If it all turns to custard in Iraq ...

[ViolentPanda]

The berlin brigade was faceing overwhelming warsaw pact forces .While in Basra its aks and rpgs and some bombs.
The mission may fail but the idea of annihaltion of the British Army there is ludricous.Sooner we leave the better ,but,its hardly going to be dunkirk.

Read the OP.

He states "with serious Iranian assistance", in which case it'd hardly be likely to be "aks and rpgs and some bombs".

 

[TAE]

I think lots and lots of POWs would be quite likely.

 

[kebabking]

Just suppose for a moment that it does. That the majority of the population rises up with serious Iranian assistance (right now the insurgency is a few thousand Sunnis), supply lines are cut and the US/UK forces have to split.

The US forces can presumably try to get out North via Kurdistan and Turkey.

What do the UK forces do? Their area is where the supply lines run, so it'd be the main focus of any such uprising. I wouldn't want them to be counting on the USAF to pick them up, or resupply them. So which way do they get out? Remember, there's only about a brigade's worth of them, and a hell of a lot more Iraqis.

kuwait isn't far, 7,000 isn't a massive number and the force is pretty 'mechanized', so the the actual logs of getting 7,000 people an hours drive away aren't insumountable. saying that however the force is basicly an infantry/logistics force with some armour bolted on. its good at holding ground, but it isn't great at fending off tanks, defending itself against air attack or moving quickly and comletely from A to B.

what might happen when they get to Kuwait is perhaps another issue. in sealift terms (even opposed sealift) the RN is pretty well off, but in airlift terms we'd be fucked.

theres still Tornado GR4's in the gulf, not many, but re-inforcing them wouldn't take too long and those there should be able to frighten the shit out of any regular Iranian incursion, perhaps giving enough breathing space to the Brigade around Basra to enable it to get out.

perhaps the scenario of Iranian massively agitated civpop, plus Iranian Army incursion aimed at encircling BRITFOR and taking them prisoner - sans curries, cheap suits and board games, but with lots of beheadings and casual executions - might well take the BG, particularly without much in the way of capability to defend them or get them out in good order, down the road of the bucket of instant sunshine.

vital national interests and all that....

 

[ViolentPanda]

I can't (unfortunately) find much to argue with there, kebabking.

As for nukes though, while Dubya might give Tony his blessing to use one, would Blair have the sheer stupidity to use one, and turn the Umma against him?

Of course he would.

BTW, are you king of the doner or the shish kebabs?

 

[Fuchs66]

I would have thought they would go out the way they came in no? back to the ships and carriers and .. well I was not paying attention when they came in to be honest, how did they land all those people and equipment?

Well I got there in the passenger seat of a rather large vehicle, (well the bit from Kuwait to "somewhere in the Iraqi desert" or should that be dessert now?), no carriers or other form of ship involved, did fly a bit beforehand mind. My return journey was similar just in reverse.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Thanks gents.

The reason I was asking is that I keep seeing the US military pundits who are not aligned with Bush. The same ones that were fairly accurately predicting the mess that he created in Iraq, worrying about that sort of scenario in the event that Bush decides to have the USAF play 'double or nothing' with Iran.

Being yanks, they don't really give too much thought to the likely outcome for the UK forces in that sort of scenario, so I thought I'd propose the question.

 

[likesfish]

`doubt the Iranian's would try something that dim there tanks are a mixture of 1970's US tanks and slightly more modern soviet kit
about effective as shermans against tiger tanks with the added disadvantage of it being perfect tank fighting country i.e flat no cover and a challenger can shoot out to 5k a t72 can shootout to 2.5k and still can't kill a challenger 2 at that distance
so Iranian tank crews would die in large numbers to achieve what exactly ?

 

[likesfish]

too be honest if iran tried something that overt the saudi's and Kuwaiti's wouldn't be terribly impressed and have plenty of top notch kit they brought off us

 

[kebabking]

I can't (unfortunately) find much to argue with there, kebabking.

