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Solaris 2.0 posted:Are there any good, and recent academic articles/books/documentaries about the Persian Gulf War? I recommend Gulf War One by Hugh McManners, it's a collection of first hand accounts from the war including many high up Coalition leaders.
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# ? Mar 30, 2021 22:18 |
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# ? Mar 29, 2024 07:13 |
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:I feel like Desert Storm kinda became shorthand for the 1991 affair at least in the US. That was the official name for the operation. It was weird seeing that they'd made trading cards. I don't think I was on one personally, but still...
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# ? Mar 30, 2021 23:03 |
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I was 10 so I had a couple packs of those cards as a kid. They're probably still in a drawer at my dad's house.
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# ? Mar 30, 2021 23:51 |
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Cessna posted:That was the official name for the operation. IIRC, at first it was Desert Shield.
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# ? Mar 30, 2021 23:59 |
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Managed to finish Castles of Steel today. It was very good! Thanks to all those who recommended it over the years in this thread, I just wish the library had a copy of Dreadnought as well.
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 00:32 |
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wesleywillis posted:IIRC, at first it was Desert Shield. That was the defensive / buildup codename yes, with Desert Storm being the offensive codename.
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 00:48 |
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Acebuckeye13 posted:Managed to finish Castles of Steel today. Speaking of: Thread, what the hell is this? Dragon glass forts are real?
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 01:23 |
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Cessna posted:That was the official name for the operation. Holy loving poo poo. Weird and morbid. drat.
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 01:32 |
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"Armies in the Sand" by Kenneth Pollack is quite interesting when it comes to Arab militaries in general and their deficiencies compared with other cases. It shows quite clearly how Soviet equipment has been misused in the middle-east but has worked very well in other hands.
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 10:06 |
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Solaris 2.0 posted:To agree with Cessna it was a huge deal at the time. One of my earliest memories is watching CNN with my parents while Baghdad gets lit up with tracers the night the aerial war started. I was far too young to understand what was happening, but its a memory I still have. I remember coming back with my parents from holiday in France and finding out a war had suddenly happened (the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait). We were camping, so no TV or anything, and this was before widespread internet access of course, so first I knew about it was seeing the papers when we got back home.
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 10:19 |
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Cessna posted:That was the official name for the operation. Yeah those trading cards were wack. I know it was the official name for the operation, but it definitely became commonly used to describe the whole affair. Was that the first time that the op name became the kind of public facing name? I'm trying to think back - was Panama called "Just Cause?" I don't think Grenada was called "Urgent Fury" on the regular.
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 11:26 |
If we are allowed to post our cynical hot takes on the 80s I always remember the first gulf war in the shadow of watching the berlin wall come down on tv just a few months before that. There was this brief moment of thinking ok maybe this poo poo can finally stop followed by oh god why are you just inventing more bullshit war this is just gonna keep happening forever isn't it?
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 11:31 |
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Scratch Monkey posted:I think the name commonly used is "the Gulf War" Here (northern europe) the 'First Gulf War' is commonly used to distinguish it from the latter invasion of Iraq.
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 11:49 |
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We should call the invasion of Elam by Sumer the first Gulf War and use consecutive numbering from there to this day. Does anyone have recommendations on new literature on the 78th Gulf War?
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 13:11 |
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Tias posted:Here (northern europe) the 'First Gulf War' is commonly used to distinguish it from the latter invasion of Iraq. I get it but since the recent war was all in Iraqi and not fought in a country actually on the gulf I’m not sure it works
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 13:15 |
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Scratch Monkey posted:I get it but since the recent war was all in Iraqi and not fought in a country actually on the gulf I’m not sure it works I'll have you know that the war started with commandos taking Iraq's only port after which the approach was cleared of mines and opened for shipping. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Umm_Qasr
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 13:46 |
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Nenonen posted:We should call the invasion of Elam by Sumer the first Gulf War and use consecutive numbering from there to this day. Does anyone have recommendations on new literature on the 78th Gulf War? you're off by an order of magnitude
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 14:21 |
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Xiahou Dun posted:Holy loving poo poo. Weird and morbid. drat. Now imagine that you're over there, getting ready to assault the minefields on the Kuwaiti border in what looks like will be a suicidal attack against a prepared and defended position. When you go back to the rear to pick up a few cases of MREs you notice that there's a big space set aside called the "Mass Casualty Collection Area." A few days before the air war starts you're given boxes full of body bags for your vehicle, "just in case." Then you find out that kids back in the States have trading cards for your upcoming war. It's a strange feeling.
