Desert Storm - How Saddam’s Army Was Crushed in the Gulf War

this video is brought to you by the military online game War Thunder more about them in just a bit after the dust had settled from the devastating iran-iraq War Saddam Hussein was in Dire Straits Iraq had gone into serious International debt to finance the war and although the war eventually ended in a stalemate their money still needed to be paid back one nation in particular that he owed a lot of money to was Kuwait who had loaned Iraq 14 billion US Dollars over the previous decade along with the debt Kuwait was also producing an all-surplus which was driving down Global prices in turn hurting Iraq's economy and to top it all off they were also accused of slant drilling allowing them to steal from Iraqi oil fields looking at all of this tsunami sane decided to take matters into his own hands and so on August the 2nd 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait annexing the smaller nation in just two days despite Iraq's old Sovereign claims two Kuwait dating back to the end of the Ottoman Empire the rest of the world wasn't very amused and plans were soon underway to take back Kuwait by force what would soon form was the largest military Alliance since World War II and they were about to embark on one of the most successful military operations of the 20th century foreign the United States began deploying troops to Saudi Arabia under what was known as the Carter Doctrine a defensive posture to protect allies in the Persian Gulf as U.S troops began stacking up the operation became known as Operation Desert Shield even the name affirming the fact that this was an entirely defensive move hoping to ward off any further Iraqi aggression until the whole situation with Kuwait could be resolved but they had all got thrown out the window on August 8 1990 when Saddam Hussein declared Kuwait to be Iraq's 19th Province and appointed his cousin as its new military Governor abandoning the defensive idea U.S President George H W bush and UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher began sending forces to Saudi Arabia and urged their allies to do so as well an anti-ira Coalition was forming and the U.S wanted to make sure that as many nations were involved as possible representatives from the U.S traveled across the globe on diplomatic missions to recruit for their Coalition and they had surprising success Argentina Bangladesh Czechoslovakia Niger you name it even Afghanistan sent 500 fighters to participate in Syria and Egypt committed huge forces eager to tame Saddam before they became his next victims in total an alliance of 39 Nations formed the Coalition the largest since the formation of the Allies in the second world war 35 of these would actually send troops to Saudi Arabia While others such as Germany only played a defensive role in case the war spread to Turkey over the next few months Coalition forces began piling up in Saudi Arabia and extensive training was underway one training exercise operation imminent Thunder was so massive that it involved the aircraft carrier USS Midway 15 other ships a thousand aircraft and more than a thousand Marines eventually The Troop buildup reached 956 000 men about 70 of those from the U.S the other most major contributors being the UK Egypt and Saudi Arabia more than 2 000 aircraft arrived on the scene thousand more tanks five aircraft carriers with one more on the way and dozens of other ships meanwhile diplomatic efforts to resolve the situation was still underway negotiations tried and failed several U.N resolutions were passed condemning the annexation and Saddam said that he would leave the country only if a fairly long list of political and trade items were agreed to but no one agreed to them he also had a lot of beef with Israel trying to use his position in Kuwait to negotiate for Palestine or to dismantle Israel's nuclear Arsenal but that didn't really pan out either in November 1990 the U.N security Council passed resolution 678 which gave Saddam Hussein a deadline leave Kuwait by January the 15th 1991 while the use of force would be authorized remember this was no vague threat the force that they were talking about was already on his doorstep but Saddam wasn't the kind of guy to back down by December there was only a month left before the deadline and the world was holding its breath when asked if Iraq would attack its neighbors if invaded Iraq's foreign minister responded yes absolutely yes war was on the horizon and the only man who could stop it had no intention of doing so so ladies and gents have you ever dreamed of flying a World War II Spitfire battling on a Sherman tank or commanding an aircraft carrier well look no further because War Thunder's got you covered virtually with over 2 000 vehicles to choose from spanning over a hundred years of development War Thunder is the most comprehensive vehicle combat game ever made but that's not all War Thunder offers an in-depth customization system for vehicles where you can apply hundreds of camouflage's historical markings and even 3D 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out there's a link below