Desert Storm: The Ground Assault

on the 24th of february 1991 coalition forces launched a massive ground assault against iraqi army units occupying kuwait in less than 100 hours a substantial portion of the fourth largest army in the world was destroyed and kuwait liberated waged for the most part in trackless desert the gulf war was dominated by high-tech weapons in the hands of a well-trained military this program examines the weapons used during the campaign and the objectives of the war which determined how these weapons were used it also chronicles the final battles that brought desert storm to its victorious conclusion in november 1990 president george bush increased the scale of u.s forces stationed in saudi arabia what had been a force suitable for defending saudi arabia from any further iraqi aggression became a force designed to destroy the iraqi army and the kuwait theatre it would take over two months to move these forces from bases in europe and the united states to the gulf meanwhile america's gulf allies including britain also began deploying and reinforcing their own forces in the region [Music] the initial ground units sent to the gulf to deter further iraqi aggression were centered on two main elements the army's 18th airborne corps and marine corps expeditionary forces the 18th airborne corps was configured to be light and easy to move sacrificing firepower for transportability it was based around three divisions the 82nd airborne a paratrooper division the 101st air assault helicopter board interview division a heavy infantry division with a substantial armor force united states marine corps divisions were also configured on the basis of strategic mobility even with the allied coalition forces added these initial american formations were believed to be insufficient to liberate kuwait president bush's november decision led to the deployment of the army's heavy maneuver forces to saudi arabia the primary u.s army formation was the seventh corps normally based in germany the seventh corps would bring with it three armored divisions mechanized infantry division and substantial core formations these divisions were all heavy maneuver units difficult to transport but possessing substantially more combat power and tactical mobility than the forces already the unique difference between the american maneuver divisions and their iraqi opponents was the helicopter u.s army maneuver divisions were equipped with their own helicopter forces including force of attack helicopters iraqi army forces had no significant helicopter force the principal british army unit in the gulf the first armoured division was a heavy armor formation much like its american counterpart the french dark gay force was also a mechanized formation but smaller and more modestly equipped than either the us or british army divisions the arab forces of the coalition also contributed substantial armor support besides saudi tank brigades egypt dispatched the mechanized and tank division and syria contributed a tank division there were armoured forces as well from qatar and kuwait [Music] since world war ii the dominant land weapon in desert warfare has been the tank this was especially the case in the gulf war the majority of iraqi tanks were the older chinese type 59 or the similar soviet t-55 the best iraqi tanks the t-72s were used by the republican guard u.s army tank formations although outnumbered were much better equipped than their iraqi counterparts in the early 1980s the u.s army had completely revamped its armored force by replacing the m60 series main battle tank with the new m1 there is no tank on the battlefield anywhere in the world certainly not on this battlefield it even comes close to matching the m1a1 heavy armor i mean and that's not a hope that's just a an analysis of capabilities of equipment [Music] the m1a1 abrams had advantages in nearly every category over its best iraqi opponent the t-72 it was more thickly armoured during tank to tank engagements hundreds of iraqi tanks were destroyed while the m1a1 proved virtually indestructible very few m1a1 tanks were hit and there were no fatalities as a result the abram's 120 millimeter gun combined with a more advanced fire control system allowed it to engage and destroy iraqi tanks at long ranges before the iraqi tanks were effective the british counterpart to the m1a1 abrams was the challenge attack which had many of the same advantages over iraqi tanks as its american cousin however not all coalition tanks were state of the art most u.s marine corps tank battalions as well as the saudi and egyptian armies used the older american m60a1 tank of the early 1970s vintage on the french shoes the amx 30b2 a modernized version of a tank first deployed in 1960 the syrians used the soviet-built t-62 tank much the same type of tank used by the iraqis one of the most significant advantages enjoyed by allied vehicles over their iraqi counterparts was their use of more sophisticated night vision systems this played a significant role during the ground campaign allied tanks could fight at night or in poor weather conditions when the iraqi tanks were virtually blind [Music] obviously would rather conduct defensive operations at night taking advantage of our night vision devices taking advantage of our ability to move undetected and uh get in behind enemy lines and disrupt their ability to conduct a defense so we'd rather use a knight to our advantage probably