pamak1970

yes, i read 5..7 as 5.7 . I agree with the point that depending on situation the local commander will apply some value between 5 and 7 to the best of his judgment and information he has about weather conditions over the search area at the time of the mission execution.

I think what happened is that you missed the following i wrote towards Jason his response about range of values came after that basically arguing that it does not matter if you are not aware of the specific conditions since you can express things as a range of values which does not make sense ,because if patterns are affected by parameters you argue they have ranged values, then your orders will point towards azimuths and distances that are also ranged values. That is useless for a pilot of a specific mission who needs to plot it on the map [ April 23, 2008, 02:01 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

First of all there are many parameters, second you do not know visibility conditions accurately above the search area at the time of the arrival of the search plane. How many times missions were aborted cause of weather above the target area?

read again the article i post. If that was the case ,there would not be any issue expressed by the author,nor they would try to gather data from real life experience. At least up until now there is no such comprehensive function which will include all the crucial parameters that affect W . The OR tries constantly to improve algorythms for more realistic results of detection in military simulations. Do you have any link to give us? Everybody can pull out of his head whatever he wants and make whatever claims he wants. Try to back them up instead of assuming things Second, even if you were able to get the "5.7", that is not the optimum value to use for a particular situation. That is what the author says and it happens to be a well known name in OR community.. In other words, the commander in the field who has to deal with a specific situation, can certainly use a "rule of thumb" which might be prommissing to give the best results over a large sample of possible situations, but HE CAN NEVER BE SURE that this rule will produce actually the "perfect plan -search pattern" in his particular situation." If he makes the mistake to beleive that OR gave him the "optimum answer" and go for it, he will resemble the case of an officer who decides to attack based JUST on the fact that in 60-70% of cases ,the attacker won. Using this type of logic ,the local commanders should automatically decide to attack in the field ,since that is the "optimum course of action". That is something that nobody,claims ,including maneuverists. Jason often feels the need to support his positions by creating a strawman of what maneuverists really beleive, in order to argue "effectively" against it . As to the last point, two things, first of all the issue of sweep width is also out of your control, since it is affected by weather and other things. I guess you mean instead of "out of control" "chosen parameter" It is true that somebody can argue about the failure of a certain study to include crucial parameters. Most times ,it is not really a failure but a necessity of simplifications and ability to solve equations . Studies focus on certain things deliberately ignoring other parameters which are assumed to be constant. For example, you focus on exploring search patterns in relation to sweep width in a certain common enviroment where both patterns operate . In other words, if weather for example is exactly the same for all patterns, which one promises the best results ? So here you have a valid point which is actually related to the initial assumsions of the study. Again there is no some type of "perfect model" which includes everything. There are monographs of hundreds of pages dealing just with calculating probabilities of having a clear LOS between air and ground free of cloud formations at different seasons and regions. Google CLOS "cloud free line of sight". The saying is that "all models are wrong but some are useful". This is more relative with what i said before about the non-existance of some comprehensive equation related to W [ April 23, 2008, 01:12 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

I don't buy it. Just as JasonC wrote, the answers you get tend not to fly all over the place based on every detail variable. For example, i consider it very likely that a given search radius works better both when the target distribution is uniformly thin and when the distribution is skewed and when when the distribution is lumped. The whole point of dominant strategies is that they work better than the others most of the time. Pretending that such strategies do not exist is exactly the perfection strawman. If you want a single radius number, you almost always can get it ("when in doubt, go for 6". If you accept ranges (like "5-7 is a good range"), you get those. If the answer is funny, it can often be expressed in vulgar form, such as "6 and 8 seem to be sweet spots". </font>

If you want me to take you seriosuly, you have to present bibliography and the "theory" of yours with the results .

continuing from above, the assumsions are that the initial distribution of probability of detection is actually accurate representation of reality or for example that target distribution is uniform over the area we search

