"Russian Aircraft Can’t Save Iraq " Topic

"Baghdad needs tough troops, not tough aircraft.

"Like many nations whose armies disintegrated, the Iraqi government is looking to the sky for salvation.

"As Sunni militants continue their mostly unopposed blitz across northern Iraq, Moscow has sold Baghdad a dozen Su-25 Frogfoot close air support aircraft—in essence, Russia's equivalent to America's A-10 Warthog—as well as trainers to teach Iraqis how to fly the straight-wing jets…"

Full article here
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Amicalement
Armand

Denial… More than just a river!

Hard to survive if the other side has control of the air …

The Su25 is reasonably survivable in this environment and carries 4800kg of ordnance, carried on 10 underwing hardpoints:
Guided missiles
1. Kh-29L (AS-14 Kedge) laser-guided air-to-surface missile
2. Kh-25ML (AS-10 Karen) laser-guided air-to-surface missile
3. Kh-58U (AS-11 Kilter) anti-radar missile
4. R-60 (AA-8 Aphid) air-to-air missile
5. R-73 (AA-11 Archer) air-to-air missile
Rockets
6. S-24 240mm rocket
7. S-25OFM 250mm rocket in launch tube and in flight
8. S-8 80mm rocket fired from the B8M1 20-round rocket pack
9. S-13 122mm missile (fired from the B13 five-round rocket pack)
Bombs
10. FAB-500ShN 500kg parachute-retarded bomb
11. OFAB-250-270 250kg free-fall bomb
Guns
12. VPU-17A cannon pack
13. SPPU-22-01 pod fitted with a depressable 23mm cannon

Russian tactics used to have flights of four or eight in low level bombing runs … of course, if ISIS/ISIL/ has some anti-air capability, they may need to keep a lot higher.

Wonder if Russia is also supplying pilots/advisors?

Russia is supposed to be supplying pilots and ground crew, while Iran is giving Iraq its own Su25s back (the ones that were flown to Iran many years ago!)

The US and our allies tried to build a multi-confessional Iraq, with a multi-confessional army, where Sunnis and Shiites, among others shared power.

Sitting at home, watching it on TV, it looks like what happened is that when the Sunni Mujahidin of the ISIS went on the warpath, the Sunni tribes in the north and west of Iraq declared their alleigience to the black flags, supporting them with tribal militia and supplies. Then the Sunni elements of the Iraqi army deserted, unwilling to fight the Mujahidin and their own tribes.

Betrayed and abandoned by their Sunni comrades, Shia elements of the Iraqi army could not stand in the north and west, and also ran away.

Now Maliki has called out the Shiite milita, and with Iranian support is frantically throwing together a frankly sectarian Shiite army to defend his openly Shiite rump of Iraq.

It seems likely to me that Maliki will succeed in holding a line against the ISIS, although he will not be able to roll them back, because they enjoy the support of the Sunni population in the provinces that they control.

A few Russian airplanes on the side of Maliki's New Iraqi Army can't hurt.

I think you're overestimating the general Sunni support for ISIS – in Syria other Sunni groups are effectively at war with them, and the same will happen soon enough in Iraq, as ISIS sheer brutality shows. Maliki's been steadily excluding the Sunnis (and the Kurds for that matter) from power for several years, and now it's blown up in his face as it inevitably would.

The initial surge of general Sunni support for the revolt probably won't last though – casting off a government that's systematically excluded your people from decision-making is one thing, but accepting ISIS as some kind of improvement is another….

I thought this was a pretty fair explanation of how it's come to pass:

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This article had an interesting take on the collapse of the Iraqi Army in Mosul and Tikrit:

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Good write-up, if depressing….

I heard an interview with some members of the FSA, and they had nothing positive to say about ISIS. They were having to deal with them in Syria (the fighters were Sunni) and as Dom said, effectively in open war with them.

ISIS has allies, but it has plenty of enemies. What ISIS does better than anyone else in the region, is builds a coalition that actually stays together. At least for now.

