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24~27 FEB 1991 : Persian Gulf War Desert Storm
This article is for strategy study purpose. Hope students can understand this war more by text description and military
situation map hybrid.
The text contents are partly from wikipedia. (chapter 8 Ground campaign)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War
The military situation maps are drew by warmap.org.
Swarzkov’s Initial Strategy
Objetive
1. recovery the kuwait
2. flank attack the republican guard
3. block the retreat route (Euphrates river), and destroy Iraqi army
Method
1. air-superiority to block the supply of Iraq army, and destory the troops and weapons as possilbe.
2. right hook, attack the weakness of iraq defense from desert.
3. strategy gravity on VII and XVIII army.
4. Containment attack on MARCENT.
Strategy modification (when execution)
1. keep compressive persuit.
2. collapse enemy troop.
Result
1. recovery Kuwait.
2. almost destory Iraqi troop.
3. slight casualties on US and allied side.
Ground campaign
Direct download pictures, and use cellphone app to
check detailed pictures
The ground campaign consisted of three or possibly four of the largest tank battles in American military history.
The battles at 73 Easting, Norfolk, and Medina Ridge are well noted for their historic significance. Some consider the
battle of Medina Ridge the largest tank battle of the war. The U.S. Marine Corps also fought the biggest tank
battle in its history at Kuwait International Airport. The U.S. 3rd Armored Division also fought a significant battle
at Objective Dorset not far from where the battle of Norfolk was taking place. The U.S. 3rd Armored Division destroyed
approximately 300 enemy combat vehicles during this particular encounter with Iraqi forces. The Iraqis suffered
the loss of over 3,000 tanks and over 2,000 other combat vehicles during these battles against the American-led
coalition.
Kuwait's liberation
US decoy attacks by air attacks and naval gunfire the night before Kuwait's liberation were designed to make the Iraqis
believe the main coalition ground attack would focus on central Kuwait.
For months, American units in Saudi Arabia had been under almost constant Iraqi artillery fire, as well as threats from
Scud missile or chemical attacks. On 24 February 1991, the 1st and 2nd Marine Divisions and the 1st Light Armored
Infantry Battalion crossed into Kuwait and headed toward Kuwait City. They encountered trenches, barbed wire, and
minefields. However, these positions were poorly defended, and were overrun in the first few hours. Several tank battles
took place, but otherwise coalition troops encountered minimal resistance, as most Iraqi troops surrendered. The general
pattern was that the Iraqis would put up a short fight before surrendering. However, Iraqi air defenses shot down nine
US aircraft. Meanwhile, forces from Arab states advanced into Kuwait from the east, encountering little resistance and
suffering few casualties.
Despite the successes of coalition forces, it was feared that the Iraqi Republican Guard would escape into Iraq before it
could be destroyed. It was decided to send British armored forces into Kuwait 15 hours ahead of schedule, and to
send US forces after the Republican Guard. The coalition advance was preceded by a heavy artillery and rocket barrage,
after which 150,000 troops and 1,500 tanks began their advance. Iraqi forces in Kuwait counterattacked against US
troops, acting on a direct order from Saddam Hussein himself. Despite the intense combat, the Americans repulsed the
Iraqis and continued to advance towards Kuwait City.
Kuwaiti forces were tasked with liberating the city. Iraqi troops offered only light resistance. The Kuwaitis quickly liberated
the city despite losing one soldier and having one plane shot down. On 27 February, Saddam ordered a retreat from
Kuwait, and President Bush declared it liberated. However, an Iraqi unit at Kuwait International Airport appeared not to
have received the message and fiercely resisted. US Marines had to fight for hours before securing the airport, after which
Kuwait was declared secure. After four days of fighting, Iraqi forces were expelled from Kuwait. As part of a scorched
earth policy, they set fire to nearly 700 oil wells and placed land mines around the wells to make extinguishing the fires
more difficult.
Initial moves into Iraq
The war's ground phase was officially designated Operation Desert Saber. The first units to move into Iraq were three
patrols of the British Special Air Service's B squadron, call signs Bravo One Zero, Bravo Two Zero, and Bravo Three
Zero, in late January. These eight-man patrols landed behind Iraqi lines to gather intelligence on the movements of
Scud mobile missile launchers, which could not be detected from the air, as they were hidden under bridges and
camouflage netting during the day.Other objectives included the destruction of the launchers and their fiber-optic
communications arrays that lay in pipelines and relayed coordinates to the TEL operators that were launching attacks
against Israel. The operations were designed to prevent any possible Israeli intervention. Due to lack of sufficient
ground cover to carry out their assignment, One Zero and Three Zero abandoned their operations, while Two Zero
remained, and was later compromised, with only Sergeant Chris Ryan escaping to Syria.
