How the IDF blew chance to destroy short-range rockets

[bemildred]

A large number of the short-range rockets fired at Israel from southern Lebanon were launched from permanent positions, the Israel Air Force discovered by chance toward the end of the war. The discovery was made after an air strike burned away vegetation, revealing a dug-in Katyusha position on a permanent launch pad. Additional permanent positions were subsequently discovered.

If the tactical intelligence of the Northern Command was unaware of the existence of hundreds of permanent short-range rocket launching positions in South Lebanon, then this is a major intelligence failure. If the Northern Command knew of them and did not pass on detailed information to the air force, then this is a serious failure in the management of the war.

---

Hezbollah managed to fire a large number of Katyushas during the war - as many as 240 in one day toward the end of the fighting. The rockets, stored near the launch points in underground shelters or houses, were usually aimed with a direction and trajectory precalculated to hit a specific target in Israel. They were usually set up in orchards by arrangement with the grove owners, who were paid by Hezbollah.

The two-by-three-meter positions consisted of a hydraulic launch pad in a lined pit. The pad could be raised to fire the 122-mm rockets from a launcher at its center, and then lowered and camouflaged with vegetation. The farmers received instructions by cell phone regarding the number of rockets to launch and in what direction and range. They were often provided with thermal blankets to cover the position in order to keep IAF aircraft from detecting the post-shooting heat signature.

Haaretz

[Kagemusha]

1. Just goes to show, physical control of territory matters.

Relying on air power alone leaves the overhead eye vulnerable to trickery like this, which is far from new. The thermal blanket part is new though. And this is a little elaborate for dumbfire rockets.

[tocqueville]

2. so the launching FROM houses was BS

and still used to motivate the flattening of entire neighbourhoods....

[The Magistrate]

4. That Is Not Quite Established, Sir, By This

This is a technique employed for some launches of short range rockets. It is not claimed to be the technique employed for all launches, or for the launching of longer-range projecticles.

There is also this difficulty with your proclaimation, that there is a difference between "bull-shit" and errors in perception and deduction. Built-up places provide excellent concealment, and do so without much need of special measures being taken: they would naturally commend themselves to people analyzing in advance of the event where launch-points could be expected. Further, any competent plan of concealment employs attempts to mis-direct the enemy's eye, as the surest way to hide something in one place is to direct the searching gaze to some other place and fix it there. Hezbollah is notoriously excellent in its internal security measures, and it may well be that much of the intelligence the Israelis thought they had concerning its activities and plans was provided by Hezbollah through channels the Israelis thought were their's, but were in fact under Hezbollah control.

[tocqueville]

15. Knowing what I know of a Katjuscha (range max 5 km)

it's practically impossible to launch it from a residential complex, from inside an apartment building when people are still inside, without setting the house on fire. It might have been possible to launch it from some warehouse, a barn etc... but not from inside a residential building, unless that building has been evacuated.

Since I don't believe in the theory that the Hezbollah knocks at the door of the average Ali in a big Beyrouth complex to install a couple of Katjuschas on the balcony (they wouldn't even reach Israel) and tell the wife, the ten kids to run and pray Allah because the IDF will soon come with a 1000 kg HE bomb, I still proclaim that the recent findings corroborate that "they are firing from houses" is nothing than - sorry - BS.

I can agree that some rockets in the border areas could have been launched from some evacuated houses, non residential houses or houses in ruins, but that the orchard technique was probably far more effetive, so that the house theory is more an exception than anything else.

It wouldn't be THAT important if the "House Theory" hadn't over and over been used as a GENERAL JUSTIFICATION for aerial strikes on civilian areas and when victims were dug up out of the rubble it was "only" if not militia but sadly "human shields". Besides many of the struck areas were too far inside Lebanon to be a possible launch site for a Katjuscha, which was, with exception of some bigger missiles, the most used missile during the war.

I can agree with you that my headline is misleading. It should be "IDF findings shows that rocket firing from houses was mostly propaganda". I am aware that the word BS is stronger than propaganda but when it comes around it's about the same.

[pelsar]

18. guess you dont know much a about katushas...(or orchards in lebanon)

Knowing what I know of a Katjuscha (range max 5 km)

1) range is about 20km

2) orchards are next to homes..can reach up to the wall of the house in many cases....

