The Gulf War, which lasted from August 1990 to February 1991, was the last large-scale local war before the end of the Cold War, and was also regarded as a turning point in military history, foreshadowing the transformation of the traditional mode of warfare to a high-tech mode of warfare. The Gulf War also provided a stage for many star weapons to make a name for themselves, and the most prominent in terms of land equipment was the latest main tank of the US military, the M1 series "Abrams" main battle tank, which completely abused various tanks of the Iraqi army in 100 hours of ground warfare, including the T-72 tank that was extremely feared by the West before. However, many people may not know that before the "Desert Storm" blew, the US armored forces stationed in the Gulf region had been busy upgrading the M1 tank, and the Marine Corps had not even had time to change this new type of vehicle, and could only temporarily borrow it from the Army!
■ The Iraqi army's Soviet-made T-72 main battle tank, which was destroyed in the 1991 Gulf War, was discredited by the Soviet tank for a long time.
Iron currents roll into the bay
On August 2, 1990, Iraq's armed annexation of Kuwait triggered a strong reaction from the Western world led by the United States and extreme panic in neighboring Arab countries, and all forces quickly formed an alliance to form a multinational force to pressure Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to withdraw. Iraq provoked incidents during the high tide of the Cold War, and it was not wise to be an enemy of the West, when the United States deployed a large amount of equipment and combat materials in Western Europe in advance in order to counter the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact Organization, which could be put into the Gulf Theater nearby, and at the same time, the US military's super strategic transportation capabilities were also fully operational, transporting troops and equipment from home and around the world to the Middle East, except for a few units such as the 2nd and 3rd Infantry Divisions, most of the heavy divisions and mobile units of the US Army were transferred to the Yellow Sand Rolling Arabian Peninsula. Here they will test the combat effectiveness of new equipment, especially the M1 series main battle tanks.
The Iraqi army's T-72 main battle tank was considered one of the most threatening targets by the multinational force during the Gulf War.
As the last generation of main battle tanks developed by the US Army during the Cold War, the M1 tank entered service in 1980, but the model originally delivered to the US army was not completely complete, and the initial M1 was still equipped with the old 105 mm rifled gun, using ordinary composite structure armor, which had no obvious advantage over the new Soviet tanks of the same period. The U.S. military adopted a strategy of improving while changing equipment, introducing an improved M1 IP type in 1984, using a new turret, thickening the frontal armor, and then began to produce the M1A1 type in 1985, the biggest change was the upgrade to a 120 mm smoothbore gun, with the firepower to compete with soviet tanks, the on-board equipment was also updated, and in the late 80s, the M1A1HA type was launched on this basis, and the first generation of depleted uranium armor was added, and the defense capability was also greatly improved. However, when the Gulf crisis broke out, the US military was still far from completing the upgrading of the M1 series of tanks, and many units were also equipped with M1 initial or M1 IP types, and the number of M1A1 and M1A1HA types was not much. In the months leading up to the start of the fighting, the U.S. military devoted significant resources to emergency rearmament and upgrading of armored units deployed in the theater to ensure sufficient strength to defeat the sheer number of Iraqi tank clusters, especially the so-called elite Republican Guard.
■ The U.S. Army began to equip the M1 initial model in 1980, which still uses a 105 mm rifled gun.
The first M1 tank unit to arrive in Saudi Arabia was an armored battalion of the U.S. 24th Air infantry division, still of the older M1 and M1 IP types. By November 1990, the U.S. military had deployed 580 M1/M1 IP models in Saudi Arabia, compared to only 123 M1A1s. As the possibility of ground combat increasing, the U.S. military refitted front-line troops as much as possible with the M1A1, especially the latest version of the M1A1HA. Waiting for the new production vehicles in the domestic factory obviously can not catch up with the rhythm of preparation and the development of the situation, so the US military ordnance department to the theater to provide heavy armor modification accessories, can upgrade the existing M1A1 to the level of defense of the M1A1HA type, before the ground battle began, the US military has completed the 835 M1A1 combat modification, in addition to the replacement of armor, the modification project also includes fire control system upgrades and new desert camouflage and so on. Prior to the launch of Operation Desert Sabre on 24 February 1991, only 2 battalions of the U.S. Army armored forces on the front line were still equipped with M1/M1 IP types, the rest were M1A1s, with a total of 1956 vehicles, of which 1233 were M1A1HA or temporarily upgraded, and 528 other tanks served as theater reserves.
■ The U.S. M1A1 main battle tank that galloped in the desert during the Gulf War.
Reloaded strength show
In response to the Gulf crisis, the U.S. Army carried out the largest real-combat mobilization since the Vietnam War, and invested most of the active combat divisions, including the 1st, 3rd Panzer Division, 1st and 24th Air infantry divisions, the 1st Cavalry Division, and the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions, of which the main assault task was the 1st, 3rd, 1st Machine Infantry, and 1st Cavalry Divisions of the US 7th Army, which would form an assault group together with the British 1st Panzer Division and attack from the Saudi and Iraqi border. With a fatal left-handed punch, cut off the main Iraqi army retreat in Kuwait.
■ In February 1991, the offensive roadmap of Operation Desert Sabre, the multinational force reloaded group launched a surprise attack from the left flank, circling the iraqi army flank.
