Israeli ground tactics in S. Lebanon

[wade_Angler]

When the under under underdog teaches the biggest dog with fleas valuable lessons in warfare, all underdogs earn the right to gloat.

As for grand tactics and strategems, I'll defer to your eminance.

[PseudoSimonds]

Originally posted by wade_Angler:

When the under under underdog teaches the biggest dog with fleas valuable lessons in warfare, all underdogs earn the right to gloat.

As for grand tactics and strategems, I'll defer to your eminance.

So what you're saying is you really have nothing to contribute. Shocking.

[wade_Angler]

Originally posted by Khane:

Originally posted by wade_Angler:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> So the point is they suck.

It seems you are quite an expert. You are back from Bint Jbeil I presume.

Khane </font>

[oren_m]

Originally posted by wade_Angler:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Khane:

Originally posted by wade_Angler:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> So the point is they suck.

It seems you are quite an expert. You are back from Bint Jbeil I presume.

Khane </font>

[wade_Angler]

Originally posted by PseudoSimonds:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by wade_Angler:

When the under under underdog teaches the biggest dog with fleas valuable lessons in warfare, all underdogs earn the right to gloat.

As for grand tactics and strategems, I'll defer to your eminance.

So what you're saying is you really have nothing to contribute. Shocking. </font>

[wade_Angler]

Originally posted by oren_m:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by wade_Angler:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Khane:

Originally posted by wade_Angler:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> So the point is they suck.

It seems you are quite an expert. You are back from Bint Jbeil I presume.

Khane </font>

[PseudoSimonds]

Originally posted by wade_Angler:

I contribute meaningfully to society, family, god and country. To you, this board and the Israelis I contribute nothing, zilch, 0. Because any tactics and strategies revealed by me will never be gratuitous, nor will I aid and abet you and your friends through accessible media.

So you really are just a troll. Again, I'm thoroughly shocked.

[Khane]

Originally posted by wade_Angler:

these maybe your last posting days.

LOL !

Khane

[Gpig]

Angler, perhaps your waders are cinched up just a bit too high.

Come to shore, sit down and have a hotdog.

That's enough fishing for one day, eh?

[wade_Angler]

Originally posted by PseudoSimonds:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by wade_Angler:

I contribute meaningfully to society, family, god and country. To you, this board and the Israelis I contribute nothing, zilch, 0. Because any tactics and strategies revealed by me will never be gratuitous, nor will I aid and abet you and your friends through accessible media.

So you really are just a troll. Again, I'm thoroughly shocked. </font>

[dan/california]

Point 1: If Battlefront put up a request for pre-orders on an Arab Israeli version of cmx2 they might be surprised. Heck, just don't run the cc #s or start development until you have enough guaranteed buyers to make it worth your while. Once the game engine built it is all artwork and stats anyway. That is not trivial but it does not approach a whole new game either.

Point 2: Our Israeli friends certainly have a point of view but they are usually polite and what they say seems to make sense, given that some of them are IDF tankers they should. That is less true of the other side on all counts so far. If someone wants to give a coherent account of what Hezbollah is doing and how they are doing it I am sure this board would give them a wide audience. Well besides managing to drop half of their rockets in Israeli-Arab neighborhoods, that is, even Time Magazine can cover that.

Point 3: I like Battlefronts games immensely and own at least three of them not counting demos. The developers interaction on these boards and the informed opinions of the the people on them are one of the primary reasons why. That said, the developers horse on the issue of what games they will and won't make is getting a little bit too tall. All wargames simulate situations in which people die very unpleasantly, the rest of it is details. Does something make a good game and or sell are separate and valid questions. We do want them to be able to keep doing it after all.

[wade_Angler]

You're absolutely right Gpig, I'm outa here.

[Imperial Grunt]

Wow, this thread degenerated quickly.

That Time magazine article reminded me why I don't read Time. Exact same slant they had when OIF 1 kicked off. I remember reading about thier version of Nasariyah and I had to throw the magazine into a fire.

While I do not think that Israel's offensive is going exactly as planned (what military operation does?), they are facing an enemy that is fully entrenched, both militarily and politically, in their positions. The bid to quickly remove Hezbollah with airpower and raids by special operation forces only was wishful thinking,(they have an airforce general in charge, and the flyboys tend to believe that airpower can win ground wars) the IDF will adjust and march on. It is going to take Fallujah-style assaults with combined arms forces. That is something that is very much a CM:SF subject.

