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A Disturbing Pattern Emerging
Mar. 28th, 2003 11:14 pm"Amateurs talk about strategy; Professionals talk about logistics."
attributed to former General R.H. Barrows, Commandant, USMC
Since the First World War, the US Army has recognized nine principles of war. One of those principles is the principle of mass, which dictates that the commander must be able to apply decisive force at the decisive point. This is basic, enduring doctrine, not passé theory or the latest tactical fad.
The Allied commander in Iraq no longer has this option. He does not have the ability to properly apply the warfighting principle of mass. What he has, instead, is one mechanized infantry division -- the Third -- strung out along a 100-mile front; a Marine Expeditionary Unit equally stretched; roughly a division of hardbitten Britons tied up far from the war-winning objective; and large elements of the 101st Airborne Division still generally uncommitted to the fight. Make no mistake -- their achievements in the first week of the war have been nothing short of magnificent. They have traveled swift and far, time and again defeated numerically superior forces, and accomplished logistical feats that will take their rightful place beside the Red Ball Express and the Berlin Airlift in the annals of history.
But they cannot win the war.
From "Tacitus"
"The main Marine thrust is now northwest of Diwaniyah, and may have already cut that city off. Marines with that formation report they're down to one meal a day's rations."
From Flit
"In eight days of warfare we have yet to see a confirmed report of an Iraqi T-72 tank being destroyed. Not one. They have somewhere over 500 of them that can still move, as far as people can tell, all in the Guard divisions. The Medina Division, the one Guard division that's been engaged at all, certainly had 100-150 of them at least. They've been seen... just not engaged or killed yet. Not that the T-72's so special, but it is somewhat more dangerous than the tanks the Allies have been busting up, which have been only the 40 year-old T-55s so far. Just something to think about."
Also from Flit
"The enemy that we're fighting is different from the one we'd war gamed," U.S. Army Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace told Washington Post correspondent Rick Atkinson. Wallace is commander of the Army V Corps, which was tested by an Iraqi ground probe overnight. "We knew they were there-the paramilitaries-but we didn't know they'd fight like this," he said. Asked if this signaled a longer war than projected, he replied, "It's beginning to look that way."
From the Washington Post
"The division is out of rations," Brig. Gen. Charles Fletcher said, talking to his commander, Maj. Gen. Walter Wojdakowski, who is still stationed back at Camp Virginia in Kuwait.
Fletcher was referring to 3rd Infantry Division fighters who were heavily engaged, as he spoke, by members of Saddam Hussein's elite Medina Division, about 25 miles north of here in and around the town of Najaf.
From the Scripps Howard News Service, via the News Tribune in Tacoma.
"First, the idea of precision guided weapons—you're really talking about money," (retired Admiral and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, William Crowe) said. "In the Gulf War, we almost ran through our entire stock of precision weapons. We took out targets that cost less than the weapon. Tomahawks are about a million bucks apiece. If you run out, you need something else. Most of the targets we destroyed in the Gulf War were destroyed by iron bombs. Also, in a really tough war you can't avoid head-on confrontation entirely. You just can't. My God, if you think you can support arms on the ground with air coming in from three thousand miles away—that's sheer nonsense. And, if it's protracted, you run out of sophisticated stuff. So numbers become important and amount of equipment becomes important."
From the New Yorker's issue of 16 July 2001.
I'm increasingly having the sinking feeling that neither technology nor sheer warmaking ability is going be crucial for too much longer. If those troops don't get fed and don't get water in the next 48 hours, we're sunk.
But, on the other hand, also from Tacitus:
For the moment, let's list some of the worst-case scenarios that have not happened since the war began:
No discernable al Qaeda activity.
No discernable terrorist activity.
No Arab regimes overthrown or seriously threatened.
No chemical/biological weapons use.
No en masse destruction of oil fields.
No general destruction of Euphrates or Tigris bridges.