[tocqueville]

31. FYI just use google earth

1) even if newer models of Katjushas can have a MAXIMUM range of 20 km, a Katjusha (BM 21) fired from Tyre would fall INSIDE Lebanon, or barely reach the border. Firing a Katjusha north of the Litani/Tyre is meaningless. The normal range is 16 km.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/bm-21.htm

Draw a 20 km line westwards from the air base at Kyriat Shmona and look where you end up. Besides that I imagine the IDF doesn't have ballistic experts and radar assessment of projectiles.

2) it doesn't have to be Katjushas but Quassams

Shimon Peres, a prominent figure in the Israeli Left, claimed that Israel can afford to ignore Qassam fire <4>. "This hysteria over the Qassams must end," he told journalists at the Knesset. "We're just adding to the hysteria. What happened? Kiryat Shmona was shelled for years. What, there weren't missiles?"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quassam_Rocket

2) I have lived half of my life in the Mediterranean area and know exactly how an orchard looks like. And I have a training in satellite picture interpretation. A little googling shows that most of the fields in the region are outside the villages and not inside in a typical mediterranean pattern.

[pelsar]

39. whos shooting just from tyre?...simple facts

....facts are that the missles fired from various places in lebanon reached all over n. israel, cities and villages.

funny thing about the Kyriat Shomona "airbase" as you called it---its an airport for civilian aircraft...but hey it sounds better calling it an airbase as if Kiryat Shomna is some kind of military city..nothing like a bit of local propaganda to show how hizballa really trully was aiming at military bases? (who would want to defend hizballa anyway?)

and those orchards....cant say i've done much satelite interpretation, though i read quite a few ariel photographs...and i have walked around orchards and villages in lebanon.....those trees are found in courtyards, slopes next to villages on the edges of homes wihin small open areas etc.

maybe peres has no problem with the qassams falling on schools, but the parents in sederto do...but hey i get it...trying to kill israelis is ok by some, worse would be israelis trying to prevent it...conclusion:....given the two options?....

[The Magistrate]

26. Katyusha, Sir, Has Passed Into A Generic Term

You seem to be referencing the old "Stalin Organ" of the Second World War, and that in its earliest phases and smallest calibers. By now, the term indicates any artillery rocket of Soviet origin, or based on Soviet originals as pattern for manufacture, and includes devices of much improved character produced during the Cold War. Ranges for all sorts of artillery have improved considerably over the last half-century.

The propagandas of the various sides do not interest me much,a nd certainly do not guide my view of what occured. Attacks in Beirut were aimed at various assets and official facilities of Hezbollah, possibly included suspected caches of munitions, and certainly including structures thought to be effectively barracks. No one ever pretended these were aimed at launch sites. Missiles were fired from as far away as Tyre routinely, which establishes a pretty good base-line for the distance at which strikes could be considered to have been aimed at suspected launch facilities. Qana certainly falls within that belt. The usual technique of firing missiles from built up areas would have probably involved pre-positioned munitions to which truck-borne launchers, suitably camouflaged, were brought, with the launchings taking place from close alongside a structure, and a quick getaway on pavement following. There are, though, no particular difficulties to firing a few rockets from a room that cannot be addressed by clearing the room of all flammables and facing the walls, floor and ceiling with a layer of bare concrete, though of course the triggering would have to be done remotely, and the wires encased in an insulated conduit. It is not an unreasonable thing to posit.

[tocqueville]

30. no big difference

Katyushas have also been used outside Russia and the former Soviet republics, in particular by the Hezbollah Lebanese militia in the bombardment of Israeli towns, before and especially during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict. The Hezbollah rocket arsenal included BM-21-derived launchers and, notably, longer-ranged Fajr-3 rockets.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyushas

You don't hide a BM launcher in a flat. Specially in areas with big mass populated towers. Even you want to pinpoint the flat of a leader, you don't pound a 50 m high residential tower with several 1000 kgs bombs. Unless you don't care about collateral damage.

Even if I don't deny the remote possibility of scenarios such as you present it, it still obvious that the airstrikes in that case should have been concentrated within a belt of 5 km (3 miles) inside Lebanon.

The map of the airstrikes presented in Wikipedia shows that it isn't the case.

ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Locations_bombed_Aug13.jpg

or do you mean that the Hezbollah had a "mini long-range-super Katjusha - do it your self at home kit" ?

You cannot deny that the OVERALL JUSTIFICATION for the airstrikes was that the Hizbollah was hiding launchers in populated areas and thus exposing the population.

The IDF destroyed most of the long range rockets in the first hours of the strikes, because they were more difficult to hide and because they had information about those. That's why very few long range rockets were fired at Israel despite the Hezbollah bragging.

