Uprising in Libya

[Julhelm]

Apparently its "no anti-ground allowed" due to the demands of the worthless, spineless Social Democrat party that this restriction be implemented if they were to go along with it because "Khaddafi might have child soldiers".

[Zaune]

Apparently its "no anti-ground allowed" due to the demands of the worthless, spineless Social Democrat party that this restriction be implemented if they were to go along with it because "Khaddafi might have child soldiers".

Well, it's not like his brilliant plan to hand out weapons and ammo to all comers in the hope of... well, something or other -don't think he's really thought that one all the way through- is likely to include a requirement to prove you're over 18.

[Lord Woodlouse]

So apparently AC-130s and A-10s are now flying at relatively low altitudes to attack shit [source Washington Post readthrough].

Danger Room Confirms

Vice Adm. Bill Gortney confirmed in a Monday Pentagon briefing that the A-10 Warthog and the AC-130 began operations in Libya “over the weekend.” That was a busy period for the U.S.-led coalition: 286 strike missions, of which 133 were flown by U.S. pilots.

...

And the Odyssey Dawn command announced on Tuesday that the Warthog flew a mission alongside the destroyer U.S.S. Barry and a Navy P-3C patrol plane against a Libyan coast guard ships “firing indiscriminately at merchant vessels” in Misrata.

Says one security wonk of the maritime engagement, “I would give one of my children to see what the Warthog did.”

You are aware that we all know the US has a humongous military, right? Just I can't be sure what with the emphasis of your posts.

[TheHammer]

I believe his point was that the role of the US was supposed to scale back. But I will point out, that we did fly less than 50% of the missions, so that is a scale back of what we were seeing.

[MKSheppard]

You are aware that we all know the US has a humongous military, right? Just I can't be sure what with the emphasis of your posts.

You are aware that US involvement in this was sold as a 'support mission' in the US by the Obama administration? E.g. that after an initial day or two in which we did everything, we would quickly transition to a support role.

Flying 48% of the missions after a week isn't what I would call a support role. A support role would be Sweden sending 8 x fighters to help support the NFZ.

Secondly, this is all occuring in NATO/EU's own backyard. It isn't eleventy billion miles away like what occured with Afghanistan; so the usual refrains of "only the US has the capability to project power like that" don't apply here.

[Sea Skimmer]

The US combat role hasn't scaled back because Obama was hoping that it wouldn't take more then 3-5 days for bombing to halt the Qaddafi offensive on Misrata. It is very clear that the US scale back has always been linked to that specific ground situation, as well as others. BUt it would be nothing but a defeat of NATO and the world by Qaddafi is Misrata falls. The battle has not been stopped even if it has been slowed down. The bombing is not going to reduce until it stops, it will if anything it will and should only intensify until that offensive is halted. As far as I'm concerned B-52s should be making a halo in the sky over the city constantly as this would cost far less then heavily tanker supported fighter based air raids every hour, but politics don’t favor calling BUFF into action on an Arab city. The Euros could do more but the fact is they have inferior training and equipment on average for preforming high precision strikes in urban areas. That however does not excuse them from not flying more missions against Qaddafis ammunition storage and numerous vehicle depots from which he is drawing replacement tanks and armor. These can be blown up for the most part without putting anyone at risk (circle the area at night for 15 minutes and everyone is going to flee any kind of fixed facility like that)

Combat power requires INTENSITY to be effective, and this is all the more true with air power . Even if the Euros demand to save money, it still makes more sense to bomb more now, stabilize the situation, and then hoards of people aren't dieing while we try to overthrow Qaddafi without a storming of Tripoli using politics and intimidation and bribery to rob Qaddafi of his supporters.

[Sea Skimmer]

Some news for the day

http://marinelog.com/index.php?option=c ... Itemid=107
US blew up some Libyan coast guard vessels bombarding the port at Misrata, two small boats strafed by A-10s and a 12 meter patrol boat hit by a Maverick from a P-3. Not clear if USS Barry actually fired on the Libyans or just directed air support onto them.

Hillary Clinton says the US thinks its legal to arm the rebellion and will send a envoy to Benghazi, without recognizing them as the legitimate leaders of the country no less!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/ma ... bya-rebels

Don't have a link for it handy but the morning brief for reporters by the DoD apparently gave the cost of US intervention so far as 550 million dollars, not something that concerns me very much. European costs ought to be be a small fraction of this in turn.

[Sea Skimmer]

The attack on Misrata has not been stopped by the way for the very specific reason that the Coalition of the Stupid will not bomb any of the tanks in the city center. Meanwhile we bomb all around the city… actually encouraging Qaddafis troops to fucking enter the urban center and fight! If this keeps up it will be dumber then the US air war of Vietnam. The call in of A-10s and AC-130s suggest they are at least going to try to take those targets on, but I am not very hopeful at the moment.

