Preparations for war continue ...

[DownwardDog]

Just look at what the Serbs managed with 1970 Russian kit, a stealth and a couple of F15's shot down if I recall right.

NATO generated over 10,000 strike sorties (out of 38,000 total sorties) over Serbia and lost 5 aircraft with no fatalities. I'm not sure it was a brilliant innings at bat by the Serbs.

 

[laptop]

MBTF - Mean Time Between Failures.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

NATO generated over 10,000 strike sorties (out of 38,000 total sorties) over Serbia and lost 5 aircraft with no fatalities. I'm not sure it was a brilliant innings at bat by the Serbs.

Was the number of strike sorties the only measure of effectiveness used?

If not, what were the other measures of effectiveness and how did they turn out?

 

[MikeMcc]

Was the number of strike sorties the only measure of effectiveness used?

If not, what were the other measures of effectiveness and how did they turn out?

Against fixed infrastructure - fairly well (in military terms, not humanitarian), if you don't count the Chinese Embassy. Against mobile targets, not so well. The Serbians did exceptionally well using decoys to draw off attacks.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Yep, that was my impression also.

By keeping their 70's air defence kit in play as an active threat, and by dispersing their forces into difficult terrain, the Serbian military pretty much remained invulnerable to NATO air power. What NATO did manage to do was blow up a lot of civilian infrastructure for lack of any more relevant targets. That may have had some impact on the Serbian government, but my guess is that Russian arm-twisting had a lot more.

Now, translating those implications to an attack on Iran, the first thing that I notice is that most of the populated bits of Iran are fairly bumpy. So potentially an excellent place to preserve their military as a threat in being, in very much the same way that the Serbs preserved theirs. The US certainly can blast the shit out of their civilians from the air, but it's not going to be able to do anything much about their military, or the revolutionary guards, assuming they have the sense to disperse, other than blow up some empty barracks.

Given that the US is not in any position to mount a ground invasion, all they're going to therefore be able to do, I surmise, is smash up mostly civilian infrastructure and kill civilians.

Guaranteed to make a lot of people around the world and especially in Iran very angry, but in no way decisive.

 

[DownwardDog]

Was the number of strike sorties the only measure of effectiveness used?

If not, what were the other measures of effectiveness and how did they turn out?

It's a very good measure of the Serbs' AD efforts and demonstrates its relative lack of effectiveness. For clarification they did a bit better than the Iraqis in GW1 - 110,000 sorties and 37 fixed wing combat losses.

Also, it's a touch hyperbolic to describe the Serbian military as 'pretty much invulnerable' to the NATO air campaign. I was there and they didn't look invulnerable to me.

 

[Groucho]

You can see why. Iran keeps trying to buy a bunch of long range Russian air defence systems, the good stuff, which might give the US some problems in smashing their country to bits from the air. See e.g.

Why there will be no 'Desert Storm' over Russia

I agree but there's more to it imo. The more blockades and embargos and sanctions that are imposed the more chances of sanctions/embargo busting activities providing excuse for further tougher action....

 

[Groucho]

It's a very good measure of the Serbs' AD efforts and demonstrates its relative lack of effectiveness.

Also, it's a touch hyperbolic to describe the Serbian military as 'pretty much invulnerable' to the NATO air campaign. I was there and they didn't look invulnerable to me.

No, but there were problems. A lot of 'hits' were against decoys and 'erroneous' targets like journos and civilians and much military equipment was succesfully hidden. Serbia collapsed in the face of internal opposition that was pretty strong before the war started.

 

[kyser_soze]

Staying on the miltech hardon for a second...hasn't US satellite and surveillance coverage in theatre massively improved now, espeically with the introduciton of UAVs which IIRC were only being tested in Serbia? Just a mitigating factor there...

I still don't understand why Israel is allowed nukes while Iran isn't. I can't see that as fair. Admittedly, the Israeli nukes were developed in deep secrecy and we only know about them cos someone blew the whistle. Didn't the US help them build their nukes?
So I can't see any fairness in this.

Israel wasn't 'allowed' to develop it's bomb, it was able to maintain secrecy far better than Iran has had a chance to (no blanket global satellite coverage for starters) and while it had help from specific personnel within the US nuke program, it's main partners were France and South Africa. This article from FAS pretty much covers the basics about the Israeli nuclear program...I'd also recommend reading Seymour Hersch's book 'The Samson Option'...

