I am sorry Fox newsman Greg Kelly got hurt in Iraq - but shut up, already.
But I am really, really, really, really, really, really, really sick and tired of hearing every Fox news anchor roll tape and tell me that Greg Kelly got hurt in Iraq today - over and over and over and over again, every 10 minutes without surcease.

More navel-gazing by the American media: what happens to reporters is more important than anything else.

by Donald Sensing, 3/31/2003 07:02:32 PM. Permalink |   

A grim warning
The Command Post quotes a warning from Lebanon's Monday Morning:

The Arabs are opposed to the regime of Saddam Hussein, but this does not mean they are pro-American. And if the Iraqi opposition is dealing with the Americans today, it is because this is the only way they have of removing the Iraqi president.

This is a point I have made several times. I still think that when we have accomplished our military objectives in Iraq, we will be endlessly frustrated by the political objectives of a post-conflict Iraq.

by Donald Sensing, 3/31/2003 06:33:26 PM. Permalink |   

Objective Pussy Galore
That is the name of one of the military objectives of the Brits' Operation James (after James Bond). An excellent first-hand account of an attack by the Royal Army's 40 Commando includers these tidbits:

OPERATION James - named after James Bond with targets called Blofeld, Goldfinger and Pussy Galore - kicked off in the early hours. . . .

While we had been engaging, Challengers charged east along the main road into Basra five kilometres south, destroying everything in their path. They then halted and regrouped under the cover of a heavy artillery and mortar barrage. . . .

As we passed civilian houses, nervous inhabitants looked out to catch a first look at the foreign soldiers on their land.

MOST seemed delighted to see us, and greeted us at first with smiles and waves.

Then, when they grew more confident, they began to say in what English they could muster "Welcome", "Good, mister", "Thank you", and "What's your name?"
. . . But Iraqi Abu Jawad, standing near British tanks at a checkpoint outside Basra, spelt out a grim warning.

He said: "People see this as an occupation. If the government gives us weapons we will fight."

by Donald Sensing, 3/31/2003 06:10:24 PM. Permalink |   

Iraq to become "Little America"
That's what the UK Daily Mirror breathlessly exclaims.

Every aspect of Iraqi life will be affected. There are even proposals to draw up a “politically neutral” school curriculum and replace the Iraqi dinar with the dollar.

The aim is to create under the USAID agency an open society modelled on Western democracies.

And they say it like it's a bad thing. . . .

by Donald Sensing, 3/31/2003 06:02:48 PM. Permalink |   

Arnett lands new job
Reuters reports that the UK's Daily Mirror has hired Peter Arnett. The Mirror is as far-Left as any rag in England. Peter will feel right at home.

by Donald Sensing, 3/31/2003 05:50:29 PM. Permalink |   

"We don't want peace. We want the war to come."
This was the astonishing statement made by an Iraqi man, in Iraq, to a human shield pastor who finally came to a true epiphany moment.

I had been demonstrating against the war thinking I had been doing it for the very people I was here with now and yet I had not ever bothered to ask them what they wanted.

What they wanted was to be rid of Saddam's regime of terror even at the cost of war. Visiting members of his own extended family, the pastor was told,

"Life is hell. We have no hope. But everything will be ok once the war is over." The bizarre desire for a war that would rid them of the hopelessness was at best hard to understand.

"Look at it this way. No matter how bad it is we will not all die. We have hoped for some other way but nothing has worked. 12 years ago it went almost all the way but failed. We cannot wait anymore. We want the war and we want it now"

This article is a must-read. Click here. Hat tip: Winds of Change.

by Donald Sensing, 3/31/2003 04:45:09 PM. Permalink |   

Baseball is back!
Hallelujah! And serious baseball fan Joe Katzman, founder of Winds of Change, has a few choice words, including verses on whjy "baseball is forever." A really welcome break from war news - thanks, Joe!

by Donald Sensing, 3/31/2003 04:34:18 PM. Permalink |   

Vacuum packing Iraqi troops? No.
How tankers have fun with reporters

Sgt. Stryker quotes a Reuters story of a street battle in Kifl:

The officers said the tank unit fired two 120 mm high velocity depleted uranium rounds straight down the main road, creating a powerful vacuum that literally sucked guerrillas out from their hideaways into the street, where they were shot down by small arms fire or run over by the tanks.

And the reporter bought it! I am imagining a conversation going something like this:

Reporter: So in this fierce battle, how did you smoke those guerillas out of their holes?

Tanker: Well, we tried the machine guns, but that was no good 'cause we couldn't see 'em flop around when they got hit. They were hidden, ya know. Then we tried high-explosive rounds, but that made a lot of smoke and dust. By accident, we loaded a DU long-rod penetrator round in the gun instead of HE, and when we fired it sucked all that smoke and dust right out of there in a heartbeat!

R: So that gave you the idea?

T: Oh, yeah! I said to Lem, "Lem, pop a couple of those DU rounds down the street and let's see what happens." (Tanker observes the reporter's slack-jawed, gauzy-eyed look and knows he's got him hooked.) Yep. We shot those rods down the street and the New York sanitation department couldn't have vacuumed the gutters up better. You know that Hewlett-Packard ad on TV when the bag guy is picked up by a cursor arrow and dragged down the street into the paddy wagon? This was better! Those fedayeen sailed through the air like Hulk Hogan was on a rampage! That DU vacuum slurped those guys up like a kid getting the last drop of a McDonalds milk shake! Then heck, we coulda shot 'em with our pistols if we wanted, but it was more fun to rake 'em with fifty-cal.

Reporter: Is all that for real? Really?

Tanker: Seriously. You write it up just like that. Guaranteed Pulitzer for you. Really. I mean, would I steer Reuters wrong? Would I?

A few notes: the depleted uranium (DU) round used by the Abrams tank is a solid rod, shaped like an arrow. It weighs about 10 pounds. There are other components, too. See here. The round's muzzle velocity is pretty close to a mile per second. But does it make a giant sucking sound? No.

