How Technology Failed in Iraq

synthespian writes "US troops in Iraq were supposed to have a clear superiority in the battlefield because of sensors and networking devices such as aircraft- and satellite-mounted motion sensors, heat detectors, as well as image and communications eavesdroppers. On April 3, 2003, the task to take over a key Euphrates River bridge about 30 kilometers southwest of Baghdad turned into a bloody hell as 'between 25 and 30 tanks, plus 70 to 80 armored personnel carriers, artillery, and between 5,000 and 10,000 Iraqi soldiers coming from three directions. This mass of firepower and soldiers attacked a U.S. force of 1,000 soldiers supported by just 30 tanks and 14 Bradley fighting vehicles. (...) "'We got nothing until they slammed into us"''(...). Read more about this story and the troubles and challenges the US military is experiencing in networking troops from Technology Review."

Comments

Seems like the need more a disconnected model

[SuperKendall]

They seem to base a lot of things around the idea that units are always connected.

But the problem came about because tey cannot always be, that while in motion or at great distances they pretty much lost the network meant to make tem most effective.

They need to figure out how to better keep intact the lines of communication, but also how to operate more effictively in a disconnected mode, and make the most of connectivity when it is degraded (seems like if they had email links up some primitive but useful data could have been transmitted to them as well - like an OGRE style text map of the area with enemy uints marked!).

Re:Seems like the need more a disconnected model

[nounderscores]

I read that article.

It was called Battle Plan Under Fire

and the guys's name was U.S. Marine Lieutenant General Paul Van Riper - he gets talked about halfway down the transcript.

Makes you wonder - what would happen if in the next war, a whole bunch of what looks like "Coca Cola" delivery trucks pull up in major cities of the enemies of america, and then the Pres gets on TV and says that if the enemy country doesn't aquesce to demands of oil and abandonment of nuclear weapons programmes, those trucks will blow up at say 1000lbs of TNT each. Closer inspection of the trucks shows that they're highly sophisticated robot drones, monitored from space, with fake drivers, and rigged to explode if tampered with.

Plenty of time to get civilians out of the area, and it would smash things like major factories and what not.

When confronted with using "Terrorist Tactics", the Pres smiles disarmingly and says "Well, we've had it up to here with you. We figured, if you can't beat 'em, become exactly like them."

To eliminate the fog, you need an Oracle

[SuperKendall]

They gave a great example at the end of the article about a time when the connectivty model really worked, with great coordinating from a number of units including ground and air led to the very quick destruction of a convoy in Afganistan just because a pilot saw lights flashing out the window on a plane.

One of the things they nated was that Afgan special forces units were independant nodes just wired together - and that connection was maintained by an "Ubergeek" of the group. So perhaps what they needed in Iraq was a few more UberGeeks in units to ensure the maximum transmission flow possible for the situation.

5000-10,000 Iraqis? WTF?

[Cid Highwind]

There was a time when five to ten *thousand* Iraqi soldiers massed together to defend something? They had tanks and artillery and an honst-to-god opposition force? Where were the American press and their "embedded reporters" when this happened? All we ever saw of the invasion over here was M1 tanks driving to Baghdad on cruise control!

Friend or Foe

[BooRadley665]

Forget being able to spot 30 tanks and 70 APCs. I'm sure they were well hidden..
Amongst all that sand and stuff... ..*cough*..

I'm sure many nations would just be happy if they got some Friend or Foe recognition technology. Then maybe they'd stop bombing allied troops.

Aswell.. a device that would show them the difference between the home of a family of 6 and a rebel/freedom-fighter safe house might be handy.

British soldiers don't wear sunglasses.

[Anonymous Coward]

You might find this article interesting

(Visit bugmenot to circumvent registration)

Re:Technology? TECHNOLOGY??

[EinarH]

It's too easy to blame the current problems on technology. I would rather say that bad judgement mixed with wrong priorities on where the military spends its money

