Israeli Military Amazed, "Jealous" At U.S. War Against Iraq

World Tribune.com ^ | 04/14/2003 | Special to World Tribune

[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.

[Eastbound]

Me too, on the Leno skit. I'll just have to figure out how to run a cable from my roof antenna to my sattelite tuner. I know I'm missing some funny stuff.

[AFreeBird]

Hey, long thread... we're all bound to repeat ourselves from time to time... LOL

[konaice]

"An ideal approach would be be to "swarm" the line of armor with multiple teams and present no fixed "front" for the armor to attack. Each firing location would immediately move, trying to stay behind cover the whole while. In urban areas this would be highly effective and was the tactic most feared by US forces. "

Yes, and US tank and Bradly crews are trained to abondon night vision upon the first flare fireing, and counter with their on flares, and lay down so much small arms and bradly fire that virtally no one could survive. Don't for a minute suppose you can imagine a scenario that someone paid full time th dream these up hasn't already figured out and war-gamed.

However, the point of my post was to point out that that the Iraqis (indeed no arab army) has the ability or discipline to fight the way you imagine on anything but a very small scale.

In fact, If the Iraqi army was given ALL the US/British weapons and the Coalition forces took the Iraqi weapons, we STILL would have beat them. It would perhaps have taken a couple more months.

[dts32041]

BFL

[JudgemAll]

The only counter seems to be an effective anti-air system,

I do not know what else other than lasers, microwave, EMP bursts or stealth missiles can do that, and even then, immunity can still be developed. There is the issue of Thrust vectoring fighter planes which we do not have and which could challenge our air superiority, however these require extensive training to transform it into a proper situational awareness and maneuvering system. An incoming missile could be blasted with onboard defenses such as metal storm, and so could a maneuvering TVC airplane. A cruder device would be suspending in the air metal beads to destroy engines, but that can be fixed easily with special grids on inlets.

[RightOnline]

"...its army is ready for immediate deployment, and would likely overrun Seoul and kill millions of South Koreans within days of the first sign of an invasion. Add to that the possibility of nukes, and the equation looks like this: we'll eventually win, but millions will die in South Korea, and there may not be a Seoul or Tokyo left at the end of it."

I don't think so.

First, N. Korea is a third-rate Third World country, absolutely dirt poor. Her troops are marginally fed (compared to the average citizen who is starving to death.......literally). They have numbers of cannon-fodder foot troops........and that's really it. That means very, very little these days. A few cluster bomb runs would take out huge swaths of these foot soldiers (and the oriental mind tends toward mass attacks, it seems). Nukes? Maybe........two or three. Your scenario ignores the possibility (probability) that we'd use our superior air power to disable their command and control, any nuclear delivery capability, etc. What they'd have left would be some artillery, antiquated armor, and again.......a bunch of yelling foot soldiers.

No, it wouldn't be much of a match. I'd say that N. Korea's biggest fear is that we'll all figure out that they're every bit the toothless tiger that Iraq is (or should I say.......was).

[Hammerhead]

Oh man, times are tough when your getting laid off from the Army infantry (less ground troops needed in the furture). "Sorry, PFC, we're overstaffed. Got to let you go."

[Mark Felton]

"Don't for a minute suppose you can imagine a scenario that someone paid full time th dream these up hasn't already figured out and war-gamed."

I used to be paid full-time to design night vision, and fire control systems. Designing for counter-measures and counter-counter measures was part of the process.

I did not say the Iraqi's would win using my approach. They would buy themselves more time however.

If the US troops were forced to abandon their night vision then the Iraqi's would have just achieved a "levelling" of the battlefield capability. Note: US would not necessarily need to abandon their night vision, it mostly just needs a minute or two to adjust. But in that minute there is a time window to strike and then run.

There was no indication that any Iraqi forces had any kind of rigorous training. Training is of course one of the most important factors, but success comes also with knowing the enemy capabilities (and countering them) and pressing all advantages you may have in an overwhelming fashion.

The Iraqi's could have extended the campaign by a few weeks had they fought smarter, and used even the most rudimentary military planning.

Our military certainly planned for them to fight much tougher and smarter than they did. But thankfully they fought like idiots.

Note: One of the biggest problems they had is the same as they had in Gulf War 1. They relied on the Soviet model for command and control; highly centralized, with little initiative allowed at lower levels. A major flaw.

[fourdeuce82d]

If you are going to f*** with eagles, you'd better learn to fly

Either we kill you in the air, or we crap upon you from a great height.

[konaice]

"If the US troops were forced to abandon their night vision then the Iraqi's would have just achieved a "levelling" of the battlefield capability. "

--
You mean US troops would revert to "only" their daytime advantage of fire-power, training, tactics, armor, air support, etc, etc. This is hardly a "levelling" in any real sense of the word.

There has never been a battle where foot soldiers, in small numbers, regardless of weaponry, have stopped an armored advance of any significant size.

[konaice]

"If the US troops were forced to abandon their night vision then the Iraqi's would have just achieved a "levelling" of the battlefield capability. "

--
You mean US troops would revert to "only" their daytime advantage of fire-power, training, tactics, armor, air support, etc, etc. This is hardly a "levelling" in any real sense of the word.

There has never been a battle where foot soldiers, in small numbers, regardless of weaponry, have stopped an armored advance of any significant size.

[Mark Felton]

The scenario refers to nighttime. The "levelling" would be in terms of vision only, but only for a few minutes at best. Long enough to get off a shot or two, then retreat. If you cannot see, you cannot be too successful.

I made no mention of stopping an armored advance. The armor will go wherever it wants. I referenced strictly destroying armor, and other vehicles, piecemeal, using Komets or some other such anti-armor weapon that is highly portable.


shoot, run, delay, delay, shoot, run...

[Mark Felton]

FYI: This refers to the Kornet anti-tank weapon. Iraq had procured 500 of the missiles. From Iraqi defeat jolts Russian military

"One bright note for Moscow, however, is a report that Iraqi forces used Russian-made, laser-guided antitank missiles to destroy several Abrams tanks during the US attack. This could boost profits for Russian armsmakers, who are already receiving inquiries from Syria and Iran, according to Shlykov. "

[Mark Felton]

"There has never been a battle where foot soldiers, in small numbers, regardless of weaponry, have stopped an armored advance of any significant size."

BTW: The ONLY tank kills in Iraq were by foot soldiers.