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CYBER-SOCIETY-LIVE  2003

CYBER-SOCIETY-LIVE 2003

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Subject:

[CSL]: Latest report in English from www.iraqwar.ru

From:

J Armitage <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Interdisciplinary academic study of Cyber Society <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Sun, 30 Mar 2003 08:45:22 +0100

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (295 lines)

Latest report in English from www.iraqwar.ru

http://www.aeronautics.ru/news/news002/news082.htm

=================================
March 28, 2003, 1448hrs MSK (GMT +3), Moscow - According to the latest
intercepted radio communications, the command of the coalition group of
forces near Karabela requested at least 12 more hours to get ready to storm
the town. This delay is due to the much heavier losses sustained by the
coalition troops during the sand storms then was originally believed. Just
the US 3rd Mechanized Infantry Division sustained more than 200 disabled
combat vehicles of various types. The 101st Airborne Division reported some
70 helicopters as being disabled. Additionally, the recently delivered
reinforcements require rest and time to prepare for combat.

At the same time the US forces have resumed attacks near An-Nasiriya and
An-Najaf since 0630hrs and are continuously increasing the intensity of
these attacks. During the night and early morning of March 28 the Iraqi
positions in these areas were subjected to eight aerial assaults by bombers
and ground attack aircraft. However, so far [the coalition] was unable to
penetrate the Iraqi defenses.

Also during the early morning the British units begun advancing along the
Fao peninsula. Latest radio intercepts from this area show that under a
continuous artillery and aerial bombardment the Iraqis have begun to
gradually withdraw their forces toward Basra.

First firefights between troops of the US 82nd Airborne Division and the
Iraqi forces occurred in northern Iraq in the area of Mosula. At the same
time the arrival of up to 1,500 Kurdish troops has been observed in this
area. So far it is not clear to which of the many Kurdish political
movements these troops belong. Leaders of the largest Kurdish workers party
categorically denied participation of their troops. They believe that these
may be units of one of the local tribes not controlled by the central
authorities of the Kurdish autonomy and "ready to fight with anyone" for
money.

According to verified information, during the past 48 hours of the Iraqi
counterattacks the coalition forces sustained the following losses: up to 30
killed, over 110 wounded and 20 missing in action; up to 30 combat vehicles
lost or disabled, including at least 8 tanks and 2 self-propelled artillery
systems, 2 helicopters and 2 unmanned aerial vehicles were lost in combat.
Iraqi losses are around 300 killed, up to 800 wounded, 200 captured and up
to 100 combat vehicles 25 of which were tanks. Most of the [ Iraqi ] losses
were sustained due to the artillery fire and aerial bombardment that resumed
by the evening of March 27.

First conclusions can be drawn from the war

The first week of the war surprised a number of military analysts and
experts. The war in Iraq uncovered a range of problems previously left
without a serious discussion and disproved several resilient myths.

The first myth is about the precision-guided weapons as the determining
factor in modern warfare, weapons that allow to achieve strategic
superiority without direct contact with the enemy. On the one hand we have
the fact that during the past 13 years the wars were won by the United
States with minimum losses and, in essence, primarily through the use of
aviation. At the same time, however, the US military command was stubborn in
ignoring that the decisive factor in all these wars was not the military
defeat of the resisting armies but political isolation coupled with strong
diplomatic pressure on the enemy's political leadership. It was the creation
of international coalitions against Iraq in 1991, against Yugoslavia in 1999
and against Afghanistan in 2001 that ensured the military success.

The American command preferred not to notice the obvious military failures
during expeditions to Granada, Libya and Somalia, discounting them as "local
operations" not deserving much attention.

Today we can see that in itself massed use of strategic and tactical
precision-guided weapons did not provide the US with a strategic advantage.
Despite the mass use of the most sophisticated weapons the Americans have so
far failed to disrupt Iraqi command and control infrastructure,
communication networks, top Iraqi military and political leadership, Iraqi
air defenses. At the same time the US precision-guided weapons arsenal has
been reduced by about 25%.

The only significant advantage of the precision-guided weapons is the
capability to avoid massive casualties among the civilians in densely
populated areas.

What we have is an obvious discrepancy between the ability to locate and
attack a target with precision-guided weapons and the power of this weapon,
which is not sufficient to reliably destroy a protected target.

On the other hand, precision-guided munitions demonstrated their superiority
over conventional munitions on the battlefield. The ability to attack
targets at long ranges with the first shot is the deciding factor in the
American superiority in land battles.