Elements of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Battalion 5th Cavalry of the 1st Cavalry Division of the US Army performed a direct
attack into Iraq on 15 February 1991, followed by one in force on 20 February that led directly through seven Iraqi
divisions which were caught off guard. On 17 January 1991 the 101st Airborne Division Aviation Regiment fired the
first shots of the war when eight AH-64 helicopters successfully destroyed two Iraqi early warning radar sites. From
15–20 February, the Battle of Wadi Al-Batin took place inside Iraq; this was the first of two attacks by 1 Battalion 5th
Cavalry of the 1st Cavalry Division. It was a feint attack, designed to make the Iraqis think that a coalition invasion
would take place from the south. The Iraqis fiercely resisted, and the Americans eventually withdrew as planned back
into the Wadi Al-Batin. Three US soldiers were killed and nine wounded, with one M2 Bradley IFV turret destroyed,
but they had taken 40 prisoners and destroyed five tanks, and successfully deceived the Iraqis. This attack
led the way for the XVIII Airborne Corps to sweep around behind the 1st Cav and attack Iraqi forces to the west. On
22 February 1991, Iraq agreed to a Soviet-proposed ceasefire agreement. The agreement called for Iraq to withdraw
troops to pre-invasion positions within six weeks following a total ceasefire, and called for monitoring of the ceasefire and
withdrawal to be overseen by the UN Security Council.
The coalition rejected the proposal, but said that retreating Iraqi forces would not be attacked, and gave 24 hours for
Iraq to withdraw its forces. On 23 February, fighting resulted in the capture of 500 Iraqi soldiers. On 24 February,
British and American armored forces crossed the Iraq–Kuwait border and entered Iraq in large numbers, taking
hundreds of prisoners. Iraqi resistance was light, and four Americans were killed.
Coalition forces enter Iraq
Shortly afterwards, the US VII Corps, in full strength and spearheaded by the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment,
launched an armored attack into Iraq early on 24 February, just to the west of Kuwait, taking Iraqi forces by surprise.
Simultaneously, the US XVIII Airborne Corps launched a sweeping "left-hook" attack across southern Iraq's largely
undefended desert, led by the US 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment and the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized).
This movement's left flank was protected by the French Division Daguet. The 101st Airborne Division conducted a
combat air assault into enemy territory.
The 101st Airborne Division had struck 155 miles behind enemy lines. It was the deepest air assault operation in
history. Approximately 400 helicopters transported 2,000 soldiers into Iraq where they destroyed Iraqi columns
trying to flee westward and prevented the escape of Iraqi forces. The 101st Airborne Division travelled a further
fifty to sixty miles into Iraq. By nightfall, the 101st cut off Highway 8 which was a vital supply line running between
Basra and the Iraqi forces. The 101st had lost 16 soldiers in action during the 100-hour war and captured
thousands of enemy prisoners of war.
The French force quickly overcame Iraq's 45th Infantry Division, suffering light casualties and taking a large number
of prisoners, and took up blocking positions to prevent an Iraqi counterattack on the coalition's flank. The
movement's right flank was protected by the United Kingdom's 1st Armoured Division. Once the allies had penetrated
deep into Iraqi territory, they turned eastward, launching a flank attack against the elite Republican Guard before it
could escape. The Iraqis resisted fiercely from dug-in positions and stationary vehicles, and even mounted armored
charges.
Unlike many previous engagements, the destruction of the first Iraqi tanks did not result in a mass surrender. The
Iraqis suffered massive losses and lost dozens of tanks and vehicles, while US casualties were comparatively low,
with a single Bradley knocked out. Coalition forces pressed another 10 km into Iraqi territory, and captured their
objective within three hours. They took 500 prisoners and inflicted heavy losses, defeating Iraq's 26th Infantry
Division. A US soldier was killed by an Iraqi land mine, another five by friendly fire, and 30 wounded during the battle.
