The Battle of Baghdad - Page 3

Kramerman · March 25, 2003, 18:53

Quote:

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Both.

I knew you'd say that.
actually, i thought you were gonna say, "a little from column A, aaaand a little from column B..."

Ned · March 25, 2003, 19:26

It looks like the ships carrying the 4th infantry division will not arrive in Kuwait until next week. Meanwhile the commander of the 24th infantry infantry division that was so successful during the first Gulf War is highly critical of starting the current campaign without the presence of the 4th infantry division. He says that the 4th infantry division is necessary to take Baghdad, and that a [two week] delay until they arrive at Baghdad will give the Iraqi's time to regroup. He also critical of the fact that the 1st cavalry has not been deployed because cavalry is necessary to protect the flanks and supply lines of the heavy infantry divisions as they advance.

Also, given the information that the 7th Cav is to the East of an Najaf, it appears more likely that the pincer on the Medina division will comprise a frontal assaulty by the 3rd ID from Karbala, the 7th Cav from the East, and the 101st from the Northwest.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/890300.asp?0sl=-32

MichaeltheGreat · March 25, 2003, 19:33

Quote:

Originally posted by DanS
Airpower will prevent any retreat with heavy weapons into Baghdad or manuever to support each other with counter-attacks.

Is the airpower sufficient to do this?

Once you get into the river country between Karbala, al Hillah, and Baghdad, it's soft ground and marshy in a lot of areas - too soft to not bog down a lot of armored vehicles - that means killing vehicles at the heads of their columns will really restrict movement. Worst case, or best case depending on how you look at it, we could drop some of those bridges along their line of retreat and make sure nobody got out.

In that case, we'd have to use some of our bridging engineer assets to replace bridges, but IMO it's better than letting them get out.

Drake Tungsten · March 26, 2003, 02:57

I'm really starting to get the feeling that the US military has a huge disinformation campaign underway and that we don't have a clue what the troop movements are really like. It almost seems like we're making a big deal out of Iraqi resistance in order to convince the Iraqis that they can beat us so that they will stay out of Baghdad and be destroyed. I hope it works...

TheStinger · March 26, 2003, 04:46

The British 16 th air assault brigade haven't done much yet, I suppose they can be heloed up if needed. The other UK units will be used in taking Bassra I suppose

Sir Og · March 26, 2003, 05:41

The Iraqi command should have a clue as to what the US is trying to achieve (surrounding the Medina division) it’s been mentioned on CNN even. They are probably going to try to withdraw it to Baghdad or to outmaneuver the US forces in some way so that don’t get surrounded.

Ned · March 26, 2003, 16:01

Our strategy in Iraq reminds me of two prior campaigns in military history: The first is when Scipio Africanus took command in Spain. Instead of getting bogged down on inconclusive campaign against the Carthaginian army, Scipio instead marched deep into the Carthaginian rear and took their supply base. After that, Carthaginian resistance in Spain collapsed.

The other campaign our strategy brings to mind is the German campaign in Russia in 1941. I believe the Germans had three Army groups, one to take Leningrad, one to take Moscow and a third to take Kiev. However, each of the Army groups had insufficient power to take their objectives before winter. Hitler concentrated his forces to take Kiev instead of Moscow. The rest is history. Hitler never took Moscow and may have lost the war because of that.

I suspect the military historians look at Scipio's campaign as an example of how to kill a snake by lopping off its head and the German campaign as an example of forgetting the larger, more important objective in order to take low-hanging fruit.

DanS · March 26, 2003, 16:21

Looks like the 4th Infantry Division might be available earlier than we thought.

http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle....toryID=2453114

Yesterday, I heard a report from a guy in Baghdad that rumors in the city is that we were approaching from the West. This would fit MtG's take on the battle, so far.

Drake Tungsten · March 26, 2003, 17:18

Where the hell is the 1st Armored Division? The only info I could find on them said that they weren't shipping out to the Gulf at all because of "transport difficulties." Is that true or just disinformation? If the 4th Infantry is the only follow-on force we have, then this could end up being a disaster...

I hope the media is just out of the loop, not that our military is incompetent.

DanS · March 26, 2003, 17:50

Amazing battle coming up, apparently. 1,000 vehicle column coming from Baghdad. Could meet the US forces this evening. Don't know the weather and if the Longbows will be able to join the battle, so this one should be interesting.

Ned · March 26, 2003, 18:55

Quote:

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Where the hell is the 1st Armored Division? The only info I could find on them said that they weren't shipping out to the Gulf at all because of "transport difficulties." Is that true or just disinformation? If the 4th Infantry is the only follow-on force we have, then this could end up being a disaster...