You are still confused. First the radious i am talking about is a different argument than the assumsions i mentioned before. Second, you obviously have not read the report,or you have not understood it cause you make things out of your mind. The distribution that Koopman used for detection probability at various ranges, gives mathematically a value called "sweep width" that is used subsequently for the study and the different patterns That parameter has a CERTAIN VALUE and it is the area under the lateral curve (distribution) of the detection probability. Mathematically it is the sum of the function that describes the probabililty of detection curve, with -R and +R being the limits of x . Solving this mathematically, you get a certain value That should make sense cause otherwise, you will end up give orders to plot paths of flights with "mean values and distributions" which is total nonsense [ April 22, 2008, 06:02 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

First sentence does not make sense. OR research can operate over whatever you want but it will always be based on certain assumptions. The first has nothing to do with the second. That is how math works As to the plenty of people predicting with accuracy the desert war casualties, you miss the whole point. The commanders AT THAT TIME, they could not possibly know about WHICH MODEL GAVE ACCURATE RESULTS. Different models gave results differring by dozens of thousands although they were based on OR , the source of the "right answer". The last part of your comments needs attention also. Three points. First, since you mentioned search theory, i will use this as an example. In theory, you can say "let X be search radious or whatever you want". Even if your model is accurate to define various relationships between radious and other variables , you still have a big problem when you try to apply it in practice. The military in the field want a search radious as a specific number. Which number is that? Is it going to be 7 miles or 5 miles for example? In order to appoint the right values, you need perfect information which in reality you do not have. From accurate temperature and humidity values over the certain area of operation, to the accurate state of the sea, to accurate predictions of cloud formations, and dozens other parameters. If your idea is that you should stay passive waiting for the perfect picture before you plot your mission, good luck with that. Second issue is that even if it was theoritically possible to gather all necessary data, during the development of operations, commanders in the field do not have the manpower, do not have the tools and do not have the time to gather feed and process all of those of details. They did not do it in wwii and they do not do it know inspite of the fact that technology has advanced dramatically since then. Computers today do help in many areas, but they still need data to feed them. So at the end what really happens is that OR helps in develoment of certain norms or rules of thumb which you can certainly use in the field but they for sure do not constitute the "best asnwer" for a specific situation in the field. The really heavy stuff in OR happen in the rear, inside, universities and institutes where whole study groups spend thousands of hours in analyzing data trying to advance OR even farther which in turn will produce more guides for the commanders in the field. However this process is slow and is conducted independent from whatever happens in the field. A rule of thumb based on some type of scientific process may still help Marines in dveloping a sound plan in the field. As the manual says, you do not aim for the best you aim to exeecute fast a "good " plan. That is why you see Marines also using OR,. Inspite of your charges, it should be clear that they also beleive that they are better and worse plans. It is just they do not want to hear a voice "hands up" inside their command post, while they are gathered around their computer inserting the last necessary parameters for the calculation of the "best plan". [ April 22, 2008, 03:16 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

On the last paragraph you quote, it is the pure rejection of OR. The officer is not to think there is a right answer, because a straw man of perfection can be constructed and pounded. Therefore he is to do something soon in profound ignorance, sure in his ideological conviction that no rational means of picking a truly "right" approach can exist. Actually your comment is a clear example of another one misunderstanding of yours. OR and on a more broad sense , math, is not developed in a vacuum. Science gives the "right answer" ASSUMING that certain anxioms hold true. That is something that even highschool students realize. You can have Eucledian Geometry and all the "right answers" to certain questions, ONLY IF certain anxioms are taken as true. The same questions under different set of anxioms in different geometrical systems have totally different answers. That is why we have the Non-Euclidean geometry systems. Similar cases we have with OR. It gives the "right answers" only if certain "postulates" are true. The problem is that in real life, you can not have a certainty about postulates and therefore you can not have a certainty about the results also. That is why very often OR studies give conclusions that contradict military experience. It is not that the scientists did "wrong calculations" , it is that certain premises did not prove to be right. For example the predictions about the casualties of allied forces before the first Gulf war. The models fell far by many thousands . The equations though were "correct", the premises were wrong though. This does not mean that Marine Corps rejects OR. They allocate funds effort and stuff for OR studies as i presented in the link which analyze their concept of fighting. It must be obvious that you can debate about the results of any OR study, regardless if you are an attritionist or maneuverist [ April 21, 2008, 05:23 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