I think an IDF module would be very interesting to play if it is made.

There are many great CM:SF titles that could be made, just pick a place. Chechnya, Korea, Taiwan, Africa, etc...

[Dogface]

@ wade_Angler

Ahh no I still dont see how an article titled "9 IDF troops killed in day of fighting" has anything to do with CM:SF. You can fill your post with fun buzzwords like "Asymmetric combatants" and some how make the leap in logic that "since 9 IDF troops were killed in a day, so that must mean that their tactics suck"

But without some relevant discussion on what it is that they are doing wrong in the ground portion of this conflict, your posts have about as much to do with the topic of this thread as that article had to do with CM:SF

[Cary]

Originally posted by LtCol West:

Wow, this thread degenerated quickly.

[snip...]

While I do not think that Israel's offensive is going exactly as planned (what military operation does?), they are facing an enemy that is fully entrenched, both militarily and politically, in their positions. The bid to quickly remove Hezbollah with airpower and raids by special operation forces only was wishful thinking,(they have an airforce general in charge, and the flyboys tend to believe that airpower can win ground wars)....

[snip...]

There are many great CM:SF titles that could be made, just pick a place. Chechnya, Korea, Taiwan, Africa, etc...

Agreed, there's an interesting discussion in this thread that got lost in the debates and acrimony over current events.

I think it's also an interesting point you make that some of the Israeli problems have come from planners who thought they could win from the air....

That said, with apologies to those who'd like to continue this thread, I've started a new thread entitled "modern combat and scale" that picks up on Oren's point and yours in a different way: subtly, both you and Oren, seem to be arguing for a downward shift in scale from the contemporary CM to focus more on the "ground tactics" that might be employed in firefights against a guerrilla force, etc.

I'm not so sure I'm all that keen on this kind of company-level scale wargame, but my question is whether it might be be particularly difficult to simulate modern combat at any of the intermediate scales between company and division/corps. In World War II, a game design doesn't lose all that much by abstracting Off-board artillery, counterbattery (such as it was), airpower/FACs, etc. With PGMs, choppers, and well-developed CAS, this seems much more of a problem, potentially.

[ July 26, 2006, 04:30 PM: Message edited by: Cary ]

[Battlefront.com]

Its a very fine line at the moment, isnt it? Which one is worse, he who kills 40 or he who kills 400. Or roundabouts anyway...

Can't look at just one piece of the equation. The Western Allies in WWII killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. They even purposefully targeted them in what was later determined to be a counter productive (and illegal in many people's opinions) strategic bombing campaign. Civilans, to some degree, always suffer in any conflict. But that doesn't make the armies attacking them terrorists. Might make them immoral, incorrect, overbearing, sloppy... whatever, but not terrorists.

Just a reminder that when one misuses a word one destroys its original meaning. Do not confuse a Terrorist with a Soldier. While their actions can sometimes be similar, they are never the same thing.

BTW, wade_Angler was Saviola. Confirmed that myself, no questions about it. Two registered names is a big no-no on this Forum. Doesn't surprise anybody here, I'm sure.

Steve

[ July 26, 2006, 04:35 PM: Message edited by: Battlefront.com ]

[Battlefront.com]

Dan (and all)

If Battlefront put up a request for pre-orders on an Arab Israeli version of cmx2 they might be surprised

Nope, I am sure I wouldn't be surprised. There would be a couple hundred immediate sign ups, then effectively nothing after. That wouldn't even pay for changing the splash screen

You guys have to remember something... a true wargamer can be pretty much interested in any well done simulation, regardless of time period, forces involved, etc. In fact, true wargamers LIKE the challenge of commanding unfamiliar forces in unfamiliar terrain. I'm a true wargamer. I love playing CMBB as the Hungarians or Romanians, for example. Or the Italians in CMAK. Great fun. However, we know for sure that this stuff is a turn off to the vast majority of gamers and, drum roll... CMers. 'tis true, I'm sorry to say.

Steve

[Jussi Köhler]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

But that doesn't make the armies attacking them terrorists. Might make them immoral, incorrect, overbearing, sloppy... whatever, but not terrorists.

I have nothing but respect for the IDF.

Its just the guys pulling the strings and laughing into their Kippots that makes me furious. I still dont see a difference between Hassan Nasrallah and Ehud Olmert and their closest buddies.

The Israeli are making fools of the rest of the western world, and in a spectacularily arrogant way. Someone should give Olmert a good spanking.

