Saddam invades during Desert Shield

You could do a week by week calender of events if you'd like.

The air power equation has enough wiggle room in it. The historical performance of the Allied airpower was after 6 months of build up ; planning, preperation and practice. So much so that before the war began they had every single Iraqie combat unit identified and targeted for strikes. In a mobile war starting on the fly against a mobile enemy from Sept 1 , 1990, you'd have no such luck.

Further if the Allies are spread out hunting Scuds and destroying Iraqi airforce and decapitating the regime etc there will not be much left over to target the Iraqi ground units.

Going on Blackwells numbers each fighter/bomber would be able to sortie once per day while each major transport /bomber would be more like once every 2-3 days.

72 A-10 sortie per day
20-30 F-111 per day
96 F-16 sortie per day
20 C-130/C-20/21 sortie per day
24 F-4G sortie per day
96 F-15C/E sortie per day
18 F117 sortie per day
2 EC-130 sortie per day
2 U-2/TR-1 sortie per day
38 Tankers sortie per day
5 misc sortie per day
several B-52 sortie per day.
335 combat sortie per day plus USN ~150 combat sortie per day.

The F-111 , F-117 & B-52 will have to go down town to bomb strategic targets along with the F-4G for SAM suppression. Thats 72 sortie which would need similar number of F-15 escorts. The Rest of the F-15E would have to hunt for Scuds, leaving just ~260 A-10, F-16 and F-18 /F-14 & Marine Harries to conduct interdiction/cas to support the ground troops.


If Sadaam, out numbering the Kuwait 15:1 , could overrun Kuwait [175km] in just 2-3 days, They could overwhelm the Allied para brigades and drive 200km south to Dharan and half way to Riyadh in a week.

According to Corrdesmann, in 1988 the Iraqi launched three offensives in three different areas of the front from June 18 to July 12 of that year. Thats three offensives in 24 days or almost one per week. So they are capable of launching successive punches especially to expand and deepen the same penetration into Saudi soil.

BTW the notion that Iraqie forces would have to train for months prior to any attack is also missleading. The Iraqi in the 1980s showed a surprising flexibility to choose attack methods. Sometimes this meant crossing marsh and or water ways, some times attack from chopper and with gas etc. As a rule divisions selected for such missions received special training to adapt to those such missions and conditions. There is no doubt that the RG and 3rd Corps got the lions share of the training and certainly could be expected to pull of major drives of 100-200km deep into enemy territory.

No doubt the allies air power would fall upon these forces and interdict them, but it would not be enough to stop them.

Some issues:
1. Those Iraqi offensives were actually counterattacks from fixed positions against exhausted Iranian troops that had been used up. This is a far cry from conducting a mobile offensive hundreds of miles from their center of gravity (central Iraq). 100- 200 KM doesn't get you all that far into Saudi Arabia by the way, and they would be facing well equipped (moderately trained) Saudi armored and mechanized formations, with US soldiers available to call in Forward air support.

2. If the Iraqis are driving deep into Saudi, the offensives against the Scuds would become a minor issue for the time being. Sorties would not be wasted against them if tanks are driving on vital base areas. In addition, if it came to it, the US had plenty of B52s available and could readily massively increase that sortie rate. The only deep strikes would be counter air and logistical interdiction until the ground situation stabilized.

In addition, 2 carriers started off in theater, and 2 more arrived within 2 weeks. Those would each generate at least a couple of sorties per day from their F18s and A6s, with F14s flying CAP and escort (and they have their own tanker support).

The only reason to hunt Scuds is to keep the Israelis out of things, and if the Iraqis are invading Saudi Arabia, I doubt the Saudis are going to care what the Israelis do in that situation.

If Saddam used chemical weapons on those Scuds, then we start seeing the US use tactical nuclear weapons (cruise missile delivered or from B1s and F117s). Saddam knew that, and it was made very clear.

3. Finally, Saddam overran Kuwait by having complete strategic surprise. He did not have that by day 3, and the Saudis were already scrambling to cover the border while the Iraqis were still dealing with the Kuwaitis and refueling.