[Zaune]

The attack on Misrata has not been stopped by the way for the very specific reason that the Coalition of the Stupid will not bomb any of the tanks in the city center. Meanwhile we bomb all around the city… actually encouraging Qaddafis troops to fucking enter the urban center and fight! If this keeps up it will be dumber then the US air war of Vietnam. The call in of A-10s and AC-130s suggest they are at least going to try to take those targets on, but I am not very hopeful at the moment.

How exactly are they supposed to engage a target in the middle of a city and giving Gaddafi's propaganda machine a stick to beat us with? Pictures on Al-Jazeera of dead and wounded civilians being pulled out of an apartment building that's been trashed by a near-miss from a USAF bomb will hurt the rebels worse than losing Misrata; we all might be smart enough to realise that a ground engagement with armour involved will kill more civilians than any NATO airstrike short of sending in the B52s, but the same cannot be said for the average voter.

And just as an aside, isn't deploying AC-130s against an opponent with a quite large stock of MANPAD systems and Triple-A... kind of risky, shall we say?

[Alyeska]

AC-130 mostly operates at night. Very hard to see in the sky with MANPADs

[erik_t]

Some news for the day

http://marinelog.com/index.php?option=c ... Itemid=107
US blew up some Libyan coast guard vessels bombarding the port at Misrata, two small boats strafed by A-10s and a 12 meter patrol boat hit by a Maverick from a P-3. Not clear if USS Barry actually fired on the Libyans or just directed air support onto them.

This is apparently a typo; the Libyan CG vessel is 32m, not 12m. Not entirely surprising, as one would expect a Maverick to liquify a 12m boat, not 'render it inoperable' or whatever we said.

[Edward Yee]

As I believe Sea Skimmer said, the only weapon the AC-130 has beyond MANPADS range is the 105 mm M102 howitzer; I don't know if that's at all suited for the sort of precision work that would be desirable and that its other weapons might be more capable of performing.

[Zaune]

AC-130 mostly operates at night. Very hard to see in the sky with MANPADs

At a target that size and moving that slowly I'd have thought you could aim anything with an IR seeker by ear, and it's probably prudent to assume that the Libyans have some decent NVGs. Whatever shoulder-launched SAMs (mostly SA-7s, I think?) they have left are probably in slightly better condition than what the Taliban can scrape up in Afghanistan as well.

[Block]

AC-130 mostly operates at night. Very hard to see in the sky with MANPADs

At a target that size and moving that slowly I'd have thought you could aim anything with an IR seeker by ear, and it's probably prudent to assume that the Libyans have some decent NVGs. Whatever shoulder-launched SAMs (mostly SA-7s, I think?) they have left are probably in slightly better condition than what the Taliban can scrape up in Afghanistan as well.

Yeah but it sounds like they're staying out of range and using the 105s for the most part.

[Psawhn]

http://marinelog.com/index.php?option=c ... Itemid=107
US blew up some Libyan coast guard vessels bombarding the port at Misrata, two small boats strafed by A-10s and a 12 meter patrol boat hit by a Maverick from a P-3. Not clear if USS Barry actually fired on the Libyans or just directed air support onto them.

They just directed things, I think. From here: http://www.africom.mil/getArticle.asp?art=6347&lang=0

Barry provided situational awareness for the aircraft by managing the airspace and maintaining the maritime picture.

They also give the 12m figure, though.

[erik_t]

We'll see, I guess. 12m doesn't really pass the smell test IMHO. If the big ship was 12m, then what passes for a small boat?

[Sea Skimmer]

How exactly are they supposed to engage a target in the middle of a city and giving Gaddafi's propaganda machine a stick to beat us with? Pictures on Al-Jazeera of dead and wounded civilians being pulled out of an apartment building that's been trashed by a near-miss from a USAF bomb will hurt the rebels worse than losing Misrata; we all might be smart enough to realise that a ground engagement with armour involved will kill more civilians than any NATO airstrike short of sending in the B52s, but the same cannot be said for the average voter.

The average voter thinks we are murdering people in a waste of money anyway, the only way to appease them is to win quickly. Tanks can be taken out in the streets with a fairly low risk of collateral damage and we know civilians are keeping away from the armor in the city center. Qaddafi is in fact now mass evicting people from homes in areas he controls in the city as a way of herding them together, making the defense all the more bloody while easing his occupation. Firing a hellfire or a Brimestone or 30mm strafing or a bomb filled with concrete will all work. I think its going to start happening pretty shortly one way or another, but it will be a week later then it should have been.

And just as an aside, isn't deploying AC-130s against an opponent with a quite large stock of MANPAD systems and Triple-A... kind of risky, shall we say?

