IS indifference to air power

[ShotOne]

The reports by German writer Juergen Todenhoefer ought to make interesting reading for proponents of our air campaign against IS. Juergen and his son travelled extensively and at very great personal risk in their territory. That they are extremely brutal and ruthless we know anyway. But his report conveys the immense self-confidence and determination of the organisation. What ought to interest us particularly is how little troubled they appear to be about air attacks. They no longer travel in large convoys and spread themselves amongst the population becoming a hard, bordering on impossible target. He estimated that dislodging the 5,000 fighters occupying the town of Racca with air power, would entail killing tens of thousands of townspeople.

[Melchett01]

Todenhoefer's foray into Mosul was interesting but not unprecedented. There was a shamefully largely ignored documentary by another news outlet called Vice News over the summer.

That gave a very candid warts and all impression of life in Raqqa and should be required watching by anyone interested in what's going on or making decisions

https://news.vice.com/video/the-islamic-state-full-length

[downsizer]

Link appears goosed.

[Bigears]

try this (https://news.vice.com/show/the-islamic-state)

[VinRouge]

Not doing it properly. Unlike Assad.

[pr00ne]

Yeah,

Dropping barrel bombs on school children, really doing it properly eh?

Assad, blowing limbs off his own fellow countrymen's children, really doing it properly.

FFS...

[Melchett01]

As opposed to the Opposition and their unguided 'Hell Cannons' which are their version of a barrel bomb and which is launched in the rough direction of a target area.

Give up on the righteous indignation on this one pr00ne, there is no good or bad in this one, it's a mess from start to finish. Elements of the opposition we are so keen to promote have carried out their fair share of atrocities, they are just rarely reported in the western media - gets a bit embarrassing for the politicians you see. There's more swapping of sides than at a Norfolk swingers party, so you can never completely tell with any accuracy who is 'good' who is 'bad' and whether they'll be on the same side next week. And anybody who believes this is about democracy has missed the point completely. As with nearly all things tribal, it can be distilled down to money and power, with everything else used as a cover for those two factors.

You may not like the Assad regime or the incumbents in Baghdad, but they offer one thing the opposition can't - a degree of stability and legitimacy. Like it or not, both govts have a degree of genuine support and are far better placed to run what's left of their respective countries than the rag tag Dad's Army and tribes squabbling between themselves on a constant basis. The coalition could have toppled both govts inside a month if they had really wanted to, but thank heavens we have collectively learnt at least one lesson from 2003.

[rh200]

Not doing it properly. Unlike Assad.

Dropping barrel bombs on school children, really doing it properly eh?

Assad, blowing limbs off his own fellow countrymen's children, really doing it properly.

There is no right or wrong in war, the only properly is what you need to do to win. You do what you have to effect that means, no more, no less.

We Nuked, firebombed etc how many again in WW2.? What you need to do, is warranted by your circumstances and what is available to you.

Its all very well to be morally superior when you have every weapon under the sun available to you.

As for airpower, as much as I like to see a severe smiting Of ISIS by a few hundred thousand western ground troops, that doesn't seem like that will happen anytime soon. As such it will be targeted air power and local forces doing it. Which means a long drawn out campaign.

The big question is by local, is there enough Sunni's who may stand up when the need arises?

[Roland Pulfrew]

Melchett

Well said:ok:

[Lonewolf_50]

And anybody who believes this is about democracy has missed the point completely. As with nearly all things tribal, it can be distilled down to money and power, with everything else used as a cover for those two factors. Indeed. The use of airpower limits what a given enemy can do, but doesn't suppress his efforts entirely. If he has enough "want to" he'll figure out a way to do something, even if in a suboptimal way.

[Toadstool]

As for airpower, as much as I like to see a severe smiting Of ISIS by a few hundred thousand western ground troops,

Oh, RH200, are you the first to volunteer, or do you like to volunteer other people to do your fighting for you?

Just asking...you know....as someone who has a vested interest.

[Albert Driver]

rh200 There is no right or wrong in war, the only properly is what you need to do to win. You do what you have to effect that means, no more, no less.

