The Battle of Baghdad

[DanS]

3 ID is out well northwest of that road net they were advancing on, and will be deploying in line, facing east, from the north side of Lake ar Razazah. 3 ID will be securing the area around Ar Ramadi, al Habbaniyah and al Falujah

That's exactly what I was thinking. Bypass Karbala inasmuch as possible, considering all of the religious sensitivities and high probability of hurting historical assets. However, I would have guessed that they would split their forces and attack Tikrit (or between Tikrit and Baghdad) first. The 3rd Infantry Division has vanished from the map for a couple of days and seem to have been advancing relentlessly (or I'm assuming that they have been, in the absence of other info).

If they were to attack Tikrit first, how would that stack up in military history among the swiftest advances by armored troops in hostile territory? I guess that would be ~ 500 miles in about 6 six days.

The H2 and H3 airfields will be set up as a refueling and supply base for XVIII Airborne Corps (which includes 3 ID) and will likely be secured by the brigade of 82 ABD

I had the vague thought that they could do this. Especially for the fuel. But aren't a lot of munitions so heavy that it's incredibly inefficient to fly in? I have no concept of how much is how much. I was pretty astounded to see helicopters/planes drop supplies to the advancing armor on TV the other day.

Give 'em 6 more days, then a couple in port, then another couple getting their equipment matched up, then they're heading north.

I bet the 4th Infantry Division is dismayed that all the action will be done before they arrive.

[Flubber]

MTG

laughter unnecessary regarding western Iraq. I know that the US has control of the area but my point was that it would have been a great starting point to threaten Baghdad if they would have had a land based jumping off point.

As for the airborne units, I'm not familiar with their heavy lift capabilities . . . If they have equipment and fuel as you suggest, we may soon be seeing another line on the map approaching Bagdad from the West.

Now if only Turkey would play ball and allow a more substantial northern front by allowing troops to pass through. Could the heavy lift capability be used to bring substantial assets to the north as well now that Turkey is permitting overflights??



I hope you are correct in that forces have bybassed an Nasariyah. It appeared that the 7th Cavalry was stalled only a few miles from their position of 24 hours ago according to a CNN reporter. I was suprised to hear that type of information allowed out in a press report and wondered if it was:

a) disinformation
b) true with respect to this unit who's goal is to keep the units they face from falling back to Baghdad ( their role might be to screen the spearpoint)

[MichaeltheGreat]

Dan -

center of gravity is Baghdad, so screw Tikrit and Kirkuk for the time being. With Baghdad neutralized, they're nothing but backwaters, and a lot of those people will be able to read the writing on the wall.

The way I see the AOR's, 1 MEF with Brits attached will have the east side of the Tigris, V Corps will have west side of the Tigris up to the SE of Lake ar Razazah, and XVIII Airborne Corps will have the area from the north of Lake ar Razazah to the west bank of the Tigris on the north side of Baghdad.

The point isn't to bypass Karbala, since it's essentially part of the road net needed by V Corps, but having 3 ID deal with it delays their tie in with the rest of XVIII AC and set up of their movement northwest.

Right now, the Iraqis are pretty much blind to the position of V Corps, and most of XVIII AC, and we want to keep them that way (note that the Apaches that attacked 2 Bde / IRG Medina are part of the 11th Aviation Regiment, which is a V Corps unit, the giveaway that that line of advance has now been passed over from XVIII AC to V Corps.) That's why there's no all-out hurry to secure Karbala. We want to get as many forces in position as possible, on as wide a front as possible, before closing the noose.

Flubber -

101 ABD has three heavy lift helo battalions, about 160 heavy lift birds in all, in addition to the billion or so Blackhawks that they use for the air assault troops and everything else, so their heavy lift capability is pretty impressive. In GW I, they set up a refueling point about 150 miles in from their line of departure, with around 180,000 gallons of fuel, ammo, a security force, medevacs, and all that stuff, in two movements over eight hours.

The only thing that can move M1 and M2 vehicles by air is the C5 (M1 or M2) or C17 (for M2), but that's a waste of those assets. The deal with Turkey is too late, but 4 ID was a V Corps unit, so it can be repositioned from Kuwait as a theater reserve. XVIII AC can handle the stretch around to the north of Baghdad, but the loss of 4 ID in the north really affects how rapidly we deal with Kirkuk, Mosul and stabilization of the situation with the Kurds and Turks, not how fast we get down on Baghdad.

