Artillery from the receiving end

[MARS42]

@ Vark

The ammunition truck in the video is a "LKW 15t mil gl MULTI". Every PzHaubitze 2000 has one of these huge trucks behind the lines for a fast ammunitions backup.

Here is a link to the Website of the german Heer, where the truck is described:

http://www.deutschesheer.de/portal/a/heer/kcxml/04_Sj9SPykssy0xPLMnMz0vM0Y_QjzKLNzSLt3C0AMlB2AbO-pFw0aCUVH1fj_zcVH1v_QD9gtyIckdHRUUAd4zWcw!!/delta/base64xml/L3dJdyEvd0ZNQUFzQUMvNElVRS82XzE2XzhBTQ!!

On the page surf to "Technik", then "Waffensysteme und Fahrzeuge" , then "Radfahrzeuge"

Greets, MLRS

[Lee]

Steve: Um, we did find the WMD's, they were sent to Syria. Terrorists were going to blow up at least 1 (I think it was 2 or 3) truck filled with large quantities of chemical weapons, including VX nerve gas (which Syria doesn't make, but Iraq was known to have made), on an attack in neighboring Jordan. They were going to set it off in some city there, but they were caught before they could do it. The estimate, IIRC, was that around 80,000 people would have been killed if they had succeeded in setting this truck(s) full of chemical weapons off. If I remember right, this took place in 2004, there were news reports about the whole thing, anyone can look them up if they like. But it hardly got any coverage on t.v. in the U.S. Gee, I wonder why such a huge story was almost ignored by the press here?

As a side note, at least one of the terrorists captured by the Jordanians said he had been trained in bomb making by Zarqawi (spelling?), the dirtbag who cut that civilian's head off in a video in Iraq, in Iraq from before the war. Ansar al Islam (spelling?) is an Al Qaeda affiliate terrorist group that had a terrorist training camp in Iraq, with Saddam's permission, from well before the war started.

This is exactly as was thought by the U.S. military from our surveillance of the Syrian border before we invaded, which saw many Iraqi army trucks driving across the border into Syria before the war began. And I remember hearing news reports on t.v. around the time the Iraqi army had collapsed and the U.S. and Brit forces were taking over that the U.S. military strongly suspected that these were shipments of chemical weapons going to Syria. It also lines up with what an Iraqi general said to us about many trucks and plane loads of chemical weapons being sent to Syria for safe keeping (Saddam was hoping to return to power one day if the U.S. really did invade). This story about the Iraqi general was also on the t.v. news coverage here in the U.S.

I'm still not sure why Bush did nothing about this report of the chemical weapons attack attempt in Jordan with chemical weapons that clearly came from Iraq. If I had to guess, it was because then the American people would say, "Well, why aren't we invading Syria immediately? We have to get those weapons from them right away!" Syria is one of the biggest terrorist supporting countries there is, so this would be an urgent problem. But he didn't want to invade another country and end up baby sitting them, too. So he decided to do nothing, well, at least not openly, what went on with our covert special ops in Syria is likely a very different story. I can just see the MH-53M Pave Low IV's flying in low over the desert into Syria now...

[Apocal]

Back to the thing about occupations. Remember, cultures matter. Not only the culture of the occupying country but also of the occupied. Both the Japanese and Germans had strong cultural identities which were, in their own ways, tied to the rule of law and a set of values which can be loosely described as "honor". Both were utterly beaten militarily over the course of many years and tremendous suffering. They didn't want to keep the battle going and instead simply wanted to return to normalcy ASAP.

The countries under Western Allied control eventually realized it would be a lot better than

that and bounced back BIG TIME.

I think this was also aided by the fact that in both countries a considerable portion of military aged males had been either killed or severely wounded, with the remainder having at least seen something unpleasant during their service. And regarding recovery, for all intents and purposes, both were Western nations before WW2 to begin with, so it makes sense they'd "see things our way."

[John Kettler]

Clavicula_Nox,

Way back in the 1970s the then Soviets were already operating under an artillery doctrine which dictated NATO counterfire four minutes after opening fire, this based on the MPQ-4 CM/CB radar's capabilities. This is in one or more of the Soviet Military Thought volumes, though I don't recall the title or titles. The TPQ-36/37 Firefinder radars are much faster than that and can, with a dedicated battery, properly sited Firefinder and troops on the ball, have rounds going back before the first one hits. This is especially true when incoming is mortar fire, because of the high trajectory and relatively low projectile velocities.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Bigduke6]

Steve: Um, we did find the WMD's, they were sent to Syria. Terrorists were going to blow up at least 1 (I think it was 2 or 3) truck filled with large quantities of chemical weapons, including VX nerve gas (which Syria doesn't make, but Iraq was known to have made), on an attack in neighboring Jordan. They were going to set it off in some city there, but they were caught before they could do it. The estimate, IIRC, was that around 80,000 people would have been killed if they had succeeded in setting this truck(s) full of chemical weapons off. If I remember right, this took place in 2004, there were news reports about the whole thing, anyone can look them up if they like. But it hardly got any coverage on t.v. in the U.S. Gee, I wonder why such a huge story was almost ignored by the press here?

