Monday Morning Prep Fires, 24 July 06

Fiasco? Compared to what? Nothing I've seen so far says 'fiasco'. The Nievelle Offensive in 1917. That's a fiasco.

However, back to the capabilities of the IDF, I am curious too as to their ability to actually fight a sustained ground war, although frankly, I'm not sure just how good any of those Hezbullah people are, so maybe it doesn't matter.

The IDF has beat any conventional force that it's come across in the last 60 years or so, but that was then, this is now.

I guess we'll just have to wait and watch.

IDF is pretty good, they did Jenin better than I would have imagined possible, but it is a conscripted army which means that any long-term deployment is subject to all kinds of political factors.

Don't sell Hezbullah short. They've been fighting out of S. Lebanon for decades now, they know the terrain, and they know what they're doing. They did force Israel out in 2000, after all. The fact that they don't wear uniforms doesn't make them bad fighters.

Internal Israeli politics forced IDF out of Lebanon, not hizbullah fighters. Just about every able-bodied male and many women have had full military training and at the drop of the hat can assemble for equipment and deployment. Their reserves have engaged and dealt with terrorists, all of them, and not blizzards and floods like most our Guard. We are just guessing here but I have no doubt they could sustain a long campaign on the ground. Their standard Officer training is comparable to SEAL training and we know the quality of their small arms and tanks. They have the motivation we had immediately following 9/11 and Pearl Harbor and IDF is probably utilizing 30% of its full capability at present.

Defense-Update and Israeli Weapons

Goesh:
The internal Israeli political dissent you cite was created by Hezbullah's ability to maintain pressure on Israeli troops in Southern Lebanon over a protracted period of time.

Yes every able-bodied person in Israel can assemble for battle, but all those reservists do have actual non-military jobs, and prolonged mobilization would destroy (not damage, but destroy) the Israeli economy. Even mobilizing limited numbers of reservists in the past has been economically damaging. I'm not saying that Israel won't do it, but I am saying that there's a difference between having a theoretical capability and being able to action that capability for a prolonged, low-level engagement in a neighboring country.

I agree that the Israeli standard of training is exceptionally high, and that the Israelis know what they're doing perhaps better than any other Western army. That having been said, for Israel to "win" in S. Lebanon, they need to completely destroy Hezbullah. If a single Hezbullah fighter is left to gloat on tv at the end of the day, the street perception will be that Israel lost, regardless of casualty numbers or bits of territory "controlled". This is not a conventional war, Hezbullah is a 4th generation force and thus the conventional rules don't necessary apply in this war.

As for the motivation question, yes, Israel is extremely well motivated. I would say that the IDF is utilizing under the 30% that you cite. If Israel wanted to wipe Lebanon off the face of the map, it could easily. That's not the question though. Can Israel root out a 4GW actor from within a largely friendly population in a chunk of territory that has been prepped for the last two decades to pose all sorts of hazards to an invading force, and can Israel do this while taking only acceptable levels of casualties? It's a tough problem.

Just a note: I have relatives and friends in the IDF. A close friend of mine is an infantry sniper. I've shot with him before. I know how good the IDF is. I'm not trying to take cheap shots at the Israeli armed forces. I'm on Israel's side in this war. It's just going to be a much tougher fight than I think you're allowing.

When I was in artillery, a bunch of tanks lined up to invade would have been prime targets. Howcum rocket fire not aimed at these military targets??

Just askin..............

Why aim at a bunch of tanks when you can hit Haifa?

Because the civilians in Haifa arent going to be lobbing shells at you when they cross the border.

Belmont Club http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2006/07/path-of-idf.html has a great post and a map and a discussion going on about the path of the IDF over the border. That thread now is up over 300, but the first 150 gets into coordinates of the individual towns where these guys are fighting.

Here's a reprint, cause you have to read lots to get to good stuff. Also gives coordinates so you can plot for yourself on Goolge Earth. Major P, maybe this is what you are looking for. Lots of discussion around the one reprinted below.

Reprint:
xwraith said...

Hrm, I can see why they took the terrain that they did. Dug up an old topographic map of the border there and that is the highest ground for kilometers around. 943 meters by the map I have at Maroun al-Ras. to the south east of what looks to be the Israeli center it sounds like they took the next highest hill at 891 meters, and their left flank is probably anchored in the small town of Yaroun at 796 meters. Everything north and west of there is lower (valley) or with a peek altitude of no higher then 825. Assuming the map is correct, at least tactically, the Israeli's just took the high ground.

7:07 PM

Matthew:
I was half joking. The logical reason is that the way they're using Katyushas is very imprecise, just kind of firing them at an angle and hoping for the best. You can't hit point targets like that, but you can hit really big targets like cities.

I hear you loud and Clear, William. IDF rules the middle east, always has, always will.

Will,

Great observation, Understanding the enemy; from your point it brought several questions to mind.
Why aren’t the katyushas more accurate?
Are they just oversized RAP rounds out of control?
What is the point if they just go that-a-away, over yonder?
Even a half way thought through mortar trajectory math should keep something of a shot group down range no?
Does Hezbollah not have eyes and ears down range to be effective as F.O. for the rockets?
Why haven’t they targeted the Haifa port more or better to make it cost the Israelis?
How much help are they getting from the Iranians With regards to the rockets and implementing them? If quite a bit then I question the competence of the Iranians.
Indiscriminate firing seems amateur at best, yes it is cause for general fear and terror, however scary random is, deliberate and accurate is mortifying /devastating.
It appears the IDF AirForce is having an effect on rocket firing, seems to be whack-a- mole launching for Hezbollah no?

Saber 2

First of all, Katyushas aren't modern weapons. The ones Hezbullah are using date in their design to WWII. They were designed as mass fire rocket artillery, to be used for saturation bombardment. They were meant to be fired in volleys against an area, not specific targets. They're not like mortars, where you'd fire a couple, see where they land, adjust, fire a couple more. Your fire off a whole pisspot full of 'em, and you deny the use of an area to infantry or light vehicles.

Hezbullah is firing them singly to keep their troops dispersed. They're firing massive waves, but they're not truck-mounting them, which was how the Katyusha was designed to be operated.

The rockets hitting Haifa are the longer range Iranian Fajr-3, which are essentially up-ranged Katyushas. Again, they're designed to be used in a multiple launch system, which reporters aren't seeing, which would seem to indicate that Hezbullah has dispersed these as well. They can't target single point targets because that's not what these sorts of weapons are designed for. They're area saturation weapons -- that means fire up a hundred and hope for the best.

By the way, I don't think these tactics are amateurish at all -- they're very carefully calculated. You fire a Katyusha from a house then run. So when Israeli fire tracking radar vectors the IAF to bomb the house, there are only a couple poor civvies left hanging around. So the innocents die, which looks good for Hezbullah and bad for Israel on the news, and the fighters get away. The more dispersed their rockets are, the less a single Israeli airstrike can do.