 

[Bernie Gunther]

It's a very good measure of the Serbs' AD efforts and demonstrates its relative lack of effectiveness. For clarification they did a bit better than the Iraqis in GW1 - 110,000 sorties and 37 fixed wing combat losses.

Also, it's a touch hyperbolic to describe the Serbian military as 'pretty much invulnerable' to the NATO air campaign. I was there and they didn't look invulnerable to me.

Well, you were there and I wasn't, so perhaps you can clarify a couple of questions for me?

What was the impact on NATO tactics, of knowing that the Serbs had retained their SAMs and were trying to set up air defence ambushes?

What impact did this have on your ability to tell e.g. a tank from a tractor?

How many serb tanks were actually destroyed by NATO aircraft?

 

[kyser_soze]

What was the impact on NATO tactics, of knowing that the Serbs had retained their SAMs and were trying to set up air defence ambushes?

That's easy - Tornado pilots do the job they're supposed to and fly at treetop height, USAF pilots get to fly around at 50K ft...

 

[DownwardDog]

Well, you were there and I wasn't, so perhaps you can clarify a couple of questions for me?

What was the impact on NATO tactics, of knowing that the Serbs had retained their SAMs and were trying to set up air defence ambushes?

What impact did this have on your ability to tell e.g. a tank from a tractor?

How many serb tanks were actually destroyed by NATO aircraft?

1. None. All the planning was on the basis that the Serbs would have AD. The shit weather was a much bigger factor. However, as the Serbian AD became degraded toward the end of the conflict there started be fewer strike assets assigned to each target.

2. None.

3. 120+ was the figure I heard at the time. I personally saw plenty that had been brewed up.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Interesting. I know hundreds of tanks were claimed to have been destroyed, but I also seem to recall a much lower revised figure appearing afterwards.

 

[kebabking]

Interesting. I know hundreds of tanks were claimed to have been destroyed, but I also seem to recall a much lower revised figure appearing afterwards.

the confusion comes from NATO's inate caution about Bomb Damage Assesments. in effect NATO doesn't accept that a tank has been destroyed unless its in five million razor blade size peices spread over a square kilometer. everyone on the ground however knows that a tank is irrelevent if its crew have fcuked off, its got no fuel or ammunition or that sufficient minor systems have been degraded that its no use to man nor beast.

the issue with the Yugoslav Army in the field in Kosovo being 'immune' to air strikes is somewhat of a missunderstanding. yugoslav forces sat under a camo net or in someones barn doing nothing, having no radio contact and making no movement were able to avoid targetting, but they weren't achieving anything. in order to actually do anything that you pay an Army to do (like resistance to NATO ground forces or even evacuation) they would of had to give away their position by movement, electronic emission or fire.

an army in the field doing nothing, and more over able to do nothing without being destroyed, isn't an Army, its aggressive camping.

Field Army doing nowt and acheiving nowt but 'surviving'? Yugoslav Army in Kosovo. Field Army attempting to achieve something (anything) while under enemy Air superiority? Mutla Ridge.

 

[kebabking]

Main Battle Tanks - Abrams for the americans and Challenger 2 for us. Not totally immune to RPGs but enough to be able to respond with heavy firepower.

Black Watch had a Warrior AFV that had taken 19, yes nineteen, seperate RPG strikes and was still functioning.

we've lost one Challenger2 in the four years since Day1, and that was to another Chally in a 'freindly fire 'incident.

septics have lost about half a dozen M1's in the same period, mostly mobility kills rather than full brew ups.

MBT's have shown staggering ability to stand up to incredible damage, far greater than what was expected.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

<snip> the issue with the Yugoslav Army in the field in Kosovo being 'immune' to air strikes is somewhat of a missunderstanding. yugoslav forces sat under a camo net or in someones barn doing nothing, having no radio contact and making no movement were able to avoid targetting, but they weren't achieving anything. in order to actually do anything that you pay an Army to do (like resistance to NATO ground forces or even evacuation) they would of had to give away their position by movement, electronic emission or fire.

an army in the field doing nothing, and more over able to do nothing without being destroyed, isn't an Army, its aggressive camping.<snip>

Well, they weren't exactly 'doing nothing'. Most of the ethnic cleansing that NATO was nominally supposed to be preventing seems to have occured after the air-strikes started. The trouble is it's rather hard to prevent e.g. someone's farm being set on fire from the air, even when you're able to fly at a low enough level and speed to see what's happening on the ground.