It's a fact that the Hezbollah could continue to fire the rockets despite the ground invasion. If you look at the range of the Katjusha there were fired from inside "occupied" territory, the 5 km range. The villages that could hide the launchers were mostly destroyed. Despite that the bombing went on and on over the WHOLE of Lebanon.

compare those two statements :

"Amnesty International published findings from a research mission that pointed to an Israeli policy of deliberate destruction of Lebanese civilian infrastructure during the conflict, which included war crimes. Their findings "indicate that such destruction was deliberate and part of a military strategy, rather than 'collateral damage."' <93> Amnesty researcher Donatella Rovera, who visited Lebanon during the war and co-authored the report stated "There is clear evidence of disproportionate and indiscriminate attacks." <94>"

"Israeli officials accused Hezbollah of intentionally using the civilian population as human shields. They alleged that Hezbollah fired rockets from residential areas to draw Israeli fire on those areas, in an attempt to maximize civilian casualties and garner more sympathy."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Israel-Lebanon_conflict

the IDF discovery of the launching sites in orchards shows that Amnesty is probably right and that the IDF didn't care about what damage it caused, despite the fact that any normal military analyst could have understood that the rockets COULDN'T come from those areas : it's either criminal incompetence or a deliberate war crime. Probably both.

on edit : I can add 10-15 km to the range of the Katjushas after verification, but that doesn't change anything.

[The Magistrate]

33. You Are On Shakier Ground Here, Sir, Than You Seem To Think

Why you should insist that a device with a range on the order of twenty kilometers can only be fired from within five kilometers of the border escapes me entirely. It is hardly necessary to go fifteen kilometers into Israel to find targets that were engaged. Several prominent ones in the extreme northeast of the country are just a few steps across boder, and further, can be assailed from westerly as well as northerly directions.

You also seem to be operating on the belief that artillery fire is suppressed solely by aiming at the crew and device that projects the munition, but that is far from so. Much effort devoted to suppressing artillery fire is aimed at routes of supply and dumps of munitions that feed the launchers, and efforts along this line are often more effective than mere destruction of the men working the launcher, or the device itself. Modern military doctrine, carried to the final point of its evident tendency, would refrain from engaging front line positions entirely, leaving these to whither on the vine with their bare minimum of ready supply by destroying the whole capacity to replenish and maintain their operation in the area behind them. Whether this works or not in any particular instance is beside the point of whether or not the attempt to achieve it is a legitimate military operation that the people engaged on have reason to believe can and will succeed.

The pattern of attacks shows to me attempts to interdict supply routes into Lebanon from Syria, and potential bottle-necks in the road-net to the south, as well as areas of Hezbollah presence beyond the south, such as in the Bekka, and southern Beirut. This is wholly in accord with established doctrine for the use of air power. The view of a researcher from Amnesty International, expressed solely on the basis of examining the aftermath of strikes, without any real investigation or knowledge of the targeting plan and the intelligence information that went into it, carries very little weight with me. Just as it would surprise me greatly if the A.C.L.U. ever said, no we will not take the case of this Nazi or this pornographer or whatnot, it would shock me deeply of an Amnesty International investigator ever returned from viewing a bombed over patch of earth with dead civilians on it and said, yes, that was a clean hit, completely called for, and the pilots did just what they had to do.

None of this is to say that all Israel's actions were proper, for it is certainly possible some were not, but only that most of what has been heard so far to the effect they were not is simply people indulging in a fashionable mode of outcry, most of whom are saying only what anyone could predict in advance they would say merely by knowing their titles and affiliations. The fact is that by any historical standard a thousand dead, even a thousand non-combatant dead, resulting from an aerial campaign of several weeks duration is extraordinarily mild: people who simply mean to kill from the air rack up totals like that in hour or two, with the general case for results in such efforts being four to six dead per ton of bombs dropped, and there can be little doubt the Israelis dropped considerably more than two hundred tonnes of bombs, as that would be the load of no more than four ot five sorties per day of the entire campaign.

[tocqueville]

37. OK let's try again, because your ground is an earthquake

I take back the 5 km and put it up to 15. It doesn't change anything. See my answer to pelsar.

you are really not adressing my argumentation

I repeat it again :

The Israeli propaganda has "excused" its strikes by saying that the Hezbollah was hiding its weapons in residential areas and using the population as human shields. It's obviously false. It might have happened in some cases but the exception is not the rule. Besides when you use human shields normally you don't use the ones who support you.

