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.
(source: iraqwar.ru, 03-28-03, translated by Venik)
