How Long Will Gulf War II Last?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Re: How Long Will Gulf War II Last?

Originally posted by DanS
It looks like the war is going to start in the next week, so it's prognostication time. Please vote on how long the war will last, starting at the beginning of hostilities from air or ground and ending when the coalition no longer meets widespread resistence.

The need to occupy in force to prevent resistance should be included. The "war" phase of this charade will be less sweat than a training rotation at the NTC, 29 Palms or Hunter-Liggett, but the need for occupation troops (who else is gonna do it, the Turks or the Iranians? ) will tie up a substantial portion of the combat capacity of the US Army and/or USMC for a long period of time. That commitment of fighting capacity and the need to rotate troops will have more of an impact on the US strategic position than the actual fighting will.

Some items of note. The Kuwait border to Baghdad is some 300 miles/500 kilometers. The top speed of the M1 A2 main battle tank is 41.5 miles per hour. The top speed of the latest armored personnel carrier is also 41 miles per hour.

Top speed on road, with governors on (you can guarantee that in the field, the governors will be mysteriously lost), but totally irrelevant. Effective max speed cross-country in most of Iraq is around 10 mph, sometimes 15 on hard straight runs. A lot of that is due to the potential for throwing tracks while maneuvering.

Between Kuwait and Baghdad there is at least one river crossing, unless one were to come in from the West.

There probably won't be any "real" bridges, since we want to keep the Iraqis from moving supplies or troops, so we'll be dependent on bridging engineers.

BTW, whoever is thinking of advance assaults by airborne troops, that ain't likely. Airborne troops (including air-assault like the Whining Chickens) are primarily short term forced entry types, who are dependent on rapid support on the ground and rapid extraction, or on being inserted in places where the enemy can't respond with heavy forces.

Put airborne troops into an urban mixup with mechanized forces, and you'll have a repeat of Market-Garden alright - a ****ing useless slaughter of some of the best trained troops in the world.

The duration will depend on two factors - whether or not the IRG will decide to fight hard in the urban siege environment (along with Baathist militia, etc.) and how aggressive the US is willing to be (in other words, how much or how little we worry about collateral casualties) in that environment. It could get very ugly, or collapse almost instantly. A determined resistance will be able to hold out in Baghdad for more than two months, and operate in the rear of US forces. A refusal to fight by the IRG, or a token fight and rapid collapse, will end things in a week or two.

DanS - more than our power will be measured for decades by what happens.

[Ted Striker]

Oh what do you know about being in Airborne MTG?

[DanS]

There probably won't be any "real" bridges, since we want to keep the Iraqis from moving supplies or troops, so we'll be dependent on bridging engineers.

Perhaps I wasn't clear. I meant that there's at least one river to cross between Kuwait and Baghdad unless you come from the West.

Do you think it likely that we'll try to come from the West through Saudi Arabia? That would seem to be good desert terrain. Faster sailing.

more than our power will be measured for decades by what happens.

This is The Big Show.

[MichaeltheGreat]

We have to move those forces out in a wide front at some point, and some will be at least resupplied from Saudi resupply points. The big question (as it was in Gulf War I) is whether the desert soil has enough bearing pressure for fuel vehicles, which are wheeled, not tracked. Refueling of mechanized units is the big constraint on both speed and terrain.

The desert terrain inside the former KTO is well known by the US, but outside, I have no idea - we'd have to base most of our assessments on whether we've seen Iraqi armor move there on past exercises.

[DanS]

How long can a M1A2 go without refueling? How long can troops stay cramped up in a APC while keeping prepared for battle?

I never thought about the sand not being able to bear weight. Checking google, these suckers are some 70 tons. Oof.

[Nubclear]

Only a few days. For direct fighting.

Warlord fighting will last years.

Nation-building will be even longer.

[Ted Striker]

There are no warlords in this one.

[MichaeltheGreat]

On the M1A2 - it's very dependent on terrain, IIRC, about 50-60 miles in soft ground, a little over 100 on hard ground, or roads.

Being cramped in an IFV (we don't call them APC's any more) isn't too much of a problem. Other factors (refueling stops, etc.) will always get the troops out for a while, and it really depends on your goal - in this case, we need to secure terrain and make sure we're not ignoring pockets of resistance that might interfere with follow-on forces.

Advancing in controlled terrain is a lot different that advance to contact, so the number of hours won't be a critical factor - it will be more like the number of days - you want to keep the pressure on and keep the pace up, but this is a different kind of war - there's really no hurry to get to Baghdad, because the IRG is already there and digging in, and the extra day or two getting there fast isn't going to give you an advantage. The time "lost" to airstrikes prepping the forward Iraqi positions for assault is going to be greater than the time it takes to get ground forces to those positions.

It's not the tracked vehicles that have a bearing problem, it's the wheeled resupply vehicles. Since tracks contact the ground along the length of the vehicle, and weight is evenly distributed by multiple road wheels and track tension, the overall ground pressure per square inch is less with the tracked vehicles than it is with transporters and resupply vehicles.

