The Battle of Baghdad

[DanS]

It's sort of ambiguous. Maybe the opposition was trying to do bayonet fighting. Poor, dumb, dead bastards. But they are brave.

http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=1&theme=&usrsess=1&id=10318

Do a search for "marsh".

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by spiritof1202
If an enemy and a marine ran into each other *that* close then just maybe. I agree that a bayonet is absolutely a last choice, however.

That's why God invented the fire-team. You don't operate alone, you've always got overlapping coverage from one fire-team member to another.

And if I was an Iraqi ordered to bayonet charge Marines, I'd waste the dumb mother****er excuse for an officer that gave that kind of stupid order.

But it's like Stonewall Jackson is reputed to have said, we have to kill all the brave ones.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by DanS
It's sort of ambiguous. Maybe the opposition was trying to do bayonet fighting. Poor, dumb, dead bastards. But they are brave.

http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=1&theme=&usrsess=1&id=10318

Do a search for "marsh".

Sounds almost like they weren't even issued ammo or taught how to fire their weapons.

[GePap]

Iraqi resistance has really been a mixed bag and in many places brave but utterly idiotic. i still can;t figure out why they have squandered so many men charging armor with technicals. And why they placed the RG outside of the city instead of right in it, tanks next to hospitals and so forth.

[DanS]

What Saddam is doing just ain't right. He has less honor that the Haitian generals that Powell stood down during the Clinton administration.

[GePap]

Of course he has no honor. Thats what kept him in power for 20 years and got him huge palaces and his face on every wall.

Interestingly enough, the Iraqis do seem to have kept their word about their oil fields. They still control the fields around Kirkut and Mosul, and those remain intact.

[Andrew1999]

The Republican Guard was banned from Baghdad a few years ago after they tried a regime change of their own. That's when the Special Republican Guard was set up.

I'm surprised the Iraqis didn't blow any of the bridges. As far as I can tell the coalition has captured every bridge intact.

[DanS]

The Kirkuk and Mosul oil fields have no gas pressure on them. They wouldn't blow if you wanted them to.

[spiritof1202]

Originally posted by GePap
Iraqi resistance has really been a mixed bag and in many places brave but utterly idiotic. i still can;t figure out why they have squandered so many men charging armor with technicals. And why they placed the RG outside of the city instead of right in it, tanks next to hospitals and so forth.

They used technicals because they've been trained to fight like in Black Hawk Down (it really is one of their 'training manuals',) and they are unaware that the tactic is failing pretty much universally. They are being lied to in the worst way, from the top down.

The regular Republican Guard has not been permitted inside Baghdad city limits previously; two of the coup attempts on Saddam have originated from the RG, and he doesn't trust them completely.

They've been parking tanks next to hospitals for protection, but ultimately, tanks are only effective in formations, with aircover. Saddam's tanks were pretty much irrelevent from day one.

[GePap]

Seeing that no one has yet risen to take on Saddam even now, i seriously doubt that with an ivasion about to come the RG would have staged a coup.

As for the use of technicals: it seems difficult to tnasfer tactics used in Mogadishu to the middle of the desert, as they have done. Maybe in the cities, but out on the highways? Hell, it would ahve made more sense to skip the damned trucks and fihgt on foot: at least then you get more cover.

[spiritof1202]

Originally posted by GePap
Seeing that no one has yet risen to take on Saddam even now, i seriously doubt that with an ivasion about to come the RG would have staged a coup.

Saddam's regime took a cue from Stalin's regime. The concepts of survival and control are

*shoot first and ask questions later
* kill a bunch of high ranking officers every so often so no-one gets too comfortable
* trust no-one (see shoot first)

As for the use of technicals: it seems difficult to tnasfer tactics used in Mogadishu to the middle of the desert, as they have done. Maybe in the cities, but out on the highways? Hell, it would ahve made more sense to skip the damned trucks and fihgt on foot: at least then you get more cover.

No one said that Iraq had a lot of options. Irregular tactics aren't very effective against armies... especially armies with tremendous firepower and intelligence advantages.

The Iraqi's did their best with what they had... I expect them to continue to do so, but see it as futile.

With Somalia, the US was operating in manpower and equipment limited circumstances that they just don't have in this situation. The US/UK can bring the full force of their power projection to bear, even if they are limited a bit, in an effort to avoid collateral damage.

[MichaeltheGreat]

The best use of technicals would have been in city streets, where the Iraqis could have really applied the lessons of Somalia and taken the fight to a full 360 x 3.

Failing to wire bridges for demolition, or pre-sight artillery on those bridges, was stupidity as well. Another trick would be to turn sections of main road into command detonated mines by putting explosives along lengths of storm sewer - that could cause some serious mobility kills on US armor, and combining those tactics against a "raid" like we pulled off earlier could have resulted in some real serious damage.

If we lost 50-100 men, and blasted hundreds of civilians, in a single sharp fight, it would **** up our timetables for Baghdad and ratchet up the political cost in the ME very quickly.

[Lord Merciless]

It takes time and coordination to wire enough explosives on a bridge and to bury enough anti-armor mines on high-ways. Because we are attacking so fast and their command control system was completely shut down, the Iraqi army simply had no time to employ such tricks.

Had we waited with the invasion, they might actually have the time to do those things.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by spiritof1202
...

The Iraqi's did their best with what they had... I expect them to continue to do so, but see it as futile...

I don't agree with this. If the same equipment was given to, let's say Germans, they would have used it in a much smarter way. They would probably still loose, but the cost for the coalition would have been much higher.

[spiritof1202]

Originally posted by Olaf HÃ¥rfagre


I don't agree with this. If the same equipment was given to, let's say Germans, they would have used it in a much smarter way. They would probably still loose, but the cost for the coalition would have been much higher.

The Germans would have been able to shoot a bit straighter... but thats about it

Admittedly, with the exception of small arms, the coalition equipment is better at every level: artillery, AFV's, Tanks and Aircraft.

The major doctrinal advantage from which everything flows is the coalitions air dominance.

The allies destroyed the Iraqi's ability to fly from day one. GPS weapons simply ruined any viable piece of tarmac.

If any aircraft got into the air, the coalition aircraft had weapon systems that could engage at greater ranges than the Iraqi aircraft AND the US/UK have AEW aircraft that can detect pretty much anything.

A command and control structure, which was very rigid under Nazi control, was decimated, and much of the German discipline and cohesion would have been disrupted.

German doctrin extensively used airpower, and they would have had none.

German doctrin used maneuver warfare, and they could not have used that either; large armored maneuvers have been cut apart by coalition airpower.

German doctrin calls for strict top down control and an aura of invincibility, and that would have been disrupted and tarnished from day one.

Given the situation, I don't see any doctrin or strategy which could have overcome the massive advantage that the coalition information and airpower dominance gives them.