Did the Israeli knew they weren't hiding in the houses ? I guess they did. For the simple fact that when the houses were destroyed the rockets still were fired. But the bombing continued.

So the question is was it propaganda or not... this "house theory" ? according to me it was, and it was from the beginning BECAUSE IT DIDN'T MAKE SENSE. I think there is a general European consensus about that, but of course we are SO biased.

Your comment about "modern military doctrine" is very interesting. Nothing new in cutting supply lines (I don't know what it has to do with residential areas, but OK). The problem is that these asymetrical wars are not fought conventionally. The Kosovo war which was even more conventional than this one, hadn't been obviously studied by the Israeli, because they would have known that the Serb MILITARY had practically no losses despite one and half month of bombings, but the population suffered greatly.

They haven't studied the Vietnam war either : you blow up a bridge, but during the night you go over the half dry river with a little shoveling of rocks and sand. You don't have tanks to move forward but light equipment. You are not allowing cars on any roads ? doesn't matter there are trails and donkeys... or bikes...

And for the rest deciding that civilian areas are "legitimate targets" because they MIGHT contain elements of the enemy's infrastructure is completely immporal and against the Geneva Convention.

Regarding your assessment : "The fact is that by any (?) historical standard a thousand dead, even a thousand non-combatant dead, resulting from an aerial campaign of several weeks duration is extraordinarily mild" is quite "surprising", to say the less. You wouldn't probably say so if your own state, had been bombed under the same conditions.

Shall I guess that the 20-30 civilian deaths in Israel caused by the Hezbollah fire during one month are "mild" too ? Or are they appalling crimes against civilians by a bunch of bloodthirsty anti-semites ?

because the bottom line is that you are defending a conduct of war which is not specially "Israeli" but has long been a US one. It wasn't militarily decisive in Europe and the unnecessary "collateral damage" was forgiven by Europeans that saw it more like birthpains that gave a free Europe. But this pattern has been seen again and again with maybe Vietnam and Iraq has the two extremes. And everytime the result has been the same, the war has been lost militarily and the battle of hearts and minds nearly definitively.

What we saw in Lebanon in a nutshell was maybe the last "air-land battle" of that type unless the neocons reiterate it in Iran. So trying to defend the method and even worse the propaganda round it seems to me rather pathetic.

[The Magistrate]

38. The Point You Are Making Here, Sir, Does Not Much Interest Me

What intruiged me mostly about your comment past the initial one was the question of the range, and that seems to be dealt with at last....

"Its like chocolate, only made of pigs."

[Solo_in_MD]

7. That does not logically follow

That some rockets were fired from pre planned sites in orchards does not mean that all we fired from orchards.

There have been a few Israeli tactical videos show up on YouTube. They clearly show residences being used.

[tocqueville]

16. the videos you name are far from conclusive

the only ones I have seen show probably horizontally shot anti-tank missiles. If you have any clear video of a Katjuscha round being shot from inside a residential area, please post it. I think that you'll have difficulties in finding it because, if there was such a shot, it had been surely making the headlines of all world's TVs by now.

[Solo_in_MD]

22. You and I have discussed this in the past

and while there is room for disagreement over which weapon was being used in that one clip, the videos clearly show residences being used for military purposes.

I believe that the IDF has a great deal of combat video and will hold it back until they are challenged on a particular strike and then release it. It will be an excellent method to discredit their accusers.

[The Magistrate]

27. My Own Inclination, Sir

Would be to reveal no target recordings at all, under any circumstance, there being nothing to gain by allowing the opposition to see exactly what you saw, and thus providing pointers towards better techniques of evasion. Public relations are important, but they are far from essential.

[Solo_in_MD]

36. The ones that were on YouTube were interesting

The UAV video was clearly cropped. None of the usual context data was present. One of clips had the building hit by an F-16 later. There was HUD data present on that part of the clip.

Consider the following:
- Most moderen systems capture tactical video automatically. Its also D/L from the airplane automatcially.
- There has been a lot of arm waving about war crimes and unjustified destruction of a wide variety of sites by the IDF.
- Such tactical video clips give pretty clear evidence about why a particular site was attacked, as will the IDF equivalent of the ATO.
When a body with some standing is empowered to investigate the claims of war crimes on both sides, the videos will be used to support the IDF of particular targets. Israel can also leak them selectively as needed to help influence the press and world opinion. I believe the You Tube videos are the tip of the iceberg in that regard.

Hezbollah has no such video, no equivalent to the ATO etc. It makes their rocket attacks and sinking of neutral shipping very hard to defend.

