THE WAY THINGS REALLY WORK: Why Baghdad Fell in 23 Days
December 29, 2003:
The 23 day campaign to defeat Iraq in 2003 is now being examined by all the participants to determine what made the big difference. Researchers at the Army War College did a study, interviewing 176 participants (including Iraqis) and concluded that the major factors were the new technologies (GPS smart bombs and satellite communications like Blue Force tracker) and the much higher skill levels of coalition troops. The Iraqis had expected smart bombs, but they were unable to cope with the sheer speed of the advance and the fighting. And when the Iraqis fought, and they often did, and quite steadfastly, the better trained American troops just blew them away. The Iraqis were in shock from all this, and after about 20 days, resistance collapsed. The word got around that to fight the Americans was to die quickly. Nothing worked against them, and they would keep coming at you and kill you.
This is nothing new to a military historian. The ancient Assyrians, Alexander the Great's Greeks, the Roman legions, the medieval Mongol army and the German blitzkrieg of 1939-41 were all examples of a "skill imbalance" (as the army researchers put it) that regularly brought the more skillful armies quick victories. The new technologies allowed the better trained coalition troops to move even faster and with more devastating effect. The "battlefield Internet," as best exemplified by the Blue Force Tracker, made it possible for the American commanders to always know where all the friendly troops were. This capability was unique in the history of warfare, and it took well trained officers to quickly adapt to this new tool. Same with the JDAM GPS (satellite guided) bombs, which got their first real front line workout in Afghanistan. The army also used new long range, GPS guided rockets for the first time, but their achievements were overshadowed by the JDAMs.
It's easy to assume that a bunch of new technologies will just come together fine the first time they are used in combat. Historically, such is not the case. It takes very well trained troops to get it right the first time with this new stuff. We tend to be fascinated with the technology and lose sight of how important the skill of the troops is. A common reaction among the 700 embedded reporters was along the lines of, "these guys are real pros." Yes they were, and that's why Baghdad fell 23 days into the campaign.
LOGISTICS: Speed and Iraq Supply Screw-Ups
December 29, 2003: An examination of the American logistical effort in Iraq revealed some embarrassing shortcomings. There were a lot of shortages and confusion in keeping track of supplies. It was expected that lessons learned from the 1990-91 Desert Storm operation, and new technology, would have eliminated most of these problems. But because the 2003 campaign was a lot different than the earlier one, such was not the case. In 1991, the United States had use of larger port and base facilities in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis had invested billions of dollars in these facilities, in case it might have to call on American military assistance when threatened by a stronger neighbor (Iraq and Iran being the most feared.) Kuwait had nothing like the Saudi facilities, and this made the American logistical effort much more difficult. But the biggest problem was that the fighting in 2003 was much more intense and fast moving than what took place in 1991. In 2003, most divisions marched, and often fought, nearly over 600 kilometers in 23 days. That's a remarkable campaign by any standard compared to other operations in the past century. In 1941, some German divisions advanced 700 kilometers into Russia in 29 days, and in 1944, some Allied divisions largely pursued retreating Germans 880 kilometers across France in 32 days, but both of these were seen as very exceptional cases. While the divisions in 1991 had about 30 days worth of supplies available to them in Saudi bases, the 2003 units only had 5-6 days worth. Worse, the 2003 Iraq advance was led by hundreds of M-1 tanks, that require about three gallons of fuel for each kilometer they move. But the biggest problem was the unexpected speed of the advance. The original plan called for it taking about 125 days to advance on Baghdad and take it. Good military planning always starts with the worst case, and 125 days of fighting was as bad as anyone thought it could get. The coalition force was well trained, professional and well led, and prepared to take advantage of enemy mistakes and weaknesses. Thus the ability to quickly turn the 125 day plan into a 23 day one. But this caused most of the logistical problems encountered. There simply were not enough trucks, supply dumps and support troops to support the 23 day campaign in as timely and sufficient manner as the original 125 day plan.
None of the shortages and delayed resupply efforts got any American troops killed. Anything like that would have been picked up by one of the 700 embedded journalists and turned into screaming headlines. But the troops were not happy with the shortages of fuel, food, spare parts and even ammunition. These problems slowed some units down and caused discomfort among the troops and lots of headaches for their officers. Congress and the media will make much about the problems encountered.
