[Fwd: Has Fallujah really fallen?]

[Neil Schneider]

<http://outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20041220&fname=fallujah&sid=1>
FALLUJAH
The End Of Warfare

Against the most heavily armed opponent in the history of War,
Fallujah has still not let itself be "taken" to date. The mightiest
military machine in history has met its match. A turning point in
military
affairs? The end of warfare, as practiced by the Americans - the
application of overwhelming force to obtain a victory?

By Abhay Mehta

[Excerpts from a five-part article]

What the images of Phantom Fury did not convey is that this assault is
the largest concentration of heavy armor in one place, since the fall
of Berlin. This was the first time since World War II that "an
American armored task force" has been turned "loose in a city with no
restrictions".

More to the point, the force of as much as 20,000 soldiers (12,000 to
17,000 American/coalition soldiers, about 2000 odd Iraqi "National
guards" and perhaps 1000 odd peshmergas) were supported by an
estimated 1100 to as much as 2000 armored vehicles and tanks. Air
support was largely carrier based out of the gulf and B-52's from
bases outside of Iraq.

The armor alone represents the heaviest ever concentration of armor
since the fall of Berlin (1945) in one place against a single military
objective.

Phantom Fury was officially underway on the 8th of November and
declared to be a sweeping victory on or about the 15th of November.

Thereafter the military communiqués and the press reports have been
limited to occasional deaths in the "Anbar province". That all of
Fallujah is under "coalition" control since then i.e on or about
November 15th 2004. Since then detailed stories on Fallujah in the
official narrative have stopped completely or refer to
action/discoveries between the 8th and the 19th of November 04.

Fallujah has not been taken. Not only has Fallujah not been taken, but
the coalition forces have staged several retreats and are now confined
largely to the outside of the city.

The Iraqi resistance is currently in control of most of the city and
have forced back at least three of the largest armored assaults in
recent history.

At the peak of the assault, the Americans held no more than 35-40% of
Fallujah (largely the north on or around the 18th of November)
Thereafter, they appear to have been steadily repulsed and in fact the
coalition forces currently have been repulsed to where they were on
November 13th or thereabouts and to the outskirts of Fallujah.

Over the last 30 years since Vietnam, the normative amount of
explosive power and force multipliers available to the Americans and
their
opponents (compared to say the North Koreans in the 50's, the NVA in
the 60s) has normalised and in fact are comparable if one were to
factor in the context in which the firepower is used and deployed.

The 'normalisation" of firepower on a level playing field- In this
case, Fallujah, or for that matter the rest of Iraq, is noteworthy.

Consider one such example. A RPG 7 can travel up to 300/700/950
meters. At 300 meters, even a basic warhead can penetrate 330 mm of
steel armor. Yes, 33 cms, 13 inches--that is a lot of steel. The
projectile would cost perhaps $30-40. Conservatively, a squad of 3
armed with RPG-7s have more than a fighting chance against a M1
Abrams. In close urban
quarters, the advantage that the tank had (in say open ground in a
conventional war) is completely lost.

The cost/personnel advantage is noteworthy. With minimal or no
training, just about any one can operate a RPG. A squad of say 3 would
cost
perhaps no more than $5000 to equip. Against this, the M1 Abrams ("the
mightiest tank", 70 odd tonnes of steel, a few million a pop).

Raw unopposed firepower has reached its limits. Never have so few
battled against so many in face of overwhelming odds and brought a
superpower to its knees.

-- 
Neil Schneider                              pacneil_at_linuxgeek_dot_net
                                           http://www.paccomp.com
Key fingerprint = 67F0 E493 FCC0 0A8C 769B  8209 32D7 1DB1 8460 C47D

"All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies."
                 -- Dr. John Arbuthnot (1667-1735)