WI: August 1990 Gulf War

Delta Force

Banned
The majority of Coalition resources used in the 1990 Gulf War were brought into the theatre by USN sealift, with the Coalition having months to prepare for combat operations. What if instead of allowing Operation Desert Shield to build up during August 1990-Janurary 1991, Saddam declared the partition of the Saudi-Kuwaiti Neutral Zone to have been illegal and invades Saudi Arabia to take control of the area? Given its extensive experience in anti-ship warfare and the slower speed with which Coalition resources would be able to arrive, would the Iraqis be able to achieve victory in Northern Saudi Arabia and stave off the USN?
 
An interesting concept.

I doubt an Iraqi victory. The USA and the rest of the world would not see the invasion of Saudi Arabia as lightly as they did Kuwait. I forsee an even more massive air campaign against Saddam to supplement the lack of troops America would muster. The USA would start mobilizing troops ASAP to move to Saudi Arabia, and the UK and other nations may mobilize more of their troops than in our TL. In short, Saddam gets curb-stomped out of his mind.

I actually wouldn't put it past the American administration to use strategic bombing as an excuse for targeted killing to remove Saddam power before things get out of hand. Also, would Iraq be using chemical weapons?
 
Remember that the Coalition can also stage out of Turkey if need be. If Saddam invades Saudi Arabia, there's no way that the West or the other Arab states will leave him in power.
 

Delta Force

Banned
Wouldn't getting ground forces through Eastern Turkey or across Saudi Arabia be a massive logistical exercise in its own right? I imagine railroad and highway infrastructure is poorly developed in those areas, if it exists at all. Cargo aircraft would have to do constant short haul flights to bring reinforcements and supplies to the front lines, otherwise it would probably have to off-road through harsh mountain and desert terrain. Sealift through the Persian Gulf isn't really an option if Iraq decides to use tanker war tactics against Coalition naval forces.
 
The logistical sword is a two-edged one. It's true that the Coalition's supply lines would be, shall we say, interesting, but the Iraqi supply lines really aren't adequate to support any serious invasion of Saudi territory, either, particularly once Coalition air assets go to work on their transport network.

I'm not sure 'tanker war' tactics would work very well on naval vessels, either. Warships have defensive systems that tankers lacked, and much better resistance to damage. They also have the option of not entering contested waters...a CVN doesn't have to get terribly close to an area to project power into it, nor does a DDG or CG firing cruise missiles.

I think that had the Iraqi army tried to push into Saudi Arabia, it would wind up in the worst of all possible positions (low on food, fuel, ammo, and everything else except the enemy) in hostile territory, and that's before Coalition ground forces get involved. Once they do, this scenario is going to turn into a mechanized version of the Trail of Tears as they get pushed all the way back to Baghdad.
 
I gamed this one out in 1993 using the 'Gulf Strike' game system. Yes the iraqi army could overrun the oil fields of eastern Arabia. Yes they had logistical difficulties that would prevent the establishment of a large army among the oil fields, and even greater difficulties advancing south west to Mecca or Medina.

Yes the US & Allies have a more difficult time ejecting the Iraqi army. I did see that a amphibious operation along the Gulf coast of Arabia would threaten the Iraqi supply route, which sea mines could slow but not prevent.


Beyond the game board, I agree such a action by iraq would lead to proposals for occupation of Bagdahd and dismemberment of the Baathist government.

The serious problem underlying all this would be destruction of Saudi oil industry. Were a noticeable number of wells set afire, refineries damaged, and loading docks rendered unusable there will global economic repercussions.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Iraqi still lose, but it is much worse for world economy. The big question is if the Iraqi's can get to Ghawar. It is hard to overstate the importance of this oil field. There is no way Saddam takes all the ports in Persian Gulf side of Arabia, so USA still has place to land. Still can use Jeddah in West. Once you own the oil fields, not so sure shooting at tankers helps or is wise. Don't want to shoot Iranian tankers. You have the biggest oilfields. You can dream of negotiate peace, which I would not absolutely rule out.
 

Delta Force

Banned
If the Iraqis can make it to Dammam they will gain control of Saudi Arabia's largest Persian Gulf port and the newly completed King Fahd International Airport, depriving the Coalition of its use. Capturing Dammam would also compromise Riyadh by severing the only railway network in Saudi Arabia, forcing all supplies to be trucked or flown in.
 
Coalition rapid reaction forces stop the Iraqis cold.

Its more then just the logistics the Iraqis had problems with... look at their performance during the Iran-Iraq War:

http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/least-competent-national-military-force-of-the-20th-century.117762/page-2#post-3170537 said:
The Iranians were outnumbered for most of the war. Often badly. While Iran had a larger population with a larger draft pool, the problem was the Iranian logistic system totally collapsed after the revolution and was never rebuilt. As a result the Iranians could rarely keep more than 400,000 troops in the field, while the Iraqis routinely had 600-800,000 men.

And the Iraqis were much better armed too. By the time Iran went onto the offensive, Iraq had over 5,000 tanks, while Iran had about 500 left operational at any one time. Iran's divisions were entirely light infantry, while the Iraqis had substantial armoured and mechanized divisions with plentiful artillery and air support. A picture-perfect modern mechanized army.