 

[Fruitloop]

on which more here:

http://www.againstbombing.org/germanreport.htm

 

[kebabking]

Well, they weren't exactly 'doing nothing'. Most of the ethnic cleansing that NATO was nominally supposed to be preventing seems to have occured after the air-strikes started. The trouble is it's rather hard to prevent e.g. someone's farm being set on fire from the air, even when you're able to fly at a low enough level and speed to see what's happening on the ground.

the ethnic cleansing wasn't, in the main, being done with MBT's, AFV's, artillery and Mech Inf (which were doing feck all), but by wankers in civvy/civvy-ish vehicles - which due to the obvious risks of targeting innocents - you couldn't get an air strike onto (even though the operational pattern was blindingly obvious) even if you pleasured Mr Clinton in the most intimate way that a man can do.

there was a realisation early in political circles that the Airpower couldn't interdict the ethnic cleansing ops in Kosovo, but what it could do was make the policy so expensive to the Yugoslav state that it would decide to stop to ensure its own survival.

most of the AP people knew that long before, but obviously politicians take a little time to catch up.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Sure, but let's apply some of those lessons to the possibility of US air strikes on Iran. The Iranians can do as the Serbs did and disperse the military kit that air power might work against as far as possible. They'll still lose some bases and so on, but I bet they can keep a lot of it safe until they've got a use for it.

Meanwhile, I would think but please correct me if I'm thinking wrongly, what would actually present a real threat, e.g to the UK troops in Basra would be lightly armed troops who look like Iraqi civilians, and to shipping in the gulf, dispersed anti-ship missiles, mines and Revolutionary Guard nutters in small fast boats.

So what I'm sort of arguing by analogy with the Serb case is that if the Iranians are reasonably sensible about it, they can preserve the ability to cause all kinds of shit in retaliation, against even a heavy US air campaign.

 

[TAE]

there was a realisation early in political circles that the Airpower couldn't interdict the ethnic cleansing ops in Kosovo, but what it could do was make the policy so expensive to the Yugoslav state that it would decide to stop to ensure its own survival.

That's awfully close to using terrorism as a tactic.

 

[MikeMcc]

Sure, but let's apply some of those lessons to the possibility of US air strikes on Iran. The Iranians can do as the Serbs did and disperse the military kit that air power might work against as far as possible. They'll still lose some bases and so on, but I bet they can keep a lot of it safe until they've got a use for it.

Meanwhile, I would think but please correct me if I'm thinking wrongly, what would actually present a real threat, e.g to the UK troops in Basra would be lightly armed troops who look like Iraqi civilians, and to shipping in the gulf, dispersed anti-ship missiles, mines and Revolutionary Guard nutters in small fast boats.

So what I'm sort of arguing by analogy with the Serb case is that if the Iranians are reasonably sensible about it, they can preserve the ability to cause all kinds of shit in retaliation, against even a heavy US air campaign.

Pretty much, and with an incensed population following a US attack they would be capable of anything.

 

[kebabking]

Sure, but let's apply some of those lessons to the possibility of US air strikes on Iran. The Iranians can do as the Serbs did and disperse the military kit that air power might work against as far as possible. They'll still lose some bases and so on, but I bet they can keep a lot of it safe until they've got a use for it.

Meanwhile, I would think but please correct me if I'm thinking wrongly, what would actually present a real threat, e.g to the UK troops in Basra would be lightly armed troops who look like Iraqi civilians, and to shipping in the gulf, dispersed anti-ship missiles, mines and Revolutionary Guard nutters in small fast boats.

So what I'm sort of arguing by analogy with the Serb case is that if the Iranians are reasonably sensible about it, they can preserve the ability to cause all kinds of shit in retaliation, against even a heavy US air campaign.

kind of, but you've got to note the massive ISTAR effort the seppoes have been putting in for the last few years. very little in Iran has not been photo'd/radar'd everyweek for the last two years - stashing an anti-shipping battery in those conditions isn't easy - where as in the run up to Kosovo not a lot was done.

the problem - rather more of a problem than Iran's conventional/regular forces - of Iran's stoking of Shia Iraq in the event of 'operation persion freedom' getting the green light is why anyone with a brain is desperately trying to get the septics to wait till we've fcuked off out of Iraq.

i accept that they are going to do it, whether in a desert storm-type air campaign or rather more limited B-2/TLAM strikes, i'd just rather we weren't around to take the flak.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

kind of, but you've got to note the massive ISTAR effort the seppoes have been putting in for the last few years. very little in Iran has not been photo'd/radar'd everyweek for the last two years - stashing an anti-shipping battery in those conditions isn't easy - where as in the run up to Kosovo not a lot was done.

the problem - rather more of a problem than Iran's conventional/regular forces - of Iran's stoking of Shia Iraq in the event of 'operation persion freedom' getting the green light is why anyone with a brain is desperately trying to get the septics to wait till we've fcuked off out of Iraq.

i accept that they are going to do it, whether in a desert storm-type air campaign or rather more limited B-2/TLAM strikes, i'd just rather we weren't around to take the flak.