No Turkish invasion of Kurdistan.
No opportunistic attacks by North Korea, China, Israel, et al.
No catastrophic disruption of oil supplies.
One or more of these may happen before it's all over, of course (I'm still guessing WMD use at the gates of Baghdad), but let's take silver linings where we may.
attributed to former General R.H. Barrows, Commandant, USMC
Since the First World War, the US Army has recognized nine principles of war. One of those principles is the principle of mass, which dictates that the commander must be able to apply decisive force at the decisive point. This is basic, enduring doctrine, not passé theory or the latest tactical fad.
The Allied commander in Iraq no longer has this option. He does not have the ability to properly apply the warfighting principle of mass. What he has, instead, is one mechanized infantry division -- the Third -- strung out along a 100-mile front; a Marine Expeditionary Unit equally stretched; roughly a division of hardbitten Britons tied up far from the war-winning objective; and large elements of the 101st Airborne Division still generally uncommitted to the fight. Make no mistake -- their achievements in the first week of the war have been nothing short of magnificent. They have traveled swift and far, time and again defeated numerically superior forces, and accomplished logistical feats that will take their rightful place beside the Red Ball Express and the Berlin Airlift in the annals of history.
But they cannot win the war.
From "Tacitus"
"The main Marine thrust is now northwest of Diwaniyah, and may have already cut that city off. Marines with that formation report they're down to one meal a day's rations."
From Flit
"In eight days of warfare we have yet to see a confirmed report of an Iraqi T-72 tank being destroyed. Not one. They have somewhere over 500 of them that can still move, as far as people can tell, all in the Guard divisions. The Medina Division, the one Guard division that's been engaged at all, certainly had 100-150 of them at least. They've been seen... just not engaged or killed yet. Not that the T-72's so special, but it is somewhat more dangerous than the tanks the Allies have been busting up, which have been only the 40 year-old T-55s so far. Just something to think about."
Also from Flit
"The enemy that we're fighting is different from the one we'd war gamed," U.S. Army Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace told Washington Post correspondent Rick Atkinson. Wallace is commander of the Army V Corps, which was tested by an Iraqi ground probe overnight. "We knew they were there-the paramilitaries-but we didn't know they'd fight like this," he said. Asked if this signaled a longer war than projected, he replied, "It's beginning to look that way."
From the Washington Post
"The division is out of rations," Brig. Gen. Charles Fletcher said, talking to his commander, Maj. Gen. Walter Wojdakowski, who is still stationed back at Camp Virginia in Kuwait.
Fletcher was referring to 3rd Infantry Division fighters who were heavily engaged, as he spoke, by members of Saddam Hussein's elite Medina Division, about 25 miles north of here in and around the town of Najaf.
From the Scripps Howard News Service, via the News Tribune in Tacoma.
"First, the idea of precision guided weapons—you're really talking about money," (retired Admiral and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, William Crowe) said. "In the Gulf War, we almost ran through our entire stock of precision weapons. We took out targets that cost less than the weapon. Tomahawks are about a million bucks apiece. If you run out, you need something else. Most of the targets we destroyed in the Gulf War were destroyed by iron bombs. Also, in a really tough war you can't avoid head-on confrontation entirely. You just can't. My God, if you think you can support arms on the ground with air coming in from three thousand miles away—that's sheer nonsense. And, if it's protracted, you run out of sophisticated stuff. So numbers become important and amount of equipment becomes important."
From the New Yorker's issue of 16 July 2001.
I'm increasingly having the sinking feeling that neither technology nor sheer warmaking ability is going be crucial for too much longer. If those troops don't get fed and don't get water in the next 48 hours, we're sunk.
But, on the other hand, also from Tacitus:
For the moment, let's list some of the worst-case scenarios that have not happened since the war began:
One or more of these may happen before it's all over, of course (I'm still guessing WMD use at the gates of Baghdad), but let's take silver linings where we may.
