Before the war, the outside world generally predicted that Iraq, which had millions of mechanized troops, could put great pressure on the US military, but the US military defeated the huge Iraqi Republic Guard in just 100 hours.

On January 16, 1991, the then-US President Bush issued a national security directive to Schwartzkopf, commander of the US Central Army Headquarters, approving the US military to immediately carry out military operations against Iraq , and the Gulf War officially broke out.

Bush

The then-US President Bush

Before the war, the outside world generally predicted that Iraq, which had millions of mechanized army , could put great pressure on the US military, but the US military defeated the huge Iraqi Republic Guard in just 100 hours. This war is a classic battle for the US military to "awaken the whole world". The Soviet army, known as the founder of the mechanized corps, has to admit that the mechanized corps is worthless.

The confident Iraqi army was

990. Under Saddam's command, the Iraqi Republic Guard attacked the neighboring country Kuwait and occupied the entire territory of Kuwait within 14 hours. Faced with repeated warnings from the United States, Saddam insisted on his own and even claimed that he would include Kuwait as the "19th province" in Iraq.

Although Iraq's national strength is far from that of the United States at this time, Saddam also has his own confidence in military strength . Since Iraq had just experienced the test of the -Iraq War in the 1980s, the Iraqi Republic Guard in 1990 was the third largest mechanized army force in the world.

Elite Iraqi Guard and T-72

At this time, the Iraqi army reached 1.2 million people, and the entire army was equipped with 4,280 tanks , including T-72, T-62, T-54 and Chinese Type 69 tanks. Among them, the T-72 tanks, which are regarded as the strongest main force of the Soviet "steel torrent" of the Soviet Union, has reached more than 1,000. As for the number of armored combat vehicles, the number of is also amazing, with more than 2,800 vehicles, and the models include the Soviet BMP-1, BMP-2 combat vehicles and the ZBD-86 combat vehicles produced in China.

The firepower configuration of the Yi army is also quite luxurious, with a total of more than artillery , including 2S1 and 2S3, two 152mm howitzers and AUF-1 155mm howitzers.

Mechanized Iraqi Army

Judging from the various parameters of the mechanized troops, the Iraqi army equipped not only a large number of equipment at this time, but also the models were basically at the level of Sino-Soviet standard equipment in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1990, was not behind .

Therefore, both Saddam himself and the general view from the outside world agree that Iraq has the strength to give the US military to seriously threaten at home. Some military experts even believe that the US military is likely to encounter the biggest military failure after the Vietnam War.

Saddam spoke

awakening the world's Desert Storm

However, after the start of the Gulf War, the huge mechanized forces of the Iraqi Republic Guard did not even see the trace of the American soldiers. Instead, they fell from the sky and were endless and various precise guided weapons . Moreover, Iraqi military officers were frightened to find that the command communication network tightly built by their own troops had already encountered electromagnetic interference before the US military attack arrived and fell into a state of paralysis.

Multiple national forces carried out the "Desert Storm" operation

This is the opening battle of the Gulf War - "Desert Storm" operation . The US military first used EF-111A, E-8A, RF-4C and other electronic warfare aircraft to launch an electromagnetic attack on the Iraqi army's command network and radar system, creating a safe electromagnetic corridor for its own fighter air strikes. Subsequently, a large number of F-111 and F-15E heavy multi-purpose fighters led by the F-117A stealth fighter, breaking through Iraq's air defense positions and launching devastating strikes on important military nodes of the Iraqi army, including radar stations, command posts and air defense hubs.

US F-117A stealth fighter

72 hours after the war started, the rate of destruction of Iraq's ground targets has exceeded 70% , and the Iraqi army, which has been paralyzed important nodes, cannot organize effective confrontation at all, and can only rely on the unpositioned "Scud" missile randomly launched.While the Iraqi ground troops were in chaos and dying, the US landing troops, which had been waiting for a long time, were harvesting the Iraqi troops under the leadership of the M1A1 main battle tank .

Before the war, countless people had high hopes for the strong armored T-72 tanks of the Iraqi army, but these sturdy "iron cans" had no resistance under the attack of the US military's trinity firepower . After enduring the fierce firepower, they directly became a pile of scrap iron.

Iraqi armored forces that have become scrap iron

The 7th Army of the US defeated the elite of the Iraqi Republic Guard in the Armored Corps Battle south of Baghdad , leaving behind the wreckage of more than 600 tanks of on the spot. At this time, less than 100 hours have passed since the US military officially issued an attack order.

completely destroys the "death road" that completely destroys the mechanized fantasy

After the Gulf War, all countries abandoned the traditional "continental army" concept and began to learn the modern three-dimensional tactical ideas of the US army, and China is one of them. In December 1995, the enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission clearly stated that military construction must transform from a troop-intensive to a quality-intensive and science-intensive one. As a result, China entered the stage of experimenting with new information-based military reform, and gradually evolved from a traditional army to a multi-army synthetic army today.