Remember, the Saudis have (and had) an army (and national guard too), which had armored forces with decent equipment. They would not have been simply overrun if they had US support, even though it would be from several parachute battalions, some light artillery and a few light tanks (from the 82nd) and a brigade of US Marines (which had armor and light armor and lots of anti tank systems). In short, the Iraqis were not just facing light infantry.

The only Iraqi deep offensive ever carried out during the Iran - Iraq War was the initial invasion (which failed). After that, all operations were essentially local counterattacks, in some cases multi-divisional, but in a narrow operational sector of a few kilometers wide and a few kilometers deep. Most movement was between sectors, behind the lines, not deep drives into enemy territory. In other words, from one base area to another base area and attacking from the new base area. The Iraqis never conducted a deep offensive requiring substantial mobile logistical support.

Even the invasion of Kuwait was a few dozen kilometers deep and a few dozen kilometers wide with a mere 6 divisions (including airborne elements). The same size as their larger counteroffensives during the war with Iran.
 
The Saudis might have decent equipment, but their tactics (at least in Khalfji) consisted of extreme aggression and not a lot of thought.
 
The Saudis might have decent equipment, but their tactics (at least in Khalfji) consisted of extreme aggression and not a lot of thought.

True enough, but it would still have taken a few days to destroy them, and that is not time that the Iraqis had to spare really. Iraqi losses at Khafji were pretty horrific by the way, while Saudi losses were minimal. Granted, this was with overwhelming air support, but its a trend that would have been present in an initial Iraqi invasion of Saudi as well. (lower Iraqi losses, higher Saudi losses... but those Iraqi losses would have been crippling none the less). Most likely, both the Saudis and the Iraqis would have been wrecked as fighting forces. Which is fine, as within a few weeks the entirety of XVIII Corps would have been in theater along with I MEF (2 divisions in size). A force adequate to kick the Iraqis right back out of Saudi and Kuwait.

Best case for the Iraqis is that they somehow reach the major ports along the Gulf. It would take them at least a couple of weeks to fight their way there in the face of crippled logistics, high losses caused by parts shortages, fuel shortages and general attrition just from moving complex mechanized forces across the desert (wear and tear), not to mention steady pounding by Allied air forces. At that point the US would have had at least 2 divisions to hold a major port and airfield complex, and plenty of naval and naval air support.

Plus the ability to make a forced entry just about anywhere in the Iraqi rear with overwhelming force (and possibly serious but acceptable losses).

Essentially a situation similar to the early stages of the Korean War (between Pusan and Inchon, and a likely Inchon like result after that).

There is absolutely no way the Iraqis could have reached Mecca and Medina by the way. They simply did not have the logistical support needed to get there even without dealing with combat losses. (a post earlier in this thread alluded to that).
 
Going on Blackwells numbers each fighter/bomber would be able to sortie once per day while each major transport /bomber would be more like once every 2-3 days.

72 A-10 sortie per day
20-30 F-111 per day
96 F-16 sortie per day
20 C-130/C-20/21 sortie per day
24 F-4G sortie per day
96 F-15C/E sortie per day
18 F117 sortie per day
2 EC-130 sortie per day
2 U-2/TR-1 sortie per day
38 Tankers sortie per day
5 misc sortie per day
several B-52 sortie per day.
335 combat sortie per day plus USN ~150 combat sortie per day.

The F-111 , F-117 & B-52 will have to go down town to bomb strategic targets along with the F-4G for SAM suppression. Thats 72 sortie which would need similar number of F-15 escorts. The Rest of the F-15E would have to hunt for Scuds, leaving just ~260 A-10, F-16 and F-18 /F-14 & Marine Harries to conduct interdiction/cas to support the ground troops.

<snip>

No doubt the allies air power would fall upon these forces and interdict them, but it would not be enough to stop them.


Okay a couple of things first the above seems to make my argument for me, by your own numbers 485 combat sorties per day is a massive disruption any attacking force.

Second you don't count any British, French, Saudi, Egyptian or USMC sorties in the above. As I recall the British had at least 30-50 ground attack aircraft, the French 20-30, the Saudis had 50-75, the Egyptians had 50-75, and the USMC had 50-75. Which conservatively adds another 100+ Sorties.

