LongLeftFlank

Reliable news and footage from Baba Amr is now fragmentary as foreigners (correspondents and doctors) have fled or been killed, as have the rebel fighters. Only about 4000 of the 50,000 peacetime residents are said to remain. However, there are reports that all males over age 12 are being detained. I'd be delighted to hear this is not the case guys, but I see no reason to believe that it is not. It's not like Assad is going to sign death warrants at his desk or anything; there is no Wansee conference for this. Killing detainees will be done for callous logistical reasons and then simply become routine. Ddetention facilities are likely already overcrowded and the mukhabarat and military intelligence teams lack the resources or inclination to "investigate" each case in a systematic way, assemble evidence, cross check. Instead, soldiers will try to extract what intel they can on rebels (give us names!) through crude torture -- most victims will of course name names, indicating their own complicity. This will make it easy to rationalize executing them to make room for the next bunch. Who wants to guard, feed and provide medical care for them once their usefulness is gone? And what officer wants to take the risk of releasing a "known" enemy back into the populace? And what happens when they start showing their torture scars to Al Jazeera? No, mass shooting is the simplest answer and even if some of them never took up arms it's their own fault anyway for letting their neighbours do so. Allah will sort 'em out...

The regime won't -- can't -- stop at a "few thou". As we speak every (Sunni) male remaining in Baba Amr is being trucked away by the 4th Mechanized Division, which is essentially an Alawite militia with tanks. I expect that that on the sectarian militia pattern pretty much all these men will be shot and buried in mass graves, many after being savagely beaten and tortured in custody. The rationalization will be easy enough; it's too much trouble to keep them, much less make any serious attempt to sort the "guilty" from the "not so guilty". Given enough time, they will attempt to repeat the process elsewhere in Homs, followed by Ar Rastan, Hama, Idlib, Halfaya and other rebellious cities. Same thing happened in Saddam's Iraq from 1991-1994. About 150,000 corpses -- mainly Shiite -- have been uncovered, and the list of the "missing" from that period is about 3x that. Once an army gets started on Einsatzgruppe work, it's the easiest thing in the world to continue. Human beings simply vanish in greater and greater numbers..... ....Unless the killers get interrupted, like the Serbs in Bosnia, the Sudanese Janjaweed or the Interhamwe Hutus, or face a determined opposition in guerrilla-friendly terrain capable of creating denied areas of refuge, like the Iraqi Kurds (and they needed a Western-enforced no-fly zone to survive). Eventually, after killing about 50,000 men or so in this manner the regime might be able to "cow" the bigger urban centers of Damascus and Aleppo. The rebels will withdraw into the hill country near the completely porous mountain borders, where they will wage a long term insurgency, fed by Saudi financed arms. This movement will start off fragmented (as it is now), but will likely become increasingly Salafi / "Greater Sunnistan" / AQ influenced over time as the brutal fight drags on and the West continues to sit on its arse. This movement in turn will at minimum "re-destabilize" Iraq's (Sunni) Anbar, Lebanon and the West Bank (Hamas has already tossed over Iran and Assad in favour of the FSA), and possibly also cause troubles in Jordan, the Kurdish region and poorer areas of Turkey's Anatolian heartland.