In all the tank tables I have observed, I have never seen any sort of vacuum effect from the fired rounds. A tank table is a set of live-fire targets for training. Not even dust or pieces of paper got sucked up into the air as the round went by. I once had the chance to receive some training as an Abrams gunner by a National Guard master trainer, and he never mentioned such a thing.

Ten pounds of DU or anything else going by at a mile per second will not even suck a cat up from the ground and throw it several feet. Think about this: a man of say, 150 pounds, requires tornado-strength winds to be thrust aloft. If a tank round created that kind of wind, it would also knock down a few walls from atmospheric overpressure. At the least, every window down the street would have exploded outward.

It's a mighty selective vacuum effect that picks up guerilla fighters, but not cowering children and women or stray cats and dogs, and throws them into the street.

What I think we read in the story is how tankers have fun with reporters. Ah, treadheads, what a playful lot!

by Donald Sensing, 3/31/2003 02:03:07 PM. Permalink |   

War protest auditions and the Michael Moore fan club

When antiwar demonstrators gathered outside the Fox News building in Manhattan, the network's outdoor news zipper replaced its headlines with taunts:

"War protester auditions here today. . . . Thanks for coming!" And: "How do you keep a war protester in suspense? Ignore them." And: "Attention protesters: The Michael Moore Fan Club meets Thursday at a phone booth at Sixth Avenue and 50th Street."

Unfair and unbalanced? "I thought I'd have some fun with it," says Fox zipper-writer Marvin Himelfarb, a former Hollywood screenwriter. "I couldn't resist."

This is from an article that examines reportage of the war, with emphasis on how embedded reporters are doing. All in all, a pretty good article, showing some exasperation among embedded reporters with the commentati criticizing them and the war from the safety of TV studios.Said CBS News' Jim Roberts, embedded with the 1st Marine Division,

"Let them try not showering for a week, sleeping out in the desert, living through sandstorms, being under fire -- I don't see these people out there. All they do is criticize."

Hat tip: Bill Hobbs.

by Donald Sensing, 3/31/2003 01:28:45 PM. Permalink |   

Soldiers and Marines
Attention all news reporters: soldiers are not Marines. Marines are not soldiers. Do not use the terms interchangeably.

Members of the U. S. Army are soldiers. Usage: "Sgt. Smith is a soldier in the U. S. Army. He is an Army soldier." Note that "Army" is capitalized on all usages when referring to the U. S. Army.

Members of the U. S. Marine Corps are Marines. Usage: "Sgt. Jones is a members of the U. S. Marine Corps. He is a Marine." Note that "Marine" is capitalized when referring to U. S. Marines.

Absolutely no one in the armed forces uses soldier and Marine interchangeably. When reporters do so (TV reporters being notorious about this error) it throws their loved ones in the States into a frenzy. In the past few days I heard reporters across networks and within the same network refer to "shallow graves of four Marines" or "shallow graves of four soldiers" found in southern Iraq. Congratulations, MSNBC, you just gave hundreds of thousands of civilians in the USA high blood pressure needlessly. Finally we learned that the dead troops were soldiers from the 507th Maintenance Battalion. (I think I recall the unit's number correctly.)

"Troops" is service-neutral and may be used generically to refer to Marines or soldiers. However, "troops" should not be used to refer to sailors or airmen.

British marines are members of the Royal Marines. Usage: "Capt. Blair is an officer of the Royal Marines. He is a British marine." Also, "His brother is in the British army." Note that for non-American forces, "marines" and "army" are not capitalized for American media unless included in the proper name of the service. Hence, "Royal Army," but "the British army." When writing for non-American media, follow their style guide.

by Donald Sensing, 3/31/2003 11:39:11 AM. Permalink |   

Roadside patriotism
Glenn Reynolds has some snapshots of road signs near Knoxville, Tenn., where he teaches. He says that, "God Bless Our Troops" and similar themes are quite common. Glenn says he thinks that "blue" states (majority Democrat) are just as publicly patriotic as the red states.

As I mentioned, my family and I spent all last week on spring break vacation. We visited southeast Pennsylvania, ranging from Gettysburg eastward to Philadelphia. We saw a lot of American flags and signs similar to the ones Glenn posted. I even saw one small business with a "US out of UN!" sign, a sentiment more commonly attributed to the South or West than the North. In any event, Pennsylvanians seem rock-ribbed American patriots to me, at least the ones where we visited, and my guess is that the rest of the state is the same way.

Is Pennsylvania "red" or "blue?" I don't even know. Right now it doesn't matter, anyway.

by Donald Sensing, 3/31/2003 11:20:46 AM. Permalink |   

Another good links page
This one from the law school of Lewis and Clark College. It is a page of links about the Iraq War. I found it in my referrer logs, since they list my site (inaccurately saying I was an intelligence officer, though. I was a field artillery officer.)

by Donald Sensing, 3/31/2003 09:38:25 AM. Permalink |   

Artillery fire heard on Baghdad's outskirts
And a basic cannon primer

A report on cable news said that incoming artillery has been heard today detonating on the outskirts of Baghdad. That places US forces very close to the city. The American self-propelled howitzer, the M109A6 Paladin (155mm shell), has a maximum range of fire of 22 kilometers (13.6 miles). There is supposed to be a rocket-assisted projectile that will range to 30 km, but I have never known these to be used. Firing this howitzer to full range is very tough on the recoil mechanism and the automotive section of the weapon, although both were upgraded from its predecessor. The M109 series dates from the 1960s, and there is only so far you can take it.

155mm artillery rounds are called "separate loading" ammunition, because the projectile and the propellant are issued and loaded separately. Tank rounds look like a giant bullet - the round and the propellant casing are all one piece. But 155mm guns achieve lesser or greater ranges by a combination of varying the elevation of the cannon tube and varying the amount of propellant used. The cannister of propellant has eight bags of propellant stacked inside it, wrapped in light cloth. Each bag is numbered and is called a "charge." Firing data sent to the guns includes the maximum charge to be used. "Charge six," for example, means use charges one through six and discard seven and eight, and they must be placed in the breech in the right order. The unused charges are taken by a cannoneer to a powder pit 50 feet behind the gun. They are periodically carefully burned along with paper or cardboard packing materials (excellent marshmallow roasting!)

