Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

ISIS is mad they got beat by a girl.


(and some dedicated US fire support)

 Aesop the God Awful wrote:
That's good news I hope they get the support they need to keep it up.

The problem is that with focus on Kobane, they've gained ground elsewhere instead.

the US is claiming airstrikes killed several hundred ISIS KIA, but I'm a bit dubious on that. Confirmed kills come to 375, mostly from the Kurds,

Thus far the Kurds have lost almost 1/3rd of their men, ISIS a little under 10% of their force.

If only they wore uniforms..

Do not measure success by body count

 Jihadin wrote:
If only they wore uniforms..

Um, Jihadin...



ISIS does wear uniforms, generally speaking. They captured enough of them, after all.

 Jihadin wrote:


Do not measure success by body count

Kill ratios don't win wars, true. But in this case it's a pretty good estimate of 'real' success. That and while the US has been hitting Kobane, four other towns along the boarder fell.

In the case of Kobane, the peshmerga held the town, but the casualties have made it a Pyrrhic victory. They have lost all their armor, ISIS has not lost all of its. The numbers disparity is big enough they could simply over run them with sheer numbers, it's still over 4 to 1.

So, why haven't they? They don't seem to be fully committing. I wonder if the whole point was to try and force the kurds over the boarder and into conflict with Turkey.

I've got to admit, not being versed in real world military stuff, why, considering all the airpower involved, it isn't just a matter of "oh, there is an Isis tank / large concentration to troops or vehicles" then boom.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
If only they wore uniforms..

Um, Jihadin...



ISIS does wear uniforms, generally speaking. They captured enough of them, after all.

 Jihadin wrote:


Do not measure success by body count

Kill ratios don't win wars, true. But in this case it's a pretty good estimate of 'real' success. That and while the US has been hitting Kobane, four other towns along the boarder fell.

In the case of Kobane, the peshmerga held the town, but the casualties have made it a Pyrrhic victory. They have lost all their armor, ISIS has not lost all of its. The numbers disparity is big enough they could simply over run them with sheer numbers, it's still over 4 to 1.

So, why haven't they? They don't seem to be fully committing. I wonder if the whole point was to try and force the kurds over the boarder and into conflict with Turkey.

ISIS version of TRADOC posts. Only video I have seen them in any uniformity is training or propaganda marching.

Who is confirming Enemy Combatants" killed. Our intell by video or someone visual confirmation eh

 Jihadin wrote:

Who is confirming Enemy Combatants" killed. Our intell by video or someone visual confirmation eh

Unknown. The US just issued a broad statement that they killed 'several hundred' with airstrikes. The peshmerga have (probably visually) confirmed about 375 ISIS dead grand total. I'm gonna say that the US most likely bagged vehicle and gun crews, but I don't see weeks of house to house fighting not being the balance of the casualties. Particularly with the sort of casualties that the kurds have been taking.

 Compel wrote:
I've got to admit, not being versed in real world military stuff, why, considering all the airpower involved, it isn't just a matter of "oh, there is an Isis tank / large concentration to troops or vehicles" then boom.

Number of planes vs number of tanks and troop concentrations would be my immediate answer. There simply aren't enough to hit everything. ISIS is not engaging in small groups, they're moving in brigade strength and greater in many areas.

I would think identifying targets would be difficult without assets on the ground to verify the targets. Also if they keep dispersed well enough it could be difficult finding targets worth sending air power after.

Gwaihirsbrother wrote:
I would think identifying targets would be difficult without assets on the ground to verify the targets. Also if they keep dispersed well enough it could be difficult finding targets worth sending air power after.

There's that too. ISIS controls a gigantic area.Another thing would be to move from hitting ISIS' wallet to their military. The US primary objective in Syria has been to try and cut off their funding. ISIS currently brings in about a million dollars a day in funding.

Isis brings in 1 million a day. Its not much in the grand scheme of things. How much do you think the US spends a day on ISIS, a fair bit more than a million Id say!

 Andrew1975 wrote:
Isis brings in 1 million a day. Its not much in the grand scheme of things. How much do you think the US spends a day on ISIS, a fair bit more than a million Id say!

A fair bit, I'd say, but not gaining a lot in tactical dividends on the ground. It's not how much you can spend, it's how you spend it. ISIS has gotten a lot more out of their million bucks a day than the US has gotten with however much they've spent.

Kobane now stands a ok chance, since Turkey is now allowing the Kurds to reenforce and the US has started dropping arms and medical supplies instead of just providing close air support.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Andrew1975 wrote:
Isis brings in 1 million a day. Its not much in the grand scheme of things. How much do you think the US spends a day on ISIS, a fair bit more than a million Id say!

A fair bit, I'd say, but not gaining a lot in tactical dividends on the ground. It's not how much you can spend, it's how you spend it. ISIS has gotten a lot more out of their million bucks a day than the US has gotten with however much they've spent.

Kobane now stands a ok chance, since Turkey is now allowing the Kurds to reenforce and the US has started dropping arms and medical supplies instead of just providing close air support.

ISIS also doesn't have to actually buy everything either. Their "purchasing power" is probably much higher than a million a day because they can steal and loot some things from the local population (things like food, fuel, etc.).

I may have spoken too soon, ISIS has launched a major push to separate the Kurds from the Turkish boarder, effectively cutting them off from reinforcements in the city, if successful.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29698930

The feth?!?!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2801353/i-ve-raped-30-times-s-not-lunchtime-desperate-plight-yazidi-woman-begged-west-bomb-brothel-isis-militants-sold-sex-slavery.html

I...