More selected clips from the siege of Baba Amr and Homs. The 25th day of shelling in Baba Amr. Note the eerie silence, except for the shells. http://www.youtube.com/user/UgaritNewsEnglish#p/u/0/KYiEK5xGNHg High quality BBC footage showing regime tanks and infantry advancing along city streets (first 30 secs only) Combat footage purporting to be a Feb 24 FSA attack on "60 troops" holed up in a Baath Party HQ (more likely a police post) in al Hamadiya, Homs. Two destroyed BMPs are in front of the building. They basically hose the building down for most of the video... the most interesting part is the end starting around ~5:45 http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=lLlVbnpDk-I The same vehicles burning and cooking off -- looks like they were destroyed in a night attack and the siege of the building (previous clip) went on into next day. Another night clip captures a loudspeaker giving the garrison "10 minutes to surrender". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPLP1FB0_nU&feature=related Regime rooftop OP under MG fire by rebels (camera is fixed for entire vid) http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=_PfAZ-3rby0 FSA technical fires a DShK HMG. Also, I'm now seeing a lot more RPGs in rebel hands in the background than a couple of weeks ago (although I suppose that could be faked for the benefit of the Assad forces). The rebels claim (unconfirmed) they are now getting French Mistrals. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyVTTJCBWVo&feature=related Same technical (?) visible starting at 2:00 here. Note the sandbags. http://www.youtube.com/user/UgaritNewsEnglish#p/u/2/pY2qcxt3ZX8 T72 in action in Bab Tadmur district of Homs (a BMP is already in position and firing). Numerous adhan broadcasts create an eerie cacophony in the background. http://www.youtube.com/user/UgaritNewsEnglish#p/u/3/IzFChF279K4 Another cameraman with more ballz than sense, downrange of a tank shooting. From the BBC Mr Assad's security forces have been predictably resilient. A regime built around the Alawite sect has stacked its officer corps with co-religionists, fellow tribesmen, and family members. The 4th Mechanised Division, which recently scrambled to regain control of Damascus' suburbs, is drawn entirely from that sect. So too is the Republican Guard and influential air force intelligence. The Shabiha, an Alawite militia, has also been a useful auxiliary. In short, Syria's military has been turned into a ruthless confessional militia that is likely to see little future in a post-Assad Syria. The country's demography means that only Sunni conscripts can fill up the rank-and-file. Although the regime has sought to limit their role in combat, a steady trickle of defections has been unavoidable.

Only Persians have any hope of sorting out the ills that presently beset Persia. And foreigners have no hope whatsoever of determining what form that sorting out takes. That pithy wisdom dispensed, the anti-intellectual rural populist claque of Guardians who presently run the country backed by the SS-like paramilitary organization for advancement of amoral undereducated thugs known as the Revolutionary Guard is going to prove exceedingly hard to displace. The best that can be hoped is that younger, pragmatic elements within both groups evolve into something more predictable and businesslike, like the Inquisition slowly giving way to the Jesuits. The alternative, I fear, is the mutual evisceration of two 3000 year old civilizations: Iran and Israel. is going to be extremely hard to remove from power

Oh yes, nobody disagrees with that. Best quote I ever heard on that was Howard Stern cutting off Robin when she started to read yet another piece on Palestinian "peace talks," saying "Y'know Robin 30 years from now someone will be sitting in that same chair reading that exact news item..." But that's cold comfort to the poor innocent families who are getting their houses and water supplies caved in right now by randomly aimed BM21 rockets.... Well with all that fine humanitarian sentiment sincerely expressed, I'm off to the tropics for vacay. No CM mapmaking for 2 weeks, but I finally get to read "the Gun", along with Dan Yergin's latest and a biography of James K Polk. Good beach reading.

I haven't studied the Mortain battlefield, but going on you photos alone I'd hazard a guess that you're out of the dense bocage country at this point and into flatter, more fertile countryside bounded by conventional hedgerows (Low Bocage) like you'd see in England. The pattern of the fields is far less chaotic than the hills of Basse Normandie; neat square fields (as opposed to medieval "strips") may also be an indicator of land centuriation from Roman times.... in other words this was desirable farmland back then. Also, you can see in the 1947 imagery where the orchard trees have been removed in favour of croplands. And now virtually all the hedgerow is gone.

Gorgeous work, UCGeek! Like most, I can live with your bend in the rail line as long as you understand that it changes the tactical nature of the line -- historically the straight track through the station would make a perfect fire lane for a tank or less likely an AT gun (since they wouldn't emplace out in plain sight of Jabos)