There is a separate, flat green bag that is placed on top of the maximum charge used. This bag is filled with a flash powder that helps burn the last of the propellant before it leaves the tube. This reduces light signature of the gun which enhances the unit's survival. Flash ranging of enemy artillery has long been used to locate it.

The bottom of charge one has a flat red bag filled with an igniter compound. When the number one cannoneer places the propellant bags into the breech, he announces in a loud voice, "I see red!" to tell the section chief (the NCO in charge of the weapon) that the bags are in the right order. The red bag is ignited when the gun is fired; it basically explodes and evenly ignites the propellant. If the charges are placed in reverse order (known to happen in the fatigue of battle) all manner of problems result, such as a hung round when the projectile gets halfway down the tube and stops. This can cause the tube to explode because those burning gases have to go somewhere.

The last thing the cannoneer uses is a firing cartridge, basically like a big, blank pistol round. It is inserted into the center of the breech. When the gunner fires the cannon, the cartridge is fired into the red igniter bag, and things proceed rapidly apace from there.

Using all the propellant gives a higher muzzle velocity than using less. This enables either a greater range with the tube raised higher, or a lower, flatter trajectory with the tube raised not so high. Different terrain and the threat of enemy counter-artillery fire figure into this consideration. But higher charges also wear out the bore of the cannon tubes quicker, until eventually the propellant gases can "blow by" the round as it travels down the tube. Not only is this dangerous, it wrecks range and accuracy.

Therefore, the cannon tubes are replaced when they have fired a certain number of "effective fired charges." EFCs are computed based on each round's propellant charges used. Each charge has a fractional EFC assigned to it, and one job of the NCO in charge of each howitzer is to make sure that every round is appropriately recorded for his weapon.

When I served in a 155mm unit in Germany in 1983-1985, we used the M109A3 model. We had a propellant charge called "Charge 9 Super." I recall it was used to achieve the 22km range. It was a large bag and was just brutal on the carriage and hydraulics of the weapon. Section chief hated firing it because it condemned them and their soldiers to hours of frustrating maintenance. The weapon was never designed to handle that kind of recoil.

More about artillery tactics and ammunition later.

Update: I checked out the current propellant charges for the 155mm gun. There are four kinds of charges. Green bag charges range out to nine km but are not used for DPICM (bomblet) rounds. White bag charges range to 14 km and fire all rounds. There are two red bag charges, one ranging to 18 km, the other, Charge 8 S (Super?) ranging to 30 km with rocket-assisted projectiles.

by Donald Sensing, 3/31/2003 08:56:36 AM. Permalink |   

Peter Arnett - traitor
Arnett has given TV interviews to Iraq TV. That is to say, Arnett is the one being interviewed. Arnett said in clips broadcast on FNC that opposition to the war is growing in the United States and that he, Arnett, contributed to the opposition's growth. He also said that the first American war plan didn't work because of Iraqi resistance and that the allies are having to make up new plans.

I am not sure whether Arnett is a US citizen or not. If not, he should never be allowed to enter the US again. If he is a citizen, DOJ should consider charges of treason. This was absolutely out of line and went way over the line.

National Geographic, his employer, just issued a statement endorsing Arnett's interview.

Update, 3-31: Arnett has been uncermonioously sacked by NBC and Geographic.

by Donald Sensing, 3/30/2003 05:26:44 PM. Permalink |   

Why we fight
Chris Noble has three good shots that explain part of the story. These are good reasons, and I used the plight of the Iraqi people in my own writings on the war. But I also say that the primary objectives must be destruction of Iraq's WMDs and WMD programs and the prevention of their restart, and the severing of Iraq's connection to international terrorism.

by Donald Sensing, 3/30/2003 05:21:20 PM. Permalink |   

Six more weeks of war?
Austin Bay wargames the possibilities and concludes that five to six more weeks of war is the likeliest time fram, full aware that "history pummels guess work." See what you think!

by Donald Sensing, 3/29/2003 07:20:15 AM. Permalink |   

The Japanese wised up - let's hope the fedayeen don't
There is a similarity between the banzai charges of Japanese troops against US Marines and soldiers in World War II and the attacks of the Iraqi fedayeen the past week against American Marines and tanks. Both rely on spiritual power to prevail.

Until the last year of the war, senior Japanese commanders insisted that the superior spiritual power of Japanese troops could and would overcome American firepower. They understood quite well that they, the Japanese, suffered from a serious deficiency of weapons power, compared to the Americans. The Japanese soldier was equipped with a .25-caliber, bolt-action rifle. It had a shorter range and less stopping power than the basic rifle of American troops, the M1 Garand, a semiautomatic rifle firing the drop-'em-dead .30-06 cartridge. Japanese hand grenades were less powerful than the Americans'. The Japanese army simply did not do close-air support at all, and what attacks their aircraft made upon American shipping and forces were rarely coordinated with Japanese ground forces. The American air forces pretty much swept the Japanese from the skies by mid-1944, perhaps even a little earlier. So Japanese troops suffered terribly from well-coordinated and conducted close-air support, unopposed by Japanese air power.

Finally, Japan's senior generals wised up and figured out that mere moral courage and superior spiritual power (meaning for them the superiority of Japanese culture) were not going to win the day. Just before the battle of Iwo Jima, Gen. Kuribayashi expressly forbade banzai charges and actually ordered that no Japanese soldier was to die before he had killed either 10 Americans or one tank. He drilled and emphasized fire discipline, self-restraint and command and control at all levels. The result: Iwo Jima's defenders inflicted upon the US Marines one-fourth of all the casualties the Marines suffered in the entire war: 25,000 total, including 5,000 dead. One battle.

