Amphibious Deception in the Gulf War
Amphibious Deception in the Gulf War
John S. Naylor – February 18, 2026
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Remember when the Marines stormed the beaches as Kuwait City in February of 1991 to kick off Operation Desert Storm?
Neither do I.
For good cause.
On December 1, 1990, the 7,500 Marines and sailors of 5th Marine Expeditionary Brigade (5th MEB) [1] boarded the ships of Amphibious Group Three (PHIBGRU-3) and departed Southern California bound for the Persian Gulf. This task force numbered thirteen ships, the largest assembly of amphibious shipping mustered since the Korean War. After nearly two decades’ recovery from American involvement in Vietnam, the service was once again tasked with its raison d’être, amphibious operations.[2]
Already afloat in the Gulf were 13th MEU(SOC)[3] aboard Amphibious Squadron 4, diverted from a WestPac cruise, and the east coast 4th MEB[4], aboard the ships of Amphibious Group 2. On the ground in Saudi Arabia were Marines from I Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF), to include elements from the 1st and 2nd Marine Divisions (1st MARDIV, 2nd MARDIV) and 1st Force Service Support Group (1st FSSG), 3d Marine Aircraft Wing (3rd MAW), and 7th MEB. The Marines on the ground had flown from the states into Saudi Arabia, and linked up with equipment delivered to them via pre-positioned RoRo ships. The movement of these Marine and Navy units to Saudi Arabia was in response to Sadaam Hussein’s Iraqi Army having rolled into Kuwait in August. Sadaam, seeking leverage to eliminate debt accumulated with gulf states after a bloody, expensive war with Iran, and believing that there would be no foreign military response, made a fateful decision while not being able to read the room.
Instead, a diverse international coalition, including all the American armed services, assembled to defend Saudi Arabia from further Iraqi aggression. As soldiers, sailors, airmen, Coast Guardsmen, and Marines flew into theater, they linked up with weapons, equipment, and ordnance delivered by prepositioned shipping; in conjunction with prepositioned stores, sealift supplied over ¾ of the required beans, bullets, band-aids, and equipment for forces facing Iraqi guns on the Saudi border. The Marines were invited to this party early on, flying quick reaction battalions to the desert days after Sadaam invaded; the introduction of the shipboard units of the MEBs was intended to provide coalition commanders with the flexibility to threaten Iraqi forces in Kuwait from the sea.
Personal aside: A few nights before shipping out for the Gulf, the CO of RLT-5 held a dinner for the officers and their wives of the regiment. I didn’t attend — because I volunteered for the OD as part of my campaign to avoid ‘mandatory fun’ and I was a bachelor — but was briefed by those who did. Evidently the high point of the evening was the regimental CO telling the officers’ wives that a number of their husbands wouldn’t be coming home from this deployment, which was followed by a screening of clips from the motion picture ‘Glory’. Pretty motivating.
After five months of mustering air, sea, and ground forces in the defense, and exhausting UN diplomacy, the Coalition initiated offensive air operations on January 17, 1991, striking Iraqi command and control and infrastructure targets, as well as ground and air forces. With a vengeance. Laser-guided GBUs were all the rage at the time. In gulf waters, forces afloat commenced raiding activity, targeting Iraqis positioned in the littorals.
I actually remember where I was when the air war started. I was in my rack, aboard ship, fully clothed and wearing my gas mask, trying to get some sleep. The ship was at general quarters, and the sailors really wanted us to stay the hell out of the way while they did sailor stuff.
Most soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines aboard ship didn’t enjoy the instant news updates afforded by the satellite television news stations that friends and family back home were subjected to, but fuzzy gun camera video, interviews conducted in camps near the border, daily briefings by Coalition and Iraqi media representatives all pointed to a major imminent fight; the assumption was that there would be an amphibious assault in the works too. Media attention was periodically redirected to 5th MEB, 4th MEB, and 13th MEU(SOC), plying the warm waters of the Persian Gulf, who were being predicted to be the centerpiece of any move to take Kuwait back. As Marines, Corpsmen, beachmasters, and landing craft sailors aboard the amphibs prepped themselves and their equipment as best they could, the surface warriors and gator navy did most of the heavy lifting, striking Iraqi positions with missiles and naval gunfire, and in clearing sea mines and controlling the sea lanes in and out of the region.
Everyone in the international community, and Iraq, believed the U.S. was preparing for “forcible entry” — crossing a contested beach — as was their wont.[5] Marines and sailors reinforced this for the world press, with large scale landing maneuvers in Oman during OPERATION SEA SOLDIER IV.
Rumor had it that the bigger ships, the battlewagons and aircraft carriers could tune into CNN and international news television. We couldn’t, so the best updates on the war we got were from the BBC News service on short-wave radios some of the Marines and crew had. The official outlook, if to be judged by what the CO Troops told us after briefings with the ship’s CO was any indication, was pretty dire. I recall CO Troops telling us, glumly, that going across the beach in Kuwait City was “going to be hell”. Nobody had anything funny to say.
The international press reported on engineered fortifications on the beaches and islands of Kuwait and southern Iraq. With time, Iraq began befouling the waters of the gulf by pumping pipelines full of oil offshore. The Iraqis showed no concern for Kuwaitis who remained in their homes during the occupation, after the destruction and looting of the invasion.