[Ted Striker]

Hey MTG speaking of Airborne I had a question. I was watching Band of Brothers and they were jumping out at some insane alititude of like 500 feet. The chute barely had time to open and then they were down. Now I assume this is so they wouldn't have time to get blasted by flak. But when I jumped we went at 12,500 feet. What's the normal altitude for any kind of airborne force to jump at or does it depend on the situation?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
There are no warlords in this one.

No warlords now, largely because Saddam's government is oppressive, top-heavy and pervasive.

The US doesn't have enough troops to control all areas, so there will be power vacuums during occupation, and local thugs will occupy those power vacuums - hell, it happens in our own cities, why do we think it wouldn't happen in Iraq? Not warlords in the traditional tribal sense, but armed thugs, and the occasional self-appointed Judge al-Roy bin Bean, law west of the Euphrates.

Even if we kept all 160,000 ground troops there (meaning there's no deployable US Army or USMC to speak of), 160,000 men will not be able to effectively control 430,000 square kilometers of terrain full of less than friendly types with a jaded view of their noble liberators.

[DanS]

On the M1A2 - it's very dependent on terrain, IIRC, about 50-60 miles in soft ground, a little over 100 on hard ground, or roads.

Damn, they take a lot of diesel/gas!

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
Hey MTG speaking of Airborne I had a question. I was watching Band of Brothers and they were jumping out at some insane alititude of like 500 feet. The chute barely had time to open and then they were down. Now I assume this is so they wouldn't have time to get blasted by flak. But when I jumped we went at 12,500 feet. What's the normal altitude for any kind of airborne force to jump at or does it depend on the situation?

Combat jump altitude is dependent on the tactical situation - for example, Pathfinders and SOF's are often inserted by HALO (High-Altitude, Low-Opening) methods from 30-35,000 feet. They freefall most of that, and the chute deploys from an altimeter setting.

500 feet is the "safe" minimum for getting under AAA fire, although you'll have some busted ankles and some rough PLF's - 500 gives you no margin for error in a static line jump, and no real control of your landing point - you'll land where they drop you.

Under other circumstances, 1200 or 1800 feet are used. Even if you have no heavy AAA fire, a factor in forced entry operations is reaction time on the enemy's part - the quicker you're down, the quicker you go from being a target to being combat effective.

When you're skydiving, you don't generally do static line jumps (although you can, and can get certified for it) because they're higher risk than freefall. The advantage to static line jumps is that they let you jump from a lower altitude, and reduce the chances of uncontrolled collision with other jumpers in a rapid exit at those altitudes. Those issues don't apply in sport diving. Collisions can be an issue in skydiving, of course, , but they're a lot easier to limit and deal with when you're not loaded down with 120 pounds of crap and 1200 feet up.

The biggest reason for the medium altitude jump in skydiving is that you're spending a lot of money, so you should be able to enjoy the ride. Also, there is a safety factor, because you have a lot of free-fall time to deal with potential problems.

Oh, and with WW2 chutes and the C-46 and C-47 (side exit) aircraft, maximum safe jumping speed was 90 knots, so those SOB's were more vulnerable in their approach to the DZ than a gimp duck on the opening day of duck season. That's a big reason for limiting altitude - the further up you are, the more people can shoot at you.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by DanS
On the M1A2 - it's very dependent on terrain, IIRC, about 50-60 miles in soft ground, a little over 100 on hard ground, or roads.

Damn, they take a lot of diesel/gas!

In France in 1940, and in Barbarossa, the Panzer divisions refueled by sacrificial use of Ju-52 transports in order to get their maximum road marches, which were generally up to 100 km per day, if they had no effective resistance and reasonable going.

That was pretty innovative and ballsy, but even though we have much faster and more reliable armor, it's pretty infeasible because of the amount of fuel needed. We could (and will) do something like have the Air Assault pukes set up and secure forward refueling sites for spearhead units, but we're talking about moving something like a brigade at most, with most of it's BS units left behind as follow-on forces. But if we need to get to a specific site or two fast to secure bridgeheads or set up a blocking position, we can do that on a small scale with helo assets.

[Ted Striker]

Man, that is some interesting stuff.

You boys got some balls pulling that stuff off.

I can't imagine the casualty rate in just GETTING to the ground.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Several of the old-timers who've been leaders of the local Airborne Association in San Diego are also leaders of the Return to Normandy Association, who made the 50th anniversary jump in Normandy. A few of them plan to do it again in 2004, at St. Mere Eglise.

Casualty rates from the WW2 drops were about 10-15 percent per jump, not counting minor injuries that didn't affect combat status or get reported, and not counting pre-jump losses from AAA fire, (which could range from individuals to entire aircraft), and not counting combat casualties during the drop and landing itself. In other words, just from the actual jump. Gliderborne forces were a little worse off, but that was the only way to get "heavy" equipment in, such as airborne engineers, air defense, artillery, motor recon, anti-tank, etc., plus each airborne division had a gliderborne infantry regiment, because there weren't enough airborne qualified troops to man the independent airborne regiments, and keep the airborne divisions at full strength.

When you add pre-drop and landing combat losses, the numbers approached 20%, then you had post-combat landing losses. The attrition rates per day in the front were higher than any other divisions, but the absolute attrition rates were higher in several of the straight-leg divisions - the big three in the Normandy landing, and the Texas division in Italy, since those divisions were on the line longer.