Enemy casualties in Gulf 1

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Air power

>>32435655

/thread

General Schwarzkopf's plan of faking a amphibious invasion and flanking behind the Iraqis.

I saw this video just yesterday. It's relevant, I guess
https://youtu.be/L8-wr8_qRBQ

>>32435655
>>32435740
Seriously, the whole war was essentialy one big turkey shooting.

>>32435566
What's a non-hostile death, blue on blue?

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dont forgot the:

3,700 tanks destroyed
2,400 APCs destroyed
2,600 Artillery Pieces destroyed

>>32435566
By the time the ground war began, the Iraqi Army had been battered so badly that they couldn't even feed themselves, let alone fight. The Iraqi IADS had been completely dismantled, and Coalition air power was effectively able to roam the skies over the country destroying anything they wanted with impunity. Supply lines were a huge target, putting such a strain on Iraqi supply lines that a lot of non-republican guard units hadn't even received food for weeks leading up to their surrender.

Effectively, the war was over before the ground forces began their advance - the Iraqi Army was routing so fast that they Coaltion invasion plan nearly came apart.

>>32435655

yeah but air superiority doesnt just give you direct firepower it gives you intelligence as well thats why the ground troops were able to operate so efficiently.

would not be that easy without the air

>>32438004
The Department of Defense reports that US forces suffered 148 battle-related deaths (35 to friendly fire[164]), with one pilot listed as MIA (his remains were found and identified in August 2009). A further 145 Americans died in non-combat accidents.[155] The U.K. suffered 47 deaths (9 to friendly fire, all by US forces), France 2,[155] and the other countries, not including Kuwait, suffered 37 deaths (18 Saudis, 1 Egyptian, 6 UAE, and 3 Qataris).[155] At least 605 Kuwaiti soldiers were still missing 10 years after their capture.[165]

The largest single loss of life among coalition forces happened on 25 February 1991, when an Iraqi Al Hussein missile hit a US military barrack in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 28 US Army Reservists from Pennsylvania. In all, 190 coalition troops were killed by Iraqi fire during the war, 113 of whom were American, out of a total of 358 coalition deaths. Another 44 soldiers were killed and 57 wounded by friendly fire. 145 soldiers died of exploding munitions or non-combat accidents.[166]

>>32438041
They just bombed the hell out of them

File: Highway of Death, The result of American forces bombing retreating Iraqi forces, Kuwait, 1991.jpg (369KB, 1268x1600px) Image search: [Google]

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>>32438041
>yeah but air superiority doesnt just give you direct firepower
u wot m8

>>32435566
At the time america was a freshly roided up Chad Thundercock and the Iranis were a starved heavily disabled child, with a glock 17.

Sure he could've done some damage, if you maybe positioned yourself right behind him since his fucked up arms are bent.

That an air superiority.

>>32438041
You ever seen footage of a Spectre gunship doing its thing?

>>32438091
>AS WELL

>>32438049
fun fact: that was less deaths than would have occurred during peacetime.

>>32435655

Actually, that's wrong

Armored assaults killed most Iraqis

>>32435566

Because the allies used overwhelming force in their armored assaults

>>32438198
For the Iraqis as well

>>32438202

There hasn't been a US armored assault that lacked significant air assets since Korea. So, fuck you and your stupid remarks that lack any basis.

>>32438202
>Armored assaults killed most Iraqis
lelno. The Iraqi Army dissolved faster than our tanks could run them down.

>>32440649

Read more

Republican Guard said the air campaign attrited only a small percentage of their forces; they said it was the armored assaults that decimated them

To quote a Tawakalna Division armored officer:
>When the air campaign started, I had 39 tanks. After 38 days of the air battle, I had 32 tanks. After 20 minutes against them [2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment] I had zero tanks.
A mechanized battalion commander from the same engagement lost 99.5% of his men and all his equipment in the same time frame. There's also a case from a different engagement where an Iraqi unit lost 34 out of 35 T-72s in a 90 second period. The Iraqis had absolutely no idea what they were getting into, no understanding of American capabilities, and therefore no method of fighting back.

>>32440702
>>32440829
Yes but Republican Guard were some of the few units that stood and fought. Most of the units were fucked by air power as they stood to in their barracks, or while retreating(highway of death, etc.) The units that actually fought were the ones hard hit by the armoured assaults.

Saddam was betrayed.

>>32440829
Anecdotal reports from the units that received the best support and supplies don't change the reality. Air power was what stopped the Iraqis at Al Khafji. Air power was what crippled Iraqi supply lines so badly that many units were literally starving by the time the ground war begin. And air power was what decimated the Iraqi army as they broke into a rout.

Your quote there is from the most significant armored battle of the war - of course the bulk of the losses will come from ground forces. Meanwhile, you had
>40 F-111s credited with over 100 AFVs on Feb 9
>66 F-111s credited with over 1,500 AFVs over the course of the war
>over 200 F-16s and 140 A-10s roaming over KTO providing CAS
>nearly 3,000 vehicles destroyed on the Highway of Death

>>32438004
Car wrecks (that many vehicles running around that much), other accidents.