Among Marines of the era, I had the feeling that the concept of crossing a hostile beach under fire was mostly a thing of the past, as the tenets of maneuver warfare dictated. The number of amtracs and landing craft available was a limiting factor, and the Navy LCAC masters were pretty adamant that their hyper expensive craft were not armored, or even armed. I'm not sure how the American public would have reacted to a debacle on the beaches of Kuwait; American losses during the entire war were significant, with over three hundred fatalities over nine months, but the war remained mostly popular as the U.S. let Vietnam recede in its collective memory.
Marines on a beach ca. 1990
In the end, Lieutenant General Walter Boomer, USMC, commanding CENTCOM Marines, decided that “forcible entry” by the forces he had on hand would not be the best strategy in taking back Kuwait; his statement that he was “not going to destroy Kuwait in order to save it” reflected the destruction an attack across the beaches would have on the Kuwaiti population and property. The beaches selected by planners for the operation were all equally inadequate — urban areas near Kuwait City and mudflats further north — and the Navy didn’t believe it would be able to clear enough of the offshore sea-mines placed by the Iraqis. In an age of laser and television guided munitions, the arduous and dangerous task of sea-mine clearance garners little press coverage.
However, the mine threat to coalition warships was immediate, and very real. On February 18, USS PRINCETON and USS TRIPOLI struck Iraqi sea-mines, putting both ships into drydock for the rest of the war. But the decision against making a full-out amphibious assault didn’t prevent the U.S. from committing to an ongoing deception, which spurred the Iraqis to continue to harden defenses on the Kuwaiti shores.
Mine damage USS TRIPOLI LPH-10 February 1991
Theatre commanders created a sophisticated deception plan around the threat of a beach landing, using 4th and 5th MEB to divert attention from the western desert, where the Army was preparing for a brilliant example of maneuver warfare, using tactics workshopped in exercises throughout the 1980s. 4th MEB and 13th MEU(SOC) conducted raids on the islands at the northern end of the Gulf, while 5th MEB posed aboard ship, near assembly areas for an assault.[6] The Navy introduced Iraqi forces on Faylaka Island to USS WISCONSIN through a little light bombardment. As it turned out, 5th MEB received orders to land in Saudi Arabia the ground war started, providing a reserve for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.
By pinning Iraqi forces to positions closer to the beaches of Kuwait and Southern Iraq, it’s estimated that the presence of Amphibious Groups Two and Three in the Gulf resulted in the Iraqis keeping four divisions of men at the ready in Kuwait to prevent a coalition attack from the sea.
The story of the ground war is well known. Aggressive breaching efforts in select locations, and the “end-around” in the desert decimated Iraqi resolve. 5th MEB landed at the Saudi port of al Mishab as the reserve for 1st and 2nd Marine Divisions. After crossing into Kuwait, making several long road marches chasing I MEF, 5th MEB conducted mop-up operations in al Wafra forest through the 3rd of March. 5th MEB completed re-embarkation on March 10th and remained in the Gulf until early May, at the ready, while Kurdish relief operations in northern Iraq continued through March and April. 4th MEB returned to North Carolina and Norfolk by the end of April.
While crossing the Indian Ocean on the way home to SoCal, Amphibious Group Three diverted to Bangladesh —in the wake of a cyclone that killed 138,000 — to conduct relief operations on Operation Sea Angel. After seven months in an amphibious role, 5th MEB returned to SoCal at the end of June.
I put this together on the 35th anniversary of the Gulf War mostly to show that there are amphibious missions of strategic significance besides “forced entry” — the amphibious assault. Current doctrine lists the following:
Amphibious Assault. The establishment of an LF on a hostile or potentially hostile shore.
Amphibious Withdrawal. The extraction of forces by sea in ships or craft from a hostile or potentially hostile shore.
Amphibious Demonstration. A show of force conducted to deceive with the expectation of deluding the enemy into a course of action unfavorable to it.
Amphibious Raid. A swift incursion into, or a temporary occupation of, an objective, followed by a planned withdrawal.
Other Amphibious Operations. The capabilities of amphibious forces may be especially suited to conduct other types of operations, such as noncombatant evacuation operations and foreign humanitarian assistance.[7]
4th and 5th MEBs accomplished more than one of these in their efforts in early 1991.
Also, amphibious shipping is essential.
Also, alliances are essential.
Also, a healthy merchant marine is essential.
I apologize for the unit acronym letter-salad but wanted to credit everyone involved. If I missed you, I’m sorry.
Good resources on this aspect of the war:
https://www.gulflink.osd.mil/histories/db/navy/usnavy_050.html
https://maritime.org/doc/pdf/jp3_02.pdf
[1] Composed of Regimental Landing Team-5 (RLT-5), Marine Air Group-50 (MAG-50), and Brigade Service Support Group-53 (BSSG-53).
[2] The National Security Act of 1947 stated: “The primary mission of the Marine Corps shall be to provide fleet marine forces of combined arms, together with supporting air components, for service with the fleet in the seizure and defense of advanced naval bases and for the conduct of such land operations as may be essential to the prosecution of a naval campaign.”
[3] 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit - Special Operations Capable: Composed of Battalion Landing Team 1/4 (BLT ¼), Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron – Composite 164 (HMM-164), and Marine Expeditionary Unit Service Support Group 13.
[4] Composed of RLT-2, BSSG-4, and MAG-40.
[5] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-02-06-mn-607-story.html
[6] During buildup, elements of the 4th MEB took a break from the conflict with Iraq to conduct a Non-combatant Evacuation Operation (NEO) in Somalia, which is part of why having trained, and competent units forward deployed on amphibious shipping is a plus-plus for national security.
[7] Joint Publication 3-02, Doctrine for Amphibious Operations – 19 September, 2001.
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