I hope the media is just out of the loop, not that our military is incompetent.

There is a story running on CNN right know about a Germany-based airborne regiment that just took an airfield in Northern Iraq. I caught only a portion of the story, but I thought I heard that we were going to move the 1st Armored Division in from Germany ASAP.

Ned · March 26, 2003, 19:02

Quote:

Originally posted by DanS
Amazing battle coming up, apparently. 1,000 vehicle column coming from Baghdad. Could meet the US forces this evening. Don't know the weather and if the Longbows will be able to join the battle, so this one should be interesting.

It looks like they are heading for the 7th Cav. The weather is still bad. They may not be able to use choppers or laser-guided weapons. The 7th Cav has been reinforced. But they still may be significantly outnumbered.

Drake Tungsten · March 26, 2003, 19:41

Quote:

I caught only a portion of the story, but I thought I heard that we were going to move the 1st Armored Division in from Germany ASAP.

How? If the 1st Armored is still in Germany, it would take weeks to get to the theater. You can't airlift M-1's to the best of my knowledge.

Ned · March 26, 2003, 20:43

Correction, they are airlifting, at least initially, a brigade of the 1st Infantry. It is mechanized.

A general on CNN said the C17 can carry M1's.

Drake Tungsten · March 26, 2003, 23:17

Quote:

A general on CNN said the C17 can carry M1's.

Well, if the C17 can carry M1's then the C5 can too. I guess my information was wrong...

GePap · March 26, 2003, 23:24

You don't move an entire armored division by plane. Such a division has hundreads of tanks and thousand of other vehicles, and it is all rather useless without mass quantities of ammunition and fuel.

If they are moving the 1st armored form germany, it will take some time.

Drake Tungsten · March 26, 2003, 23:30

Quote:

You don't move an entire armored division by plane.

No kidding. That's probably why Ned said this...

Quote:

Correction, they are airlifting, at least initially, a brigade of the 1st Infantry. It is mechanized.

GePap · March 26, 2003, 23:31

right back at yah!

Drake Tungsten · March 26, 2003, 23:31

Of course, this new info brings up an important question. If the 1st Armored is in Germany and the 1st Infantry is out of country as well, what the hell is under the V Corps leadership in Iraq?

Kramerman · March 27, 2003, 02:51

Quote:

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

Quote:

A general on CNN said the C17 can carry M1's.

Well, if the C17 can carry M1's then the C5 can too. I guess my information was wrong...

Its really amazing when you think how the M1A1 weights 70 tons! Think about a plane which can generate that much lift force....damn...

DanS · March 27, 2003, 14:03

The 1,000 vehicle column was apparently decimated. Why would Iraq send its soldiers into the open field? Is this coherent?

MichaeltheGreat · March 27, 2003, 14:41

So much good stuff, so little time.

Drake: re "transportation difficulties"

When a division gets deployment orders to a combat theater, you don't have transportation difficulties. Worst case is you relieve a bunch of loggies, promote some subordinate loggies, and move the ****ing show down the road. Worst case is a shortage of dock capacity and traffic issues out of KC, which is why clearing Umm Qasr's port facilities and getting Seabees and the RN equivalent in there will be nice.

Dan, Ned, et al. Apparently nowhere's near 1000 vehicles, but weather is only an issue for CAS missions. If you have JSTARS and B-52's loitering for interdiction missions, wind and weather simply means the bastards hear absolutely nothing before the bombs impact.

Re V Corps. 1 AD got its deployment orders out of Germany before 1 CD got orders to move out from Hood. If you look at the raw numbers of ground forces reported to be in theater, and the attachments to the identified divisions (all of the divisions are reinforced and/or "fat" from their standard TO&Es), there are a lot of forces claimed in theater that are not accounted for in the units mentioned in the news so far.

Re air deployment of armored divisions, etc.

Except for the light and airborne/airmobile divisions, the rest of the US divisions pretty much have the same TO&E - there's not much that distinguishes an infantry from a cav from an armored division, at the divisional level. How you break down and mix and match subordinate units, is different, as is the fighting and movement posture (does armor support the infantry, or infantry support the armor?

). From an airlift standpoint, it's about the same. A full scale divisional airlift can be made in around 1400 C5B sorties, which takes a while because there's not that many of them, they have traffic limits on airfields, and you have to figure in maintenance hours for the aircraft. With C17s, it's about 2300 sorties for the full division.