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 15:06 |
I remember my old man telling me they had instructions to put people out their misery if the proposed Sarin attacks occured and things were overwhelmed.
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 15:09 |
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Its mind-boggling to me that we went from being perhaps over-prepared for Gulf War 1/ Desert storm with predictions of a months-long campaign, mass casualties, or even getting bogged down into an Iran-Iraq war level stalemate. To the run up to the 2003 War when Rumsfeld was up there telling us how easy it was all going to be, that needing a 100,000 troops was probably still too many, and that everyone would be home in a few months. It's a good thing that Iraq was defeated so easily in 1991 but onth sure does seem like it created a sense of overconfidence especially among the neo-cons that would cause disaster not a mere 10 years later.
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 15:25 |
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My dad was in the RAF as a logistics officer and Operation Granby (as he calls it - I don't know if that was British codename or just the name for the component he was part of) literally had a base in the UK to serve as the hospital for the feared casualties that would come through Cyprus.
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 15:27 |
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Solaris 2.0 posted:Its mind-boggling to me that we went from being perhaps over-prepared for Gulf War 1/ Desert storm with predictions of a months-long campaign, mass casualties, or even getting bogged down into an Iran-Iraq war level stalemate. What a difference a Bush makes?
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 15:38 |
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SeanBeansShako posted:I remember my old man telling me they had instructions to put people out their misery if the proposed Sarin attacks occured and things were overwhelmed. We were absolutely sure that we would be gassed, and that it wouldn't go well.
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 16:07 |
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Solaris 2.0 posted:It's a good thing that Iraq was defeated so easily in 1991 but onth sure does seem like it created a sense of overconfidence especially among the neo-cons that would cause disaster not a mere 10 years later. I mean, again, it was defeated pretty easily the second time around too. The problem was the occupation, which is a separate matter.
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 16:10 |
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feedmegin posted:I mean, again, it was defeated pretty easily the second time around too. The problem was the occupation, which is a separate matter. Exactly this. I remember there being some bull sessions right after the 1st war about whether we should have pushed for Baghdad. Even at the time I predicted that this would have been a bad idea, as it would have left us occupying a hostile nation for an indefinite period of time.
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 16:15 |
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feedmegin posted:I mean, again, it was defeated pretty easily the second time around too. The problem was the occupation, which is a separate matter. Yea this is true. I remember reading articles at the time that figured Saddam would pull his Republican Guard divisions into and around Baghdad for a "Battle of Berlin" style final stand where the US would have to then fight street-by-street. No one expected the Iraqi military to just melt away and Saddam to go into hiding and Baghad fell without much of a fight. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Baghdad_(2003) Of course, the Iraqi military melting away was a double-edge sword as they took all their weapons with them. And the weapons that were left, were left unguarded in barracks and depots that were cleaned out and used to fuel the initial stages of the insurgency. Solaris 2.0 fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Mar 31, 2021 |
# ? Mar 31, 2021 16:24 |
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The Iraqi perspectives project does go into this a bit and is probably the best unclassified official record you can find of the war - it is important to note that the Iraqi army never recovered from the extreme material losses of '91 (which was partly the point) so the campaigns aren't really like-for-like.
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 16:31 |
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It's kinda unbelievable from today's perspective that the US seems to have been willing to accept (tens of?) thousands of casualties over a couple days / weeks back in 1991.
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 16:40 |
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Fun in the Fulda Gap where losses would have been higher/faster was still a recent possibility back then.
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 16:43 |
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Solaris 2.0 posted:Of course, the Iraqi military melting away was a double-edge sword as they took all their weapons with them. And the weapons that were left, were left unguarded in barracks and depots that were cleaned out and used to fuel the initial stages of the insurgency. It was worse than that, wasn't it? They literally disbanded the army, sending thousands of trained, armed men into unemployment.
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 16:44 |
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Solaris 2.0 posted:Of course, the Iraqi military melting away was a double-edge sword as they took all their weapons with them. And the weapons that were left, were left unguarded in barracks and depots that were cleaned out and used to fuel the initial stages of the insurgency. First they let the Iraqi army disintegrate and take their guns home with them, then they decided to disband the Iraqi military leaving said armed soldiers without a paycheck. "How on earth did this insurgency start?" exclaimed Rummy, "I was told they were supposed to welcome us as liberators!" edit: that'll teach me not to refresh the page before posting
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 17:02 |
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Pryor on Fire posted:The talk of tanks doing anything on top of snow is 99% bullshit. I'm sure the wider tracks helped with traction going uphill in some limited situations but the idea of the T34 going over some massive snowbank that is deeper than the T34 is tall is just not happening. Snow is not a binary terrain attribute that either exists or is powder snow deeper than a tank?? The idea of reducing ground pressure a little bit so that you can cross a little bit more terrain is not some total lunacy.