[Cary]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Do not confuse a Terrorist with a Soldier. While their actions can sometimes be similar, they are never the same thing.

Steve

Just a minor point, but it seems arguable that it's the soldier's job not to be confused with the terrorist, not the civilian's job to tell one killer from another.

Certainly the difference can get terribly academic when armed men kick in your door late at night.

This may seem a high standard to set for soldiers. But these are men and women whom society has given a huge license. And they've got to earn their big bucks somehow.

Apologies, I'm feeling unusually cynical.

[ July 26, 2006, 10:24 PM: Message edited by: Cary ]

[Battlefront.com]

Cary,

Just a minor point, but it seems arguable that it's the soldier's job not to be confused with the terrorist, not the civilian's job to tell one killer from another.

If the person doing the killing is wearing a uniform, is in the paid employment of an established government... then he is a Soldier. Plain and simple. There is no room for confusion. The US Soldiers and Marines accused of henious crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan are still Soldiers, not Terrorists. They are, however, poor excuses for Soldiers or Human Beings for that matter. But they are still Soldiers.

Criminal organizations mask themselves as Police, Soldiers, or some sort of government institution that is supposed to be a legitimate part of a government. But unlike the ideal they are instead dedicated to criminal activity. They are motivated by power, money, sex, violence, etc., not the ideals the state supposedly supports (even the Nazi government had ideals, they just had no intention of living up to them).

Things get a little dicey when you talk about rebel movements. These groups may, or may not, be recognized as a legitimate military force. Often by the group they are directly fighting against they are called Terrorists these days, Rebels in the old days. Some conduct themselves in a way that is closer to that of a Soldier, some more like Terrorists, but most are like Criminals (mercenaries can be any of these). Again, it's a judgement call here.

Terrorists, on the other hand, tend to not fit the description of either Soldier, Rebel, or Criminal. They are "stateless" and often operate within the borders of a "host" like a parasite or at best a symbiotic organism. They are accountable only to themselves and their beliefs. They do not recognize any rules of war, nor do they respect innocent life in any way. Their ultimate goal is to kill pretty much anybody that they find disagreeable. Hezbollah fits this definition, SS Einsatzgruppen do not. The latter was a direct part of a recognized government, and therefore fits the definition of Criminal organization, not Terrorist organization.

Those who do not agree that there are distinctions must have a pretty hard time making sense of the world, not to mention being able to live in it. It's not a black and white world out there. Trying to make it so won't.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Quick test to see if the person doing the killing is a Soldier, Rebel, Criminal, or Terrorist. If someone objects to the killing, what sort of accountability is there? The less accountability, the more likely it is a Terrorist. The more accountability the less. Now, one can argue about the value of accountability, that's for sure, but it is in theory there.

When someone kicks in your door, rapes your kid and kills your wife (or husband), who can help you get justice? If it is a Soldier then you can voice complaint to the State that the Soldier belongs to. Failing that, that State is a member of the UN (if recognized, of course) so there is some chance of recourse there. Similar for Rebel movements. Criminal organizations sometimes try to at least do some PR moves to make people think they aren't Criminal, but in general accountability is low. However, if it is a Terrorist, who do you go to? There is no one because Terrorists do not hold themselves accountable for their actions. That is, duh, why they are Terrorists

Accountability is a key indicator.

Steve

[Bigduke6]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

[QB] Quick test to see if the person doing the killing is a Soldier, Rebel, Criminal, or Terrorist. If someone objects to the killing, what sort of accountability is there? The less accountability, the more likely it is a Terrorist. The more accountability the less. Now, one can argue about the value of accountability, that's for sure, but it is in theory there.

So. By that definition British Bomber Command, the Red Army conducting a deliberate offensive against the East European country of your choice -those organizations tend towards the terrorist because of the lack of accountability if some one objects to the killing. After all, if civilians got killed by accident by those military structures, nothing was going to happen to the killers.

Indeed, no one even was going to check and see if civilian life was being protected. And frankly, had some one inside the organization objected, they would have been punished for not being with the program.

Sounds pretty terrorist to me.

But why use organizations? Let's talk individuals. How about the crew of the Enola Gay? A nice bunch of American boys, right? The bomb they dropped immolulated all those Japanese, mostly civilians.

None of the Japanese survivors had an ounce of a chance of recourse. Maybe the Enola Gay's crew was accountable inside the U.S. military, but on a individual human to individual human level - the individual responsible for visiting violence on the victim did so with zero accountability to the victim.

