Quote:
Originally Posted by Legbreaker
Does anyone know roughly what percentage of the available forces of the involved nations were used in 91?
And what percentage were occupied elsewhere (particularly Europe)?
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The strength of the Regular British Army at the time was around 137,000. According to Wikipedia, the British Army committed approx 43,000 troops to Operation Granby (the UK name for Operations Desert Shield / Storm), although that included a number of Territorials.
In percentage terms, if I've done my sums right you're looking at a figure of somewhere around 30% of the Army being deployed to the Gulf.
We sent two Armoured Brigades plus a number of additional units, so if you're looking at the Cold War still going strong at the time I think that would have seriously weakened the BAOR (normal strength of which was eight Armoured Brigades and one Infantry Brigade).