Okinawa's defense was similarly disciplined. The American Marines and soldiers paid dearly for every yard they advanced once they reached the line where the Japanese chose to defend from. Japanese air attacks, including kamikaze attacks, against the allied fleet were so relentless that the US Navy suffered more killed and wounded during the battle than either the Army or Marines. More than 72,000 Americans fell during the campaign from all causes.

Lee Harris wrote of the fantasy ideology of Islamists. Briefly, al Qaeda and their religious allies have not a real strategy for fighting America, they have spasms. Their attacks are not well integrated assaults meant to hit us where we are weakest, but highly symbolic gestures meant to reinforce the Islamists' own convictions of moral and spiritual superiority. They demonstrate, at least to themselves and their comrades, not that the US can be defeated, but that it can be hurt. Victory, if it comes, belongs to Allah anyway, and the eagerness with which so many Islamists embrace death is meant to prove their devotion to Allah, not their military prowess.

Hence we see fedayeen attacking Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles with rifles, riding in the back of pickup trucks. They are not truly hoping to destroy the tanks. They are proving to each other and Allah their moral and religious purity. In this regard they are similar to banzai-charging Japanese, though in an important respect very different: the Japanese really did have coherent military objectives and thought they could gain them, even though they mistakenly thought their perceived innate superiority would gain them. From all accounts, though, the fedayeen have no well-conceived objectives; they have only a belief in their spiritual purity.

The Japanese soldier was impelled by a religious faith, too: extreme devotion to the emperor. But there was no promise of reward in the afterlife to the Japanese. In Eastern religions generally, life after death is not envisioned as in either Christianity or Islam, both of which teach the prosperity of the individual's soul. Life after death in both those faiths is life after death as you, as me. But not in WW 2 Japanese bushido militarism. Life after death was thought of as existence of one's spirit in a great chain of ancestor spiritism. Heroic death was intended to honor not oneself, as it does for Islamists, but the emperor first of all, and one's family after that. The reward of such a death to a Japanese soldier was that one's ancestors would not be shamed, and that future generations would ritually honor him along with all the other ancestors. But the honoring was collective, not individual.

So when national disaster threatened Japan, they were able to shed the idea of cultural superiority as a battle tool. They still believed it, they ceased to rely on it in battle. A soldier could join the ranks of honored ancestors just as easily under the new rules as the old.

The Islamists have a different hurdle to overcome: for them two things combine to create a powerful disincentive to change tactics. First, they have a powerful notion of eternal, personal reward in heaven. Second, this reward is highly dependent upon the manner of their deaths. Dying as a jihadist martyr against infidels in Islam guarantees immediate admission into heaven, that's in the Quran. But to cast aside all care for one's earthly life, relying on on the spiritual power that Allah grants even it it bring death to the body - that guarantees the pinnacle of eternal bliss.

Of course, not everyone fighting against allied forces in Iraq are such fantasy ideologists. The regular Iraqi army and the Republican Guard seem not to be throwing their lives away for religious reasons. (Their tactical competence is poor, but that's not a religious matter.)

But the fedayeen keep doing the same dumb things over and over. Why don't they seem to learn from their mistakes? Perhaps because they don't see them as mistakes. The point is to die carrying the fight to the infidel enemy, no matter how ineffective the fight may be. We are not the point to the fedayeen except as the convenient infidels who help guarantee their admission to heaven.

The Japanese wised up. Let's hope the fedayeen never do.

by Donald Sensing, 3/28/2003 09:16:11 PM. Permalink |   

Commies, peace and justice
Bill Hobbs exposes the connection between Nashville's Peace and Justice Center (guess what - antiwar) and the Communist Party of the USA. The P&J; Center is the agency which a lady represented when she and I participated in a panel discussion on March 12. In honesty, Jane was certainly Left, but sure did not seem like a communist to me; heck, she wasn't even pacifist by her own admission. She just didn't think war was the right solution for dealing with Iraq.

Be that as it may, the Commies aren't the only organization with which the NPJC has a relationship. It is also affiliated with the Tennessee Conference of the United Methodist Church. Today the bishop of the Tenn. Conf. sent an email to all pastors saying that based on the revelation of the CPUSA's relationship with NPJC, the Conference is re-examining its own relationship with it. (A "Conference" is to the UMC as diocese is to the Roman Catholic Church - the geographical area under the authority of a bishop.)

BTW, the bishop's son is a soldier in the 101st, so I imagine that this issue is not merely academic for him.

by Donald Sensing, 3/28/2003 07:06:13 PM. Permalink |   

Hey, I'm in the WaPo!
Amazing what you can find from your referrer logs. I see that One Hand Clapping is listed in this Washington Post article about weblogs. Note, though, the writer's skepticism about me:

One Hand Clapping: A blog written by Donald Sensing, a former U.S. Army artillery officer and military public affairs staff person. He is currently a pastor in Tennessee, according to his site.

"According to his site," as if my own site might be wrong about me. And actually, OHC has not a syllable about the fact that I am a pastor, To learn that, you have to click either the "My bio" or "Where I work" links in the left-hand column. But I suppose that's a minor nit to pick. It is good to have the link there. Many thanks to whomever sent them my link!

So, welcome all WaPo readers! I am actually on vacation this week and blogging only occasionally. I'll be back online in full on Monday, March 31. In the meantime, please see my "best of" essays.


by Donald Sensing, 3/28/2003 05:19:41 PM. Permalink |   

On vacation - see you rarely
I am not really able to enjoy my vacation with family and do any decent blogging. Family wins. Thank you for reading, see you rarely between now and Monday!



by Donald Sensing, 3/27/2003 08:38:59 PM. Permalink |   

Hating Saddam is not the same as loving America
I pointed that out a long time ago, but it seems to be a new discovery for mainline media. Says Newsweek:

American administration officials and sympathetic pundits fundamentally miscalculated by believing that, as some exiles told them, because the Iraqi people hate Saddam, they would love their American "liberators." "That’s where you went wrong," a Lebanese friend tells me, summing up sentiments I’ve heard all over the Arab world, "The Iraqis do hate Saddam—but they do not love you."

