nijis

What Littletinsoldier said. Playing the game is of course the main reason I buy CM, but I also like going through all the documentation, both printed and within the program, to know how the different systems compare. It's the armchair weapons procurement agent in me, I guess. How does a Javelin match up to a Kornet? What if anything makes a Stryker better protected than a BTR-60? It's also interesting to know upon which assumptions the game is based, although that may open the door to endless groggy disputes. [ December 29, 2006, 04:14 AM: Message edited by: nijis ]

That's interesting. In August I was with a cav unit of the 101st which I recall was based in Rustamiya. I think that they had one translator per platoon on patrol, which was enough for the job but not quite so many as that. The last time I was with a unit which had a severe terp shortage was in Anbar in April. Maybe it's easier to get translators who will work in east Baghdad than out in western Anbar, or maybe the military has prioritized the problem and managed to recruit more terps. We press folks are far more likely to notice when a problem crops up then when it gets fixed. The de-Sunnification of mixed areas in the capital may also make Shia less frightened of suspected insurgents in their midst. (I've heard that the Mahdi Army has a slightly more relaxed policy on working with the Americans -- they'll ostracize you but not shoot you outright. That policy probably varies from district to district, though). An Iraqi colleage also tells me that two of the neighborhoods next to the Rustamiya base (Jurf al-Diyaf, part of Jisr Diyala, and Alaf Dar, part of Baghdad al-Jadida) are solidly pro-Sistani, which might make a big difference. Stay safe in east Baghdad, Splinty. [ December 26, 2006, 02:21 AM: Message edited by: nijis ]

I don't know where your unit was, Splinty, but I've been embedded as a journalist in a lot of areas where the translator shortage is pretty crippling. One Marine battalion in Anbar had maybe 1-2 Iraqi translators per company-sized FOB, and many of them didn't really speak English, communicating with the Americans based on pidgin and charades. (One officer at the TOC compared their non-Anglophone translator to "an M-16 which doesn't shoot 5.56 bullets"). I've also been on a company-sized patrol of villages around Mosul, where the idea was to make contact with local village sheikhs, and the US forces did not have a single translator. All in all, I'd estimate that about a quarter to a third of the battalion AOs where I've been embedded regularly sent out patrols with non-existent or functionally non-existent translation. These are all missions where the objective is to get to know the surrounding area and cultivate contacts with the locals, and communication is integral to the mission. If you throw in raids, traffic control points or other missions where a translator is not absolutely essential but could come in very handy, I'd guess that the proportion that go out without a translator is even higher. [ December 25, 2006, 02:34 AM: Message edited by: nijis ]

At last, something I can be groggy about. I think the Arabic spelling is correct, but I'd guess that the terrain around that area (between Damascus and Palmyra) and would be a little more arid.

1426 to eagerly await the latest bones about the shape of the light bulb, its wattage, whether it's a genuine screw-in bulb or just a Frankenstein-head, and how many turns of the wrist it takes to screw it in 17 to challenge Peng to unscrew the light bulb 24 to argue that screwing in modern-era light bulbs is a pointless walkover, and that 1940s-era bulbs will make the process much more interesting 744 to lobby for Screw By Email [ October 19, 2006, 04:49 AM: Message edited by: nijis ]

Cloverleafs and overpasses are not that common in Syria, from what I recall, particularly when compared to Iraq. There are a few, but they wouldn't necessarily figure quite as prominently in the battlefields of a Syrian war as they did in the 2003 invasion.

Maybe I'm missing stuff that has been covered in other threads, but I'm not sure that the original story is implausible. As far as I'm aware, there's no reason to rule out an Islamist/nationalist coup in Syria, and it's always possible that a group based in Syria could do something horrible enough that the world would be forced to respond. If anything, the perceived weakening of US power by its embroilment in Iraq makes these possibilities more likely rather than less. What's been changed by Iraq is the US capability to launch a conventional war against a Syria-sized power on short notice with overwhelming force. But if the atrocity is horrific enough, the Americans might feel compelled to go in with underwhelming force, with whatever allies they could cobble together. That, I think, would make a conventional war in Syria more interesting, from a wargaming perspective anyway. My vote would go to Syria setting, minimal story. I find historical settings more immersive. Like Beardiebloke, I'm really looking forward to fighting battles on a bit of terrain that I can check out on Google Earth, for example.