[eyl]

40. AFAIR

for the most part, the houses weren't attacked because they were firing from them (though they did fire from the vicinity of houses, such as yards, or empty lots adjacent to buildings) but rather because they were thought ot be used to store rockets.

[The Magistrate]

3. And So, My Friend

We see that the universe is still in working order, King Muddle remaining thoroughly in charge. Several points of this commend themselves to particular notice.

One is the payment of the orchards' owners for the use of their property as a firing point. As someone said long ago, "When you hear a man say he loves his country, know he expects money for it." Pure fanaticism, wholly untinged by acquisitiveness, is rarer than even true love in this world. It would be interesting to speculate on what the level of Hezbollah support would be if ever the purse ran dry, and the classic recruiting formula "we will make you rich or we will make you dead" were thrown onto the latter prong entire.

Another is the elegant simplicity of the means employed to thwart technical wizardry. Insulating or reflective blankets pulled over a pit, and fresh-cut branches strewn about; the work of a moment, and in reach of anyone with access to a camping goods outlet and a few hapless bushes. One wonders if the most ancient style of aerial observation, straight over-head mapping shots from a few hundred yards apart placed beneath a stereo-opticon viewer, would have been defeated by the simple ruse, for the different height of the piled brush as opposed to the tops of the trees would have stood out sharply.

Finally, there is the quality of the second-guessing the opponent's mind from which the tactic emerged. Just about all commentary on the subject, my own included, focused on the extreme portability of the weapon, which made it something that could be set up quickly anywhere, and so made the whole zone defined by its range a myriad of potential launching points that would have to be surveilled in its entirity, with the need for near-immediate response against what would necessarily be a temporary target paramount, if any effect was to be had on those employing the rockets, and their ability to fire them. That there would be no permanent points, because permanent points could be readily discovered and permanently dealt with, went without saying. It does seem surprising that radar tracking of trajectories was not employed to better effect, for it would seem that even if only loosely accurate, this could have indicated at least serious hot-spots for continual observation as originating points for the rockets.

"There are no dangerous weapons, only dangerous men."

[bemildred]

5. Yes Sir.

All armies run on money, before anything else.

Yes, all this reminds me a bit of the non-success of the bombing campaign in the Balkans, a while back. In fact some of these techniques sound recycled from that conflict.

WRT second guessing, I would refer you to my sig line.

The intelligence failure here needs pointing out too, Hiz'bullah seems to be remarkably secretive, and quite successful at it.

It would be interesting to know how effective return fire by artillery was, and why it was or was not in these circumstances.

[The Magistrate]

8. Intelligence Failure, Sir

Was touched on in No. 4 above, addressed to Mr. Tocqueville. The possibility raised in the article, that information bearing on this was known soon enough to one arm of the service but not to another, is a seperate sort of point, but is typical enough of bureaucratic muddle to seem likely. One wonders if, in accompaniment to this technique, there were not artificial hot points generated, near but not too near the real points. Artfully done, this could do more than simply draw fire that would be wasted; it could suggest calculation of trajectories was working fairly well, and suggest repeated arrivals of wholly mobile launch teams and equipment near a point pre-surveyed for aiming, but of course lacking any permanenet installation.

In regards to money, consideration in the coldest style may cast some light on the wider bombing campaign. There were, you may recall, some protests early on that certain commercial enterprises were being demolished, and it seemed possible to me that these might be concerns that were either controlled by Hezbollah, or otherwise made funds available to it, whether by "donation" or by providing livings for its militants as employees, without cutting too deeply into their spare time. Certainly a goodly proportion of the organization's money comes from Iran, but it would be wise to have local sources, and some capacity for self-sufficiency in a pinch, as gold streams from outside are susceptible to interdiction. It may be that some of the destruction it is the fashion in some quarters to deploy as utterly senseless was aimed at destroying assets and soaking up funds both present and future, with an eye to putting a crimp in the organization's balance sheet, and capability to purchase the loyalty it requires. There has been some recent commentary, at least, suggesting that Hezbollah may well be seriously strained to carry out to the people's satisfaction the living aid and reconstruction it has promised to wreak, and there is a good deal of effort being expended in attempts to ensure it gets nowhere near distribution of U.N. and other Western relief monies going to Lebanon.

[bemildred]

10. Hot points, yessir, I believe that is what the Serbs did.

Money: strategic bombing, which is what the general bombing of Lebanon appeared to be to me and to some other people I have read, is alway aimed at economic damage, among other things, and that seems certainly so here too.