Nice eye candy, but given that this is supposed to be a TRAINING simulation, I was utterly unimpressed with what their high gloss pixeltroops were actually DOING -- in fact, after the firefighters it was all really kind of ridiculous. The capper was the Stryker column speeding through the town at the end of the second vid with the infantry sprinting along next to them. Helos landing dramatically in the middle of towns (hot zones)? Arrows showing you how to close assault a 1 room motorcycle repair shop by entering a narrow back alley and then climbing to the roof? (or is this a HVAC technician training simulator?) Naturally, these tableaus were all laid out to show the full-on power of the graphics engine and animation, but tactically it was utter c-r-r-ap. I'd guess any professional soldier would be laughing his arse off. Also, I'm not sure I saw more than about 30 distinct moving units (soldiers, vehicles) in any one shot. Which means this isn't really that much more powerful than the other high end shooters out there, just a bit prettier. But I could well be wrong on that. 2. How long does it take to set up an actual complete battlespace in their Editor? Arma2 and all those have very limited battlespaces of a few km2 and you start seeing the same stuff over and over again. A serious tactical simulator has got to model the battlefield as accurately as it does the soldiers (the shooting through walls bit was pretty neat, I must admit), with no artificial limitations. 3. How good is the AI or does every avatar need to be human-controlled? These vids are not telling me the American taxpayer is getting his $57M worth. Unless this is the version they're planning to ship to the Chinese and Russians.....

Again, my suggestion is Scarce ammo -- allows some heroics and self-protection by crews, but not too much....

Well in that case I'd say that Assad bombarding a bunch of cities to rubble will resolve nothing; at most it will buy him 2 years of smouldering discontent and frequent terrorism. The regime has no remaining capability to do anything but loot and terrorize, the genie is out of the sectarian bottle and the longer the opposition is repressed the more likely fanatical hardline elements will rule it when it inevitably does come to power. The reasonable reformers are also the easiest to kill, alas. Witness KR Cambodia, Taliban Afghanistan and Soviet Russia. Again, I'm not whitewashing the alternative -- it's an ugly phase the Arab world will have to go through, now or soon..

I couldn't disagree more. Densely populated cities do NOT get sealed off and ruthlessly hammered with heavy artillery and tank shells and sprayed with 23mm Shilka meat choppers every day. Since 1980 you can count the number of these kinds of heavy firepower sieges on your fingers: Benghazi (interrupted), Fallujah, Grozny, Srebenica, Sarajevo, Vukovar, Basra (1980s), Khorammshar, Beirut (1982), Hama.* Before that you need to go back to Hue (or Phnom Penh) Cities engulfed in bloody civil strife (primarily AK toting mobs) create a slightly larger list, e.g. Mogadishu, Kigali, Monrovia, various towns in Congo. I have also excluded cities that became extensions of larger conflicts as opposed to a specific siege - e.g. Ramadi, Tripoli. EDIT I guess you could add Dubrovnik and Mostar amd perhaps some other Yugoslav towns to the list of sieges. I am not contesting your premise, only your conclusion.

But listen to yourself. That messy sectarian conflict is now underway and unavoidable. It was ongoing in Iraq long before 9-11; Iraqis killed by the regime in the 1990s vastly exceed those who perished in the US period. The genocidal power of an organized army, particularly with artillery and air power vastly exceeds that of a patchwork of sectarian neighbourhood militias, as dismal as the latter prospect is. The Lebanese civil war was a miserable affair but at the end no ethnic group or sect had been exterminated (although many have lost their ancestral homes). It's the "lesser" of two great evils. As to Iraq, Libya, Tunisia and Egypt, it's far too early to write any of those revolutions off as chaotic failures; The sparse population of Libya is deeply tribal for example and any new "regime" must necessarily be local not Tripoli-centered. The new USA in 1785 didn't look so great either -- Virginia ravaged, Tories being "cleansed" out (some of my ancestors in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick), Continental Congress bankrupt and divided. Peaceful revolution is simply no longer an option in Syria. Pick your poison.

