James G
Squadron vice admiral
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Post by James G on Sept 17, 2019 19:18:23 GMT
77 – Breaking the Coalition
From Moscow and Amman both, Rashid was being told that the Coalition wasn’t going to invade Iraq to march on Baghdad and depose his regime. There was a backchannel to the Gulf Arab Monarchies, with one of the ruling houses within the UAE (others in that union and also the Coalition at large wouldn’t be best pleased at such a hidden contact), that too said that there would be no proper invasion of Iraq to bring Rashid down. He didn’t believe it though. He was aware that his armies were beaten, that there were the beginnings of a rebellion in the south where ethnic tensions were being prised open and that there were those in Washington who were looking for an excuse to force their allies into doing that. There was quite the fear in him after the latest bombing run on his capital where the Americans had their invisible bombers in action once again, that they were trying to kill him with targeted strikes. Why else try to kill him unless to see Iraq overrun fully?
Rashid had assembled against him a wide coalition of nations. He had previously flirted with many ideas as to how to break his enemies apart so as to save himself though not stuck with one of them long enough to see it put into action. Then there had been that exchange of gunfire on the Golan Heights. The idea had come to Rashid to intervene in what he thought was about to become a renewed conflict there. He would unilaterally strike against Israel, taking the side of Syria whether Syria wanted that or not. Why attack the neutral Israel? He foresaw the collapse of the alliance among his enemies once Israel struck back: those countries wouldn’t fight alongside Israel. He would break the Coalition and save himself. There was a delay in putting the idea into practice. Both Israel and Syria didn’t seem interested in fighting each other. Rashid waited for them to do so, for one to hit back after they had their soldiers killed by the other, yet the days past without engagement in that disputed territory. Those days weren’t ones which could be wasted. Rashid’s patience couldn’t hold.
Iraqi Scuds were launched at Israel on the night of August 7th. There were eight of them which orders came to launch and only five would reach Israel: one failed to lift off and the two others crash landed in Jordan. Each missile was launched from a mobile launcher – one of those infamous trucks disguised as water carriers that the Coalition was trying to hit anywhere they could across Iraq – soon after darkness came with the launch crew on the move with haste forthwith. The Scuds flew out of the western reaches off Iraq, sailing high over Jordan on a ballistic arc and then crashed into Israel. Military targets were selected for them though only three were struck on-target with the rest coming close or not very close at all. High-explosive warheads were used with contact fuses employed. The damage done was minimal and the lives lost less than a dozen. With their satellites, the Americans had spotted the launches. They’d been confused initially at why the Scuds were being fired from that part of Iraq because it didn’t seem right… until they realised what was happening and an alert was sent out. By then it was too late for Israel to be given sufficient warning. Even if alerted in time, there wasn’t much that could have been done. Like the Americans, Israel had no anti-missile system short of hitting the missiles & launch vehicles on the ground before they were fired. Air raids did sound across northern Israel when air defence radars spotted inbound projectiles yet the time there was limited and people didn’t rush to take shelter quick enough. If there had been more missiles and they’d been more accurate, plus if bad luck had come, Israel really could have come off far worse.
Rashid made a televised statement to his people and the watching world within fifteen minutes of the missile impacts. He declared what Iraq had done. His country had fired missiles at military targets in Israel and inflicted serious losses there to their armed forces. He said that this had been done due to recent Israeli attacks against Syria over the illegally occupied Golan Heights: Iraq was striking back on behalf of its Arab brothers. Moreover, Iraq did as it did for the cause of the Palestinian people. Rashid stated that Iraq was fighting for them too. He called on his fellow Arabs across the Middle East to join him in attacking Israel and liberating Palestine. Iraq would continue to attack Israel, he closed his remarks with, as long as Israel was supporting the Coalition covertly with arms, basing rights & intelligence as Rashid said Iraq could prove it was.
Attacked out of the blue, Israel naturally got ready to strike back. The unprovoked Iraqi military action couldn’t go unanswered. Long-standing Israeli policy was to do this plus there was too what Rashid had promised the world he would do with further attacks. Contingency plans were put into action. Israel had been worrying for some time that Iraq might lash out with its missiles though had been working on the assumption that there would be a lead up to it. Those in Tel Aviv couldn’t read minds in Baghdad though. They didn’t understand what Rashid had been plotting and certainly hadn’t thought that he would straight away admit it as well as make that statement about the Palestinians. Across Israel, aircrews were given briefings as flight folders were passed out. Those on strike missions would be making attacks across Western Iraq, hitting fixed military targets and also going after targets of opportunity which resembled possible Scud launchers. There was too going to be the insertion of commandos for reconnaissance work – looking for those missile launchers – as well as being on-hand to recover downed aircrew.
Israeli helicopters laden with men of Unit 269 – often known as Sayeret Matkal – were already in the air when Prime Minister Shamir took an urgent call from President Reagan. Israel was asked to not react, to hold off a strike that America believed it was about to make. Without confirming whether that was true or not, Shamir asked why not that shouldn’t go through. Reagan said that it would break the Coalition, allow Rashid to get away with all that he had done and ensure that Israel would be attacked once again. Let us deal with this, Reagan said. Shamir asked what kind of promises could the United States make? He was told that America would do everything that it possibly could using military force to stop Israel from doing this again and also use diplomacy via the Soviet Union as well.
Shamir blinked.
He told Reagan that there would be no air strike tonight. However, should the Iraqis make a follow up attack, with America failing to stop them, then there would be no holding back the next time. He was told that everything was going to be done to stop Iraq but to please consider United States interests as Israel’s had long been considered by America. What Israel’s leader made no mention of was the commandos. There was no recall order for the Sayeret Matkal. Their orders stood and they entered Iraq by way of Jordan, coming pretty close to be detected – and certainly – attacked on the way through.
What Rashid had done set off quite the storm. It would have been worse if Israel had launched those air strikes which they were about to yet that didn’t take much away from the crisis which erupted.
