Shock and Awe?

[ANAPROP]

Of course I could be wrong, but how would you achieve shock and awe without actually blowing up Baghdad? What about bloody great guided thunder flashes?

Think about it, they don't want to break too much, only regime and military targets. So how about some very load whiz-bangs along the riverbank?

I guess if I'm right I'll have the CIA knocking on the door!

Comments?

[gravity victim]

If that lot was a´´surgical strke´I hope that I never need surgery. :eek:

[Jackonicko]

Now the UK MoD would doubtless come up with an entirely unconnected, computer generated code name like 'Granby', 'Telic', 'Corporate', 'Samsonite' or whatever.

The US go for the rather more obvious so Shaackanahrr is actually called Operation Iraqi Freedom.......

As a lay-person I was amazed to see so many successive explosions in exactly the same area, even after the entire scene was entirely obscured by smoke and dust. Presumably this is the great advantage of GPS guided kit?

[Didntdoit]

What would have been wrong with O peration I raqui L iberation?

[gravity victim]

Fair play to the car drivers of Baghdad, they must be the world´s most unflappable urban motorists. Very odd to see vast explosions,huge columns of smoke,hell raining down etc - but all the street lights blazing, cars going to and fro, even one bloke I saw pedalling past on a bicycle! Not much evidence of either shock or awe there, they seem to be an admirably phlegmatic bunch ...

[Pontius Navigator]

And Hoon the Buffoon said "British forces will use minimum force."

Rubber bullets, plastic knives, and simulated bombs?

Since when was minimum force one of the principals of war? I seem to remember it as Concentraion of Force and Economy of Effort.

[Fox3snapshot]

Seems that little part of town got a lot of attention.......was there a cock up in the tasking order and everyone got the same co-ordinates???!

:8

[Pontius Navigator]

Fox, just like WWIII. We planned 5 different buckets of sunshine on the same hole in the ground.

Sad thing, 4 of us weren't going to make it.

[round&round]

Op TELIC is a codeword chosen from a long list that is totally unconnected in anyway with the operation.

That is stands for: "Tell Everyone Leave Is Cancelled" is a total and unintended coincidence!!

[Pontius Navigator]

Fox tonight said that 7 or 8 bangs in the same place is characteristic of a B2. GPS of course.

Fox also announced 100 ALCM yesterday. 8 B52 out of Fairford; 12 each?

[BarryMonday]

And perhaps not beyond the realms of possibility that the first bang was the bomb and the other six or seven were stuff on the ground that the weapons inspectors have been looking for?

[SASless]

If it was stuff on the ground....how long can "you" hold yer breath?

[Jackonicko]

Had understood that yesterday's Buffs carried JDAM, while todays had ALCM.

[Woff1965]

Just because they took off from Fairford and there were bangs in Baghdad, it does not mean the two events are directly linked.

The Fariford package could have been going after targets in Mosul or Basra.

[steamchicken]

Well, if they really do get their EW from watching telly, possibly the B52s from Fairford might take off, let them set their watches for the 1st bang in 6 hours' time - and give them a nasty surprise much sooner when the seaborne Tomahawks/tac-air/B1s from Diego or whereever/anything else that flies and makes bangs turn up much sooner. Shock, and possibly even a little Awe.

[Ali Barber]

I have become a bit of a newsoholic since the action started and I have to say that, with the one exception of the big bangs in front of the camera on the second night, I have not seen much shock and awe. In fact I am getting more than a little worried about the outcome, despite the better technology, training etc.

I get the opportunity to watch (but not understand) both Al-Jazeera and Iraqi TV, as well as the usual Sky, CNN etc. There is probably not much talk about shock and awe on Iraqi TV. In fact, when they're not showing mistreatment of POWs, interminable speeches and news conferences by Sadaam and his cronies, they are showing footage of anti-war protests from all over the world. there may be shock and awe going on elsewhere, but its not in sight of the population of Baghdad where the Regime is based.

The great care being taken not to hit non-military targets in Baghdad is limiting the effect of shock and awe. I don't know what the answer is because we can't just start blowing up civilian areas to make a show of shock and awe.

But we now have large elements of the coalition Army charging headlong to Baghdad and bypassing built up areas where some of the Iraqi Army are hiding out/garrisoned/defending. Bypassing may be an over-simplification, but we are not defeating the enemy. We don't seem to be willing to go into the built up areas because of the need to avoid damage to the infrastructure and the obvious risk of high casualties to both sides.