the greatest allied advantage in tanks was not in the tanks themselves but in the quality of their cruels the gulf war demonstrated that tank fighting demanded more than simply good equipment the training and skill of the crews proved critical to the performance of tanks in combat the companion to the tank on the modern battlefield is the infantry fighting vehicle current infantry vehicles such as the us army's bradley are much better armed than infantry transporters of the past usually carrying an automatic cannon and an anti-tank missile in contemporary tank warfare the infantry rides into battle within the armored hull of a fighting vehicle the infantry can dismount near the battle line to carry out its traditional combat missions the armored infantry transporter allows the infantry to keep up with the tanks and gives the infantry protection against enemy small arms fire and artillery air bursts infantry mobility was a primary requirement in the gulf war the distances covered were vast and the infantry needed a vehicle capable of moving them at the same pace as the tanks and the other vehicles although tanks set the tempo for modern land warfare the artillery has been the killing arm on the battlefield since the first world war one of the only branches of the iraqi army to cause much concern was the artillery force iraqi artillery was a special focus of air attack and counter-battery fire from allied artillery to deal with this threat the allied forces had a wide variety of weapons sit down [Music] the m109 self-propelled 155 millimeter howitzer was the primary weapon of coalition artillery units although it could be outranged by many iraqi guns superior fire direction and intelligence more than compensated artillery is no longer a contest of gun barrels alone targets must be accurately located and identified the us army and marine corps had several innovations to help in this respect rpv's remotely piloted vehicles were used by the ground forces and the navy to help find iraqi artillery and other targets and to help correct the aim of the guns new computerized command and control accentuated these intelligence advantages to the artillery if an armed force particularly a ground armed force in this case is going to be effective then the key to that effectiveness is being able to marshal all your combat power at the key time at the key place the way we collect the intelligence analyze it process it and then make key decisions about enemy intentions at this site allows the division commander to do just that to focus his combat power and in the process of focusing it overwhelm the enemy in front of him new technology also increased the killing power of coalition ground forces the mlrs multiple launch rocket system was designed specifically to deal with enemy artillery concentrations and could reach further than any iraqi gun [Music] the mlrs is primarily an area fire weapons system we have three crew members in each of the launchers uh and on each of the launchers uh we have 12 rockets uh we can expend all 12 of those rockets and all of the submunitions uh in less than a minute so we get a huge volume of firepower in a very short period of time i think we would probably be used primarily in a counterfire role that issued him against his artillery or in any type of target where we had a large area type target that we wanted a large volume of fire in a very short period of time as we see in this test footage the small submunitions blanket a wide area the mlrs proved very successful in countering the threat of the more numerous iraqi artillery force the iraqi army did have the advantage of time to prepare for the coalition onslaught the iraqis could build up tank ditches fire traps and other barriers like those we see here and to limit the mobility of the coalition maneuver divisions mines could be laid along the frontier and in front of key iraqi positions there is no easy remedy for mines one of the most important ways to limit the threat posed by iraqi mines was thorough training this mine was the afghan freedom fighter's mind of choice it's called a tc6 the afghans wanted was something that would take a soviet tank and like toss it six feet in the air threw everybody up in it italians came out with this mine very effective he's got about a hundred thousand of these he's also got the e variant which you can turn on turn off like a garage door opener okay it's also got an anti-handling device this is starting to get in the state of the art okay real good more expensive though couple hundred bucks it's got a bunch of these okay you roll over one of these it's bad news he's got massive quantities of these italian mines he likes the balmoire 69. this is a very effective mind three and a half million of these jumps up 20 you know jumps up about this high with the lanyard goes off everything dies within 20 meters number one buckshot very effective very good there is no pause you know the old days in vietnam where you saw all those wild books where the guys stepped on a mine and just stayed there that don't happen okay when you step on one of these you're dead in spite of the sophistication of coalition equipment counter mine warfare and other combat engineering techniques were among the few areas in which the us army was found wanting combat engineering has not been in the offensive role one of the west priorities large reason for this was in the 1980s we thought of ourselves as being on the