There was an element of trying anything about it too, the element of command failure we raised before, having no real plan. just trying everything to see if something would work. Some of that lies behind the reluctance to give up the embargo too, I think, the motives are clear enough, but the situation is hopeless in the long run, arms will be smuggled, and they would do better to cut their losses (IMHO).

[The Magistrate]

12. Indeed, Sir, If Recollection Serves

The dummy tanks and such were animated by charcoal braziers, read by the sensors as motors turning over or cooling from earlier use. At the risk of veering wildly off topic, though, in my view the bombing campaign in Kossovo was far from a failure. While destruction is nice, suppression is the real point of the exercise, and weapons essentially buried away and going unused for fear of what would happen were they brought out into the open are as useless to their possessors as if they were blasted piles of scrap. That the Serbs were unable to use their heavy weapons opened the field for the K.L.A. light infantry to engage the Serb patrols on more or less equal terms under the air umbrella, which forced the Serbs into employing infantry in larger bodies, which in turn provided some decisive targets for air strikes, that demonstrated the futility of persevering in the situation, as either patrols too small for the bombers' notice would be cut up by the guerrillas, or bodies large enough to intimidate the guerrillas would be smashed from the air. Whether that was the plan or not, that is how it worked, and of course the Air Force over-claimed wildly, which is so traditional by now it would trouble me somewhat to find one claiming results accurately, in the way a salesman's describing deficiencies in his product as the bargain was being sealed would....

[bemildred]

13. I tend to agree with you, it's a debatable point.

Let's say failure in the sense of failing to destroy the tanks and what have you as advertised. And we come back to the role of infantry, don't we?

[msmcghee]

6. Interesting observations.

I also wonder about this: I have read more than one account that Iran sent those rockets and launch technology to the S. Lebanon border to have as a counter-force in case Israel (or the US) attacked Iranian nuclear facilities.

This puzzled me as the accuracy of these mobile launched rockets is necessarily very poor.

However, permanent launch pads with accurate azimuth and elevation controls on the launchers provide much greater accuracy - even for relatively simple rockets. Having worked with such rocket motors I know that if the propellant is accurately charged (and the rocket precisely aimed) that they can be quite repeatable, even over several miles range. The US used such rockets against hardened Iraqi artillery positions in desert storm. The US mobile launchers of course were not pickup trucks. I assume they were equipped with sophisticated GPS calibrated azimuth and elevation references.

But even those require spotters to call in corrections in order to "register the fire". Is it possible that Hizbullah instigated this recent conflict with the hopes of justifying the firing of perhaps only a few dozens or hundreds of these rockets - and that Hizbullah spotters were located in N. Israel to register their impact. We know that some pretty advanced communication equipment (with Iranian labels) was found in their bunkers.

If this was the case then both Iran and Hizbullah were probably surprised that Israel gave them such a full scale test of the system that included their ability to communicate with their farmer / fighters in real time and keep the launch pads hidden - which apparently did not work for at least one permanent pad where the brush was burned away.

I wonder if there were some few highly accurate rockets being fired amidst all the wildly innacurate ones that were setting fire to forests and landing in open desert - and that in some future conflict Israel will find the rocket fire from S. Lebanon to be surprisingly accurate and lethal - certainly capable of destroying settlements, factories and even un-hardened military positions - and nothing like what was experienced this time.

Just speculating.

[The Magistrate]

9. There May Be Something To That, Sir

The "counter-force" claim is certainly true. Very few people bother to attempt much denial that Hezbollah and Iran are closely allied, and that an attack on the latter would certainly trigger action by the former. Neither Iran nor Israel have much capability at present to strike one other to any great effect directly. My own view is that Nasrallah pitched this episode on his own, in his own political interests, to present himself as the champion of the Arab Palestinians of Gaza, and establish himself as the one Arab leader willing and able to move militarily on their behalf. It is a tremendous prestige point, and even if the doing did not suit his sponsors, they would have little choice but to let themselves be wagged by their tail once it was commenced. But there are generally more motives than one in matters of this sort, and registration for future engagements would certainly be a benefit to be derived from the episode, as well as a test-run of the whole firing and concealment system built up over the years. The risk, of course, is that the people the test is run against may learn as much as the people running the test.

[bemildred]

11. That's an interesting thought.

I have had the feeling that Hiz'bullahs conduct of the war had something artificial about it, and the relative ineffectiveness of their rocket fire was a factor in that feeling. As you say, rockets are treated as artillery weapons, and ought to have considerable precision in proper circumstances.