But the media swoop from one extreme to another. They related the scenes of Safwan Iraqis joyously welcoming American troops, giving the media their Sally Field moment: "You love us, you really love us!" Then came the scenes of hungry Iraqis eagerly accepting American rations while chanting how much they loved Saddam.

Omigosh, said the media (Newsweek leading the charge), they hate us, they really hate us. Did it not occur to anyone that the scenes of pro-Saddam chanting coincided almost exactly with the departure and southward movement of a large column of fedayeen from Basra toward Safwan? Might the fact that Saddam's enforcers were visibly en route have had something to do with the Safwanis' chant change?

As far as the Iraqi people are concerned, the issue is still in doubt. So they have an approach-avoidance syndrome kind of behavior, and that leads them to love whomever seems to be on top at the moment. Which of course makes them no different than the New York Stock Exchange.

Update: Glenn Reynolds reports that Basra residents are directing Brit troops to Iraqi military and fedayeen positions as well as Baathist party offices.

by Donald Sensing, 3/27/2003 08:38:04 PM. Permalink |   

More on precision bombing then and now
Some controversy was generated on my post about how inaccurate American bombing really was in World War II. Now George Will has a few words to say:

John Warden, who was a U.S. Air Force colonel and an architect of air operations during the 1991 Gulf War, says that in the Second World War B-17s would have to drop 9,000 bombs to have a 90 percent chance of hitting a target one third the size of a football field. An Air Force historian says that when 108 B-17s with 648 bombs attacked a German power plant 400 feet by 500 feet, it was estimated that there was a 96 percent chance that two—one of 324—would hit the target. And when on June 15, 1944, 47 B-29s targeted a Japanese steel plant with 376 bombs, one hit the plant. No wonder that German and Japanese war production increased until very late in the war.

I stand by my original assertion that precision was a fantasy then.

by Donald Sensing, 3/27/2003 08:19:37 PM. Permalink |   

Blogging and operational security
Operational security, OPSEC, includes the protection from disclosure of information that would be useful to the enemy if the enemy learned it. News coverage of wartime operations always abuts OPSEC. In World War II American war correspondents complained just as loudly about being kept in the dark as they do today. They pressured Gen. Eisenhower so hard that at a news conference (none were live then, the technology didn't exist) Eisenhower told the reporters the date and location of the next allied landing in the Mediterranean - 30 days in advance!.

Then he told them, "For the next month you will bear the burden of the lives of thousands of American soldiers. It is the same burden that my staff and I bear every day, from now to the end of the war."

None of the reporters disclosed anything about the operation. One reporter, well known for his fondness for the bottle, was so shaken by the possibility he might cause American deaths by drunken ramblings that he hit the wagon for the whole time.

Many war bloggers have contacts within the military because many of us are retired military. Some are active-duty military still. Others have political contacts. What are our responsibilities for OPSEC?

I ask this question because I learned last Sunday that the 173d Airborne Brigade would move into northern Iraq. I know the aunt of a 173d officer. The aunt learned it from her sister, who learned it directly from her officer son. Son told mom, mom told sister, sister told me. I didn't publish it, considering it an OPSEC matter

Now I wonder why. Why did the blabbermouth captain tell his mother? Oh, I can answer the question sentimentally - don't want mom to worry when news reports break and all that. But really, he should not have told anyone.

OTOH, did the officer really break OPSEC? Maybe there was no restriction on the 173d's members telling their parents. Maybe that was just fine as far as the Army was concerned. After all, this NCO told me about his MLRS unit's upcoming deployment to Iraq. And I blogged that, too. Why that and not the 173d? I suppose because the MLRS unit's arrival was not imminent, and the paratroopers' operation was.

But I am not very sure I am obligated to protect information that the government apparently is not.

by Donald Sensing, 3/27/2003 08:02:55 AM. Permalink |   

More artillery on the way to Iraq
And armor is enroute to northern Iraq where the 173d Airborne just landed. Sorry, no attribution for this.

by Donald Sensing, 3/26/2003 09:28:05 PM. Permalink |   

Casualties
The reason I have been posting so little this week is that this week is spring break week for my kids, and we're on vacation. We drove to NC and picked up the Other Hand Clapping's father and the next day drove to northern Delaware, where lives my brother and family. Today we toured the Gettysburg battlefield. My father-in-law's grandfather was a soldier in the North Carolina infantry during the War of Northern Aggression. There are precious few people alive today who have spoken to a Civil War veteran, and dad-in-law is one of them. He was 13 when his grandfather died.

I'll not relate the details of the battle. There are ample sites to google to get that. But two events of the battle seem pertinent today. On the second day of fighting, July 2, 1863, the Union line was established along Cemetery Ridge, running south from the town of Gettysburg toward Little Round Top, a low hill. (The line also ran like a fishook around to the north and east from the town.)

Gen. Meade, the Union commander, sent III Corps under Gen. Dan Sickles to secure a 3/4-mile stretch of the line south of the town. Sickles had 10,000 troops and balked at the order. He felt his line was exposed to potential Southern artillery fire if the South took an undefended peach orchard to his front. So Sickles moved the middle of his line out to occupy the peach orchard, then slued the rest of his corps forward into the wheat field on one side and down a road on the other.

It was a lethal mistake for his corps. That afternoon, Sickles' corps got blasted by CSA Gen. Longstreet's troops. Of the 10,000 men in III Corps, 5,000 were lost - 50 percent. In one afternoon.

The next day Lee sent Longstreet's corps across a mile of open terrain in a frontal attack against the Union center. Pickett's division bore the brunt of the Union fire and was almost annihilated. Of the 12,000 men in the attack, 6,000 did not return. Again - 50 percent of the force. In one afternoon.

Altogether, the two armies lost 51,000 men in three days to death, wounds and disappearance. Many corpses lay on the battlefield for seven years, almost all Southern ones whom the locals were not motivated to recover.