Reckless haste is simply a dominated strategy. Needless to say, our manueverists instead preach reckless haste as a panacea. The line about any decision violently executed now being better than delay, is lifted straight from the Marine corps warfighting manual. It is not only that you insist on avoiding answering simple questions i asked to show you the fallacy of your statements, you come up with even more distortions. A new question for you to answer. If the marines preach "reckless haste as a panacea" , can you explain the existance of the following document? http://www.projectalbert.org/files/MWS2001On-line.pdf Title Maneuver Warfare Science 2001 From http://xrl.us/bjmty Mary Leonardi "Work Experience: Ø More than 10 years of experience in conducting and managing operations research studies, managing software development projects, conducting in depth independent research on topics such as complex adaptive systems, coevolution, multi-dimensional decision making, nonlinear dynamics, complexity, modeling and simulation, data analysis, evolutionary computation, decision theory, and other artificial intelligence topics. Ø Spent 10 years on active duty in the U.S. Marine Corps, where she has recently been a scientific analyst, providing analysis and recommendations to senior leadership on a wide variety of emerging technologies. She is still a Major in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, conducting analyses for Headquarters. She has authored numerous papers and briefings for conferences in the areas of operations research and artificial intelligence. She has recently edited the Marine Corps Publication “Maneuver Warfare Science 2001,” to which she also contributed material on the topic of coevolution." P S . The exact paragraph from warfighting manual says "Finally, since all decisions must be made in the face of uncertainty and since every situation is unique, there is no perfect solution to any battlefield problem. Therefore, we should not agonize over one. The essence of the problem is to select a promising course of action with an acceptable degree of risk and to do it more quickly than our foe. In this respect, “a good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.”" If your summary of the above is "any decision violently executed now being better than delay", i do not wonder you seem so confused with the whole subject. [ April 20, 2008, 11:43 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

When the many-star is flying by the seat of his pants into the enemy decision loop switching targets and directions opportunistically to fake the enemy out and achieve surprise, you can be sure he isn't doing any linear regressions in his head. Correct . The same applies to the Allied commanders, interdicting submarines in the Atlantic. What happens is that certain conclusions have already been incorporated in one way or the other in military practice and became guides or procedures much before the execution of specific missions,either in attrition or maneuver warfare. The background of equations and "why a flight path for a search mission should have a specific pattern" is not important for the carrier commander or the simple pilot. All he needs to know is the nature of the pattern and when he wants to search a certain area he just uses the normal military way of plotting a recon flight which follows this pattern. The scientific calculations to find the optimum dispersion patterns of depth charges , were also irrelevant on the deck. The destroyer commander needed only to know the time intervals between the orders to fire at various depths.

Wrong. It comes from the whole strategy being directed by detailed statistical analysis of convoy losses rates and u-boats sinkings, along with theoretical math about search radii and interception probability etc. Care to explain why "theoritical math and interception probability" can not be applied for the air recon missions of a Tank Corp under maneuver theory? Or why you can not use "statistical analysis" to analyze results and draw conclusions you can apply in maneuver theory? By the way, - it is detection probability linked to the search radius- the interception probability is something different. A portion of detections will become actual interceptions and the calculation of this ,uses other parameters. Scientists always work in a systematic matter and they produce results in various fields which certainly impact military decisions at all levels. The field can be Operations Research, engineering or electonics developing of a new tank or radar, or testing and analyzing and producing data about penetration of armor and so on. The fact that all these can affect military decisions is irrelevant to the doctrine used by the military. You can use a new tank model, or the penetration data to estimate optimum engagement ranges under any type of doctrine. The fact that all these came from a systematic scientific procedure ,is also irrelevant and does not make you attritionist. [ April 18, 2008, 01:42 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

