The Battle of Baghdad - Page 2

DanS · March 24, 2003, 15:36

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 · March 24, 2003, 15:44

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 · March 24, 2003, 16:38

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 · March 24, 2003, 17:58

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 · March 24, 2003, 18:42

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 · March 24, 2003, 18:52

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

DanS · March 24, 2003, 23:09

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

MichaeltheGreat · March 25, 2003, 01:44

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 · March 25, 2003, 01:58

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 · March 25, 2003, 02:07

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 · March 25, 2003, 02:15

Quote:

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 · March 25, 2003, 02:21

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 · March 25, 2003, 02:26

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

MichaeltheGreat · March 25, 2003, 03:10

Both.

Gatekeeper · March 25, 2003, 03:28

Kramerman:

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

Gatekeeper

Gatekeeper · March 25, 2003, 03:30

Edited ... I just read MtG's warning on Page 2 of this thread.

VJ · March 25, 2003, 03:38

Quote:

Edited ... I just read MtG's warning on Page 2 of this thread.

Notice : Not everybody uses the same cp-settings as you do. It's better to say, that how many posts approximately are there before it.

This is the first page for me.

Just a friendly hint for the possible future use

Daz · March 25, 2003, 03:41

I told you we're gonna get burned!

Well. I have one question to the military experts: do you think that the coalition CAN and WILL take Baghdad?

Would the coalition risk probably thousands of lives to take the city?

Hmmm, thats two after all....

ravagon · March 25, 2003, 04:28

Quote:

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

I guess you didn't realise MtG is ex-Navy?

Aaarrgghh.

LaRusso · March 25, 2003, 04:33

Quote:

Originally posted by 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.

apparently, nassaria battle was more than screening and blocking. there are reports, mainly in russian media, that they tried to take the city in a go, were repelled, tried to get it from the west and just ran into deep iraqi defense and were then sliced through the flank with two mech batalions. apparently they (us) had to withdraw two tank batalions from column heading to najaf and get it back and it took 6 hrs to get the line of defense in order

TheStinger · March 25, 2003, 04:43

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the coalition forces were actually overplayin the amount of resistance they are encountering. It may make the Iraqi's think they are doing better than they are. I would assume that Iraqi commanders in the field are a liitle optomistic in their reporting to their bosses.

In any war you can hold up and advance temporarily with a dug in position. If this though encourages the Iraqis to commit more troops to hardpoints and other defensive points such as bridges and river crosings then so much the better. The Germans proved very adept at this. If you can't knock out a position quickly and its not going to threaten the overall stratergy then ignore it and come back latter.

There is talk about putting a Para battallion into Bassra instead of an armoured brigade, to me that is a good swap for the coalition, not a sign that things are going badly.

ravagon · March 25, 2003, 04:47

One thing I'm a little curious about is why they didn't move the whole campaign a lot more slowly ... let the Iraqis see exactly how the ring will close around Baghdad.
Few things make soldiers more nervous than staying put in the face of an obviously closing encirclement.
It might have spooked a whole lot of the defending forces into getting out of dodge so to speak ... in spite of having few places left to run.

Urban Ranger · March 25, 2003, 06:06

Quote:

Originally posted by ravagon
I guess you didn't realise MtG is ex-Navy?

Aaarrgghh.

Ex-army, IIRC.

MichaeltheGreat · March 25, 2003, 10:41

Quote:

Originally posted by LaRusso

apparently, nassaria battle was more than screening and blocking. there are reports, mainly in russian media, that they tried to take the city in a go, were repelled, tried to get it from the west and just ran into deep iraqi defense and were then sliced through the flank with two mech batalions. apparently they (us) had to withdraw two tank batalions from column heading to najaf and get it back and it took 6 hrs to get the line of defense in order

Trouble is, that makes no sense in the context of a rapid advance to the north. The city of an Nasariyah is meaningless, except to have a security zone extend to the western limits of it to control a set of bridges and a few km of road.

MichaeltheGreat · March 25, 2003, 10:45

Quote:

Originally posted by Daz
I told you we're gonna get burned!

Well. I have one question to the military experts: do you think that the coalition CAN and WILL take Baghdad?

Would the coalition risk probably thousands of lives to take the city?

Hmmm, thats two after all....

