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Topic:
The New Iraq, Five Years and Counting: Current Discussion Thread
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Mr44
Registered:
May '02
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Date Posted:
6/19 12:38pm
Subject:
RE: The New Iraq, Five Years and Counting: Current Discussion Thread
- Date Edited:
6/19 12:39pm (1 edits total)
Edited By:
Mr44
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Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP — the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company — along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies - are in the final stages of negotiations this month on no-bid contracts that will return them to Iraq to service Iraq's largest oil fields, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power.
I read that as well. Ironically, when the agreement is finalized, it will bring Iraq full circle to the 60s'/70's. It was the monopoly that lead to the nationalization of resources- which lead to the cementing of the Baath Party- which lead to Saddam Hussein as dictator. It's a giant "reset" button for Iraq.
Although I wonder if attacks will pick up again at Kirkuk and the other oil fields or freak the Iranians out even more.
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Jabbadabbado
Title: Senate Floor Moderator
Registered:
Mar '99
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Date Posted:
6/19 2:36pm
Subject:
RE: The New Iraq, Five Years and Counting: Current Discussion Thread
- Date Edited:
6/19 2:45pm (1 edits total)
Edited By:
Jabbadabbado
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Improved oil infrastructure security has definitely been a tangible result of the surge. The Iraqis are going to have to find a way to strike a balance between their national pride and greed. On the one hand, the occupiers may be getting privileged access to the oil flow. On the other hand, the extra revenue from an added 500,000 barrels a day production, and that's hopefully just for starters, is going to be substantial.
When we invaded Iraq, oil was ~ $30/barrel. Now it's trading above $130. The Iraqis have to understand the kind of influence they will wield as a nation if they stabilize enough to get their oil infrastructure rebuilt.
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Mr44
Registered:
May '02
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Date Posted:
6/19 3:38pm
Subject:
RE: The New Iraq, Five Years and Counting: Current Discussion Thread
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When we invaded Iraq, oil was ~ $30/barrel. Now it's trading above $130. The Iraqis have to understand the kind of influence they will wield as a nation if they stabilize enough to get their oil infrastructure rebuilt.
That's why from a long term standpoint, the actions of Sadr and the like haven't made sense. Why tell your followers to go blow themselves up or plant roadside bombs?
If I had a militia that was comprised of my own followers, or I wanted to cement my power within Iraq, I would be working overtime to become Minister of Oil and project my influence from behind the scenes. The Iraqi Minister of Oil is going to be the most powerful person in the country, and regionally, make decisions that sit second to Saudi Arabia.
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Jabbadabbado
Title: Senate Floor Moderator
Registered:
Mar '99
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Date Posted:
6/19 4:02pm
Subject:
RE: The New Iraq, Five Years and Counting: Current Discussion Thread
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One of the reasons is that oil flows out of Iraq in a very leaky way. If you can't control the oil ministry, why not just control a chunk of the oil smuggling trade? No one is entirely sure what percentage of Iraqi oil is leaving the country through the back door on the black market.
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black_saber
Registered:
Apr '02
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Date Posted:
7/25 8:17pm
Subject:
RE: The New Iraq, Five Years and Counting: Current Discussion Thread
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Okey the New Iraq will be another Dictator ship, just a shia version then that of Saddam and of course hate Israel/jews. If not the goverment will disovle, then they kill each other off in forming groups.
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cal_silverstar
Registered:
Jul '02
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Date Posted:
7/26 10:34pm
Subject:
RE: The New Iraq, Five Years and Counting: Current Discussion Thread
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Quixotic-Sith posted:
LtNOWIS posted:
According to the Economist, the Surge has worked "better than even the optimists had hoped," and Iraq may be turning the corner.
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL1549095220080617?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews
I haven't been here in almost a year, but I just had to pop in with this news:US Now Winning Iraq War that seemed Lost
Afghanistan is once again the focus with the resurgence of the Taliban. But it's nice to be at least cautiously optimistic about Iraq of all places.
