Just as an addendum, I ordered "Arabs at War" after you mentioned it in the thread, and it arrived today. I've been reading it, and Pollack has some interesting observations about the Iraqis.



Most interestingly, he argues that after the reforms of 1986, the Iraqi general staff was actually quite good at strategy. Yes, they sucked - badly - in 1982-83, but by 1986 Saddam had freed his generals to fight the war as best they could. The Iraqi generals became adept at conducting methodical and intricate plans to minimize the defects in their military. . .



. . . Which Pollack states were crippling. The worst being utter tactical ineptitude. In fact, Pollack says the Iraqis were probably the most tactically maladroit of all Arab armies. Units that were flanked would not reposition to defend themselves, they would not conduct recces or post sentries, nor would they use any initiative whatsoever, right up to batallion and brigade level. Equipment was never used to anywhere near its potential, and advanced features such as NVGs or lead computation computers on the newer Russian tanks were often ignored.



Basically, the Iranians were outnumbered by the Iraqis 2-1 in infantry for much of the war, and 20-1 or worse in armor. They were essentially a slow moving infantry army, and after the revolution and the purges they were hardly the world's best soldiers, yet in mobile operations they were repeatedly able to totally outmaneuver and encircle large Iraqi groupings of mechanized infantry and armor.



The Iraqi generals were well aware of these limitations, and countered them by building massive lines of fortifications through which the Iranians would have to slog. Even then in their last major assault on Basra, 90,000 Iranian infantry backed by 200 tanks penetrated through 5 out of 6 defensive lines before 200,000 Iraqi troops in prepared defenses and backed by 3,000 tanks, and supported by masses of artillery firing chemical weapons before finally being halted at the last defensive line outside Basra. However, overall these defenses worked as they allowed the Iraqis to apply their massive advantage in firepower, and minimize their total lack of tactics.



The generals also drafted complex and intricate plans which the troops rehearsed extensively before an operation, in which their every action was dictated by a set scheme. The Iraqi generals were well aware that the moment things deviated from plan their army would fall apart, so they restricted any operations to no more than 36-48 hours - about the limit they felt comfortable with before chaos would start creeping in. The general staff knew their army was utterly incapable of conducting maneuver warfare, and so never attempted it. They worked with a realistic assessment of what they had.



That being the case, Pollack argues that the Iraqi general staff actually did as well as anyone could have expected with what they had, and within the limitations of their tools actually did very well. He uses their decision to sacrifice the Republican Guard to extricate the rest of the army from Kuwait as an example, which was a hard decision, but made on a realistic assessment of an incredibly bad situation, and the only good decision they could have made.



However, he also uses the Iraqi army as a caution to anyone who might argue that good strategy and superior equipment overcomes all else. The Iraqi army clearly showed that even massive materiel superiority (against Iran) and the best laid plans are meaningless if your troops simply do not have the skill to use or execute them. The Iraqi high command would often put a superbly equipped armored formation in exactly the right place, only to have them sit around blissfully unaware while enemy infantry skirted around them, and then wiped them out from the rear.



*****



So, with all that in mind, I have to now say that - if Pollack is correct - the Wehrmacht would annihilate the Iraqis after about four to six months of fighting. Assuming the two armies are sitting on the border across from each other the Iraqis have the advantage of a strong set of defensive works, but the Germans will be attacking (Barbarossa being an offensive campaign and Desert Storm being a defensive one for the Iraqis).



With all due respect to those on this board who believe the Iraqis Russian tanks will give them a decisive advantage, the Iranians decisively showed that they won't. Iranian irregulars repeatedly defeated Iraqi armored formations with little more than small arms and molotov cocktails - less than what the average German infantryman carried in the Battle of Berlin in 1945. In large part this was not because of any undue Iranian skill, but a total lack of it on the part of the Iraqis. Iraqi tankers would take up static positions the moment they entered unexpected combat, refused to move even when flanked, and were rarely properly supported by infantry. Fact is, German assault pioneers will dismantle them. Even German tanks will be able to routinely get kills by stalking and maneuvering (unopposed) for flank and rear shots.



Similarly, Iraqi artillery will be worse than useless against the Germans. The Iraqis were locked into pre-set fire missions and could not adjust fire to save their lives. Literally. Pollack has an account from Desert Storm where an Iraqi artillery battery continually kept pounding the same patch of empty land about a kilometer from an American position which was destroying their division with no attempt to adjust fire. As a result of things like this, Iraqi artillery was totally ineffective throughout the campaign.