Third nobody would be worrying about Scuds with a CEP of >1 mile when the Saud's are getting chewed up by Iraqi armor. The Saud's would turn a blind eye to the Israelis attacking Scuds, the Egyptians would use some of their air power, the Syrians (remember in this war we were friendly with the Syrians) would help out (and turn a blind eye to Israeli attacks on Scuds.)

Fourth, at least the US forces have the ability to surge sortie rates of up to 3-4 per day for short range attacks. So the F-16, F-18, F-15E, A-6, A-10 and Harrier numbers are very low. Figure at least 2x maybe as high as 4x what you have recorded above. Now, this would drive up accident rates and damage from delayed maintenance and rushed support...but for a 3-4 day period while they are trying to keep the Iraqi's from destroying the Saudi armor, heck yes.

Fifth, nobody is going to attack strategic targets in this situation, air defenses sure, Command and Control sure, but air fields? not unless the Iraqi air force displays ASB level competency. Power distribution and generation facilities? Not a chance. The heavies will go after logistical targets like fuel and ammunition dumps, pipe lines, and bridges. Some of the rest will target logistical convoys feeding the Iraqi troops. The A-10s and A-6s will go after the CAS targets, hitting concentrations of armor and troops on call from the recon and ground forces.

Sixth, you are completely ignoring the coalition SSM resources, things like pipelines, command and control and fuel/ammo dumps don't move and are perfect targets for Tomahawk and other SSM strikes from the US and Saudi navies.
 
This whole ATL needs a Saddam who "knows" that the West will not allow him to take Kuwait for himself and a Saddam who is "smart" enough to mobilize his entire army before invading Kuwait.
The original Iraqi invasion was an invasion with only 100,000 troops which is far less than what the Iraqis could field at that point.

The problem with mobilizing like that is that the rest of the world will notice, before Saddam ever invades Kuwait.
 
My understanding is that the military professionals thought that the Iraqis could pull off an invasion of Saudi Arabia early on. The first-deployed aircraft, airlifted ground forces, and the Marines were a trip-wire or speed bumps. One possibility was that the Iraqis could seize Saudi oil fields and hold them hostage, if I remember correctly.

How successful would that USMC brigade have been in conducting a landing on the Iraqi flank? I'm wondering how messy an opposed landing would have been.

My dad retired from the USAF in 1988 after 26 years. Both him and my mom were nervous that he would be recalled to active duty. He may have gotten a warning letter from Uncle Sam, I don't remember.
 
Several comments on the comments ,after reading Gordon and Trainers “The Generals War”….

Surging combat aircraft requires extensive predeployment of resources and was simply out of the question in September.

The Saudi armed forces were quite poor with no combat experience compared to the Iraqis. Even after working along side the Americans for 6 months with all the back up they had poor communications with the Americans leaving them out of the loop. When the Iraqis launched the attack on Khafji, the Saudi companies fled in panicked leaving the Marine companies cutoff and with out any warning. At Khafji they abandoned the town and retreated.

When ordered to take back the town by their King that night, they launched three unsuccessful uncoordinated ‘rushes’ with the Qatari’s, each beaten back by Iraqi fire, before they were finally able to take the town back. In fact that happened mostly because the Iraqi had lost 30 AFV/Tks to allied air strikes during that night forcing them to retreat the bulk of the battalion. Even after this, the last remaining Iraqis were still able to ambush the Saudi while they ‘celebrated’ the retaking the town.

These were not competent soldiers and if they were left on their own, they would have crumbled in the face of an Iraqi 'smash and dash' onslaught and would have been unable to retake a town like Khafji, barring any Airpower intervening.

The Iraqi supply system was reasonable but no were near as good as the allies. However during the Battles in 1988 ,they were able to sustain huge supplies of ammunition. Their artillery was firing 400 shells per gun per day, at a time when American guns were expected to fire that many shells in a week. In looking at the Iranians getting smashed during these battles, we would do well to remember effect of such a pounding on them.