I cannot fathom that kind of bloodshed by and American army again. Proportionately, the US forces in the Iraq War would lose about 70,000 - but the two armies then lost that percentage in only three days, and we have already been fighting a week.

The rate at which Pickett's division lost men would not be duplicated again until June 6, 1944, by the 29th Infantry Division stepping onto Omaha Beach. One of its battalions lost 95 percent of its strength in only 10 minutes or so.

Modern war is much less bloody than war has ever been, and not simply because precision weapons enable non-targeting of civilians. It is much less sanguine for the soldiers, too, including enemy soldiers. Don't get me wrong, based on news reports, I would say that a very large number of Iraqi troops died today, mostly Republican Guard and fedayeen.

But for the first time that I know of, the bloodiness of the war is being determined almost solely by one side's inability or unwillingness to face facts. The Iraqis who drove through the open country today south of Basra must have known they would be pummeled from the air. They had to know that. They chose their deaths, knowing they could not even hurt American forces.

They are choosing a Pickett's charge over and over again. But they don't have to.

More on the casualty bandwagon:
Now Mark Steyn weighs in on casualties:

Right now, there are so many civilian casualties that, as my compatriot Andrew Coyne puts it, ‘Robert Fisk can personally visit them all.’ But if this undue solicitousness has put our troops in more peril, it’s not that much more peril. In the first five days, ten US servicemen died in combat, enough to put the quagmire crowd back in business with headlines like ‘Bloody Firefights As Troops Push North’. Even as we honour their sacrifice, there’s something faintly ludicrous about the way the media are running around squawking ‘Bloody Death Toll Now Into Double Figures’. . . .

There are no ‘hundreds of thousands’ dead, for the obvious reason that the mightiest people-killing machine on the planet is going to an awful lot of trouble to avoid killing people.

He talks about other stuff, too, and like almost every word he writes, it's all first cabin.

by Donald Sensing, 3/26/2003 09:26:21 PM. Permalink |   

"The artillery conquers, the infantry occupies" - J.F.C. Fuller
I wrote next post down about a talking head type on cable news who castigated CENTCOM for not shifting bombing runs away from Baghdad to the Republican Guard. His criticism is invalid even if true. It is not limited-delivery Strike Eagles that are going to bring the hurt on the Republican Guard. It is the United States field artillery, both Army and Marine, that will do that. In particular, the Army's MLRS units will bring what my old first sergeant called, "major scunion" upon the enemy. MLRS is the most destructive battlefield weapon in the world today, surpassed only by the M1A1 US infantryman. Artillery fire will be incessant, all weather, and the Iraqis can't see it coming.

I do not denigrate tactical air power, as my long-term readers know. A few B-52 arc lights through the Guard positions would do wonders for closing the issue. But case in point: Last night a TV reporters was broadcasting from a 3ID infantry unit when Iraqi artillery rockets swooshed up from over the horizon. The reporter and the troops thought at first they were the target. (In battle, all shooting seems headed for you!) Within minutes (maybe only one or two), the camera rotated leftward and captured the MLRS return fire rocketing out. There was no more Iraqi firing. Warthogs and Strike Eagles cannot do that. The US Army's artillery does it all day long.

American artillery will really punish the Republican Guard. Remember what Gen. George S. Patton said after Germany surrendered: "I do not have to tell you who won the war. You know, the artillery did."

Here are some other artillery quotes, with a few good ones:

"Artillerymen believe the world consist of two types of people; other Artillerymen and targets."

"Leave the Artillerymen alone, they are an obstinate lot. . ." - Napoleon.

CANNON, n. An instrument employed in the rectification of national boundaries. - Ambrose Bierce

With Artillery, War is made. - Napoleon.

"If you don't have enough artillery, quit." - General Richard Cavasos

And a final word on General Tommy Franks from Napoleon: "The best generals are those who have served in the artillery."

by Donald Sensing, 3/25/2003 08:56:46 PM. Permalink |   

Talking head check
One thing to remember when listening to the Iraq war talking heads on the news shows is that many of them have a personal agenda in promulgating a particular point of view. One guy last evening named Pape of MSNBC was clearly promoting a book he'd written about air power. Others publish news letters or would like to be awarded DOD consultant contracts. That doesn't mean their analysis is no good, it may mean that their analysis is focused primarily on themselves rather than the wartime situation.

Pape spent a lot of time excoriating CENTCOM for not shifting the bombing away from Baghdad onto the Medina division and the other Rep. Guard division arrayed to the south of Baghdad. Clearly, it seemed to me, he was plugging his book on how no one but him understands air power today. In fact, Pape is as clueless as any other non-involved civilian about what sort of fires have been brought upon the RG units.

So listen with a grain of salt, and consider whether other interests are involved.

by Donald Sensing, 3/25/2003 08:53:42 PM. Permalink |   

"Iraqi head seeks arms"
That was a blooper headline from a few years ago. Now it seems things are the other way round: the Iraqi armed forces don't have a head. Mark Steyn says the Iraqi high command ist tot.

If ever there were a time for a "mother of all battles" speech, this is it. But there seems to be a noticeable lack of folks around to give it. Whether or not Saddam is dead or dying or hideously disfigured or lightly bruised or looking as relaxed and roguish as Jack Nicholson picking up a Lifetime Achievement Oscar, the rumours of his death have spread quickly around Iraq and the regime seems to be incapable of restoring the appearance of authority. Whether or not Washington succeeded in its aim of "decapitating" the regime, the Iraqis are doing an awfully good impression of behaving as if they're headless. The significant indicator is not the units that are surrendering, but the ones that are disbanding -- they've concluded they don't need the protection of the British and Americans to keep them safe from the regime's wrath, because the regime is no longer in a condition to enforce its wrath.

Which sounds an awful lot like what I wrote here.

by Donald Sensing, 3/25/2003 08:31:50 PM. Permalink |   

Sporadic posting this week
As I wrote yesterday, posting for the next six days will also be very sporadic as I attend to other business that will keep me away from my desk for most of every day.

