wdr@wang.COM (William Ricker) (08/11/90)
From: William Ricker <wdr@wang.COM> The 8/8/90 Wall Street Journal (p. A6) gave an out-of-date order-of-battle for the Iraqi army, from an 88-89 source-book. It listed 5000 tanks including 30 Chieftans and 500 T-72s. Does anyone know if since '88 they've received any more modern equipment? (Either more of these or anything newer?) I assume the 13 French SA-321s "Super Frelon" listed under tanks by the WSJ is a typo, as I think those are helicopters? I would also be interested in any discussion of Iraqi doctrine, in how they mix their T-72,62,59, and 54's. I would guess that the 30 Chieftains are the elite guard company in Bagdhad. Do they consider their 50% T-54s to be reserves, or do they use them as cannon fodder or second echelon? The same article mentioned the difficulty of using chemical protection suits in the desert, and said "To counter such threats, US officials said, Patriot missles and other anti-missile systems would also be sent to Saudi Arabia." What efficacy should we expect for Patriot et al in shooting down inflight rounds from FROG-7 or SCUD-B launchers? -- /bill ricker/ wdr@wang.com a/k/a wricker@northeastern.edu *** Warning: This account not authorized to express opinions ***
bxr307@csc.anu.oz (08/14/90)
From: bxr307@csc.anu.oz In article <1990Aug11.015202.19902@cbnews.att.com>, wdr@wang.COM (William Ricker) writes: > > > From: William Ricker <wdr@wang.COM> > The 8/8/90 Wall Street Journal (p. A6) gave an out-of-date > order-of-battle for the Iraqi army, from an 88-89 source-book. It > listed 5000 tanks including 30 Chieftans and 500 T-72s. > Does anyone know if since '88 they've received any more modern > equipment? (Either more of these or anything newer?) Nothing newer, unless you count Chinese T-69's (which are basically modernised T-59's which in turn are T-54/55's license built in China). They have laser range finders and computerised fire control systems. However a report I read in either Jane's Defence Weekly or International Defence Review about the vehicles that Thailand had recieved suggested that the actual utility of the T-69 and YP-63 APC's was questionable. In particular the T-69's were suffering from having been built with the same machine tools which had been used to manufacture the original T-59's back in 1959. They had bad lubricant leaks and dieso fuel was apparently leaking from the exhausts of at least one vehicle inspected by the correspondant. However as the Thais had recieved them at "Friendship Prices" they weren't complaining too much! :-) > I assume the 13 French SA-321s "Super Frelon" listed under tanks by > the WSJ is a typo, as I think those are helicopters? Yep. Your right. They are large transport helicopters in the same class as the Chinook or the CH-53 Sea Stallion. > I would also be interested in any discussion of Iraqi doctrine, in > how they mix their T-72,62,59, and 54's. I would guess that the 30 > Chieftains are the elite guard company in Bagdhad. Do they consider > their 50% T-54s to be reserves, or do they use them as cannon fodder > or second echelon? The Chieftains are vehicles captured by them in battle against the Iranians during the Gulf War. I had heard that they had basically given them to the Jordanian Govt. in return for support during the war. At that point the Jordanians were apparently preparing to buy Challenger MBT's from the UK and wanted the Chieftains as training vehicles awaiting delivery (essentially for most purposes the Chieftain and the Challenger are the same vehicle mechanically). However the Challenger deal fell through due to lack of money. I cannot help you on how the Iraqi's employ their T-54/55's. However I'd be surprised that they could afford not to employ them as first line troops. Essentially because as the Gulf War went on they were forced to buy more cheaper vehicles (hence the T-69's and YP-63's) and vehicles that could be maintained more easily as they needed more troops at the front, and less employed as techs and mechs. > The same article mentioned the difficulty of using chemical > protection suits in the desert, and said "To counter such threats, > US officials said, Patriot missles and other anti-missile systems > would also be sent to Saudi Arabia." What efficacy should we expect > for Patriot et al in shooting down inflight rounds from FROG-7 or > SCUD-B launchers? The Patriot has been, as far as I know, tested as a "Theatre ABM" and had its software modified to be able to undertake the task. However as far as I was aware the modified system had not yet been deployed. If they do deploy such a system I wonder if it contravenes the ABM treaty? Another thing about wearing "noddy" suits (as NBC suits are known as in the British Army :-) is that the current US suit is unable to provide protection against airburst chemical weapons. Apparently the droplets at the expected velocity easily penetrate the suit. I was reading about this in a recent defence magazine (he says racking his brains. I'm sorry I cannot remember which one. :-(. Apparently both the Dutch Chemical Warfar Labs and the British Chemical Warfare Labs at Portland Down have demonstrated this on numerous occasions using a tower from which a droplet of nerve agent was dropped to simulate the velocity of an airburst. It easily penetrated the US suit at the bottom of the tower every time. The British and West German suits were not much better either, failing the test 25% of the time as well. As to the difficutly of using NBC warfare suits in a hot climate. I can testify it is extremely difficult to do anything at all when in an NBC suit. Here in Australia we used to routinely practice with them in moderate (or what we call moderate weather here, mid-high 20's degrees C) weather. We used to suffer up to 25% heat exhaustion casualties if anything strenous (like attempting to run an obstacle course) was attempted. Our private conclusion was that if Chemical weapons were used in high summer you might as well bend over and kiss your arse goodbye. :-( If you didn't die from the chemicals you'd die from the heat inside the suit. You can usually last a maximum of about 2 hours in a suit if the temperature gets above 30 degrees C and your not doing anything strenious. Brian Ross