Well like I said, the terrorists and Salafist Sunni supremacists and would-be ethnic cleansers are definitely there, but they neither began this rebellion, nor are they calling the shots. But the evidence of my own eyes tells me the "evil government murderers" are there in force. You seem like a decent guy, but if you're Israeli or old-school Orthodox Christian, or a cynical hard-bitten Iraq War vet, or just an old fashioned America firster saying "screw 'em, let 'em kill each other", I guess I'm not going to persuade you that the opposition aren't just wolves in sheeps clothing. So we'll have to agree to disagree. This kind of ugly sectarian confrontation is brewing all over the melting pot countries of the Middle East (i.e. everywhere that isn't 100% Sunni Muslim like Saudi and the Emirate). Traditional Islam, which has never recognized a distinction between church and state, feels menaced by secular modernity, and is lashing out against it, backed by legions of the poor and ignorant. On the other hand, these people have no answers either and in the absence of real popular support they too will fall from power. But propping up Assad or any other despot isn't going to prevent this confrontation or hold down the lid on that pot any longer. Socialism never worked any better in Arab nations than anywhere else, even when backstopped by oil wealth. Over time the Presidents have turned themselves back into old-fashioned hereditary despots, abandoning all pretense at wealth redistribution and instead channeling all largesse to a narrow clique of courtiers and Praetorians. These guys are incapable of commanding loyalty other than through terror. T62s shooting. I think the building next to them is the "Consumer Centre" -- a kind of low end shopping mall

C'est magnifique! You quite sure though that the rail line took that tight bend right out of the station like that? Seems a wee tad inconvenient for switching purposes....

Having watched hundreds of these clips now, to the point I'm beginning to recognize backstreets, I can say that the takbir is not merely a war cry or sign of crazed Salafists behind the camera. It is often being chanted anxiously as a benison against evil, much like "Hail Mary, full of grace". Paramilitary (shabiha) and/or police post and BRDM being attacked by FSA forces, although the actual attack is only heard not seen. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSuS06zfqtQ&feature=related

Well, if that's a hope at all, perhaps the US at least puts some Predator Hellfires on the artillery to signal that This Is Evil and bring him to the table. Implication is that the next steps involve annihilating his air defense net and forcing him to run from bunker to bunker. Otherwise, this goes on the heap of inaction with Srebenica, Rwanda,Warsaw, etc. Boots on the ground? Not necessary or advisable. But we can definitely move the needle. Oh, and I definitely hear you guys on the opposition. I'm not blind -- I see the AQ "bug" logos and hear the martyrdom music on the vids. Those scum are definitely in there and aren't going away. But that ugly confrontation can be fought out without mass bombardment of cities followed by kids dying of dysentery and cholera, which is inevitable when the water and sewage is blown up. This is just the beginning of the tragedy.

There were just three ways that our infantry could get through the hedgerow country. They could walk down the road, which always makes the leading men feel practically naked (and they are). They could attempt to get through gaps in the corners of the hedgerows and crawl up along the row leading forward or rush through in a group and spread out in the field beyond. This was not a popular method. In the first place often there were no gaps just when yon wanted one most, and in the second place the Germans knew about them before we did and were usually prepared with machine-gun and machine-pistol reception committees. The third method was to rush a skirmish line over a hedgerow and then across the field. This could have been a fair method if there had been no hedgerows. Usually we could not get through the hedge without hacking a way through. This of course took time, and a German machine gun can fire a lot of rounds in a very short time. Sometimes the hedges themselves were not thick. But it still took time for the infantryman to climb up the bank and scramble over, during which time he was a luscious target, and when he got over the Germans knew exactly where he was. All in all it was very discouraging to the men who had to go first. The farther to the rear one got the easier it all seemed. Of course the Germans did not defend every hedgerow, but no one knew without stepping out into the spotlight which ones he did defend. It was difficult to gain fire superiority when it was most needed. In the first place machine guns were almost useless in the attack.... ....when our men appeared, laboriously working their way forward, the Germans could knock off the first one or two, cause the others to duck down behind the bank, and then call for his own mortar support. The German mortars were very, very efficient. By the time our men were ready to go after him, the German and his men and guns had obligingly retired to the next stop. If our men had rushed him instead of ducking down behind the bank, his machine gun or machine pistol would knock a number off. For our infantrymen, it was what you might call in baseball parlance, a fielder's choice.