An Nasariyah will be bypassed to the extent we can bypass it for a security zone for those roads - that means we have to at least prevent the Iraqis from operating close to the roads, take out their mechanized and air defense vehicles and any arty, and have enough forces there to block any light movement that would try to interdict the road.

The bit about 7 RTR being forced to disengage from Basra is disinfo of a sort - I expect they're being redeployed north, now that the route past an Nasariyah is somewhat secured.

Same with 7th Cav. I imagine a squadron of 7th Cav is still in place, and happily stalled and probing the Iraqis, while the rest have moved on NW, along with the rest of 3 ID Once 3 ID is in place (it'll be the last of XVIII AC to get into place) and the left flank of V Corps is in place, then the Iraqis in that blocking position won't see any more of 7th Cav. And if they don't wise up, shortly after, they won't see any more of anything, except Allah.

Part of the trick here is that when Baghdad is directly pressured, the outer layer of defenses will fall back, and we want to have blocking forces able to move in place when that happens, and overrun them from all sides, like we did to IRG Medina and Tawakalna last time.

There will be a lot of screening and probing, a lot of movements that sound like we're not making any headway, all to fixate the Iraqis attention on what they can see. And as for what they can't see, well, what they don't know will hurt them really badly.

[DanS]

like we did to IRG Medina and Tawakalna last time

As stated in the article referenced in the first post, wasn't Franks the commander in these battles in Gulf War I?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Franks was an O7, ADC-Artillery (Assistant Division Commander) for the 1st Cavalry Division. As part of XVIII Airborne Corps, but initially kept in theater reserve, 1 CD followed on with 24 ID in pursuit of IRG and Iraqi armored remnants, and caught the Tawakalna and remnants of the Iraqi 7th AD and 51st ID on the west side of the berm west of the Euphrates river outside Basra.

If you saw CNN's live coverage early on with the Marines, when Bob Woodruff mentioned the tank graveyard that the Marines had just past, that was the site where Tawakalna and the other Iraqi units were slaughtered.

IRG Medina was a VII Corps target, hit primarily by the US 3 AD (decommisionned) and US 1 AD.

edit - BTW, the last news based on what Blair said seems to reinforce what I said earlier - that we're repositioning to surround and destroy IRG Medina outside of the Karbala - al Hillah line they're occupying.

[DanS]

Bush's war budget assumes the war will last 30 days. Looks like a siege of Baghdad to me, ultimately.

[DanS]

MtG: What do you think what kind of impact the sandstorms will have on the timing of the battle?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Dan - it'll be a real mixed bag.

JSTARS isn't affected by sand , so we'll be able to coordinate our movements and watch any of theirs, and they won't be able to do a thing about it. If we have any concerns about info leakage from Russian sats, that problem will be solved.

On the down side, we don't want to get into combat in those conditions, although NV gear will work fairly well - not really well, but better than nothing. The problem is that the sand will get into everything, so we ideally want our optics and guns covered and sealed until the wind levels go down.

Movement will be slowed considerably, partly due to visibility and navigation, partly due to danger of sucking stuff past the inlet air filters on the M1's turbine.

In short, it's good for screening movement, and we have the advantage that we won't be blind at the operational level, but it's not good for anything else.

[Kramerman]

Are there any maps that show Iraq, and the land "occupied" by the coalition forces so far, or at least coalition movements and major manuevers by the allies thus far?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Not that we have access to, but I have a fairly good mental picture based on what we actually know, and what we can expect from US doctrine.

[Kramerman]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Not that we have access to, but I have a fairly good mental picture based on what we actually know, and what we can expect from US doctrine.

I just figured perhaps some news agency or another would have thrown some rough thing together showing known engagements and the subsequent or precedent deployments. oh well.
If i had more time i would try to stay on top of things better, and perhaps i'd have a good mental picture too. Cant wait till the history books come out on this thing, detailing the whole conflict like all those on the Gulf War. Totally interesting to someone whos into societal interactions (ie geopolitics) and history.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Two things I guarantee - right now, the locations are real fluid, because we're in a transitional phase, and there's a lot more unit locations the news agencies (and the Iraqis ) don't know **** about than there are that they do know about.

Well, three things. You can bet that every one of the engagements fought so far has been a screening or blocking action, with most forces moving on past, rather than the decisive engagements the Iraqis think.

[Kramerman]

do you come from a military background, outa curiosity? Or are you just very knowledgable on the subject?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Both.

[Gatekeeper]

Kramerman:

MtG is pretty much lord around 'Poly when it comes to military matters. Da man's good with that subject matter.

Gatekeeper