Arafat had met with Rashid several times since Saddam’s most capable general had taken power in Iraq. The leader of the PLO had had strong ties with Saddam but not with Rashid. Iraq’s current leader didn’t give one iota about the fate of Palestine nor the matter with Israel. While this wasn’t an unknown situation through other countries with their leaders, Iraq was no longer going to pay the game of pretending to under Rashid. There had been different priorities for keeping his people in line when it came to Rashid rather than using Israel as a convenient excuse. The about-turn, one so sudden, threw Arafat completely. He didn’t believe anything that Rashid said. Still… it couldn’t be ignored. The PLO now had an ally which had struck against Israel and promised to do that once again with the declared express purpose of doing so on the behalf of Palestine. Arafat couldn’t ignore this opportunity. He intended to make the best of it as possible. His top people would remind him of all that occupying Iraqi troops had done in Kuwait where the significant Palestinian population had suffered just as many grave injustices as the Kuwaiti ruling class had, but that was going to be overlooked due to the bigger picture here. The PLO would accept Iraq’s support for its fight.
In Damascus, Assad was furious at what Rashid had done where he had said he was effectively hitting back at Israel on behalf of Syria. This was none of Iraq’s business! Iraq had turned to Syria for covert help while it fought with the Coalition and Syria had been extracting its price with oil shipments. Rashid was no Saddam and the Ba’athist split which had for so long defined Iraqi-Syria relations was forgotten because Iraq’s current leader didn’t base his actions on historic political grievances. Assad had thought that he knew the type of man he was dealing with. He had been wrong though. Rashid had stepped over the line into crazy behaviour with this attack on Israel. With haste, Assad used a conduit though Lebanon to contact the Israelis. He made it clear that this business between Iraq and Israel wasn’t done on behalf of Syria. The message was sent but no reply came. Assad feared the worse: he was right to. Jordan was another country dawn into this issue. King Hussein’s nation rested between Iraq and Israel, therefore right in the firing line with further engagements. Hussein wanted nothing to do with a fight between the two and he too made contact with Israel, though speaking directly to Shamir rather than having to go through anyone else. Both of these country’s regimes found themselves caught out in more ways than just being put in the way of a potential war. Rashid’s statements on Iraqi TV had been widely broadcast and then there was the world of mouth too which would spread his comments. Assad and Hussein feared that their people would demand that they actively get involved, not stay out of all of this. By morning, protesters would be on the streets calling for just that.
In the Middle Eastern countries of the Coalition – from Morocco to Egypt to Saudi Arabia to the Gulf Arab Monarchies – none of them wanted to fight on the same side as Israel. In private, several of them would certainly like to see Israel destroy the last of Iraq’s capability to resist and end this war but none of them would say that openly. Israel was the real enemy for them whereas Rashid was just an adversary. That was how they presented the matter in public to keep their people in line. Throughout the conflict, there had been domestic pressures where Western forces had been in the Middle East and doing the bulk of the fighting. The Saudi defence minister, Prince Sultan, who was recently slain by that Iranian bomb in Bahrain, had therefore occupied the senior position as commander-in-chief. Another Saudi prince had recently replaced him so the fiction could be maintained that it was Arabs themselves who were leading the war against their brother Arabs rather than an infidel outsider. In addition, part of this public relations campaign when these nations tricked their own people so as to keep them in-line was to make sure that there was no suggestion that Israel had nothing to do with the conflict with Iraq. King Fahd and President Mubarak had been at the head of this effort when dealing with the Americans to make sure that Israel was kept out. If Israel became involved, it would break the Coalition. Suddenly Israel was and Rashid made that claim that he could ‘prove’ Israel had been actively aiding the Coalition. Despite being sure that they hadn’t been deceived by the Americans on this, the question was still asked of Washington on this. No, the reply came, Israel hasn’t been involved: Iraq is lying and whatever so-called evidence they produce, we will refute it.
Secretary of State Schulz was in France at the Château de Rambouillet when the attack on Israel happened. He was a guest there at the summer residence of France’s president for a series of meetings with European leaders taking place dealing with the Second Gulf War as well as the strained relations with the Soviets. He took a call from Washington and then another from Riyadh (where Fahd had returned to) before then meeting with Mitterrand while Thatcher in London was on an open line with the two of them. It was a busy night and then an even busier morning for Schulz, a stressful one too. After a delay, where he was given the run around, he finally managed to talk to Gromyko. Reagan wanted the Soviet foreign minister to pass onto Ligachev a warning to stop Rashid doing what he was doing with his missile strikes against Israel. The whole of the Middle East was going to go up in flames, negatively affecting everyone, unless the Soviet Union brought Iraq under control. Gromyko denied influence, equivalated American actions elsewhere and refused to heed Schulz’s warning. The phone call hadn’t gone well though there was hope afterwards in Washington that Moscow was just posturing and something would be done. It didn’t seem possible that Ligachev would want to see the whole region at war. The Reagan Administration believed that the Soviet general secretary would act in his own interests and thus stop the Coalition from falling apart by extension.
