Peace in Galilee: Long-Forgotten Lessons

Peace in Galilee: Long-Forgotten Lessons by Eric Chevreuil Baghdad fell a long time ago in the learning curve of counterinsurgency, and it appears we still have not learned enough from our casualty count, nor have we from recent history, and we all know those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. Iraq: 2005 Roadside bombs (RSB) and rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) attacks in Iraq quick ly became the main threat to drivers of lone patrols and support personnel traveling with daily supply convoys throughout the country, but mainly around or inside the capital. Initially, the casualty rate in stricken vehicles was 99 percent; however, the lethality of ambushes was officially lowered to 25 percent due to the use of armor kits for vehicles, air reconnaissance, portable jamming devices, computer mapping of favored locations, and sniper teams on search-and-destroy missions. At home, despite a meticulous casualty count kept by the media, the daily victims of RSB attacks are no longer even making front-page news. The war is far away and these tragedies have become routine events. Berlin: April 1945 Russian forces massed an impressive armada around the capital of the Reich for the final blow, the final revenge. It is said that the battle of Berlin saw the highest concentration of artillery reached in any war. Rapidly, Russian shells leveled the city, one block at a time, quickly followed by ground forces that exploited the destruction with massive infantry and armored forces. No mercy, no concern for “collateral damage,” and no other rule of engagement than “make the Nazis pay!” The U.S. forces were stopped on the western banks of the Elbe River as per a previous treaty with the Russians. The last German fighters knew that there was no alternative but to fight until the bitter end. From the rubles of the dying city, old Volksturm and Hitler Jugends, teamed with professional soldiers, would come out of their holes once the shelling stopped to ambush the T34 main battle tanks with volleys of Panzerfaust, the first RPG ever. Russian tankers paid a heavy price to conquer the city (2,000 tanks destroyed), but they also learned fast, and some tankers ended up welding metallic bed frames on their tanks to detonate the shaped charge before it hit their armor. Iraq: 2005 In Iraq, the military reacted and some vehicles were indeed upgraded, while our troops were scavenging landfills to find scrap metal capable of improving the protection of other soft-skinned vehicles. The brand new Strykers were equipped with a birdcage-type anti-RPG protection, or were outfitted with a heavy package of extra armor added to their hulls. Here we are again, reinventing the wheel in the never-ending battle between armor and bullets. The new extra armor ends up limiting the Stryker’s mobility, while can celing its very reason to exist: air mobility. About 28-inches wider and 7,000 pounds heavier, Strykers must now run on over-inflated tires (90psi), which, according to many open sources, prohibits the use of the central tire inflation system (CTIS), thus preventing the vehicle from going over soft surfaces. Furthermore, with the extra weight, the winch capabilities are exceeded and the Stryker is dependent on other recovery means. Call it progress! Call it lessons learned! Chechnya: Grozny 1994-1995 During the Chechen conflict against Russian mechanized forces, it appears that IED use was infrequent, with the exception of homemade chemical mines (chlorine) that were remote-control detonated. The bulk of anti-vehicle weaponry was provided by the old RPG 7 and the newer RPG 18, which were used in Grozny and proven to be effective against every single Russian armored vehicle, T80 included, when massively fired from above. The Russians had to quickly bring back past proven technologies, to include wire mesh cages that were first implemented by Russian tankers in Berlin in 1945, and “reshetka” steel-bar screens that were added to Russian armor in Afghanistan. Russian forces also discovered that armored tracked combat engineer vehicles were ideal for removing obstacles. They also rediscovered an Afghan problem — the vulnerability of their trucks, crew, and human cargo to snipers, anti-tank weapons, and land-mine blasts. Armored cabins were needed and an extra blast protection was necessary to put an end to catastrophic losses. Armored Ural trucks had previously been built and fielded in Afghanistan, but were not in sufficient numbers for Chechnya, which prompted Russian commanders to find armored packages to fix the problem. Iraq: 2005 Bosnia demonstrated the need for an armored version of the high-mobility, multipurpose, wheeled vehicle (HMMWV) at the head of convoys, which brought on the production of a 2,000-pound overweight series in the late nineties. Operations in Iraq highlighted the need to improve the protection of regular HMMWVs, and an armor survivability kit (ASK) was developed to “up-armor” vehicles and increase crew protection against RPG and IED attacks. Still yet, powerful RSBs and other remote-controlled IEDs claim the lives and limbs of soldiers riding unprotected or in inadequate vehicles. Operation Peace in Galilee: 1982 The extensive use of cheap RPG 7s and IEDs by Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) ended up costing the Israeli armored force dearly. The U.S.