The point is that the Iraqis where perfecting a rapid ‘smash and dash’ offensive technique that barring air interdiction, would have run over any Arab units in their path on the first attempt. With repeated costly attacks they also could have isolated American paratrooper units and broke through the front. This would be especially true if the allies had insufficient supplies and units to relieve them, which was the case at that time. Once through they could repeat Kuwait Invasion and stampede ~ 200 km south, again barring air interdiction, before they’d have to regroup and pause to allow their reinforcements and supplies to catch up to launch a second offensive, about 5-7 days later to take the ports and rest of the oil fields. Since the POD implies continuing the offensive this implies the Iraqi have stockpiled sufficent resources for two follow up offensives as they had done in 1988.

It only remains to destroy the myth of allied tactical air power to make this scenario workable. To do this we only have to rely on the arrogance of the Americans. In the first week after Kuwait Invasion, Schwarzkopf demanded a strategic air option if Bush turned to him and demanded attack or if the situation demanded it [IE the Iraqi continued the offensive]. Schwarzkopf called the Pentagon for help and they eventually dispatched Col Warden with his so called "Instant Thunder" plan the ‘revolution in warfare’.

Warden studying the WW-I “Schlieffen Plan” , conceptually argued that the Air force could be the ‘Right Wing’ that was so critical in that plans success. However his idea was not to geographically get around the enemy line to attack the heart of government and power , but over fly it and attack not only the heart of power but also all its apparatus of control and WMD etc. This was the first attempt at so called ‘decapitation strikes’ and he dubbed the plan ‘Instant Thunder’ . He argued that the best way for the air force to influence the out come of the war was to focus all of their airpower attacking strategic targets and IGNOR ANY requests or demands to attack enemy ground troops. The fact is the USAF had been trying to perfect a way they could fight and win a war almost entirely by itself since WW-II. This was just another feeble attempt in a succession of abortive campaigns. These attempts however had made the USAF the leading service branch for funding and budgets etc.

Like in the “Schlieffen Plan”, weakening of the Right wing would lead to failure, so the mortal sin would be to weaken the ‘Instant Thunder’ by sullying it with ‘tactical missions’.

General Horner in Riyadh baulked at Wardens plan and sent him packing, but his replacement Glosson , had little choice but to adopted the plan with the proviso that the last phase of the strategic air war would follow to destroy the Iraqi air force and air defenses. TAC & the NAVY were furious with the plan referring to it as ‘a prescription for disaster’ and dubbed it ‘Distant Blunder’. But Schwarzkopf had little choice for now and adopted it .

‘On September 22 Horner sent Schwarzkopf a message saying that he had enough logistics for a seven –day conflict , but cautioned that his supplies for fighting a thity-day war were “marginal”.‘

The Generals War , Gordon & Trainer pp 99

The implications are clear, they had limited resources [ a weeks worth of bombing] and wasting such missions and munitions on Iraqi ground forces was simply not on. Maybe by November, but no way in early September . Even if they had more logistics, the plan called for at least 7 days of strategic strikes followed by one day to take down the Iraqi air force and 3-4 days to take down the Iraqi air defense. That’s 10-12 days. So their would be precious little to attack the Iraqi as they launch their next offensive south to cut off the ports etc.
 
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And so the USAF cooperates with their enemy's battleplans... :rolleyes:
Question: If Saddam had considered a western response to the Kuwait invasion, and therefore prepared the logistics needed for a follow up invasion of Saudi Arabia, would he had invaded Kuwait to begin with?
(It's sort of rethoric, I don't think so. Hence any offensive into Saudi Arabia would be planned after invading Kuwait, not beforehand)
 
Question: If Saddam had considered a western response to the Kuwait invasion, and therefore prepared the logistics needed for a follow up invasion of Saudi Arabia, would he had invaded Kuwait to begin with?
(It's sort of rethoric, I don't think so. Hence any offensive into Saudi Arabia would be planned after invading Kuwait, not beforehand)
I propose an ATL where Saddam realizes that taking out Kuwait alone is not worth the effort, since the Coalition is going to come and kick his ass later on.
So he decides to take Kuwait and Saudi Arabia (or at least the vital ports), in order to stop the Coalition from moving in.
 

burmafrd

Banned
As an ammunition inspector who was there during Desert Storm (got there in December) I can tell you that Schwartzkof was always pessimistic regarding what he was getting early on. He took the worst possibility's and used them as the norm. By Sept 1 we did indeed have a seven days supply- a full combat 24 hr a day supply. I know this because as part of my job I had to know what items got to Saudi and when. Each unit had a full 10 units of fire minimum.