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forcon
Lieutenant Commander
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Post by forcon on Sept 17, 2019 21:06:00 GMT
Impressive! So if I Corps is going, I'm assuming that's the 7th Light, with the 5th Mech & 10th Light attached, while the 9th MAB goes to I MEF, or remains afloat in the Gulf as a strategic reserve? That's how I see it. All on their way to the Middle East when WW3 goes off in Europe. The 9th Brigade would be separate for Straits operations. The aim would be to allow for I Corps to ensure Iraq's territoral claims... quite something after spending two months attacking Iraq. A similar plan to go into Iran against the Soviets while facing hostile Iranians was the standard 80s CENTCOM scenario but this will be more insane. Well that probably sealed Rashid's fate. After this last round of destruction he's going to be seen as even more of a rogue element and the Gulf Arabs will want to have him removed. The US will feel more likely to go in for the kill as well although there will probably be some doubts about a march to Baghdad. Impressive performance from the US forces especially although the isolated Iraqis didn't really stand any chance and the lack of discipline with fire control means their burned through a lot of their munitions too quickly. He's about to do something worse to make his regime truly rouge! The Iraqis really were caught facing the wrong way with little time to avert disaster. The last of them are finished but will have orders to fight to the end. Another interesting dimension there. What happens to I Corps, bound for the ME, when fighting breaks out in Europe? Would they be sent to the Gulf or would US forces already there be left to fend for themselves? Also, Asia: the 9th MEB going to the ME leaves Korea quite exposed. |
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stevep
Fleet admiral
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Post by stevep on Sept 18, 2019 17:48:00 GMT
Well given your last reply I was fearing that some of those Scuds would have been chemically armed, which would have definitely prompted an Israeli response and possibly one that would have really set the ME aflame. Ominously I suspect that the Reagan administration has misread the Soviet one and its stability here. Also I fear that Rashid will take all the frantic communications, some of which he's bound to have some knowledge of, as a sign his plan is 'working'.  |
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James G
Squadron vice admiral
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Post by James G on Sept 18, 2019 18:46:37 GMT
That's how I see it. All on their way to the Middle East when WW3 goes off in Europe. The 9th Brigade would be separate for Straits operations. The aim would be to allow for I Corps to ensure Iraq's territoral claims... quite something after spending two months attacking Iraq. A similar plan to go into Iran against the Soviets while facing hostile Iranians was the standard 80s CENTCOM scenario but this will be more insane. He's about to do something worse to make his regime truly rouge! The Iraqis really were caught facing the wrong way with little time to avert disaster. The last of them are finished but will have orders to fight to the end. Another interesting dimension there. What happens to I Corps, bound for the ME, when fighting breaks out in Europe? Would they be sent to the Gulf or would US forces already there be left to fend for themselves? Also, Asia: the 9th MEB going to the ME leaves Korea quite exposed. The Israel issue isn't finished and nor is the matter with Iran either. I'm not sure on what occurs with that movement for forces en route. The speed of things, and the use of WMDs, will complicate matters significantly. Yep, the 3rd Marine Division is small and will now be getting smaller. No planning of mine has yet to be done for what will happen in Asia though. Well given your last reply I was fearing that some of those Scuds would have been chemically armed, which would have definitely prompted an Israeli response and possibly one that would have really set the ME aflame. Ominously I suspect that the Reagan administration has misread the Soviet one and its stability here. Also I fear that Rashid will take all the frantic communications, some of which he's bound to have some knowledge of, as a sign his plan is 'working'. Chemicals and nukes will see their use in time! Just not right yet, another two weeks in the story timeframe. The Soviets haven't been showing any sign that they wish to help out, even indirectly, what they see as a bellicose and threatening US. Rashid will see all of that and make his own conclusions. The update after the one below (Thursday's one) will be entitled 'If at first you don't succeed...' and that will concern Iraq and Israel: so we're not finished with that at all! |
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James G
Squadron vice admiral
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Post by James G on Sept 18, 2019 18:47:17 GMT
78 – Standoff next to Highway-5
A column of trucks, escorted by light armoured vehicles, turned off Highway-5 in Southern Iraq. They had come from a military garrison near the city of Nasiriyah and were heading for the airbase at Ar Rumaylah. Air recon had identified them as Soviets, not Iraqis. The nearest Coalition unit in the way was a company of British Paras. At their roadblock less than a mile from where the Soviets had left the main road, those men with 2 PARA stopped the column. It had just gotten dark and elsewhere there was heavy fighting raging in Kuwait but here in the desert south of the Euphrates Valley, there was no intention for anyone on either side to have a fight. The major commanding the Paras, along with a lieutenant specially assigned to his company who spoke Russian, informed the Soviet officer who came forward and said that he was in charge that they needed to turn around and go back to where they had come from. That officer was a major too, one whom his British counterpart noticed wore the insignia on his uniform that denoted him too as a paratrooper with the Soviet Airborne Troops. He instructed the British to get out of the way and let his column past. No, the reply came, we aren’t moving and you’re going to have to turn around.
The exchange was reasonable between the two officers. There was no shouting nor threats made while weapons weren’t drawn by either towards the other. However, the pair of majors each had many rifles pointed at them by soldiers on the other side who were also aiming their weapons at one another too. The Soviets found that there were Paras on both sides of them as well as out ahead; the British saw that Airborne Troops were apparently unfazed by his and had their weapons pointing in all three directions in a manner several veteran Paras took as being a sign that these too were combat veterans themselves. Back-and-forth the two majors went, using that interpreter who was from the Intelligence Corps and sent here because of the British positions around & near to that Soviet-operated airbase. This wasn’t the first dealings that the British had had with the Soviets here in Iraq yet it was the first standoff where each side were pointing guns at the other. On this went for a while. There were a lot of soldiers all waiting for the word to open fire though none did. Most of the Soviets were out of their vehicles and took up firing positions among them but they remained on the small road which was in poor condition: the highway nearby was in much better state. The room that the Soviets had was limited but the British had spread out too and had far better positions. They outnumbered those they pointed their weapons against, at least two-to-one. Neither officer blinked. They had their own orders from on high and there was no intention to disobey them.
A flight of US Air Force jets came in low, really low. They were A-10 attack-fighters which had been sent here to give air cover to their allies below. The first pass was dramatic and done to intimidate those on the ground before the A-10s soon started to circle above. They maintained a low altitude and could be heard by all below when not close enough to be visible. More Paras come to the scene as well when the battalion commander brought up another company as well as heavy weapons units. Those extra men from 2 PARA were kept out of sight but were waiting nearby, ready to move in from behind the Soviets should any shooting start. That wasn’t what was wanted by the battalion commander though. He intended to end this standoff. He took over negotiations with the Soviet officer. This road was shut, he told him, and it wasn’t going to be opened at any point. The best thing for the Soviets to do would be to turn around and go home… and by home he meant back to their own country, not to that garrison from where they had driven. The tone of the verbal standoff had changed. This British officer, a lieutenant-colonel, had firm orders from his brigade commander to make sure that the Soviets got the message. Like his subordinates here, he was following those instructions yet he had his own personal thoughts on the matter. He didn’t like what he had been told to do. Threatening the Soviets directly wasn’t in his instructions but he was making a big show of force in shutting down this road with so many of his men to not allow them through. These were recent orders, ones which had come the day before. The road had previously been left open allowing for a way in and out of Ar Rumaylah Airbase for the Soviets. They could have left that way, 2 PARA’s commander had hoped, and stopped the situation where his Paras were in close contact with them. Now he had shut the road. Admittedly, the Soviets were trying to bring in more of their men rather than leaving, yet to shut off the only access route seemed like a dangerous thing to do with regards to inflaming the situation. That’s what the orders he had said though.