On paper, the force Iraqis had should have been able to roll all the way to Tehran. Instead they got bogged down a few miles over the border, and then in '81 and '82 got routed by an infantry army half their size.

The human wave is a highly popularized but rather minor part of the Iranian tactical repertoir, and one they used more as a distraction to fix Iraqi attention rather than as the main effort. Had that been the sum of their tactics they could have charged at the Iraqis with millions of troops and made no headway.

More commonly, the Iranians would conduct extensive patrolling at night to find weakpoints in the Iraqi lines. Then they would move up as many tanks and artillery pieces as they could get to a critical sector and suppress the defenses, while the infantry charged through the gaps and into the Iraqi flanks and rear. The irreplaceable tanks would then withdraw, and the Iranian infantry would go about encircling and destroying the penetrated armoured and mechanized formations.

These tactics were highly effective against the Iraqis who despite their vastly superior potential mobility nevertheless tended to sit immobile in their firebases while the Iranians moved around them, to the point that time and time again Iranian RPG tank hunter teams were able to wipe out entire tank batallions and brigades as they sat static waiting for orders.

The Iranians were creative and intelligent in their attacks, and often used unorthodox tactics which stunned the rigid Iraqis, but they were hardly a juggernaught. Their leadership had been purged and many of their troops had little experience, and they had a chronic lack of firepower. The biggest thing the Iranians had going for them was the Iraqis were utterly execrable. Flanked Iraqi units would not respond, sitting still and just shooting from where they sat while Iranians swarmed over their positions, Iraqi units with clear opportunities for manuever and counterattack would not take them, and when ordered to attack the Iraqis would clank forward at halting speed in direct and poorly co-ordinated frontal attacks, allowing the footborne Iranians time to build up a defense.

The astonishing ease with which Iranian infantry could penetrate Iraqi lines is illustrated by the first Iranian attack on Basra. The Iranians attacked with 90,000 light infantry and 200 tanks. Facing them were over 200,000 mechanized infantry and over 2,000 tanks deployed in an impressive set of six defensive lines over 50km deep that the Iraqis had built over the summer of 1982. The Iranians hit the Iraqi lines on 19 June and by the 1st of July had penetrated to the very last defensive line before ferocious though clumsy Iraqi armoured counter attacks halted them and bogged the battle down into a stalemate that lasted into August, before the worn out Iranians finally decided to withdraw.

The battle was technically an Iraqi victory, but not much of one - an armoured and mechanized force, dug in prepared defenses had barely managed to halt a light infantry force half its size with negligeable armoured support. Worse, they had taken almost two months to do so, taking heavy losses in the process. Indeed Iraqi losses were so heavy that an entire tank division - the 9th - was disbanded.

And don't think the Iraqis had actually learned their lesson by Desert Storm:

Arabs at War said:
For example, the 52nd Armored Brigade was deployed with the rest of the 52nd Armored Division as the operational reserve of the Iraqi VII Corps and, therefore, its primary mission was to counterattack a Coalition attack against one of VII Corps infantry divisions. Late on 24 February, the commander of the 52nd Brigade recieved a frantic message from the headquarters of the 48th Infantry Division - directly in front of his unit - that they were being overrun by American armored forces.

Because he had not recieved orders from divisional command, the officer did nothing: He did not execute his primary mission by moving to support the embattled 48th Division; he did not ready his Brigade to move or fight; he did not even contact divisional headquarters to report the message and ask if he should counterattack. As a result the 48th Infantry Division was overwhelmed by the US 1st Mechanized Division, and the 52nd Brigade was later overrun by the British 1st Armoured Division without much of a fight.

Of course, the Saudis are quite possibly the only military in the region that are worse then the Iraqis for various reasons, hence why it will be the rapid reaction forces that really stop the Iraqis.
 
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I am also under the impression that the Arabic world could handle the invasion of Kuwait, but not of Saudi. (I was in Saudi in 1993).

Kuwait had made itself quite un-popular throughout by insisting on repayments from Saddam. Saudi thought it not quite cricket to behave like that.

Invasion of Saudi is a different matter. Saudi, being home to the two Mosques and ruled by the King, has a huge influence.

Saddam stayed away from Saudi, I think, exactly because of the condemantion he otherwise would have got, followed by action.

It was widely discussed in the Muslim world what to do with one Muslim country waging war on another Muslim Country. And Arab vs Arab which was also unheard of.

I don't think there would have been much discussion if Saudi had been invaded. It would have been full force ahead. Althouh Saddam spoke out agaisnt the King, he dared not do anything.

That leaves a discussion about the means to do anything. It would have to be US forces and equipment, but entry points would have been numerous.

Could Horner and Stormin' Norman have pushed up the time frames? WI the Saudi bases had been occupied?

Desert Shield did produce the result, but could it have been done with less? was it a slegehammer to crack a nut?

WI Norman had access to far less resources and got the task to get moving by September/October?

Ivan
 
It's very likely that the Saudis would be more likely to listen to a construction engineer who had returned from Afghanistan recently.
 

James G

Gone Fishin'
Into Saudi Arabia

Saddam and his generals would have to read a book on logistics first.
After they stormed Kuwait, they outran their supply lines - which, IIRC, were a damn bad joke to put it mildy.
Going any further south wasn't something that they could do without massive preparation beforehand.
 
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