The feth again??

We're even arming ISIS

 Jihadin wrote:
We're even arming ISIS

C'mon dude... I'm sure that was an accident.

My stoopid-civvie question... if the US is airdropping these things... shouldn't there been "boots on the ground" to give intel to ensure that these drops go to the Kurds?

 whembly wrote:
[
My stoopid-civvie question... if the US is airdropping these things... shouldn't there been "boots on the ground" to give intel to ensure that these drops go to the Kurds?

Even with air-dropped supplies in Afghanistan, where we had entire bases where of US service members on the ground, supply drops sometimes go off course.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 whembly wrote:
[
My stoopid-civvie question... if the US is airdropping these things... shouldn't there been "boots on the ground" to give intel to ensure that these drops go to the Kurds?

Even with air-dropped supplies in Afghanistan, where we had entire bases where of US service members on the ground, supply drops sometimes go off course.

Okay... fair enough.

If the supplies were "important" enough. Shouldn't they GPS them so that if they were taken over by the enemy... at least we'd know where to send the tomohawk missiles.

 whembly wrote:

If the supplies were "important" enough. Shouldn't they GPS them so that if they were taken over by the enemy... at least we'd know where to send the tomohawk missiles.

Because if the enemy is listening in, they know where to fire their own artillery to hit the men picking up the supplies.

Official story is that about 1 in 27 of the supply crates went off course. Looks like more, but could just be propaganda. Again, they also are claiming the peshmerga hold most of the city, and a quick look at a map and the locations of the front lines show what a pile that is. I'd say the eastern half of the city is still very much in ISIS hands. (Granted, front lines are a bit shaky on a good day with urban combat, but...)

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 whembly wrote:

If the supplies were "important" enough. Shouldn't they GPS them so that if they were taken over by the enemy... at least we'd know where to send the tomohawk missiles.

Because if the enemy is listening in, they know where to fire their own artillery to hit the men picking up the supplies.

Official story is that about 1 in 27 of the supply crates went off course. Looks like more, but could just be propaganda. Again, they also are claiming the peshmerga hold most of the city, and a quick look at a map and the locations of the front lines show what a pile that is. I'd say the eastern half of the city is still very much in ISIS hands. (Granted, front lines are a bit shaky on a good day with urban combat, but...)

I find it very unlikely that they'd be able to reliably listen in on us.

Those pallets were not at all dropped from 700-800 ft

The crate of grenades is embarrassing, but ultimately inconsequential. They have no shortage of munitions.

 Hordini wrote:

I find it very unlikely that they'd be able to reliably listen in on us.

Don't be. It's our comm gear we gave the Iraqis they use.

that said, the sort of transmitters that we're talking about here would be fairly simple little things by necessity. Just little beacons that missiles, etc, can home on. No information, just a little 'Here I am'. The problem is those are like tracer rounds, they're obvious to everyone in range.

We should start dropping them crates of bacon! And laxative laced Hummus!

They have a version of SINGARS. Frequency hop is unGodly, like three freq's a second so one has to be on the correct time frame and the right "fill"uploaded into the SINGARS.

 Jihadin wrote:
They have a version of SINGARS. Frequency hop is unGodly, like three freq's a second so one has to be on the correct time frame and the right "fill"uploaded into the SINGARS.

Yeah, but those would be easy for the bad guys to locate in the crate. SINGARs are generally backpack sized, iirc. If I was an opposing force, they wouldn't be hard to find in the box and leave at the drop site. This would have to be something you can actually hide in the box. It'd have to be a transmitter no bigger than a golf ball, but powerful enough to be picked up at range.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/22/us/colorado-teens-syria-odyssey/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

The amount of young teens joining or attempting to join ISIS is a little frightening, to me.

Recently, Al Jazeera were doing a rundown on the strength of ISIS, it's scary stuff.

They are estimated to have:

30,000-40,000 men (4 divisions) and we can call them divisions because many of them are former Iraq army/Saddam trained

A minimum of at least 80,000 non combatant supporters (spies, sympathisers, money men, doctors, middle men etc.) these on their own don't constitute a military threat but they are useful in other ways.

Thousands of small arms (and the millions of rounds of ammo to go with it) which is not unexpected for a country like Iraq

An abundance of heavy weaponry (mortars, artillery, RPGs)

Enough armoured vehicles to equip a mechanised brigade. Again, given the stuff they've captured, not surprising.

But it's the x factor, the unknown quantity, the unknown unknowns that are troubling the opposition the most.

As BaronlVeagh pointed out, they might have anti-ship missiles, and they almost certainly have a half decent anti-air capability.

I may be exaggerating, but ISIS seem to be resembling the Vietcong in the 1960s...

Except the only reason Americans lost the Vietnam War is because the public back at home pressured them into pulling out.

As long as the American public wont backstab the US military like that again, we can easily crush ISIS - not a matter of if, but when.

 Sir Arun wrote:
Except the only reason Americans lost the Vietnam War is because the public back at home pressured them into pulling out.

As long as the American public wont backstab the US military like that again, we can easily crush ISIS - not a matter of if, but when.

I think that, besides Viet Nam being somewhat unique in the social/political movements going on simultaneously, the US public has been much more against Iraq 2. But we have learned quite a bit, militarily in how to conduct long term operations as we did in 'Nam, Iraq, and even Afghanistan; As well as how to spin things for the public to keep them on "our" side, or at the very least, keep them in the realm of peaceful protest.