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LtNOWIS
Registered:
May '05
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Date Posted:
8/12 4:13pm
Subject:
RE: The New Iraq, Five Years and Counting: Current Discussion Thread
- Date Edited:
8/12 4:25pm (1 edits total)
Edited By:
LtNOWIS
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Responded here to avoid overloading the Election thread, since we'd hate to do that:
Darth Geist posted:
I didn't say "ten thousand American casualties," I said tens of thousands. The U.S. military's official casualty report, updated daily, puts our number of dead in Iraq at 4,137, and the number of wounded at 30,490. About half those wounded were able to return to duty; the other half, not so much.
No. Returned to Duty means they were back on duty within 72 hours. Many people return to duty after that period of time. I can think of 3 instances off the top of my head: a guy who had his eye damaged but had his sight restored, a guy who was shot a few times but rejoined his unit after a few months, and a news story I read about soldiers who lost limbs and volunteered to return to the front. There's doubtless a lot of less dramatic examples as well; 3 days isn't a long time to get back on your feet.
Darth Geist posted:
- Only about four out of five of our dead in Iraq were killed in "hostile" circumstances. The others -- about 18% of the total -- were killed in what the report calls "non-hostile" circumstances. I'm no expert, but I wonder what that entails; accidents? Equipment failure? Sickness? Is the non-hostile death rate always that high? Maybe somebody here can answer.
Causes of deaths are available online. It's a stressful environment with hundreds of thousands of people so some of them are going to die in day to day life. During the calmer periods in Afghanistan, it seemed like most of our deaths in Operation Enduring Freedom were non-hostile. Vehicles crashes, suicide, and accidents are the biggest, as they would be for any group of young people. There's also heart attacks and other illnesses. Remember, they don't have to die in a combat zone, as long as they're supporting OIF or OEF. There have been a fair amount of official war dead in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and on Navy ships, all non-hostile I believe.
The 4,686 number also includes the 16 deaths in OEF-Philippines and 17 in OEF-Horn of Africa, of which only one was hostile.
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LtNOWIS
Registered:
May '05
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Date Posted:
8/16 6:41am
Subject:
RE: The New Iraq, Five Years and Counting: Current Discussion Thread
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Iraq orders Abrams tanks through US FMS programme. Hmm, on the one hand, Iraq's military does need to rearm, and it's been short on heavy firepower for a long time. On the other, we don't necessarily want to provide substantive arms to a place where they might be used against US interests in the future. People have complained about that for awhile, but small arms, HUMVEEs, and MRAPs can't touch the US military in a conventional war. The M1A1 is a different story; it's better the T-72s Iraq used to use, and definitely a step above anything Iraq has had since 2003. Still, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait both have more Abrams tanks, and theirs are the newer A2 variant, so it shouldn't be a cause of concern for them. And as Iraq takes the lead in its own security, having good armor will be very helpful in outgunning the insurgents. Overall, I'm optimistic.
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Darth Geist
Registered:
Oct '99
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Date Posted:
8/16 10:19am
Subject:
RE: The New Iraq, Five Years and Counting: Current Discussion Thread
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Ah, I stand corrected. And thanks for the explanation.
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Joe Biden posted:
What do you talk about when you have nothing to say?
What do you talk about when you cannot explain the last
eight years of failure? You talk about the other guy!
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Mr44
Registered:
May '02
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Date Posted:
8/16 12:22pm
Subject:
RE: The New Iraq, Five Years and Counting: Current Discussion Thread
- Date Edited:
8/16 12:27pm (1 edits total)
Edited By:
Mr44
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I think that armored technology has probably reached its zenith for top tier militaries. As we've seen, tanks are just about too large for urban fighting, and the continued development of anti-tank missiles further reduce their use in actual armored warfare. Now, there will always be a need for tanks-they're not going to go away completely, but the days of mass armored warfare Patton style is over. I guess the tank has become like the battleship by the end of WWII. They're just too big and expensive per unit to risk on the battlefield, which is counterintuitive to what their use is.