An interesting read about the Soviet response to the first gulf war
http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/documents/rs-storm.htm
tl:dr the iraqis had the cream of russian export gear plus russian trained officers so the soviets were expecting the iraqis to do well. when the iraqis got their shit pushed in hard and fast the soviets collectively shat themselves

Instead of getting into firefighters with Iraqi's in trenches, the US Army bulldozed right over the, burying the Iraqi's alive instead of fighting them.

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/15/world/us-army-buried-iraqi-soldiers-alive-in-gulf-war.html

Another contributing factor is that NATO ground forces were the only ones at the time with active gun stabilization in their Main Battle Tanks. Iraq's tanks could not aim and fire their weapons without being stationary. More than a slight advantage when you can zip across rough ground and hit the target with zero fucks given.

>>32435566
>it was still the 4th largest in the world
This is what Americans are still told.

>>32438321
Kek

>>32438041
>yeah but air superiority doesnt just give you direct firepower

The faq you on nigga? Why the fuck do you think the US has carrier groups?

>>32435566
1. the americans bombed the shit out of iraq
the level of damage the US airforce can inflict is really only limited by how much they want to spend
pic related, south korea after bombing
they level priority targets, then other targets, then anything that may or may not be a target, then anything that isn't a crater

2. the force estimates of saddam were probably greatly exaggerated, sadams force poorly maintained, troops poorly trained, varying levels of loyalty

3. the intel ability the united states was so great sadam was easily outmaneuvered
he couldn't even defend one area if he had to, and that level of venerability meant it was really no fight at all

4. being outmatched on this level, vast numbers of iraquis fled the field
I don't believe the official casualty figures
how can the force be 300,000 strong, and the result be 30000 dead and 10000 captured?

also this >>32442474

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>>32442622
north korea, there the bomber pilots were told to bomb anything they felt like, that was kind of near them

or just dump their bombs

>>32435566
>4th largest in the world
>USA armed forces bigger than next 9 combined
I remember CNN reporting about the Iraqi Desert Warriors as being basically Decepticon Rambos of the lawless desert, eating their weak and making bullets from the bones, their feet shaking the earth and squashing all before them.
Then we all got to watch the fucked up turkey-shoot and straggler-sniping on that one long straight road back from Kuwait after the tanks had screwed thousands of skinny little scared shits into the ground.
>Iraq 4th largest in the world
lol no

>>32435655
By the time the ground campaign begun coalition air bombardment had decimated the moral of the massive Iraqi conscript army. many found that they didn't even fight but instead ran at them crying and begging

>>32442352
Fucking cool

>>32438091
>>32442619
ITT people don't know how to read

>>32441009
>Yes but Republican Guard were some of the few units that stood and fought.
lotta loyalty for some hired guns

Could we do the same to NK?

>>32443336
Like you, dumbass

God bless America ;-;

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>>32444309
https://youtu.be/4ZLr1SG8Ig4

>>32443589
I think the Norks will be far more fanatical than the coward Iraqi conscripts, expect massive human wave assualts. Their equipment is also very outdated and neglected so most of it is just for show.

>>32444401
>>32443589
The terrain of North Korea would probably make it much more difficult. Take a look at any of those images of mass Iraqi vehicle wrecks, and 99% of them are out in some open desert with maybe a sand dune in the distance.

>>32435655
This, and trying to fight the US military in a conventional conflict is basically suicide for an army like Iraq had.

>>32444401

North Koreans aren't as deluded or uninformed as some imagine. much of the general population have access to information & media smuggled from outside (medium wave radio, USB sticks, DVDs), and the upper leadership definitely does.

Sure there would be some fanatical true believers, but once the command and control infrastructure is degraded, such a centralised system is unlikely to be anywhere near as steadfast as Imperial Japan in the face of overwhelming power.

>>32443589
>Could we do the same to NK?

Terrain in Korea isn't as good for air warfare or armored warfare. Also Best Korean military hasn't failed yet, so they might be bit more motivated and competent in fighting. It would still be pretty one sided affair, but opponent probably wouldn't be Arab bad at fighting.

>>32438150

Spectre gunship all but useless against opponent with any kind of air defense. 23mm AA-gun is threat for it. People with bunch of those and manpads will make use of such asset suicidal. It is a plane that has its niche in supporting special operations and in COIN against worse off than usual guerrillas, but even against well supplied guerrillas it would be quite risky to use.

>>32444849
What we did in the Gulf would be extremely hard to duplicate, for the simple reason that people have been analyzing it for over two decades now. That said Norks would be the one group that could possibly come close to losing that hard.
>no apparent will in the populace to go inna woods for Kim, forcing a reliance on highly centralized conventional fighting
>minimal resources to upgrade in response to what we did to Iraq
That said, Korea is a miserable place to fight in and geography would place a limit on how fast we could go, possibly more than the enemy in some areas.

>>32444903
This. Go read up on Vietnam/Laos, and how many Specters, AC-119's, and AC-47's got shot up/shot down. Great tool if you are fighting low lever COIN, but too soft when the other guy can shoot you down that easily.

Take a look at the massive technological disparity between us and them. Their most modern tank was the T-72M1 (an export version), which the M1 Abrams was built to utterly defeat. Hell, Bradleys were destroying Iraqi tanks left and right.
And that's just one example. The Wikipedia list here is stunning, and it makes me wonder how we lost ANY troops in the Gulf War.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Gulf_War_military_equipment#Iraq