The second myth disproved by this war is the myth propagated by the
proponents of the "hi-tech" war, who believe in the superiority of the most
modern weapons and inability of older-generation weapons to counteract the
latest systems. Today the technological gap between the Iraqi weapons and
those of the coalition has reached 25-30 years, which corresponds to two
"generations" in weapons design. The primary Iraqi weapons correspond to the
level of the early 1970s. Since that time the Americans, on the other hand,
have launched at least two major rearmament efforts: the "75-83 program" and
the "90-97 program". Moreover, currently the US is in the middle of another
major modernization and rearmament program that will continue for the next
five years. Despite of this obvious gap, Iraqi resistance has already been
publicly qualified by the US as "fierce and resilient". Analysts believe
that the correlation of losses is entirely acceptable to the Iraqis and they
[ the analysts ] do not see any strategic coalition advantage in this war.
Once again this proves that success in modern warfare is achieved not so
much through technological superiority but primarily through training,
competent command and resilience of the troops. Under such conditions even
relatively old weapons can inflict heavy losses on a
technologically-superior enemy.

Two enormous mistakes made by the US command during the planning stages of
this war resulted in the obvious strategic failure. The US has
underestimated the enemy. Despite the unique ability to conduct
reconnaissance against the Iraqi military infrastructure through a wide
network of agents implanted with the international teams of weapons
inspectors, despite unlimited air dominance the US military command has
failed to adequately evaluate combat readiness of the Iraqi army and its
technical capabilities; the US has failed to correctly assess the social and
political situation in Iraq and in the world in general. These failures led
to entirely inadequate military and political decisions:

The coalition force was clearly insufficient for a such a large-scale
operation. The number of deployed troops was at least 40% short of the
required levels. This is the reason why today, after nine days of war, the
US is forced to resort to emergency redeployment of more than 100,000 troops
from the US territory and from Europe. This, in essence, is the same number
of troops already fighting in Iraq.

The buildup and distribution of the coalition forces have been conducted
with gross neglect of all basic rules of combat. All troops were massed in
one small area, which led to five days of non-stop fighting to widen this
area. The initial attack begun without any significant aerial or artillery
preparation and almost immediately this resulted in reduced rate of advance
and heated positional battles.

Today we can see that the US advance is characterized by disorganized and
"impulsive" actions. The troops are simply trying to find weak spots in the
Iraqi defenses and break through them until they hit the next ambush or the
next line of defense.

Not a single goal set before the coalition forces was met on time.

During the nine days of the war the coalition has failed:

- to divide Iraq in half along the An-Nasiriya - Al-Ammara line,
- to surround and to destroy the Iraqi group of forces at Basra,
- to create an attack group between the Tigris and the Euphrates with a
front toward Baghdad,
- to disrupt Iraq's military and political control, to disorganize Iraq's
forces and to destroy the main Iraqi attack forces.

A whole range of problems that require their own solutions was uncovered
directly on the battlefield. Thus, combat in Iraq raised serious concerns
about the problem of coordination between units from different services.
Limited decision-making time and the ability to detect and to engage an
enemy at a great distance make "friendly fire" one of the most serious
problems of modern warfare. For now the coalition has no adequate solution
to this problem. At one location or another every day of this war the
coalition troops were attacking friendly forces.

The second problem of the coalition is its inability to hold on to the
captured territory. For the first time since the war in Vietnam the
Americans have to deal with a partisan movement and with attacks against
their [the US] lines of communication. Currently the coalition is rushing to
form some sort of territorial defense units for guarding its supply lines
and for maintaining order in the occupied territories.

A range of technical problems with equipment has been revealed during the
combat operations. Most operators of the M1A2 Abrams main battle tank agree
that the tank was inadequate for performing the set combat tasks. The
primary problem is the extremely low reliability of the tank's engine and
its transmission in desert conditions. Heat from the sun, hot sand and the
constantly present hot dust in the air nearly nullified the advantages
offered by the turret-mounted thermal sights. Visibility range of these
sights did not exceed 300 meters during movement in convoy and reached up to
700-800 meters during stops. Only during cold nights did the visibility
range reach 1000-1,500 meters. Additionally, a large number of thermal
sights and other electronics simply broke down. The tiny crystalline sand
particles caused electrical power surges and disabled electronic equipment.

This was the reason for the decision by the coalition command to stop
movement of troops at night when a contact with the enemy was deemed likely.

The main strong side of the coalition forces was the wide availability of
modern reconnaissance and communication systems that allowed to detect the
enemy at long ranges and to quickly suppress the enemy with well-coordinated
actions of different types of available forces.

In general the US soldiers showed sufficiently high combat resilience. Even
in the extremely difficult weather conditions the troops maintained control
structure and adequately interpreted the situation. Combat spirit remained
high. The majority of troops remain confident in their abilities, while
maintaining belief in the superiority of their weapons and maintaining
reasonable confidence in the way the war is being fought.

