Historical Combat, War, Geopolitics History and Analysis

Nilgiri

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Cross posting for interest of watchers in this thread about the fog-of-war documentary:

 

Ryder

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Iraq stood no chance against a global coalition. Interesting that USA did not even need allies to beat Iraq still mustered up a global coalition against one country.

Iraq underestimated the world. By taking Kuwait they hoped nobody would say anything but they were big time wrong. I think if Kuwait was not a oil rich nation I think Iraq could have got away with it by annexing.

But I think they still would have got embargoed and sanctioned.
 

Saithan

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Iraq stood no chance against a global coalition. Interesting that USA did not even need allies to beat Iraq still mustered up a global coalition against one country.

Iraq underestimated the world. By taking Kuwait they hoped nobody would say anything but they were big time wrong. I think if Kuwait was not a oil rich nation I think Iraq could have got away with it by annexing.

But I think they still would have got embargoed and sanctioned.

Yes. But as I remember it. Iraq waged a war for the US against Iran, but didn't get any backup, so Saddam thought it's appropriate to take Kuwait as compensation.

That's the downside of not having a collective mind of smart ppl to come up with countermoves.

Let's not forget Iraq had rocket engineers en masse. And a lot of money to do a lot of things.

If we pretend he didn't go for Kuwait, then Iraq would have been in a much stronger position today, scaring the undies of KSA, Kuwait, Jordan and whatever else.

Saddam didn't have anything against Turkey, so it have been natural to have closer cooperation with Turkey. Rocket technology could have been ours a lot sooner, and we'd have raised the level of cooperation and security.
 

Joe Shearer

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Yes. But as I remember it. Iraq waged a war for the US against Iran, but didn't get any backup, so Saddam thought it's appropriate to take Kuwait as compensation.

He was encouraged to think that the US would be neutral about Kuwait, by the ambiguous answers of the US Ambassador to Iraq. He was completely taken aback when the US objected, as it did.

As you have pointed out, what a terrible strategic error it was, for the US to make. This is the key to the collapse of their Middle East policy; under that arch-moron Trump it has been reduced to a dogged defence of Jared Kushner's patrons, the Netanyahu clique in Israeli politics. The US has destroyed its own influence in Iran, in Iraq, in Syria, and in Lebanon; it has weakened itself in with the Saudis, who were a dicey proposition at the best of times, and it worked very hard to alienate Turkey: such hard work always has some effect. Now only the fringe states of the Gulf, the Bahrains and the Qatars, the UAE and Oman are left in support, as is Jordan. If, instead, the US had nursed Iraq back to normalcy, using Saddam's sons as leverage, she would have had a strong ally to counter the Iranians, to dominate and checkmate the Saudis, to support Israel by turning a blind eye and to build bonds with Turkey and form a larger market for the resurgent Turkish military sector.
 

TR_123456

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He was encouraged to think that the US would be neutral about Kuwait, by the ambiguous answers of the US Ambassador to Iraq. He was completely taken aback when the US objected, as it did.

As you have pointed out, what a terrible strategic error it was, for the US to make. This is the key to the collapse of their Middle East policy; under that arch-moron Trump it has been reduced to a dogged defence of Jared Kushner's patrons, the Netanyahu clique in Israeli politics. The US has destroyed its own influence in Iran, in Iraq, in Syria, and in Lebanon; it has weakened itself in with the Saudis, who were a dicey proposition at the best of times, and it worked very hard to alienate Turkey: such hard work always has some effect. Now only the fringe states of the Gulf, the Bahrains and the Qatars, the UAE and Oman are left in support, as is Jordan. If, instead, the US had nursed Iraq back to normalcy, using Saddam's sons as leverage, she would have had a strong ally to counter the Iranians, to dominate and checkmate the Saudis, to support Israel by turning a blind eye and to build bonds with Turkey and form a larger market for the resurgent Turkish military sector.
And now take a different approach to whats going on there.
Replace Iran with Türkiye and see the progress made.
 

Nilgiri

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My Dear G.I,

you may have control of the air, sea and open land.....but the trees speak Vietnamese always...
 

Nilgiri

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"Frenchiest G-strain ever" :ROFLMAO: .... strong respect is given to Rafale and French pilots later in the 2nd half epilogue stuff though.

@Vergennes it reminded me of Taygibay (esp his avatar with the F-22 in crosshair hehe), miss that dude!
 

Nilgiri

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The great importance of intelligence and preparing your forces accordingly, this is arguably the largest naval battle that ever took place and it went very one-sidedly against IJN.

It is to be noted that USS West Virginia was a survivor of pearl harbour (badly damaged) and can be thought of taking revenge and restoring her honour.


The crossing the T tactic is illustrated below for reference. It is about presenting full broadside of your guns and keeping the opponent able to only use their forward guns against you....and thus increasing your odds notably:

Crossing_the_T.gif


Gif taken from wiki page "crossing the T"

This would become obsolete after this era of battleships (and large gun based warfare) was finally over and weapon systems like rockets/missiles that replaced them no longer depended on relative ship orientation to opponent ship etc.
 

Nilgiri

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The Yamato class combat issue

 

Joe Shearer

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Saving it for later. Thanks.

I haven't been on line for long durations for some days, running into weeks, now, but this is one of my favourite channels. The man makes so much sense. There is another i discovered recently, and am acquiring a nice little collection of meaningful military channels.
 

Nilgiri

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Mel "Dragon man" Bernstein's demeanour might be a bit too fact of the matter + direct for some.... but the collection he has is extremely extensive and like nothing I have seen for a private collector. He is quite well versed in the history too though a few errors inevitably pop up.

(Side note he is Jewish and also US Vietnam war vet)

There are lot of details and anecdotes that might interest even the most well versed war-buff...his whole channel might be of interest too.

(For instance, I honestly didn't know you could keep original intact Zyklon-B cans)

Viewer discretion obviously advised for some of the (brusquely given) subject matter at hand here (war crimes + holocaust etc.) if you elect to watch the vids at bottom.

A bit about his setup (which I do intend to visit at some point in future when I'm in Colorado):


The (Nazi) German and (Imperial) Japanese collections:



=======

Never forget how horrific (especially protracted existential) war is...
 

Ryder

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How ww2 myths still persist like how winter stopped the Germans which is not entirely true.
 

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