How Delta Force and SAS Hunted Iraqi Scud Missiles During the Gulf War

• In January and February 1991, hundreds of thousands of troops in an American coalition pushed Iraqi forces out of Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm.
• Amid the campaign, Delta Force and the British SAS went deep behind Iraqi lines to neutralize the Scud missiles that Saddam Hussein had hoped would make the war the tide.
• Visit the Insider Business Department for more stories.

On August 2, 1990, Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi army invaded Kuwait and unleashed a crisis that led to an intervention by a massive US-led coalition.

At the time, Iraq possessed one of the largest armies in the world, with about 1 million troops. To defeat it, the United States knocked on every diplomatic door in the region and elsewhere, successfully gathering 750,000 troops for Operation Desert Storm, which began on January 17, 1991.

While the coalition was blowing up against him, Hussein tried to divide the Babylonian alliance between nearly 40 countries, including several Arab countries and Israel, although Israel did not actually participate in it. By attacking Israel directly, the Iraqi leader hoped to provoke an Israeli response that would break the fragile coalition.

Hussein chose his Scud rocket batteries as a tool for his strategy. The Soviet-made tactical ballistic missile system came in fixed and mobile launch programs, both of which were lethal. One Scud hit a U.S. base in Saudi Arabia, killing 28 soldiers.

To stop the Scud threat, the Pentagon turned to it at its best: Delta Force, along with its British counterpart, the Special Air Service (SAS).

Skeptical leadership

Thanks to photo

Following the invasion of Kuwait, the US Joint Special Operations Order (JSOC) proposed a number of operations to the Pentagon, ranging from the rescue of US diplomats and civilians trapped in Kuwait City to direct actions in Iraq.

“After we got a message about the raid, there were a lot of ideas on how the unit could respond,” a former Delta operator told Insider.

But one of the biggest obstacles for Delta Force and other U.S. special operations units during Desert Storm was the leadership of conventional military forces.

Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, the four-star commander-in-chief of the U.S. Central Command and the chief of staff in the war, was very skeptical about special operational forces and their strategic utility in warfare between nation states.

Eventually, however, Schwarzkopf had to concede to the White House and Pentagon and allow special operators to participate in the campaign. It certainly helped that his second commander, British Genl. Sir Peter de la Billière, who served and commanded the SAS and was director of the British Special Forces during the Iranian embassy siege in 1980.

Thanks to photo

“Actually, believe it or not, at one point Saddam was pretty high on the target deck. Of course the guys were all ready for it, but in the end it turned out to be nothing. We could not determine him. We did not have enough or is accurate to set up an operation, “said the former Delta operator.” But if I look back, even if there was enough intelligence, the higher end companies would probably have gone for an air strike. “

“Some of the ideas, like going after Saddam himself, were pretty wild, but that’s the whole point of brainstorming. You have to think big and explore all possibilities, no matter how strange it may seem,” the former Delta operator told Insider. .

‘Finally we decided on a few options, with Scud hunting the primary, and A got it, and C mainly did CP [close protection] for ‘Storming Norman’ ‘Schwarzkopf, the former Delta operator added, referring to the Delta Force A and C squadrons.

Scud hunting in the desert

Thanks to photo

The Iraqis knew their business. They would move the mobile Scud launchers during the night and lie down during the day and camouflage the trucks so well that they would blend perfectly into the desert landscape, making it almost impossible for coalition planes to spot them.

The Delta and SAS patrols will be inserted by helicopters and roam along the main supply routes, looking for signs of mobile Scud launchers. Some patrols entered the country by vehicles and others on foot.

The Delta operators used a mixture of Humvees, motorcycles and heavily armed Pinzgaeur trucks. With a sweet nickname the ‘Pig’, a Pinzgaeur could carry various crew equipment, such as the M2 Browning heavy and the M-240 medium machine guns, and large amounts of rations, water and fuel needed to support the patrols.

However, some Delta patrols were frustrated by mechanical problems – it’s difficult to change a tire in the middle of the desert. But the commandos also had to be careful of the weather. In one case, a special helicopter went off and killed its crew and three Delta operators.

US Department of Defense

There were several times that patrols of SAS and Delta Force got into a firefight with Iraqi forces, either because the patrols were compromised or attacked the targets of opportunities.

One of these patrols went horribly wrong. Codenamed Bravo Two Zero, it consists of eight B-squadron SAS troops. Their mission was to conduct special reconnaissance deep behind enemy lines in an effort to locate mobile Scud missiles.

As the team lay in a small ravine during the day after their introduction, Iraqi civilians spotted them. There are conflicting reports about what happened next, and some patrol members said Iraqi mechanized infantry began pouring into the area.

The patrol members began to escape and escape to Syria, but were separated at night. After an adventurous few days, four SAS soldiers fell into Iraqi hands, three were killed (two by hypothermia, one by enemy fire) and one successfully escaped to Syria.

Weeks of fighting

Thanks to photo

During Operation Desert Storm, the SAS operators found their origin.

The SAS was established during World War II to fight the African Corps of Nazi Germany, led by the well-known General Erwin Rommel, in North Africa. The bread’s butter and butter were long-term reconnaissance and direct-action operations, such as raids and ambushes, deep behind enemy lines.

From bases in the middle of the Sahara desert, the SAS troops – and a few extra units for special operations, such as the Long Range Desert Group – used heavily armed trucks and jeeps with a destructive action and more planes on the ground. destroy. Royal Air Force did in the theater.

The Delta and SAS operators in the field during Desert Storm faced a different kind of opponent.

Coalition planes secured the air force from Day One, and conventional Iraqi ground forces were quickly overwhelmed. But US and British special forces did have a strategic impact on the war, which reduced the launch of Scud against Israel by more than 80%.

Desert Storm ended on February 28, 1991, six weeks after it began. Only a few weeks after starting the hunt for Iraq’s Scuds, Delta and SAS completed their mission.

Stavros Atlamazoglou is a defense journalist specializing in special operations, a veteran of the Hellenic Army (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army Headquarters) and a graduate of Johns Hopkins University.