defensive that we would be defending against a soviet thrust into europe and we didn't think it very important that we would be penetrating minefields we thought it much more important that we learned how to put down our own minefields very quickly uh so this really didn't get the emphasis of other areas there is also the questions of priority engineering is never as appealing to both the politicians and the generals as tanks infantry fighting vehicles combat airplanes so it tends to be one step down in priority prior to the launch of the land offensive us army combat engineers devised a very effective armored vehicle launched mine clearing line charge the mine clearing line charge or myclick for short consists of a rocket which pulls a long rope containing 1800 pounds of plastic explosives behind it the rocket drags the line charge over the minefield and it is detonated once it strikes the ground the explosion destroys mines in an area wide enough for a tank [Music] oh one of the most serious concerns during the gulf war was that iraq would use chemical weapons saddam hussein used chemical munitions extensively during its war with iran and against the kurdish population within iraq there was every reason to believe that gas would be used again the prospect that allied forces would face chemical weapons prompted a training program the seriousness of which had not been seen in most armies since the first world war [Music] as coalition forces began pounding iraq on the 17th of january 1991 the allied ground forces had little to do but train and anxiously wait for their turn sporadic artillery duels broke out along kuwaiti saudi border but the iraqi forces in kuwait subjected to a merciless pummeling from the air remained inactive through the end of january apache attack helicopters were the only army units to take part in the air campaign [Music] suddenly on tuesday night 29th of january the iraqi army in kuwait began to stir their objective was a little-known border town in northeast saudi arabia raz al-khafji kafji controlled the main coastal highway leading from saudi arabia to kuwait city at 11 pm on tuesday night an attacking iraqi tank column was spotted by u.s marines of the third regiment first division emerging from the vicinity of the al-wafra oil fields the marines called in artillery support and managed to stop the iraqi attack at nearly the same time an iraqi mechanized infantry battalion began driving down the coastal highway and charged into razal kafji was not heavily defended with only a scattering of border forces the iraqis used a ruse to enter the area pretending to surrender to cross the border unopposed the iraqis occupied the city with little opposition the saudi army and allied qatari tank units began moving up into the area once the attack had been reported the unopposed iraqi drive into kafji infuriated the saudis who insisted on retaking the city themselves a third iraqi attack was also launched between kafji and wafra but ran head-on into saudi and katariyama the qatari amx 30 tanks with supporting anti-tank missile vehicles shot up the iraqi column and halted it at the border the saudis launched a hasty counter-attack with one of their national guard mechanized battalions which was repulsed the saudis kept up the attack bringing in additional armor and marine units the saudi attacks were supported by u.s marine artillery fire and air support the iraqi attacks near kafchi continued and an iraqi amphibious landing force was sent down the coast aiming to cut off kafji it was caught out in the open by u.s and british naval aircraft and largely destroyed the fighting for kafji itself lasted for 36 hours the saudis made repeated attacks against determined iraqi resistance allied air power prevented the elements of the iraqi fifth mechanized division inside kafchi from being reinforced after house to house fighting the saudi forces were once again in control of kafji the iraqis lost about 30 dead and more than 450 prisoners they also lost over a hundred armored vehicles in the border area alone as the allied forces began interrogating iraqi prisoners it soon became clear that kafji had been intended as much more than a minor border skirmish saddam hussein had planned the attack as a major offensive involving three of his best armored and mechanized divisions and about a quarter of his total tank strength in the kuwait theatre the allied bombing and artillery fire thoroughly disrupted his plans only one division managed to begin the attack on kafji on time the other two divisions began the attack 12 to 24 hours late by that time allied strike aircraft were swarming over kuwait attacking anything that moved iraqi reinforcements intended for the kafji battle were destroyed before they had a chance to move south the battle at kafji was an important turning point in the war it clearly showed to coalition commanders that the iraqis were incapable of conducting sustained operations in the face of allied air superiority it also clearly revealed that the average iraqi infantryman low on water and food and weary of the war was unlikely to fight tenaciously i think it was extremely critical number one for the confidence and for the morale of the saudi forces and in many respects this was a saudi victory with our support the iraqis as you well know are reputed to be the biggest and the best military in the middle east but this saudi success has proven that they may no longer be the