naraburns nihil supernum
6mo ago
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
This is a megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
On War Tunnels (6 minute video; mild practical speculation by an American who fought in tunnels with the Kurds in Iraq and is now a military advisor in Ukraine)
The video is not super content-heavy, but the general point to consider here is that people may be massively overestimating what Israel can do on the ground even if they take the gloves off.
orthoxerox
I realized I can change my flair color to Barbie pink
bro 6mo ago
Ilforte's favourite milblogger from TG wasn't impressed with IDF urban warfare tactics, if walking along the street like a group of tourists on a bar crawl can be called tactics.
There are no viable boots-on-the-ground urban warfare tactics in that environment that don’t involve taking huge casualties, at least from what I’ve read. I don’t know what their plan is going into Gaza if they do, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it involves encircling the built-up areas like Khan Yunis and Jabalya and then besieging them individually while hammering them with artillery fire.
Hard to see how Israel can mount a land invasion of Gaza without going full Dresden first. Densely populated stretch of endless 6-10 floor buildings; snipers on the rooftops; extensive deep tunnel network resistant to many bunker busters for enemy movement and resupply; perfect arena for drone warfare with $500 drones dropping grenades on groups of soldiers before they realize what’s going on; 15 years of defensive fortification. If they went in now it would be a bloodbath (for the IDF), even if they took a lot of Hamas down with them. And Israel is a rich country, it’s unclear how many casualties the IDF can afford before shit hits the fan domestically. 2000? 5000? 10000?
It really feels like the kind of place an army would have to carpet bomb prior to ground invasion, and even then - unlike a conventional invasion - civilians can’t flee to the country, so civilian casualty counts will be insanely high.
A couple weeks before this kicked off, I’d been reading a really interesting paper about IDF tactics in Nablus post-Passover-Massacre. I had started to write up a commentary on the language of the military industrial complex as compared to the academics who loathe them, but I didn’t get to the point of publishing it before…well. Depending on your tolerance for masturbatory jargon, you may find it interesting.
I remember reading that paper and thinking that 1) it made the IDF sound far too cool 2) you could almost feel the seething of dead left-wing intellectuals' theories being used to conduct urban warfare in the West Bank
Yes exactly. I have asked a couple of Israeli friends their opinion about the upcoming military campaign and they all seemed stuck with this dilemma (that IDF has to level the place and otherwise might very well lose or at least "win" with incredible casualties). The emotions are running high with all of them (and Israelis are a very direct people) so the literal sentiment was "send the civs to Sina/EU and make a parking garage of the rest".
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Notes -
On War Tunnels (6 minute video; mild practical speculation by an American who fought in tunnels with the Kurds in Iraq and is now a military advisor in Ukraine)
The video is not super content-heavy, but the general point to consider here is that people may be massively overestimating what Israel can do on the ground even if they take the gloves off.
Gaza's like 4x as dense as Stalingrad.
Ilforte's favourite milblogger from TG wasn't impressed with IDF urban warfare tactics, if walking along the street like a group of tourists on a bar crawl can be called tactics.
There are no viable boots-on-the-ground urban warfare tactics in that environment that don’t involve taking huge casualties, at least from what I’ve read. I don’t know what their plan is going into Gaza if they do, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it involves encircling the built-up areas like Khan Yunis and Jabalya and then besieging them individually while hammering them with artillery fire.
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Hard to see how Israel can mount a land invasion of Gaza without going full Dresden first. Densely populated stretch of endless 6-10 floor buildings; snipers on the rooftops; extensive deep tunnel network resistant to many bunker busters for enemy movement and resupply; perfect arena for drone warfare with $500 drones dropping grenades on groups of soldiers before they realize what’s going on; 15 years of defensive fortification. If they went in now it would be a bloodbath (for the IDF), even if they took a lot of Hamas down with them. And Israel is a rich country, it’s unclear how many casualties the IDF can afford before shit hits the fan domestically. 2000? 5000? 10000?
It really feels like the kind of place an army would have to carpet bomb prior to ground invasion, and even then - unlike a conventional invasion - civilians can’t flee to the country, so civilian casualty counts will be insanely high.
A couple weeks before this kicked off, I’d been reading a really interesting paper about IDF tactics in Nablus post-Passover-Massacre. I had started to write up a commentary on the language of the military industrial complex as compared to the academics who loathe them, but I didn’t get to the point of publishing it before…well. Depending on your tolerance for masturbatory jargon, you may find it interesting.
I remember reading that paper and thinking that 1) it made the IDF sound far too cool 2) you could almost feel the seething of dead left-wing intellectuals' theories being used to conduct urban warfare in the West Bank
More options
Context Copy link
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Yes exactly. I have asked a couple of Israeli friends their opinion about the upcoming military campaign and they all seemed stuck with this dilemma (that IDF has to level the place and otherwise might very well lose or at least "win" with incredible casualties). The emotions are running high with all of them (and Israelis are a very direct people) so the literal sentiment was "send the civs to Sina/EU and make a parking garage of the rest".
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link