What kind of force is needed for an attack on Iran?

We've had quite a few topics lately about various military movements around Iran. Some people are saying this is fairly normal, other people seem quite serious that it's more than that.

I don't really understand all the military jargon, or know what level of hardware/troops are needed for certain kinds of action.

So I'm hoping in this thread, the people with good knowledge on military tactics could tell those of us who don't know much what is needed for certain types of attacks, what is normal/unusual and so on.

For example, the following thread says:

debkafile's military sources report that Washington has posted a third carrier opposite Iran's shores. It is supported by amphibious assault ships and up to 4,000 Navy and Marine Corps personnel, bringing the total US strength in these waters to three carriers and 10,000 combat personnel.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Assuming that is true, what kind of action could they take? To me, just a few ships and 10,000 men sounds like it couldn't do anything too major, maybe blocking ports, or a small precision attack, but as I say, I know almost nothing about this stuff.

How many men/ships would it take to do a ground invasion?

Could these guys do some heavy ariel bombing, ready to bring in ground troops later?

Any information in laymans terms would be greatly appreciated.

Certainly not enough for a ground assault, but the West has been training on numerous exercises similar scenarios, the Joint Warrior ones are quite a good example. A similar force (without the Major carriers) practice exercises like taking out multiple belligerent nations at once with only the types of assets you mention. My understanding is that these wargames mainly revolving around precision strikes, extracting civilians etc.

This issue is, what will the response be to such an attack, I just hope we don't have to find out, and that these things stay a wargame.

Go look at Google Earth and check the Iranian roadnet and the location of their oil fields.

You'll find that there are three or four choke points in the western mountains that can be held by small forces vs much larger ones, cutting off access to the biggest oil fields Iran possesses. Those mountains are home to anti-Iranian Kurds and other minorities who would be eager to throw off Iranian domination.

Then swing south and east and you'll see that a lot of the refineries are on an island.

So, from a military point of view, capturing Tehran is pretty pointless. All that is necessary is to cut them off from their oil and money. It would not be an easy fight, but I'd have to go against Iran: anti-Iranian forces can field too many warbots in the front lines; by the time the Iranians fought through them, they'd be easy pickings for the human troops.

This doesn't mean that it wouldn't be costly: I would expect the loss of a carrier group and lots of aircraft, as well as terrorist activity. But in the end, Iran would have to win on a very short timetable or run out of oil and money, so long as whoever was doing the attacking remembers it's a war and not a political exercise.

Thanks for the comments so far.

Something I just thought about, was the operations like the "Bay of pigs" and some other coups. That only had about 1200 men in that attempt. Obviously they were beaten, and Cuba is a whole other kettle of fish, but they obviously had a reasonable confidence that it might be possible with such a low number, as long as conditions went their way.

Another small one I remember was:

en.wikipedia.org...

That only had 67 mercenaries, and "Their arms requisition included 20 machine guns, 61 AK-47 assault rifles, 150 hand grenades, 10 rocket-propelled grenade launchers (and 100 RPG shells), and 75,000 rounds of ammunition."

Not really much although Equatorial Guinea is even smaller, again they failed, but they obviously felt they had a chance.

apacheman, your post interests me. It reminds me of the early 90s gulf war. Didn't we just take Kuwait, and secure some oil fields inside Iraq? You could be right that it may not involve taking Tehran, just taking some assets.

The first aspect of all military planning is to define your objective.

If an attack on Iran is the idea, what is your primary objective in performing the attack?

Strategy 101. If you can't answer that, you can't even begin to plan the rest.

Good point, Truth. And if there is such an objective, we certainly are far from knowing what it might be, Lots of theories, but no definitive answer. So now we get into the hypotheticals.

I will say this, we have Iran* well surrounded for a squeeze play. In fact, I'd stick my neck on the line and say that's probably been part of the strategy all along, not that that strategy is without its risks.

[edit on 29-6-2010 by ~Lucidity]

Originally posted by Truth1000
The first aspect of all military planning is to define your objective.