ISIS itself does not have very many fighters, but it is an enormously well run organization that recruits and promotes well, and is very rich (especially after lifting another 450 mill in their run through Iraq). And they draw in other groups to fight with them. I feel that the only thing that will eventually stop ISIS, and ISIS. Alliances in that region tend not to be all that long lasting.

No a dozen SU-25s won't stop ISIS, but as noted … it couldn't hurt … the ever decaying situation …

Dom – indeed.

Worth remembering the Turks and Kurds are Sunnis as well….

One problem with that region is that racial, tribal and religious boundaries don't match up with National boundaries. I would expect a lot of 'readjustments' to take place over the next few years.

I was wondering where they were going to get the pilots to go with the jets.

"…Sunni comrades…"!

HA, HA, HA!!! Good one Zip.

Ya right Mako. Standing naked there on the screen, the phrase looks absurd. Our guys tried their best for 10 years to make it work. There was never a possibility it would work, was there?

I was wondering where they were going to get the pilots to go with the jets.

Israeli mercenaries?

Just kidding. Iranian volunteers, more likely.

I wouldn't be surprised if there was a few Russian/Ukranian mercs flying and maintaining the jets. They pop up in various conflicts ala Ethiopia-Eritrea.

Even 500 F-35s is not going to save Iraq.

You don't save failed states with airpower.

Indeed … add Afghanistan, Syria, and Somalia to the failed states list … To be completely grim, dark, and in a gallows humor vein … To quote a US Army Officer in Vietnam, "We had to destroy the village to save it …" … It may come down to the same concept with these failed attempts at nations …

"Our guys tried their best for 10 years to make it work. There was never a possibility it would work, was there?".

1,500 years or so of precedent seem to signal the answer is no, but some are eternal optimists…….

"Betrayed and abandoned by their Sunni comrades, Shia elements of the Iraqi army could not stand"

I think the Sunni would tell you that the Iraqi Army has not been their Army, nor their comrades, since Maliki turned it into a majority-Shi'a army, with political reliability and loyalty to Maliki a prerequisite for higher command.

So interpreting Sunni lack of support for Maliki's army as "betrayal" is a controversial conclusion.

"One problem with that region is that racial, tribal and religious boundaries don't match up with National boundaries. I would expect a lot of 'readjustments' to take place over the next few years."

THIS

The lines drawn in the sand by former imperial powers will continue to cause conflict until either the people decide that it is better to live in peace with each other (fat chance) or they draw up partition areas along ethnic/religious divisions like India/Pakistan/Bangladesh. Not that that has been entirely strife free…

So interpreting Sunni lack of support for Maliki's army as "betrayal" is a controversial conclusion.

What an odd position to take, that Sunni soldiers who first voluntarily enlisted in and then deserted from the Iraqi national army are not traitors.

"Betrayal" is impossible without trust existing before it.

If Maliki's regime had made the slightest efforts at giving a damn about its Sunni citizens I might sympathise with such a harsh view (and indeed it might not be necessary to, as the whole storm could quite probably have been averted….) but the reality doesn't fit. There is no Iraqi "national army" – that may be what they thought they'd joined, but it isn't how it was being run – it was tasked with defending some Iraqis, and watching others….

There was a *chance* of it actually becoming an Iraqi national army, but Maliki quite purposefully discarded that chance. He committed to regularising and integrating the Sahwa into the Iraqi forces, and then reneged on it completely, instead excluding Sunnis from all power and authority. So no, they're not a "national army" – that would be one that treats all of its nationals equally.

Give Panzercdr's link (repeated below) a good read, and tell me how abandoning *that* organisation is anything other than common bleeding sense…. Who do you think they are traitors to? The officers who use them as an extortion racket? The government which knowingly promotes such officers because they're "loyal" rather than competent? The nation that systematically excludes them from any positions of authority?

link

The betrayal is really by Maliki, and his Shia supporting/supported brethren, who are mere puppets of the Iranian regime.