Casualty Reports. Believable?
 

It seems to me that for all of the heavy fighting and stiff resistance that the Coalition is encountering they have been very fortunate so far.

Looks like most casualties are coming from either friendly fire or accidents.

If they are concealing the real #'s I can't really blame them with all the press etc. but it makes me wonder.

:2 cents:

Maybe the problem is more with the phrase "stiff resistance". In Gulf War I, Schwarzkopf characterized the Republican Guard divisions that were faced as having fought very hard, but not well.

I think that there HAS to be more casulties than what they're saying, I know that the coalition troops are trained better than Iraq's, BUT they're not trained that much better where they don't get killed. This ain't a G.I. Joe cartoon, ha ha ha.

I suspect there are not many casualties..
Infantry men, riflemen, etc, don't really engage unless they really have to... They just take positions and call for gunships, artillery or air support. So that way they can avoid casualties

This war is really slow, and it'll slow even more when they reach Bagdad..

I know no-one here shares my view, but it's highly possible IMO that this war will last for a year or even more...

But....but...GFY's resident military expert said it would take 10 days at most
:1orglaugh

How do you mean, mika?

BTW, where is the Iraqi Air Force? Are they waiting for the best time to use them or are there none left after Gulf War I ?

No functional air force.

last time they launched planes against us, the pilots headed straight for Iran.
they don't stand a chance in the sky, and they know it

All the advance has actually taken place in empty deserts
No cities have been captured yet (except maybe Umm Qasr)
Iraqi shepherd can take a rifle suddenly and kill you

Unless regime surrenders, the final battles will take place in bagdad
Bagdad is a huge city with hundreds of thousands of buildings
Snipers can hide anywhere

Are you familiar with the meaning of density in warfare?
Bagdad is a nigthmare to invade

So unless the regime surrenders, it's gonna be a stalemate in Bagdad

I read a lot of Arab interviews, not because I wanna suck in their propaganda, but because I wanna hear how the Saudi analysts, princes, Egyptian professors, Jordan average Mohammed's feel and what they think

So far I have concluded that Saddam is becoming a hero. Not many people liked him. Now it seems that even some of his goddamn opposition people are starting to appreciate him? Why? Arab feel extremely united when being aggressed from Western countries. Or Israel.. And in Iraq people are nationalist

How will that effect war?

America is dependent on Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar supply and support. Can those governments handle their people? Who are really angry. Will we see terrorist attacks at US supply?

Us supply lines are already strecthed
Low ammo, food water, fuel is slowing the advance.

Even if USA succeeds (I mean it when it does), it's gonna face a lot trouble for a long long time. Uprising, arab hatred.. It's an occupation. Occupy a country as large as Iraq. A bit more difficult than Afghanistan. You need a lot of men

Besides "embedded" the other phrases that I just love are "softened" and "strike packages" as in:

Yesterday our "strike packages" "softened" the Republican Guard's 4th division in Basra.

TRANSLATION:

Yesterday our "carpet bombing killing machines" "blew the living fuck" out of the Republican Guard's 4th division in Basra and their body parts are now strewn all over the highway.

Softened :1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

If they didn't conceal Tony Blair's ass could have been grass plus many gfy resident war experts would have to shut their mouths so just CONCEAL damn it! Part of our war plan neways :winkwink:
Did a gfy resident actually say this war would last only 10 days? :1orglaugh

Wars aren't ended in days or weeks. They can go on for months, years, and even decades. Iran and Iraq fought for nearly a decade; Two million people died during this war.

Most of the ground we've gained has been in the open desert. This is because they would have been slaughtered in the open desert.

Any fighting that takes place inside of a city will be much different than the fighting that took place in other wars. The battlefield has changed a lot in the past sixty years.

We are bypassing Iraq's armies and going straight for their government.

the 'war' never ended - the media just noticed again a couple weeks ago.

Some here suggested that Afganistan would be "another Vietnam" for the US. They pointed to the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan as a historical reference. The doubters said "The US is good fighting technological wars but not the kind of guerilla war the Afghans will fight". They'll be stuck there for years. What happened?

I'll bet you the Republican Guards that are getting bombed to 50% think this war is going WAY TOO FAST.

The doubters didn't take into consideration that U.S. was backing Afghanistan up 100% during their guerilla war with Russian now if Russia did the same yes ofcourse U.S. would have been stuck there for much longer.

cool :thumbsup

My guess is that most of the fire fights has not been close contacts,
The US weapons can be shot twice as far and with better accuracy,

Mis-information. The US forces are not low on ammo, food, water and lack of fuel is not slowing the advance. Weather conditions (sand storms) have had an effect upon the advance for the past couple of days.

Before this conflict started I was critical of Bush for fucking around with the UN and delaying the beginning of this campaign. The optimum time to begin the invasion was in January-February.

One support platoon made a wrong turn and got tooken down

now the media is blowing up that the supply trains are spread to thin,, geez

How did you get your information? Did you call Franks?

Fact, US forces lost less than 200 KIA's in the 1st Gulf War and the Iraqi' forces lost (depending upon which report you choose to read) tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands. I suspect hundreds of thousands is closer to the truth since it was reported prior to the '91 war that the Iraqi Army had the fourth largest standing Army in the world with approximately one million men and prior to the start of this war it was reported that the Iraqi Army had approximately four hundred thousand men.

How did you get your mis-information? Did you call Saddam?

I dont think Saddam is aware of the fuel levels of American tanks, 10-day man

The sources I've been reading say weather has been slowing the advance in two ways:
a) the frontline is waiting for the storms to die down. They can't see shit and are getting attacked by tanks coming from nowhere.
b) due to the weather conditions, the supply line (mainly fuel) hasn't been able to reach the frontline. The vehicles ARE low on fuel, which is why they're waiting for the supply line.

They have been within 50 miles of Baghdad for a couple days now. You can't say they aren't waiting for something.

Here´s another one: "Small pockets of resitance"
Ironically these small pockets of resistance seem to cause so
huge problems.

DynaMite :1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

heres a casualty report Tony Blair used earlier that got my attention.

he said 400,000 children under 5 y/o died since 1998 in Iraq under Saddams regime.

Of course they cause problems, not so sure about "huge" though.

If you see 30-50 guys with guns shooting at you, you're going to watch your step and make sure you don't get hit. The fanatics don't care about their lives near as much as our boys.

Fault of the sanctions no doubt. :winkwink:

Coincidentally, in '97 (possibly '98) the "ceiling" on the oil-for-food program was lifted.

Well..it stands to reason that if the forward units have been delayed because of sand storms the rear units would also be delayed, but the forces are not low on any supplies in country.

The advanced units are also waiting for the Air support to prep the Iraq forces that are arrayed around Baghdad. It was only about two days ago that the bulk of the sorties being flown were, for the first time, directed at these forces and the weather slowed that operation so those forces are not softened up yet.

They may also delay and wait for a greater force multiplier to be inserted into the North and now that the 173rd Airborne has secured a long air strip this should proceed at a fast pace.

They may also delay and wait for the 4th Armored Division to move into place (as was reported they are supposed to do) on the tail of the foward units.

The 4th Infantry Division is being moved over and though I do not know where they will make their entry they may be airlifted into the North. By the way a very good friend of mine is with the 4th Infantry (E-8 and 18 years of service). I wish him well.

This will be my friends second trip to the "beautiful" sands of Iraq.

Do you think they're waiting to invade Baghdad until they get a stronger Northern Front built up?

Attack the city from the North, South, and Air?

I mentioned that possibility in the post above.