- made M113 was an easy target at close range in urban areas and its aluminum armor had a tendency to burn. Rapidly, they were removed from contact lines and limited to ferrying cargo to fighting units (until they were fitted with reactive armor in the mid-1990s). The heavily armored Merkava main battle tank, thanks to its rear compartment, took over and replaced the thin-skinned armored personnel carrier (APC) to take troops and ammunition to the front and evacuate wound ed. Finally, the counterinsurgency armored vehicles NagmaSho’t and Nagmachon entered the battlefield and took over until the arrival of the 44-ton APC Achzerit in 1990. Israel: 1980 Israel is a U.S. ally and has been a permanent warfare laboratory since 1948, and as far as adapting and improving armored equipment goes, they have done it all — everything from cannibalization to retrofitting. Early in the 1980s, stuck with extra running hulls of the vintage British Centurion tank and faced with increasing losses due to RPG attacks in Beirut, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) decided to build a better protected APC to add to its inventories of the light-armored M113 and half tracks — the concept of a low-conflict APC was born. Quickly, the Centurion-based APC and NagmaSho’t were switched from the infantry to the engineers because of design flaws that exposed disembarking troops. However, the concept was not abandoned and after extensive trials, a new T55- based heavily armored APC was developed to accompany Merkava tanks to combat, while providing troops with what was claimed to be the best protection in the world — the 44-ton Achzerit APC with main battle tank grade armor. In the meantime, the NagmaSho’t rendered many services to the IDF in its combat engineer role that the original personnel carrier design was improved (reactive armor). New variations were designed to adapt to a much-needed counterinsurgency role, which included higher sides; fighting compartment; heavy side track; extra belly armor; reactive and passive armor; higher and thicker fixed pillbox-like structure; fittings for each type of engineer equipment, such as blade, anti-mine rolls, and plows; grenade launcher; optical devices; and machine guns. The final product, the Nagmachon, turret excluded, totaled 45-tons of steel, an amazing weight for an APC, especially compared to the 20-ton Stryker and the 23-ton Bradley! From the mid-80s to today, the Nagmachon saw extensive action in Lebanon and in the “occupied territories” of Palestine and is still used for missions in hostile urban areas not suitable for traditional APCs, such as open roads, leading convoys, delivering infantry and goods in un secured urban areas, and accompanying armored bulldozers. In the early 1990s, a 55-ton low-conflict APC was added to the arsenal, mixing components of the old Centurion to newer Merkava-derived technologies, adopt- “In Iraq, the military reacted and some ve hicles were indeed upgraded, while our troops were scav-enging landfills to find scrap metal capable of improving the pro tection of other soft-skinned vehicles. The brand new Strykers were equipped with a birdcage-type anti-RPG protection, or were outfitted with a heavy package of extra armor added to their hulls.” July-August 2005 — 41 ing passive and reactive second-generation armor, a superior frontal, belly, and lateral protection, and a crew of twelve. The Nakpadon is the latest and most powerful armored vehicle the IDF has ever designed for counterinsurgency. With the Nagmachon and Nakpadon, dedicated to counterinsurgency, a newer combat engineer vehicle was also needed to maximize the NagmaSho’t success story and deliver engineers to places that lesser armored carriers could not go: the 50-ton Puma was designed with that major purpose in mind — clearing paths through heavily defended areas. It took basically ten years for Israel to fine-tune these low-conflict APCs dedicated to counterinsurgency in built-up areas, ten years that started with the quickfix NagmaSho’t and ended up with the almost-perfect Nakpadon and Puma. Furthermore, first-hand intelligence from Beirut in 1994 also mentioned a brand-new electronic warfare capability that was being tested for these armored vehicles, which would allow them to jam or override cell phone and remote-control frequencies and detonate roadside bombs. Roadside bombs are crude by design. They are usually made up of mixed explosive sources, such as unexploded shells, black powder, TNT, and C4, arranged in two basic groups, depending on the insurgent’s skills and the anticipated result. It can simply be a large quantity of assorted explosives designed to achieve a huge car bomb-like blast effect that would overturn or crush light vehicles. It can also be a more sophisticated arrangement of explosives set in a gun-like concrete pipe to achieve a controlled explosion and a directional blast toward the target area. Usually, the explosives are complete with primitive projectiles composed of shrapnel, nails, bolts, and glass to achieve a higher degree of lethality and penetration. Detonation of the device is mostly remote, thanks to cheap and available technologies, such as cell phone, pager, toy remote controls, garage door openers, two-way radios, and remote door bells, but traditional methods, such as pressure plate, wire, and manual detonation, can still be employed. According to globalsecurity.org, as of 2003, up to 60 percent of attacks on U.S. forces begin with the detonation of an IED. The unique Israeli armored concept was designed based on lessons learned the hard way — fighting counterinsurgency battles in hostile urban areas against a stealthy and lethal guerrilla force, a feat that Mao would be proud of. If Israel has been a warfare laboratory since 1948, Beirut is the ultimate academy for urban warfare, insurgency and counterinsurgency operations, and booby trapping. RPGs and RSBs were of course not born there, and the way they were successfully used against a modern mechanized invading force that stuck to main avenues and checkpoints, was just traditional. The IDF merely had to learn again a lesson written in many history books! What was born in Lebanon was a main battle tank-grade APC designed to provide maximum protection for its crew and embarked infantry from belly mines, RSB effects, and close-quarter RPG attacks. This explains why these heavy monsters landed the mission to open the road to regular APCs or infantry fighting vehicles. Furthermore, their capability to directly or remotely detonate IEDs and sustain the blast with no or little damage contributed to their success. Iraq: 2005 Lessons learned by the Russians in Berlin (or Chechnya for that matter) were