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A little more Fallujah news.

By The Armorer on November 29, 2004 | | Comments (5)

Know someone who fought at Fallujah? Know someone who didn't, but is in awe of the fight and fighters? Know someone who likes to collect comparatively rare t-shirts?

Look no farther! The wife of a deploying National Guardsman has designed a shirt to fit your needs!

LollaFallujah 2004

Her eBay store can be accessed here.

Hat tip to Myron for the pointer!

Regular visitors to the Castle know about the Arsenal. And the fact that the Armorer generally eschews new firearms for those that have a firmly established history.

The Armorer is pleased to see that US troops serving in Fallujah share his tastes, and are making use of an oldy-but-goodie, the PPSh 41, the Russian 'burp gun.' Although, given the source of most Iraqi weapons, this one is probably actually chinese, the Type 50.

Hat tip to Chris C. for the pics.

Next, Strategy Page has two interesting bits on Fallujah:

1. Some analysis of how we went about it. Fallujah, the Plan Survived Contact with the Enemy.

and,

2. Jim Dunnigan's thoughts on how Iraq may represent a tipping point in how Muslims are forced to view the world.

Update: Doug MacGregor continues his habit of not making friends. In the last link, he continues to show that truth-telling to power never is a very popular job that gets you promoted - just like John Boyd found out. Interesting views expressed herein - and I'm not in a position to strongly agree or disagree, but I find the viewpoint, well, interesting, and I freely admit I'm always having to fight with myself to keep an open mind and *not* get locked into a "Waterloo Mentality."

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5 Comments

By Casey Tompkins on November 29, 2004 12:48 PM
MacGregor seems to be rather armored-centric, and is in fact incorrect in several of his statements. For example, he completely discounted the effect produced by six weeks of bombardment in the 1991 Gulf War. The colonel apparently thinks that the Iraqis were so bad that "A fraction of the force" would have sufficed. I don't suppose the above-mentioned six weeks of bombardment, pre-war operations which convinced the Iraqi leadership to adhere to their static defense, and a deliberate use of American mobility had anything to do with our victory. Whoops. I forgot to mention how careful the Air Force was to destroy the Iraqi C3I capability before the war. Why should they waste resources like that if (as Mac says) the pilots "knew from the time we decided to go in there that they had no threat in the air?" Some other assertions which are incorrect, or misinterpretations include force retention (right now the only challenges relate to reserve forces), and the use of wheeled armor, even though the Strykers seem to be doing well in Iraq. MacGregor also ignores the intelligence gathered which shows that the Iraqi Baathists had developed detailed, extensive plans, over several years, to create a "resistance" after an American victory. These men literally invested in the plan by scattering caches of (well...) cash through Iraq, which would be later used to disrupt any foreign efforts to rebuild the country. This is not to say that the man doesn't know what he's talking about; he clearly understands the need for greater "joint-ness" in all operations, for a more flexible mindset -including integration of special forces-, and for a move away from divisions to brigades. I'd love to have more folks like that around the DoD, just to keep the bosses challenged. But then, I'm the kind of crazy who thinks we should reintegrate the Air Force with the Army... ;)
 
By J.M. Heinrichs on November 29, 2004 1:33 PM
Not good enough, Casey: The Air Force must be returned to its previous subservience to the Army. Only then will it rise to its rightful place in the military firmament. (And my tongue is only partially in my cheek.) I did a "staff paper" in 2002 titled "Iraq War: Tactical Exercise With Live Enemy Troops", so I tend to not be in the Billy Mitchell Club. Cheers JMH
 
By John of Argghhh! on November 29, 2004 1:39 PM
A TEWLET, eh? Or, perhaps, TEW(LE)T... So, John, izzis classified NREL(US), or can it be shared?
 
By J.M. Heinrichs on November 29, 2004 9:20 PM
You'll have to wait until I resurrect the hard drive it's lurking on; on a computer not used since '94. I wrote "staff paper" because my syndicate director pointed out that real staff papers use the staff paper format, but mine appeared to be something called an "essay". And I will not offer it for distribution until I re-read it, and consume a large quantity of Single Malt (to account for hitting the 'Send' button). It probably should remain "BF'd" (Buried Forever). Cheers JMH
 
By Casey Tompkins on November 30, 2004 2:24 AM
Actually, J.M., that's what I had in mind... :) I mean -really- what can the Air Force do know that they couldn't do as the Army Air Force? Seriously? The sad part is that I've been an Iron Bird nut all my life. Even as a wee lad, my favorite pages in the American Heritage History of World War Two were the pictures of the planes. I long ago lost my heart to the Queen, and the Lightning. But I will -to be honest- admit that the smart pilots picked the Jug. Heh. :) I'll also admit that part of my comments were -to a degree- not accurate. Some reports (notably StrategyPage) have given high marks to the Styker in combat, while others (here at Arrrgh!!) give the vehicle lower grades. It's all due to context. Sometimes you need to bring in the heavy iron, no? And it just occured to me that this segues quite nicely back to my above comment. The Lightning and the Mustang were magnificent long-range escorts, but the Jugs were much, much better at ground support and tank-busting. I guess it's a "Republic thing..." Heh. On the gripping hand, I think we should ditch the B-1 and B-2, and work on building the Stratofortress II; a (relatively) stealthy airborne truck which can deliver UAVs and JDAMs to order, with a long loiter time.
 
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