Expert: Concern over material, Clintonite "battle managers

newsmax | March 25, 2003

[JDoutrider]

This definetely is something to think about.

[anniegetyourgun]

I don't want to think about Clinton or his stinking legacy....

[Lancey Howard]

BUMP

[SENTINEL]

"That could be the undoing of the 3rd Infantry Division. If the 3rd can’t stop them, the Marines and Brits don’t have a chance. The Marines only have 188 M1A1 Abrams (not upgraded) and the Brits use the Challenger II tank that has sort of brittle armor.”

BS...Tow missiles fired from Hummers took out more tanks than any other ground vehicle during GWI. This system allows 2.75 mile day or night sniper shots that can take out anything on the battle field. Tows are at their best in open flat terrain, like Kuwait or around Baghdad.

Cakewalk, no way, but Brits and Marines not having a chance, I don't think so.

[JDoutrider]

Me either Annie...unfortunately Klintons legacy continues to haunt us. This report sends chills down my spine.

[the_doc]

Maybe I have misunderstood some of the logistical points. but it sounds to me like it was not a Pentagon screw-up so much as it was our State Department's failure to read the Turkey situation correctly.

Besides, Rumsfeld himself was originally arguing pretty vociferously with General Franks about the size of the force he needed. (Rumsfeld was not inclined to give Franks as big a force as Franks felt he needed.) So, I don't see the alleged "Clinton effect" in great evidence.

My point is not to slam the State Department or Rumsfeld. My point is that I think the "analyst" is not to be trusted in his naysaying. Gosh, Franks has the discretion to wait until he is fully ready to go in the assault on Baghdad. And I assume he will be very careful in the meantime. (He has already proven to my satisfaction that he is pretty careful.)

My bottom-line point: General Franks already knows everything the analyst is saying. (A lot of analysts are four-star wannabes. Franks is apparently the real thing.)

[JDoutrider]

I see by your profile that you know what your talking about...thank you for clearing that up!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

OFFICIAL BUMP(TOPIC)LIST

[Milwaukee_Guy]

The Main Battle Tank has always been the Queen of Battle. The appearence of a capable MBT has, is, and always will dominate the battlefield. Countless revisionists have tried to announce the end of the MBT and have been proven wrong.

IMHO we have too few MBT's in Iraq. The latest Abrahms M1A2 is the most capable MBT in the field. We have only a few hundred in theater right now. We need more. The fact the Marines still have the older M1A1 is not encouraging.

The most recent example of being too armor light is Somalia. A debacle (IMHO) due to the lack of serious armor. Twenty Abrahms MBT and forty Bradley IFV would have been decisive. Instead the Clintonistas forced us to rely on old Pakistani MBT's and German Fox (Fuchs) wheeled armored cars to extricate our forces.

We need to hold up outside of Bagdahd and wait for more Abrahms to be delivered to the battlefield. Otherwise we will again suffer casualties that need not occur.

[JDoutrider]

My bottom-line point: General Franks already knows everything the analyst is saying. (A lot of analysts are four-star wannabes. Franks is apparently the real thing.)

As I look at the body count for both sides, apparently you are absolutely correct!!!

[timydnuc]

As much as I like NewsMax, I gotta just tune them out sometimes. Sure, Clinton FUBARed his whole 8 years, sure, Clinton was the everloving worst man to ever occupy the office of President of the United States, but that has all been taken into the equasion by GW and the boys & girl. If you think for one minute that our President and his staff didn't go into this thing knowing full well what cards they had to play and the outcome of this thing, then you'd believe Bill Clinton was an honest man.

I get a little pissed off when, in a time of war, when we start blaming Clinton. He is the most peutrid scum of the earth, but to blame him is to overlook our ability to adapt, and overcome. And we have, and will, adapt, and overcome.

Put Clinton in his place right now, in some outhouse pit in upper New York. Clinton is irrelivant, especially now, it's a war, and you know how he runs from that.

Focus on the task at hand and support a President that knows how to protect us. Cluck Flinton, he's an idiot!

[denydenydeny]

There is another Republican Guard unit 30 miles from the Medina Division. Once the battle begins, the next unit will close on the first and mass their fire.

Not an expert here, but this whole disaster scenario seems to presuppose that the Americans' close air support will be off in another time zone.

Massed Republican Guard units would, I imagine, be a Christmas present for Coalition air.

[the_doc]

Yeah, almost all of our casualties thus far can be accounted for as mechanical failures and friendly fire and a maintenance group getting lost in a poorly marked desert and a couple of ambushes in phony surrenders. So, our tactical blunders have been essentially zero.

I wouldn't get in a big hurry to ruin this record.

[Grampa Dave]

This so called expert whose name is not even on this garbage sounds worse than a Reuters spin master.

What a bunch of Bravo Sierra and an insult to our military leaders and SoD Rumsfield this crapola is!

For a better look and a more fair balance look, this thread might be looked at:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/875529/posts

[getmeouttaPalmBeachCounty_FL]

I asked dh (Marine (R)O-5. AV-8B pilot, been deployed overseas and aboard ship, did a year with 3rd LAR as a FAC, and recently completed several years of reserve time with 4th ANGLICO.) to have a look at this article over my shoulder, and his comment was..."that's actually a pretty good analysis."

What I still don't understand is...if this is true, why didn't we wait to begin the forward movement, so as to time it with the arrival of the division still at sea? Isn't this uh...sort of unsafe, and a risk that gambles with the lives of the U.S. military?

I'm just a military wife, looking for viewpoints other than dh's.

[sarasmom]

"The two factors not included in this analysis are our superior air power, and the possible uprising of the people of Iraq against Saddam Hussein."

I think at least one of those factors, superior air power, is a rather large factor to ignore in an analysis of this type. Any reference to the USN is also missing. I have zero ground force experience and no way of judging that aspect, but it seems to me this paper is essentially pointless.

Strictly from an analytical viewpoint.

Purely from experiencing a dark time in the DOD, the Carter years, I am aware that the military, including the highest brass, raised making things work with what you actually have at hand, to an art form.

I think General Franks has the situation in hand.

[uncbob]

The two factors not included in this analysis are our superior air power,

Tanks are dead meat in the desert when the other side owns the air The Apaches Warthogs and F16 will slaughter those RG tanks out in the open

[BushMeister]

I've heard rumors of the improved tank rounds the Russians have supposedly sold to the Iraqis. If true, this would be another blatant violation of the arms embargo slapped on Iraq after the Gulf War. But the question reamins: even if the rounds are better, and have a chance to penetate the Abrams (of which I'm skeptical, since the Russians probably didn't test their ammo on an actual Abrams), can the Iraqis actually hit our Abrams before the M1A2s/M1A1s hit the Iraqi tanks. We are absolutely sure of the result in the latter case, and our tanks have better range, better sights, CITVs that sllow the commander to line up the next shot, and better crews.

We are not outnumbered 5 or 6 to 1 in tank numbers. Estimates are that we will have 400 tanks to the Iraqi's 500 tanks when the battle is joined.

Do I wish that we had 3 heavy Army divisions closing in on Baghdad, along with the Brits and Marines? Sure. But I still believe things are going to get major ugly for the Iraqis when our actually positioned forces crash into the RG about 3-5 days from now.