You never have a 100% confidence about what will turn out to be profitable and what not. The "fog of war" is always present, so I agree with you that doctrines and theories have nothing to do with "doing a profitable A over B trade". They have to do with the way you deal with the uncertainty of war. For example,people who are willing to sacrifice firepower for acheiving higher tempo of maneuver, count on the fact that they will still be able to gain the advantage . What type of advantage? Faster means you become less predictable. Faster means you create more "fog" for the enemy to penetrate. Faster means you gain the initiative and having the enemy react, means you have better chances to get a better picture of the battlefield than he is and it is this thing that can pay off and help you direct your efforts in the most efficient way. A Database (at dupuy institute i think) of battles (tactcal level) through out history show that the attacker enjoys a rate of success of around 70%.For modern battles with faster tempo of operations it is even more. That is because 70% of the times the attacker's estimations of the situation on hand, turned to be correct. The attacker CHOSE to attack exactly because he was calculating and expecting that he had some type of advantage. Otherwise he would not attack at all. You can not explain the above higher rate of attacker's success, by saying that defenders through out history were led by leaders of lower quality. It is not that they were "stupid". It is the fact that reacting is more demanding than acting. That is what made them seem "stupid" in the eyes of armchair generals. Notice here that when i am talking about the fog of war, i am talking about operational and above levels ,because at a small level a unit may still have the advantage of defence, knowing the terrain much better than the enemy, establishing outposts and so on. However this will be unimportant if sound higher echelon decisions, force it to fight against big odds and this is exactly what happened in most cases of successful attacks. On a broader scale,the decisive results are going to come from decisions of higher commands and at this level, things are much more "foggy" for the side which is not fast enough to gain the initiative. There are very few books which give details about the process and delay of dissemination of information during operations. Outside of technical studies, a very good book is "a time of trumpets" about the battle of the bulge. It gives a balanced picture of the events through all layers of command from small units to the higher commmand. A careful reading reveals that although artillery bombardment started around 7 am (if i recall well), Bradley gets the news about the German offensive around 5:30 P.m (again if i recall well) and allies are still not sure if this is a major offensive justifying release of operational reserves or if it is just a limited one, trying to disrupt the preparations for the incoming Allied offensive action towards Germany . The book is really good because it gives you the information to study the perception of the situation through all layers of Allied command, from battalion Hqs to regimental division corps army army group and so on. It is just that i do not recall specific times for those cases, but they are there for anybody interested. More technical reports are published by RAND corporation. In one of them study groups gathered communication reports from many live training exercises at the National training center. They actually counted the duration (in minutes!) of stituation reports, SPOT reports, transmission of orders , and so on and they published the results. The result was that for events that lasted for about two hours, the battalion Hqs gathered a total of few minutes of transimissions related to reporting the developing situation. the battalion commander had to relocate closer to the actions in order to direct operations, however the battalion HQ could not do that and unfortunately it is its communication equipment which was necessary to relay information to the brigade. So although the commander had a decend picture of the battlefield, the unit which was responsible for pushing information higher, was lagging significantly in getting a decent picture of the events. There were many reasons for this lack of reports. Electronic warfare was not the crucial one. It was something else, which is well described in another book about Yom Kippur war. When a general kept interfiering asking for updates, a colonel replied to him " General if you keep asking more questions, soon there will be noone left to answer them!). The platton and company leaders had such workload ,they just could not have enough time to give reports to the back. Whenever they did, the duration of communication was short and totally inadequate. In higher levels things are even more confusing Intelligence officers of lower echelons have to make a judgment about the portion of information which is crucial enough to tie valuable communication equipment and time for transmission. Misunderstandings of the original information or the need to summarize reports from lower levels make things even more confusing, even if radios or telephones are working properly and you get reports. The above book about the battle of the bulge has some fascinating cases of this. Of course all these things apply to the attacker as well, however the crucial difference is that he does not react. He chooses the time and place where he will strike with a considerable proportion of his force. We are talking again about operational level, when even as a defender you are able to spot a concentration ,you still have hard time to understand intentions and if or where it will be applied . So it is not easy to do from the early stage a counter concentration of your forces opposite of the attacking ones. You have to decide about that after the enemy strikes and the faster the enemy acts the more unpredictable he becomes and the more difficult for the defence to predict the time and place of counter concentration (attritional approach). In addition the attacker will try to make sure that this decision is going to be even harder. He will do faint attacks, or ones with limited objective trying to lure your reserves away from his main effort and so on. He will try to use interdiction to delay operational reserves. The attacker has the advantage of knowing about his intentions and which routes are essensial for his mission, and which ones need to be interdicted to create delays to enemy unit trying to approach The defender, has first to correctly estimate or learn about the direction and routes of enemy advance. Air assets are just too limited to try to interdict all possible lines of communications Does this mean that faster or attacking is always better than slower or defending? Of course not. Countless examples of attackers crashed or fast moving units becoming too weak and disorganized to be effective, but this is not the point. The attacker is still able through out history to win 70% of the tactical battles. Now if someone says that wars through out history are won in general by the bigger side, he is right. This does not though invalidate maneuver theory. If the bigger side is able to win 70% of the tactical battles by moving faster,taking the initiative and attacking as often as possible,they are still going to win much more efficiently than by winning 30% of the battles. For those who do not get it, the crucial phrase is "as often as possible". You do not take the initiative and attack simply because you want to. It comes after "reading the battlefield" which is again related with the fog of war issues. The thing is that you should not be afraid to get the initiative and attack if you think is is justified ,regardless of the uncertainty. History shows that the chances are in your side and uncertainty actually benefits you more than your opponent. [ April 18, 2008, 03:47 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

