Posted on 04/14/2003 1:35:10 PM PDT by Dirk McQuickly
TEL AVIV — Israeli defense officials and military commanders have expressed amazement over the capture of one of the largest and most powerful Arab countries by what they say amounted to fewer than three U.S. Army divisions.
The officials said the U.S. strategy of avoiding enemy troop concentrations as well as exploiting combat air supremacy comprises methods far more advanced than those employed by the Israeli military.
"This has been a very strange and unprecedented war and it will take us awhile to learn what took place," Yuval Steinetz, chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said. "We will have to learn from this war and draw the conclusions."
"I am jealous of them [U.S. military]," Maj. Gen. Dan Harel, head of the Israel military's C4 directorate, said. "They have advanced in areas that we were leading in only a few years ago. They have the ability to put everything together in command and control. Our navy and air force have systems. but we have to integrate them."
Officials and military commanders agreed that the U.S. war in Iraq overshadowed the 1967 Israeli victory over four Arab countries, including Iraq. They said the United States sustained about 100 casualties in three weeks of fighting that resulted in the capture of Baghdad and most Iraqi cities. In contrast, about 600 Israeli soldiers were killed in the six days of the 1967 war, most of them in the ground battle with Egypt in the Sinai Peninsula.
(Excerpt) Read more at worldtribune.com ...
This stew has been simmering for a long, long time.
The problem with North Korea is the fact that they have huge amounts of artillery. With Seoul just 40 miles away or so, they could kill huge numbers of people before we would be able to destroy all of their artillery.
Other than that, North Korea is a starving mess. They have been Communist for so long that their economy is at a standstill. Essentially they have no economy. Very little is bought, sold, or traded. Everyone fends for themselves, and most suspect that food aid is redirected to government officials and the army.
Not so. The Kornet is not Russias newest or best; the 9M123 Khrizantema may be. And if US forces go visiting in Syria, we may find out: the Syrians were trying to make a purchase of the Khrizantema, designated AT-15 by NATO, and the possible Syrian sale of the AT14 Kornet to Iraq may indicate that they acted as middlemen on the transshipment of the less effective weapon to finance their own acquisition of Khrizantema related equipment.
As for the M1A1 Abrams tanks knocked out by hits to their engine compartments, the information I've seen, based on a combat *lessons learned* after-action report from a tanker who was there, state that the the weapon used by the Iraqis was a twin-barrelled 23-mm antiaircraft cannon mounted in the back of a pickup truck, which attacked during a sandstorm when neither night vision nor thermal viewing equipment were effective. One Abrams hit by an RPG caught fire and was destroyed by US forces rather than allow it to fall into enemy hands. Indeed, we've killed more of our own Abrams tank crewmen from internal fires than our enemies have with gunfire. It's been reported that the filter system flaw that's caused such incidents should be fixed by June of this year.
There was a laser test a few months ago. Developmental. They did indeed hit an artillery shell in flight and it either broke up or detonated right there.
Do a websearch for OODA Loop, or John Boyd. There's an old FReeppost obit post and response thread worth a look, too.
Thanks Col Boyd. You were right; it worked. You saved a lot of lives.
-archy-/-
That's amazing.
I think General Franks deserves a very big think you from the American, and Iraqi people.
Evidenced by naming their top comedian as minister of information.
I have to disagree in the sense that proper training in the use of this technology will probably rule the battlefield. You just can't give any smuck superior arms and expect them to win a war. Also, deep down soldiers from the middle east are pretty terrible soldiers. The Americans have been pretty lucky to have had inept foes in the Middle East and this has limited the American casualties in Guld War I and II.
See my #135.
By the way, I worked for 35 years in the design of radar and electro-optical fire control systems for many of the systems that operated in Operation Iraqi Freedom. To design and implement a system that would acquire, track and shoot down artillery rounds from 30,000 to 40,000 artillery pieces would require one hell of a system. And the lasers would require several Hoover dams to provide the power needed.
We are not about to use several million dollar Patriot missiles to shoot down tens of thousands of $100 artillery shells. There are some things that even we can't afford.
Standing inventory costs money that can't be spent on congressional pet projects. Also, mundane things like ammo and bombs, stuff that can be rigorously spec'ed and competitively bid on, doesn't line big contractors' pockets.
Faster manufactoring capability means investing capital into the factories, which requires long-term project commitment to make it profitable. If you invest $50M into expanding production capability, and Congress turns around and says "Sorry, we're not gonna buy so much this year, your stockholders will be unhappy.
I don't think so, we'll need to start with 200-500 MOABs. (I wouldn't want to be on the north side of the DMZ.)
A while back on FR, someone posted the lead paragraphs and a link to a long article written by an American military adviser to some of our Arab "allies". He had years of first-hand experience with how Arab armies work (or don't work). His conclusion was that the Arab culture torpedoes, in about six different ways, any chance of their having any kind of truly effective military organization. It was a fascinating article. If I can dig up a link to it, I'll post it.
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