It should be noted, however, that the way the war is being fought did create
a certain sense of disappointment in most of the troops. Many are feeling
that they've been lied to and are openly talking about the stupidity of the
high command and its gross miscalculations. "Those star-covered Pentagon
idiots promised us a victory march and flowers on the armor. What we got
instead were those damned fanatics fighting for every dune and the sand
squeaking in your ass!" said one of the wounded recuperating at a hospital
in Rammstein. [ Reverse translation from Russian ]

Nevertheless, despite the sand storms the terrain favors the coalition
actions by allowing it to employ their entire arsenal of weapons at the
greatest possible range, which makes it difficult for the Iraqis to conduct
combat operations outside of populated areas.

Overestimating the abilities of its airborne forces was a weak side of the
coalition. Plans for a wide-scale use of helicopters as an independent force
did not materialize. All attempts by the US command to organize aerial and
ground operations through exclusive use of airborne forces have failed.
Because of these failures by the end of the fourth day of the war all
airborne units were distributed across the coalition units and used by the
attacking forces for reconnaissance, fire support, and for containing the
enemy. The main burden of combat was carried by the "heavy" mechanized
infantry and tank units.

Another serious drawback in the coalition planning was the exceptionally
weak protection in the rear of the advancing forces. This resulted in
constant interruptions in fuel supply. Tank units sometimes spent up to 6
hours standing still with empty fuel tanks, in essence, being targets for
the Iraqis. Throughout the war delivery of food, ammunition and fuel remains
a headache for the US commanders.

Among the US soldiers there has been a wide-scale discontent with the
quality of the new combat rations. Servicemen are openly calling these
rations "shitty." Many soldier just take the biscuits and the sweets and
discard the rest of the ration. Commanders of the combat units are demanding
from the coalition command to immediately provide the troops with hot food
and to review the entire contents of the combat ration.

Among the strong sides of the Iraqi troops are their excellent knowledge of
the terrain, high quality of defensive engineering work, their ability to
conceal their main attack forces and their resilience and determination in
defense. The Iraqis have shown good organization in their command and
communication structures as well as decisive and and well-planned strategy.

Among the drawbacks of the Iraqi forces is the bureaucratic inflexibility of
their command, when all decisions are being made only at the highest levels.
Their top commanders also tend to stick to standard "template" maneuvers and
there is insufficient coordination among the different types of forces.

At the same time commanders of the [Iraqi] special operations forces are
making good use of the available troops and weapons to conduct operations
behind the front lines of the enemy. They use concealment, show cunning and
imagination.

The first strategic lessons of the war

[ Lessons of the war in Iraq are discussed here with a focus on a possible
similar war between Russia and the US ]

The main of such lessons is the ever-increasing significance of troop
concealment as one of the primary methods of combat. Concealment and strict
adherence to the requirements for secrecy and security become strategic
goals of the defending forces in the view of the US reliance and that of its
allies on precision-guided weapons, electronic and optical reconnaissance as
well as due to their use of tactical weapons at the maximum possible range
afforded by these reconnaissance methods. Importance of concealment is being
seen in Iraq and was clearly demonstrated in Yugoslavia, where the Yugoslav
Army preserved nearly 98% of its assets despite the three months of bombing.
Within our [Russian/European] battle theater concealment methods will offer
us [the Russian army] an enormous advantage over the US.

The second lesson of this war is the strategic role of the air defenses in
modern warfare as the most important service of the armed forces. Only the
complete air dominance of the coalition allows it to continue its advance
toward Baghdad and to achieve the critical advantage in any engagement. Even
the short interruption in air support caused by the sand storms put the US
and British troops in a very difficult situation.

Elimination of the air defenses as a separate service branch of the
[Russian] Armed Forces and its gradual dissipation in the Air Force can be
called nothing else but a "crime". [This statement refers to the recent
unification of the Russian Air Force (VVS) and the Air Defense Force (PVO)
and the secondary role of the air defense force within this new structure.]

The third lesson of the war is the growing importance of combat
reconnaissance and increased availability of anti-tank weapons capable of
engaging the enemy at maximum range. There is a requirement on the
battlefield for a new weapon system for small units that would allow for
detection of the enemy at maximum distance during day or night; for
effective engagement of modern tanks at a range of 800-1000 meters; for
engagement of enemy infantry at a range of 300-500 meters even with the
modern personal protection equipment possessed by the infantry.

************************************************************************************
Distributed through Cyber-Society-Live [CSL]: CSL is a moderated discussion
list made up of people who are interested in the interdisciplinary academic
study of Cyber Society in all its manifestations.To join the list please visit:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/cyber-society-live.html
*************************************************************************************

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