# The War's Tactics and Strategies **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 25, 2003, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wars-tactics-and-strategies/164005 "2003-03-25T12:53:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2003, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wars-tactics-and-strategies/164005/41 "2003-03-28T17:48:28Z")
> [@](#): > > The irregular army war – that’s the one we can’t win. The one where the enemy plays to his strengths by going urban and without uniform. This won’t happen. You can’t have a guerrilla campaign over the long term without a secure line of supply. They can’t get one at all. If they don’t have the cooperatio of the populace (and it appears in most places they don’t.), then they are screwed. Period. [quote] I don’t know King, privately the Army generals have been saying all along we don’t have enough ground troops. Evidently Rumsfeld fell for the newest “oldest trick-in-the-book” that air power would win the battle all on its’ own. Bush would just shake his fist at Iraq and everyone would surrender. [quote] Since they had another 100,000 troops ready to go after one week of campaigning, I would assume that Rumsfeld prepared for that eventuality. Regardless, since we’ve taken half of Iraq and many of the critical sites in North and Western Iraq, we’ve been doing damned well. Also, I point out that the strategy was to roll fast and far into Iraq without a huge bombing prelude. Therefore, Rumsfeld probably didn’t count on that bombing prelude leading to surrendur. In any event, the militry never predicated its plan on the Iraqi Republican Guard surrenduring. ---
**Author:** ![AZCowboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/97f17d/32.png) [@AZCowboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AZCowboy)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2003, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wars-tactics-and-strategies/164005/42 "2003-03-28T17:52:04Z")
**smiling bandit** , I’m not following your logic when you say, “You can’t have a guerrilla campaign over the long term without a secure line of supply.” Since the guerillas can blend into the civilian population, your statement only seems to be correct if the civilians don’t have supplies either (unless your only talking about ammunition). Am I missing something? ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wars-tactics-and-strategies/164005/43 "2003-03-29T22:17:01Z")
Fear not, fellow citizens. [Donald Rumsfeld is at the helm](http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=1521&e=4&u=/afp/20030329/pl_afp/iraq_war_us_planners_030329210803): > [@](#): > > NEW YORK (AFP) - Senior US war planners have accused Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld of “micromanaging” operations in Iraq (news - web sites) and ignoring recommendations from military officials. > > “He thought he knew better. He was the decision-maker at every turn,” one senior planner told the New Yorker magazine, in its edition to be released Monday. > > Planners with the Joint Chiefs of Staff had recommended deploying four or more Army divisions, which Rumsfeld rejected, the report said. > > Their plan also called for shipping by sea hundreds of tanks and other heavy vehicles – enough for three or four divisions – in advance, but Rumsfeld chose to rely on equipment already in Kuwait, which was enough for one division, the report said. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wars-tactics-and-strategies/164005/44 "2003-03-29T22:29:55Z")
I think the Iraqis are counting on summer. If they can hold out long enough, it’s gonna get damned hot. I heard this discussed on NPR, and a Admin guy pooh-poohed that idea, pointing out that the British had worked and fought under such conditions. Now I’m not saying that our guys aren’t as tough as the Limeys but there’s a catch. Those bio/chem suits. They are closed environments, are they not? In very hot weather, the very optimum conditions for heat stroke. Well, they don’t have to wear them all the time, do they? No, they don’t. But every time the Iraqis lob a Scud, or scud like missile, or do anything that bluffs like a chemical attack, we will be scurrying to put them on and keep them on as long as a presumed threat exists. The Iraqis wont be constrained in that way, they will _know_ there isnt any chemical/bio threat. Bio threat will be worse, it will be hours before an all clear can be safely sounded. So…bluff the Americans into wearing thier suits, wait until they start to keel over. And then attack. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2003, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wars-tactics-and-strategies/164005/45 "2003-03-29T23:27:14Z")
This just in, via Drudge, from my most recent favorite reporter of all time, Seymour Hersh, mild mannered reporter for a great metropolitan magazine, _The New Yorker_ [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48265-2003Mar29.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48265-2003Mar29.html) "Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly rejected advice from Pentagon planners that substantially more troops and armor would be needed to fight a war in Iraq, New Yorker Magazine reported. “… Rumsfeld insisted at least six times in the run-up to the conflict that the proposed number of ground troops be sharply reduced and got his way.” …“They’ve got no resources. He was so focused on proving his point – that the Iraqis were going to fall apart,” sez source. “Much of the supply of Tomahawk cruise missiles has been expended, aircraft carriers were going to run out of precision guided bombs and there were serious maintenance problems with tanks, armored vehicles and other equipment, the article said.” ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wars-tactics-and-strategies/164005/46 "2003-03-30T00:15:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by elucidator \* > \*\*This just in, via Drudge, from my most recent favorite reporter of all time, Seymour Hersh, mild mannered reporter for a great metropolitan magazine, _The New Yorker_ > > [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48265-2003Mar29.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48265-2003Mar29.html) > > "Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly rejected advice from Pentagon planners that substantially more troops and armor would be needed to fight a war in Iraq, New Yorker Magazine reported. > > “… Rumsfeld insisted at least six times in the run-up to the conflict that the proposed number of ground troops be sharply reduced and got his way.” > > \*\* This can’t be right because I, myself, heard Rumsfeld refer to the scheme as “Gen. Franks’ Plan” just yesterday. Wasn’t it JFK who said that success has many fathers but … ? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wars-tactics-and-strategies/164005/47 "2003-03-30T00:20:19Z")
