A History of War in 100 Battles by Richard Overy

Author:Richard Overy [Overy, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2014-10-01T07:00:00+00:00

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No. 52 OPERATION DESERT STORM

17 January – 28 February 1991

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The brief campaign in which the American-led Coalition compelled the Iraqi army of Saddam Hussein to abandon its occupation of Kuwait was the first test of a whole generation of modern weaponry. The outcome of the final 100-hour battle was made possible by the significant technical margin between the two sides. Nevertheless, as with all innovations, victory also depended on the way in which the forces using them were deployed operationally on the battlefield. Here there also existed a decisive contrast between the two sides.

The technical gap between the Iraqi and Coalition forces was not the result of simple asymmetric warfare. Iraq had fought a long war against Iran in the 1980s; its army had plenty of battle experience and the Iraqi forces possessed an impressive array of modern weaponry. The army had an estimated 4,200 tanks and 3,100 artillery pieces; the air force had around 700 aircraft and helicopters, while Iraq was shielded by a modern air-defence system, including radar and SAM missiles and anti-aircraft artillery. It was perhaps because of the scale of his forces and the relative modernity of his weaponry that Saddam risked an assault on his tiny oil-rich neighbour, launched by 2,000 tanks and 100,000 troops on 2 August 1990. Invasion of Kuwait was followed by a build-up of forces along the Saudi Arabian border. In the West, fears began to spread at the prospect that Iraq might control one-half of the world’s known oil reserves.

The Saudi appeal to the United States for protection against a possible Iraqi attack coincided with a United Nations resolution calling on Saddam to withdraw unconditionally from Kuwait. The American commander, General Norman Schwarzkopf, established a vast military camp on Saudi soil to set up a defensive line. Desert Shield, as it was called, was composed of units from thirty-four countries in the United Nations, though the largest contribution next to the American was British. Saddam rejected the call for withdrawal, hopeful that the Coalition might fall apart, or lack the public approval to wage actual war. On 29 November 1990, the United Nations issued Resolution 678 setting a final deadline for withdrawal of 15 January 1991. Schwarzkopf moved from defensive to offensive posture and 700,000 Coalition forces arrived in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf.

Schwarzkopf had at his disposal a cluster of new weapons, much of which had not yet seen combat. In almost all cases, they represented an important step beyond the modern weaponry available to Saddam. They included the M1A1 Abrams tank, the M2 and M3 Bradley fighting vehicles, the Apache and Black Hawk helicopters, the Patriot air defence missile system, the F-117 Nighthawk flying wing (capable of avoiding radar), satellite mapping, AWACS, and – among the most important innovations – night goggles and thermal imaging. Thermal imaging and weapons locator systems meant that in many cases the Americans could strike at tanks and artillery before the enemy even knew that they were under attack.

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