As for nukes though, while Dubya might give Tony his blessing to use one, would Blair have the sheer stupidity to use one, and turn the Umma against him?

Of course he would.

BTW, are you king of the doner or the shish kebabs?

assuming 7,000 BRITFOR were at very serious risk of being over-run and the survivors being publicly beheaded - thats about 10% of the deployable Army - i'm not sure he'd have much choice.

a couple of 2KT Trident warheads would beat the shit out of an oncoming Iranian armoured column - and there are lots of places in even in the south-east of Iraq where you could use 2KT warheads and do nothing but dazzle a few goats.

i think the view in London that would prevail is that if the UK lost a 7,000 man expeditionary force live on TV in the most graphic manner then the 'Umma' would have won anyway - in that no BG could ever respond militarily to anything it chose to do in the next 50 years - so perhaps better to be the man who saved 7,000 lives and stated a 'war of civilisations' than be the man responsible for the loss of 7,000 men and who lost a 'war of civilisations' before it started.

its Shish, i couldn't eat that doner shit, i'd rather chew on a microwaved condom.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Thinking about this in a slightly different direction. Those yank pundits, the guys at http://www.d-n-i.net/, Project on Defence Alternatives and places like that, seem to be primarily worried about the US having its supply lines cut by some combination of Shia militias, infiltrated IRG special forces and various hazards to navigation in the Persian Gulf (mines, missiles and so on)

Does that necessarily imply a threat to UK forces? I'd sort of assumed it would given where they are, but there was a suggestion eariler that seemed to imply they might not be as relevant to US supply lines as I'd first assumed.

 

[likesfish]

could piss us forces off
but the trick is too harass the US but not enough that they decide to go town tehran and remove your war fighting capability.
which the yanks could do and iran knows it

 

[Aldebaran]

assuming 7,000 BRITFOR were at very serious risk of being over-run and the survivors being publicly beheaded - thats about 10% of the deployable Army - i'm not sure he'd have much choice.

What a Remarkable Insight in the Muslim psyche.
All beasts we are.
Excuse me, I must go sharpen my swords and see to the re-decoration of my nuclear shelter. I'm thinking about emptying its swimming pool to have it ready for filling with Kafirish Blood. It is rumoured it is good for the skin. Especially the female members of my househould are going to like that.

i think the view in London that would prevail is that if the UK lost a 7,000 man expeditionary force live on TV in the most graphic manner

Now be surprised. Exactly what we see "live" on TV daily for four years. With the difference that the hundreds of thousands who are murdered are not paid soldiers of foreign armies.
Do you think the UK and the USA should get a few nuclear bombs in return?

then the 'Umma' would have won anyway

You don't even have an idea what the what the word "umma' stands for.

'war of civilisations'

Correction: "war of Western Greed" which isn't exactly a new, let alone recent, given in Middle Eastern History.
In any case our civilisation existed centuries before yours crawled out of the mud, eagerly feeding itself on our legacy.

salaam

 

[kebabking]

What a Remarkable Insight in the Muslim psyche.
All beasts we are.....lots of other bollocks that pay neither any attention to the subject, or its context, or indeed anything that Kebabking has actually written...

shite shite shite...

salaam

you're welcome my old love, now fuck off back to the playground (or one of Moono's interminable threads, its all the same difference...) and don't disturb the grown-ups again.

 

[Aldebaran]

you're welcome my old love, now fuck off back to the playground (or one of Moono's interminable threads, its all the same difference...) and don't disturb the grown-ups again.

Food for thought for kebabking:
Try to explain to yourself the reasons why you came to the conclusion that whenever UK soldiers would get captured in Iraq the "survivors" would be "at serious risk to be publicly beheaded". You could eventually learn something about yourself. Not that I have any trust in that to happen.

Next you could look at the amount of posts I ever made on this forum - and where or about what - and you could eventually learn about yourself that you present yourself as a complete fool. Not that I have any trust in that to happen either.

salaam.