and now back to today's video as the last diplomatic efforts failed saddam's deadline came and passed and just like they'd promised the Coalition struck the Gulf War had officially begun kicked off under code name Operation Desert Storm the plan for Desert Storm involved two main stages first an air War to achieve aerial Supremacy and strike ground targets followed by a ground Invasion the air War would last more than five weeks during which Coalition members would fly over a hundred thousand sorties and drop nearly 90 000 tons of bombs on January the 17th 1991 desert storm began with a helicopter group called task force Normandy eight Apache helicopters led by four paved low helicopters crossed into Iraqi territory in struck radar sites near the border at 2 38 am these were a critical first Target as it slowed Iraq's response time to the upcoming assault minutes later missiles and bombs began landing on airbases in Western Iraq courtesy of 22 f-15s no sooner with these airstrikes underway than Baghdad was under attack itself 10 F-117 Nighthawks when already over the capital their stealth technology protecting them from more than 3 000 anti-aircraft guns searching for them in the dark while this is all going down the Navy's got involved as well dozens of tomahawk missiles were fired from their ships striking Targets in and near Baghdad taking down all refineries power plants and factories along with the missiles Naval gunfire struck targets along the Kuwaiti Coast several ships from the Iraqi Navy tried to make a run for the open ocean during these first hours but they were spotted by a highly Advanced P3 Iran called Outlaw Hunter who dispatched strike units that ended up sinking 11 Iraqi ships Outlaw Hunter was so Advanced that at one point it even used infrared Imaging on a ship to detect Iraqi markings underneath a recent coat of paint that showed Egyptian markings along with airfields spaces factories and energy infrastructure one of the main targets during the opening day of the invasion was Iraq's air defense system Iraq had an extensive anti-air Network consisting of thousands of service to air missile systems mobile anti-air units and fixed AA guns and taking these out was of the utmost priority to secure the skies on day one the Coalition Air Force consisted of more than 2 000 fixed-wing aircraft and in just the first 24 hours they ran 2775 sorties perhaps the most incredible of which was a group of seven B-52 bombers which flew all the way from Louisiana to launch 35 cruise missiles before heading back home their trip was 35 hours of non-stop flying and covered more than 14 000 miles or 22 500 kilometers the air War demonstrated in just a few hours how incredibly powerful the Coalition was and this was one thing that the alliance was banking on if they could overwhelm the Iraqi defenses and make them believe that they were hopelessly outgunned against a superior almost futuristic enemy as they would give up the fight this was the whole idea behind the iconic shock and awe if you could break the enemy's will in the opening battles the ones down the road will be much easier this didn't exactly work at least at first as just despite the immense damage they were taking the Iraqi resolve remained strong this was especially aided by the Iraqi belief that this was a war of Destiny a final battle with the West to hammer this home just five hours after the airstrikes began Iraqi State Radio announced the great duel the mother of all battles has begun the dawn of Victory nears as this great Showdown begins but this great Showdown was seriously one-sided Iraqi aircraft stood no chance against the Coalition forces only scoring one kill and losing 36 in the first few days following these losses Saddam knew that they couldn't fight directly in the air so most of the aircraft were transported to hardened bunkers and some of them fled to Iran but make no mistake Iraq still fought back on the second day of Desert Storm Iraq fired eight ballistic missiles at Israel and over the course of the next few weeks fired a total of 42 there were only two direct casualties from these attacks though quite a few elderly people died of heart attacks during them but that wasn't the real purpose of the Rockets what Saddam really wanted to do was provoke Israel into joining the conflict if Israel joined the Coalition there was a chance that the Arab nations in the alliance would withdraw and even potentially switch sides there was also a chance that it could drag previously neutral countries onto Iraq's side for a chance to get back at Israel it was honestly a good strategy and it almost worked after the first missiles hit the ground Israel had already scrambled Fighters and Was preparing to retaliate but just in time President Bush convinced Israeli Prime Minister yichak Shamir to hold back promising to send missile defense systems Israel cooperated though there was still a fear that Iraq could start loading their missiles with chemical weapons as they're done against Iran the previous decade and for this reason Israeli citizens were given gas masks and the drug atropened counter-attack nerve agents but fortunately