Khafji/Kabrit, 1991

MacCaulay

Banned
I was looking up some information in Storm on the Horizon by David J. Morris, a book about the Battle of Khafji in the Gulf War, and I found something very interesting: the main USMC supply dump (the largest in Marine history) was less than 25 miles from the Kuwaiti/Saudi border, at Kabrit.

The Marines' logic was simple: eventually they were going to be called on to retake the country in front of them, so it would make sense to have the logistics base as close to the battlefield as possible. Not everyone thought this was a good idea. Originally 1st UK Armoured was supposed to be with Marine Corps for the drive into Kuwait, but the British military's lack of confidence on the supply dump (along with other factors) put them in VII Corps instead.

When the Iraqis went across the border into Saudi Arabia and captured Khafji, there was a serious fear that their mission wasn't only to capture the town but to assault the supply dump. They were able to shoot their way through the scout forces gaurding the border, and when word came back to the dump that the Iraqis were "on the way with a division" they had cooks manning berms with AT missiles.

So...what if even a battalion of Iraqi armour had blundered into the depot? The Saudi and Qatari armoured units had hightailed it south at the first word of Iraqi armour coming south, and it was just the Marine defenders. If the rest of the initial phases of the attack were any indication, they would've had no choice but to destory what they could while holding off the Iraqis, then head south themselves.

This leaves the Coalition in an even worse predicament: the whole
concept of tactical air power as we know it today (with FACs being as reliable as they are) was developed out of Khafji and put to the test in Desert Storm. During the first 12 hours of the battle, as Iraqi T-55s and BMPs were overrunning Marine positions, there was only one tactical airstrike available which came from an A-6 which happened to be nearby. All the rest of the aircraft were busy over Iraq at the time.
Not only that, the Marines just lost their gear right when they need it the most. They can be resupplied, sure, but everything is a lot more precarious.

I don't think Iraq will win, but the invasion might either have to be held back a month or so until Marine Corps can be resupplied and brought back to 100 percent or they run it at less that the strength it was in OTL. This could also run into problems as the largest tank battle in Marine Corps history was against Iraqi T-55s in the oil fields of Kuwait.
If they decide to leave Marine Corps at a less powerful state, then Arab Corps will be going into Kuwait as the largest unit. And that spins off all sorts of crazy things.
 
There's a book you might be interested in: it's called The Mother of All Battles, published by Naval Institute Press. It devotes a chapter to Khafji, and it's the Gulf War from the Iraqis' POV. The author makes use of documents captured in 2003 after the fall of Baghdad, including after-action reports, aerial recon photos (taken by MiG-25RBs), and so on. The Iraqis were told to only "take and hold Khafji" by no less than Saddam himself. There was no initative permitted by Brigade or divisional commanders, other than to do what was necessary to accomplish the mission. And there were USMC reinforcements headed north in any event: the entire 3rd Marine Regiment moved in to cover the supply depot. as 30 Jan went on. So a battalion-minus of armor against the initial arrival of 3rd Marines might have been interesting at first, but once the Iraqis encounter serious resistance, they'd likely pull back. And they would've been in range of both Missouri and Wisconsin if they did go further south, so they get rained on with 16-inch.... And Iraqi C3 was so centralized, any push further south needed approval not at Division or Corps level, but higher-meaning: Saddam.

Incidentally, the Battle of Khafji was used as a lesson in Iraq's Staff College from 1992-2002 (there wasn't a Class of '03...) as an example of Saddamist Military Thought.The only benefit they got from the whole thing was a couple days' worth of headlines, and an incident that could have had a lot of propaganda potential, but the Iraqis didn't exploit it (the NVN sure would have): the capture of the first female American POW since WW II, Specialist Melissa Rathbun-Nealy. Otherwise, three divisions got torn up by air attack, and the 5th Mech Division was nearly rendered combat ineffective (one brigade got hung up in their own minefields and barriers, and A-10s systematically wiped it out).
 
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