--- Dan Minette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Given this assessment, it seems to me that we will > need a bit of > luck...unless the US has tricks up its sleeve that I > can't begin to > comprehend. Lets assume a reasonable worst case > scenario for what we > cannot control. The Republican guard decides to > have a last ditch stand in > Baghdad. It goes to ground, and locates in various > buildings in Baghdad, > say 50k strong spread through the streets of > Baghdad. It uses children as > runners for communications, and ambushes the US in > such a manner that it is > very difficult to separate civilians from the > Republican Guard. The point > will not be victory for Hussein, but to make the > victory for the US as > costly as possible. > > How can the US spectacularly and immediately win an > urban war like this? > > Dan M.
We _definitely_ need luck. There are two ways to win that scenario. The first, and preferable one, is to make sure that it doesn't happen. The battle plan looks, to me, like something of a race. We're trying to sprint to Baghdad before the Republican Guard can redeploy and turn it into an urban battlefield. Our airpower will be used to pin them down and slow their movement while American armored forces try to meet and annihilate them outside the city. This is possible. If it _does_ get to city fighting, things get a lot uglier. The Army has been thinking about this for a long time, and they have plans using PGMs to hit city strongpoints, and so on. In urban warfare individual unit training becomes the decisive factor (it always is, but even more so than in manuever battle or meeting engagements, where technology can play a role). That is, however, the arena in which American superiority is probably strongest, so it might not be as bad as people think. Even the elite Iraqi units probably don't have the small unit discipline to maintain battle in a hopeless cause if they have the opportunity to desert. Mixed in with the population of Baghdad is ideal conditions to decide that you'd rather be a civilian than get killed fighting Americans. Historically, armies with close contact with civilian society are the ones most likely to crumble (for example, the mass mutiny by French soldiers in 1918, when British soldiers under the same conditions kept fighting). My guess is that in that scenario Allied forces will surround the city, launch lightning strikes to seize strategic positions, use special operations raids and so on to destroy enemy concentrations with minimal damage to surrounding areas, and wait for Iraqi forces to dissolve. I think. I honestly don't know, and I'm not thrilled with this option. Change is _always_ a major factor in warfare, in this one like any other. _But_, it's important not to under-emphasize the creativity and ability of the people in the American armed forces who are thinking about these things. They have already reinvented the battle of maneuver, and they did so successfully. It's not impossible that they have done the same for urban combat. Gautam __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop! http://platinum.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
