Hypothetical War: Cold War USA vs Iraq War USA

[astrallite]

Specifically I'm looking to compare the the U.S. invasion force at the end of the cold war during the 1991 Persian Gulf War vs the 2003 Iraq War invasion force. Can ~12 years of technological improvements counter a massive disparity in numbers?

Let's say they met in the middle of the open plains in Iraq.

Obviously, the 1991 force was a significantly larger deployment.

695,000 troops vs 192,000 troops

6 carrier battle groups vs 6 carrier battle groups (a wash)

3,400 aircraft (inc. helicopters) vs 1,663 aircraft (inc. helicopters)

4,000 tanks vs 850 tanks

Now the Persian Gulf War military force was substantially larger, had an entire armored corps (150,000+ mechanized troops in thousands of tanks), that alone rivaled in numbers the entire 2003 invasion force, and overall was a much, much bigger hammer.

However, the force in 91 basically emptied the closet and included a lot of older hardware and soldiers that weren't that well equipped, alot of stuff that all ended up being retired after the war. For example the air force and navy were still deploying Aardvarks, Skyhawks and Prowlers, the Marines were still using M14 rifles and rolling around in M60 tanks and flying Harriers and Cobras, Army deployed a mix of M1s and M1A1 tanks, also the 2003 force has much better close air support with AH-64D Longbows whereas the 91 force had older Apaches without the radar system and newer missiles.

The other thing the think about is the 2003 force had the benefit of better communications technology, more refined combined arms tactics, and slightly newer hardware. Also the 2003 force has far larger inventory smart bombs, and the ones they have are far more accurate ('91 force heavily relied on laser guided munitions that required a ground spotter), and also a much larger inventory of ship-launched tomahawk cruise missiles. Also 2003 infantry has access to javelin anti-tank missiles, which is a huge improvement over what was available in 1991.

Does the 2003 Iraq War invasion force have a chance of winning on an open battlefield against the 1991 Persian Gulf War U.S. military? To me it seems their best shot is disrupting the supply lines of the 91 military with their better command & communications and precision targeting, especially since the 91 force needed a LOT more fuel and supplies to maintain an offensive. The 2003 force has newer M1A2 SEP tanks which have 11 tons of more armor than the older M1 tanks that made up a large part of in the 91 force, but it's not clear that's going to make up being outnumbered 4 to 1 on the field.

 

[Perfection]

George Bush would kick George Bush's butt

 

[Commodore]

Can ~12 years of technological improvements counter a massive disparity in numbers?

Yes. However, where the 2003 force would struggle would be the type of warfare they were trained to fight. The 1991 force was still very much a force that was trained to fight a large conventional conflict. The 2003 force was not. They were trained to fight asymmetrical wars and counterinsurgency operations. The idea of "full spectrum warfare" training (training for both conventional and asymmetrical warfare) didn't really start becoming standard US training doctrine until around 2009 or 2010. So I think the 1991 force would be more mentally and tactically prepared for the type of war that would be fought between the two.

However, a lot of the units that were part of the initial invasion in 2003 had already completed a few deployments to Afghanistan by that point, so they were already somewhat battle-hardened and had practical battlefield experience. For the majority of the force deployed in 1991, that was their first real combat deployment, and even then, they hardly came under significant enemy fire so the 1991 force could hardly be described as an experienced or battle-hardened force.

Just some additional things to consider in this comparison.

 

[Zkribbler]

Sometimes Commodore really knows what he's talking about.

One more thing: George HW Bush was a brilliant commander-in-chief. .
W, not so much

 

[Esperr]

Ehh...not sure about the bit about better communications technology, maybe slightly more reliable, but you aren't always using the latest and greatest. I wasn't in then, but at least when I was in we were still using all kinds of old equipment.

The biggest difference is that Afghanistan was already ongoing and we had time to make some mistakes there, especially when it came to urban warfare.

But in a big conventional open battle who knows? They don't happen anymore. Does anybody even really know how to fight them anymore?

Also: I don't know if planning was better or worse in the gulf war. I was wearing woodland camo for the first few months because they failed to account for demand.This was on top of the NG screwing up our food situation initially, we had stretches where we had one MRE a day for weeks at a time. From what ive been told by family who went to the gulf in 91 the army at least seemed much more organized.