"Correct - it is not the frequency - but the nature of the IEDs that is the cause for concern and there is indeed a greater threat. However, the frequency of incidents has diminished." Is there a quotable source on IED frequency diminishing? I don't doubt you -- it would make a certain amount of sense -- I'd just like to be able to cite it at some point. Any quotable source confirming of successful interception of Iranian infiltrators would be even better. The usual line that you get from MNF officers is that while there is extensive indirect evidence of Iranian assistance (ie, shaped charge technology) there is no direct evidence. Coalition spox MGN Caldwell two weeks ago: there "is nothing that we definitively have found to say that there are any Iranians operating within the country of Iraq." I've heard similar stuff from British officers. That doesn't of course rule out Iraqis bringing stuff in from Iran, of course. Or they're telling flat-out porky pies, which technically they're not supposed to do, but one imagines might happen anyway from time to time.

"Incidents of IEDs and ambushes in the Shiite areas has dropped dramatically in the past 12 months." Quite the opposite, I think. Basra has become a much more violent province in the last year. Certainly by all accounts Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence has skyrocketed. In terms of attacks on the British military, I don't think they give out attack numbers per province, and the rate of military fatalities are pretty constant, but when I was down there last a month ago pretty much everyone I spoke said that the IED threat had drastically increased since the last time I was there (April '05). There may be fewer attacks, but that's probably because the military is moving around less. Also, the FCO compound on the Shatt al-Arab is now mortared quite regularly, which was not the case a year ago. Maybe British operations in the south have had some effect on Iranian infiltration, but I doubt that's a major factor affecting the frequency of attacks. The problem in Basra is an internal Iraqi political one -- the Fadila party, which holds the governorship, seems to have no interest in curtailing militia activity. This suggests that, at least in the south, it doesn't matter all that much what the MNF does militarily if the wrong Iraqi politicians get elected. Also -- and this is just a guess -- I'd suspect that the vast majority of Iranian agents and weapons technology enters Iraq at legal border crossings. The Basra police force, ministerial Facility Protection Forces, and at least one major private security firm in the south employ mostly party/militia loyalists. I'd be very suprised if the militias don't have members in the border guards as well. Also, even non-militia affiliated border guards aren't incorruptible. Insurgents bribing their way through has certainly been a problem in the west, and I doubt the eastern borders are any different. [ August 26, 2006, 09:36 AM: Message edited by: nijis ]

It was an experiment in a comparatively secure area, although there was some threat, and I'm not sure it was duplicated elsewhere. I think the main advantage was that more FOBs meant more constant observation over critical parts of the AO. I take your point that there's lots of drawbacks to small FOBs. The point of talking FOB size is that there's an idea circulating out there that the US military needs to get in deeper and cozier with the Iraqi population, and that smaller-sized bases are the way to do it. Personally, I suspect that the military is about as spread out as it can get without, as you point out, suffering an exponential jump in its vulnerability, and the solution, if there is any, lies elsewhere.

"stating the bleeding obvious" etc Whatever. I had been generalizing about FOBs throughout Iraq, and you'd suggested that I missed the point of mobile patrolling. FOBs with a single platoon of Coalition troops have been used at certain times in Iraq in certain places. You might find an Iraqi platoon quartered there too, but they're usually woefully understrength and I wouldn't imagine that they're relied upon for anything important, and thus a single-platoon FOB would also be possible. I suspect the battalion provides the QRF. [ August 25, 2006, 03:34 PM: Message edited by: nijis ]

"You may have missed the entire point of mobile patrolling." I was actually thinking of platoons as the minimum size for static FOBs that will necessarily make up the vast majority of the MNF's frontline military presence. The LRDG concept might work for border control or a few other specialized missions in unpopulated areas, but it seems pretty useless if you're trying to exert control over cities and towns.

I'm sure it's better to get far down in the weeds, but I suspect that in Iraq the US military (as opposed to the civilian reconstruction teams, state, etc) is probably now as far down in the weeds as it can get without exponentially increasing its security problems -- at best, we could go from company-sized FOBs to platoon-sized FOBs. Iraqi police officers incidentally live in the equivalent of squad-sized FOBs -- their homes, with their own protection forces -- and die at a tremendous rate. There might also be a loss of economies of scale in terms of unit efficiency, so having more and smaller FOBs may mean fewer patrols. What we need are not so much more FOBs, but officers and NCOs who been in the same locality long enough to know all the major players by name, know their family histories, speak decent Arabic, etc. I've met a lot of young company commanders and S-2s who are very impressive and have learned an awful lot about their AO in a short period of time, but it's never enough and the loss of continuity when they transfer out is near-total. "SF kind of work like that - the teams are often kept intact for long periods of time and specialize in certain regions." Alas, I'm not allowed to speak to them. As far as I know their main tasks are training and raids against high-value targets, although I suspect there's a lot more which I'm not supposed to know about. As far as I can tell however they don't seem to be involved in the day-to-day operations of securing an AO, however. They also seem to have a much more high profile role in Afghanistan. If anyone knows more about their role in Iraq, and is allowed to tell, I'd be fascinated to hear. [ August 25, 2006, 09:17 AM: Message edited by: nijis ]