Also as someone who was pretty nosy and liked to talk to people I managed to get to know a lot about what happened in the month of August. We got a lot of firepower there pretty quickly. Schwartzkof (I know I am misspelling but eh) from day one wanted tank busters and firepower and put full priority on those needs.

By 1 Sept any attack Saddam made would have been stopped no more then 100 miles into Saudi.

ESL seems to forget that we had full satelite coverage of the entire gulf.
We would have know what unit was where any moment on any day. There would have been real time data of tghe whole area. No guess work or recon needed. THis is the desert we are talking about- any movement is very easy to see.
Carpet bombing by B-52's would have been horrific. By the way the Iraqi Air Force would have been totally incapeable of doing anything about it. The B-52's had the most advanced ECM around (remember our entire army was built around fighting the Warsaw Pact in Europe). ANd they would have been a whole lot more of a threat then the Iraqi Air Force.
ANYONE thinking they would have been more then a nuisance is on crack.

Air scatterable anti tank mines. We had a lot of them there as well. They would have been dropped right in the path of any advancing column. Once stopped by the mines then they would have been worked over by the tactical air power then anti tank choppers (we had a bunch of Apache's in early as well). And the marines would have already deployed their Huey's.


We already had 10 full battalions of MLRS ready to go. The Iraqi's with good reason called them Steel Rain.

I could go on but whats the point. Schwartzkof was paranoid about Saddam trying just such a thing as this thread postulates. Virtually everything he did the first 30-45 days was to prevent this from happening.

One must remember that our military was probably at its post WW2 peak in the few years before Desert Storm. The build up of the 80's had come to full fruition with all the equipment, supplies, training, etc.
The result was shown during Desert Storm. If not for the incompetence of Franks, a great deal more of the Republican Guard would have been destroyed.
 
Well, wait a minute. What Coalition forces were on the ground in Saudi Arabia on September 1? The 82nd and the 101st, and some British troops. Had the 24th Mech arrived yet? And the air assets that early on were nothing compared to what they were when Desert Storm began in January- they would still have defeated the Iraqi Air Force, I imagine, but it would have been a more even fight and the Iraqi Army could have captured the air bases on the ground.

I think Saddam's army would get as far as Jubail. With some luck, all the way to Dhahran since there are no natural obstacles on the way.

The factors I am thinking about this is how rabid will be the Saudi Arabian military respond to an invasion?

What kind of reaction will there be among fraternal Arab nations in view of a Iraqi invasion of Saudi Arabia's oil-rich Eastern Region.

Finally, with the available military units around September - October of 1990, what kind of response would the Coalition have made? Would they indeed stop the Iraqi Army in Jubail?
 
I propose an ATL where Saddam realizes that taking out Kuwait alone is not worth the effort, since the Coalition is going to come and kick his ass later on.
So he decides to take Kuwait and Saudi Arabia (or at least the vital ports), in order to stop the Coalition from moving in.


Another possible reason for Saddam invading Saudi Arabia could be specifically to kill the American soldiers there. Maybe he would think along the Vietnam War lines of "If I kill enough of them, the public will want to back down'. He could see the American build up and decide to head for the Coalition lines, and then for the ports, and then sue for a peace in which he would just keep Kuwait from what Saddam would think of as a good position. It would have to be in August, or as early as possible, due to what burmafrd said before it becomes obvious suicide.
 
Not to throw a kink in the ATL developed so far, but I'm curious what the general opinion would be if the US had either given Israel the IFF codes to allow them through the coalition air defense, or if Israel, under pressure from stepped up Scud attacks, accepted casualties in order to get through the coalition defenses to attack targets in western Iraq...
 

