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A story about planning for Desert Storm

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Re: A story about planning for Desert Storm

#51

Post by lmickh »

chasd00 wrote: post #12
numlocked wrote: post #6

Wow, I have never heard this before: “Few people remember it, but Gorbachev was negotiating with Saddam and had successfully convinced him to pull out of Kuwait. The agreement they came up with would give the Iraqis three weeks to pull out. At this point, it had become a major goal to eliminate the Republican Guard and we didn’t want them to pull their head out of the noose, so President Bush turned down the compromi…

> ordered the ground forces in as i recall, the air war was so devastating there wasn't much of a purpose for ground troops and when it came time to "order the ground forces in" most of the work was just walking across Kuwait. They even made a movie about how much of a let down the ground war was to the Marines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarhead_(film)

I wouldn't go so far as to say there wasn't much purpose for the ground troops in the context of the goal of eliminating Iraqi military capabilities. It involved some of the largest tank battles in US history such as the Battle of Norfolk and the Battle of the 73 Easting. While we look back at some of these as a steam roll in hindsight, the truth is the engagements were larger than most of the armor battles in WW2 involving the US.

The marine advancement in to Kuwait that was part of a larger multi-national push that much of the Iraqi forces were running from. The push by 1st Inf Div, 2nd ACR, and others on the west was to cut off that retreat.

Combat theaters are large and it is never a good idea to take a narrow view of them and generalize it to the whole. The father of my childhood friend used to tell us how his deployment in Vietnam as an MP was some of the best time in his life. He spent his entire time on a post relatively far from the fighting largely killing his time trying to surf and eat BBQ.

Re: A story about planning for Desert Storm

#52

Post by nickdothutton »

88840-8855 wrote: post #34
xyzzy21 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just google "gorbachev saddam 1991" The answer is "pretty much true".

I took now half an hour to check sources on that and it seems to be pretty much the color. Curious that nobody asked to sanction the US to destroy their economy and to isolate them for that war... or any of the other wars.

Actually in the end the US went soft on Iraq. Thatcher wanted to roll into Baghdad and clean it out properly (or, she argued we’d find ourselves there again in a decade or 2). Bush disagreed.

Re: A story about planning for Desert Storm

#53

Post by wrp »

Arainach wrote: post #22

This seems to have flown entirely over my head: QJM == Quantified Judgment Model. Other than what the acronym stands for, I'm still not sure what it is or why it's better, as this article never explains. The best short explanation I've found is "The QJM consists of two submodels whose interactions represent several battlefield intangibles such as leadership, morale, and training." [1] WEI/WUV (that's one thing, not t…

PDF for [2] at https://info-gap.net.technion.ac.il/files/2018/05/mil-eff006...

Christopher Lawrence took over after Dupuy. He explains the current state of their project in War by Numbers (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32824088-war-by-numbers). He brings this methodology to bear on some recent conflicts in America's Modern Wars (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22224145-america-s-moder...). Reviews have been very skeptical.[1,2]

[1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0968344517747141k

[2] https://www.miwsr.com/2016/downloads/2016-039.pdf [PDF]

Re: A story about planning for Desert Storm

#54

Post by trhway »

robonerd wrote: post #19
numlocked wrote: post #6

Wow, I have never heard this before: “Few people remember it, but Gorbachev was negotiating with Saddam and had successfully convinced him to pull out of Kuwait. The agreement they came up with would give the Iraqis three weeks to pull out. At this point, it had become a major goal to eliminate the Republican Guard and we didn’t want them to pull their head out of the noose, so President Bush turned down the compromi…

Have you heard of the 'Highway of Death' ? Iraqi forces were retreating on that highway, on their way back to Iraq. Coalition forces did not want to permit that, and slaughtered them. Thousands of vehicles destroyed, hundreds+ soldiers killed, thousands more captured. I can't say I feel much sympathy towards the Iraqis here, but it does seem a tad bit vindictive.

>I can't say I feel much sympathy towards the Iraqis here, but it does seem a tad bit vindictive.

they could have always surrender and become POW.

Re: A story about planning for Desert Storm

#55

Post by kenneth »

xyzzy21 wrote: post #25
techdmn wrote: post #8

I'm shocked at the lack of humanity in this story. Every once in a while an "enemy" will start a war, and we'll get a bunch of coverage about orphans and mothers and fathers and horror, and I think maybe just maybe people will realize that all wars are terrible. Except when we start them, then I guess it's mostly kind of funny because our intelligence wasn't as great as it could have been?

This is what war is all about. This is why many want cooler heads to prevail in the Russia-Ukraine war now! Those who have lived through war know how horrific and uncontrollable it is and how sociopathic you need to become to wage it successfully. Intelligence is the first problem. Then the model to fit it to. Then the conclusions to take from it. Each layer is HIGHLY prone to error. Just an example: precision muniti…

Sometimes, war is necessary and early action prevents a far worse outcome. You could argue that if Hitler had been dealt with earlier (e.g. when he invaded Poland), he would not have been able to get started causing such a rampage. But fear and inaction by other European powers at the time caused him to be emboldened by early success, and to pick off neighbors one by one.

I would argue Russia is in a very similar position today, and if we don't act decisively now, we're just enabling Putin to do far more damage in the long run. The risk of WWIII and a nuclear exchange does exist, but the risk of on inaction is just as high.

Re: A story about planning for Desert Storm

#56

Post by zaphirplane »

trhway wrote: post #54
robonerd wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you heard of the 'Highway of Death' ? Iraqi forces were retreating on that highway, on their way back to Iraq. Coalition forces did not want to permit that, and slaughtered them. Thousands of vehicles destroyed, hundreds+ soldiers killed, thousands more captured. I can't say I feel much sympathy towards the Iraqis here, but it does seem a tad bit vindictive.

>I can't say I feel much sympathy towards the Iraqis here, but it does seem a tad bit vindictive. they could have always surrender and become POW.

I have mo idea what your background is. How do you imagine a cog in an authoritarian country to surrender during a war. Mutiny, summary executions, retaliation against family, shamed as a coward.

Many did when command and control broke down

Re: A story about planning for Desert Storm

#57

Post by audiometry »

numlocked wrote: post #6

Wow, I have never heard this before: “Few people remember it, but Gorbachev was negotiating with Saddam and had successfully convinced him to pull out of Kuwait. The agreement they came up with would give the Iraqis three weeks to pull out. At this point, it had become a major goal to eliminate the Republican Guard and we didn’t want them to pull their head out of the noose, so President Bush turned down the compromi…

Imagine if it were true. Then maybe no Forever Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.

Or something else horrid and gross would have developed.

Re: A story about planning for Desert Storm

#58

Post by robonerd »

pmoriarty wrote: post #29
robonerd wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you heard of the 'Highway of Death' ? Iraqi forces were retreating on that highway, on their way back to Iraq. Coalition forces did not want to permit that, and slaughtered them. Thousands of vehicles destroyed, hundreds+ soldiers killed, thousands more captured. I can't say I feel much sympathy towards the Iraqis here, but it does seem a tad bit vindictive.

"I can't say I feel much sympathy towards the Iraqis here" Why wouldn't you feel sympathy for people who were killed or maimed, and their families?

It's funny how I got some comments insinuating that I have too much sympathy, and yours which seems to say I have too little. I'll address both in this single comment.

What little sympathy I have, is because people died. I don't have more sympathy because 1) those Iraqis invaded another country. 2) They didn't surrender. I am well aware that retreating but not surrendering soldiers get shot in wars, and I'm not particularly upset about it when those soldiers are on the belligerent side. I have some shred of sympathy for them, only because they are still human.

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