Yep, that's kind of what I was worrying about. Lots of angry Iraqi Shia plus the Iranians apparently division-sized special forces/light infantry formations sneaking in to help.

I wouldn't be too confident in the omniscience of US sensors either, given that the Israelis have stuff just as good that didn't seem to help them much with Hezbollah last year. Hezbollah only have a few thousand fighters too, whereas in this scenario we're talking about rather a lot more Iranians and a hell of a lot more Russian SAMs and Chinese anti-ship missiles with some extremely rugged looking terrain to hide them in.

 

[DownwardDog]

BG, you seem to want to find a good news story for Iran in all of this. Here it is:

Next year is an election year, there is NO WAY IN HELL the GOP are going to allow Bush43 to have a third war! It's just not going to happen.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

BG, you seem to want to find a good news story for Iran in all of this. <snip>

That is not quite my intent.

My intent is much like my intent before the invasion of Iraq, to point out that it is not in our interests to go along with this very stupid thing that the US wants to do.

 

[kebabking]

it is not in our interests to go along with this very stupid thing that the US wants to do.

wouldn't really disagree with you on the fundamentals, but i was wondering if you could give your assessment on a) whether us going along, or not, with OPF is going to have any effect on the nature of Iran's retaliation through both its own forces in Iraq and those of its proxies?

b) whether UK political, diplomatic or military participation in OPF is likely to be on Bush's 'things we must have before going to war with Iran' list?

c) whether a Franco/German-style refusal/opposition to OPF (and its attendant effect on UK/US relations - JSF, TBMD, Trident, SIGINT) would actually do more harm to the long-term national interests of the UK than being involved, to whatever degree, in an illconsidered, illtimed and probably counter-productive adventure in the sands of Persia?

'c' runs counter to your stated opinion, but i wonder if you could have a go anyway?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

wouldn't really disagree with you on the fundamentals, but i was wondering if you could give your assessment on a) whether us going along, or not, with OPF is going to have any effect on the nature of Iran's retaliation through both its own forces in Iraq and those of its proxies?

b) whether UK political, diplomatic or military participation in OPF is likely to be on Bush's 'things we must have before going to war with Iran' list?

c) whether a Franco/German-style refusal/opposition to OPF (and its attendant effect on UK/US relations - JSF, TBMD, Trident, SIGINT) would actually do more harm to the long-term national interests of the UK than being involved, to whatever degree, in an illconsidered, illtimed and probably counter-productive adventure in the sands of Persia?

'c' runs counter to your stated opinion, but i wonder if you could have a go anyway?

Sure, I'd be happy to have a go.

a) I think if UK forces are near Basra, it doesn't matter what we think about OPF, they're in the firing line for one of Iran's most obvious lines of retaliation. If they aren't, then I doubt that we'd be a priority target.

There's a wider issue though, the one that I started with, which is that backing Iran into a corner where they can only use terrorism/nukes to protect themselves is just stupid when it's perfectly obvious (I think I can demonstrate this if it doesn't sound plausible on first hearing) that they'd be quite happy to deal on the basis of sanctions being lifted for all kinds of agreements that would result in the world in general being a safer place.

b) Nope, I don't think the Cheney faction would give a shit about the UK.

c) Is a much broader question, because the assumptions I'd be starting from are not at all similar to those of most past or present members of our armed forces, but more like maybe what a Green Party defence minister (in the extremely unlikely event of such a creature ever existing) might want to see. So I'd be starting from the premise that our armed forces should actually be for defence of the interests of the average citizen, rather than for running around the world blowing shit up for the benefit of the US and the City of London. So all that strategic special relationship stuff would be much less important to me, because I'd like to see our armed forces become something more like the Swiss or Japanese self-defence forces.

Having said that, I expect the US would have a big sulk in the areas you mention if we refused to go along, but that special relationship seems to have subverted e.g. the spooks to the point where JIC and Downing Street were conspiring with the US loons to lie to us about WMD in order to involve us in a war that's self-evidently not in the interests of the average punter, so I don't see that as any particular loss.