Scenario Help Needed

[Thomaso827]

Looks like I'm not by far the only one working on Gulf War troops. My friend built a Kuwaiti force some years ago and got me interested in working on an Iraqi opposing force, but finding details for a scenario is proving a bit difficult. A search of CMH shows lots of stuff about Desert Storm and liberation of Kuwait, but there seems to be little in the way of details of the fall of Kuwait in the first place. I will work up a generic delaying action with 1 Kuwaiti company level group vs 2 Iraqi company level groups, check out arty and air support for them, etc., and see what I can come up with on my own, but always appreciate if somebody has already found some details and worked up a historical scenario. I did a websearch and did find a brief Wikipedia article that stressed a force holding the imperial palace against great odds, but seems no Kuwaiti armor was involved (or very little as it wasn't mentioned in the article). There is also a connected issue with TO&E of the Kuwaiti army, where the British Chieftan outfitted the one armored brigade, but another article listed the Yugoslavian made version of a T-72 having been present in the Kuwaiti army, with 200 on hand when the war started and 150 on hand when Kuwait was liberated. I can imagine the missing 50 having been 'borrowed' as Iraqi troops found them, or having been used by mobilizing Kuwaiti reserve troops, but I dont find anything specific. Thanks for any help on these.

Tom Oxley

[HKurban]

According to Wikipedia, the Chieftans were sparse in the Kuwaiti army by the time of the Iraqi invasion (numbers shown as 45 by 1989, and 20 in 1995 post war figures). Hardly enough to outfit a battalion, much less a brigade.

On the subject of the M-84, the Wiki goes on to say Kuwait ordered 170 M-84s + ARVs, but that only 4 were ever delivered before the war kicked off. Later 70 were delivered to the 35th ARMOR BDE, although the wiki claims the M-84s avoided tank-on-tank confrontations during the "Battle of Bridges" and other engagements due to the resemblance to Iraqi T-72s, while instead the 7th BN of the 35th ARMOR BDE used Chieftains to combat the Iraqis. The 70 M-84s were, however, used in the defense of the Dasman Palace.

Based on that quick research, I'd set things up as this:
-- If you're recreating either of these battles, use the tanks mentioned.
-- Chieftains ok for combat on August 2nd, but in limited numbers (just one BN, perhaps, with the rest M-84s).
-- Anything after that, M-84s would probably be used since most Chieftains apparently were destroyed during the initial invasion. The M-84's similarity to the T-72 should be noted, however, in planning the scenario and in the game's rules as far as friend-or-foe identification goes.

Hope this helps. Not much of an expert on the period, but this is the best I could drum up for you in a short amount of time. Best to research and corroborate yourself to make sure what I'm saying is accurate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-84#Desert_Storm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chieftain_tank#Operators
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_the_Bridges
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dasman_Palace

[Thomaso827]

Thanks. I agree, details are a bit sparse, so back to work online for me. Shame that a Kuwaiti officer hasn't written up an after action report or something to try and help prevent future generations having the same problems. Perhaps one day we will se one as a participant attends the US War College or something. One article I found said that it was 4 hours after the invasion started before the combat units were notified. And then there is my old buddy, who got his details from some "official" TO&E that he saw when he worked at HRC/ARPERCEN at the time of the invasion. He forgets that these things may have already been obsolete documents at that point and we have a few more details today than we did in those early days.

My scenarios will likely just be company elements at something like 2 or 3 to one, and it will be interesting to have one with the Chieftains and another with the M-84s, with the Identification issue as you suggest. After a little of this, my Iraqi army will become an opfor to coalition forces for future gaming. Just thought it would be an interesting and different game to all the Gulf War games I have seen lately. Hoping to have it ready for a table in September for Advance The Colors, our regional HMGS convention.

Tom Oxley