The only other notion I have come up with to explain that is much less convincing.

[Lithos]

14. Ineffectiveness of rocket fire

Two parts to consider here, the tactical and the strategic.

Tactically, the accuracy of rockets is dependent upon the geo-spatial equipment that is stored inside of it. One of the prime components is of course the rather infamous "ball bearing". The type of machine necessary to manufacture the required quality has always been limited and hard to obtain. Perhaps this is a flaw in the Iranian manufacturing capability.

Also, use of "farmers" to manage/launch the weapons. Makes me wonder what sort of training they received in operations which includes maintenance.

Strategically, you have of course the notion that Nasrullah underestimated the Israeli response and the system really wasn't ready for the attacks. He essentially admitted it was a mistake. The rise in the number towards the end indicates an operational efficiency that improved. Too many variables to state where the weakness was - eg supply, communication, operations, etc. The problem is that the war was so short, that it is likely that given the complexity of the system, it is likely all knowledge/skill will be lost. Most armies require constant training and usage of equipment like this to maintain operational effectiveness.

L-

[bemildred]

17. Nothing really convinces me at present.

Your comments are a relevant as any. If one knows for a fact that the rockets were Iranian and that their theoretical accuracy is bad, then the ball-bearing issue might well be relevant. The proficiency of the firing teams, likewise.

I was interested in the idea that the "inaccuracy" was to some degree intentional. The fact that Hiz'bullah had no realistic military objectives - other than to inflict harm on the IDF - it could "win" only in the realm of perception, lends itself to that idea, and you know that I think that in many respects it was more of a demonstration war than a real one, or a trial war as The Magistrate mentioned, a chance to try things out. That leads one to speculate about what the propaganda and intelligence goals were, for both sides really, but particularly Hiz'bullah.

My speculation, roughly, was that Hiz'bullah's goals were two:

1.) To goad the IDF into ground combat against it's prepared positions in S. Lebanon
2.) To goad the IDF into excessive reaction, thus casting itself as the aggressor, and Hiz'bullah as the little guy and defender and exerciser of "restraint". Not that hard to do, anyway. This requires that Hiz'bullah's strategic rocket campaign against N. Israel be sustained but not be too effective.

In my defense, I have to say I have been considering these ideas since the time of the capture of the two soldiers, it is not retrospective. But I see nothing to decide one way or another about these issues up to the present.

It seems likely (to me) that Nasrallah is being candid as to the magnitude of the bombing campaign, and likely lying in suggesting he expected something modest, or that he didn't really want a fight.

[pelsar]

21. the impression over here....

is that both forces were surprised in many respects.

Nassralla by the IDF reaction, but hes smart enough to survive. His admittance is for the "locals" and may enhance his standing (i'm a bit short on lebanese politics).

Military the IDF was surprised and bungled they're way through....(nothing really new here). However the intelligence gained was a "bonanza." 300m from the N.W border 3m from a UN observation tower was one of many entrances (totally concealed, found by the IDF purly by chance) to a huge underground command and control center....one of many, of which many they didnt know existed.

Iran was 'exposed" in that much of the hardware that Hezballa used was iranian...for the lebanese that has a lot of meaning

this was nothing more than round 1. The UN troops wont be disarming Hizballa.....

[bemildred]

25. Thank you for your comments.

By paragraph:

1.) Yes. As is usual in the early parts of a war.
2.) Yes. He seems a very clever fellow. "Weasel" comes to mind, but it would be foolish to underestimate him, as events show.
3.) I remain skeptical, intelligence is perishable, and the general situation was known. The idea of hidden bunkers close to enemy lines is not original with Hiz'bullah.
4.) Again, I am skeptical, not that the arms are Iranian, so much as that the Lebanese generally care much about that at this point.
5.) Yes, most likely. The effect of the presence of the UN force seems unpredictable to me, but they won't be disarming Hiz'bullah in any direct way.

"Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad." -- Euripides

[eyl]

41. Regarding point 3

while it was known that Hizbullah had been building bunkers in the area and elsewhere, the surprise was at their sophistication.

[bemildred]

42. Why is that surprising? nt

[eyl]

43. Because it wasn't expected

they would be that large or reinforced.

[bemildred]

44. Yeah, OK. My bad.

I guess it would depend on who it is being surprised. I figured, from the Hiz'bullah point of view, the more elaborate the better, and it clear they had money and time and labor in plentiful supply. The Viet Cong had some amazing tunnel complexes too.