We Nuked, firebombed etc how many again in WW2.? What you need to do, is warranted by your circumstances and what is available to you.

Which is why so many "winners" fail to hold on to the subsequent peace.
You have to win in the right way, to achieve that.

[Lima Juliet]

Air strikes? هل أنا ازعجت - which is Arabic for "Am I boverred?"

The first thing that children do about something that bothers them is to announce indifference!

I rather suspect that having their every move watched, denying their freedom of movement and living under the constant threat of a Hellfire, GBU12, JDAM, Brimstone or Paveway is really 'ticking them off' - hence they keep cutting off innocent people's heads off with knives!

LJ :cool:

[Stanwell]

From what I can gather, they were finding the airstrikes a little 'inconvenient' - so now they've got Allah on the case.

[ShotOne]

Perhaps the striking thing about the situation in the area reported on, Leon is that for all their ruthlessness, beheadings and crucifixions have dropped right off, perhaps the threat thereof being enough.

[Melchett01]

Unfortunately executions, beheadings and crucifictions are still a regular and certainly weekly if not daily occurrence across the IS area of operations. But as many are locals or Regime troops - occasionally their own fighters too - they just don't make the headlines.

A quick look on social media shows they haven't changed their ways in that respect. All too often individuals are both beheaded and crucified which can only be to prove a point and generate fear and propaganda. If the individual is lucky, it's a big heavy sword that's used by somebody who knows what they are doing and it's over quickly. The alternative is frankly too horrific to contemplate.

[VinRouge]

Not to forget the tragic stories of Yazidis being gang raped then bled out like animals over a pot. Utter animals. I never understood how government could have got it so wrong over the FSA, most of who we discover their brothers in arms, in Egypt and Libya, have absolutely no interest in democracy.

The way I see it, whilst Assad may have over stepped the mark in respect to how he has dealt with the uprising, in many ways, he had no choice, not having access to the sort of modern weapons we utilise. In many ways, you could argue his methodology of palming out terror to those terrorizing his more loyal citizens is far more effective than the precision action we take...

I remember back to the first and second battles in Fallujah in which the city was evacuated and then flattened, taking out many many insurgents (anyone remember the stom over Shake n Bake? It bloody worked though).

I do wonder why we dont do the same with Raqqa and any other city identifying itself as the capital of IS. Fortunately, Kobane has been turned into somewhat of a psychological hook for IS who seem hellbent on preventing a loss there, especially in light of global coverage. More than happy for them to throw their rats at the place and it become a cemetery for them. The Kurdish forces deserve the Nobel peace prize for shouldering such a significant burden.

[melmothtw]

VinRouge,

You do have a curious blood lust that comes through in many of your postings on this and other subjects.

Setting aside the barbarity of the Islamic State, your defence of Assad as 'having no choice' is curious. I'm no legal expert, but I am pretty certain that 'having no choice' will not stand up in the ICC as a defence for attacking your own population with chemical weapons and indiscriminate barrel bombs.

The way I see it, whilst Assad may have over stepped the mark in respect to how he has dealt with the uprising... "May", You think?

[downsizer]

Rumours doing the rounds of a failed US led rescue attempt for the downed Jordanian pilot. Very bad times.

[VinRouge]

Setting aside the barbarity of the Islamic State, your defence of Assad as 'having no choice' is curious. I'm no legal expert, but I am pretty certain that 'having no choice' will not stand up in the ICC as a defence for attacking your own population with chemical weapons and indiscriminate barrel bombs.


I think the victor gets to write the history book... I dont particularly think Assad cares 2 hoots about the ICC as long as he remains in power and keeps those savages out. Blood lust is an interesting concept. Im not agreeing that the use of CW was in any way correct, nor could it ever be justified. Utterly disgraceful. However, I think there has certainly been an interesting slant placed upon things by western media when it comes to the savagery of Assad whilst completely ignoring the carrying on of the FSA and associated groups. Im not entirely sure that there was comprehensive evidence of CW usage by Assad or whether there had been involvement of other forces rather cynically gassing their own side to gain western media fury against assad, in order to back a western air campaign.