best and many more defeats like this for the iraqis and they certainly will no longer be the biggest either the importance of kafji was not widely recognized at the time but the performance of the iraqi army made the coalition commanders confident that a ground offensive would go much more smoothly than they had originally anticipated our strategy to go after this army is very very simple first we're going to cut it off and then we're going to kill it i'm not telegraphing anything i just want everybody to know that we have a toolbox that's full of lots of tools and i brought them all to the party general schwarzkopf has them all at the party by the third week of february the first phase of operation desert storm was completed the iraqi army had been cut off from its main source of supplies across the euphrates river bridges had been bombed and truck traffic had been halted by the air campaign iraqi divisions had been starved of food and water a large number of their tanks armored vehicles and artillery had been smashed by air attack morale was low and desertion rates were high the capture of prisoners at kafji from a good quality unit the fifth mechanized division gave senior american officers good insight into their opponents there is might in sheer numbers saddam hussein says he's going to win this through will and experience i strongly question the will of soldiers who are fighting because if they don't their families will be killed quite as quite unlike for example the vietnamese who fought because they felt that they were right and had personal conviction they underwent the hardships and fought despite them despite them because they believed in what it was they were doing i think all of us have reason to question whether or not the iraqis really believe you know what they're fighting for right now not that not that they don't believe in their nation and those of them that believe they're defending their nation uh will fight hard but the iraqis are also smart soldiers educational level in the iraqi army is pretty high and i think most of them recognize the fact that that that they're fighting through a combination of fear and for the wrong cause the iraqi forces in the kuwait theater were deployed in a layered defense along the kuwait saudi border was a line of entrenched infantry divisions these were the most poorly equipped and poorly trained of the iraqi forces in the centre of kuwait were the tank and mechanized divisions these were the best of the regular iraqi army formations and had substantial numbers of tanks infantry vehicles and artillery even after the air campaign on the kuwait iraqi border was the republican guard widely felt to be the best troops and those most loyal to saddam hussein the defense the iraqis put together was based on a model that they developed during the war with iran where you have infantry up in the front and fortification lines basically cannon fodder to slow down an attacker you then exploit that by counter-attacking with your armored division mechanized divisions in the immediate rear area and then if you need you bring in the republican guards for the really heavy duty offensive or your defensive counter strikes so this was a about what we would have expected based on our experience watching the iraqis during the war with iran the final plan for the ground offensive was extremely ambitious instead of a frontal assault directly into kuwait coalition forces used the indirect approach and exploited their own mobility advantages to strike where iraqi defenses were weakest assignments were allotted carefully the u.s marine corps also kept a substantial force afloat in the gulf as part of a ruse to convince iraqi forces that they would be attacked by sea we continued our heavy operations out in the sea because we wanted the iraqis to continue to believe that we were going to conduct a massive amphibious operation in this area and i think many of you recall the number of amphibious rehearsals we had to include imminent thunder that was written about quite extensively uh for many reasons but uh we continued to have those operations because we wanted him to concentrate his forces which he did the first marine expeditionary force including the first and second marine divisions were given the task of pushing straight through iraqi defenses and on to kuwait city the marine divisions fell between the armies like airborne divisions and the heavy maneuver divisions in firepower and tactical mobility in addition to their infantry battalions the marine divisions each have three armored battalions a tank battalion as its shock force an amphibious assault battalion for mechanized transport of marine units and a light armored vehicle battalion for scouting and security compared to the marines three battalions the army's heavy maneuver divisions have 10 or 11 battalions a mixture of m1 abrams tank battalions and m2 bradley mechanized infantry battalions due to the differences in the army and marine divisions general schwarzkopf decided to deploy the marines in the drive for kuwait city while the army's more mobile divisions were assigned to the flanking attack i think this is probably one of the most important parts of the entire briefing i could talk about as you know very early on we took out the iraqi air force we knew that he had very very limited reconnaissance means and therefore when we took out his air force for all intents and purposes we took out his ability to