If an attack on Iran is the idea, what is your primary objective in performing the attack?

Strategy 101. If you can't answer that, you can't even begin to plan the rest.

You make a lot of sense, but to put it the other way around:

What kind of "primary objective" do you think you could acomplish with 3 carriers and 10,000 men?

How about if you had more carriers, 100,000 men?

Erm...keeiping the Strait of Hormuz open? Intimidation?

Given that the US don't even have Afghanistan and Iraq under control, and given that Iran's force is far superior to Afghanistan/Iraq (not even accounting for the possibility of nukes), I'd say it's not a war the US really wants...or should want

Having those forces available certainly allows for a wide range of options.

Still, I believe my point remains valid. Here are some of the requirements for just one possible primary objective:

1- Air strike to destroy nuclear facilities.

To do this we need the following:
= suppression of enemy air defenses, requiring strikes on radar sites, radar control sites, airfields, command and control centers, SAM sites, AAA sites
= attaining air superiority - at least locally; strikes on airfields, munition storage sites, fuel storage sites, C&C centers; direct air-to-air engagements, and support to a-a missions
= ensuring adequate targets identification - supposedly done prior to initiation of the air campaign, but would need updates as new information becomes available and BDA is updated - preferably as close to real-time as possible
= targets strikes - multiple attack formations, at a large number of required target sites, ensuring safe ingress-egress procedures, while all aircrews utilize the proper attack ammunition and strike procedures, carried out under significant duress, while maintaining IFF procedures to avoid friendly fire incidents across the attack theater of operations
= protection against retaliatory measures, including:
** surface-to-surface attacks against A) carriers and support armada, B) friendly forces in neighboring areas, C) regional friendly sites, including cities, oil storage depots, dams, oil transfer sites (ground, shore-to-ships, and seaborne targets, such as supertankers loaded with oil, D) attacks on Israel, to attempt to broaden the scope of the conflict
** air-to-surface atttacks - same targets, but from aircraft, ranging from attack formations to individual aircraft on near-suicide missions
** seaborne attacks from surface warships, fast-attack boats, submarines
** terrorist attacks, in the immediate region, but possibly even using any cells located anywhere in the world, just for the purpose of attempting to broaden the horizons of the theater and to "pay back" the attacking countries, and any nations felt to be supporting the attack

All of this is what I can come up with off the top of my head. The real thing would be far more complicated than my limited discussion of an attack scenario. After the attack, there will have to be follow-on attacks, if nothing else but to prevent future retaliatory strikes by Iran. If it is not successful, you start all over and do it again.

After completing all of this, we then would have to deal with all of the anti-American feelings, rhetoric, and political fall-out that would inevitably be produced by such an air campaign.

It is easy to say things when talking together or writing on the Internet, but it is a whole different matter when you start discussing the strategic and tactical considerations for this type of air campaign.

Getting back to my main assertion: you don't start something like this without having a clear-cut primary objective.

I would say that if you were going to take out Iran's nuclear capability, the US probably has enough assets in the area.

A MEF could grab and hold areas near the Straits of Hormuz, while the USN and USAF knock out anti aircraft defenses and just pummel military, political and economic targets.

The only thing we are lacking are munitions close by for the air attacks, supposedly those on enrout to Dieogo Garcia. Time is running out for a peaceful solution for this.

Launching and completeing the strike is merely the first phase - THEN what do you do? We drove Saddam out of Kuwait in 100 hours, then hung around for another troubled decade. Then we conquered/"liberated" Iraq in a matter of days, but we're still not out yet, nearly a decade later.