In the meantime, please visit the links in the left column.


by Donald Sensing, 3/24/2003 04:42:36 AM. Permalink |   

A Prayer at Taps
In memory of the men who were killed in action or murdered today.

Before we go to rest we commit ourselves to thy care, O God our Father, beseeching Thee through Christ our Lord to keep alive thy grace in our hearts. Watch Thou, oh heavenly Father, with those who wake, or watch, or weep tonight, and give thine angels charge over those who sleep. Tend those who are sick, rest those who are weary, soothe those who suffer, pity those in affliction; be near and bless those who are dying, and keep under thy holy care those who are dear to us. Amen.

by Donald Sensing, 3/23/2003 10:16:21 PM. Permalink |   

No! The GPS Jammer does not matter!
Cripes, the GPS Jammer story is making its way around again. Scotching this story is like playing whack-a-mole. People - US designers aren't idiots!

I exposed this blasted hoax of a story here. Without using GPS at all today's guided bombs are able to miss by less than a meter. It's call INS, folks, Intertial Navigation System, and it backs up every GPS guidance system on bombs, missiles, rockets and aircraft.

CPO Sparkey, who has true professional credentials in this stuff, does a great job of explaining other angles.

The Russians are immoral weasels who have done other things truly bad, such as selling NVGs to Iraq, but with so-called GPS jammers, they're just screwing the Iraqis over and making a few bucks off them doing it.


by Donald Sensing, 3/23/2003 07:59:08 PM. Permalink |   

Punishing the killers of our POWs
When the day comes, we must make sure we don't botch the job of identifying, investigating, trying and sentencing the Iraqis who today did "willfully, deliberately and wrongfully permit, encourage, aid, abet and participate in the killing, shooting, ill treatment, abuse and torture of members of the armed forces of the United States of America," as the Germans accused of the Malmedy Massacre were charged and convicted. SS Lt. Col. Joachim Peiper and 70 members of his Kampfgruppe, "plus his army commander, chief of staff and corps commander, were arraigned before a U.S. military court. . . ."

The court of six American officers presided over by a brigadier general took an average of less than three minutes to consider each case. Forty-three of the defendants, including Peiper, Christ, Rumpf, Sievers and Sternebeck, were sentenced to death by hanging (Poetschke had been killed in March 1945), 22 to life imprisonment and the rest to between 10 and 20 years. "The Law of the Victors," as it has been called in postwar Germany, had prevailed. But none of the death sentences was ever carried out, and all the prisoners had been released by Christmas 1956. Peiper was the last to leave prison. Sadly, incomplete and rushed investigations, suspicions about the methods used to obtain confessions, and inadequate or flawed evidence ensured that guilty men escaped proper punishment, and there can be little doubt that some innocent men were punished during the trial. In the final analysis, justice itself became another casualty of the incident.

The Malmedy Massacre was the machine gunning of dozens of American POWs by German soldiers during the Ardennes Offensive. They were shot on Dec. 17, 1944, near Malmedy, Belgium, but the bodies were not recovered by American forces until mid-January. They had remained frozen in the snow the whole time.

Let's not botch this one.

by Donald Sensing, 3/23/2003 07:38:26 PM. Permalink |   

The Oscars
I am wondering what sort of anti-American diatribe the traitors Marxists of the American movie industry will say now that Iraq has murdered American POWs. I am not sure I am wondering enough actually to watch the wretched (and retching) event.

Update: Well, Michael Moore got booed for his anti-American diatribe, then played down by the orchestra. I wonder whether the murder of our POWs did serve to dampen the celebrities' anti-American passion for the evening. You can bet that they still hate President Bush just as much as before.

by Donald Sensing, 3/23/2003 06:55:11 PM. Permalink |   

Light posting today, very sporadic next week
I will be working from now until late this afternoon. Posting for the next seven days will also be very sporadic as I attend to other business that will keep me away from my desk for most of every day.

In the meantime, please visit the links in the left column.

by Donald Sensing, 3/23/2003 08:29:07 AM. Permalink |   

Sailors' and Soldiers' Prayer for Our Country
I mentioned last night for my closing prayer that I have a copy of "Song and Service Book for Ship and Field," a 1941 book published by the National Convention of the Chaplains of the Army and the Navy. It was issued to the members of the armed forces during World War II. Here is one of the prayers printed within, "Prayer for Our Country."

Almighty God, Who has given us this good land for our heritage, we humbly beseech Thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of thy favor and glad to do thy will. Bless our land with honorable industry, sound learning, and pure manners. Save us from violence, discord and confusion; from pride and arrogance and from every evil way. Defend our liberties and fashion into one united people the multitudes brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues. Endue with the spirit of wisdom those to whom in thy Name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that through obedience to thy law, we may show forth thy praise among the nations of the earth.

In the time of prosperity fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble suffer not our trust in Thee to fail. Amen.

Good night.

by Donald Sensing, 3/22/2003 10:06:52 PM. Permalink |   

The real interests of "peace" activists
Here is the money graf from a former human shield who saw the light in Iraq this year:

We on the bus felt that we were sympathetic to the views of the Iraqi civilians, even though we didn't actually know any. The group was less interested in standing up for their rights than protesting against the US and UK governments.

But then, we already knew that.

by Donald Sensing, 3/22/2003 09:53:05 PM. Permalink |   

New recruiting ads
I think the new TV recruiting ads for both the Army and the Marines are extremely good. I don't know whether the USN and USAF have new ones or not.

by Donald Sensing, 3/22/2003 09:48:53 PM. Permalink |   

Political Incorrectness runs amok!
I have previously urged you to read Lone Dissenter, whom I have added to my blogroll, because she cuts through the PC blather of a California high school.

Now take a look at what CPO Sparkey's Darling Daughter wrote for a weekend history-class assignment:

The way to peace is not through riots or the shutdown of San Francisco, California, but through the destruction of Saddam Hussein. Then and only then, will America and Iraq reach peace.