As a side note, at least one of the terrorists captured by the Jordanians said he had been trained in bomb making by Zarqawi (spelling?), the dirtbag who cut that civilian's head off in a video in Iraq, in Iraq from before the war. Ansar al Islam (spelling?) is an Al Qaeda affiliate terrorist group that had a terrorist training camp in Iraq, with Saddam's permission, from well before the war started.

This is exactly as was thought by the U.S. military from our surveillance of the Syrian border before we invaded, which saw many Iraqi army trucks driving across the border into Syria before the war began. And I remember hearing news reports on t.v. around the time the Iraqi army had collapsed and the U.S. and Brit forces were taking over that the U.S. military strongly suspected that these were shipments of chemical weapons going to Syria. It also lines up with what an Iraqi general said to us about many trucks and plane loads of chemical weapons being sent to Syria for safe keeping (Saddam was hoping to return to power one day if the U.S. really did invade). This story about the Iraqi general was also on the t.v. news coverage here in the U.S.

I'm still not sure why Bush did nothing about this report of the chemical weapons attack attempt in Jordan with chemical weapons that clearly came from Iraq. If I had to guess, it was because then the American people would say, "Well, why aren't we invading Syria immediately? We have to get those weapons from them right away!" Syria is one of the biggest terrorist supporting countries there is, so this would be an urgent problem. But he didn't want to invade another country and end up baby sitting them, too. So he decided to do nothing, well, at least not openly, what went on with our covert special ops in Syria is likely a very different story. I can just see the MH-53M Pave Low IV's flying in low over the desert into Syria now...

Lee,

You ask how come the media paid little attention to this plot?

Well that's easy, because an accusation of the Jordanian government does not an actual terrorist plot make.

Ok, for refreshers, here is a readout on what the plot was supposed to have been, this is the generic arguement that yes evil terrorists were plotting WMD attacks from Iraq, and so (logically) the invasion of Iraq was justified:

http://www.cpt-mi.org/pdf/JordanPlotv.3.pdf

Boo! Scary! Nefarious Arab evil-doers out to poison gasl tens and thousands of innocent American women and children! Right?

Well sure, if you really really want to believe in the bogeyman, and don't let contradicting information worry you. Like -

1. The terrorists didn't have the WMD

2. The terrorists basically wanted to attack Jordanians, not Americans

3. The terrorists had zero links to Saddam

Here's a fairly generic summation of those talking points -

http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/051115_zarqawi.pdf

Here's the results of their trial:

http://www.nationalterroralert.com/updates/2008/05/21/jordan-militants-sentenced-for-plotting-chemical-attack/

In other words, based on what the trial decided, what happened was some marginal Arab dudes got some money to try and gas some other Arab dudes in Jordan, and they got caught, IF - and this is one heck of an "if" - you believe that beacon of fair and balanced jurisprudence, the Jordanian prosecutor general's office.

Even by evidence of the (almost certainly by US standards biased) Jordanian trial, there were no chemical weapons.

Those pictures of all those barrels and tubes and stuff, what about that?

Me, I dunno.

But the Jordanian trial never established a factual connection between the guys it convicted, and those pictures.

Now I'm speculating here, but I suspect what that was was just some industrial chemical stuff which maybe a really good chemist could have used to make some kind of poison, found more or less in proximity of the guys convicted at the trial. But probably that chemist had no connection with those convicts, and actually he used that equipment photographed by Jordanian intelligence to make cleaning solvents or something like that.

After all, Arab chemists gotta make a living too, and there is alot more demand for bootleg chemicals for standard business/industrial purposes in the region, than for a secret chemical weapon to be handed over to some wierdo terrorist dudes. Let's not forget the generic Arab chemist isn't going to be a wanna-be bomber, he's going to be an educated guy with a family to support.

That's just me guessing, not facts.

But anyway, to return to the main point, why did the media pretty much ignore the Jordanian nerve gas bomb plot? I see two possible answers.

If you accept the worst-case claims uncritically, it's obviously because the media is constantly plotting to undermine the legitimacy of the US invasion of Iraq. Certainly, there are people who believe that POV.