So, what I worry about is our Army on the outskirts of Baghdad wondering how to conduct urban warfare without damaging anything. We can't lay seige in the old fashioned way and starve them out because that wouldn't be humanitarean. The supply line is stretched all the way back to Kuwait and subject to attacks from the feyadeen (sp?) and there is a damaged (undoubtedly) but not defeated Iraqi Army in the rear. Arnhem was a long time ago, but it keeps coming into my mind.

I hope the head-shed in Qatar has thought it through. I am sure they have, and that probably explains why Tommy Franks is giving the press conferences instead of me. Still can't help feeling a little disquiet though.

[saudipc-9]

Let's not get down on how the war is going just yet! The war is only 5 days old and just because the Iraqi's haven't tossed down their weapons in the thousands and greeted the troops with flowers is no reason to think the war is going badly.
The simple truth is that the media and for that matter the general public seemed to think that it would be another cake walk all over the Iraqi army.
The ground may be the same, but the fighting and the way it is being fought is quite different with different aims. In 91 it was the destruction of the Iraqi army, today it is the removal of Saddam Hussen and his regime. Trying to do that and avoid, as much as possible, civilian deaths. Well that is no easy feat. I for one will not get down because the war is not yet over. When the going gets tough the tough get going!
If the strategy being used right now is not working then I have faith that the generals in charge will change it.

[tommee_hawk]

The first bang was the target - and so were all the other ones. That's the benefit of extremely precise weapons - not quite "pick which window", but pretty close.

This area of Baghdad is full of regime targets and this was a particularly interesting one. There's no evidence that the inspectors were ever at this location.

[tony draper]

They just announced that all the Iraqi GPS jamming kit has been destroyed over the last two nights ironicly by JDAMS.
They also claim it was totaly ineffective?wonder how much it cost Saddam, he should ask Ivan for his money back.

[MadsDad]

To return to the original there is an interesting interview in todays Guardian with Herlan Ullman (a '62 year-old, amiable retired Navy pilot') - who, it is said, originally developed the 'Shock and Awe' tactic.

Couple of quotes from him:-

'The phrase, as used by the Pentagon now, has not been helpful. It has created a Doomsday approach - the idea of terrorising everybody. In fact tha's not the approach. The British have a much better phrase for it: effects-based operations'

and, as a description for the original limited bombardment last Wednesday 'That was classic shock and awe. If you kill the emperor, the empire's up for grabs'.

Made interesting reading.

[West Coast]

Seems to me you need a vantage point other than your TV to guage the "shock and awe" value. Hasn't seemed to slow down any of you arm chair generals however.

[Brakes...beer]

MadsDad

I have become depressingly familiar with jargon such as effects-based warfare and the like from my wife at dinner over the last 6 months (guess where she is), and I'm not talking marital conflict here. It's interesting to see it all come to life on the small screen. Shock and awe appears to be a media catchphrase which sums up the manoeuvrist approach to war, which is apparently the latest fashion.

From her copy of British Defence Doctrine (sad, I know):

"The manoeuvrist approach to operations is one in which shattering the enemy's overall cohesion and will to fight, rather than his materiel, is paramount...Significant features are momentum and tempo, which in combination lead to shock action and surprise. Emphasis is on defeat and disruption of the enemy by taking the initiative and applying constant and unacceptable pressure at the times and places the enemy least suspects, rather than attempting to seize and hold ground for its own sake." (my italics).

Sounds rather like this campaign.

[Ali Barber]

West Coast, entirely agree. But there is as much (almost) importance in winning support at home as there is in continuing to do well on the battlefield. To use an emotive phrase such as shock and awe implies you are going to see big bangs on the TV. If had been called effects-based operations from the start and explained to the public, we perhaps wouldn't have had so many armchair generals insisting that we were bogged down. Shock and awe makes for a better sound-bite I suppose!

[West Coast]

Ali
One presumes that viewers can discern for themselves what is meant for them and what is aimed, literally at the poor sob's on the recieving end. To me the term shock and awe was something that was meant to understood by the guy in the trench, not the easy chair. Your hearts and minds point on the homefront is taken however.