March 28, 2003, 1448hrs MSK (GMT +3), Moscow - According to the latest
intercepted radio communications, the command of the coalition group of forces
near Karabela requested at least 12 more hours to get ready to storm the town.
This delay is due to the much heavier losses sustained by the coalition troops
during the sand storms then was originally believed. Just the US 3rd Mechanized
Infantry Division sustained more than 200 disabled combat vehicles of various
types. The 101st Airborne Division reported some 70 helicopters as being
disabled. Additionally, the recently delivered reinforcements require rest and time
to prepare for combat.

At the same time the US forces have resumed attacks near An-Nasiriya and
An-Najaf since 0630hrs and are continuously increasing the intensity of these
attacks. During the night and early morning of March 28 the Iraqi positions in
these areas were subjected to eight aerial assaults by bombers and ground
attack aircraft. However, so far [the coalition] was unable to penetrate the Iraqi
defenses.

Also during the early morning the British units begun advancing along the Fao
peninsula. Latest radio intercepts from this area show that under a continuous
artillery and aerial bombardment the Iraqis have begun to gradually withdraw
their forces toward Basra.

First firefights between troops of the US 82nd Airborne Division and the Iraqi
forces occurred in northern Iraq in the area of Mosula. At the same time the
arrival of up to 1,500 Kurdish troops has been observed in this area. So far it is
not clear to which of the many Kurdish political movements these troops belong.
Leaders of the largest Kurdish workers party categorically denied participation of
their troops. They believe that these may be units of one of the local tribes not
controlled by the central authorities of the Kurdish autonomy and "ready to fight
with anyone" for money.

According to verified information, during the past 48 hours of the Iraqi
counterattacks the coalition forces sustained the following losses: up to 30 killed,
over 110 wounded and 20 missing in action; up to 30 combat vehicles lost or
disabled, including at least 8 tanks and 2 self-propelled artillery systems, 2
helicopters and 2 unmanned aerial vehicles were lost in combat. Iraqi losses are
around 300 killed, up to 800 wounded, 200 captured and up to 100 combat
vehicles 25 of which were tanks. Most of the [ Iraqi ] losses were sustained due
to the artillery fire and aerial bombardment that resumed by the evening of March
27.

First conclusions can be drawn from the war

The first week of the war surprised a number of military analysts and experts.
The war in Iraq uncovered a range of problems previously left without a serious
discussion and disproved several resilient myths.

The first myth is about the precision-guided weapons as the determining factor in
modern warfare, weapons that allow to achieve strategic superiority without
direct contact with the enemy. On the one hand we have the fact that during the
past 13 years the wars were won by the United States with minimum losses and,
in essence, primarily through the use of aviation. At the same time, however, the
US military command was stubborn in ignoring that the decisive factor in all
these wars was not the military defeat of the resisting armies but political
isolation coupled with strong diplomatic pressure on the enemy's political
leadership. It was the creation of international coalitions against Iraq in 1991,
against Yugoslavia in 1999 and against Afghanistan in 2001 that ensured the
military success.

The American command preferred not to notice the obvious military failures
during expeditions to Granada, Libya and Somalia, discounting them as "local
operations" not deserving much attention.

Today we can see that in itself massed use of strategic and tactical
precision-guided weapons did not provide the US with a strategic advantage.
Despite the mass use of the most sophisticated weapons the Americans have so
far failed to disrupt Iraqi command and control infrastructure, communication
networks, top Iraqi military and political leadership, Iraqi air defenses. At the
same time the US precision-guided weapons arsenal has been reduced by about
25%.

The only significant advantage of the precision-guided weapons is the capability
to avoid massive casualties among the civilians in densely populated areas.

What we have is an obvious discrepancy between the ability to locate and attack
a target with precision-guided weapons and the power of this weapon, which is
not sufficient to reliably destroy a protected target.

On the other hand, precision-guided munitions demonstrated their superiority
over conventional munitions on the battlefield. The ability to attack targets at long
ranges with the first shot is the deciding factor in the American superiority in land
battles.