such an attack never came Israel came very close to joining the war over the next few weeks even at one point loading up helicopters with special forces and preparing to fly into Iraq but they were again convinced to stand down at the last moment to minimize the amount of ballistic missile strikes U.S and British Special Forces infiltrated Iraq on a scud hunting Mission this combined with an increased Focus from the air drastically decreased the rocket attacks along with Israel Iraq also launched 47 scuds one at Qatar and another Bahrain but the deadliest was a strike on a U.S army barracks in dahran Saudi Arabia which killed 28 Americans and injured more than 100 when missile defense systems failed to detect the incoming rocket on January 29th Iraq lashed out again but this time in a different way by launching a ground attack into the Saudi city kafshi which sits right on the border with Kuwait their attack involved around 60 000 troops organized into five divisions with a few hundred tanks more advanced mechanized divisions at soviet-made t-72s but the rest had to make do with older t-62s and t-55s many of these older tanks had been upgraded with modern armor but spoiler alert that wasn't going to save them from the Coalition Air Force the attack was a four-pronged defensive with three goals capture kafige inflict heavy casualties on the Coalition and take as many prisoners of War as possible a Saddam hoped to use them as a bargaining chair down the road at 10 pm on January 29th Iraqi forces moved into Saudi Arabia and quickly reached Carthage there they engaged U.S marine the Marines only had a few anti-tank weapons and just barely held down their position and slowly retreated while they waited for air support to arrive a sport indeed came in the form of f-15's A-10 Warthogs and Harriet Jets due to a tragic miscommunication these airstrikes resulted in 11 Friendly Fire deaths at the first point of battle but they did succeed in repelling the Iraqi Advance a couple of miles from Kashi a column of Iraqi t-55s rolled up to the Border signaling their intention to surrender to Coalition troops when Saudi troops respond and began making their way to the tanks the Iraqis revealed their true intention an open fire this caught the attention of a nearby AC-130 who quickly moved cover the Saudi troops and destroyed 13 Iraqi tanks in the process for the whole rest of the night Coalition airstrikes pummeled Iraqi columns but it was a bit tough to drive them out of Kashi as the buildings obstructed the view of the tanks and there was a large risk to civilians Coalition Ground Forces moved in a bit fighting in the street was intense and a couple of Americans were taken prisoner in the chaos but by the next day the city was soon to be recaptured and Iraqi forces were on the Run reinforcements were on the way though in the form of an Iraqi amphibious assault making their way across the Persian Gulf and hoping to catch the Enemy by surprise they got spotted on the way however and U.S and British aircraft sank 90 of their boats by February the 1st Katie was retaken the Battle of Kashi resulted in 43 fatalities for the Coalition one downed aircraft and two destroyed Saudi tanks the Iraqis lost nearly a hundred tanks in the operation almost entirely due to airstrikes which really showcased the deadly potential of Air Supremacy and just how powerful ground units are when supported from the sky despite having to retreat from the city Iraqi morale was still boosted by the monumentary occupation of kafshi oh which was heavily broadcast back home meanwhile the airwall was still ongoing Iraqi infrastructure had been decimated the destruction of Rhodes had prevented an estimated 400 000 more Iraqi troops from joining the front lines and hundreds of vehicles missile sites and military bases had been turned into dust this wasn't without collateral damage in the five weeks of bombing around two to three thousand Iraqi civilians were killed often in brutal circumstances such as when a British missile originally fired at a bridge malfunctioned and struck a busy Marketplace or a U.S bombing of an Airaid shelter with more than 400 people inside deaths of civilians only served to invigorate the Iraqi cause and they grew even more determined to hold their ground against the Coalition but soon the true test of their army was arriving after more than a month their strikes the air war was finished and round invasion was about to begin [Music] just as they're done before the beginning of the air War the Coalition sent Saddam an ultimatum withdraw from Kuwait by February the 24th 1991 or face a full-scale Invasion but Saddam treated this demand just as he had treated the previous one he ignored it the assembled Coalition forces for this operation were simply colossal organized into five cores the Coalition was bringing every available man to the fight the center of the line held the heaviest of all the Allied Forces U.S and British armored divisions consisting of more than 1400 Main battle tanks ready to thunder deep into enemy territory with overwhelming Force to the right of them an assortment of Egyptian Kuwaiti Saudi