Op GRANBY - 25 Years Ago

[Stonker]

the next rumbling in Basra that came up a few years later.

. . . . as predicted at the time by Dick Cheney, and used to persuade Dubya snr. to stay out of Eye-Rack once he'd seen Saddam Hussein's once-vaunted military reduced to paper tiger status.

Why the feck he was singing a different siren song in the Shrub's shell-like a decade later remains a mystery to me.

 

[SPROCKET321]

Perhaps GRANBY was an example of how these things should be conducted - a properly resourced overwhelming use of force to achieve clear objectives.

Compare that with the shoestring efforts which followed -
Forces which could barely defend themselves, never mind pursue the vague and changing aims of their political masters.

You could see it coming, so many operations conducted well, the politicians gaining reflected glory, all the time cutting back on the defense budget to get more reflected glory, trying to please everyone, but still expecting the forces to do more with less. Then Bliar came along and wanted his bit of History.

 

[hackle]

. . . . as predicted at the time by Dick Cheney, and used to persuade Dubya snr. to stay out of Eye-Rack once he'd seen Saddam Hussein's once-vaunted military reduced to paper tiger status.

Why the feck he was singing a different siren song in the Shrub's shell-like a decade later remains a mystery to me.

Is that right, that George HW Bush personally encouraged his son to embark on the 2nd Gulf War? The reported Iraqi plot to assassinate GHWB is well known, but I thought the received wisdom is that father had doubts about attacking Iraq in 2003 but did not think it right to influence son.

 

[Stonker]

Is that right, that George HW Bush personally encouraged his son to embark on the 2nd Gulf War? The reported Iraqi plot to assassinate GHWB is well known, but I thought the received wisdom is that father had doubts about attacking Iraq in 2003 but did not think it right to influence son.

You misread me.

Badly.

Cheney's advice to Bush #1 was sane, and sage, and was heeded.

Cheney's advice to Bush #2 (The Lesser Bush, or Shrub) was the exact reverse.

It too was heeded, and proved to be madness, bearing out the wisdom of his prognosis a decade before, leaving me perplexed as to WTF Cheney was up to, second time around.

 

[Roger Out]

Perhaps GRANBY was an example of how these things should be conducted - a properly resourced overwhelming use of force to achieve clear objectives.

Compare that with the shoestring efforts which followed -
Forces which could barely defend themselves, never mind pursue the vague and changing aims of their political masters.

Granby was also just before Options For Change, before the mass redundancies and cull of regiments.

 

[Dan Gleebles]

Granby was also just before Options For Change, before the mass redundancies and cull of regiments.

I don't think it's about the size of the armed forces we have, it's knowing the limitations of them, and proper selection and maintenance of the aim.

'Punching above our weight' is the epitome of self delusion that we could take on the entire province of Helmand with a Brigade, whilst simultaneously overstretching ourselves in Iraq.

The inevitable result is an exhausted army which achieved the square root of fcukall.

That's no disrespect to my kids and everyone else who went out there and burst a bollOck, but it was an ever changing series of impossible aims, and we could have been there forever and a day at square one.

 

[Bad Smell]

Anyone got the copies of Sandy Times?

I've two or three stuck in a box somewhere. I think they were some of the latter issues.

 

[Mike Barton]

I came in from the Pub. Turned on the TV. Gawped. Picked up my jaw and then the phone and said to my Dad "They're bombing Bagdad!"

"I know" he replied.

I recall watching the news in the wee hours of the morning (in the days when the TV channels normally shut down at midnight) as the scuds started landing in Israel, they went to the Israeli newscaster who was broadcasting live from the studio, in a gas mask.

I remember thinking that I was looking at a scene from one of those cheap airport novels on the outbreak of World War III.

 

[Stonker]

Granby was also just before Options For Change, before the mass redundancies and cull of regiments.

Case in point - 3 RRF.

Returned to Germany post-op, cleaned down their vehicles, handed in their kit, AND went on post-op leave, with orders to report for duty elsewhere when that leave ended, because 3 RRF was no longer required in the ORBAT.

 

[06FA56Paderborn]

Case in point - 3 RRF.

Returned to Germany post-op, cleaned down their vehicles, handed in their kit, AND went on post-op leave, with orders to report for duty elsewhere when that leave ended, because 3 RRF was no longer required in the ORBAT.

Apart from participating in a pre BATUS training package at Soltau in early 1992 and going out to BATUS in May/June 1992 then we’re withdrawn from the ORBAT on 1 Aug 1992.

 

[Cutaway]

#0589

Case in point - 3 RRF.

Returned to Germany post-op, cleaned down their vehicles, handed in their kit, AND went on post-op leave, with orders to report for duty elsewhere when that leave ended, because 3 RRF was no longer required in the ORBAT.

#0590

Apart from participating in a pre BATUS training package at Soltau in early 1992 and going out to BATUS in May/June 1992 then we’re withdrawn from the ORBAT on 1 Aug 1992.

Are you implying the previous post was Stonkerbollocks ?

 

[Berlin_104s]

When the first air strikes started, I was still in Germany, on training to go. During a break from a weapon training lesson, the staff sergeant instructing remarked, "Yeah, they ought to bomb Saddam's fcuking palace. Flatten the cnut."
"They bombed it last night, staff," we replied.

Were you earmarked for the GRANBY 2 deployment? I was, did the training at Sennelager then got stood down once it was realised that a RIP for 7 Armd Bde wasn't required. All dressed up and nowhere to go!!

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk

 

[WolvoExPunk]

This time 1991, I was doing the training at Sennelager. Back in Lippstadt for a week or so, then we flew out to Saudi Arabia. I was a BCR.

 

[sonofgreenfinch]

You misread me.

Badly.

Cheney's advice to Bush #1 was sane, and sage, and was heeded.

Cheney's advice to Bush #2 (The Lesser Bush, or Shrub) was the exact reverse.

It too was heeded, and proved to be madness, bearing out the wisdom of his prognosis a decade before, leaving me perplexed as to WTF Cheney was up to, second time around.

The Halliburton factor, perhaps.

 

[06FA56Paderborn]

#0589


#0590

Are you implying the previous post was Stonkerbollocks ?

I am not implying anything, just stating my recollection of the events during that period of time

 

[ches]

The Halliburton factor, perhaps.

Quite possibly. Whatever it was, there is something unsettling about the contrast between the two campaigns.

 

[Roger Out]

Apart from participating in a pre BATUS training package at Soltau in early 1992 and going out to BATUS in May/June 1992 then we’re withdrawn from the ORBAT on 1 Aug 1992.

Oh thought it was 93... so they merged with 1 and 2 RRF then, after being withdrawn?

 

[Roger Out]

In Telic 1, we had quite a few Granby vets.

 

[06FA56Paderborn]

Oh thought it was 93... so they merged with 1 and 2 RRF then, after being withdrawn?

I believe so, we 3RTR were in the adjacent barracks and suffered the same fate at the same time.

 

[Dan Gleebles]

Quite possibly. Whatever it was, there is something unsettling about the contrast between the two campaigns.

I vaguely recall watching Gen 'Stormin' Norman on the telly post GW1 ENDEX, where he described his determination to avoid mistakes made by the US in Vietnam, namely resisting the political imperative to 'get on with it' until he had adequately built up his forces, degraded the OPFOR by air power and executed his deception plan before launching an overwhelming ground offensive.

A weaker commander folding to political pressure going in before the optimum conditions had been met may have seen a longer campaign with far more casualties.

It could well have been the 'mother of all battles' Saddam promised.