When will the instability become a revolution? And I'd like to see a coup happen in Washington.
Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran: An Iran war TL
- Thread starter dartingfog
- Start date
uh... how likely is something like this? Problem is, small groups of US soldiers wandering around in the Iranian desert are going to be horribly vulnerable to the Iranian resistance, who aren't likely to distinguish between faithful or deserting US soldiers...
guinazacity
Banned
I wonder if mexico received many draft dodgers.
It would be hilariously depressing to see mexican marines arresting americans and sending them back.
It would be hilariously depressing to see mexican marines arresting americans and sending them back.
Actually, no. A fair number of Iraqi forces were surrendered or otherwise stood down by Iraqi generals who had received suitcases full of cash. There were numerous instances of Iraqi forces fighting reasonably well and quite hard, with commensurate casualty rates on their side. The thing is that the American high-tech warfare edge was so great that we were able to inflict losses without receiving them.
Remember what I said: Fast, Cheap, Good. You only ever get two out of the three. In this case, a fast cheap mass army, inadequately reinforced by air power and heavy weapons, with minimal training, no personal armour, and a wavering logistics chain. You've got a shit army. Which means that casualties are going to be high, current military doctrines will not work and the existing officer and NCO corp, the strategic and tactical planning corp will be using them with the wrong doctrines, morale is going to be absolutely terrible, that's certainly going to transmit back home.
They also won't be as well supplied with sophisticated equipment. The sophisticated equipment that is provided won't have enough technicians to keep it running effectively. You're going to have breakdowns up and down the supply chain. And frankly, the Iranians in a defensive position, with more reliable if theoretically inferior technology, are simply going to do much much better.
You're basically setting this up for the American military to blunder into disasters and boondoggles like Little Big Horn, Khe Sanh and Bien Dien Phu. But I assume that's your intent. A few traumatic military disasters, and then a housecleaning and reorientation.
In terms of the Draftee Army, just about how many ground troops do you calculate will be required to achieve and hold American military goals in Iran? I assume that these goals would include the capture and holding of Key cities and transit routes through the region, the holding of coastal and oil producing regions, the removal of the Iranian government?
I'm thinking on the scale of 1.5 to 2.2 million, and roughly a trillion dollars in outlays, give or take. But that's just half assed back of the envelope stuff.
Since Iraq is still volatile the US would still need at least 130,000 there. Which is a total of at least 530,000 just for Iraq and Iran. OTL had close to 100,000 troops in Afghanistan in summer 2010, however that war might still be on the back burner ITTL so maybe 30-40,000 there. Then with all the support personnel in Kuwait, Qatar, etc. we are looking at well over 600,000 in the CENTCOM AOR.
OTL had about 1.43 million active duty in 2010. I'm curious what the total would be now to support the huge deployment to Iran. Especially using the draft army which would require more troops in the training pipeline since for most of them it will be get drafted, train, deploy, get discharged. I would think a total active duty level of at least 3 million would be required to support the deployment levels.
This should however help the economy by reducing unemployment and having lots of people coming home from war with money to spend.
Conventional doctrine suggests that you need approximately one soldier for every forty civilians for occupation duty.
Iraq's occupation force was around 150,000. Which was profoundly on the light side. That's explained partly by the fact that the US did not occupy the Kurdish regions at all. And partly by the fact that the Shiite were mostly left alone. American forces actually tolerated the presence of Shiite militias like the Badr Brigades and the Mahdi Army, and other private Shiite forces. This allowed the Shiites to carry out ethnic cleansings of Baghdad neighborhoods with impunity.
Given the size of Iran, doctrine would call for approximately two million American soldiers to hold the country down. We won't have the same sorts of ethnic/religious schisms to make rule easier.
To actually conquer Iran... well. Typically, you need a four to one numerical superiority to guarantee victory on invasion. This is because it is so much easier to defend than invade. The US makes extensive use of force multipliers. But the standing manpower is inadequate. So the US switches to cheap and fast, which means that the technology advantages of force multipliers are blunted or lost. So you may need two million give or take, to overrun the country.
For the record, the American casualty figures are still too low. American forces are taking and inflicting casualties at a 10 to 1 ratio. But that ratio has been achieved in the last few decades by picking nearly crippled military forces, of small impoverished countries, where the US has overwhelming numerical superiority and technological force multipliers. In many respects, this is not the case here - the enemy is a lot larger and more dangerous. And the proposed expansion of the US forces - ie, cheap and fast, is going to sacrifice a lot of the viability of the multipliers.
The situation is perhaps closer to Korea in terms of likely casualty ratios.
Ballparking, I'd estimate that on a campaign, American casualties should be two to three times higher than are being predicted.
Iraq's occupation force was around 150,000. Which was profoundly on the light side. That's explained partly by the fact that the US did not occupy the Kurdish regions at all. And partly by the fact that the Shiite were mostly left alone. American forces actually tolerated the presence of Shiite militias like the Badr Brigades and the Mahdi Army, and other private Shiite forces. This allowed the Shiites to carry out ethnic cleansings of Baghdad neighborhoods with impunity.
Given the size of Iran, doctrine would call for approximately two million American soldiers to hold the country down. We won't have the same sorts of ethnic/religious schisms to make rule easier.
To actually conquer Iran... well. Typically, you need a four to one numerical superiority to guarantee victory on invasion. This is because it is so much easier to defend than invade. The US makes extensive use of force multipliers. But the standing manpower is inadequate. So the US switches to cheap and fast, which means that the technology advantages of force multipliers are blunted or lost. So you may need two million give or take, to overrun the country.
For the record, the American casualty figures are still too low. American forces are taking and inflicting casualties at a 10 to 1 ratio. But that ratio has been achieved in the last few decades by picking nearly crippled military forces, of small impoverished countries, where the US has overwhelming numerical superiority and technological force multipliers. In many respects, this is not the case here - the enemy is a lot larger and more dangerous. And the proposed expansion of the US forces - ie, cheap and fast, is going to sacrifice a lot of the viability of the multipliers.
The situation is perhaps closer to Korea in terms of likely casualty ratios.
Ballparking, I'd estimate that on a campaign, American casualties should be two to three times higher than are being predicted.
Constantinople
Banned
So they could be as high as 39-40,000 people?
Combined with the Very Very Bad Economy, you'd think the opposition would be doing even better.
How did the Vietnam War give way to economic prosperity then?
Constantinople
Banned
It didn't.
I'm not sure if it's been mentioned, but the Dow is UNDER 2,000 points and people are eating dog food.
I was just simply trying to counter his argument lol.
I would think the draft and increased military spending would help the economy. 1-2 million jobs would be created by the draft and the defense industry would receive a big boost building weapons, uniforms, bombs, etc. for them.
I guess it could take a few years to really kick in though.
I guess it could take a few years to really kick in though.
Well the Vietnam War didn't help the economy though. I don't see why this war would.
guinazacity
Banned
I can totally see Castro giving them the same treatment cuban refugees get just to piss america off. That would be good UN speech material.
World War II and all the military build-up leading to it did help finish pulling the US out of the depression and led to a booming economy heading into the 50s.
In the lead up to the Vietnam war unemployment rates were already very low. Then after the war outside influences were hurting the economy such as oil embargoes and manufacturing jobs being lost overseas.
Not sure which one would be a more accurate prediction of what would happen in 2010.
America was only prosperous after WWII because the European economies have been destroyed and their superpower statuses wrecked thereby leading the US as the main economic power.