Meanwhile, British forces attacked Iraq's Medina Division and a major Republican Guard logistics base. In nearly two
days of some of the war's most intense fighting, the British destroyed 40 enemy tanks and captured a division
commander.
Meanwhile, US forces attacked the village of Al Busayyah, meeting fierce resistance. The US force destroyed a
considerable amount of military hardware and took prisoners, while suffering no casualties.
On 25 February 1991, Iraqi forces fired a Scud missile at an American barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The missile
attack killed 28 US military personnel.
The coalition's advance was much swifter than US generals had expected. On 26 February, Iraqi troops began
retreating from Kuwait, after they had set 737 of its oil wells on fire. A long convoy of retreating Iraqi troops
formed along the main Iraq–Kuwait highway. Although they were retreating, this convoy was bombed so extensively
by coalition air forces that it came to be known as the Highway of Death. Thousands of Iraqi troops were killed.
American, British, and French forces continued to pursue retreating Iraqi forces over the border and back into Iraq,
eventually moving to within 150 miles (240 km) of Baghdad, before withdrawing back to Iraq's border with Kuwait and
Saudi Arabia.
One hundred hours after the ground campaign started, on 28 February, President Bush declared a ceasefire, and he
also declared that Kuwait had been liberated.
The end of active hostilities
In coalition-occupied Iraqi territory, a peace conference was held where a ceasefire agreement was negotiated and
signed by both sides. At the conference, Iraq was authorized to fly armed helicopters on their side of the temporary
border, ostensibly for government transit due to the damage done to civilian infrastructure. Soon after, these
helicopters and much of Iraq's military were used to fight an uprising in the south. The rebellions were encouraged
by an airing of "The Voice of Free Iraq" on 2 February 1991, which was broadcast from a CIA-run radio station out
of Saudi Arabia. The Arabic service of the Voice of America supported the uprising by stating that the rebellion was
well supported, and that they soon would be liberated from Saddam.
In the North, Kurdish leaders took American statements that they would support an uprising to heart, and began
fighting, hoping to trigger a coup d'état. However, when no US support came, Iraqi generals remained loyal to
Saddam and brutally crushed the Kurdish uprising. Millions of Kurds fled across the mountains to Turkey and Kurdish
areas of Iran. These events later resulted in no-fly zones being established in northern and southern Iraq. In Kuwait,
the Emir was restored, and suspected Iraqi collaborators were repressed. Eventually, over 400,000 people were
expelled from the country, including a large number of Palestinians, because of PLO support of Saddam. Yasser
Arafat didn't apologize for his support of Iraq, but after his death, the Fatah under Mahmoud Abbas' authority
formally apologized in 2004.
There was some criticism of the Bush administration, as they chose to allow Saddam to remain in power instead of
pushing on to capture Baghdad and overthrowing his government. In their co-written 1998 book, A World Transformed,
Bush and Brent Scowcroft argued that such a course would have fractured the alliance, and would have had many
unnecessary political and human costs associated with it.
In 1992, the US Defense Secretary during the war, Dick Cheney, made the same point:
I would guess if we had gone in there, we would still have forces in Baghdad today. We'd be running the country.
We would not have been able to get everybody out and bring everybody home.
And the final point that I think needs to be made is this question of casualties. I don't think you could have done
all of that without significant additional US casualties, and while everybody was tremendously impressed with the
low cost of the (1991) conflict, for the 146 Americans who were killed in action and for their families, it wasn't a
cheap war.
And the question in my mind is, how many additional American casualties is Saddam [Hussein] worth? And the
answer is, not that damned many. So, I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait,
but also when the President made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go
get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq.
On 10 March 1991, 540,000 US troops began moving out of the Persian Gulf.
On March 15, 1991, the US-led coalition restored to power Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah, the unelected
authoritarian ruler of Kuwait. Kuwaiti democracy advocates had been calling for restoration of Parliament that
the Emir had suspended in 1986.
Maps Reference:
1. Norman Schwarzkopf, It Doesn't Take a Hero : The Autobiography of General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, New York : Bantam, 1993.
2. War in the persian gulf: operations desert shield and desert storm
Washington D.C.: Center of Military History United States Army, 2010.
Source PDF file: https://history.army.mil/html/books/070/70-117-1/CMH_70-117-1.pdf
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Post time 2018-10-3 20:42:31
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