As far as equipment goes, M1's are a pain in the ass - you can move one and a little extra stuff in a C17, or you can move two in a C5B with a little extra mid-air refueling, since two M1's are very close to the operational weight limit of the C5. M2's and M109's are lighter, but they take up a lot of space, so efficient loading and palletizing of supplies takes time, so you can reduce the total number of airlift sorties.

If you have the airfield(s) that can take the aircraft at close to the maximum traffic levels, and if you don't have a lot of other demands on your air transport capacity, air deployment of the entire division plus a reasonable level of supplies can be accomplished in less than two weeks, but it's a real ***** of a job.

Dan - no, it's not coherent, but that's the great generalship of the Saddamites for you. They've bought into this hooey about how they're kicking our asses, they've managed a group self-delusion about the last war, at least at the top command levels, and they give in to the natural reflex of most armies to try to strike back. Nobody likes to be under siege, nobody likes to be on the strategic, operational and tactical defensive, and handling an army under those conditions requires extraordinary discipline, not only of the troops, but of the tendency of the troops and the leaders to want to get in a few blows and take at least part of the fight to the enemy. The Ardennes offensive didn't make any sense, either.

spiritof1202 · March 27, 2003, 14:54

Agreed about the JSTARs and the B52's, but weren't F15's also participating in close air support? They're capabable in an all-weather role, plus can target distinct targets independently. Not sure if crosswinds in the southern bases would have grounded them, though.

Drake Tungsten · March 27, 2003, 17:23

Quote:

They've bought into this hooey about how they're kicking our asses, they've managed a group self-delusion about the last war, at least at the top command levels, and they give in to the natural reflex of most armies to try to strike back.

Which I predicted a few days ago, BTW...

DanS · March 27, 2003, 22:49

Here's an interesting article about urban warfare.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0327/p11s01-coop.html

Don't know what to make of it. I hope our boys have done their homework and the Iraqis haven't. Perhaps the Pentagon is trying to lull the Iraqis into a false timeline.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003Mar27.html

But the Iraqis are talking tough.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2003Mar27.html

MichaeltheGreat · March 28, 2003, 00:12

They talked tough even at the cease fire last time, on D+4

Then they **** their pants when the subject of POW exchange came up, and we said we had over 80,000.

There is an analogy to be made to Hitler here, although those are usually groaners, no matter who you apply them to, but in this case, it's really the closest one.

A couple of cool Hitler stories are really illustrative of the Iraqi senior command mindset. In the first one, during the early planning for Operation Barbarossa, the army high command told Hitler that 20 panzer divisions would be needed to invade Russia. At the time, the Germans had 10. Addi's solution? Easy, just take half the armor establishment from each of the first ten, add some infantry and other stuff, and you've got your 20. Never mind that you have the same number of tanks overall, and the same number of infantry and other stuff, you've just shoved things around and made smaller units. You've got your 20 panzer divisions, so problem solved.

Late in the war, in the southern portion of the western front (around Metz, IIRC), Hitler was micromanaging unit placements, and he and his sycophants in Wolfsschanze assigned a then-typical frontage of seven miles to a particular infantry division. Never mind readiness and casualty reports that had been ever so dutifully reported and recorded all the way up the line. Never mind that this "division" consisted of 14 self-propelled guns and four infantry "battalions" of about 80 men each. The "division" was less than true battalion strength, but it was called a division, so it would be deployed as a division.

The same type of self-delusion permeates the Iraqi command. Pessimistic assessments, or reports of failure get you shot, so the senior commanders learn to talk tough and massage the numbers and reports. Then they have to act out the roles, as if all the BS was true.

Saddam's lackeys will be portraying themselves as beating our asses right up until the very end.

Ned · March 28, 2003, 16:40

MtG, Well one learns something new every day. I had never known before that the German high command knew they didn't have enough armor to successfully invade Russia.

flash9286 · March 28, 2003, 19:59

i predict a mini-stalingard

DanS · April 1, 2003, 19:29

Well, looks like the battle is imminent. FT puts the opening stages within the next 48 hours...

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentSe...=1012571727092

MichaeltheGreat · April 2, 2003, 06:08

CNN's current report on the situation is a bit dodgy. First, they report on the Marines (without specifying unit, but it's all 1 MEF as a Corps level unit) engaging IRG Medina in the vicinity of Karbala, and say they're next going to engage IRG Baghdad (which is composited IRG Al Nida plus IRG Baghdad) around al Kut.

This makes no sense in a couple of respects - the western part of 3 ID's position is facing Karbala, so how to the Marines get there, and how do the Marines reposition forces to al Kut, which is quite far south and over 100 miles from Karbala?

Hopefully, from other sources and/or in the next day or so, we'll have a real picture of what's going on.