Actually, that rather obvious point didn't occur to me. Do you know why the practice was discontinued? I suppose you lose unit cohesion if people are constantly being rotated in and out, but I'd argue that in an intelligence-driven war that downside is outweighed by the losses in institutional memory that goes with whole units being rotated in and out -- particularly if you're only talking about platoon-sized attachments whose main responsibilities are intelligence and civil affairs. What you really need in a counterinsurgency is a way to keep the same individuals in place for 2-3 years -- a colonial officer corps, in other words -- but you'd have to offer some pretty hefty inducements to find willing takers. [ August 25, 2006, 08:41 AM: Message edited by: nijis ]

I think anything short of a company would have difficulty maintaining a secure base environment, although I know the Marines are experimenting with smaller FOBs in some of their more secure areas. What you need in Iraq, IMHO, is not so much smaller units and more FOBs but units that don't rotate out, like national army and police units or 19th century European colonial armies, for that matter. Individuals might come and go, but the institution remains. Every time a unit leaves, the new one has to learn afresh the AO's terrain, personalities, and a hundred other details about their environment. Plus, anecdotale evidence suggests new units moving into the area tend to shoot a lot more civilian motorists in the month or so it takes to settle in. Of course, decade-long tours of occupation duty might make recruiting difficult, and probably erode the unit's edge in conventional warfare. So maybe you could have a compromise -- specialized counterinsurgency platoons that remain in place in each battalion-sized AO throughout the conflict, providing intelligence and other support to the main units as they come and go. [ August 25, 2006, 07:00 AM: Message edited by: nijis ]

I suspect they'd be doing border patrols. A lot of military operations in Iraq are intended just to establish a presence and remind people that the MNF are still around. Or just observe stuff. Figure out the lay of the land, civilian traffic patterns, etc. I'd guess a pretty big majority of combat missions in Iraq consist of little more than just driving around with your eyes open. "What can this big silly expensive Rat Patrol-type unit do, that a few Arab-speaking agents dressed as Bedouin, riding in a single Toyota pick-up, and equipped with a burst transmitter cannot do?" Stop suspicious vehicles. Ask the drivers questions. Search their trunks. Detain them if need-be. More importantly, not get captured themselves. You may remember the Basra jail incident in September, where a couple of undercover observers were spotted, captured, and handed over to the Mahdi Army. In many parts of Iraq, betraying the slightest hint of not being from the region/neighborhood will get you grabbed by militia or insurgent group, precisely because people are so preoccupied with spies, suicide bombers, and the like. [ August 25, 2006, 05:23 AM: Message edited by: nijis ]

Believe that the Gamey Fidayeen Technical Rush was Iraqi SOP in March/April 2003. Arguably nothing gamey about it.

During Defensive Shield in 2002, the internet cafes of Hebron were full of teenagers playing Counterstrike. Some played the terrorists, some played the counterterrorists, and it was all pretty apolitical. Various versions of Under Siege have actually been around for a few years, and I've never heard of it being particularly popular anywhere in the Arab world. I suspect kids play games because they're good games, not because of their ideological orientation. I hope this doesn't go too far down the political path, but certainly Israel has been credibly accused, by Israeli historians, of ethnic cleansing in the past (Ramla and Lod, in particular), and at least one party which I think is still in the Knesset, Moledet, has ethnic cleansing as part of its platform. That being said, it is pretty silly though if the game depicts, as it implies, that any real family "survives" by slingshotting Merkavas. A lot of folks in the Arab world have a rather funny idea of what day-to-day life in Palestine is like. [ February 04, 2006, 05:19 PM: Message edited by: nijis ]

One thing to keep in mind re tanks and MOUT is that Baghdad is uniquely suited to an armored thrust into the heart of the city. The airport road has a wide stretch (maybe 50-100m) of open ground on either side, as I understand deliberately designed to prevent Saddam Hussein's motorcade from assassination attempts. It runs right from the edge of town almost directly to the palace district. The Larry/Curly/Moe motorcade as I recall has a similar if less dramatic buffer in many parts. Iraqi residences, particularly in the smaller Sunni Triangle towns where much of the fighting has occurred, also strike me as being less useful for infantry than buildings in, say, Damascus. There's a lot of one- or two-story walled compounds, and though I haven't read anything on this I'd suspect it would be relatively difficult for infantry to find places where you could fire onto the street from concealment then slip out the back, unless they were carefully prepared beforehand like (as I understand) some houses in Falluja. This is not to say that armor has not proved its worth in MOUT in more built-up places like Sadr City or Mosul. However, I would not expect the results of battles in other Middle Eastern cities to necessarily duplicate Thunder Run. [ December 22, 2005, 01:41 AM: Message edited by: nijis ]

Bump. Quite curious about this, as well as using terrain contours -- berms, drainage ditches, raised roads, or undulations in the desert.