At the end of the Cold War, both the U.S. Army Armored Division and the Mechanized Infantry Division had armored battalions and mechanized infantry battalions as their basic combat units, with 6 armored battalions and 4 machine infantry battalions under the armored division, while the proportion of machine infantry divisions was the opposite, 6 machine infantry battalions and 4 armored battalions. It is worth noting that at that time, the U.S. Army had abolished the regimental combat structure within the armored division and the mechanized infantry division, but the numbers of each battalion still reflected the regimental affiliation, such as the 2nd-67th Panzer Battalion, that is, the 2nd Battalion of the 67th Panzer Regiment. The U.S. Armored Battalion consisted of one battalion headquarters company (2 M1A1s) and four tank companies (14 M1A1s each), for a total of 55 M1A1 tanks. In actual combat, the U.S. Armored Division will mix its 10 combat battalions and support units into 3 composite arms brigades, typical of which are 2 to 3 armored battalions, 1 mechanized infantry battalion, 1 155 mm self-propelled artillery battalion, and 1 air defense company and support unit. Take, for example, the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Panzer Division, which consisted of 3 armored battalions (2-70, 4-70, 1-35) and 1 mechanized infantry battalion (6th-6th Battalion), supported by the 47th Support Battalion and the 2-1 Field Artillery Battalion.
■ The U.S. M1A1 tank group assembled on standby during the Gulf War.
Combat battalions are organized into contingents depending on the type of mission, such as Task Force 2-70, which consists of 3 tank companies (2nd-70th Armored BattalionS A, B, D Company), 1 machine infantry company (6th-6th Infantry Battalion C Company), a total of 44 M1A1 tanks and 13 M2 infantry fighting vehicles. It will also be followed by 1 engineering company and 1 rescue unit equipped with armored repair vehicles and ambulances. When marching in open desert areas, battalion-level contingents generally adopted a diamond formation, taking Task Force 2-70 as an example, with the forward Company B of Battalion 2-70, Company A of Battalion 2-70 on the left wing, Company D of Battalion 2-70 on the right wing, Company C of Battalion 6-6 in the center, battalion headquarters in the center of the queue, and follow-up by engineering companies and rescue detachments.
■ The M1A1 tank, which marched in the desert during the Gulf War, belonged to Task Force 2-70.
In the late Cold War, in order to counter the armored torrent of the Warsaw Pact Group, the US military put forward and developed the operational concept of "air-ground integrated warfare", emphasizing the close coordination of air forces and ground forces in offensive and defensive operations, and using the US military's air superiority to make up for the disadvantages in ground strength. Based on the above concept, each heavy division in the Gulf War was assigned an aviation battalion equipped with AH-64 gunships, directly commanded by the division commander, which could provide a wider reconnaissance field of view and flanking cover for ground forces, as well as close air and ground support.
■ The US AH-64 "Apache" helicopter gunship also made a big splash in the Gulf War.
In addition to the Heavy Division, the U.S. Army deployed two armored reconnaissance units in Saudi Arabia, the 2nd and 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiments, which belonged to the 7th Army and the 18th Airborne Army, respectively. Each regiment consisted of 3 squadrons of armored cavalry, each with 3 companies of armored cavalry, each of which consisted of 9 M1A1HA tanks and 12 M3 cavalry fighting vehicles. An armored cavalry squadron consisted of 41 tanks and 32 cavalry fighting vehicles, for a total of 116 tanks and 132 cavalry fighting vehicles. In terms of tank numbers, the strength of one armored cavalry regiment is equivalent to 2 regular armored battalions, but the strength of the armored cavalry squadron is slightly weaker than that of the armored battalion.
A slow beat of the fourth class
In addition to the Army forces, an important component of the U.S. Ground Force is the Marine Corps. During the Gulf War, the U.S. Marine Corps dispatched two combat divisions, the First Marine Division and the Second Marine Division, to form the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. The Marine Corps has its own armored unit, and the two divisions include 5 Marine Tank Battalions. By the outbreak of the Gulf War, the M1 main battle tank had been in service for 10 years, and the Army had basically been fully re-equipped, and the Marine Corps had just begun to receive this new type of tank, and the main equipment of its tank battalion was still the previous generation of M60A1 tanks.
■ M60A1 main battle tank equipped by the U.S. Marine Corps during the Gulf War.
The Marine Corps M1A1 tank is a special model, known as the M1A1 universal type, which mainly improves the wading ability compared to the Army version to meet the characteristics of the Marine Corps' mission of carrying out amphibious operations and landing on the beach. However, at the start of Operation Desert Storm, only two companies of the 4th Tank Battalion were equipped with 16 M1A1 general-purpose units in the Marine Corps units on the Gulf Front. In addition, the 2nd Marine Tank Battalion temporarily borrowed 60 M1A1HA tanks from the Army, and the battalion was also incorporated into the 1st Brigade of the 2nd Panzer Division, which was transferred by the Army to reinforce the 2nd Marine Division. In naval warfare, the Marine Corps deployed a total of 353 tanks, including 277 M60A1s and 76 M1A1s.
■ Equipped with the Marine Corps' M1A1 universal type, it strengthens the wading and crossing capability to meet the needs of amphibious operations.
In summary, before the ground battle in the Gulf War began, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps deployed a total of 36 armored battalions equipped with M1 series main battle tanks (including armored cavalry squadrons and Marine Corps tank battalions), of which 2 battalions were equipped with the M1 initial type, 6 battalions were equipped with the M1A1 basic type, 14 battalions were equipped with the M1A1 temporary upgrade type, 13 battalions were equipped with the M1A1 ha type, and 1 battalion was equipped with the M1A1 general purpose type.
■ A painting depicting the M1A1 main battle tank equipped by the Marine Corps during the Gulf War, borrowed from the Army.