The Battle of Baghdad

[Fidel]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
The Ardennes offensive didn't make any sense, either.

right, when the skies cleared and a massive eastern offensive was launched by the red army.
IIRC, churchill said 'wow, we can still lose this war' or something....or was it dwight?

[Daz]

Why "mini" Stanilgrad? Baghdad has over 5 million inhabitants. Lets say a million flee (unlikely, but just for the sake of the argument), that leaves 4 million, with hundreds of thousands of armed defenders.
I, and any military expert, will tell you that there is no way such a city can be taken by a military force without:

1. Levelling the city, including the civilians.

2. Treason or mass desertion.

Someone mentioned Stalingrad. How many casualties did the germans have? How many civilians got killed? Can the Bush gov take any of that?

I personally know of a city of about 30.000 ppl that was reduced to rubble by a overwhelming force and it still took out about 100 tanks and APCs, and thousands of attackers. But 4 mil!!!

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by LaRusso


right, when the skies cleared and a massive eastern offensive was launched by the red army.
IIRC, churchill said 'wow, we can still lose this war' or something....or was it dwight?

Patton reportedly said it (in the movie ), but I don't know if anyone actually did say it. It was typical in that time to have very little knowledge of the actual state of the enemy's forces and capabilities, so once it became clear what the Germans had to work with, even under the worst of circumstances it wouldn't have been enough to knock either western ally out of the war.

The net result was to make the Soviet offensive more effective by stripping defenders from the east to be able to attack west.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Daz
Why "mini" Stanilgrad? Baghdad has over 5 million inhabitants. Lets say a million flee (unlikely, but just for the sake of the argument), that leaves 4 million, with hundreds of thousands of armed defenders.

Hundreds of thousands? Definitely not that many, and at this point, people's loyalty will be questionable. Baghdad is also a very wide and spread out city, so the hardcore who want to die with this regime will mostly be in small pockets here and there.

I, and any military expert, will tell you that there is no way such a city can be taken by a military force without:

1. Levelling the city, including the civilians.

2. Treason or mass desertion.

There's a few more options, but your list would apply only if there was a well supplied, well disciplined force in the size you assume, ready to fight it out. In any case, the Iraqis are good at mass desertion - most don't want to fight for this regime.

[Ned]

Unless I miss my bet, I think there is no Iraqi armor now between our divisions and downtown Baghdad. I think our armor could drive right downtown if it wanted to. So the question is

Do we stop?

Or do we drive downtown?

I know which one Patton would have taken and which one Monty would have taken. But what will Franks do?

Delay could allow Saddam to reqroup and organize a hasty defense. I say, full speed ahead!

[Ned]

Actually, with sufficient boldness, the war could be over in a day - assuming an Iraqi surrender if we take Baghdad in a bold move.

[spiritof1202]

I'm uncertain if Saddam/whoever is left in charge will allow the regular Republican Guard into Baghdad. It has obvious advantages and risks.

Saddam hasn't allowed them in before... will he risk it now?

[Ned]

Spiritof1202, if we move fast enough, Saddam won't even have time to move armored Republican guard divisions into Baghdad. Besides, the reason they are not in Baghdad is that Saddam does not trust them.

All he's got in Baghdad is the Special Republican Guards who do not have armor, according to news reports.

[Drake Tungsten]

All he's got in Baghdad is the Special Republican Guards who do not have armor, according to news reports.

I wouldn't put too much stock in the news reports. They don't have a clue most of the time...

[Pekka]

You guys have any estimates when this starts? I want to tune in to watch it, but we have different time zones, and I'd predict that they start it when it's prime time.. any guesses?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Ned
Actually, with sufficient boldness, the war could be over in a day - assuming an Iraqi surrender if we take Baghdad in a bold move.

Tanks don't do well driving between tall buildings with RPG teams everywhere. Not to mention command detonated mines hidden in the storm sewers, little details like that.

Patton's era of warfighting is over, and if you want to get an idea of how he handled situations that weren't in his favor, look into his conduct of the campaign around Metz in the fall of 1944.

[DanS]

What I want to know is where are the prisoners of war? Did we just "destroy" phantom divisions?

[GePap]

Well, as far as I understood it, we destroyed so much of their heavy equipment and vehicles that even if a few thousand RG troops are sitting in some town, they can;t really fire at the US, or move in any way, and thus are meaningless. That is what i think they mean when they say we 'destroyed" these divisions.

On the issue of troop levels: we have what, 3-4 divisions moving on Baghdad? What is the average size per division? 15Kk, 20k, 25k?

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
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.

Are you sure that C5s and C17s can carry a M1 tank? During the staging of the last Gulf War wasn't the US forced to ship its armor by sea because the planes couldn't carry the heavy tanks?

[Ned]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


Tanks don't do well driving between tall buildings with RPG teams everywhere. Not to mention command detonated mines hidden in the storm sewers, little details like that.

Patton's era of warfighting is over, and if you want to get an idea of how he handled situations that weren't in his favor, look into his conduct of the campaign around Metz in the fall of 1944.

It is my impression that Baghdad has freeways and broad streets all the way downtown. This should not present a major problem to tank battalions.

I just read a brief account of the battle of Metz. The 95th feinted a frontal attack on the forts while the main force attacked from the rear. The tanks and infrantry charged into downtown Metz.

What was the problem with this? It seems just like what I proposed - a swift strike to take the city center. The rest of the Baghdad campaign would be taking out isolated pockets of resistance. This could be made vastly easier if the government centers of power were in Allied hands.