see what we were doing down here in saudi arabia once we had taken out his eyes we did what could best be described as the hail mary play in football i think you recall when the quarterback is desperate for a touchdown at the very end what he does is he steps up behind the center and all of a sudden every single one of his receivers goes way out to the to one flank and they all run down the field as fast as they possibly can and into the end zone and he lobs the ball in essence that's what we did when we knew that he couldn't see us anymore we did a massive movement of troops all the way out to the west to the extreme west because at that time we knew that he was still fixed in this area with the vast majority of his forces and once the air campaign started he would be incapable of moving out to counter this move even if he knew we made it the marine drive was supported by the coalition arab forces including egyptian syrian and saudi units in western kuwait and a saudi and kuwaiti task force along the coast prior to the ground assault the army's maneuver divisions pulled up stakes at their bases in northern saudi arabia and began their trek to start points at the border the army attack began with a faint by the first cavalry division to divert iraqi attention from the main blow further west simultaneously the 18th airborne corps including the french dugay force drove north to seal off the left flank from any iraqi reinforcements the british first armored division attacked along the wadi al-batim then swung towards kuwait to eliminate iraqi tank forces the heaviest blow was delivered by the u.s army's seventh corps which headed north before hooking to the east to confront the republican guard [Music] g-day sunday the 24th of february was preceded by an intense artillery barrage against iraqi positions if any branch of the iraqi armed forces remained of concern it was the artillery not only were there a great many iraqi artillery pieces but they were the only weapons capable of making concerted use of chemical weapons they were a prime target of allied air power and counter battery fire the increased tempo of the artillery bombardments foreshadowed the final planned attack [Music] at four o'clock in the morning the marines the first marine division of the second marine division launched the tax through the barrier system they were accompanied by the second uh the tiger brigade us army tiger brigade of the second armored division at the same time over here two saudi task forces also launched a penetration through this barrier but while they were doing that at four o'clock in the morning over here the sixth french armored division accompanied by brigade of the 82nd airborne also launched an overland attack to their objective up in this area al salman airfield and we were held up a little bit by the weather but by 8 o'clock in the morning 101st airborne air assault launched an air assault deep in the enemy's territory to establish a forward operating base in this location right here u.s marine forces began to penetrate the first layers of iraqi defensive positions and minefields before the main attack g-day sunday 24th of february infiltrating through the first set of barriers and minefields under the cover of darkness g day began overcast cold and rainy the french da gay force the westernmost element of the attack began its drive on the az-salman air base a brief tank battle took place on the approaches to the air base [Music] hey [Music] after overrunning our salman air base the dark a force headed north to the euphrates river to seal the iraqi troops in the kuwait theatre the door would soon be shut preventing iraqi reinforcements from arriving and preventing the escape of iraqi forces westward in the meantime the 101st air assault division began their airlift operation deep into iraq they established a forward airfield called cobra base from which to stage future air assaults towards the euphrates river the helicopter operation was the largest on record including not only troop transport aircraft but the larger chinook helicopters carrying additional fuel vehicles and artillery hours later the 101st cleared out bunkers in the cobra base area and brought other iraqi forces under artillery fire [Applause] [Applause] i can't conceive of another division in the army or in the world that could uh do what this air assault division has done this morning move us all this uh people and equipment uh rapidly put it on the ground we have secured a large area of iraq in his own heartland and we're prepared very shortly uh for the division commander to start pushing other people through here we're going to advance from here then absolutely there's nothing as you can well see there ain't nothing to hold out here so this is a way station for future operations and that's that's what we'll do operating out of cobra base apache attack helicopters swarmed forward attacking iraqi tank formations with their precision guided hellfire missiles [Music] the seventh core attack came next preceded by the armored cavalry regiments the tank and mechanized divisions began their drive into iraq during the first day of fighting contact with iraqi units was light and it was apparent that iraqi resistance would be much weaker than had been expected later that day the british first armored division swung back eastwood to engage iraqi armoured divisions near the kuwait border in the ensuing encounters over 200 iraqi tanks and 