re: 29 years ago today: Iraq invades Kuwait

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And we had the backing of most of the Muslim world with us

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Unfortunately, that helped kick off Bin Laden's career.

I drove up that highway about 6 months after the liberation of Kuwait. its the only paved highway north out of Kuwait , loose sand on either side for many miles. the vehicles mostly were civilian that were stolen and packed with stolen items. the Iraqis went through houses and businesses and removed wall switches, light fixtures, appliances, furniture everything that could be put in a pickup. lead vehicles were shot up causing the massive traffic jam, resulting in a shooting gallery that became a killing. after a couple days bush senior called off the killing . ending the war.
sadam invaded purely on theft motives. upside was taking over the very rich oil country with no pushback. downside was stealing every transportable pile of gold, vehicles and property.
most Kuwaiti households had a picture of bush senior in the house years after
the ship artillery used by the us was really interesting. Iraqis would try to lob a shell at a ship and the ship board weapons system would locate track and return a shot before the Iraq shot reached the waters edge. the last battleship launched a shell weighing as much as a Volkswagen at a apt building where the Iraq senior folks were billeted and knocked half to the ground. I still have a couple of broken targeting rounds fired into the desert.

chemical warfare was a real threat. the Iraqs carried gas masks and antidote kit

DU, a little too fantastic for killing.

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He doesn’t regret anything now.

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I dunno, he's probably pretty tired of fricking satan by now.

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I never understood that theory. Why wouldn't you see that before or after the war? It's not like DU was only used in GW1.

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I could be wrong, but I believe Desert Storm was the first time it had been used in combat. Before the war, whenever we did live fire on the tanks, we used training rounds made of soft medal. Training rounds looked just like service rounds expect they’re blue while service rounds are black. And it’s only the SABOT rounds that were made of DU.

SABOT Training round with no DU


SABOT Serivce Round with DU

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depleted uranium shell

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2 inch hole on the outside

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I've been told that occupants are basically vaporized. That you'd not know the vehicle was damaged.

I'm sure Darth knows. . .

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the effect of the depleted uranium shell was massive. a rather complete armored vehicles would have a 2 inch hole on the outside and inside it would be completely gutted, no possibly of human survival. the tires and tank treads on Iraqs military vehicles was overwhelming worn-out and of minimum use

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That pretty much what a SABOT does. After the war we shipped an Iraqi T72 to Ft. Knox to be put on display at the Patton Museum of Armor. The tank looks to be in perfect working order. Only when you get close do you notice the 2” hole in the turret front just to the side of the main gun. Then when you walk around to the back, you see another 2” hole on the back of the turret. Other than that, from the outside the tank looks fine.

What’s really cool though is there is a chance that if the tank was buttoned up, TC and gunner in the turret were both instantly turned to pink mist and sucked out the back of the turret when it was hit.

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But did you get any of the Topps Baseball Cards while over there?
The ones with the embroidered Gold Palm trees on them. They are worth 10 times their face value today. I still have all of mine. I remember my Company Commander trading all 10 of his to me for my 1 Nolan Ryan.

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No. I wasn’t into baseball cards.

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I know after the war a lot of folks got sick with what was called Gulf War Syndrome. There was speculation it was caused by being exposed to depleted uranium in the main gun rounds of our tanks.

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I think it was those big brown pills that they wanted to take. the ones that were supposed to delay effects of chemicals from entering you so you could get your MOPP Suit on.
I didn't take them and did not have any health problems, but the guys in my unit that did were having all kinds of problems. Rashes all over their bodies, breathing problems etc. The only time we messed anywhere around DUs was when we were recovering dead T72s.