and Syrian tanks and on the right flank over the Saudi and American units the Left Flank had multiple French divisions including the French Foreign Legion hundreds of American tanks and armored vehicles 16 000 paratroopers and More in total more than seven hundred thousand troops were ready to move in not counting the naval assets assisting offshore and the hundreds of aircrafts that would soon participate in the role of close air support compared us to around 200 000 Iraqis on the other side of the front line who were not only outnumbered and outgunned but also starting to get hungry as their supply lines had been ripped to shreds the plan was to have the flanks advanced first and draw the bulk of the Iraqi fire and as they pushed forward paratroopers would land Far Behind Enemy Lines to set up a forward base for oh and the rest of the Coalition would catch up to them next the center formations would Advance forward spearheading the main assault directly into Iraqi lines once this had been accomplished the whole operation would shift West into Kuwait where the final showdown with Iraqi forces would decide the victory of the war on February 24th saddam's deadline passed and the ground War Began originally nicknamed Operation Desert saber the advance was preceded by an overwhelming artillery barrage which fired more than 90 000 rounds at the Iraqi lines and caused immense damage the Marine Advance on the right flank didn't hesitate to follow behind the attack and overwhelmed the first line of Iraqi defenses so quickly that no U.S losses were taken while they worked on clearing the minefields to enter Kuwait more than 100 helicopters began airlifting the paratroopers deep Behind Enemy Lines flying just above the sand to avoid detection wave after wave of Transport Choppers took thousands of troops just south of their target a base which a big code named objective Cobra as the men jumped into the sand more and more helicopters arrived with artillery and ammunition for them and within minutes they were already blasting the Iraqi fortifications once this was combined with airstrikes particularly strafes from eight ends the Iraqis started to surrender a similar story played out on the far left flank as the French and American divisions thundered into Iraq and smashed through the Western defenses though a nasty Sandstorm did slow them quite a bit when they reached their first objective they were led by French attack helicopters and the Iraqis there also surrendered on mass the Arab forces advancing at the same fortune taking thousands prisoner while suffering minimal losses overall the Iraqi forces across the front line were hungry tired and were starting to lose hope against Superior Coalition it seems that shock and ore was definitely doing its job but this success did come with a bit of a drawback despite having the worst equipment out of the whole Coalition the right flank Advanced so quickly that they were hours ahead of schedule and because the center wasn't going to advance until the following day this rapidly advancing flank would be vulnerable to Iraqi counter-attacks for this reason the center Advance always pushed up a whole 15 hours and the troops were given just two hours notice to prepare to move another massive artillery bombardment prepared the way for the center units who crossed into Iraqi territory at 3 pm on February the 24th the units they encountered there oh some of Iraq's best and although they didn't surrender like their peers had on the flanks they still didn't stand much of a chance hiding in trenches that dug into the sand they watched with horror as a horizon of enemy Vehicles moved steadily towards them and instead of engaging the Coalition simply used armored bulldozers to push sand into several of the trenches allowing tanks to drive a right over them and leaving hundreds buried alive beneath them the front line had been pulverized with little to no casualties but the real challenge came the next day as Iraq moved to counter-attack What followed in the center Advance are arguably three or four of the largest tank battles in American history and are often referred to as the last great tank battles of the 20th century first up I was the Battle of 73 easting fought by around 300 British and American tanks against 400 or so Iraqi tanks as the Coalition tanks oh are moving through the desert they engaged a couple of Lone targets such as a clasper of bunkers and a couple of scout Vehicles oh when suddenly they were faced with a huge armored Force without hesitation though the Coalition tanks formed up an open fire making excellent use of tow missiles which as they guided into Iraqi tanks with deadly accuracy but by the time the smoke cleared only a single Coalition vehicle had been destroyed and M2 Bradley six people had been killed and 19 wounded on the Iraqi side though 160 tanks have been destroyed along with 180 other armored vehicles amounting to more than a thousand casualties in addition more than 1300 prisoners were also taken in the aftermath of the battle the next day saw the Battle of Medina Ridge where a once again again hundreds of Tanks faced off against each