Bombs vs bunkers

In terms of waging a conventional defensive battle, the situation was hopeless for the Iraqis. Yet, instead of surrendering at the first knock on the door, they have offered resistance, sufficient to temporarily unsettle the coalition commanders. This is to their credit. But the praise being showered is quite disproportionate to their achievements. This is largely because of the recall of the first Gulf War and the recent Allies success — militarily — of the campaign in Afghanistan.

The firepower applied by the coalition so far has been incredibly awesome. It began with the launch of Tomahawk cruise missiles at one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces in Baghdad. And since then it has been relentless bombardment — a strike almost every other minute round the clock, and without pause. In addition to the missiles and artillery fire, four to five hundred attack sorties are being flown every day with mostly the B52 being employed because of their range and the enormous ordnance that they can carry. Assuming that at a rough reckoning of the 7,000 sorties flown so far, some two-thirds were by B52s, then these aircraft alone would have dropped some 20,000 tons of explosives — in terms of TNT — equivalent to a 20kt nuclear bomb sans the shock and other long-term effects of nuclear weapons.

With the Iraqi air space entirely at the command of the coalition, the choice of weapon for delivery of ordnance were naturally aircraft in preference to guns, rockets and missiles. For aircraft in such an environment offer tremendous flexibility and have the capability to seek and destroy targets. But without sufficient air bases close to the area of operations, limitations of adequate loiter time over targets and the inevitable delays in responding to impromptu demands had to be overcome. For the world’s sole superpower costs and resources are not a constraint. These became minor impediments easily addressed.

The claims by the coalition of the destruction of the Iraqi formations are not overly exaggerated. Other than whatever is concealed in the cities or hidden underground, most tanks, guns, rocket and missile launchers and all air defence systems would have been destroyed or neutralised. Only the individual soldiers would have survived and can now be expected to resist the coalition. The coalition’s firepower and surveillance ascendancy has been almost absolute. There has been some uninformed criticism of the effectiveness of smart munitions.

As one put it — warheads that can turn the street corner, ring the bell of the identified apartment, enter the building take the lift to the specified floor, proceed to the targets apartment, find the target in the bathroom and explode to destroy — have yet to be designed. It would be unrealistic to expect that collateral damage can be avoided altogether.

The lesson of the ascent of firepower to primacy in tomorrow’s battlefield can be drawn without awaiting the end. The bomb will defeat the bunker.

(Lt Gen (Retd) Vinay Shankar, PVSM, AVSM, VSM, was Director General, Artillery from 1998-2000. He oversaw the Kargil War in various campaigns)