Following the American aircraft, they now brought some of their tanks to the scene of the standoff. Ar Rumaylah Airbase was at the northwestern corner of the area of Southern Iraq which the Coalition was occupying as part of its flank protection for ongoing operations inside Kuwait. They’d crushed all opposition inside the declared war zone while leaving forces to guard the outside against an Iraqi incursion to try to intervene in what was happening across in Kuwait. I MAF had Coalition units transferred into the corps-sized command, and seen others leave for the XVIII Airborne Corps, so it could undertake this protective mission. Many of the combat forces available were near to the Iranian-Iraqi border but there were others which were out in the desert. A company of M-60 tanks from a battalion assigned to the 157th Infantry Brigade, US Army Reserve troops home-based in Pennsylvania, arrived on scene. Unlike those reinforcing Paras, they didn’t keep their presence as an unknown. Straight away, they manoeuvred into firing positions where at any moment the fourteen of them could pour flanking fire into the exposed Soviets. There were a few BMD-1s and BTR-Ds on the road and the men which had come out of them had some weapons of their own, but those Airborne Troops weren’t going to last very long at all should the American tanks start firing.
That Soviet major got back into his command vehicle and was on the radio. He reported in that his two platoons of riflemen were faced with a company of British Paras (the other one hadn’t been seen) and a company of Americans tanks. There were A-10s making circles above, the same type of aircraft which had in other fights done all sorts of unspeakable horrors to the Iraqi Army. The Coalition troops here weren’t moving aside and he’d have to go through them to get to Ar Rumaylah. Permission was asked to withdraw. His men would fight if necessary, he informed his regimental colonel, but they would be massacred if they did so. That permission was granted: a return to Nasiriyah was to be made.
The Soviets turned around. The Paras and the American tankers watched as they re-boarded their vehicles, did a three-point turn, and then started heading back to Highway-5. The standoff came to an end. The A-10s would follow them for a time though wouldn’t stay above them all the way to where they had come from due to the heavy presence of Iraqi air defences around the wider Nasiriyah area. A huge collection sigh of relief was given. Coalition forces here had hyped themselves up for a fight though very few of them – only the foolish – would have wanted to see shots exchanged. They would have won the battle but set off a war. The British stayed where they were though the Americans went right up to the highway turn-off and would be joined soon enough by their own infantry there in establishing a forward roadblock. The mission for the British was to remain in-place around Ar Rumaylah Airbase where there were other Soviet troops including more Airborne Troops who had been spotted flying in by helicopters during the day and therefore not coming down the road that these latest men had tried to make use of. Many questions would be asked among the mid-ranking Coalition officers on the ground and their higher-ranking counterparts too. What was that all about with the ground convoy? It was clearly a test of their resolve and one which they had faced down yet there had to be more to it.
Coalition intelligence was focused on Ar Rumaylah like it was Umm Qasr. They knew what forces that the Soviets had there and had been watching them since there had come the politically driven instruction to shut off access to them as best as possible. This had come following the Coalition demand that they leave which Moscow responded to by saying that they would reinforce such places instead. Umm Qasr where the Soviets had up to two battalion groups of their Naval Infantry plus several ships was somewhere that the Soviets could only reach by sea due to their being no airfield nor a road route; Ar Rumaylah was out in the desert though with both air and ground access possible before the roadblock was set up. At the airbase which 2 PARA surrounded, they had transport aircraft and helicopters. Therefore, there was still a way out of both places for the Soviets should they chose to go. Coalition leaders had decided to limit what they could do but not leave them completely trapped even if it might look that way to some. This was all a matter of brinkmanship, a dangerous game was being played on this. What was wanted was for the Soviets to back down – just like they had with their road convoy – and depart.
In Moscow, there was absolutely no intention of doing that when it came to their presence in Iraq.
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James G
Squadron vice admiral
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Post by James G on Sept 19, 2019 19:19:57 GMT
79 – If at first you don’t succeed…
Accuracy with regard to Iraqi-fired Scud missiles had been truly terrible throughout the war with the Coalition. These missiles supplied by the Soviets didn’t have a good record anyway and before he was killed, Saddam had been pushing his engineers & technicians to improve the whole missile design after poor performance with their use against Iran. Rashid hadn’t had the luxury of the money to do anything like that. From the Soviet Union, he had received missile stocks and he had put them to use. These were low quality versions of the Scud: ‘monkey models’ it could be said. Less than fifty per cent of them hit their targets when fired and ‘hitting’ often meant only just too when it came to the blast radius of the warheads. Mass firings had thus been done to increase the chances of a successful strike. Eight of them had been launched against Israel on the night of August 7th with only three causing damage and injuries at their targets. Rashid’s action had done very little in physical terms though that wasn’t his intention. The reason why Iraq fired on that neutral nation was to drawn Israel into the war and thus break the Coalition apart. A second attempt was made with Scuds being fired once more.
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.
Twilight the next evening – when Soviet and Coalition troops were having that standoff in the Southern Iraqi desert – another ten missiles were ordered to be launched out of Western Iraq. One of them misfired, another broke up in the sky above Syria and the third hit the ground in Jordan. Of the other seven, two of them struck a pair of Israeli garrisons and another hit an airbase (Ramat David) on the Israeli side of the Golan Heights. None of them did any significant damage to either place. The final four Scuds were off-target and landed elsewhere in Northern Israel with a trio of them coming down in farmland. The last one struck the town of Safed. Israeli military casualties totalled four; thirty-nine civilians were dead when that Scud which struck Safed landed outside an air raid shelter which civilians were rushing into at the time. The poor accuracy of those missiles had seen to it that all of those lives were lost there.
If there had only been one missile, if it had landed outside of Israel and if it hadn’t harmed a single Israeli, none of that would have stopped what came next. Israel was primed and ready to hit back against any Iraqi second attack. One had come and Shamir gave the go ahead. When his jets were in the air, Israel’s prime minister then called Washington. He informed Reagan what had been done and his nation’s response. The American president tried to talk him into calling those aircraft back but Shamir would have none of it. He was by them being told that an air raid shelter had been hit – the details were fussy when given to him in haste – with dozens reported dead. Shamir had told Reagan that this would be done should Iraq attack again: he told the president that Israel had no choice but to hit back after a repeat strike.
