Iraqi T-62s had laser rangefinders? I thought only their T-72s did. But it was so complicated to use most crews didn't.
In Certain Victory: The U.S. Army in the Gulf War, the author makes this point. However the Iraqi T-55QM of an older Soviet model as one example had a laser range finder. I mean it is being said that the Iraqi army are so incapable, despite the fact many of them clearly learned how to pilot aircraft, I find it hard to believe. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof, Pollack only has proof the early war Iraqi army didn't use their "lead computing sights" despite how nonsensical that sounds. If they didn't use their sights then how in the world did they fire the tank gun with any accuracy at all
This isn't mathematics. A single counter-example does not disprove a larger pattern. Yes, those who knew how used their laser range finders tended to use them. But those who knew how to use their laser rangefinders were the exception and not the rule.
Also, completely lack of sourcing where that quote is from or even what specifically it's talking about.
Saddam's Generals: Perspectives of the Iran-Iraq War
There is no larger pattern as the authors that are Pollacks sources are talking about specific time frames. However, Pollack left this little detail out. They were published in 1982 and 1984 before the war was even near being over. And you mention about mathematics, what do you think one of those surveys was done by. They interview some Iraqis about it.
No T-72 until the T-72B in 1985 even had a ballistics computer though. So the Iraqis were out of luck there
"Couldn't" fight at night? No, they could fight at night as the Syrians did. They had to, after all. The problem is that the Iraqis, like the Syrians, sucked at it.
The Arabs only lost twice as many tanks as the Israelis during that war FYI. And in The Heights of Courage: A Tank Leader's War On the Golan the Syrian tanks it was very evident they were a match at night for their Israelis despite the fact that they were on the attack and were at the disadvantage. And by that way there is an example of a Syrian tank lasing a Israeli tank at night.
If your battalions are waiting for orders from the High Command even after a 9 year war in which you have had ample time to accrue a cadre of experienced junior and mid-level officers who, repeatedly, prove unable to apply their massive advantages in firepower and maeneuver then your army is royally fucked up. The comparison with the Soviets falls flat when you realized that the Soviets showed massive improvement not just strategically, but operationally and tactically as early as after the first year of war. The Iraqis conspicuously failed to show any level of improvement despite nearly a decade of all-out war anywhere below the strategic level.
I mean they could have disobeyed Saddam's orders, sure, but they'd risk ending up in a dark cellar somewhere wishing they hadn't. The problem is is that the Iraqis didn't even need to show as much of an improvement because they were already demonstrably military capable from the get go despite the fact that they had the same authoritarian command paradigm. The Iraqis did NOT face the level of military disaster the Soviets did. I've read the details of their opening campaign against Iran and though they weren't perfect they were far far from incompetent either. They ran into heavy enemy resistance and outran their logistics against an enemy who knew what they were doing and that on paper absolutely should have beat them. And by wars end the only thing stopping the Iraqis from marching to Tehran was the mountains that stood in their way to get there and the logistics to get them there. The similarity between the Soviets and the Iraqis is that they had a Stalin/Saddam problem and the resulting detrimental effects on Iraqi commanders. The Iraqis proved to be at least as capable of overcoming this than the Soviets were, going so far as to launch what amounted to a revolt against Saddam and his stranglehold over the army.
No Iraqi Division attacked the Coalition on their own initiative, with only the Republican Guards Corps mounted a major counterattack and only after being explicitly ordered by the Iraqis High Command. Spearheading the counter-attack was the single best division in the entire Iraqis Army, the Tawakalnah'alla Allah. Their gunnery was only slightly better than the regular army (so poor, rather than atrocious), their armoured tactics were still limited mainly to sitting in place and firing, although a small number of Tawakalnah's tanks did attempt to "stalk" American tanks, which is the reason why Tawakalnah actually knocked out a handful of Abrams (which was immune to the T-72s gun from the front). But even Tawakalnah clung too long to its defensive positions, and failed to consolidate or counter-attack when the opportunity presented. Even the execution of the counterattacks were disjointed, poorly organized, and uncoordinated, and hence were easily defeated. And also Republican Guard artillery, even Tawakalnah's four artillery battalions, proved unable to adjust fire or conduct counter-battery fire and so proved ineffective in battle. They did buy enough time for the rest of the Iraqis army to escape the Coalition trap, which was the Iraqis intent, but they did so entirely by making the Coalition take the time to kill them and not through any tactical skill.
And that really sums it up. Even the best of the Republican Guard were still atrociously amateurish when compared to western soldiers... or the Iranians.
They were not poorly organized the US advanced through the Iraqis almost as if they weren't there with trivial ease while systematically targeting all their reconnaissance elements and annihilating them, there is no actual evidence they were poorly organized. I will admit they were not as skilled as the Americans (although probably more experienced in battle up until that point). Limited mainly to sitting in place and firing? These were low performance T-72s not the US tanks (a difference like the F-22 to a MiG) but that went right out the window as soon as the US tanks appeared on the horizon and started pounding them with precision firepower in a matter of seconds. They weren't even aware the US tanks were that close because air power had neutralized their security perimeter, and because of air strikes they were OUTSIDE their tanks when the US crested the horizon, proceeding to massacre them like fish in a barrel. Their defenses folded like it was made of glass. There was no "tactical skill" to it. They might as well had been using T-34s for all the good it would have done them. Either the coalition tanks sniped the Iraqis outside their range, they used their vastly superior automated FCS to aimbot the Iraqis as they crested the horizon, all the while the Iraqis were firing at tank shots obscured by the dust storms because they couldn't actually see the tanks firing at them, the coalition aircraft etc. Rumaila, 73 Easting, doesn't matter where or when the results are the same. Not even a military genius could have given the Iraqis a chance in this world of doing anything other than die. And as you say even in the handful of times they were able to hit US tanks they had little effect.They faced an enemy with total air supremacy, and who had undergone the precision revolution, who was picking them a part with air strikes. The T-72 used by the Iraqis didn't stand a chance against an Abrams, or US air power, no matter how you try and spin it.
And their artillery units were modeled after Soviet units which incidentally had some of the same problems as the Soviets in Afghanistan, not that this matters, because again US artillery was vastly, revolutionary would be perhaps a better word, more advanced. And it is kind of hard to make effective use of your artillery when the enemy has total air supremacy anyways, has spy satellites, and can pick you off with trivial ease at their leisure.
Another vague and unsourced quote.
Jayhawk! The VII Corps in the Persian Gulf War
Despite the American imposition of a completely different military system, the problems afflicting the modern Iraqi force are the same as those that crippled Saddam's troops. Rampant deception up the chain of command, an unwillingness to take action or use initiative all the way up to the division level and beyond, a complete inability to deal with surprise, a lack of tactical ability to use the capability of the weapons provided, and a requirement to have detailed and deliberate plans drawn up for every step of an operation to have any chance of success... all are just as much a problem right now as they were in 1979... or 1988... or 1991... or 2003. So no, you can't blame it on Saddam. Otherwise, the problems would have died with him.
When you have an army that has massive amounts of units retreating from a small band of militia that has already fired all the parts of the army who were loyal to Saddam that made up the lion share of the military professionals that was seen in the Iraqi army, many of whom were now in ISIS, are we really going to try and pass that military failure off to the army as it was under Saddam. In what world does that make sense...