Part 126: Iraq Tutorial: Part 2
The Tutorial as Iraq, Turn 2:The American's turn consisted of my SO-152s, the two surviving bottom T-72s, and some of their units engaging fire. Amazingly, when my turn rolled around, all were in one piece, though so were all the American units, as my shooting was terrible (like the Iraqis in the real first Gulf War)
The SO-152s can be moved back to give you a tiny degree of indirect fire, but you have to do it on the first turn, before the enemy sees. Otherwise, they'll just destroy it.
The alternative is to keep them on the line and have them die fighting, which I did.
All I got was one non-penetrating hit in exchange for their sacrifice. The only reason why the one on the bottom wasn't destroyed this turn is because a non-penetrating hit on it forced it into "Retreating", and I couldn't rally it away.
And in the south, I'm down to one T-72, as the other fired, missed, and was destroyed, the typical fate of units in this scenario.
radintorov posted:
The Battle of 73 Eastings is a good example: the Iraqi forces had superior numbers, positions, good training and a competent commander.
Defeat is not a descriptive enough word to describe what happened to them.
The Iraqi forces should have been able to inflict some serious losses on the US forces, but the incredibly shoddy equipment they had basically negated all the advantages they had.
While superior tactics are usually more important than superior equipment, if the technology gap can be described more of a chasm, then you will lose in a conventional engagement, even with superior tactics.
Actually, the reverse was true in that case. They had obsolete equipment, but Iraq's training and troop quality was so low that it hardly mattered. Iranians on foot frequently managed to do the same thing to Iraqi armored units in that war, and the Iraqis only managed to counter that through copious fortifications on the defense, and by scripted, extensively rehearsed (which is all that the RG's superior training really was) missions backed by hideously greater quantities of firepower on the offense.
If you want a fascinating look at the (in)competence of the Iraqis and similar armies, read Kenneth Pollack's Arabs at War. It's a good book.