War with Iran?

[Bengalzona]

(06-18-2019, 11:32 PM)Dill Wrote: Diplomacy is different now, post the broken Iran Deal.  Big pay offs would be required for minimal cooperation. The US allies would have to be SA, UAE and Israel--the latter being as much a liability as an asset. Or there would be no allies. Britain would finally draw the line. I think there would be world wide protests greater than before the invasion of Iraq, perhaps a movement to sanction or divest or otherwise discourage US behavior.


My number one concern with the kinetic aspect of an invasion is their rocketry. It's not clear we could gain control of the air. And even if we do, both launch sites and production are under yards of rock. VERY hard to take out.  It is possible that the US would lose major assets like ships. And in a short time. Could a massive airlift get troops over the mountains with minimal loss to take, not just Teheran, but Qom and Isfahan? Seems VERY risky to me.  And then, as you know, the fighting would just continue in the mountains, against a foe better organized and better armed and more numerous than the Taliban.

The Iranians would not have to defeat our military, only stall it and drain blood and treasure.

Also, I would expect problems in Iraq. The government there would perhaps pay lip service to the US, but certainly it would face resistance, perhaps an insurgency that returns the country to chaos.  I really don't see why a war against Iran would only be fought in Iran, given their allies and assets in the region.

Our military would have to know this. And Trump might understand this could stall his great economy.  That is why I think he might reach for crazier options, like tactical nukes. I am pretty sure that would produce an anti-US coalition, including many European countries plus China and Russia. Perhaps many of their clients as well.  Not good.

I guess a final question is what happens AFTER the win?  How many troops would be required to "nation build"?  

There are a quite a few problems with using rockets in combat.

First, they are hard to manage and have a tendency to blow up or malfunction on launch unless handled quite precisely and somewhat delicately. The Iranians use rockets that are based upon former Soviet models that they captured from Iraq or acquired from Russia or China. Based upon these models, they have branched out to create some of their own designs (primarily variations meant to increase range). The original designs of the Soviet models were fairly solid and reliable for the users. But Iran has made alterations, including changes to the rocket fuels due to their inability to obtain certain ingredients. We discovered this from some of the SCUD rockets Iran had provided to the Houthis in Yemen and which were fired towards the Saudis. While the Americans were crowing about Patriot missiles shooting down the SCUDs, it was later realized that many of the missiles malfunctioned or even prematurely exploded due to changes made by the Iranians.

The next problem with rockets is accuracy. If your target is a city or a military base and you aren't particular about where it lands so much, that isn't much of a problem. Rockets work great for that purpose. If your target is a mobile military target such as troops in the field, caravans, fleets, etc., then you have big problems. You have to have the capability to find and track the target. It is not so easy to find and track military targets. They generally don't want 'the bad guys' to be able to do that. Satellite imagery can help, if you have satellites. I'm not sure that the Iranians have any satellites. If they do, I'm pretty sure they do not possess a network that can provide 24/7 recon over their country, the ability to produce high resolution images and the ability to download those images from satellites. Barring that, the next method is aerial recon. There is a problem with that for the Iranians, however. We own the skies. Anywhere in the world- We own the skies. While the Iranians appear to have an air defense network which is superior to what we saw in Iraq, we will still own the air and will reduce most of their air defenses within a matter of days. The lifespan of any Iranian aircraft (manned or unmanned) is probably shorter than that of a fly. So, aerial reconnaissance is really not an option for them. That leaves only visual ground recon by either forward observers or agents. These observers  are somewhat reliable at providing data on a target at one place in time, less reliable with a mobile target over time. Also, they need to communicate this data. Expect that pretty much all communication networks in the country will be reduced within 48 to 72 hours (that is also something we do, and why we like to have air superiority). Additionally, all radio and telecom traffic will be jammed by EA-6B Prowlers or AWACS (or whatever the modern equivalent is - those planes are from like 40 years ago). In short, it is gonna be real problematic for them to figure out where our guys are in order to fire rockets at them. They would probably be better off just burying the rocket warheads under major roads and remote detonating them when a convoy passes over.

But, as I said before, rockets are good at targeting big things like cities. Where they could be more problematic to U.S. forces is if they were fired at a port or air base. Because they are not accurate enough and do not carry nuclear payloads, they would not be able to disable a port or air base. But they could cause confusion and delays and represent a threat that way. I'm also assuming that they do not possess gas warheads. Iran is somewhat of a bad actor in the world. But even they don't like gas or bio weapons, from what I have heard.

As far as the airlift, we have one airborne division and one air assault division. There just aren't enough assets to secure a target as large as Tehran. Not to mention the resupply issues, all of which would have to be done by air. Better just to stroll over the mountains. That way, you can cut Iran off from Iraq and reduce problems from that quarter.