Posted on 10/08/2023 9:03:31 PM PDT by Drew68
Artillery is 90% of all effective firepower. Airborne munitions can't cycle through endless tons of explosive the way arty can, and they cost vastly more.
If this is true and Israel has only 20% its arty stockpile, then Hamas isn't suiciding Gaza on pyre of defiance like people think. They timed this perfectly to lure Israel into writing cheques they can't cash in the hopes Israel will invade Gaza with infantry at which point they can grind them down endlessly with basically unending Arab volunteers in brutal urban warfare... where most of their technological advantage is gone and they won't have the most important 1/3rd of combined arms warfare.
This also would explain the brutality and the focus on taking as many civilian hostages as they can, since Israel can't just leave hundreds of Israeli civilians in Gaza and declare they aren't going to get them back... They're pretty much trapped fighting a ground war with what little artillery they have.
If the 300,000 rounds the US took from Israeli stockpiles to give to Ukraine corresponds to that 80% that Israel's supposedly down then they basically can't sustain combined armed warfare, since the 2014 Gaza war took 34,000 rounds of artillery alone.
Even if they have hundreds of thousands left, they can only use a fraction of them on Gaza since they need enough that they could fight a high intensity war with Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon if they intervene... let alone if Iran and Iraq start sending forces (US invasion handed Iraq to the Shia majority who align with Iran)
So even if they have another 300k artillery shells lying around, at most that'd be tens of thousand of available to actually use on Gaza without risk of being drowned by its rivalled arab neighbors in a multi-nation war.
That means the fighting to "open the gates of hell" or "wipe Gaza off the map" as some commentators are calling for will have to be done by air assets which can't realistically deliver the tonnage, and ground troops who would be dying at horrific ratios as urban settings negate most of the advantage of military tech.
Israel's active duty force only has 20ish thousand infantry in active force, even activating the 400k reserves you can only use a portion since there's the constant threat of a multinational war breaking out, Hezbollah in the north, and the entire west bank that could pop off...
So they have to punish Gaza, extract the hostages or their bodies, and achieve enough objectives to declare victory... against a population of 4 million! +Every radical fighter in the middle-east from Afghanistan to Aberdeen chomping at the bit to get in there... and they'll have to do it with... maybe 10k full time infantry? Maybe 20-30k counting the reservists?
In urban warfare? With limited artillery?
Hamas might actually have them...
They might have actually played their cards right to create the conditions for a Vietnam in the holy lands.
Remember Israel's active force of 169,000 is both genders and conscripts... You start losing a lot of people or start having to reassign 19 year old girls who never wanted to hold a rifle to infantry. that will grind down morale damned fast and tear open Israel's social divisions.. Not least between liberal secular jews who actually serve and the conservative orthodox who dodge the draft through "religious study."
I wonder at what trigger point Israel would begin to use her nukes in defense of a multi front attack that threatened its existence? Would it truly be after other means exhausted or on some strategy to preserve the last 40% or so of conventional forces and win? I mean rather than to take the attackers with them in an all lose local Armageddon.
My background was nuclear warfare. We were informed that Israel cannot afford nukes near Israel as she is a small territory, and any war where they will lose and another country takes their land results in nukes on the enemy lands.
So, a war breaks out, Israel responds, if overwhelmed then Israel uses nukes.
The problem is Israel is notoriously liberal. Liberals have a hard time unleashing nukes. Nukes need to be used decisively. I think Israel would use nukes far too late, if at all.
Got it. Thanks.
“””The military hardware is not actually in anyone’s custody [like, say the Israeli military in this example] - it just lies around on the empty lots for whenever we show up and need it.”””
This is amazing, you really and truly don’t know about our prepositioned stocks around the world.
GAO-”The military services keep everything from rations to tanks at strategic locations around the world. Positioning supplies in advance can allow action without waiting for cargo to arrive.”
Document: GAO Report on Pentagon Prepositioned Stocks
“DOD positions billions of dollars worth of assets–including combat vehicles, rations, medical supplies, and repair parts—at strategic locations around the world to use during early phases of operations. Each of the military services maintains its own prepositioned stock program.”
https://news.usni.org/2017/08/01/document-gao-report-pentagon-prepositioned-stocks
Someone asks for a source and you launch into this elaborate of a personal attack.
I provided a source. You had never heard of it. I informed you I was listening to live tv. You blew a gasket demanding a link to an article. You act like your diapers are soiled. Not interested in your persistent efforts to belittle FReepers who contribute thoughtful info to the discussion.
I’m not sure what you are saying or thinking, perhaps you are doing what some do here and changing “glee in their predictions of how this helps Putin in his European invasion” to pretending I was saying glee over Israel’s bloodshed.
A lot of the pro-Russia posters are sure that this guarantees
Russia’s military success and they are almost giddy over that result coming out of this Hamas attack, they are sure that Russia’s war was won with this Hamas attack as it knocks the Ukraine invasion off the radar.
That is not a Christian response your personal attacks are really getting nasty, and you never provided a source, you simply said “News Nation” and that was that.
“””I informed you I was listening to live tv.”””
Your source is that you think you overheard it on the TV.
Give credence to use battlefield tactical nukes. Would send a hell of a message.
“So they have to punish Gaza, extract the hostages or their bodies, and achieve enough objectives to declare victory... against a population of 4 million! +Every radical fighter in the middle-east from Afghanistan to Aberdeen chomping at the bit to get in there... and they’ll have to do it with... maybe 10k full time infantry? Maybe 20-30k counting the reservists?”
Good. Have them all in one place and then level Gaza. Give every woman and child under the age of 13 safe passage to whatever country they want to move to. Then level the place.
Go back to reading romance novels. Yours may be the dumbest post of the day. Congrats.
The women and children are more venomous than the men why are you suggesting Israel SAVE THEM?? Just look at the 2 we have in congress BOTH absolute EVIL to the core!!
People reckon without God.
Israel won the Six Day War against all odds.
If God is on your side, and He is on Israel then, by OT precedent, Hamas and Iran are toast. Literally.
I suspect most of those hostages are either dead or wish they were.
We can see now what a big mistake that was. And all for naught.
We have very stupid people running America.
The far too late, if at all, usage is my take on it as well. Perhaps hardliners will take firmer control as a result of the latest attacks.
If you look at all our forces and military budget dedicated to restraining Russia you will see what a great investment these old stocks are in weakening that threat.
We are in a much better situation in facing China than we were 19 months ago because of Ukraine making Russia pay so dearly, it also helps that we will be replacing old stocks with new and improved munitions and equipment.
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