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Iraq-Jordan
Victory in Fallujah - Iraq's Iwo Jima Gets Little Media Respect
2004-11-21
EFL - by Jack Kelly (a good writer) - HT to Country Store
The rule of thumb for the last century or so has been that for a guerrilla force to remain viable, it must inflict seven casualties on the forces of the government it is fighting for each casualty it sustains, says former Canadian army officer John Thompson, managing director of the Mackenzie Institute, a think tank that studies global conflicts. By that measure, the resistance in Iraq has had a bad week. American and Iraqi government troops have killed at least 1,200 fighters in Fallujah, and captured 1,100 more. Those numbers will grow as mop-up operations continue. These casualties were inflicted at a cost (so far) of 56 Coalition dead (51 Americans), and just over 300 wounded, of whom about a quarter have returned to duty. "That kill ratio would be phenomenal in any [kind of] battle, but in an urban environment, it's revolutionary," said retired Army Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, perhaps America's most respected writer on military strategy. "The rule has been that [in urban combat] the attacking force would suffer between a quarter and a third of its strength in casualties."
As usual, the press is stuck a couple wars back, expecting something comparable to Hue or even Stalingrad. And they talk about the generals...
The victory in Fallujah was also remarkable for its speed, Peters said. Speed was necessary, he said, "because you are fighting not just the terrorists, but a hostile global media." Fallujah ranks up there with Iwo Jima, Inchon and Hue as one of the greatest triumphs of American arms, though you'd have a hard time discerning that from what you read in the newspapers.
I'm not sure I'd put it up there with Iwo Jima. More like the Halls of Montezuma...
The swift capture of Fallujah is taxing the imagination of Arab journalists and -- sadly -- our own. How does one portray a remarkable American victory as if it were of little consequence, or even a defeat? For CNN's Walter Rodgers, camped out in front the main U.S. military hospital in Germany, you do this by emphasizing American casualties.
... which are minuscule, except to the casualties themselves. Fulda Gap exercises routinely expected 10 percent attrition a day...
For The New York Times and The Washington Post, you do this by emphasizing conflict elsewhere in Iraq.
Posted by:Frank G

#8  From AFP in 1995 HANOI (AP) - April 4. Cinq millions de morts: 20 ans apregraves la fin de la guerre du Vietnam, le gouvernement de Hanoi a reacute veacute leacute, lundi, le bilan d'un conflit dent le nombre de victimes avait eacute teacute minore a l'eacutepoque pour ne pas affecter le moral de la population. Selon Hanoi, il y a eu pres de deux millions de morts dans la population civile du Nord et deux autres millions dans celle du Sud. Quant aux combats proprement dits, les chiffres sent d'un million cent mille militaires tueacutes et de 600.000 blesseacutes en 21 ans de guerre. Ce dernier bilan comprend a la fois les victimes de la guerilla vietcong et les soldats nord-vietamiens qui les eacute paulaient. Les preacute ceacute dentes estimations de source occidentale faisaient eacute tat d'un bilan de 666.000 morts parmi Ies combattants Vietnamiens.

We lost 58,202 men in VietNam. Hanoi says that the Vietnamese lost 5,000,000 during the 21 years of hostilities. During the Tet Offensive, the loss ratio for the NVA was 30 to 1, but the US press turned it into a victory, the turning point of the war.
http://www.rjsmith.com/kia_tbl.html
Posted by: RWV   2004-11-21 11:35:41 PM  

#7  Justrand

The Jihadis lost about 1400 in Fallujah. If the US had lost 1400 taking Fallujah (or even 700), popular opinion would (I'm pretty sure) be running against the war.
Posted by: mhw   2004-11-21 11:17:49 PM  

#6  #4 mhw, I believe you have the ration BACKWARDS. TO be effective they must kill 7 of US for every one of them when fighting as guerillas. That's why they cannot afford to fight pitched battels like Fallujah. A true guerilla fighter needs to account for seven, or so, kills before he is killed, and thus must try to avoid confrontation.

In a pitched urban battle, conventional wisdom HAS always favored the defender. The losses described in the original article sound about right for what normally could be expected. Our training, technology, discipline and spirit are re-writing the rule book...at least for US!
Posted by: Justrand   2004-11-21 10:47:20 PM  

#5  agreed - but I would guess the 30% high (IMHO only). No haven/permanent safe houses should really cramp the IED/car bomb/ etc programs
Posted by: Frank G   2004-11-21 9:50:49 PM  

#4  Thinking about it more, I agree with Frank G that a 1-7 ratio sounds more likely. That is, that if the jihadis were able to kill 1 American for every 7 Jihadis, we would be in trouble. To do this they would have had to have killed about 200 Americans + Iraqi Govt in Fallujah.

Of course in reality, the Jihadis achieved only about 30% of what they needed on this. If you look at the previous large scale action in Najaf, the Jihadis (granted a different species of Jihadis) only achieved about 5% of what they needed.
Posted by: mhw   2004-11-21 9:48:14 PM  

#3  but they aren't fighting the Lions of The Desert™ surrounding by islamic-loving-civilians willing to die for Allah.....7 to 1 goes the other way, mhw
Posted by: Frank G   2004-11-21 7:39:02 PM  

#2  The North Vietnamese were a regular army, not a guerilla force. I would think you would have to look at at least the pre 1966 and possibly pre 1964 ratios to determine how well the VC guerilla force measured up to this rule. Data for that period are probably pretty unreliable. More meaningful is that the VC failed as a guerilla movement and the NVA had to pick up the slack for them.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis   2004-11-21 7:34:31 PM  

#1  I'm not so sure about that rule of thumb. We did not suffer 7 times as many causalties than the N. Vietnamese - in fact they took many more. If you add S Vietnamese causalties and Vietcong causalties, I still can't make the math come out anywhere near what it is supposed to.

In fact, I think the terrorists in the Phillipines aren't inflicting anywhere near 7 to 1 either.
Posted by: mhw   2004-11-21 7:24:08 PM  

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