The second myth disproved by this war is the myth propagated by the
proponents of the "hi-tech" war, who believe in the superiority of the most
modern weapons and inability of older-generation weapons to counteract the
latest systems. Today the technological gap between the Iraqi weapons and
those of the coalition has reached 25-30 years, which corresponds to two
"generations" in weapons design. The primary Iraqi weapons correspond to the
level of the early 1970s. Since that time the Americans, on the other hand, have
launched at least two major rearmament efforts: the "75-83 program" and the
"90-97 program". Moreover, currently the US is in the middle of another major
modernization and rearmament program that will continue for the next five years.
Despite of this obvious gap, Iraqi resistance has already been publicly qualified
by the US as "fierce and resilient". Analysts believe that the correlation of losses
is entirely acceptable to the Iraqis and they [ the analysts ] do not see any
strategic coalition advantage in this war. Once again this proves that success in
modern warfare is achieved not so much through technological superiority but
primarily through training, competent command and resilience of the troops.
Under such conditions even relatively old weapons can inflict heavy losses on a
technologically-superior enemy.

Two enormous mistakes made by the US command during the planning stages
of this war resulted in the obvious strategic failure. The US has underestimated
the enemy. Despite the unique ability to conduct reconnaissance against the
Iraqi military infrastructure through a wide network of agents implanted with the
international teams of weapons inspectors, despite of unlimited air dominance
the US military command has failed to adequately evaluate combat readiness of
the Iraqi army and its technical capabilities; the US has failed to correctly asses
the social and political situation in Iraq and in the world in general. These failures
led to entirely inadequate military and political decisions:

The coalition force was clearly insufficient for a such a large-scale operation. The
number of deployed troops was at least 40% short of the required levels. This is
the reason why today, after nine days of war, the US is forced to resort to
emergency redeployment of more than 100,000 troops from the US territory and
from Europe. This, in essence, is the same number of troops already fighting in
Iraq.

The buildup and distribution of the coalition forces have been conducted with
gross neglect of all basic rules of combat. All troops were massed in one small
area, which led to five days of non-stop fighting to widen this area. The initial
attack begun without any significant aerial or artillery preparation and almost
immediately this resulted in reduced rate of advance and heated positional
battles.

Today we can see that the US advance is characterized by disorganized and
"impulsive" actions. The troops are simply trying to find weak spots in the Iraqi
defenses and break through them until they hit the next ambush or the next line
of defense.

Not a single goal set before the coalition forces was met on time.

During the nine days of the war the coalition has failed:

- to divide Iraq in half along the An-Nasiriya - Al-Ammara line,
- to surround and to destroy the Iraqi group of forces at Basra,
- to create an attack group between the Tigris and the Euphrates with a front
toward Baghdad,
- to disrupt Iraq's military and political control, to disorganize Iraq's forces and to
destroy the main Iraqi attack forces.

A whole range of problems that require their own solutions was uncovered
directly on the battlefield. Thus, combat in Iraq raised serious concerns about the
problem of coordination between units from different services. Limited
decision-making time and the ability to detect and to engage an enemy at a great
distance make "friendly fire" one of the most serious problems of modern
warfare. For now the coalition has no adequate solution to this problem. At one
location or another every day of this war the coalition troops were attacking
friendly forces.

The second problem of the coalition is its inability to hold on to the captured
territory. For the first time since the war in Vietnam the Americans have to deal
with a partisan movement and with attacks against their [the US] lines of
communication. Currently the coalition is rushing to form some sort of territorial
defense units for guarding its supply lines and for maintaining order in the
occupied territories.

A range of technical problems with equipment has been revealed during the
combat operations. Most operators of the M1A2 Abrams main battle tank agree
that the tank was inadequate for performing the set combat tasks. The primary
problem is the extremely low reliability of the tank's engine and its transmission
in desert conditions. Heat from the sun, hot sand and the constantly present hot
dust in the air nearly nullified the advantages offered by the turret-mounted
thermal sights. Visibility range of these sights did not exceed 300 meters during
movement in convoy and reached up to 700-800 meters during stops. Only
during cold nights did the visibility range reach 1000-1,500 meters. Additionally, a
large number of thermal sights and other electronics simply broke down. The tiny
crystalline sand particles caused electrical power surges and disabled electronic
equipment.

This was the reason for the decision by the coalition command to stop
movement of troops at night when a contact with the enemy was deemed likely.

The main strong side of the coalition forces was the wide availability of modern
reconnaissance and communication systems that allowed to detect the enemy at
long ranges and to quickly suppress the enemy with well-coordinated actions of
different types of available forces.

In general the US soldiers showed sufficiently high combat resilience. Even in
the extremely difficult weather conditions the troops maintained control structure
and adequately interpreted the situation. Combat spirit remained high. The
majority of troops remain confident in their abilities, while maintaining belief in the
superiority of their weapons and maintaining reasonable confidence in the way
the war is being fought.