IDF/AF missions launched against Iraq were deemed Operation Ribbon. This was pre-planned, something the Israelis had been waiting to do for a while. They used F-4s, F-15s & F-16s for fighter and strike missions as well as E-2s for AWACS support and converted Boeing-707s for tanker & electronic warfare tasks. This was all American-built equipment, supplied to Israel on quite the favourable terms, with none of it being monkey models. Through both Syria and Jordan the aircraft went. Fighters from both of those countries rose to try to intercept the IDF/AF. Rather than just shoot them down en masse, the Israelis tried to dodge them. Shamir would fight Assad and Hussein if he had to but he would rather just concentrate on Rashid’s Iraq. Radar jamming was used and the aircraft on Operation Ribbon went out of their way to avoid combat with the fighters of those nations. The flight route took the IDF/AF along the border areas between the two nations as well with the intention of confusing each that the aircraft belonged to their neighbours, not Israel. However, not deceived, the Jordanians managed to get a pair of their Mirage F-1s close enough to a flight of F-16s carrying a heavy load of bombs despite the best Israeli efforts to avoid this. The Jordanians achieved lock-on: they were ready to fire. F-15s killed both Mirages first though with missile shots which they were authorised to take in such a situation.
Over Iraq, there were engagements between the IDF/AF and the war-ravaged IQAF. The Israelis came out of these victorious where their E-2s were able to do what American E-3 had done to the Iraqis before when making the best use of airborne radars and onboard fighter controllers. Then the strike missions began. Radars and air defence command centres were hit first before Operation Ribbon moved to Iraqi airbases. Several times the IDF/AF was fired upon from ground defences in spite of all of the intensive jamming used. One of the F-16s was hit by a SAM with both aircrew ejecting: those Israeli commandos already on the ground would locate them before dawn. Multiple flights of F-4s, carrying external fuel tanks as well as bombs, went low over selected areas of the desert. Israeli reconnaissance as well as those Sayeret Matkal commandos had pointed to areas where the launch vehicles for those Scuds might be found. Almost a dozen drops were made of bombs, each time with a hope that the IDF/AF had got the right target. Not once did they do so though: it was just innocent trucks or some deliberate decoys set up. One of the F-4s was hit by anti-aircraft gunfire but would make it home. Another was struck by a SAM and exploded in the sky with the resulting deaths of both Israelis aboard.
Heading home, the Israelis took a different routing. They went out of Iraq through Saudi airspace, right in the very north of that country along the Jordanian-Saudi border. Once more, they used a tremendous amount of jamming and also aimed to hopefully confuse each country as to whom the aircraft might belong to. Back in 1981, the IDF/AF had done the same thing – though going to Iraq and back this way – when they’d launched Operation Opera to blow up Saddam’s nuclear reactor. This part of Saudi Arabia had seen very little of the war between Rashid’s Iraq and the Coalition. Most activity was away to the southeast: there had been some limited cross-border gunfire and a few air missions. The Israelis knew that the Saudis would be watching their frontier but they believed they would get past and make it back home without having to defend themselves.
A couple of hundred miles off, a US Air Force AWACS picked up the IDF/AF jets flying home from their Operation Ribbon strikes. Emergency orders had come to the senior air battle controller aboard, all the way from the Pentagon through CENTCOM. Those Israeli aircraft were to be ignored. When detected despite the jamming being used, no message was passed onto orbiting Coalition jets to engage aircraft coming out of Iraq… nor were they even informed of them. A decision had been made back in Washington that they would take the verbal flak which would come from the Saudis later on this rather than tell their allies that their airspace was being invaded. The Saudis had their own radars though, ones on the ground. Saudi air defences spotted the intruders and orders were issued to RSAF interceptors. Assistance was requested for AWACS support – as well as questions asked as to why those unidentified jets weren’t being reported by the E-3 on-station – but this was refused. Hopping mad but deciding to deal with that later, the Saudis went after the Israelis on their own. Two pairs of F-15s ignored recall instructions from the Americans on their AWACS and raced towards the Jordanian border with their fighter radars on.
The Israelis couldn’t help but see them coming. In Arabic, messages were sent claiming that the IDF/AF jets were Jordanians over their own territory. The deception failed as the Saudi interceptors closed the distance. There were several groups of Israeli aircraft and two of those, both with F-4s & F-16s, were ahead of the Saudis. Those on the Operation Ribbon mission had self-defence instructions and did just that. F-15s fired on F-15s. The Israelis launched missiles first though the Saudis were soon launching their own. Three RSAF interceptors were hit and the last one turned away. Four IDF/AF aircraft were struck as well (one surviving) while the others continued on home, not giving chase but eager to get away before possibly more attackers showed up.
Operation Ribbon had seen Iraqi military sites bombed but none of those Scud launchers hit despite the initial belief the many had been. It cost the Israelis a total of five aircraft – two taken out by the Iraqis and a trio by the Saudis – with three aircrew killed and six more later to be rescued (including Sayeret Matkal activities in Jordan the next morning). Jordan lost a pair of fighters with both men flying them killed; the Saudis had lost a trio of F-15s with two of their people also left dead. Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia each had their airspace invaded as Israel attacked Iraq: each of those countries could rightfully consider themselves a victim of international aggression. The Saudis had been betrayed by their allies – there was no other way of putting that – in the midst of this too. The recriminations from Operation Ribbon were quick to come…
…and Rashid still had more missiles.
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forcon
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Post by forcon on Sept 19, 2019 19:25:32 GMT
Nice work, but oh dear...the coalition is in trouble...