Forget nationalities for a second. If I remember right Paul Tibbets was the plane commander, and he made the call that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, injuring among others one Hiroshi Sawachika (Google him) a doctor. Sawachika wasn't hurt that badly, BTW.

Both were men born of women, both with supposedly equal human rights. Neither was a monster.

Sawachika had done nothing to injure Tibbets, and had Sawachika applied to the US military with a complaint that maybe Tibbets shouldn't have dropped a nuclear device near his clinic, Sawachika would at best have been laughed off, and quite possibily arrested by US military police.

Therefore, Tibbets was not accountable to Sawachika. Ergo...

As far as Sawachika was concerned, were he to use your definition, Tibbets was a terrorist, pure and simple.

:confused:

I'll anticipate your counterarguement by conceding that sure, Tibbets wasn't a terrorist by the standards of his US society, if Tibbets didn't do what the Army told him, he faced military court and worse. Me, I'd say Tibbets did the right thing, better to atom bomb the Japanese, and poor Sawachika, than fight a ground campaign across Honshu island.

But I am assuming the US was morally right in fighting Japan, and Japan morally wrong in fighting the US.

I could see how maybe an unbiased international court might give Sawachika damages - Tibbets use excessive violence, didn't take sufficient measures to protect innocents like Sawachika, that sort of thing. But I'm not an international court, and by birth and education I am biased towards the moral superiority of the US position in the Second World War.

In any case, the fairly clear moral distinction separating Japan and the US in WW2, is dreadfully absent in the modern Middle East. Here the Israelis are morally sure they have a right to live in Palestine, and their Arab neighbors are just as sure the Israelis have no right to be there, they're like the Crusaders in the 11th century, or the Soviets in East Europe. Who's morally right?

All of which makes it a lot harder, I would say, to use a neat little definition to label people in Hezbollah "terrorists," so one can go on with his life in the firm confidence he has separated things neatly into black and white.

When someone kicks in your door, rapes your kid and kills your wife (or husband), who can help you get justice? If it is a Soldier then you can voice complaint to the State that the Soldier belongs to. Failing that, that State is a member of the UN (if recognized, of course) so there is some chance of recourse there. Similar for Rebel movements. Criminal organizations sometimes try to at least do some PR moves to make people think they aren't Criminal, but in general accountability is low. However, if it is a Terrorist, who do you go to? There is no one because Terrorists do not hold themselves accountable for their actions. That is, duh, why they are Terrorists

Accountability is a key indicator.

*Barely discernable Oriental smile.*

Discipline inside the Viet Cong was pretty durn strict. A person inside that organization killing a civilian without a solid ok from higher was close to signing his own death warrant. That's what made the Viet Cong so good at using terror as a tool of war: in general they killed who they wanted, when they wanted, and pretty much no one else.

The Viet Cong has structure, accountability, and was notoriously careful about making sure the violence it caused was controlled, both in scale and direction. If some one screwed up a secret police apparatus was in place to detect the error, and make sure it was punished.

So I am left with one of the premier terrorist organizations of the 20th century, failing Steve's personal "terrorist test".

[Cary]

Steve,

Things get a little dicey when you talk about rebel movements. These groups may, or may not, be recognized as a legitimate military force. Often by the group they are directly fighting against they are called Terrorists these days, Rebels in the old days. Some conduct themselves in a way that is closer to that of a Soldier, some more like Terrorists, but most are like Criminals (mercenaries can be any of these). Again, it's a judgement call here.

In principle I agree. Perhaps it's just a bias of mine that I'd prefer not to categorize einsatzgruppen as soldiers, but calling them "criminals" seems to miss some of their identity as well. In a similar vein, Hezbollah's connections to the Lebanes government seem, by your definition, to leave them dangerously close to being "soldiers."

Clinging as we do to our right to bear arms, we in the United States ought to be the among the first to admit that the state's accountability does not alway reach par.

[ July 27, 2006, 02:20 PM: Message edited by: Cary ]

[J Ruddy]

Steve, I have to disagree with your definition of a terrorist. But I think we'll both sleep soundly tonight regardless of whether there is a consensus on this forum over the term terrorist or not.

The problem that I see is that your definition precludes the possibility of State-Sponsored terrorism. It also relies heavily on the concept of 'law', however many nations, the USA included, do not always adhear to international laws or even accept the juristiction of the United Nations and international courts.