shelved; Operation Peace in Galilee was long forgotten when U.S. forces entered Iraq. The year is 2005, and we face the same threats many armies before us faced, and we learn from them as days go by and casualties increase, rewriting in blood the next manual on mechanized counterinsurgency operations in hostile urban areas. Can we afford to wait ten more years to come up with solutions that have already been invented and implemented? Some say that all conflicts are different, that warfare differs with time, and that history is for historians. Well, Mao quoted Napoleon’s retreat from Russia in the “manual” on guerrilla warfare he wrote when rural China was fighting a modern Japanese army. His manual did not age at all, according to today’s guerrilla warfare standards! The U.S. military has the heavy metal — armored vehicles that could be used as a base for an Israeli-like machine. We have the electronic warfare (EW) technology to monitor, jam, record, or locate cell phone transmissions and are already using such portable devices in Iraq, along with the EW capability to jam or “ping” remote-controlled frequencies. The U.S. military also has the technology to make better armor and protect wheeled vehicles, which is slowly being done. How- “Bosnia demonstrated the need for an armored version of the high-mobility, multipurpose, wheeled vehicle (HMMWV) at the head of convoys, which brought on the production of a 2,000-pound overweight series in the late nineties. Operations in Iraq highlighted the need to improve the protection of regular HMMWVs, and an armor survivability kit (ASK) was developed to “up-armor” vehicles and in crease crew protection against RPG and IED attacks.”

ever, insurgents manage to stay ahead of the game, and as long U.S. forces only document and react, they will still stay behind and suffer casualties. It is time to develop a heavy urban counterinsurgency weapons system based on an M1 Abrams chassis, equipped with a combination of engineer add-ons and EW systems. The two Iraq invasions have proven that the M1 is a strong workhorse and has survived RPG attacks. Replacing its turret with an observation and control “pill box,” adding extra belly, front, rear, and side armor, and thicker side plates should not be a challenge. Building in the optical and electronics necessary for leading convoys and clearing roads should also be easy. Fitting it with a mortar to fire breaching charges, missile and grenade launchers, and .50-caliber machine gun would also be wise. The real question is to know if there is a place for such a vehicle in the U.S. military’s inventory, a current and future need that would justify rushing a first draft to the battlefield. Would it be wise to patch a tank and test it in Iraq; or would it be wiser to “borrow” a couple of Israeli Nakpadon or Puma, fit them with onboard high-tech EW devices and test the concept? Both are awesome battlefield-tested machines born after ten years of experimentation and tested by fire in a conflict that is very similar to the one in Iraq. American forces were lacking a good nuclear, biological, and chemical detection vehicle before the first Gulf War offensive, and they bought the Fuchs, a Ger man-made wheeled vehicle, to fill the position. The second Gulf War showed the need for an armored vehicle fast enough to lead wheeled convoys; strong enough to survive traditional mine blasts, IEDs, and direct rocket attacks; versatile enough to allow forcible road opening and detonate (or prevent detonation of) IEDs, based on an EW capability; ergonomic enough to safely accommodate embarked infantry; armed and equipped enough to breach road blocks and detect and destroy snipers; and finally, versatile enough to accommodate a whole range of specific engineer tools such as blades, plows, rolls, and cranes. Unfortunately, once again, one has only to follow the money, or lack thereof, to understand why troops are poised to relearn and reimplement already well-known and documented solutions. A peacetime army never receives funding to develop specialized weapons systems required to cover all scopes of military warfare! Urban combat and counterinsurgency operations are highly specialized tasks and require highly specialized training and equipment that the United States cannot afford on a just-in-case basis. Between wars, armies of western democracies take budget cuts that prohibit developing highly specialized equipment and training that go beyond basic tactical and technical skills. However, when a crisis arises and the decision to go to war is made, everybody is up in arms, wondering why vehicles are not armored and why troops are not well prepared for such a contingency. In the meantime, while the old men talk, young men die. Maybe war is something too important to be left to the military, but maybe decisions affecting the art of war are far too important to be left to civilians. Captain Eric Chevreuil is currently retired form the French army after 18 years of service as an armor officer and is employed as a network administrator for Spectrum Environmental, Folsom, CA. He received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Nancy, France. He received his military education from several French academies, to include St. Maixent NCO Academy; St. Cyr-Coetquidan Officer Academy; Language and Intelligence Academy Strasbourg; and Staff College Compiegne. He served in various command and staff positions, to include tank platoon commander, tank platoon executive officer, G2 reinforcement, and military English teacher, multimedia language course developer and head of the British and North American Language Studies Department, Strasbourg. “The two Iraq invasions have proven that the M1 is a strong workhorse and has survived RPG attacks. Replacing its turret with an observation and control “pill box,” adding extra belly, front, rear, and side armor, and thicker side plates should not be a challenge. Building in the optical and electronics necessary for leading convoys and clearing roads should also be easy.” July-August 2005 — 43