To all intents and purposes, the war has been over for a few days now, bar the shouting. Oh sure, incidents like the sabotage of the arms dump earlier today are going to be a problem for quite some time to come, so it is not exactly ‘Miller Time’ just yet, and I fully expect a few ‘messy days’ ahead. The war, however, is over and the police action is beginning.
What I am interested in is, from a purely military point of view, what went right and what went wrong? Which weapons performed as advertised and which did not? Which systems and organisations did better than expected and which did worse? Was ‘shock and awe’ a Terrible Swift Sword or a damp squib… or bit of artful misdirection? Can we start trying to pick through the propaganda and extract the signal from the noise, or is it still too soon?
In short… it is time for those who are interested in such things to start trying to figure out what the text books are going to say about this war in 5 years time. For example, there is some interesting stuff on Intel Dump, such as some discussion of the 11th Aviation Regiment’s repulse near Baghdad. As significant military set backs like that were so rare, the ones that happened will no doubts be analyzed to the point of obsession. Similarly there have been some spectacular images of just how tough the A-10 Warthog proved to be even after a severe pounding.
Hard as nails… the aircraft is pretty tough too
So… who has some good links to reports to contribute? Leave a comment!
Killer Chick is one brave lady.
Come to think of it, how is the after-war situation in Afghanistan right now?
I don’t think all that much about Afghanistan was that all that unusual… the brunt of the ground fighting was carried out by the Northern Alliance with allied SpecOps acting as FAOs, plus a few SpecOps ‘spectaculars’.
Let’s get our priorities straight. As the visionary John Boyd said, the keys to winning consists of people, ideas, materials — in that order.
Also, before we evaluate the conflict, we must understand its nature. The limited info publically available suggests that a high fraction of Coalition combat was vs. small army units and irregular forces.
The lack of long and/or close combat, and effective opposition means that our people were not severly tested, esp. their training & cohesion. Important issues, as many indicators suggst that both have significanly declined during the 1990s.
Nor did this test our ideas, esp. of shock & awe. The limited role of the irregulars and terrorists provided no test of our ability to resist a 4th generation opponent.
As for our materials, the Iraq military was so primitive that even an effective defense might not have tested them. Also, despite the nonsense in the press, our major weapons were those used in Gulf War I.
That’s important. Most of the major — expensive! –weapons programs of the 1990s were failures. Major examples are the Comanche helicopter (in progress), the Crusader anitaircraft gun (cancelled), the Osprey (many crashes, under review).
The big exceptions:
1. Our incrementally advanced electronics (observation, command & control, targeting) .
2. Unmanned aircraft.
3. Our logistic support services — stressed to support our rapid, long advance.
For some excellent analysis on these issues see the Defense and National Interest web site:
http://www.d-n-i.net
“What I am interested in is, from a purely military point of view …”
From a purely military point of view you can learn absolutely nothing, because there was no war in Iraq, they didn’t fight back, they just evaporated, melted away. Nobody had any desire to fight for Saddam.
The only military thought that occured to me is that firing those 650 Tomahawk missiles at a cost of 1 or 2 M$ each to destroy some marble tiles and gold plated fawcets in Saddam’s empty palaces was a terrible waste of money.
You will soon be able to learn a lot about nation building, a topic more important than military operations in Iraq.
I agree with much of that from Larry but from things I have read I think there was indeed some significent fighting against regular Iraqi and RG forces, for example around Najaf and against a couple sallies from Basra.
I suspect the reason that none of the Iraqi formations were particuarly effective is that they were fighting without much, if any, overall direction and were forced by both losses from air attacks and lack of CCI to operate in battalion groups at best… and were facing coordinated brigade sized battlegroups. I was curious if any reports confirm this assessment of mine or indicate something different, hense my plea for links to articles so we are not just talking from our own preconceptions.
Also, the lack or close combat and lengthy combat are two quite different things. The first was because the allies went out of their way to maximise their advantages by fighting at long range whenever possible, and the second was a function of how badly dislocated the Iraqis were by the scale and mode of the allied attack. Both suggest to me that the war was not just successful (clearly) but was fought overwhelmingly in the manner dictated by the allies.
This also makes the occasional cock ups interesting as maybe that gives insight into where the edges of the allied areas of complete superiority lie.
Also, I am interested in things like the ‘Thunder Runs’… not a tactic I have heard of before, so I am wondering if this was thought out in advance or was something developed on the spot to aggressively test and attrit the urban defences in Basra and Baghdad.
Strategypage
KC is one very hell of a pilot. After her A10 was hit over Baghdad, it lost hydraulic power, and had to be flown manually, which is a difficult job for any pilot. She had the option of ejecting, which would have been the prudent thing to do. No one would have criticized her if she had punched out. Instead, she brought her plane home to Kuwait. Bravo! I wouldn’t be surprised if she is decorated for that.
Perry could easily be right about the intensity of fightening, that there were frequent instances of large unit combat in Iraq.