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James G
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Post by James G on Sept 20, 2019 6:27:32 GMT
Nice work, but oh dear...the coalition is in trouble... Thanks. The American's Arab allies will be furious. Several clashes with Iran up next. |
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Sept 20, 2019 8:13:27 GMT
Very messy. The Arabs will never accept the Israelis have the right to self-defence and the Israelis will never work with the Arabs, in large part because they know their almost certain to be betrayed. Also as you say, especially after this success, Rashid has more missiles and hence is almost certain to use them. The alliance Arabs will be ready to attack any retaliation so its only going to get messier. Unless Israel responded in a way that can't be intercepted and that would really put the cat among the pigeons. {Spoiler}
[Yes I am talking nukes, although I think that's unlikely, at the moment anyway.] |
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James G
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Post by James G on Sept 20, 2019 19:26:22 GMT
Very messy. The Arabs will never accept the Israelis have the right to self-defence and the Israelis will never work with the Arabs, in large part because they know their almost certain to be betrayed. Also as you say, especially after this success, Rashid has more missiles and hence is almost certain to use them. The alliance Arabs will be ready to attack any retaliation so its only going to get messier. Unless Israel responded in a way that can't be intercepted and that would really put the cat among the pigeons. {Spoiler}
[Yes I am talking nukes, although I think that's unlikely, at the moment anyway.] Their interests align though, which makes it all the worse. I was looking at the numbers of missiles fired in Saddam's wars. In a six week period against Iran, he fired 189 Scuds in total. In 1991, Israel was targeted with 42 and the Saudis with 46. Now my POD shook things up and after it, Rashid has used many against the Coalition and some against Israel but it means I am on the right track with the scale of the issue. Rashid will keep firing until he can no longer do so. The issue with Iran below will patch over some inter-Coalition issues and the Americans will try to stop the Saudis while the Egyptians will stay out of it unless they feel forced into it. Jordan and Syria are both going to be difficult issues though. Each are non-Coalition but their fellow Arabs won't want to see them blasted to ruin by Israel as Israel strikes at Iraq. We'll get nukes eventually once someone uses them and then the battlefield will change quite dramatically. |
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James G
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Post by James G on Sept 20, 2019 19:27:18 GMT
80 – International waters
Early the next morning, just before it was getting light, the US Navy got into a fight in the Straits of Hormuz. There were engagements with Iranian aviation and naval assets which would lead to casualties on both sides occurring. From Tehran and Washington, there would afterwards be near-identical claims that the other side attacked their own innocent forces first and what resulted was acts of self-defence. The Iranians would promise retaliation while the United States would declare that it would defend freedom of navigation through international waters in that waterway which connected the Persian Gulf with the Indian Ocean against any & all threats. It all started over a chartered ship, a general cargo merchantman which was going through the Straits inbound for the liberated Dammam. This vessel was American owned though registered in The Bahamas for the sake of a flag of convenience. She had been chartered by the Pentagon to carry war cargo as one of many vessels engaged in such a process and had been part of a convoy which had formed up in the Arabian Sea before proceeding into the Gulf of Oman and then entering the Straits. Five more ships – other merchantmen, a container ship and a tanker – were also going into the Gulf. Due to ongoing significant tensions with Iran, they were to go be escorted by an American frigate close-in though with other warships nearby and also aircraft on-call from afar as well. This particular ship was the last one in the convoy and right at the wrong moment, really when this was the least favourable time, engine trouble came about and she suffered power failure. There was an issue which had been plastered over before and a repair was fudged. Now the chickens came home to roost and the ship was going nowhere. She had to be left behind while the others, along with that frigate, went onwards. The idea wasn’t to leave her behind for long though. There was a recently built helipad (a product of the dollar-hose sprayed throughout the region) outside of the port town of Khasab from where the Americans were flying helicopters. Also there on the Musandam Peninsula – an Omani exclave surrounded by the UAE on land and pointing out into the Straits northwards – were small warships from both Oman and Egypt. Soon enough, an effort was underway to provide airborne cover for the stranded ship before she could be taken under escorted tow into Khasab.
Before those friendly ships could turn up, the Iranians had their own boats near to that vessel. An American helicopter, a giant RH-53D armed minesweeper, was present and watched as the Iranians sent speedboats racing in. They’d certainly heard some chatter over the radio and came out for what the helicopter’s commander reported in was ‘to get up to their usual sh*t’. It was an American ship and when the Iranians tried to board it while it was in international waters, this was an armed attack. Acting in what was regarded as self-defence, those aboard the helicopter opened fire. There were heavy machine guns aboard for anti-mine work: weapons which worked just as well against speedboats. The Iranians returned fire on the helicopter and also against an armed party on that ship too who joined in with the exchanges of gunfire. An RPG was fired against the RH-53D and it made a sudden swerve to avoid this unguided projectile. A crewmember fell out of the helicopter and into the water because he’d failed to strap himself in properly. Meanwhile, the Iranians got some of their men onto that ship. They were going to take it into their ‘protective custody’ with the claim to be made that it was in Iranian waters at the time. The Americans had to deal with a missing man and also the many surviving boats which had split up. By this point, the first of several Coalition small warships arrived when one of those Egyptian boats that had been calling Khasab home for the past month reached the scene. The Iranians opened fire on them first, allowing for the Egyptians to follow their rules of engagement about being attacked first to make any attack of their own rather than possibly sit by and do nothing if the Iranians hadn’t made that opening move. Multiple speedboats were blown apart with Revolutionary Guard commandos killed aplenty. There were US Navy SEALs boarding another RH-53 at Khasab but before their arrival, Egyptian Marine Commandos came off their warship in a speedboat of their own and went into action to get aboard the stranded civilian vessel. Once on it, they helped those sailors overcome the Iranians who’d made it aboard. The battle was over before the Omanis got a pair of patrol boats to the scene and there were also US Navy fighters in the sky coming from a distant carrier. Iranian prisoners were taken away and there was a wait on for a tugboat to come out.
The Iranians made a second appearance soon enough, this time coming out with a stronger force than before. There were F-4 multi-role fighters and also a missile boat that went through the water at full speed. Over the radio waves, in both English and Farsi, the Iranians were warned off by the Americans. They refused to heed those warnings. The US Navy didn’t want to be the victims of a similar attack which had hit the US Air Force when the Iranians had recently attacked them when over Iraq and so here above the Straits, they once more shot first. Two Iranian F-4s were downed by American FA-18s and there was a Harpoon anti-ship missile put into that missile boat. The Iranians didn’t know what hit them. They were unaware of the American intention to act in such a strong manner pre-emptively and took further significant casualties, this time to their regular armed forces instead of just their Revolutionary Guard.
It wasn’t that long afterwards, in the hours following dawn, when the Saudis did what the Americans did and attacked Iranian forces as well ahead of a perceived attack first. It must be noted that this meant that in less than twenty-four hours, the Saudis had exchanged shots with not just the Iranians as they did here but with the Iraqis in the battles raging for Kuwait as well as Israeli airspace intruders too. Talk about fighting many enemies at once…!
