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Iraq war tank battles12/17/2022 ![]() Milan anti tank weapon strike rates were about 1 in 6, Sagger (Soviet Anti tank weapon) were about 1 in 20!Īlthough the Iraqis had about 5500 tanks 90% were designed over 30 years ago and were nearly harmless to a modern MBT. Crucially both the Army and the Air force lacked the ability to fight at night and their marksmanship was poor. Two Elite formations also existed, Special Forces and Naval infantry. Out of 60 Divisions 9 were armored and 5 mechanized, (2 of each being Republican Guard. The reserves where badly trained and the Army had suffered from purges of its command (those who fell out of favor with Sadam normally had fatal helicopter accidents) it is also highly centralized a feature of dictatorships which made it very vulnerable. The Army had not fully recovered from the Iran/Iraq war many units were undermanned and desperately short of technicians. But this was misleading, as the War was later to show. On paper the Iraqi Armed forces were impressive, they could field over 1 million men making them the 4th largest Army in the world. ![]() By December 1990 it was clear the Iraqis were digging in, and foolishly throughout the following Coalition build up he left their forces in Saudi Arabia unmolested. Maybe he was unable to support his forces logistically? Maybe he feared retaliation? No one knows, but this was to be possibly his only chance to win the War. He had 130,000 men 1,200 tanks and 800 guns against only 72,000 Arabians, if he had invaded it would have provoked a stronger international response but with Arabian airfields and ports in his hands it would have made any liberation very difficult indeed. Saddam Hussein then made his first big mistake, his forces stopped at the Saudi Arabian border. It was well organized with Heli-bourne and Amphibious assaults, with Special Forces landing at key sites and ground controllers disguised as civilians going on ahead to direct Armour. On 2nd Aug 1990 100,000 Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait spearhead by 3 divisions of the Republican Guard. The only intelligence agency to predict the invasion was the CIA and then it was on the day before the Iraqis invaded, (not much use!). Even when conflict looked likely it was thought that if they did invade it would be for limited objectives such as the oil field, (this is what Gen Schwarzkopf believed). With the Western powers focused on Europe and the end of the Cold War few paid much attention to the Iraqis threats to Kuwait a "Rich, small vulnerable state". The Iraqis owed half this oil field and wanted the rest of it, so they accused the Kuwaitis of stealing oil from the Iraqi half of the oil field. ![]() He had a second grievance with Kuwait that of the Rumalia oil field in northern Kuwait. Kuwait agreed to lower production but this failed to pacify Sadamm Hussain. It accused Kuwait of overproducing and flooding the market with cheap oil. It was these tactics of chemical and artillery bombardment, which the Coalition forces were expecting during the later Gulf war, and these debts, which were the seeds of that future conflict.īy 1990 Iraq was in severe financial difficulties the price of oil was low and Iraq relied on this as its main source of income. The war left Iraq with over $80 billion worth of debts mainly to Kuwait. The Waterway was so clogged with silt and debris it was now useless. In the 1988 the Iraqis changed tactics and by using chemical weapons, massive artillery bombardments and the Republican Guard it made rapid advances rolling back the Iranians until when the War ended they had gained 500 miles of territory. For years Iraqi steadily lost ground against the numerically superior but technologically inferior Iranians. In 1980 Iraqi invaded over a border dispute over the ownership of the Shatt Al Arab waterway which borders the two countries. From 1980 to 1988 Iraqi fought a bloody war against its neighbor Iran. Although we tend to call the 1990/91 conflict the Gulf War this was not the first Gulf war in this region. First it is necessary to look at the background history for this turbulent area of the World. ![]()
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