I would love to see what IS are willing to do in respect to atrocities in the West to further their ideology. Only one way of dealing with these sorts of nutters and its utter annihilation and a zero tolerance policy including denial of freedom of movement and shelter. Until the local populace stand up as a whole against IS and their foreign fighters, nothing will change.

[ShotOne]

Right...I'm sure the ICC is fairly well down Assad's list of things-to-worry-about, no1 being avoiding getting Gadaffi'd to death in the street.

But as to your wider point, in the present context, if "victory" is achieved only by adopting the murderous tactics of our enemies, is it a victory?

[VinRouge]

I would say if it prevented terrorist atrocities on western soil, then absolutely, yes. Ultimately, its about winning. The question should be, if similar total war were the only means of achieving victory, why shouldnt such tactics be employed? The whole moral element of how we fight was never really countenanced in ww2 and I would that was the last time we had a decisive victory.

IS make it so much easier to contemplate this as they are a bunch of mediaeval savages who have it coming to them.

[Heathrow Harry]

total war as you put it can only be foaghtagainst nation states - the concept is useless against terrorists unless you plan to lay waste to the whole country

and experience shows that you still don't"WIN" - you just start the cycle over - ask the Israelis - never beaten but still in a stage of armed siege after 76 years as a nation

[VinRouge]

I think its easy to pick bad examples. It worked in Iraq during the 2nd battle for Ramadi and Fallujah when the Sunni militia got so sick of the repeated hammering from the US Marine Corps that they sued for peace with the more extreme elements, ending up turning on the real bad guys.

I cant think of a single example where modern ROE has contributed to the fight. We tried controlled restraint in Afghan and as far as I see, utterly failed. It failed in Basrah when brit forces, constrained by ROE, were unable to deal with the relatively large number of lawless militias, who ended up terrorising the locality. There is plenty of evidence that the vast majority of law abiding Iraqis in the locality would have loved to have seen said militia given a thoroughly vicious shoeing. Same in Amarah. Fiasco by thomas e Ricks makes interesting reading, as does Occupational Hazards by Rory Stewart.

[MarkJJ]

ROEs were not the issue in Iraq. The issue was not following the principles of COIN operations. In particular clear political objectives.

[busdriver02]

Based purely on the OP's submission, it would seem that the air component of this effort has prevented the IS fighters from mounting an effective conventional ground offensive. In other words they're stuck, they can hold or E&E into the night. You want to re-take ground, someone on the ground will have to make that push.

[ShotOne]

Speaking as the OP, I feel that's a reasonable summary, bd. Vinrouge you make some valid points but blaming ROEs for the shambles of Iraq post major-conflict is like blaming Titanic's sinking on the wrong furniture polish. After the political decisions to disband pretty much every aspect of government it's hard to imagine what ROE's could have made things right.

[Lonewolf_50]

After the political decisions to disband pretty much every aspect of government it's hard to imagine what ROE's could have made things right. While it is more complex than that, I suspect that the policy decision to disband, as you put it, was a root cause for a lot of problems faced by the coalition from 2004 onwards.

[Lantern10]

17 minutes if you want to watch.


https://t.co/7y4mTryb7d

[tartare]

That would be Apaches rather than drones I think.
Unless there are drones armed with 30mms that we don't know about.
And I doubt that anyone can be indifferent to that kind of visibility and that kind of firepower.

[TEEEJ]

Lantern10 wrote

Drone attack on ISIS

That is old footage from Afghanistan. AH-64 Apache vs Taliban.

[tartare]

Interesting - I had wondered if that might have been the case.
A couple of things stand out.
Wonder why there is not a double tap or triple tap setting on the 30mm?
Is there?
One could burn through rounds pretty quickly on full auto.
Each engagement seemed to take a min of three bursts to immobilise the target.
I can also see why DARPA are interested in steerable rounds.
It can take quite a few shots splashing all over the place to actually ensure whoever is down stays down.
Awesome weapon though.
Combined with the FLIR, there is literally nowhere to hide... just shreds them.
No sympathy whatsoever quite frankly.