Fixing the problems is another matter. Logistics is a business of large numbers. For each soldier sent to a combat zone, you have to send at least a few tons of stuff along with him just to get him started. It's a lot more stuff it a heavy force (armored vehicles) in involved. Here we're talking over a hundred tons per trooper. And to keep each soldier fighting, it's going to take up to half a ton of newly delivered stuff per day. The air force does not have the transports to do it by air, unless you are fighting an Afghanistan style battle where your total ground force is less than 300 guys (the number of Special Forces and CIA paramilitaries in Afghanistan during the time it took to overthrow the Taliban.) So you have to move material by ship. That takes time, and you need ports to unload it quickly, places to park it, trucks to carry it to the troops and roads to move over. This is where the old military saying, "amateurs talk about tactics, professionals talk about logistics," comes from. There are no easy solutions.
ATTRITION: Friendly Fire Follies
December 29, 2003: American attempts to decrease or eliminate friendly fire incidents are running into three major problems.
The first one has to do with the fact that in the last three wars, U.S. troops were delivering the vast majority of the firepower. During Desert Storm in 1991, there were 500,000 American troops out there and 15 were known to have been killed by friendly fire (there were probably other cases, but in a battlefield situation, it's often very difficult to tell which side did the damage.) In the 2001 Afghanistan campaign, there were about 10,000 U.S. troops and eight confirmed friendly fire deaths. In Iraq during 2003, there were 200,000 U.S. troops and 17 known friendly fire deaths. One thing not represented by these numbers is the intensity of combat, which was far higher in 2003 than in 2001 or 1991. Moreover, the 2003 fighting was often in built up areas, making it easier to fire at the wrong target. The 2003 sand storms didn't help much either.
Second, any new identification technology has to operate without slowing down combat operations. When troops find a likely target, delays of seconds can be fatal to them. Also very dangerous are false signals. False positives (identifying enemy troops as friendly) means the bad guys have a better chance to get you. False negatives mean more friendly fire incidents. A lot of "friendly fire prevention" technology has been developed and tested since 1991. None of it proved ready for prime time. That said, one new set of technologies was developed in the 1990s that did reduce friendly fire incidents. This was the GPS (satellite guided) smart bombs like JDAM. These, combined with new equipment for the controllers on the ground made a big difference. The ground controllers now had special binoculars with built in laser range finder and GPS. Find the target with the binoculars, fire the laser range finder, and all of a sudden you have the GPS coordinates that the JDAM needs. For the past sixty years, infantry had been leery about calling in bombers because of the difficulty of accurately identifying the target for the pilots overhead. The new technology took a lot of uncertainly out of all this. Yes, there were still some friendly fire casualties with JDAM, but there were also a lot more bombs dropped close to the troops, but on the enemy. Many friendly troops owe their lives to JDAM, because without it, they would not have gotten those accurate bombs dropped when they most needed it.
The third major problem is the inherent chaos of the battlefield. Some of this has been removed with the introduction of battlefield Internet technology like Blue Force Tracker (which shows all friendly vehicles and groups of infantry on a computer screen, along with a map of the area). But when you get close to the enemy and start shooting, things were often moving too fast for Blue Force Tracker to keep sorted out. At that point it was mainly the superior training and discipline of American troops that prevented a lot of friendly fire. In built up areas, be they a Afghan fortress or a major city, things get even more confused. And then there are often "no-win" situations where a commander either advances quickly against an enemy force, and risks more friendly fire, or takes more casualties because the enemy is left in a better position, or simply because the battle will last longer.
All of this is further complicated by the problems created when members of Congress decide to make an issue of friendly fire and "do something about it." Very few members of Congress have any combat, or even military, experience, and often are dismissive when combat officers try to explain the inherent problems. This is why one of the least popular assignments a military officer can get is in Washington, dealing with Congress. While most members of Congress will sit down and try to understand, it's the few who won't, and are determined to "make changes" regardless of whether these new procedures will kill more American troops in the future. You could consider this just another form of friendly fire.
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