But perhaps not. Too soon to say. Combat reports are among the most unreliable of news.
Examples of analysis showing after-action reports almost totally wrong:
a. The strategic bonbing survey after WWII showing the cost-ineffictiveness of the strategic bombing program against Germany.
b. The analysis after Gulf War I showing that the Patriot almost never successfully intercepts Scuds.
My favorite question in this war, showing our high level of ignorance, is what happened to the Iraq army. Never existed in the advertised numbers, melted away & marched home, vaporized by magic?
Perhaps best to put these questions on the back burner until reliable info comes out.
Reports in Asia Times suggest that our most effective weapon — as in the Afgan war — were dollars. If so, great. Cheaper than cruise missiles, better than shedding blood (either theirs or ours).
Unfortuantely leaves open the possibility that Iraq people might feel cheated & betrayed, like many Germans after WWI — rather than acknowledging a fair defeat.
I suspect that it is as yet too early to tell what the military implication sof this campaign were. Due to the shambolic collapse of the Iraqi army and irregulars, it is difficult to gauge how far this was due to coalition attacks and how far it was due to a degradation in the Iraqi command and control structure, which appears to have been at best sporadic.
Reviews of equipment and tactics at the level of individual engagements are possible but the success of the overall strategy remains, as yet, opaque.
Back during the sandstorm I was whining to my old company commander (now a retired bird colonel, infantry) about the fortunes of war and worrying about outcomes. He sent me a two word e-mail, “Think Crecy.”
Early in the Hundred Years War, Edward III took well-trained troops into France where he faced a French army at Crecy that outnumbered his and which was so confident their mounted knights fought one another for a place in the vanguard facing the English.
Edward’s longbowmen, standing well out of range of the French mercenary crossbowmen and firing 10,000 arrows a minute, dropped the mounted knights like ducks in row, routed the Italian crossbowmen and changed the face of medieval warfare.
The big difference between Crecy and Iraq is that after Crecy all armies adopted the technology of the longbow. But the best longbows are made from yew wood and, friends, right now we own all the yew trees.
Iran. Syria. Lebanon. Strike while the iron is hot !
Back during the sandstorm I was whining to my old company commander (now a retired bird colonel, infantry) about the fortunes of war and worrying about outcomes. He sent me a two word e-mail, “Think Crecy.”
Early in the Hundred Years War, Edward III took well-trained troops into France where he faced a French army at Crecy that outnumbered his and which was so confident their mounted knights fought one another for a place in the vanguard facing the English.
Edward’s longbowmen, standing well out of range of the French mercenary crossbowmen and firing 10,000 arrows a minute, dropped the mounted knights like ducks in row, routed the Italian crossbowmen and changed the face of medieval warfare.
The big difference between Crecy and Iraq is that after Crecy all armies adopted the technology of the longbow. But the best longbows are made from yew wood and, friends, right now we own all the yew trees.
Iran. Syria. Lebanon. Strike while the iron is hot !
Back during the sandstorm I was whining to my old company commander (now a retired bird colonel, infantry) about the fortunes of war and worrying about outcomes. He sent me a two word e-mail, “Think Crecy.”
Early in the Hundred Years War, Edward III took well-trained troops into France where he faced a French army at Crecy that outnumbered his and which was so confident their mounted knights fought one another for a place in the vanguard facing the English.
Edward’s longbowmen, standing well out of range of the French mercenary crossbowmen and firing 10,000 arrows a minute, dropped the mounted knights like ducks in row, routed the Italian crossbowmen and changed the face of medieval warfare.
The big difference between Crecy and Iraq is that after Crecy all armies adopted the technology of the longbow. But the best longbows are made from yew wood and, friends, right now we own all the yew trees.
Iran. Syria. Lebanon. Strike while the iron is hot !
There were a couple sharp fights in baghdad when the 3rd ID moved into a cross roads outside of the airport. They collected 2k bodies from the area, which would mean the attacking force was not insignifigant. I have no idea why the defense in the city collapsed so quickly after that, but I would guess that after the initial drubbing they could not find people willing to use pickups and old soviet tanks vs M1’s. From what I am hearing from family and friends still in the military, this was considered a bigger success than the first gulf war.
Larry, the paladin is arty not anti-aircraft. It was also pointless, as we are switching to stryker brigades. As far as training and unit cohesion go, There was a period of decline under Clinton, but that has changed. The only reason for the decline was less training, many inf units only hit the range 4 times a year. I did more than when I switched into the USMC reserves.
The Crusader is the big daddy of programs that were recently cut, did you mean that Larry?
I think that we can already conclude that at least one thing did a superb job: the National Training Center.
The destruction of the enemies’ will to fight is the essence of military action.
Doesn’t any one read Hart any more?
The question is not weapons. The question is not marches to put the enemy at a tactical disadvantage. That is all so 20th Century.
The question is how communications destroyed the will to fight.