[bemildred]

19. If you were to ask me what Nasrallah expected,

I would say encirclement via the Litani, siege, and bombing of S. Lebanon, along lines that have been touched on here and in the Israeli criticism of the course of the war. But, who knows for sure?

[msmcghee]

29. Interesting analysis, however . .

. . in battlefield rockets such as these that have no guidance or correctional capability once fired - there are no need for ball bearings. They depend on the initial aiming accuracy and propellant charge of known thrust to reach the vicinity of their target.

Once the rocket is fired, it spins in the air nullifying any airflow differences across its surface that could set it off course - much like a high powered bullet is sent spinning by the rifling in the barrel. In fact this type of weapon can be thought of as an artillery shell that expends its thrust over several minutes rather than as a single initial explosion in the chamber.

The major difference is in cost and weight. Both artillery and rockets require a highly accurate aiming mechanism to be effective - but the rocket does not require the expensive and very heavy firing chamber to enclose the extremely high pressures of that initial explosion. In that way several rocket launch tubes can easily be hauled around in the bed of a Toyota pickup truck and fired from that platform.

The only place ball bearings may be useful for this type of weapon would be in the aiming mechanism itself (or of course, back in Iran in the equipment that manufactured the tubes, etc.)

However, I expect that even those (aiming mechanisms) could use bushings just as well and not suffer any significant degradation in performance. Once the settings are established, no matter how crude the aiming drive mechanism, they can be locked in place with simple clamping screws.

(Just some additional thoughts that may be relevant - or not.)

[breakaleg]

20. The IDF released video footage they say was rockets being fired

near Qana and from this footage, they fired on that house, killing all those people.

And now we discover there have been stationary targets from which they fired many rockets, yet the IDF, couldn't pin those site down.

It certainly calls into question how reliable their intelligence was in all of those residential homes they destroyed.

[The Magistrate]

23. That the Intelligence Was Poor, Sir

Has been evident all along, certainly before more than a few days had elapsed in the campaign. But it is worth pointing out that a mistake is not a crime: if the good-faith belief, on some reasonable appearing ground, of the people engaging the target is that it is a firing point or munitions cache, then the act is far from willful slaughter, even should events prove their belief was woefully in error.

[Solo_in_MD]

24. Not so much intelligence issues but surveillance capability

The fire finder radars get you in immediate vicinity, but visual identification is required if you want to destroy a pit or other hiding place. The IAF has limited battlefield surveillance assets, so this was not at all surprising. The other alternative are area weapons like cluster munitions. We all know how well that was received.

Seriously, this does point out that the IDF had inadequate UAV/Recce assets and that they also did not use cluster munitions everywhere they could have legitimately.

IAI had a strong presence at AUVSI last week...but that does not mean that the IDF can afford the number of UAVs they need.

[breakaleg]

28. What I'm trying to say is this...

The places the did hit, were referred to as places that were temporary or moving targets. So Hezbollah would shoot from one location, one time (or over a period of a few hours or a day) and then move. These targets, they claimed to have found.

But rockets fired from the same location day after day throughout the entire war, they couldn't find?

So they found launch sites that fired infrequently more readily than they found ones that fired habitually?

It makes me wonder if they really had any intelligence at all on the residential targets, or if they used that excuse to bomb cities and towns they wanted to.

[bemildred]

32. A good point, where was the counter-battery fire

against these fixed firing points?

[msmcghee]

34. It was my impression that Israel used reconnaissance . .

. . aircraft and drones to confirm targets so that smart bombs could be used - so as to avoid widespread and unnecessary damage to civilians that artillery would no-doubt cause. I have seen video footage of both mobile launchers and smart bombs taking them out. In all cases where there were visible launchers (that I saw) - those launchers were all mobile, mounted on truck beds.

Also, a simple pit can be quite an effective defensive position against artillery. It would require a direct hit to take it out.

I suspect that the hardened launch sites were used sparingly and probably were fired off when mobile launchers were being used - to add confusion. They may have been covered up with thermal blankets and brush quickly before a recon plane or drone could get there to confirm it - assuming the fire finding radar had a fix.

Just guessing though.

[bemildred]

35. That may be.

I remember stories in the Israeli press, close up with the troops in action sort of things, discussing radar-directed counter-battery fire in the border area. The question is not so much why were they not taken out as why were they not known and fired at. I have no answer, it's just a question I would want answered.

Edit: In fairness, my remembrance is a bit foggy, and I'm too lazy to go try to find it today, but it seems to me the question is worth looking into in the context of this story.