Well, that could be. This fellow Hersh has a history of making wild accusations. Why, just the other day Richard Perle threatened to sue him for suggesting that Perle had some conflict of interest. I have even read him suggesting that our Fearless Misleader oftimes does not convey the whole truth. No, really! ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wars-tactics-and-strategies/164005/48 "2003-03-30T04:41:45Z")
And thanks to CNN, I was just reminded of [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=135305) from last fall. As you may recall, the military wisely decided to run some war games to see how this whole Iraq invasion thing would play out. The guy they hired to command the pretend Iraq, a retired Marine general, ran a guerilla campaign, suicide bombers, etc. The U.S. brass ruled that was out of bounds, resurrected the forces the “Iraqis” had destroyed, and merrily went about their plans. The ex-Marine quit in disgust. Some of the comments of certain posters in that thread strike me as, oh, I don’t know . . . _interesting_: > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Scylla \* > I see no problem here. Clearly we learned a valuable lesson. > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Kn_ckers \* > Unfortunately, I don’t think they got anything out of the exercise. Perhaps this is a a sensationalist story, and I am misinterpreting what happened, but it looks to me as though the military has, as usual, closed its mind to any war tactics it doesn’t understand. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by robertliguori \* > I’m not too worried. If we ever did invade, and any tactics that Van Riper used were used, then I expect that many people in the military command structure would have their heads handed to them. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jojo \* > Like everyone else, I enjoyed this story immensely but I do have some sympathy for the military’s argument that “that would never happen”. > > Assuming the defending army were Iraq, I don’t think Iraq would have enough personnel willing to mount suicide attacks on that kind of scale just in order to protect Saddam’s ass. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Stinkpalm \* > Uhh, I hate to point this out to all the big brains that are taking shots at the US Military on this thread, but in case you didn’t notice, the American military beat the American military. Iraq didn’t beat anyone. It was our own people playing against our own people. It was “Free Play” so both sides were playing to win. Yes they changed the rules mid game, but the cash that had been laid out was already spent and, as has been pointed out, they decided to get the most for the money. > > Van Piper was an American general ordering Americans that were on his team. Just so happens that he was the coach on the winning team. > > I really don’t see how we “lost” anything. > > Look at the big picture guys. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RickJay \* > Yawn. > > Look, guys, a military exercise is NOT a video game. Exercises are typically more to practice command and control than they are to test strategy and tactics. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Wabbit \* > Amen **Derleth** –I’m thinking most of the shmoe’s playing on our side haven’t seen a ‘real’ war and are thinking this one’s going to be a cakewalk like the Gulf War was. > They should be looking at what happened in Somalia instead. Amen, **Wabbit**. (And I note that the linked thread has now been revived in the Pit. Might be some interesting further conversations, in light of current events and lessons apparently _not_ taken to heart.) ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wars-tactics-and-strategies/164005/49 "2003-03-30T05:08:40Z")
Minty: I think we did learn something. We seem to be very careful about our ships in the gulf, and especially diligent about small “civilian” type craft. Consider me vindicated (and my statement is general enough to be inherently defensible.) ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wars-tactics-and-strategies/164005/50 "2003-03-30T06:54:39Z")
Good to know the war is going so splendidly. Thanks, Scylla! ---
**Author:** ![CyberPundit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/76d3ee/32.png) [@CyberPundit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CyberPundit)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2003, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wars-tactics-and-strategies/164005/51 "2003-03-30T07:14:46Z")
Yes the Hersh article sounds interesting. I find it surprising that the backbiting has started so early. Despite the higher-than-expected resistance I thought the war had gone reasonably OK from a purely military perspective. Howerve the article identifies some potentially serious problems at least in the short run: “Much of the supply of Tomahawk cruise missiles has been expended, aircraft carriers were going to run out of precision guided bombs and there were serious maintenance problems with tanks, armored vehicles and other equipment, the article said”. I still think the US will win relatively easily in the end at the purely military level, but every week that the war goes on will create problems in the region and if it lasts for months, as some people are suggesting, it could be disastrous. One big worry is a surge of Islamic extremists who slip into the country to carry on guerilla warfare against the US with suicide tactics even after the war is technically over. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-wars-tactics-and-strategies/164005.md?page=2)