THINGS ARE LOOKING UP FOR SADDAMS ARMORED DIVISIONS - The LAST Thing MUHAMMUD Saw!
Posted on 03/09/2003 4:56:28 PM PST by blam
US forced to consider 'battle lite' options
By Michael Smith, Defence Correspondent
(Filed: 10/03/2003)
Turkey's refusal to allow American troops to be based on its soil has reignited a debate within the US military over the future face of war, giving the "modernisers" a chance to prove that the age of the tank is finally over.
The deployment of allied troops in northern Iraq is a crucial element of plans to topple Saddam Hussein. They will be asked to secure the northern oil fields and to engage Republican Guard units that have been deployed to protect Saddam's hometown of Tikrit and the northern approaches to Baghdad.
Gen Tommy Franks, the commander of allied forces in the region, had wanted to use the 4th Infantry Division, America's most modern fighting force, to lead the northern thrust into Iraq.
But the refusal of Turkey's parliament to sanction the transit of US troops through its territory makes it extremely difficult for the division's heavy Abrams tanks and Bradley armoured personnel carriers to get there in time.
Thee US modernisers have produced a radical alternative. They propose flying light airborne forces such as the 101st Airborne Division and Britain's 16 Air Assault Brigade in to airfields in northern Iraq.
The scheme has produced a rumpus, with pro-tank traditionalists predicting that Saddam's Republican Guard with its T-72 tanks would head for the lightly armed allied troops and destroy them.
You cannot fight tanks with light infantry, they say. It would be better to wait for the 4th Infantry Division and its M1 Abrams tanks.
The tank, the heavy and cumbersome armour-plated fighting vehicle that evolved as a means of coping with the mud and carnage of the First World War and proved its might during the great tank battles of the Second World War, is at the centre of the controversy.
Advances in weapon technology and the need to fight future wars at a growing distance from the enemy have already led the US and British armies to look for smaller, lighter armoured vehicles that could be deployed very rapidly to trouble spots around the world.
As a result, early planning for a war on Iraq was dominated by demands from senior figures within the Pentagon, led by Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, for the use of special forces and light airborne infantry backed up by helicopter gunships such as the Apache.
They argued that with most of the Iraqi army expected to surrender at the sight of allied troops, and the RAF and USAF totally dominant in the air, there was no need for the protection of heavy armour.
Tanks and the heavy armoured vehicles that fight alongside them took too long to deploy, the modernisers said. Special forces could prepare the way, as they had in Afghanistan, for more mobile light troops such as commandos and paratroopers. They were backed by senior USAF officers who argued that the Afghan war and the 1991 Gulf war were won from the air.
Both the US and British military establishments objected. "Battle lite" might have been the most effective way of fighting poorly equipped forces such as the Taliban and al-Qa'eda troops in Afghanistan, but the Republican Guard was a well trained force equipped with heavy armour.
"The Republican Guard has got a lot of heavy metal," one senior British officer said. "You can't pit light infantry against tanks."
But the new plan may not require such a confrontation. The allied airborne forces could easily be flown in to air bases in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq to secure the northern oilfields.
The Republican Guard units deployed in the north are likely to become a major target for allied air power.
If the Republican Guard remains in its positions, it is likely to be carpet-bombed into submission by US B52 Stratofortress bombers and if it tries to advance or to retreat to Baghdad it will present easy targets for US and RAF ground attack aircraft.
I'm been thinking the same thing....and Warthogs.
Not in our lifetime! I was in light infantry .... and the Army's "High-Tech" Division .... and very few things in the world today can beat an M-1A1 attack. As Gen Meigs said ... airpower only destoryed 2 tanks out of over 100 with six weeks of the heaviest aerial bombardment in history. Gen Meigs' armored brigade destoryed the rest of the Iraqi brigade in an afternoon.
I sure as heck would not want to be an Iraqi tanker.
THINGS ARE LOOKING UP FOR SADDAMS ARMORED DIVISIONS - The LAST Thing MUHAMMUD Saw!
Turkey prepares to stake claim in Iraq's oil fields - (It's the oil, stupid.)
Get ready for a laff!
The Turds are 'sposed to have 'nuther "vote" on Monday about it - but yes - many of our heavy assets are still bobbing in the water (thanks to U-Know-Who).
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