guard at the time stateside, and the plus minus number was closer to 10K american killed. None of us had access to any of the plans, but based on prior wars, 10K dead to take out a few hundred thousand enemy soldiers would not have seemed high. I remember telling someone before the war started that we would be lucky if less than 10,000 coalition solider died. I expect the media to cover it more as the cost of war as opposed to OMG, so many people died.
 
The United States goes into Iraq after Hussein. Congress and the American Public would be baying for his blood after such an incident, and not going after him would doom any chances Bush would have had at reelection. Would the Arab states see it the same way? No. Their views on the situation would be less then polite, given that it appears that the Westerners are now, rather than freeing an Arab State, working to gain a Client State. Therefore Arab relations are put on the damper for a number of years, and Western forces are likely kicked out of quite a few countries in Arabia in response.

However, we would also have a better force in which to not only rebuild Iraq, but to secure it, and the population would, or at least it appears would, be more receptive to the temporary occupation.
 
Would the Arab states see it the same way? No. Their views on the situation would be less then polite, given that it appears that the Westerners are now, rather than freeing an Arab State, working to gain a Client State.
Except that Al Jubayl is in Saudi Arabia, and an attack on the port isn't just going to kill Marinjes, it's going to kill locals as well, so the Arabs (or some of them anyway, Saudi Arabia certainly given the amount of damage that's going to be done) are going to be more open about a push on Baghdad.
 

Hyperion

Banned
What other ships where tied up peirside with the USS Tarawa at the time?

Another thing. Given that ships like the Tarawa are usually the flagship of amphibious task groups, was there a one or two star Admiral onboard or nearby?
 

Hyperion

Banned
It’s a really interesting POD (and I'm not usually a poster, just a lurker :)).

So, essentially to echo what Simon said earlier –

I can't see a continual full invasion and resultant occupation of Iraq. This is pre 9/11, and the anger and commitment (from the US in particular) just isn't there like it was for the second Gulf War.

The Cold War has recently ended, and the US is still trying to establish what its new role in the early 90's as the world’s only super power actually will be.

It was also a very difficult decision to actually invade in the first place, and this is with a very wide range of support from a great deal of countries and a comprehensive UN resolution (much more robust support than GW2).

Plus the "lessons learned" from Vietnam are still relatively raw - it'll take another decade for the relative "ease" of the Gulf War campaign to influence Military thinking, and give the US the confidence boost it needed post Vietnam.

Coalition forces entered Iraq anyway on the 24th Feb in OTL, so they may advance a little further, however what I can see is the implementation of the no-fly zone sooner, and with flights of armed military helicopters banned at the very least.

As a result, this will add weight to the Shiite uprising in the South, and possibly real American (probably not coalition) support for the Kurds in the North.

This in turn may lead to an overthrown of the regime, of which butterflies will be multiple...it may even lead to a non 9/11 world with luck.

I imagine Military doctrine post war will be like Hyperion suggested, and will most likely focus more on ABM defence.

Public (and political) perception of "easy wars" however, will be changed heading towards the new century, with perhaps the death tolls of previous wars remaining in the public consciousness. This is what I'm most interested in - a more cautious US pre (and post) 9/11 (although the outrage generated by 9/11 is going to swamp any misgivings I suspect - of course providing 9/11 isn't butterflyed away).
 

Moglwi

Monthly Donor
well I think my Job would have been put on hold and I would have sent the next few weeks down at the port helping out I was in the harbour area the next day and could see the scud poking out of the harbour:eek:
 
Although it should be squashed pretty soon, could a major ammunition dump explosion be misinterpreted as a WMD, particularly by any impressionable media who takes pictures of a mushroom cloud? Are there actually enough munitions there for that?

In the maximal case, with five ships lost and five to ten thousand American dead, I would imagine that the doctrine of liberal interventionism takes a substantial knock.

On the up side, could the general Saudi opposition to the presence of US troops be mitigated by an attack by Iraq killing lots of Saudi civilians, or would it just be blamed on them being there in the first place.
 
Posters have been talking about U.S. anger and need for revenge, but could it go the other way?

Such major losses convince the U.S. to pull out.
Saddam was "one of our guys", why are we in this internal arab fight anyway, as long as he keeps selling us oil let him have kuwait, etc.
 
Posters have been talking about U.S. anger and need for revenge, but could it go the other way?

Such major losses convince the U.S. to pull out.
Saddam was "one of our guys", why are we in this internal arab fight anyway, as long as he keeps selling us oil let him have kuwait, etc.
No it could not, you are talking Pearl Harbor level casualties caused by a nation that had aggressively invaded another without provocation and was happy to use poison gas, we ain't backing down, not with everything in place
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Although it should be squashed pretty soon, could a major ammunition dump explosion be misinterpreted as a WMD, particularly by any impressionable media who takes pictures of a mushroom cloud? Are there actually enough munitions there for that?

In the maximal case, with five ships lost and five to ten thousand American dead, I would imagine that the doctrine of liberal interventionism takes a substantial knock.

On the up side, could the general Saudi opposition to the presence of US troops be mitigated by an attack by Iraq killing lots of Saudi civilians, or would it just be blamed on them being there in the first place.

No, there will not be the right isotopes for a nuclear explosion. A NEST team can figure this out real fast. Chemical weapons don't cause a large explosion, same for biological.

Now I can see CNN reporting it as a nuclear blast, but the military would know better.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Allow me to be the first (which rather surprises me) to call bullshit. This is one of these sensationalized statements that does not bear close examination.

It presupposes that:

1) The warhead would cause a massive sympathetic detonation of all the artillery rounds. Unlikely, especially since the shells would not be fused.

2) That the explosions would sink multiple WARSHIPS.

3. That the warhead (one warhead mind you) would cause destruction on a scale beyond all imagining throughout a massive truck park.


Not going to happen.
 

Hyperion

Banned
Allow me to be the first (which rather surprises me) to call bullshit. This is one of these sensationalized statements that does not bear close examination.

It presupposes that:

1) The warhead would cause a massive sympathetic detonation of all the artillery rounds. Unlikely, especially since the shells would not be fused.

2) That the explosions would sink multiple WARSHIPS.

3. That the warhead (one warhead mind you) would cause destruction on a scale beyond all imagining throughout a massive truck park.


Not going to happen.

More than likely right.

Worst case I can really see is perhaps a few seconary explosions before first responders arrive and everyone else gets the heck out of Dodge.

Depending on what's going on at the time, I could see a handfull of seconardy explosions, and maybe a few dozen dead/injured.
 
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