The US military has been moving past the traditional tank for about 20 years now. A good example is the LOSAT system, which is basically a HUMVEE on missile firing steroids. The LOSAT can detect a target beyond cannon range and defeat any armor that exists in the world today.
It's a bit clinical in its presentation, but here's a LOSAT missile infomerical:
LOSAT
The really cool footage comes in at around 6 seconds, when the LOSAT destroys a tank at extreme range. The LOSAT was never fielded in large numbers, but the technology is being used in the next generation of vehicles.
Another system that is just beginning to be fielded is the NLOS-C, which is a hybrid mobile artillery vehicle. The NLOS-C's ammo can actually be dialed into a target, again destroying it beyond visible range. ("NLOS" stands for non line of sight) I believe the NLOS is slated to be fieldedfor US units in just about 18 months.
Besides systems like these, the next armored leap isn't going to occur until hover technology is developed, which would meld tanks with helicopters, minus the vulnerable rotor component. I'd say that by about 2020, tanks will still be the mainstay of second line and third world armies, but will have a limited and/or specialized use in cutting edge military use.
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LtNOWIS
Registered:
May '05
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Date Posted:
8/17 4:58pm
Subject:
RE: The New Iraq, Five Years and Counting: Current Discussion Thread
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Eh, future land systems have been discussed for a long time, but some things stay the same. Our new MRAPs are just armor-protected trucks with gun turrets on top, as have been used for about a century now. Tanks have proved in Iraq, since the insurgents can't easily hurt them, and they can destroy buildings.
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DarthBoba
Registered:
Jun '00
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Date Posted:
8/18 3:29pm
Subject:
RE: The New Iraq, Five Years and Counting: Current Discussion Thread
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Yeah, tanks pwn. We lost a couple during the invasion phase...to like, three or four hundred mass-volleyed RPG shots per tank. Since then? not so much.
and frankly, Humvee/LOSAT is a stupid concept. There's a round in development for the M1 that has a range of 12 kilometers. That's around the maximum range of LOSAT, I believe. So yes, shooting at tanks with a truck armed with missiles (unless you've got woods to hide in) is going to equal one dead truck.
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Mr44
Registered:
May '02
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Date Posted:
8/18 10:32pm
Subject:
RE: The New Iraq, Five Years and Counting: Current Discussion Thread
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But tanks aren't the future. There's a big difference in what that means.
Even back in 1973, during the Yom Kippur war, the quote emerged that basically said "what good is a $500,000 tank if a soldier armed with a $1,000 RPG can kill it?" Of course, armored technology has advanced since then, but so has the cost. At current rates, a M1A2 costs 5 million dollars apiece, and weighs close to 80 tons. The Abrams certainly represents the zenith of tank technology as the best in the world, but it's also the last example of the traditional tank.
and frankly, Humvee/LOSAT is a stupid concept. There's a round in development for the M1 that has a range of 12 kilometers.
No, you're missing what LOSAT represents. The M1's cannon round might be able to be pushed to a similar range, but a tank round is still line of sight. That extreme range on paper isn't going to be realized except in environments like a vast open desert. Show me a city that has a 7 mile long street that doesn't have any curves or turns. The M1's sabot can't be fired through buildings, or around hills, or pass over a dense cropping of trees.
LOSAT and NLOS can.... Not only that, but both systems generate their force multiplication through digital integration. The NLOS vehicle can have target coordinates fed into it by a forward observer, UAV, or satellite. The round is literally "dialed into" the target while the vehicle itself never even has to see it.
You can have all the tanks in the world waiting inside of a city and it's not going to matter if something like LOSAT can simply park itself outside, independently target each tank, and selectively drop missiles on each and every one without being seen. Or reverse that situation and have the highly mobile LOSAT hiding in a city while it targets a formation of advancing tanks that can't fire through the buildings.
Of course, neither one is going to be a match in direct combat against a tank, but neither is designed to do so.