But if you use even the findings of the Jordanian trial, never mind just common sense, an alternative reason for the media ignoring this story emerges: There was no nerve gas, the plot went nowhere, and even if it had it wasn't Americans but Jordanians that would have been targeted.

The media, as a general thing, is not in the business of reporting pretend stuff that never happened.

Which doesn't mean, of course, that free-thinking people are obliged to have the same opinion as the media. Every one is welcome to interpet events as he chooses.

[Bigduke6]

Quick additional note, the chemical found was 20 tons of sulphuric acid, plus explosives. Sulphuric acid in and of itself is not a WMD, nor is there any evidence (that I've found anyway) that chemical came from Iraq.

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/04/26/jordan.terror/

In other words, there was a really spectacular plot involving planned use of chemical weapons by some Jordanian crazies, the Jordanian police foiled it. There was no poison gas, no nukes, no evidence of Iraqi involvement. The target was the (rather repessive when you stop and think about it) Jordanian government.

And of course, a plot against the Jordanian government by some irate Jordanians bozos, that didn't get past the plotting because the Jordanian police busted themt, isn't something the international media is going to pay a whole lot of attention to.

[MarkEzra]

Lee,

You ask how come the media paid little attention to this plot?

Well that's easy, because an accusation of the Jordanian government does not an actual terrorist plot make.

Ok, for refreshers, here is a readout....

Thank you Duke...Everybody is entitled to their opinion (I suppose) but not their own facts... Like I read somewhere, when I'm wrong I promptly admit it.... or was it I promptly make insane rants, I forget which

[Battlefront.com]

Ack... the old lies are still alive. Thanks to BigDuke for saving me the time looking up the facts. And that is the information that the Bush Admin had on WMD has been completely, and utterly, proven to be fantasy. Only paranoia and extremely hardened political beliefs which operate in a vacuum (i.e. based on faith, not fact) keep this fantasy that the primary premiss for entering Iraq was anything other than a deliberate lie (worst case), incompetency (best case), or a combination of both (IMHO, the most likely case).

Steve

[theFightingSeabee]

WMD's were destroyed and/or moved. No, they didn't have the mobile chemical labs like Colin Powell convinced NATO of, but I still believe (fantasy maybe) that they got rid of what they had. If Saddam was willing to go through the trouble of burying MiG's, why not a few artillery shells and bombs?

But still, the real reason imo, was our global strategy, which our mideast strategy is a part of. We were already in Afghanistan, and we could really pressure the powers that be (Iran, Saudi) by also invading Iraq. The geographical locations of Israel, Iraq, and Afghanistan are like setting up for a check-mate on a chess board. The fact that we like the King of Jordan (and his lovely wife) and also kiss the royal ass of the Saudi king, gives us a VERY strong position of power in the region.

[TheVulture]

Ansar al Islam (spelling?) is an Al Qaeda affiliate terrorist group that had a terrorist training camp in Iraq, with Saddam's permission, from well before the war started.

Ansar al Islam was hardly there with Saddam's permission. It was supported by Iran. Their leader, Mullah Krekar, said Saddam Hussein was his sworn enemy. It was in an area that Saddam had less control over anyway, being in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region / northern no fly zone. (Saddam may have been willing to not interfere in the group's establishment at first since they were also hostile to the Kurdish leadership and caused the PUK some problems, which he can't have lost any sleep over).

The Senate Report on Pre-war Intelligence said "[saddam] was aware of Ansar al-Islam and al-Qa'ida presence in northeastern Iraq, but the groups' presence was considered a threat to the regime and the Iraqi government attempted intelligence collection operations against them. The DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency] stated that information from senior Ansar al-Islam detainees revealed that the group viewed Saddam's regime as apostate, and denied any relationship with it."

And that was one the 'best' pieces of evidence the Bush administration was airing as conclusive proof of Saddam's supposed links with AQ.

[Battlefront.com]

Seabee,

WMD's were destroyed and/or moved. No, they didn't have the mobile chemical labs like Colin Powell convinced NATO of, but I still believe (fantasy maybe) that they got rid of what they had. If Saddam was willing to go through the trouble of burying MiG's, why not a few artillery shells and bombs?

At the time, before the whole "cooking the books" evidence emerged, I thought it was reasonable to assume that Iraq still had WMD of some sort. The claim of nuclear capacity was demonstrably false long before the invasion, so I never for a second bought into that BS. Anthrax and other bio weapons I did not believe were there because they have a temperamental shelf life and must be constantly replaced in order to remain effective. But mustard and nerve gas agents? Yeah, I believed he had 'em even if I didn't think that was justification for invasion (we weren't going to invade North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, India, or Israel over confirmed weapons, so the test failed for Iraq).