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 18:39 |
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Gort posted:It was worse than that, wasn't it? They literally disbanded the army, sending thousands of trained, armed men into unemployment. They (and by "They" I really mean Paul Bremmer, the American Ambassador to Iraq who answered directly to Bush and effectively ran the country by fiat in the early days) also banned the Ba'ath party, barring anyone who had been a member of the party from serving in government or holding a government job. given that Ba'ath party membership had previously been a prerequisite to serving in government or holding a government job, you can see how this may have caused some issues
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 18:44 |
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Hoping for general pointers, but more specific threads to follow up on are appreciated. Got recommended here as a good source. TLDR: looking for resources to read up on Ottoman participation in WWI, potentially relevant internal politics in the same period. Longer version: So my tabletop RPG group is opting to try a new game, Never Going Home, that's based around World War I including all participants as discussed/available forces for players to be part of. It's an alt history setting, so there's certainly divergences, but everything up to the first day of the Battle of the Somme is 1:1 to real world. I gave my players free reign to choose who they wanted to play as... and of course they latched onto playing Ottoman soldiers (partly because the alt history does neat things for them). This is one area of the war I have zero effective knowledge on and most English-language media, academic or otherwise, is focused on the western front for obvious reasons. I'd like to aim for accuracy as much as I can (and to use real-history as hooks for them), but I don't even know where to really begin on "resources to portray the Ottoman military accurately, broad scale and individual scale". Some variance for being fiction and whatnot, but only so much that can really waver before it gets too far off base. What's a good starting point to learn about their front & the military itself? Thanks in advance. I can follow up with more context related to the use case in question if it helps (and to find out just how inaccurate an author who cites Dan Carlin in-text actually is).
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 18:57 |
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Acebuckeye13 posted:They (and by "They" I really mean Paul Bremmer, the American Ambassador to Iraq who answered directly to Bush and effectively ran the country by fiat in the early days) also banned the Ba'ath party, barring anyone who had been a member of the party from serving in government or holding a government job. If only there were some sort of historical example of Western nations invading a fascist regime, occupying it, and then in short order rebuilding all the institutions and establishing self government.
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 19:04 |
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Nenonen posted:We should call the invasion of Elam by Sumer the first Gulf War and use consecutive numbering from there to this day. Does anyone have recommendations on new literature on the 78th Gulf War? Sure, John Julius Norwich talks extensively about Julian's campaigns in Iraq and the mythology that rose up from it. Interesting stuff!
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 19:45 |
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Alchenar posted:If only there were some sort of historical example of Western nations invading a fascist regime, occupying it, and then in short order rebuilding all the institutions and establishing self government. I might be completely wrong on this, so forgive me, but ironically wasn't Bremmer trying to follow the Allied Denazification process? The problem being defeated Nazi Germany 1945 does not = defeated Ba'athist Iraq 2003. The situations and conditions in both of those nations and times were wildly different. Solaris 2.0 fucked around with this message at 19:54 on Mar 31, 2021 |
# ? Mar 31, 2021 19:47 |
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Solaris 2.0 posted:I might be completely wrong on this, so forgive me, but ironically wasn't Bremmer trying to follow the Allied Denazification process? I remember reading that Allies had clear written plan for the occupation of Germany and US Army had already trained hundreds or thousands of german speaking officers for occupation duties. What was the plan for occupation of Iraq and how many Arabic speaking officers they had trained?
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 19:54 |
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Bremer was an ideological hothead who thought you could open liberal art colleges and give every Iraqi a credit card (in a nation where he couldn't secure electricity). He never got around to comparing historicities, and wouldn't have learned anything if he did.
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 19:57 |
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# ? Mar 29, 2024 07:13 |
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Pyle posted:I remember reading that Allies had clear written plan for the occupation of Germany and US Army had already trained hundreds or thousands of german speaking officers for occupation duties. What was the plan for occupation of Iraq and how many Arabic speaking officers they had trained? There was only one. His name was Tyler and he actually got out after his initial obligation was over so then things got really bleak.
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# ? Mar 31, 2021 20:09 |