1. Troop levels. Most of the military observers belive that more troops would have done a better job. Estimates on the ideal number of troops range from 200.000-400.000.
2. Taking Bagdad fast.Yes I know that bypassing some of Saddams forces was intentional. But when they captured Bagdad they stood there with what? A couple thousand soldiers and some tanks/APCs/trucks? And without a plan.. People I have talked to say it took several weeks before troopl levels in Baghdad reached the level they needed to control the central ares in Baghdad.
3. Armor on the 5 ton truck. Non-existant. Say no more. Allready in 1995 Russia discovered that chechnyan "rebells" attacked their underarmed and unarmored supply vehicles with small arms fire and IEDs. This forced the Russians to use up to 60% of their forces for protection/guarding/convoys etc.
4. Armor on APC's and HUMMVEEs. How many of the humvees had some form of armor/extra splinter protection? 15? How long did it take before they started to improve this? 8 months? And what about the M-113; uppgrade program going on for the last ten year and still some without the scheduled armor upgrade?
5. Availability of "bullet-proof" vests. I don't know much about this one. But the litle that I have heard about old flak vests doesn't exactly put the upper managment in a very positive light.
6. Disbanding the Iraqi army. 250.000 young males without a job. Riots in Baghdad.
7. Lack of guarding the Iraqi barracks, storages and weapon sites/dumps. Yes Iraqis do have an extensive weapon culture with AK's, grenades and maybe an RPG stacked under the bed "just in case". But few people store 200 pound bombs in their homes for future IED-use so they must get it from somewhere!
8. Mass-arrests in autumn 2003. Probably prisoning a lot of innocent people. Alienating suporters.
9. Abu Graib torture scandal. A nice mix of contarctors and the CIA. Enough said.
10. Scaling down troop levels in February 2004 and strategy of moving out of many small cities/villages into larger camps.
11. Leaving some areas, effectivly handing them over to the insurgents and making them no go zones.
12. So far, failure to train enough Iraqi troops of high enough quality.

The strange thing is that;
a. To some extent I find it hard to blame the Army/Marines on some of the above mentioned points as no one told them about the need to fight the kind of war they know are fighting.
b. Many of the points are related to non-existant political planning.
c. All the issues are related to #1. Troop levels. With more troops many of them would not have been a problem. So Rumsfeld should resign IMHO.

Yes, I know I'm only some 5 Karma Star Armchair General in front of a PC and it's easy to critize but still...

Number of Iraqi military victims?

[jeti]

I now this is somewhat offtopic.

But while some people do at least try to count the civilian victims of te latest Iraq war (here),
I never heard any estimates on the number of Iraq military victims.

Does anyone now of any estimates?

Excused me... Remember Viet Nam?

[Baldrson]

Of course you don't remember Viet Nam. You probably weren't even born yet. Well, as draft lottery #42 in 1972, I remember a few things about Viet Nam:

1. The US had vastly "superior" technology to the Viet Cong.
2. The US government couldn't keep its story straight about why "we" were there.
3. The US couldn't stay the course.

The big difference between that conflict and the present one is a major player other than the US is in the region and has a whole lot of nukes.

Fascinating article

[marktaw.com]

US troops were moving too fast, and a mix of high and low tech meant they couldn't get what they needed. "Hey, we have a 7 megabyte detailed map of the area, do you have 3 days to download it?" This is a classic sign of tech growing pains that nearly every industry faces.

Assuming everyone had working satellite phones, and perhaps that was how they were getting email, it seems to me that throwing more people at it could be at least a temporary solution. Simply call up or send an email "Approaching 3 degrees north by 73 west, please advise" might elicit a human reply "20 tanks and 60 vehicles within 5 miles, may be transport. At your current speed, you will intercept them in 30 minutes, they are 4 miles north by northwest of you."

Farther in the future, a computer should be able to extrapolate that information from the satellite images and transform it into plain text that the troops can then download by logging in to a website or something, or perhaps vector graphics and low resolution images could supply them with the information they need. All they need to know is the enemy's position relative to theirs. While this might sound like some sort of tank game from the mid 80's, based on the article it would seem that this rudimentary level if information would have been invaluable to them.

This whole thing reminds me of the book Human Error. Tight coupling (C depends on B, which depends on A, so objective Z will fail to be met if any of the previous 25 points fail) meant that the otherwise available information was unavailable to the people who needed it the most. A looser system, like the one used in Afgahnastan would have worked in a wider range of situations. The methods of communication were flexible rather than fixed, and could therefore be used in a wider range of situations.

Hopefully the next generation of military technology will fail gracefully. That is, still be usable even when bandwidth is low.

I also have to wonder about what will happen, as it always does, when the current cutting edge technology is commonly available. Okay, it's not likely anyone else will have satellites any time soon, but when our enemies can track our movements quickly and easily, share information amongst themselves and have their own un-manned vehicles, what strategic advantage will we have? Once you reach the point of dimishing returns (just how detailed a map can you download if you have broadband in your tank? How detailed does it need to be? Can it have real time satellite images? etc.) what happens to our advantage?

Re:Technology? TECHNOLOGY??

[WindBourne]

Iran and Libya have been scared into stopping their nuclear programs

Iran and North Korea are moving their nuke programs at full speed. In fact, both have sped up when we first invaded Iraq (but that could have more to do with getting information from the pakastani minister).

EU is trying to get Iran to stop, but considering that Russia is helping Iran out with supplies, they are not likely to do much. Israel will almost certainly have no choice but to go in and do the job themselves with our bunker busters. When they do, the middle east will go crazy.

Apparently, Libya never made any progress and had given up nukes during Clinton's time.