Hizbullah / Hezbollah (just the group)

[aktarian]

After reading this report I'm wondering how would Hezbollah perform if they could use SAM's as close protection agains Israeli air force. What is your oppinion?

If they would be MANPADS IDF/AF would counter it with different flying procedures and defence measures (something similar to what Soviets had to do in Afghanistan), if it would be any sort of radar guidiance those radars would be first and high priority targets for ARM strikes.

[kaur]

As far as I did understand, big part in countering the rockets was done by armed drones.

http://www.defensetech.org/archives/....html#comments

Katyshas with lower trajectory went unnoticed. The same phenomena was/is in Iraq, where guerillas shot mortars with very low angle. This kind of modus oprandi was very hard to detect for counter battery radars.

In Afganistan the appearce of Stingers changed Soviet tactics against guerillas. They had to fly much higher which ment that accuracy of their attacks was never the same.

In Kosovo/Serbia campiagn the SAM threat made US Air Force very careful. There was unbeliveable number of Wild Weasels per bombers. It would be great media boost for Hezbollah to have 1 downed F-16 or even drone. ... but maybe Iranian sponsors knew that Israelies have some kind of counter measures that make all attempts futile. If I remember correctly Isrealis boastes some time ago that their Air Force does have contermeasures against S-300 (aybe they ment those decoys that US used also against Iraq). There has been talk about anti-SAM lasers for airliners. Maybe fighter planes have those also. If palnes could afford them, I doubt drones do.

It would be very interesting to know why Hezbollah didn't use those simple portable weapons despite the fact that sponsors could afford that.

[Jedburgh]

Here's the first two parts of a three-part series being published in the Asia Times:

12 Oct 06: Part 1: Winning the Intelligence War

...Our overall conclusion contradicts the current point of view being retailed by some White House and Israeli officials: that Israel's offensive in Lebanon significantly damaged Hezbollah's ability to wage war, that Israel successfully degraded Hezbollah's military ability to prevail in a future conflict, and that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), once deployed in large numbers in southern Lebanon, were able to prevail over their foes and dictate a settlement favorable to the Israeli political establishment.

Just the opposite is true. From the onset of the conflict to its last operations, Hezbollah commanders successfully penetrated Israel's strategic and tactical decision-making cycle across a spectrum of intelligence, military and political operations, with the result that Hezbollah scored a decisive and complete victory in its war with Israel...

13 Oct 06: Part 2: Winning the Ground War

...Moreover, and more significant, Hezbollah's fighters proved to be dedicated and disciplined. Using intelligence assets to pinpoint Israeli infantry penetrations, they proved the equal of Israel's best fighting units. In some cases, Israeli units were defeated on the field of battle, forced into sudden retreats or forced to rely on air cover to save elements from being overrun. Even toward the end of the war, on August 9, the IDF announced that 15 of its reserve soldiers were killed and 40 wounded in fighting in the villages of Marjayoun, Khiam and Kila - a stunning casualty rate for a marginal piece of real estate...

Edit to add: 14 Oct 06: Part 3: The Political War

[kaur]

Here is article from JDF 20.09.2006, that describes very well katysha rockets shooting modus operandi. Nice deception principles.

http://rapidshare.de/files/36556553/...ckets.pdf.html

[kaur]

Hamas is learning too. Article form JDW

http://www.webfilehost.com/?mode=viewupload&id=4539274

[kaur]

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/p...icyFocus63.pdf

[Jedburgh]

Hizballah at War: A Military Assessment

Good link, Kaur.

From the conclusion:

...Hizballah’s display on the battlefield should worry U.S. policymakers and military planners as well. Enemies of the United States will likely seek to emulate Hizballah’s perceived successes in southern Lebanon, and the lessons learned by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan may or may not apply to such a fight. As the IDF learned in the occupied territories and Lebanon, the fight you have today might be completely different from the one you have tomorrow...

I don't believe we need to be "worried". Threat migration is an issue that we are very cognizant of, and (despite assertions to the contrary by some critics) there are a few very capable professionals out there monitoring various insurgent and terrorist TTPs in conflicts around the world. The TTPs of the conflict in question are certainly being broken down and digested for their potential at the tactical and operational level. However, the context of the Israeli-Hizballah conflict is unique, and I do not see it being replicated for a future US conflict.

It also needs to be said that those Americans in uniform who have spent time in Iraq and Afghanistan already are starkly aware of the truism that the fight you have today might be completely different from the one you have tomorrow. Threat TTPs, particularly in Iraq, are very often highly adaptive and evolutionary. In my opinion, we do a very good job of collecting lessons learned and breaking down threat tactics - although we do have blockages to effective dissemination and training implementation.

This oft-beaten dead horse - effective information sharing - is still a serious problem. As stated, we have capable professionals collecting and analyzing virtually all relevant lessons to be learned from conflicts world-wide. The problem is that it doesn't all go where it can do the most good - down to the small unit leaders that can best digest and implement the material.

Of course, much of the "analysis" I'm speaking of isn't put together into a soldier-friendly format...although these tactical lessons are picked up, they are not broken down and put back into a format useable at the tactical level by our guys.

And, although we do monitor and analyze TTPs in a wide variety of conflicts, there is no intelligence element that ultimately ties it all together and spits it back out - linking key aspects of separated TTPs from around the world together, like an explosives analyst looks at signatures in widely scattered bombing incidents, a profiler looks for tiny similarities in multiple murders across a wide area, or a crime analyst looks for similar incidents in other regions as he works to figure out a new crime trend in his jurisdiction...