100 other armoured vehicles were destroyed with very light losses to british forces i expected them to fight harder than they did and and we were prepared for that and as we were talking earlier if they had stayed in every single bunker and fought out every bunker the result would have been the same they still would have been lost would have lost our casualties would have been higher so thank god that didn't happen my view is that their heart just wasn't in it pows have said this deserters told us this early on we don't know why we're here we don't know why we invaded kuwait many many of them said we think it's wrong that we invaded kuwait so with that kind of psychology and with a force like we had coming down on them where it was certain that they were going to die it doesn't doesn't lend itself to to a force having a really uh tough desire to hang in there and to to to defend after weeks of aerial bombardment only a few iraqi units still had the stomach for a fight the iraqi fifth mechanized division which had fought at kafji tried to resist the marine attack [Music] some did fight we had a quite a counter-attack yesterday morning and uh a good bit of it around my cp uh fifth mech division counter attack uh we did a couple things i think that disrupted it uh we learned where they were assembling and fired artillery uh right at their assembly points which flushed them out of the oil fields and one thing we were surprised that they were operating in those oil fields with the hot fires and that's really where they came at us the largest tank battles took place on the 26th and 27th of february when the seventh corps encountered republican guard divisions few visual records of these battles exist as they took place in poor weather or at night the battles were extremely one-sided the u.s abrams tanks were able to stand off at long range destroying iraqi tanks before the iraqi tanks were capable of hitting them seven abrams tanks were hit by iraqi t-72 tanks but none of the iraqi rounds could get through the abram's tough armor one of the most savage battles pitted a troop from the second armored cavalry regiment in a nightlong engagement against retreating elements of two republican guard divisions by morning the iraqi force had been completely defeated the republican guard divisions were defeated nearly as quickly as the regular army divisions with few exceptions the republican guard divisional commanders had abandoned their troops to their own fate leaving the units leaderless and uncoordinated some of the most intense fighting in kuwait came in the approaches to kuwait city airport a tank battle broke out between marine tanks and iraqi armoured units the battle was as one-sided as the army's tank battles as is evident from this wreckage of the iraqi tanks on the battlefield can you check it out round went in here and just when it goes inside it fragments and just basically blows up the whole inside it's just burning here there's nothing but rubble in here there's no way anybody could live in this it's torn to pieces looks like somebody threw a flag in here the two marine divisions destroyed or captured 14 iraqi divisions in their drive towards kuwait city allied casualties were remarkably light through most of the fighting the honor of taking the city was given to kuwaiti and saudi army units oh [Music] as kuwait city was being liberated the tiger brigade an army tank unit providing support to the marines pressed ahead to cut off iraqi forces retreating back towards iraq the road from kuwait city to basra became a virtual highway of death as iraqi forces were smashed by tank fire and air strikes after four days of fighting president bush ordered a ceasefire the strategic objectives of operation desert storm the liberation of kuwait and the reduction of the iraqi army's strength were complete and as president i can report to the nation aggression is defeated the war is over without a doubt air power played an important role in the conflict but air power by itself was not enough the swiftly executed ground campaign by coalition forces secured the defeat of the iraqi army occupying kuwait air power played a very very important role i think it had a lot to do with their morale being extremely low air power had [Music] had made logistics and resupply very difficult for them so they were hungry and thirsty as you saw as you moved along with uh with one of our task forces on the other hand there was still a hell of a lot of them here alive and well so the bottom line is you still got to come in and and clean it up and in this case the cleanup didn't turn out to be the huge fight that we anticipated the gulf war was one of the most striking victories in modern land combat the iraqi army though large and well equipped had in the end proven to be a brittle hollow army in contrast decades of training and the deployment of superior weaponry by coalition forces proved too much for iraqi forces stuck in a featureless desert with nowhere to hide you

Channel: Mike Guardia

Views: 62,258

Rating: 4.8009949 out of 5

Keywords: Desert Storm, Gulf War, video ordnance, documentary, history, military, discovery, channel, wings, tank, world of tanks, dcs, armor, battles, combat, footage, iran, iraq, afghanistan, syria, isis, republican, guard, regiment, trump, biden, 2020, 2021, capitol, capital, congress

Id: sqPiAxeu6f0

Length: 45min 23sec (2723 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 16 2021