The chief adds, "Do you think her teacher will be suprised Monday morning?" Yeah, I guess.

by Donald Sensing, 3/22/2003 06:14:53 PM. Permalink |   

More on American bombing accuracy
Steve Quick has reasonably asked me to provide more citation of my claim about American strategic bombing in Europe during World War II:

American bomb wings were really conducting area bombing tactics; they just called it precision bombing. In all, according to the US Strategic Bombing Survey completed after the war, "2,700,000 tons of bombs were dropped [on Germany], more than 1,440,000 bomber sorties" were flown. Yet the survey reports that "only about 20% of the bombs aimed at precision targets fell within [the] target area."

As I indicated, the figures were determined by the United States Strategic Bombing Survey, conducted by the US Army Air Corps from 1945-1947. Here is the link and a fuller quotation:

A word needs to be said on the problem of accuracy in attack. Before the war, the U. S. Army Air Forces had advanced bombing techniques to their highest level of development and had trained a limited number of crews to a high degree of precision in bombing under target range conditions, thus leading to the expressions "pin point" and "pickle barrel" bombing. However, it was not possible to approach such standards of accuracy under battle conditions imposed over Europe. Many limiting factors intervened; target obscuration by clouds, fog, smoke screens and industrial haze; enemy fighter opposition which necessitated defensive bombing formations, thus restricting freedom of maneuver; antiaircraft artillery defenses, demanding minimum time exposure of the attacking force in order to keep losses down; and finally, time limitations imposed on combat crew training after the war began.

It was considered that enemy opposition made formation flying and formation attack a necessary tactical and technical procedure. Bombing patterns resulted -- only a portion of which could fall on small precision targets. The rest spilled over on adjacent plants, or built-up areas, or in open fields. Accuracy ranged from poor to excellent. When visual conditions were favorable and flak defenses were not intense, bombing results were at their best. Unfortunately, the major portion of bombing operations over Germany had to be conducted under weather and battle conditions that restricted bombing technique, and accuracy suffered accordingly. Conventionally the air forces designated as "the target area" a circle having a radius of 1000 feet around the aiming point of attack. While accuracy improved during the war, Survey studies show that, in the over-all, only about 20% of the bombs aimed at precision targets fell within this target area. A peak accuracy of 70% was reached for the month of February 1945. These are important facts for the reader to keep in mind, especially when considering the tonnages of bombs delivered by the air forces. Of necessity a far larger tonnage was carried than hit German installations.

I added the italics. The Survey also notes that no American bombing through the first half of 1943 had significant target effects.

Some calculations: Consider a 700-plane raid of B-17s against central Germany. The normal bomb load for that aircraft was 12 500-pound bombs of the kind we now call "dumb" bombs. That's 8,400 bombs on the raid altogether. Some aircraft would not make it to the target for various reasons, but let's assume for illustration that they do. Of the 8,400 bombs dropped, only 1,680 would even hit within 1,000 feet of the aim point's center. The other 6,720 bombs were ineffective and killed civilians, cows, trees or just made big holes in non-target buildings or the ground.

I stand by what I said: American bombng in World War II was not precise and immediately after the war not even the Air Force claimed it was.

by Donald Sensing, 3/22/2003 05:49:51 PM. Permalink |   

What is the real shock and awe?
Austin Bay suggests it may not really be the bombing

"Shock and awe" is a new term in the American lexicon. Both the media and the military have used the term to refer to the astounding bombing campaign unleashed by allied air forces against Baghdad and other Iraqi targets. But as shocking and awesome as it was, and continues to be, Austin suggests that the real shock against the Iraqi military machine was not the bombing at all, but something more ominous:

The Slow Roll may also have been something of a diversion. Saddam's strategic hole-card is an attack on Israel. That attack would most likely come from western Iraq's "SCUD box" or the H-3 airbase complex. Sketchy reports indicate the United States has control of key areas in west Iraq. If so, this is lightning war in a new dimension and could prove to be the biggest "shock." Special forces and perhaps parachute and helicopter infantry are the troops for this operation. Controlling western Iraq makes sense militarily, as it limits Iraq's ability to expand the war. The United States has the means to conduct such a lightning "desert leap."

Linear thinking is so last century. It will never work again to defend against an American onslaught. The United States military has gone beyond mere hyperwar now, and I don't think even we have the language to describe it. Iraqi commanders not only have no good options available to them, they almost certainly don't even know that they don't. They are like blindfolded men trying to make their way in an unfamiliar dark room.

by Donald Sensing, 3/22/2003 05:10:32 PM. Permalink |   

What if Baghdad's lights are on but no one is home?
Does Fox read OHC? Who knows. But that was what Fox military analyst, retired Col, Jeff O'Leary just asked. He sounded the same theme I asked here, with an added caution that with potentially no central authority to command and control Iraqi military units, those units may fight because no one has told them not to. Good point and quite possible, but such resistance is also likely to be face-saving tokenism rather than "die in the ditch" stands.

by Donald Sensing, 3/22/2003 04:54:54 PM. Permalink |   

Been trapshooting
I've been gone most of the day pulverizing orange clay targets at the Maury County Gun Club.

While there I met a young man home on leave from Fort Sill, Okla., where is located the US Army Field Artillery Center and School. This man is an NCO assigned to 2-12 Field Artillery (MLRS). Originally he is from Mt. Juliet, Tenn., near Nashville. In five days he will be back at Fort Sill, and the day after that he and his unit deploy to Iraq. We had a nice conversation and spoke rocketeer for several minutes. Godspeed to him.

by Donald Sensing, 3/22/2003 04:49:23 PM. Permalink |   

The war continues
And Sgt Stryker has excellent updates, insights and links.

by Donald Sensing, 3/22/2003 04:21:44 PM. Permalink |   

What we have got and they have not
I posted about how survivability is designed in to American combat vehicles. It's true:

In the first reported incid