On August 2, 1990, the world watched in stunned surprise as Iraq’s most elite armor divisions invaded and occupied Kuwait within 2 days.
Iraq’s leader, president Saddam Hussein, had just made a strategic gamble: That the superpowers and their allies, caught up in the cataclysmic events following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the unification of Germany, would be too busy elsewhere to devote enough attention & resources to block him from his plans of annexing Kuwait and gaining control of a sizable portion of the world’s oil production. In retrospect, it is fair to say that he miscalculated. US president G.Bush promptly assembled a large international coalition, first to protect Saudi Arabia and neighboring states against further Iraqi aggression (operation “Desert Shield”), and subsequently to remove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait - peacefully if possible, by force if necessary. The latter option (operation “Desert Storm”) turned out to be necessary.
Desert Storm was in many ways the first truly high-tech war. It was the first conflict watched live by millions across the world, 24/7. It was the first time that air power decisively defeated ground forces on its own. It was made possible by a logistics built-up that exceeded WW2’s D-Day. For the first time an entire nation’s command, control and communications apparatus was effectively eliminated abruptly at the very start of a conflict; it was the first instance in which satellites were used in direct tactical support of operations, and the first time that stealth, standoff and precision-guided weapons were used on a mass scale. For students of military technology and art, this was effectively the first war of the 21st century.
The conflict had also far-reaching strategic and geopolitical consequences. The “end of history” predicted by historians of the time did not come to pass; instead the global players evaluated the new realities and adjusted their long-term playbooks accordingly. Regional strategic balances long-established and shattered by the war opened the door to new actors and dormant forces alike to assert themselves. Al Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks, the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions and subsequent long-drawn COIN campaigns, Daesh, even the resurgence of Russia and China on the global stage can all trace their origins back to Desert Storm and its aftermath.
This campaign set aims to reproduce some of the famous events & actions of this conflict. The passage of time, away from the incessant media spotlight and endless speculation, has allowed historians to sort out the things that truly mattered, and the things that did less so: Temporary sensations of the conflict like the “hunt for the Winnebagos” or the battle of Khafji are nowadays considered much less crucial in the overall timeline of the war. Events that were barely noticed (if at all) at the time, like the time-critical strike on Iraq’s chemical retaliation forces, can now be appreciated for their magnitude. Other actions, such as the first-night strikes in Baghdad and elsewhere, or the Bubiyan naval battle, were rightly recognized in their own time as pivotal moments and remain so.
There are several caveats to note. This is neither a “complete” representation of the entire conflict, nor an exhaustive list of its combat actions. A careful selection of key events is a necessity when putting together a historical scenario set. Some key events of the war have deliberately been set aside; for instance, the Patriot intercepts (and misses) of incoming Scud attacks on Israeli territory - a fascinating and dramatic story but a poor gameplay experience in a Command scenario (no meaningful choices to make). The same goes for tragedies like the Al Firdos bunker strike - a failure of intelligence far above the tactical challenges common in Command. Some important engagements like the famous 73-Easting battle, or small-scale unit actions like the infamous SAS patrols have been omitted, as Command is still a poor fit for detailed land combat (though this may well change in the future, when we revisit this work). The later scenarios typically feature a stronger Iraqi opposition than what was historically offered; again for gameplay reasons. Finally, this collection deals mostly with the actions of US forces in the conflict (although the forces of other nations are included in appropriate noteworthy actions). Although the coalition assembled comprised of a wide array of national armed services, for better or worse, the US armed forces shouldered the overwhelming majority of the operations throughout the conflict, and this set clearly reflects this.
We also included a number of hypothetical scenarios (veteran players of our campaign releases are well-acquainted with this). It is our view that history is not just what happened, but what could have easily happened under the right circumstances (within the reasonable constraints of reality). History has a funny way of zigging when one expects it to zag, and of positing events and situations that sound outlandish only as long as they don’t happen; “Islamic terrorists hijack 4 airliners simultaneously over US soil and use them to attack the WTC, the Pentagon and the Capitol” would have been the plot of a pulp novel or straight-to-video movie any time before 9/11. Together with the historical-based scenarios, we hope that you will get a better understanding of some of the pivotal moments in this fateful conflict that shaped how wars are being fought in the 21st century - in and out of the battlefields.
“In war, there is only one truth: People die.” - John M. Straczynski, Babylon 5
"Command: Desert Storm" is a campaign set by Wayne Stiles. Campaign & scenario intros by James John Simakas & Dimitris V. Dranidis.