Somewhat risky, but not that risky at this stage. You see in the last couple years they invented IR jammers that no longer rely on deception. Rather then they simply point a laser at the missile and completely blind the seeker. The limitation is the jammer can only jam one missile at a time like this; but an AC-130 has two such jammer turrets besides its massive supply of flares. This laser blinding system has seen combat in Afghanistan and several Chinooks have survived MANPADS attacks using it. Someone has to shoot like 4-6 MANPADS at once and then you have trouble.

Optically directed AAA is going to loose any night gunnery duel with an AC-130.

Radar directed AAA meanwhile has a slight problem. You have to switch on the radar, establish a track, and then open fire. The moment you switch on your radar an F/A-18 or F-16 will launch a HARM at mach 3 at your radar dish or the AC-130 will bank away. AAA range is pretty short. In fact the AC-130 can use the 105mm effectively from above the ceiling of almost all modern automatic AA pieces like the ZSU-23-4 and above the effective ceiling of MANPADS; it can't use the 40mm and 25mm as easily but those won't take out tanks anyway. A 105mm HEAT round will.

[Knife]

I'm still confused with the whole 'Obama waited a week to officially address the nation' bit. Nothing but interviews of administration officials, statements by Obama, Gates, etc... have been released since we started bombing. Why is the super uber official at night press conference specifically for bombing Lybia necessary? Sure, 50 years ago I understand since everyone got all their news from the 6 o'clock news, but today, anyone can get the news at any time from multiple sources. I don't need an 'official' news conference, just need the President to say something.

[Sea Skimmer]

Wow Qaddafi may have taken my advice on faking damage, I just saw a video which is claiming to show air raid damage in Sirte, a part of a building is destroyed but not to the extent expected from a heavy bomb, and a random guy in the street is holding up what is blatantly an unexploded unfused artillery shell. 122mm I do believe. Yeah that sure looks like an air strike to me...
http://au.news.yahoo.com/video/national ... 3/7805482/

[Lord Woodlouse]

Any opinions on this recent counter-offensive by Loyalists? Looks a bit grim from my layman's point of view.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Any opinions on this recent counter-offensive by Loyalists? Looks a bit grim from my layman's point of view.

It proves that no amount of Western air cover can correct for the fundamental, fatal, flaw in the rebel strategy. That flaw being that they have no real strategy and precisely one tactic; and that's Scream and Leap. The rebel flow of information is also apparently coming by couriers; whereas Gaddafi still has radios and phones. There are also signs that he's heavily infiltrated the rebellion, as there are reports that loyalist forces happen to know the exact timing of seaborne relief convoys coming to Misurata. It's also showing that Gaddafi's forces are adapting to the limited Western involvement in the conflict. In Misurata, they're moving their heavies into the city to use the civilian population as human shields. In Ras Lanuf and Brega, the rebels have been hit with (presumably easy-to-move) artillery and mortar fire. Since there aren't really any civilians left to protect in either city, Western air power hasn't been as visible there.

In short, the international community is eventually going to have to decide whether or not to make the official goal of the operation to enact regime change; as the rebellion is so militarily incompetent that the best outcome is going to be a temporarily split Libya with Gaddafi ruling everything west of Benghazi, and whatever government in Benghazi controlling everything to the east. And I say temporary because unless the rebels can take and permanently hold Brega and Ras Lanuf; Gaddafi can just cut off oil supplies to the east and wait for energy starvation to collapse the rebel coalition.

[Simon_Jester]

Is the military incompetence of the rebellion, ah, mitigate-able? How much of the problem is incompetent leadership and how much is simply no leadership, a lack of sufficient time and coordination to resolve the question of "who is in charge here?"

A lot of revolutions started out rather... brainless, in terms of figures who could coordinate their military operations.

[Ariphaos]

It appears to be a refusal on the part of many rebels to be disciplined.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Is the military incompetence of the rebellion, ah, mitigate-able? How much of the problem is incompetent leadership and how much is simply no leadership, a lack of sufficient time and coordination to resolve the question of "who is in charge here?"

A lot of revolutions started out rather... brainless, in terms of figures who could coordinate their military operations.

The rebel army is largely composed of kids who have never gone through any training before, and just want to enjoy their moments of manhood. What more do we expect? We might get better results if we strap explosives to them and tell them to run towards the target.

[Simon_Jester]

And, again, this is a natural phase for a revolution to go through- a real revolution, as opposed to a glorified coup led by a vanguard party or disaffected elements of the existing government. Remember that it's only been a month since they were at the rioters-with-cobblestones level.

So the question is: is there any sign of a leadership cadre coming out, a Libyan equivalent of a functioning Continental Congress establishing itself?