MacCaulay

Banned
If the figures in the books I have read and quoted are right, the only standing forces the allies would have on the ground would be the 82nd airborn division plus 3 US Airborn brigades from the 101 divisions backed up by a single USMC reinforced brigade. This would be reinforced with an Egyptian airborne brigade a pair of Saudi NG LAV brigades and maybe several Saudi mech brigades.

Thats all to cover about 400km front. If you hold the USMC brigades and a couple of the Saudi Mech brigades in reserve as counter attack force near the coast , that leaves 9 brigade units to front the 350-400km or assigning ~ 40km per brigade or 10-15km per battalion. The LAV brigades could patrol like a recon brigade such an area or larger but the leg mobile paras are in trouble defending against mechanized assault.

Invading Kuwiate the Iraqis coordinated three korps groups along pin and flanking manuevers so they could excute this type of offensive against the allies.The USA taught them this back in 1988. BTW the iraqis limits to roads would be on a corps movement which is also the case on Allied army movement. You need solid roads for logisitical trains no matter how good your army is.

The Iraqis could mount diverging attacks along the three main invasion routes with the first echelon of infantry corps/divisions, forcing the allies to keep their reserves inplace to cover all three routes. The RG corps could then 'steam roll' down the coast, inside of a week to be stopped temporarily by the US marine brigade . A follow up offensive a week later would take them to the ports and oil fields.

galveston bay said:
Most of it would have been there by the end of the 2nd Week, with the 24th ID and 2nd ACR after a month (at most). About the time when a counteroffensive would have jumped off. The 1st Cavalry would have arrived after 6 weeks (from Sept 1).

At that point in time (very early September), there were elements of the 1st Combat Helicopter Regiment, 3rd Combat Helicopter Regiment, 2 companies of the Rifle Regiment, and a fair amount of light armoured vehicles (mostly AMX-30s and what not) from elements detached from 2nd Armoured and the Foreign Legion.

They were all operating under the 6th Light Armoured Division banner., and the units that I've highlighted were embarked and on their way to Saudi at the time of the PoD, the main mission was to augment the US Airborne forces.

So the French also would've been there, and with a fair amount of tank killing capability. I'm not so sure about the Mirages and whatnot. I'll have to do more research. This is actually something I was thinking about trying to hammer out into a story, but I'll admit my PoD was earlier.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
This is probably the time to ask: is anyone planning on writing this? Because I've got the openning written, and if someone else is going to lay claim to this I'm not going to spend time hammering out something that's just going to be doubling up in the Writer's Forum.
 
Some points that might be useful if someone is writing a TL for this.

1. Dont forget the RAF when it comes to airpower, they deployed very quickly after Saddam invaded Kuwait, prehaps we could see the Tornado F3 in action.

2. If the need is for as much airpower as quickly as possible, then could the French with either the Foch or Clemancue or the Brits with 1 or 2 Invincibles have deployed carriers?

3. British Ground units that could be deployed quickly could have been marines or Paras.

4. I think that the GCC states (Bharain, Qatar, Oman and UAE), would have made all their forces available.

5. An Iraqi Scud attack on Turkey (mentioned at the beginning of the thread) would have been an attack on NATO, what about article 5?

6. If we see a full scale shooting war involving hundreds of Brit casultities I dont think Thatcher would have been replaced as PM by Major. Which could be interesting.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
Some points that might be useful if someone is writing a TL for this.

1. Dont forget the RAF when it comes to airpower, they deployed very quickly after Saddam invaded Kuwait, prehaps we could see the Tornado F3 in action.

There were a lot of air forces spooling up that didn't get there until after the air war was over, or were overshadowed by the USAF, RAF, and Armee de l'Air.

2. If the need is for as much airpower as quickly as possible, then could the French with either the Foch or Clemancue or the Brits with 1 or 2 Invincibles have deployed carriers?
The Foch was already on the way with the French ground troops. Super Etendards on deck.

4. I think that the GCC states (Bharain, Qatar, Oman and UAE), would have made all their forces available.
Take a look at the Battle of Khafji, where the Iraqis actually did cross into Iraq.
 
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