If you had half the knowledge you claim you do about operations research, you would have known that OR is used regardless of the strategy used and the theory of maneuver or attrition behind it . It does not follow that using OR makes you attritionist. OR was used for example during the cold war to assist military even during periods when aggressive counterattacks and rapid maneuvers were part of the NATO plans First try to read a few more monographs about OR, assuming that you are already expert in math, and then you are welcome to claim your expertise in that subject [ April 17, 2008, 02:29 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

Convoys became less vulnerable when they were able to sail faster than the enemy u-boats, and u-boats became weaker when their slower underwater speed gave the enemy better chances to locate and destroy them. So the speed factor in maneuvering is close related to the outcome of that battle. Now if the above led to more kills, it does not follow that it is an "attritionist method". Notice also that Allies did not restrict themselves to the defense. They seized the initiative by aggressively hunting and attacking the enemy submarines. They did not plan to win the Atlantic war by counting on the "superiority of defence" , destroying u-boats during convoy attacks. I believe your statement comes from your belief that "Allies went for the kill" ,therefore their method is attrition-based. I will not agree with this point of view. Maneuverists may often discuss ways to avoid costly battles, but this does not mean that this is going to be the case always. Maneuverists will certainly go for the kill at some point or another. They just explore ways to make the impact of this kill as heavy as possible. If Allies were able to maneuver against the U-boat bases in French coasts for example, they could certainly try this option instead of hunting them one by one, but during the most crucial phase of the Atlantic war,they just did not have this option. The fact that this option was not available, does not make them attritionists. They seem to be fully aware of the benefits of speed and attack. P.s A few air raids against such naval bases is not really the maneuver we are talking about,like an artillery bombardment in enemy's rear has nothing to do with maneuver if it is not combined with other arms [ April 16, 2008, 01:48 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

I looked into my archives about a typical monograph regarding odds, force ratios and "force to space ratios" in theoritical form . I am sure you can google it,find and download it The level of math used is high but "logical". You face it basically in the second half of the monograph. The good thing is that there is plenty of text that everybody can read and understand. The first half can actually be read by everybody The book i recommended before depends much more heavily in math and it is much more difficult to read it. The level of math is also higher. Find in internet the following monograph to get a "feeling" of theoritical mathematical studies "Defence at low force levels The effects of force to space ratios on conventional combat dynamics" Stephen D. Biddle ,Project leader. [ October 04, 2007, 12:40 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