Well, centralized control for its own sake isn't worth much either when the incumbent strongmen in question have long shed any socialist/nationalist principles they might once have had in favour of open economic plunder by a tiny clique of cronies and a Praetorian guard. What hope for a better future, or even maintaining their ramshackle status quo, do the non-crony 99.9% have? Zero -- that's why they're up in arms even though they knew the likely consequences. They'd rather take their chances with warlords and mullahs, who are at least local. Do you really believe that all these explosions (this is a single panorama from 2 minutes of footage) are carefully or even generally targeted on known or suspected points of resistance? This is nothing but pure malice, intended to punish the populace for hosting the regime's enemies.

The savage bombardment continues. No military purpose whatsoever is being served here.... Main boulevard, opposite the Al Jouri mosque. Facing north. Western edge of the district, opposite the Orontes valley and refinery. Facing south. Cemetery area -- I think facing north toward high rises next to the stadium. They were regime sniper posts, but these buildings now are being rocketed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saopdamtSVM&feature=related

Good comments here. The reason bocage exists is that the fields of upper Normandy are both exposed to bitter winds from the Atlantic and very rocky. So for the ancient subsistence farmers it made sense to create walls with the rocks. Over time these became overgrown, creating hedgerows. Then tall hedges and trees were planted up top to maximize windbreak value and compensate for the cutting down of the primeval forests. Around the Renaissance, subsistence farming gave way to commerce and specialization. With demand for meat and dairy products soaring in the cities, the Norman seigneurs found it profitable to specialize in pasturage and orchards, leaving crop raising to the more fertile river plains (e.g. the British sector of Normandy). What crops you do see in the uplands are for local use, primarily as feed. As to gaps, I feel Broadsword has it right -- nearly every wall, tall or short, should have at least one gap or Hedge segment to allow infantry to cross. I usually pair the Hedge segments with Mud tiles to reflect the delay and Bog risks.

Yeah, but in high-density MOUT I want them able to split squads. I never bought Steve's reasoning on that. And I want scenario(s) to be playable with base CMSF only, so no Airborne.

On the RL side of this, I do hope the evacuation of the US Embassy means that Predators (or Turkey-based warplanes) will be arriving shortly to take down some of the artillery presently bombarding Homs. Unfortunately, I'm not expecting that for a while, as there's no way of knowing if American citizens are still in-country. Obama can't afford a hostage crisis in an election year, so I'd guess that Mr Cautious won't lift a finger until the bloodshed hits a level at which it starts to register on the American consciousness, and his GOP opponents demand action which will give him the cover to act. Unfortunately I suspect Newt thinks that the FSA are just a bunch of Al Qaeda Salafists, so it's up to Romney and he won't say anything until he wins some more states. Alas, over the next few days the people of Baba Amr may pay a brutal price for America's (and Europe's) gridlock and compassion fatigue. I'm not the kind of self-hating liberal who seeks to lay all the world's ills at America's door, but Bush staked everything on a democratic transformation in the Middle East, and Obama has effectively endorsed that by staying in A'stan. It is stupid for the West to flinch now. Intense bombardment with Katyushas based about 15km away. The FSA have no way to get at them. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLYumYeujUA This is the Warsaw uprising, happening right now.

Agreed. Nearly everyone, including the Russians, seems to have adopted kevlar and the coal-scuttle shape; the old steel pots are on their way out at least for first line troops. I'll probably use all Special Forces troops for the Republican Guard, using Ryujin's mod that puts them in green camo (and flak jackets). I'm also exploring using black-garbed Fighters for the paramilitary shabiha thugs. On the other hand, the FSA "good guys" will be Combatants, using Mord's awesome ragtag pack....

Not much going on in this little clip (Feb 4), but it does give a good-on-the-ground view of the typical tactical landscapes of Baba Amr -- the cinderblock-walled residential compounds vs the 3-5 story shophouse/apartments in the commercial district. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_c-l4ohbL8&feature=endscreen&NR=1

And if anyone wants to know what an incoming 120mm mortar round sounds like (or is under the misapprehension that it makes no sound at all until it explodes), here is a YouTube clip from the rebel city of Homs, Syria, posted today.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qHGc_yJJC4 EDIT: Never mind, it's a 122mm artillery round fired by these bastards. My mistake. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhkW78idP4c&feature=related