You also end up seperating war criminals from terrorists, like Milosevic was somehow 'better' than Bin Laden because he was the leader of an official government. 200,000 dead Bosnians would disagree, if they could.

Then we have 800,000 dead Tutsis, killed by Hutu 'Militia' in Rwanda. This massacre only ended when Tutsi 'rebels' from neighboring countries defeated the Hutus. To my knowledge, the 'T' word was never applied to any of these non-uniformed, non accountable combatants.

In modern context, the word 'Terrorist' has become nothing more than a political tool. IMO it is losing its true meaning as a result of the fuzzy grey definitions that our and other governments are trying to mould to meet their own foreign policy goals.

Sorry for being so grumpy, Space Lobsters abducted me last night so I'm pretty tired this morning. Why couldn't you have done BotB instead of SF..?

Jim

[Battlefront.com]

BigDuke,

Man, we're getting off topic here, but I'll take another stab at it...

So. By that definition British Bomber Command, the Red Army conducting a deliberate offensive against the East European country of your choice -those organizations tend towards the terrorist because of the lack of accountability if some one objects to the killing. After all, if civilians got killed by accident by those military structures, nothing was going to happen to the killers.

Whether or not the civilians actually get justice or not is irrelevant. That's like saying if a person who kills someone and gets acquitted in a court of law(technicality, lack of evidence, incompetent prosecutor, etc) means that the nation is lawless. Poppycock In other words, just because the theory and reality of a particular system differ it doesn't mean that there is no system.

Discipline inside the Viet Cong was pretty durn strict. A person inside that organization killing a civilian without a solid ok from higher was close to signing his own death warrant. That's what made the Viet Cong so good at using terror as a tool of war: in general they killed who they wanted, when they wanted, and pretty much no one else.

Who said the Viet Cong was a Terrorist organization? I certainly wouldn't classify them as such. I'd put them down as a Rebel movement. Their actions, as despicable as they might be to an organized force, were aimed at achieving a military and political end. They were also directly controlled by a recognized government, therefore were an extension of it. They murdered and terrorized people, for sure, but so did the US military in the area. And they were Soldiers.

Look... if we go by your concept of Terrorist that would mean that every single organization that ever killed a single civilian on purpose should be classified as a Terrorist organization. That's indefensible logic. Boiling everything down to a black and white description of the world might make certain mindsets happy, but it makes understanding deep and complex issues nearly impossible.

Cary,

In principle I agree. Perhaps it's just a bias of mine that I'd prefer not to categorize einsatzgruppen as soldiers, but calling them "criminals" seems to miss some of their identity as well. In a similar vein, Hezbollah's connections to the Lebanes government seem, by your definition, to leave them dangerously close to being "soldiers."

The world is made up of shades of gray, for sure. Hezbollah is closer to the definition of Soldier than Al Qaeda, for example, but they are not Soldiers. Lebanon has a formal military and does not recognize Hezbollah as a part of it. The fact that Hezbollah has some representation in the government is not relevant. Similar situation with the Palestinian Authority. The militias of Hamas are not controlled by the Authority itself. They are instead controlled by the ruling party separately from it. But in both situations there is the remote possibility of political pressure being applied to control the actions of those with bombs strapped to their bodies. But inherently, they are still both Terrorist organizations because their actions are independent of the government and in deference to any notion of the rules of war.

J Ruddy,

You also end up seperating war criminals from terrorists, like Milosevic was somehow 'better' than Bin Laden because he was the leader of an official government. 200,000 dead Bosnians would disagree, if they could.

Where in my definitions was there any sort of assessment of "better or worse"? (checks back) Nope... nowhere. The end product is always comparable; dead civilians are still dead civilians. The French and Italians that were sitting in their houses as Allied artillery rained down on their German occupied villages are dead just as much as the ones in Hamburg, Srebrenica, or on the train in Madrid. Innocent people killed, deliberately, by the actions of someone else in a fight over something larger than any member of that civilian population. No life should be worth more, or less, than another. But that is a separate issue from who caused it and how it was caused.

Milosevic is obviously not regarded as any "better" than Bin Laden because he was hauled out of Serbia and put on trial for his crimes. His position as a head of state was no excuse. His government, as legitimate as it may have been at one point, turned into a Criminal enterprise. SS Einsatzgruppen were part of the SS which was a state organized force, just like the many Serbian ethnic cleansing units were. The former was defined as a criminal organization by the Allies before the end of the war, the latter by the Hague and UN. All fits very cleanly with my descriptions.

Steve