But after the effort on the ground was put into finding them, when few Iraqis with a connection to them had a reason to hide the truth (even high up Saddam officials could have plea bargained), it became clear that Saddam had indeed got rid of the stuff long before the war. We've never found any chemical traces of any of this stuff except, IIRC, a couple of possible rusting 152mm shells with some traces of nerve agent on them (i.e. not capable of being fired, might not even have actually had agent in them). Not even a single Iraqi, be it a high level official or a low level guy digging the pits, has come forward to show us where the stuff is buried. On the other hand, we've found dozens and dozens of mass graves from Saddam's murderous activity. They were also buried under secrecy, yet we know where they are. It's inconsistent and illogical that one could be so easy to find and the other so impossible to find.

The Bush Admin, the CIA, the Pentagon, and various political groups within the US had a HUGE amount of incentive to find this stuff. Chalabi, the primary con-man in the pre-war intel game, also had huge incentive to find the stuff too. Any right of center journalist (and there are tons of them) also had huge incentives to find something. Anything. And yet... nothing has been found. So there are two possible conclusions:

1. They did not exist, therefore logically they were not found.

2. They do exist, but the will and resources of the Coalition nations were too weak to find them.

Of the two, I think #1 is pretty clearly the most likely correct answer. Note I did not put a third option in there that is peddled by the paranoid rightwing extremists... the stuff is there, was found, but has been covered up by the liberal elite to make Bush look bad. This would, of course, mean that the Bush Admin (and all of its supporters) are less powerful, less tricky, less ruthless, less in control of the military, less motivated and less well funded than the "liberal elite". I think the last 8 years have painted the exact opposite image of the radical right, so I'm not buying it. Plus, we all know that if you give liberals a chance to change the world they spend all their time arguing with each other until they fall out of power again

Steve

[Vark]

Surely the al-Kabir incident in 2007 shows how redundant pre and post invasion thinking was about the aquisition of WMD's. Syria, with no real nuclear technological base comes close to developing a reactor, courtesy of N.Korea and the Khan network. The only reason that the West knew about this was due to an Iranian defector. If sanctions had been lifted on Iraq, as three members of the permanent UN security council wanted, how long before Iraq restarted its nuclear programme? A programme that was missed by the inspection teams in the 1990's by the way.

Do you honestly think that if Saddam was still alive today, ruling Iraq, selling oil at the vastly inflated price of two years ago that the gas graphite reactor would have been built in Syria? What happens if the Iraqis had been as careful about opsec as the Syrians (no mobile phones, couriers for messages, screening buildings etc) and what happens if there had been no Iranian defector because the Iraqis could stump up the 2-3 billion the project needed and already had the nuclear technicians needed. The impact on the world oil markets, the day after Iraq announced that they had aquired/built a nuclear reactor would have been interesting.

The causus belli was flawed because it had be based on substantive evidence, evidence that could easily be removed, by the time doddery Blix started on his inspection routine. The presence of curveball, neo-con self-justification and a host of other factors doomed the original reasons for OIF but its result has removed a very dangerous and often under-estimated player on the world stage. Now if the IAF can remove/delay the Iranian dash for nukes I can breathe a little easier in my bed.

[Clavicula_Nox]

Clavicula_Nox,

Way back in the 1970s the then Soviets were already operating under an artillery doctrine which dictated NATO counterfire four minutes after opening fire, this based on the MPQ-4 CM/CB radar's capabilities. This is in one or more of the Soviet Military Thought volumes, though I don't recall the title or titles. The TPQ-36/37 Firefinder radars are much faster than that and can, with a dedicated battery, properly sited Firefinder and troops on the ball, have rounds going back before the first one hits. This is especially true when incoming is mortar fire, because of the high trajectory and relatively low projectile velocities.

Regards,

John Kettler

Yeah that's about what I figured, and lines up accurately with my own experience (not that I was timing them or anything..) Thanks John!

[John Kettler]

Clavicula_Nox,

You're welcome! I used to work for Hughes Missile Systems Group, and sister firm Hughes Ground Systems Group invented and built the Firefinder series. We were told that back plot location accuracy was good enough to tell from which corner of Los Angeles City Hall the fire was coming, should someone site artillery there. Call the briefing attendees eyes widened!

Regards,

John Kettler

[Clavicula_Nox]

I always had problems with the unit operating that stuff in '05. They operated near the same frequency range as my signal equipment and would give us a serious case of jamming and or interference. Funny how, in moments like that, Warrant Officers suddenly forget everything they know about the stuff they're supposed to be SMEs on...