This was another at-sea clash. The Royal Saudi Navy hadn’t had the best of wars, especially in its early days against the Iraqis when Rashid’s war machine had run riot to open the Second Gulf War. There weren’t that many ships left and there had been the opinion expressed from allies that what was left in terms of the surface flotilla of the Saudi’s navy should stay in the Red Sea to help patrol there to guard against any outside interference to the war effort with shipping, possibly coming from Yemen. That opinion hadn’t been one listened to. The Saudis had sent the majority of their surviving warships all the way to the Gulf while the Egyptians secured the Red Sea. They were in their own waters as well as international ones and working with their allies with the mission of defending inbound convoys and maintaining their sovereignty. To the Saudis, the latter included keeping Iranian activities far away from them and their allies too now that the Iraqis didn’t have a navy of their own left. Iran clearly had designs upon making gains out of this war which they were officially not involved in and, like the Americans, the Saudis wouldn’t stand for that. Bahrain was where Iran had directed its attention but Saudi Arabia wasn’t about to see them take a hold of it as they were surely trying to do. An apparently innocent civilian ship avoided the attention of the US Navy – not an easy thing to do – and was heading for that troubled island nation when the Saudis stopped it. This was done in international waters but the Saudis were making up their own rules on that point: they were considering the Persian Gulf theirs to police. With a well-armed corvette pointing many weapons at the ship, Saudi marines tried to board it. Return fire came from onboard as Iranian volunteers on their way to Bahrain to fight there engaged an enemy in action on the high seas. They Saudis got some men on it but failed to get any more than a foothold. Iranian gunfire inflicted many casualties among the boarders, too many to ensure that a Saudi victory was due. They withdrew their men and then the Saudi Navy opened fire with the main gun from that frigate. The attacked ship was badly hit due to the shelling before then there was the launch of a pair of missiles too. It went up in flames with all of those Iranians aboard. Men abandoned ship with the Saudis then pulling many out of the water yet leaving others behind as they pulled back for fear of an explosion. There were munitions aboard that the volunteers had been bringing with them to Bahrain and the worry was that the fire would set them off. This wasn’t a flight of fancy. That ammunition exploded with a roar and the Iranian ship started to go down.
The RSAF and soon afterwards the Americans too had fighters in the sky. They were waiting for an Iranian countermove. Perhaps they’d use their F-14s again to fire missiles from distance or try to close in with F-4s? No Iranian aircraft showed up though through the long wait. Instead, Iran struck back against the Saudis in a different manner. Their attack was against the Americans too in response to the shooting incidents in the Straits in the preceding hours. A total of five ballistic missiles, once more Soviet manufactured Scuds (the Iranians had long ago got theirs from Libya though, not direct from the Soviet Union), arched out of the southern reaches of Iran near to Bushehr and towards the Dammam-Dhahran area. The Iraqis had used Scuds here before they’d overrun it then fired more after they’d been forced out. Now Iran took the area under fire with its own missiles. One missile broke up in the air and another crashed into the sea. Of the trio which remained, one hit the empty desert west of the target area. Neither of the remaining two were directly on-target – Iranian shooting was worse than the Iraqis’ was – but still would cause much damage and many casualties in this area where the Coalition was using to support its war effort against Iraq. The Saudis, the Americans, the British and the Gulf Arab Monarchies all had the lives of their people lost in the face of the Iranian attack.
While it might have been undeclared and thus not official at this stage, the Coalition was at war with Iran. They were busy at this time arguing among themselves over what had happened with Israel and now Iran had intervened. It was a truly multi-sided conflict with the potential to spin even more out of control should something once more occur with regards to Israel.
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Sept 21, 2019 8:08:09 GMT
Correction - with the potential to spin even more out of control should when something once more occur with regards to Israel. - since Rashid will definitely try and use that tactic again.
The reason I was thinking Israel might move to nukes quickly is that now the neighbouring Arab states have made clear their militarily hostility to any Israeli response to attacks its going to be more and more difficult and costly for them to continue with conventional strikes against Iraqi attacks so a threat to respond with nuclear weapons might seem the best option. [Rashid might think his people expendable but a couple of targetted nukes could well threaten him either directly or by fatally undermining his regime]. Of course if Rashid calls their bluff then the Israelis might have to decide they can't allow that.
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James G
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Post by James G on Sept 21, 2019 18:58:39 GMT
Correction - with the potential to spin even more out of control should when something once more occur with regards to Israel. - since Rashid will definitely try and use that tactic again.
The reason I was thinking Israel might move to nukes quickly is that now the neighbouring Arab states have made clear their militarily hostility to any Israeli response to attacks its going to be more and more difficult and costly for them to continue with conventional strikes against Iraqi attacks so a threat to respond with nuclear weapons might seem the best option. [Rashid might think his people expendable but a couple of targetted nukes could well threaten him either directly or by fatally undermining his regime]. Of course if Rashid calls their bluff then the Israelis might have to decide they can't allow that.
Oh, he certainly will! I understand now. Israel can't keep it up for any length of time because of the unfriendly countries in the way. There is also the sure losses which will come operating so far from home. And, the have failed to achieve anything too. It's looking like nukes might have to do it in the end. I haven't detailed in in my mind but, story-wise, we're a week from everything blowing up. There are all these countries involved already and more on the cusp of getting into it. The Soviets still have forces in the region as well, many of those shadowing the Americans in a situation just begging for another accident. |
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James G
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Post by James G on Sept 21, 2019 18:59:18 GMT
81 – Collateral Damage
The actions of first Israel and then Iran expanded the Second Gulf War into a multi-sided regional conflict at a time when it should have been winding down to a close. Iraq was almost defeated. Rashid’s conquests had nearly all been taken away from him with occupied areas of Saudi Arabia liberated and Kuwait soon to be freed too. It was Iraq’s missile strikes to starve off defeat which brought Israel into the conflict. Iran’s entry was brought about by Iran worrying about the consequences of Iraq’s defeat for them when faced with the American aggression. In response to the two countries joining the conflict, there was a ripple effect throughout the Middle East.
Unauthorised and uncontrollable demonstrations broke out in Egypt and Jordan. The people came out onto the streets in defiance of their governments to demand that action was taken against Israel. Alexandria, Cairo and Amman all saw violence commence with these gatherings of people. Troublemakers were influential in directing what occurred where security forces were attacked when they tried to bring order to what was going on. The mobs didn’t have anything Israeli to attack, nor any physical symbol of that country, so they just struck at the security forces instead. The Egyptians had to use a lot of force in the end but did halt the violence before things got really out of hand. That wasn’t the case over in Jordan where the mobs couldn’t be stopped from eventually starting to smash up and burn down parts of Amman for no good reason at all. The security forces were forced to retreat and wait until the mob tired itself out. Mubarak’s regime and that of King Hussein were each in serious trouble if these events repeated themselves. Both leaders had no desire to take their nation’s to war with Israel over such an issue as air strikes made against Iraq. They’d lose such a conflict and might even lose their positions – even lives – in the fallout from such defeats. The people were demanding action though. Mubarak had his secret police go after those who were behind the trouble with the aim of silencing them and thus stopping any further big demonstrations. Hussein’s approach was to try to placate his people by promising that Jordan would stand up to Israel and not allow it to attack Iraq using Jordan to do that: he gave no specifics to this though, hoping that words would be enough to calm the people.