The Iraqis also had very few pilots who could actually fly in combat, and their sortie rate was about 50-70 sorties a day. Pilots would often ignore obvious targets (such as Iranian planes parked on the tarmac, Iranian helicopters supporting the front, or columns of troops marching in the open along roads) to carry out whatever set mission they had been briefed to perform before takeoff, like robots. Generally the best they could do was to bomb towns. They had no ability to pick out actual tactical targets, and their battlefield impact was totally forgettable. Against the Luftwaffe flying 2-3,000 sorties a day any counter-air they fly won't make any measurable impact, nor will they leave any appreciable mark on the ground forces, nor will their strategic campaign be a patch on the pounding the Germans suffered from Bomber Command and the 8th Air Force.



Iraqi AA will be much more of a concern to German fliers, but this was centrally directed and often technically mismanaged with the gunners unable to properly aim their sophisticated Russian equipment. Further, the Iraqis deployed their AA to cover fixed positions, and were unable, for various reasons (mostly related to tactical ineptitude of the AA crews again - deployed away from central control they would not react), to deploy it along roads and other supply routes. Once the Germans realize this, the Luftwaffe will stop going after hard targets and start having a field day prowling up and down undefended roads shooting up Iraqi supply trucks.



Iranian infantry from the Iran-Iraq war were nothing particularly special. They were innovatively and aggressively led, but by and large they were poorly trained and provided with limited armament. And they were always outnumbered overall. They succeeded by picking their targets carefully, often attacking at night and outflanking immobile Iraqi formations.



German infantry from WWII were special. With 1945 equipment there's really little difference in gear between them and any of the Iraqi conscript divisions that were deployed on the border of Kuwait. There is, however a VAST gulf in skill. The Germans proved adept and penetrating prepared Soviet defenses, and they will go through the static Iraqi positions like a hot knife through butter.



The Iraqi general staff new the actual quality of their troops and always expected this, and their plan was always to counter attack with well planned if crudely executed frontal charges by heavy armor once the enemy had been slowed by the defensive lines.



Against the Coalition the intent was never to win, but rather to inflict unacceptable losses.



Except the Germans have over 3 million men in the first offensive, with as many more in reserve, and a totally different idea of unacceptable losses. The first Iraqi attacks may be a nasty shock to the Germans simply due to the number and quality of tanks, but once chaos sets in and things are no longer to script the Iraqis will start to come apart. Tanks will halt and start waiting for orders while battered lead German formations disengage and German reserves begin to penetrate past their flanks and cut them off.



Assuming the Iraqi high command grasp the situation, they can rescue this by ordering a fallback, sacrificing the 200,000 or so infantry on the border, and retreating inland to Kuwait. The problem is the Germans will pursue, and the Iraqi army, for all its on-paper mobility was never able to conduct long term operations at anything more than walking pace. It could do short term dash operations, such as the invasion of Kuwait where its troops advanced 80km in one day - but that was extensively rehearsed for six months and basically done by rote against minimal resistance. Once things became unscripted, the pace dropped drastically. Standard response by Iraqi tank formations on meeting resistance - ANY resistance, even a platoon of Basij armed with AKs and nothing else - was to halt, find a defensive position, fire wildly, call for massive artillery bombardment (which could take a few hours - or a day or more to materialize), and then wait for new orders from above before moving again.



That being the case, the Iraqis won't have time to re-entrench in Kuwait City, and the Germans will easily overrun the Iraqi forces in the city which will negate all of the Iraqi advantages. It'll be like the Iranian 1983-84 infantry offensives, but a thousand times worse. The Germans will take losses, but they have the men.



From there, Basra and the south falls fairly quickly, and the Iraqis reposition to the north to defend Baghdad. This would draw things out, as the Germans would have to move troops into Kuwait and supply them, building up forces to push north, but once the offensive began again it would really be just a matter of time. Iraqi units never posted scouts, conducted patrolling, and had atrocious local awareness. The Iraqi high command could place a brigade in exactly the right place, and it would still sit there blissfully unawares as enemy divisions marched around it on either side.



Simply put, there is no antidote to the level of tactical inability present in the Iraqi army. The only divisions that will provide any real resistance will be those of the Republican Guard, but they're better only in a relative sense. They'll fight to the death, and with better skill, but not much better. The technology will mean casualties to the Germans, but they can take them. If the Iranians, outnumbered 2-1 and with no armoured or atrillery assets to speak of (300 operational tanks to 3,000 in the offensives that routed the Iraqis from Iran) could repeatedly punch through Iraqi defenses and encircle Iraqi mechanized positions on foot, the Germans with a 10-1 numerical advantage and better infantry will roll the Iraqis up.