The trend for the future is mobility and command/control. Where the tank still has a role is in countries that aren't going to be digitally integrated, and the tank still represents a brute force application.
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DarthBoba
Registered:
Jun '00
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Date Posted:
8/19 10:37am
Subject:
RE: The New Iraq, Five Years and Counting: Current Discussion Thread
- Date Edited:
8/19 10:47am (2 edits total)
Edited By:
DarthBoba
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LOSAT stands for Line Of Sight Anti-Tank. In other words, you need to be able to see what you're shooting at, so none of the magical abilities you're giving it would apply.
And NLOS sounds more like a replacement for MLRS/M109A6 than anything else.
I get what you're saying about the M1 being the last traditional tank, but tanks aren't going the way of the dinosaur anytime soon.
EDIT: And FCS, the next generation of combat vehicles & equipment, does indeed include a tank:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Combat_Systems_Mounted_Combat_System
As for the whole "man-portable ATGMs make tanks obsolete" nonsense: Bull. There's one man-portable system of defeating an M1 or Challenger; that's the Javelin. TOW 2 and the Hellfire can as well, but those are hardly man-portable systems. And all ATGMs can be neutralized if you're fighting in an intelligent manner and have infantry nearby. Nothing fights by itself 
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Mr44
Registered:
May '02
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Date Posted:
8/19 12:41pm
Subject:
RE: The New Iraq, Five Years and Counting: Current Discussion Thread
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Boba, I'm not sure exactly what you're arguing here.
The fact is that there's only one truly heavy division left in the US military because all the others have been transformed into light divisions. The US military hasn't even purchased a new Abrams tank in about a decade, and is upgrading the existing ones with digital technology and survivability kits instead.
The tank as we know it is simply on its way out. It just isn't cost effective anymore. It doesn't mean that the Abrams tank itself isn't capable. It is the best tank in the world, but the original point in the thread was related to the sale of Abrams tanks to Iraq. This isn't a big deal, because the Abrams represents an example of previous generation of technology.
It makes more sense to have a vehicle that weighs 18 tons, costs $800,000, and is more technologically effective than a tank that costs 5 million dollars, weighs 80 tons, and can't fit down most streets because it's 14 feet wide, not including the turret traverse radius.
Back during Desert Storm, the Iraqi army lost over 80% of their tanks, a mixture of Russian T-54's and T-72's. While a good portion of these were destroyed in tank vs tank action, the bulk were destroyed by ground attack aircraft and helicopters. This forced the Iraqis to dig their tanks in, which defeated the purpose of having a heavily armored vehicle in the first place. This limitation is a valid concern today as well. Because the tank commander has to be concerned with them all- The soldier with the missile launcher, the attack helicopter, the ground attack jet (such as the A-10), in addition to other tanks.
In Iraq right now, the US Army is mostly using the Abrams in the fixed defense/support role. Sure, the Abrams makes for one heck of a roadblock, but it means that a 5 million dollar tank is basically doing the job of $50 worth of sandbags and logs.
Look at it this way. The US still uses the F-16 fighter, but it isn't cutting edge anymore. One could argue the merits of the F-16, but the front line fighter is represented by the F-22 and the JSF.
LOSAT stands for Line Of Sight Anti-Tank. In other words, you need to be able to see what you're shooting at, so none of the magical abilities you're giving it would apply.
And NLOS sounds more like a replacement for MLRS/M109A6 than anything else.
Nope to both accounts. The original LOSAT itself was cancelled, but its technology is being used in the future combat system. The "LOSAT II" missile system has 5 times more kinetic energy than the M1's DU penetrator, and can be guided onto the target. The NLOS-C melds the traditional tank with the traditional artillery piece, which is my entire point- The future of such vehicles is moving toward lighter, mobile, digitally integrated systems.
The nations were the tank still makes sense are those that can't afford to invest in such technology. Iraq, for example, doesn't have access to satellite guidance capability, so it makes no sense for them to purchase satellite guided weapons.
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