Up in Damascus, Assad made sure that his people weren’t going to get any ideas about being out on the streets making trouble. He allowed for several protests to take place in a couple of Syrian cities including the capital but these were stage-managed events. The people were allowed to express their anger under control. Images of this were recorded and broadcast. Assad made a statement denouncing Israel’s air strikes against Iraq and spoke of how Syria would make sure that there would be no use of Syrian airspace to do this: Syria would defend its skies, he said. Again though, this was another country whose leader didn’t want to fight a war and what he declared Syria would do didn’t amount to the desire of others to see Syria enter a conflict with Israel. What Assad couldn’t influence was what occurred in neighbouring Lebanon. He would have liked to but the situation there had long been out of his full control. Syria had men on the ground in that country as the civil war there went on yet Assad’s influence only went so far. There was the rising force of Hezbollah, which answered to Iran, not Syria nor especially the Lebanese. Only a few years old yet with plenty of experience already, as well as a dedicated hard-core of volunteers, Hezbollah went on the attack into South Lebanon against the Israelis and their Cristian allies there. There was a UN Peacekeeping force there, with soldiers from countries such as Fiji and Ireland along with others, and Hezbollah pushed past them as it mounted what was quite the brave, but ultimately foolish attack southwards. The Israelis saw them coming and reacted accordingly: with everything that they had, in many ways regardless of concerns about collateral damage. Consideration was given in Tel Aviv to striking elsewhere in Lebanon afterwards, up around West Beirut where Hezbollah was strong too, but with the certain need for further Operation Ribbon operations that was put off for the time being. Gaddafi, who had made earlier efforts to align with Iraq but been rebuffed by Rashid, reversed course and declared solidarity with Iran. Libya’s leader was spoiling for a fight, especially against the United States which had attacked his country the year beforehand. He wanted revenge for that and with Iran now engaged in military operations against the American-led Coalition, this was his opportunity here. Gaddafi didn’t allow for any protests on the streets but instead mobilised his armed forces. When the time came, he was going to strike and lead Libya into war.
The anger from the Saudis and the other Gulf Arab Monarchies at what they regarded as American complicity in the Israeli air strikes was tempered somewhat by what occurred with Iran. The fear of what those revolutionaries which had taken power in Tehran back in 1979 would do elsewhere in the region had sparked that financial assistance given to Iraq, ultimately leading to the crisis after the Iran-Iraq War that brought about the fight against Rashid. Many of the interests of Israel and these countries bordering the Persian Gulf were aligned on a regional scale; they might have been pleased if a different course of events had happened where it was Iran and Israel in conflict. Yet… that wasn’t how things were. The situation was that these countries here couldn’t be seen to not doing nothing after Israel had done what it had. They protested in the strongest terms at the highest diplomatic level and urged the Americans to stop Israel striking Iraq again if that was done by using Saudi airspace. In public, the regimes attacked Israeli actions too and reaffirmed their support for the liberation of Palestine. This wasn’t a whole lot of much in reality but it would be sold to their people as something more than it was. Nor was it what Rashid had hoped for either: so much for breaking the Coalition! King Fahd and his fellow rulers were focused on Iran though. The Saudis had just stopped an Iranian move to get their ‘volunteers’ into Bahrain. There was already a GCC force on the ground there, something that had been difficult to form due to wartime losses and the force arrayed up in the north liberating Kuwait, and the failed Iranian move justified what had been done in the eyes of these autocratic leaders. Hundreds had been killed in Bahrain as a rebellion had been put down and the commitment there would have to remain for some time. Now Iran had launched that missile attack, the intention of those in Tehran had been made clear. They wanted a fight with the aim believed to be the spread of their revolution spread southwards. The Americans had been warning of this for some time and spoken about the possibility of Iran trying to take control of Iraq following a defeat of Iraq. At the recent Jeddah Summit, the Saudis and the other GCC nations had argued that that would only occur if Iraq was properly invaded and Rashid deposed. They’d convinced the Americans to not march on Baghdad to avert that. Iran now had changed the rules. The idea that the Coalition might have to be prepared to fight the Iranians on the ground in Iraq was something worrying but was now looking increasingly likely.
While all of this happened, as the war spread far beyond from what it initially was all about, the liberation of Kuwait was entering its final days. The Americans and French had broken in from behind and they linked up with the Egyptians who’d previously got themselves stuck in the southwestern part of that country. Iraqi forces between the US XVIII Airborne Corps and the Egyptian Expeditionary Corps hadn’t fought to the end but rather surrendered when they ran out of ammunition. Being surrounded on the ground and pounded from the air helped with them being overcome too. Following yet another pause where the Third US Army allowed for the supply train to catch up – the lines were unbelievably long though should be helped now by this recent victory overcoming a geographical restriction –, there were the beginnings of the last stage of this. The Iraqis were inside Kuwait City and along the coast down in the southeast. The Coalition aimed to defeat them in battle unless ongoing, complicated efforts to get them to surrender failed.
Probing attacks were made on the night of August 9th/10th. Weak points were looked for to get forward enough to allow for the Iraqis to be possibly broken up into smaller pieces. It was hoped that success in doing this would bring about the Iraqi’s will to resist finally cracking and one of their generals, those who’d been approached already, raising the white flag. While this fighting was taking place, there was the usual barrage of air power being unleashed over Kuwait as well as naval shelling attacks along the coast. The Iraqis had been forced into the capital and the coastal towns. Collateral damage came with these attacks which the Coalition made. The Kuwaitis were constantly trying to limit the destruction being done to their own country as it was being liberated in this manner. They’d already watched Rashid set fire to oil wells and blow up as much oil infrastructure as he could have done: they didn’t want to see the rest of Kuwait laid ruin to. But Kuwait was being blown up and the Iraqis inside there were – for the time being – still fighting as more and more of this little country was forcibly taken away from them.
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forcon
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Post by forcon on Sept 22, 2019 8:18:29 GMT
Good work. Even without WW3, the Middle East would be in a truly terrible state for decades to come after this escalation.
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