I guess you want to read theoritical studies of "military operation research". I am not sure if you are familiar with the above. In case you are not ,i will point a few things. Sinjce you want application of the theory for constructing algorythms, you need to know math of the highest level. Still even if you have a background in computer engineering or programming is not enough. I have a background in mechanical engineering and i frequently have trouble to follow the authors,since they use a wide range of various branches of higher mathematics. For example ,i had elementary knowledge of "set theory" ,not to mention that i had to recall knowledge i gained 15 years ago. The second thing is that most of these books are very expensive.If i recall well we are talking about $150-200 each. The third thing is that there is no definite answer to your quest. There is saying "all models are wrong but some are useful". Finally,if you think you have a very good mathematical background and it is worth to spend effort and time,here is one suggestion. J.S Przemieniecki "Mathematical methods in defence analyses". I have the third edition,but there might be a newer one. I strongly suggest you go to a bookshop and have a look at the book inside before you spend money to buy it. Try also amazon if it let's you look inside . Here are some topics Scientific methods in military operations includes subcategories like, theory of combat, decision theory, linear programming, Queuing theory, network analysis, game theory, differential games, and so on Deterministic combat models Lanchester models, Markovian attrition rates, Helmbold models, battle disengagement,forced break points, casualty exchange ratio, variable attrition coeficients and so on, Probabilistic combat models many on many engagements,uniform and random assignment of targets, sequential and continuous combat duel and so on Strategic defence Layered defence, two-person zero sum game-pure and mixed strategies, optimal pentetration routes, and so on Theater missile defence Tactical engagements of heterogenous forces Reliability of operations and systems Target detection Optimization methods Linear and non linear programming among others Modeling and finaly some appendixes with mathematical charts AND software with applications of programming based on the previous chapters.

Some comments also here. Sure ,there is corruption inside Pal government and sure there is a share of radicals there. Sure hammas is trying to inflict civilian casualties. It is also true that Israel is trying to expand and steal land that is under dispute. The security wall which is not built along the borders but actually infiltrates inside the disputed territoty is one example. Both attitudes must not be tolerated. One is not more evil than the other. Even in our society ,an aggressive action against our land and well being is sufficient to trigger a declaration of war and actions that will certainly cause civilian deaths. The use of civilian casualties as a method to pressure the enemy are well known everywhere. Israel did it recently in Lebanon ,counting on deterrance of future hezbolah actions. Obviously killing just radical fighters is not sufficient deterance since they are actually seeking for this. Both Nazis and allies did it in previous wars. They did bombed the factories that supplied the army with material. They also tried to win the war by bombing whole cities in general without aiming to specific targets. The aiming point for Hiroshima nuclear attack for example was the center of the city. The city was so important in military terms that it was pretty much intact up to that time. That was actually considered an advantage by the targeting comittee ,since it would demonstrate more clearly the power of the new weapon. The argument that "it actually saved lifes in the long run" can apply to justify Arab terrorist attacks as well. A conventional war is certainly more expensive regarding casualties I do not want to put a particular blame only on US . British did the same in many occassions . Of course Axis did the same and much worse . Sure cities provide army with various materials, workers for factories and so on. That applies to israelian cities also with a civilian population ready to fill reserve units of the Israelian army in a few hours. As to the so called retreat from Gaza,it is not revealed that in that small space ,more than a million of Palestinians are crumpled. There was certainly no room for expansion and even more Israelian illegal settlements. The army needed to protect the relative few Israelians there, could be deployed more efficiently in the new areas of West bank behind the constantly expanding "security wall" . As to the supply of humanitarian help by Israelians, he must be joking. Just because Israel wants to control communications,transportation, electricity , water supplies and so on, it does not mean that whatever they offer to Pals is a humanitarian help. What they really offer is destruction of any economic life and chance to be independent. The whole Gaza traffic with Egypt is regulated by just one control post controlled by Israel and which does not even allow the passage of cars. Pal products are not allowed in Israel and most of the times they become rotten before getting out from control posts towards other Arab countries. Fishermen are not allowed to leave the harbor. Israel actually regulates the flow of funds of towards Pals ,not to mention imposing outrageous taxes . Most of the above are from Former US President Carter,in his book "Palestine,peace not aparheid" describes the whole situation there since he has been involved actively and visited middle East in recent years. Many people tried to discredit his book,which is not surprising considering the crowd of christians in US that are pro-Israel beleiving in the concept of "promissed land" by God to the jewish people in old testament. CNN two days ago had an interesting poll on this Israel constantly refuses the presence of some UN peace keeping force in the occupied territories . They also impose rediculus prerequirements before continuing any type of diplomatic effort for resolving the problem ,buying time for expanding even more. For example , trying to extract a requirement by ANY Pal government , that ALL violence and terrorist attacks must FIRST stop, before continuing discussion , is unrealistic. Imagine such a requirement in Iraq today abandoning any effort for the construction of an effective Iraqie government there. Of course those things which are so obvious in Iraq , are not so obvious in the israel-Palestinian confrontation. On the contrary , the US government tries supposely to reform the middle East by spreading democracy (Lebanon and Pals undertook democratic elections and still voted for Hamas and hezbolah) At the same time they try supposely to be mediators in diplomatic efforts and they expect to be treated as fair ones by Pals and Arabs when they continue to fund Israel ,refusing to link such funds to the ending of Israel settlements expansion and they support Israel in delaying ceasefire in Lebanon during the recent confrontation in Lebanon. By the way, although Israel refused the offer of hezbolah to exchange the soldier with Arab prisoners during the Lebanon operations it did not have problem to interfiere in the inner-Pal confrontation recently, by supporting Abbass and releasing on its own initiative ,more than 100 Pal prisoners .