A successful airstrike on Iran, with such a huge disparity of technology between the two sets of forces, is the easy part; it's what comes next that gives pause for consideration.

invading Iran or North Korea would be worse than the Vietnam war, they've had too long to prepare. Iran been training women and leaving arms here, there and everywhere, but hey they got 2 wars out of the 4 they said they wanted. They are with us like the highly experienced crafty and expert auction buyers and sellers, giving us offerings we have to accept whilst trying to keep the majority of us orderly. So them saying we want 4 wars but only having 2 makes it easier for the world to digest

[edit on 14-7-2010 by thegreatestone]

reply to post by thegreatestone


Iran is NOT North Korea. NK could in a conventional artillery barrage, lay waste to a good chunk of South Korea's Capital in under a half hour. It will be much harder to defang NK, you will have to starve the whole nation to death and they are used to being starved.

Iran you could make a case for an aerial campaign that would just pummel them into economic and military submission. Can't make a destitute North Korea much poorer by attacking them. It's like attacking Haiti, are you really going to make the situation much worse for them?

What kind of force is needed for an attack on Iran? That’s easy, just your normal everyday evil, dysfunctional, greedy corporate murderers looking for some more resources to control, horde and leverage and some brainwashed morally bankrupt henchmen!

Same as always.

We sent over an huge amount of artillery and have not gotten to use it. It is much cheaper to just level Iran with it than to send it back.

A global consciousness project to prevent a war from happening will be needed for an attack on Iran, for in its prevention will ANY force be needed at all.

May precious Iranian lives and young naive gung ho American lives be spared, as well as the numerous innocent lives around the world be spared of this suffering.

Key targets like C&C bunkers, air fields, naval ports, fuel depots etc would be selected by satellite, a wave of cruise missiles would destroy most of the air force and command infrastructure within hours or possibly a couple days. Stealth air attacks would then be carried out on remaining targets and that would pretty much cripple Iran.

Remember, Iran uses old out dated U.S. technology. The F-4E, F-14D and MiG-29s they possess are all '80s throw backs. Since no body likes to do business with Iran, they have procured their own radar, fire control and weapons systems and completely manufacture their own spare parts. There air force stands no chance.

As far as the Iranian navy, they prefer to use small attack vessels to "swarm" their enemy, however a net-centric navy like the U.S. utilizes so many advanced networks, sensors and platforms that it would be impossible to get close to a fleet on alert.

Originally posted by pavil
reply to post by thegreatestone

 

Iran is NOT North Korea. NK could in a conventional artillery barrage, lay waste to a good chunk of South Korea's Capital in under a half hour. It will be much harder to defang NK, you will have to starve the whole nation to death and they are used to being starved.

Iran is in a similar position, but their retaliation would be much more clandestine. Clandestine ops are the job of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, who is officially 200,000 strong. They hold influence in most leftest countries in the world and can mobilize insurgencies on a global level in short time if the reason is there.

Iran stands as the pinnacle nation of the Middle East in modern times and their fate really paints a portrait of the entire future of ME culture. If they are attacked, it will intensify global movements between leftest rebels and right-wing imperialists.

Wars today are not won by military victory alone, but by global perception and society's general consensus on the "reality" of the outcome, and obviously the victor is the force that can project to the world its victory the best. Thing is that most of the world does not support NKorea, but a lot of the world believes in Iran. With the social control failures of the US administrations of the last 10 years, such a new and extensive US military campaign is probably going to do more damage to the American image than Iran's.

Maybe this is why Russia is changing its stance to not supporting Iran... Maybe Russia gave Iran the means to provoke the US enough to suck the US into a much worse situation than it has ever seen before. This would crush the US economically and Russia would use this to promote its ideal of the global currency, lead by Russian markets. China would probably launch their own economic wars with the US in a joint attempt to disable the dominant global superpower, and would probably be successful.

The only way I see it is that the US has dug itself such a deep grave that it's all going to pile in someday, somehow. Who holds the shovel? Is it Russia, China, or the Middle East? These are the key factors in understanding the true extent of a hostile campaign against Iran.

Taking out Iran is not a big problem. Standoff attacks on the facilties in Bandar Abbas is all it would take. They are very concentrated on both economic and military in that area. If you would like to invade take out those and then grab the oil fields that are around that area. This along with strategic strikes inside Iran and they would be easy targets.