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."
“””If the 300,000 rounds the US took from Israeli stockpiles to give to Ukraine””””
The United States took nothing from Israeli stocks.
America has prepositioned weapons stocks around the world including in Israel and it removed some of our own stocks for Ukraine.
America has prepositioned weapons stocks around the world including in Israel and it removed some of our own stocks for Ukraine.
A distinction without a difference.
Complete nonsense
Fueled by an antisemitic fantasy
Seriously? Most ‘Orthodox’ Jews far surpass average incomes. If you mean self-selected Chareidi Jews, half of the Orthodox, even half of them exceed average incomes, and fairly large percentages of all being discussed are comparatively wealthy.
Israel controls electricity, water and points of entry including by air.
You are posting a lot of vague unlikely things tonight.
What report?
“ Hamas isn’t suiciding Gaza on pyre of defiance like people think…”
Wha?
At least, according to the article, it would be the Haredi’s.
Scary, but it’s a wakeup call. Having been close to the process of mfg. 155 rounds in the 1970s, I can tell you that it’s no easy task to ramp up if you’ve haven’t maintained the infrastructure, (steel production, forging systems, machine tools, etc.) Our machine tool industry rotted away in the ‘70s and ‘80s, just for starters. Later, in the “aughts”, the only country that could produce the automotive engine lines I worked on were the Germans and the Japanese, (and the latter were second-rate at best).
/rant
Nobody can supply reinforcements or weapons to Gaza at this point. The Israelis hold the Egyptian border, the sea, and the Israeli border. Under current circumstances all civilian shipments, such as will be permitted, are going to be under intense scrutiny. As Israel is mobilizing it will have the personnel to keep Gaza under siege.
I doubt 155mm arty will be of much significance. Nearly all of Gaza is built up of reinforced concrete or at least concrete block. What we are looking at is fodder for 2000lb bombs, not 155mm.
Well…there’s always nuclear.
It’s gonna happen sometime. And that time doesn’t seem far off any longer.
What munitions used in Ukraine are relevant for a defense of Taiwan?
LOL, all the difference in the world, we preposition OUR weapons around the world for us, and your source is claiming that we took Israeli arms from Israel’s weapon stocks.
Conservative orthodox Jews (Hasidics) are also big welfare queens in the US, notably in Rockland County and Brooklyn NY. Almost all the males are devoted to studying the Torah, rather than actually working. In addition to looking ridiculous, they are a complete drag on society.
There is no need for such enormous effort.
Just shut off electricity, water, and food shipments into Gaza.
60 days, and the Palestinians are done. Minimal casualties for the Israeli forces. Mass deaths for the Palestinians.
War is an ugly business.
Your "unlikely" comment was unnecessary.
If China attacked Taiwan tomorrow, what munitions does US have in order to defend Taiwan if everything was sent to the Ukraine?
I believe the West was drained of its ability to defend itself so it can be brought down with hardly a fight.
Hareidi’s what? Hareidi’s is possessive. Chareidi is a Hebrew word, with a ‘ch’ like Scottish LoCH Ness.
100,000 dead to starvation. The international community would never approve that.
“ It’s daylight over target/Gaza now, and the air-delivered munitions have been coming in pretty strong and regular.”
***************************************************
Yep, dawn has arrived in Gaza along with periodic very satisfying BA-DA-BOOMS. Below link is to four live streams from Gaza. Actually the #3 camera is from up the coast in Israel facing down the coast toward Gaza. It would offer the best view in the event of a THERMONUCLEAR explosion over Gaza.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcPPJqKsTR8
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.