On "war crimes", sorry that is poppycock. If Hezbollah used coercion to keep civilians in a combat area then yes that would be a war crime. But simply targeting enemy forces in a populated area is not, especially if warning is given. Two comments. First, this argument is not used when both Hamas and Hezbolah have given warning for attacks against Israel. Do you justify a mortar attack by Hamas or Hezbolah against an Israelian settlement in occupied territories? There are plenty of military outposts,Hqs and soldiers patrolling in these areas. Recall that during the Lebanese confrontation,Hezbolah warned for attacks against Tel-aviv. It is interesting also that during the first day of fighting ,when the Israelian patrol was ambushed ,there were zero Israelian civilians dead. The following Israelian site has details about all the civilian deaths in Israel http://www.pmo.gov.il/PMOEng/Communication/IsraelUnderAttack/Lebanon+North/attacklebanonnorth.htm Although there are conflicting reports about the events during the first day,some pointing to Hezbolah divertions by attacking cities, common sense points that you can not expect to plan an ambush to kidnap and transfer back an Israelian soldier by staging a divertion that will alert the whole Israelian army. Second Reading about the civilian casualties on both sides, reveals the following. The number of FOREIGN civilians deaths in Lebanon ,is much more compared to the number of FOREIGN civilians in Israel. Even if you exclude the Arab foreign civilians, you still have about 25 dead European,Canadian and Indian civilians in Lebanon, compared to two foreign civilians in Israel. It is easy to claim that Hezbolah might have forced Lebanese civilians and used them as a human shield for propaganda purposes, however, they would not be able to do the same with foreign civilians without public outcry by everybody and especially by their countries. Now, if these foreign civilians were not able to escape the combat zone,it was not Hezbolah fault. [ August 24, 2007, 12:37 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

Since there were political comments,i will respond and if moderators feel they should lock this thread ,so be it..... I don't want to hear any "we couldn't possibly know" or any "never again"s, and no points for intentions etc. Since your theory is that if only them dang cowboys would simmer down, everything would be fine, and since you will soon get your wish (and frankly, have already over Iran for 3 years, since the US has deferred to an utterly failed EU policy of appeasement in the matter), it is all yours, every rotting corpse. That is actually something you can say about Iraq. With thousands of rotting corpses of innoccent civilians so far and no prediction for ending of violence for the near future. As to Iran threat, i do not agree with all this rhetoric. Iran is much more afraid of US policies and should be. It was a US interfierence ,undermining a democratic gopvernment and establishing the Shah dictatorship during the coldwar, it was US government that helped Saddam attacking Iran,it was the US aggression against Iraq that makes Iran even more insecure, it is the US policy of letting other countries in the region having nuclear weapons like Pakistan and Israel ,and it is the US policy of letting Israel bomb the **** out of Lebanon, delaying an immediate ceasefire, cause it refused an exchange of the abducted Israel soldiers with Arab prisoners. By the way, Israel itself did not have problem to take the initiative and release hundreds of Arab prisoners trying to support Abbass during the inner-Palestinian confrontation . As Martin van creveld (who is Israelian) has said, Iranians would be crazy if they were not developing deterance through WMD. At the same time,Iran would be crazy if they were surrendering operational control of a strategic asset like a WMD to any terrorist organization risking massive retaliation . The possibility and likehood of thousands of innocent victims by such an Iranian action ,is certainly less likely than other types of dangers which are ignored completely. At the top of the list is a new campaign and start of a new war lasting for many years If someone wants Iran without WMD ,then he must address the problem seeing the big picture working towards a nuclear free region. Unfortunately that is not so easy, since Pakistan for example will point India, India will point China ,China will point Russia and so on. This is actually the spirit of NPT. It does not mention only the responsibility of states members to restrict themselves from aquiring nuclear weapons. It also mentions the responsibility of states that already posses nuclear weapons to get involved in procedures for ultimately eliminating them. P.S i forgot to mention of course the US support for providing the Shah regime in Iran with nuclear technology . See for example http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3983-2005Mar26.html google for details and verification of the context..... [ August 15, 2007, 05:57 PM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