I think the construction might be lodgings for the next generation being built in installments. In rural areas a lot of times the sons, when they get married, set up family in the parents' place. In Egypt, where you're forbidden to build on agricultural land, the simplest way is just to throw a new story on top, and you save a little each month until it's done. I knew one Nubian living in Cairo who every month would send money to the home village to buy a few more bricks. In urban middle-class districts, there's a doorkeeper who's got some works going on top of the building. In rural Iraq, meanwhile, where farmland's less scarce, people often prefer one-story family compounds, a big walled structure with living quarters built into the sides. I expect that particular design is hundreds of years old. Also, Middle Eastern city will be complete without power lines dangling all over the place, and no bit of desert will be complete without plastic bags blowing around everywhere.

Arabic groggery: Arabic's not just filled with exceptions, it's all exceptions. Instructors just pretend there's grammatical rules. This horrible realization starts to dawn on you once they start talking about Form XII verbs and quadrilaterals. Your Pakistani colleague's analogy is pretty good. Hardly anyone ever uses nunation in ordinary speech, not even when quoting Quran, except for little vestigial fragments that crop up here and there. I think the "hu" in "Allahu" might be one of those fragments, basically just a bridging sound. I can't believe they still force Arabic students to nunate. Re the precise meaning of "Allahu Akbar," I asked around and was told that the understood meaning is "God is greater," as in "greater than the enemy." You might shout it when you're on the attack, or when a foe begins to waiver. With the call to prayer, I've heard that the meaning is "God is more important than whatever you happen to be doing right now." Re, the relationship between the name "Allah" and the generic word for "god," my Hans Wehr gives the generic as ilah, root being alef lam heh as opposed to just lam heh. Maybe "Allah" maybe started off as al-Ilah but some time in pre-Islamic Arabic got contracted. There's also an Arabic name, Abd il-Ilah which means "Servant of the [one] god" as distinct from Abdullah, "Servant of God." CM Arabic Here's some other things Iraqis tell me that they might say in stressful situations. I expect that Syrian oaths and exclamations would not be that different. Tawakalna 'ala Allah -- In God we trust, roughly. You'd probably chant it softly and repeatedly as often as shout it aloud. Same goes for Allahu Akbar, btw. I've seen pretty chilling Iraqi insurgent footage of an IED ambush where the filmmakers' muffled chanting of ''allahu akbar'' increases in volume and tempo as the Humvee gets close to the hidden bomb, then breaks into shouting when it goes off. Ya Ibna al-Kalb, Ya Ibna al-'Ars -- Sons of dogs, sons of pimps (not sure why dog and pimp are in the singular and take the definite article). I once heard a Mahdi Army fighter shouting the former as he brandished the sole of his shoe at the Americans. Might make for a good animation. Ya Hafez -- ''Protector.'' Supposedly it's what Iraqis are most likely to say when a bomb goes off nearby. [ October 17, 2005, 03:16 AM: Message edited by: nijis ]

I assume there's not going to be new units or anything else added to CMBB, but I'm just curious if any of that rear-echelon stuff is going to make into the game in some form or another. Can we overrun supply columns? Great stuff, in any case

Syria's a pretty varied country, and its appearance also changes considerably according to the time of year and the amount of rainfall. Big dry Arabian-style deserts are out east, with mountains running in the west, and a Mediterranean coastal zone which is much like other coastal zones in the eastern Mediterranean. South of Damascus there's rolling hills and plains, which are green at some times of year and barren at others -- much like Jordan around Amman, for those who have been there. There's also the Euphrates river valley, whose terrain is much like that of al-Anbar province, Iraq (a narrow band of cultivation running through the desert). Damascus is a medium-sized city by developing-world standards, and includes an old city which still has its medieval layout, a colonial-era new town with broader, straighter streets, some wealthy suburbs that don't look much different than Western suburbia, and some pretty tightly-packed slum districts. [ October 12, 2005, 06:56 AM: Message edited by: nijis ]

Travel to Syria should be very safe. It's a lovely place, and Damascus has some really excellent restaurants set in the houses of the old city. That being said, I would strongly advise against any photography of possible scenario venues. Trying to explain the distinction between preemptive reconnaissance for a game set modeling a US invasion, and reconnaissance for the actual invasion, might be tricky, and authoritarian nationalist regimes live for espionage trials.