We simply have to. The entire center of gravity of the Hussein regime is there - political, military and economic. The largest portion of the civilian population is there also, so a protracted siege is extremely problematic in terms of civilian casualties and world opinion, and the sort of feeling we induce in the Iraqi population that will carry into a post-Hussein Iraq.

MichaeltheGreat · March 25, 2003, 10:48

Quote:

Originally posted by ravagon
One thing I'm a little curious about is why they didn't move the whole campaign a lot more slowly ... let the Iraqis see exactly how the ring will close around Baghdad.
Few things make soldiers more nervous than staying put in the face of an obviously closing encirclement.
It might have spooked a whole lot of the defending forces into getting out of dodge so to speak ... in spite of having few places left to run.

Baghdad has two rings of defenses - a smaller one in the city itself, and a larger, with three IRG divisions, extended out from the city. One of the goals has to be to penetrate the outer line of defense and get astride the routes those units would use to retreat into Baghdad itself. They can inflict a hundred times the casualties on us if they retreat intact into Baghdad, or else force us to destroy a lot more of the city, than they can if they are caught and destroyed in the outer layer of defenses.

TheStinger · March 25, 2003, 11:12

This thread should be renamed ask MTG

Ned · March 25, 2003, 12:41

What I've seen is the V Corps moving up the left bank of the Euphrates following the main pipeline there. As they go North, they secure the bridges across the Euphrates to protect their right flank against Iraqi counter-attack.

The Marines have been moving up the west bank of the Tigris, as far as I can tell.

MtG has mentioned the 1st Armored division in a private post to me. Is this attached to V Corps?

The 4th ID should be able to join the battle some time next week. They probably will be joined by the 1st Cav. The forces deployed at Baghdad will then become overwhelming.

What I see shaping up from this is pretty much as MtG has described. They are encircling the Medina division and will destroy it with armor.

They then will do the same with the other Republican guard divisions, one at a time, until they are all eliminated. Airpower will prevent any retreat with heavy weapons into Baghdad or manuever to support each other with counter-attacks.

Once the Republican Guard divisions are defeated, Baghdad may surrender. However, I also see a combined special forces/Iraqi coalition forces revolting inside Baghdad and going after the Saddam government.

DanS · March 25, 2003, 12:50

Airpower will prevent any retreat with heavy weapons into Baghdad or manuever to support each other with counter-attacks.

Is the airpower sufficient to do this?

The Emperor Fabulous · March 25, 2003, 13:09

Quote:

Allies Risk 3000 Casualties in Baghdad - Ex-General

LONDON (Reuters) - The U.S.-led force in Iraq risks as many as 3,000 casualties in the battle for Baghdad and Washington has underestimated the number of troops needed, a top former commander from the 1991 Gulf War said on Monday.

Retired U.S. Army General Barry McCaffrey, commander of the 24th Infantry Division 12 years ago, said the U.S.-led force faced "a very dicey two to three day battle" as it pushes north toward the Iraqi capital.

"We ought to be able to do it (take Baghdad)," he told the Newsnight Program on Britain's BBC Television late on Monday.

"In the process if they (the Iraqis) actually fight, and that's one of the assumptions, clearly it's going to be brutal, dangerous work and we could take, bluntly, a couple to 3,000 casualties," said McCaffrey who became one of the most senior ranking members of the U.S. military following the 1991 war.

"So if they (the Americans and British) are unwilling to face up to that, we may have a difficult time of it taking down Baghdad and Tikrit up to the north west."

McCaffrey said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had misjudged the nature of the conflict. Asked if Rumsfeld made a mistake by not sending more troops to start the offensive, McCaffrey replied: "Yes, sure. I think everybody told him that."

"I think he thought these were U.S. generals with their feet planted in World War II that didn't understand the new way of warfare," he added.

U.S. forces have advanced more than 200 miles into Iraqi territory since the start of the war and are beginning to confront an elite division of the Republican Guards deployed to defend the capital.

"So it ought to be a very dicey two to three day battle out there." McCaffrey said of the confrontation with the Republican Guards.

He said his personal view was that the invading troops would "take them (the Iraqis) apart."

"But we've never done something like this with this modest a force at such a distance from its bases," he warned.

McCaffrey, a former Commander in Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces in Latin America, served overseas for 13 years and took part in four combat tours.

He twice received the Distinguished Service Cross, the second highest medal for valor in the United States.