other this time the Coalition lost four tanks a few armored vehicles and two helicopters but Iraq lost nearly 200 tanks and more than 250 other vehicles these were simply unsustainable losses and then it happened again the Battle of Norfolk fought on February the 27th was unbelievably massive with 550 Iraqi tanks destroyed along with more than 400 other vehicles you might think by now that there would be literally nothing left in the Iraqi Army but there were still a few thousand Vehicles rumbling around these ones though were retreating out of Kuwait knowing that the war was a lost cause Iraqi armored divisions began the drive back to Iraq on Highway 80. the same Highway that they'd used to invade Kuwait in the first place when the Coalition noticed this escaping Convoy they struck immediately using air strikes to disable the lead in rear tanks trapping the rest in between a traffic jam of thousands of military vehicles had been turned into nothing more than sitting ducks for Coalition aircraft between the 25th and the 27th of February dozens of bombing runs blasted the Convoy shredding them with every munition available the results were so gruesome that the road had earned the nickname the highway of death nearly 3 000 destroyed vehicles and well over a thousand casualties eyewitnesses reported scores of charred corpses blood covering the sides of the road as people were hit trying to flee and stolen Kuwaiti goods were littered about as the occupiers tried to take home some of what they'd pillaged it remains an incredibly controversial attack with some saying that it was a disproportionate use of force or that they were retreating in accordance with the original U.N resolution but the US military still stood by their actions saying that there was a great deal of military equipment destroyed and that there were no signs of refugee casualties as posited by some journalists also the casualty numbers may not be as high as originally thought as post-war investigations found that most Iraqis have learned to Simply flee their vehicles the moment they had aircraft above them ha on the 28th of February just four days after the start of the ground were Iraq surrendered and a unilateral ceasefire was signed in the coalition-occupied territory the Coalition had suffered just 292 deaths half of which were due to either accidents or friendly far Iraq on the other hand had suffered as many as 50 000 deaths 75 000 wounded and more than a hundred thousand prisoners of war the absolute power displayed by NATO's top dogs left an impression that is still around to this day especially when one considers the possibility of a war with the likes of Russia or China who have not come close to displaying such prowess on the battlefield after all this was the U.S and its allies fighting a war on the other side of the globe and Russia is currently struggling in its own backyard it's a modern war that apart from the civilian casualties didn't really have many critics as a whole public support for the war was incredibly High across Coalition Nations and it seemed to come to an ideal End by achieving the liberation of Kuwait immediate the ending the conflict and withdrawing from the region just a few weeks later it was at the time considered an option to continue the advance to Baghdad and occupy Iraq but this was dismissed as too dangerous both for the troops and for Public Image Iraq on the other hand was on a steep downward spiral following the war Saddam tightened his grip on his people killing as many as a hundred thousand civilians during a series of uprisings against his regime later that year this was on top of at least three thousand civilians who had been killed during Desert Storm in a country so unbelievably war-torn that the U.N described it as being bombed into the pre-industrial age widespread International sanctions cut Iraq off from global trade in several sectors and the debt issue would only get worse public anti-American and anti-western sentiment would Skyrocket as a result of this likely contributing to the hasty decision in a little over a decade later to invade Iraq once again and take down Saddam Hussein for good but that war would not go nearly as well as Desert Storm had and the idea of a successful and Justified war in the Middle East would be tainted forever go today quick reminder sponsor of today's video is War Thunder if you're looking for a comprehensive military online game be sure to check out War Thunder at play WT dot link forward slash Warrior Graphics there's also a description below and thanks for watching

Channel: Warographics

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Keywords: what was the gulf war, what happened in the persian gulf war, the significance of the gulf war, why did the gulf war happen, why was the gulf war so quick, why was the gulf war so successful, saddam hussein, persian gulf war, desert storm, the persian gulf, persian gulf war explained, the gulf war summary, operation desert storm, the first gulf war summary, the gulf war simply explained

Id: mnqTBEkNCM0

Length: 24min 21sec (1461 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 28 2023