Lessons learned by the US military in Iraq applied to the PLA

utelore said:

that is plan and simply false...trust me. Most of the tanks we engaged were at 2500-3000 meters at night and the poor Iraqi did not even know what or who were hitting them. They would turn on a active IR light and we would would have a loader sitting up top with a PVS-7 which could detect the IR light and then that tank and IR light died.

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==That's only because the Iraqis put themselves in situations in which they could be seen through thermo sight from 3 clicks away and then get picked off. Even if meeting engagements are expected, the Iraqis can still deploy a small detachment well forward of the main force, if they encounter US armour, the destruction of the forward detachment would alert the main force, and the Iraqi command would then have the choice of take up the fight, or avoid the enemy instead of just running into the teeth of enemy fire and get obliterated. No matter how good your thermo sights are it is extremely hard to see anything if enemy tanks are properly concealed, or if there are no tanks to see at all.

NOW..the engagements we had with a non-republican guard div with T-62 tanks gave us a bit of a fight at 400-500 meters. The problem was the T-62 got first hit but could not hurt us in our Abrams. Once we figured out we walked into a tank battle at close range, ID the OPFOR it was over.

I have seen other Abrams hit with 125mm T-72 rounds and it did nothing. the worst Abrams I have seen shot up was by a BMP-2 that took around 20 round of 30mmAP and HE.

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==If Iraqi tanks are truly useless against US tanks, then the Iraqis should have not used their tanks against US tanks, they should've concentrated on bringing the enemy tanks into closed terrains and assault them with infantry. while their own tanks should be used to attack other softer targets.

IN closing if we the U.S would have switched equipment like the T-72 we would have not won the ground war.....think King tiger VS Sherman

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==I will have to disagree, war is not like some sort of shooting game in which who ever has the biggest guns wins, look at the Korean war, in the first year, the PVA have virtually no heavy weapons, and are constantly short of supplies, while their opponent, the UN forces, have everything, artillery, tanks, aeroplane, and absolute control over the sky, yet the disparity in casualty between the Chinese and the UN forces was no where as high as we saw in Iraq.

King_Comm said:

==I will have to disagree, war is not like some sort of shooting game in which who ever has the biggest guns wins, look at the Korean war, in the first year, the PVA have virtually no heavy weapons, and are constantly short of supplies, while their opponent, the UN forces, have everything, artillery, tanks, aeroplane, and absolute control over the sky, yet the disparity in casualty between the Chinese and the UN forces was no where as high as we saw in Iraq.

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Not exactly a fair comparison -- Korea has lots of mountains and vegetation so there are plenty of place to hide from firepower. Iraq is mostly open terrain.
Korea also benefit from sanctuaries which cannot be attacked (China & Russia) -- there is no such sactuary
for Iraq.

nemo said:

Not exactly a fair comparison -- Korea has lots of mountains and vegetation so there are plenty of place to hide from firepower. Iraq is mostly open terrain.
Korea also benefit from sanctuaries which cannot be attacked (China & Russia) -- there is no such sanctuary
for Iraq.

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==The sanctuary did not really benefit the PVA at the one set of the war because of US supremacy prevented the men and materiel from flowing to Korea effectively.

As to the terrain, Kuwait was highly urbanised, although there are no mountains, the Iraqis could still have hidden their forces in large cities, in fact, they should have hidden large proportion of their forces in the cities, wait for the enemy to go pass them, and then come out and attack their enemy's rear.

King...there was nothing the Iraqi's could of done to win. and yes to some extent it did feel like a video game looking threw my site on "white hot" made it seem like a big video game. I once sat my "victor" on the up slope of a wadi and engaged a column of something like 12 MTLB. I started from the front to back using HEAT if the Infantry attempted to bail out of the MTLB we Coaxed the crap out of them so they just stayed in the MTLB and died.. the next morning I went down to inspect my handy work....each MTLB carried around 6-10 humans....you do the math.

So what I am saying is that if you are on the side with the best tech compounded with some OK training you will win every time within reason (not like Germans against whole world). I don't buy that switching equipment and the U.S would of still won....not true. and KING I could detect a AFV hull and turret down with my TIS. it does not matter. I think ya would have had to been there to understand. you dig a big berm in the middle of the desert and you think that was done by natural causes NO we could also see the heat radiating from the deck of the tank baking in the sun that sent up heat plumes. I would just put a DU APFSDS threw the berm and 3 times out of 10 a big ole turret would pop about 10 feet in the air....cheers ute.

Great post Ute!

Gents, when men like Ute share their actual combat experience we can all learn from that. Nothing in life compares to actual experience. You can read all you want to about Gulf War I. But be sure to read Utelore post. He was actually.

War is not a video or computer game. It is real and it is a bloody mess.

War sucks.

The analysis has some flaws.

China has quite different situaion from US as for its environment. US borders only two countries, none of them are real threat, while China more than 10. And most of them are not weak but armed to teeth. So Chinese needs a big army to prepare for any conflict, a small professional, highly mobiled army is not engouh.

Just think how many troops US put in Vietnam, half a million at its peak and still ran into problems. And Vietnam is not the strongest neighbour of China.

And I dispute that too much credit being put on US army in Iraq war. Actually most job was done by USAF, Navy airplanes, and attack choppers, so less ground troops were needed. But even that, pretty large number were still deployed, an US division is roughly equal to a Chinese army in head count, more equipments maybe. We can't just take the name to compare.