It should be noted, however, that the way the war is being fought did create a
certain sense of disappointment in most of the troops. Many are feeling that
they've been lied to and are openly talking about the stupidity of the high
command and its gross miscalculations. "Those star-covered Pentagon idiots
promised us a victory march and flowers on the armor. What we got instead
were those damned fanatics fighting for every dune and the sand squeaking in
your ass!" said one of the wounded recuperating at a hospital in Rammstein. [
Reverse translation from Russian ]

Nevertheless, despite of the sand storms the terrain favors the coalition actions
by allowing it to employ their entire arsenal of weapons at the greatest possible
range, which makes it difficult for the Iraqis to conduct combat operations outside
of populated areas.

Overestimating the abilities of its airborne forces was a weak side of the
coalition. Plans for a wide-scale use of helicopters as an independent force did
not materialize. All attempts by the US command to organize aerial and ground
operations through exclusive use of airborne forces have failed. Because of
these failures by the end of the fourth day of the war all airborne units were
distributed across the coalition units and used by the attacking forces for
reconnaissance, fire support, and for containing the enemy. The main burden of
combat was carried by the "heavy" mechanized infantry and tank units.

Another serious drawback in the coalition planning was the exceptionally weak
protection in the rear of the advancing forces. This resulted in constant
interruptions in fuel supply. Tank units sometimes spent up to 6 hours standing
still with empty fuel tanks, in essence, being targets for the Iraqis. Throughout
the war delivery of food, ammunition and fuel remains a headache for the US
commanders.

Among the US soldiers there has been a wide-scale discontent with the quality of
the new combat rations. Servicemen are openly calling these rations "shitty."
Many soldier just take the biscuits and the sweets and discard the rest of the
ration. Commanders of the combat units are demanding from the coalition
command to immediately provide the troops with hot food and to review the
entire contents of the combat ration.

Among the strong sides of the Iraqi troops are their excellent knowledge of the
terrain, high quality of defensive engineering work, their ability to conceal their
main attack forces and their resilience and determination in defense. The Iraqis
have shown good organization in their command and communication structures
as well as decisive and and well-planned strategy.

Among the drawbacks of the Iraqi forces is the bureaucratic inflexibility of their
command, when all decisions are being made only at the highest levels. Their
top commanders also tend to stick to standard "template" maneuvers and there
is insufficient coordination among the different types of forces.

At the same time commanders of the [Iraqi] special operations forces are making
good use of the available troops and weapons to conduct operations behind the
front lines of the enemy. They use concealment, show cunning and imagination.

The first strategic lessons of the war

[ Lessons of the war in Iraq are discussed here with a focus on a possible similar
war between Russia and the US ]

The main of such lessons is the ever-increasing significance of troop
concealment as one of the primary methods of combat. Concealment and strict
adherence to the requirements for secrecy and security become strategic goals
of the defending forces in the view of the US reliance and that of its allies on
precision-guided weapons, electronic and optical reconnaissance as well as due
to their use of tactical weapons at the maximum possible range afforded by
these reconnaissance methods. Importance of concealment is being seen in Iraq
and was clearly demonstrated in Yugoslavia, where the Yugoslav Army
preserved nearly 98% of its assets despite the three months of bombing. Within
our [Russian/European] battle theater concealment methods will offer us [the
Russian army] an enormous advantage over the US.

The second lesson of this war is the strategic role of the air defenses in modern
warfare as the most important service of the armed forces. Only the complete air
dominance of the coalition allows it to continue its advance toward Baghdad and
to achieve the critical advantage in any engagement. Even the short interruption
in air support caused by the sand storms put the US and British troops in a very
difficult situation.

Elimination of the air defenses as a separate service branch of the [Russian]
Armed Forces and its gradual dissipation in the Air Force can be called nothing
else but a "crime". [This statement refers to the recent unification of the Russian
Air Force (VVS) and the Air Defense Force (PVO) and the secondary role of the
air defense force within this new structure.]

The third lesson of the war is the growing importance of combat reconnaissance
and increased availability of anti-tank weapons capable of engaging the enemy
at maximum range. There is a requirement on the battlefield for a new weapon
system for small units that would allow for detection of the enemy at maximum
distance during day or night; for effective engagement of modern tanks at a
range of 800-1000 meters; for engagement of enemy infantry at a range of
300-500 meters even with the modern personal protection equipment possessed
by the infantry.

(source: iraqwar.ru, 03-28-03, translated by Venik)


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