I will post some very rough data for anyone interested for a follow up.Unfortunately right now i do not have time for specific information. First remark is about the German maintenance companies in Panther battalions. Although the report mentions 25 repaied tanks per day (by two maintenance companies), i will assume that some portion of this work is about repairing mechanical breakdowns not related to combat losses. I will look again later to see the specific wording of the report and see if i can have more details. I will have to look also for possible information in Zetterling's "kursk statistical analysis". I want to see if there is any information regarding the strength of Panther battalions up to two weeks after the end of the Kurk offensive The next issue is about the book "death traps". The information is about 3rd Armored division which in 1944 retained the old TOE of the "heavy division". According to this, every combat command had an armored regiment (minus one battallion). Each armored regiment had its own maintenance company. In addition , the divisional maintenance battallion provided one more maintenance company to every combat command. So if i understand things right, the event mentioned in the book of repairing 35 tanks in 3 days , involved two maintenance companies (the regimental and the one provided by the division),plus an additional detachment(probably of platoon size) which went to reinforce combat command maintenance units with the heavy workload.

Thank you for your help John. Although i do not have much time for digging, i did explore the links briefly. In fact i had a look at most of these before. The frustrating thing is that although there is a lot of information out there, i was not able to locate personel data about these units. I can estimate aproximate the composition but i can not have a clear picture of the personel allocation. Note that some links with some details about personel strength are actually about independent heavy ordnance maintenance companies belonging to formations larger than divisions. I do not know if their composition is very similar with the maintenance companies which are part of an armored division TOE. Right now i am focussing on examining my files . I found yesterday a photocopy of an american field manual about staff and administration data. There ,there is a very detailed TOE showing equipment and personel strength for maintenance companies. However ,I will need time to examine it . The whole thing about the composition of maintenance companies started when i read some information regarding the amount of tanks repaired daily . At some point in Thomas Jent books i found a report about repairs in independent Panther battallions after the Kursk offensive. It stated that the two maintenance companies of the two Panther battallions were able to repair about 20-25 tanks daily. Later i found relative information about Americans inside the book "death traps". At some point the author mentions a battle where a combat command losses 45 tanks. The maintenance company of the combat command receives an additional detatchment from the divisional maintenance battalion and it is able to recover and repair about 35 tanks in three days. That was faster than the time needed to have tank replacements arriving from the rear . (note that i recall all the above from my memory ,so actual numbers might differ somehow). This type of information was what made me seek additional information about the maintenance organization at divisional level. It is interesting though that it was more easy to find detailed information about German maintenance units ,than American ones. At first i thought it would be the opposite. Any way,thank you again for your time to find all these links. One of them was new to me

Hello to everybody I copy a question i posted on another forum,since it seems there is more activity here. I can not find the TOE and the number of personel for an ordnance maintenance company ( part of the ordnance maintenance battalion) of a US armored division (1944) I know that for a US infantry division,the ordnance company is 147 men. However things are different in the armored division. The ordnance maintenance battalion (1944) for a US armored division has a strength of 762 (all ranks). Other than that i can not find details for the ordnance company and the specific allocation of personel to the various platoons or even the total personel strength-distribution. Any help will be appreciated. Thank you P.S I know about the material and vehicle composition of the unit. I miss the personel data. [ July 19, 2007, 11:07 AM: Message edited by: pamak1970 ]

are you sure about this number? According to my sources ,this number indicates the ordnance maintenance battalion strength. According to the book "the armies of George Patton" by george forty the ordnance maintenance battalion of the armored division has 762 men. So according ti this source,there is no way to have a company strength of 756.