Well, you have to consider that Vietnam was waging a defensive guerilla war against the US, which would obviously help improve military effectiveness.

This prowess does not necessarily carry over to a Vietnamese offensive against China - as the defender here, China would have the advantage. (I am speaking strictly in terms of guerilla warfare) As such, it does not seem to be a particularly useful analogy. It takes a smaller standing army to resist an aggressor in guerilla warfare than it does to invade another country. Vietnam could defend itself because much of the population sided with the NVA. The same goes for the insurgency in Iraq. Frankly I think th biggest lesson learned by the US military in Iraq is that the historical trend indicating that insurgencies ultimately prevail has not yet been broken, which is something China might want to consider when contemplating an invasion of Taiwan.

IDonT said:

In this regard, China, as one of the great powers, needs to have an armed forces that are expeditionary in nature, that is small, well trained, and highly mobile.

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Very true. Expeditionary forces are suitable for all Chinese potential needs. These would include conflicts with neighbouring countries (Taiwan included) and force projection further afield. And of course there's the most important mission. Small forces can be well paid and kept loyal to the government.

a.) To defend against air attack, you need to disperse your forces. However you are vulnerable to beig destroyed piecemeal by enemy ground forces.

b.) To defend against ground attack, you need to concentrate your forces. However you are vulnerable to air attack.

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I'm not completely sure this is such a factor anymore. True, massing of forces does make their detection easier. On the other hand, mass of forces constitute a single mass which can be covered better by ground based defences. Besides, forces which are joining up to become a concentration would be very vulnerable.

2.) The best defence against air attack is an air superiority fighter. SAM systems are useful compliments but are a poor substitute. The reason is that they always start their engagement at 0 elevation and 0 airspeed. Especially true against modern anti-sam tactics and technology employed against it. In this regard, the PLAAF needs a modern airforce, not just in terms of air superiority fighters, but also force multipliers. It needs to stop relying on ground controllers, developed tactics in concert with an AWACS, etc.

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I would argue against this notion somewhat and say that in defense SAM's are becoming better option than air superiority fighters. This is due to two reasons; smart weapons and network-centric warfare. Nowadays the reason for fighter to exist in air defence is to act as a sensor platform and launch platform for radar-guided missiles. It is unlikely that short-range IR missiles will be used anymore. Cannon is useful only for firing warning shots. Nowadays targeting information in addition to location information can be provided by other platform than the fighter itself. For long time the basic idea for using fighter radar itself has been to confirm information available via radar network / AWACS.

That really leaves the launch platform duty for the fighter aircraft itself. But is a fighter cost-effective launch platform in the future? SAM's don't come for free but fighters are prohibitiously expensive nowadays. To give 24h/7d cover one needs a lot of them. Fighters are more flexible in sense it is easier to concentrate them. On the other hand the advent of cruise missiles and other standoff weapons makes it easier than ever to make a mass assault which can easily overwhelm a few patrolling fighters available. Yes, fighters can be employed against carriers of standoff weapons but farther away one employs a CAP more resources one needs to sustain them.

Ultimately it becomes a budgetary exercise to judge whether it is cheaper to provide hideously expensive air superiority fighters and supporting resources to provide long range CAP, or to purchase a mass of SAM's to defend against massed assault of standoff weapons.

Fighters (whether manned or unmanned) will be needed for offensive air superiority and escort duties in the future, too. The middle ground for air defence might be a "missile barge", a cheap UCAV with long endurance and radar-guided missiles but relying on targeting provided by the air defence network.

Due to network-centric warfare I don't think the physical location of controller is important anymore. With modern communications the exactly same information can be transferred to any meaningful distance. The main reason AWACS needs to be a large aircraft is that the radar equipment is fairly large and large aircraft provides more endurance.

Yes, same arguments have been used in UK 1957 White Paper for example. But the difference is that now it is year 2007 not 1957. Communications and missile tech has made enormous advances.

fishhead said:

China has quite different situaion from US as for its environment. US borders only two countries, none of them are real threat, while China more than 10. And most of them are not weak but armed to teeth. So Chinese needs a big army to prepare for any conflict, a small professional, highly mobiled army is not engouh.

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Yes, China has many neighbours, but which one is capable of launching a combined-arms invasion for which a big army would be best suited for defense? The only neighbours with large, fairly modern militaries are India and Russia. In case India would ever invade China it would have to employ an expeditionary force coming through some other land border than Chinese-Indian border. Logistics would dictate it to be a fairly small, but perhaps highly modern, force. The Russian threat is simply gone. What Soviet era equipment remains will be soon outdated. With diminishing population and economy based on high oil price Russia will not be able to construct a military force which would require China to construct a cold war style large mass army. And even against a hypothetical futuristic super-Russia a modern, mobile, skilled force is better suited for defense than cold war style people's war.

Besides, with a modern expeditionary natured force China could take initiative instead of fighting a war in its own terrain which could be very economically distressing.

In 1960/70s, PLA was prepared to fight 4 large scale wars at the same time: Soviet in North, US from south east Asia, Taiwan from the East, India in Tibet.

Today they still have 3 large scale wars in mind, Taiwan, India and west central Asia(Nato force), all at the same time. An Expeditionary force is not enough.