Iran War article #1

35 Comments

1. I wonder what the assumed CEV ratings are, and why.

   • This is a bit tangential, but it is an interesting article on the utility of military history and wargaming:

     https://marinecorpscompasspoints.substack.com/p/compass-points-wargame-perils

     C.A.L or J,S-C might wish to comment?

     FWIW, Van Riper actually replies to one of the replies at the bottom.

     • James,

       You appear to have an excellent understanding of CEV and I would be more than happy to discuss that with you. However, ATC has a different function for its equivalent factor. ATC was conceived as a land component for the Harpoon naval miniatures wargame. That never happened and I published the game elsewhere.

       Within the Harpoon system, aircrew were rated according to experience and the less experience a crew had, the less chance they had to hit the target. To be compatible, I used a similar system for ATC. The lower your Troop Quality rating, the less capable your force is, at just about everything. The first ding is that whatever your Combat Potential is, it is modified by your TQ, meaning only Elite troops can use their weapons to maximum advantage. But wait! There’s more! Virtually every thing you do is affected by TQ, even the time it takes to complete an evolution.

       As you know, Col. Dupuy’s system works as a multiplier to the combat power of a unit vis a vis an opponent. So, these numbers that are somewhat similar in concept are very different is execution. Within the ATC system, there are certain limitations to how forces can be differentiated (basically, between 0.1 and 10), whereas in Col. Dupuy’s system it is hypothetically open ended (1.0 to infinity). To be fair, Col. Dupuy did bend the curve asymptotically, so anything above a 3.0 loses its impact.

       Julian has suggested that I give you a complimentary copy of ATC. I would be more than happy to do so, just get me an email that I can send it to.

       • WS: “So, these numbers that are somewhat similar in concept are very different is execution…”
         -Among other things, the standard deviation isn’t as wide because it gets fed into the system repeatedly?

         WS: “Julian has suggested that I give you a complimentary copy of ATC. I would be more than happy to do so, just get me an email that I can send it to.”
         -Sure, I’d appreciate that. For simplicity, I’ll take the big chance a put an email here: jdg_21@hotmail.com

         …yeah, I might regret that, but probably not. How many spammers are checking out Mystics and Statistics?

         WS: “Within the Harpoon system, aircrew were rated according to experience and the less experience a crew had, the less chance they had to hit the target.”
         -It’s nice to see an air/naval game that takes CEV into account. RAND did a review of studies that correlated competence with training and experience (crew rank and skipper’s time on the job with maintenance, pp. 10-12; flight hours and skill at air-to-air combat, bombing, carrier landings, pp. 16-24; a neat study about Patriot operators that largely measured AFQT scores, but calculated that one year of service was roughly equivalent to one AFQT category, see p. 30). You can find the original studies (I have all of them on hard copy in my storage room/library/guest room). Any chance you’re already familiar with any of them?

         • Oh, the RAND overview:
           https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/technical_reports/2005/RAND_TR193.pdf

           The Patriot operator study is easy to find:
           https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reports/2006/R3901.pdf

2. I wonder what the assumed CEV ratings are.

   • ATC uses a version of CEVs on a competency scale. We rated the USMC/82nd AB as “Experienced” (70%), IRGC Marines as “Competent” (60%), the IRGC 34th Inf Bde as “Inexperienced” (40%), and the Basij as “Basic” (40%). These numbers represent the possibility of resisting a disruption leading to a forced posture change. These same numbers are a performance multiplier, and they indirectly influence other factors like planning time, recovery from an operation defeat and other performance based actions. The IRGC Marines have been at the forefront of adapting to U.S. operations, whereas the 34th is an institutional organisation not primarily focused on combat and the Basij is largely intended to back-up the interior ministry troops surveilling the domestic and in many cases, non-Persian minority populations.

   • Error: Basij are 30%

     • I was wondering about that.

3. ATC uses a version of CEVs on a competency scale. We rated the USMC/82nd AB as “Experienced” (70%), IRGC Marines as “Competent” (60%), the IRGC 34th Inf Bde as “Inexperienced” (40%), and the Basij as “Basic” (40%). These numbers represent the possibility of resisting a disruption leading to a forced posture change. These same numbers are a performance multiplier, and they indirectly influence other factors like planning time, recovery from an operation defeat and other performance based actions. The IRGC Marines have been at the forefront of adapting to U.S. operations, whereas the 34th is an institutional organisation not primarily focused on combat and the Basij is largely intended to back-up the interior ministry troops surveilling the domestic and in many cases, non-Persian minority populations.

   • Based on what we know of Western (including Israeli) vs. Middle Eastern forces from the Six Day War, the October War, 1982 Lebanon War, Desert Storm, etc., I can’t help but think that you’re either over-rating the Iranians or under-rating the Iranians. Maybe better to under-estimate oneself than exaggerate, but still…

     But I should also say, thanks for answering. 😉

     • Oops. I meant to write: “I can’t help but think that you’re either over-rating the Iranians or under-rating the Americans.”

       VR,

       James Glick
       PO1 USNR ret.

       • It is indeed likely that we overrated the Iranians and underrated the Americans. We did not have a sophisticated method of determining these ratings. ATC’s quality categories, which are consistent with the TNDM, are to some extent self-explanatory: “experienced” refers to combat experience among junior and intermediate NCO and officer leaders. “Competent” suggests well trained but no combat experience. “Inexperienced” is a level below that, implying insufficient training. CEV is of course a continuous measure, derived from combat outcomes, which are probably available but uncalculated (we have 1973 Iraqi values from Dupuy, and we could interpolate to the Iranians a decade later based on their interactions). Virtually every senior Iranian general/admiral from the Iran-Iraq War is dead, and current senior officers were born during the conflict, and there has been a significant sociological shift towards secularism in Iranian society. Useful indirect surrogates for performance are equipment maintenance and readiness rates, corruption rates in society (which measure trust levels), levels of conspicuous consumption in the younger age cohorts, percentage of families with relatives living abroad in the developed world and thereby exposed to independent information, prevalence of single-child families, unprecedented investments in rhinoplasty, for example. I suspect that if the U.S. had sincerely pursued regime change, Iran’s CEV would have halved, but the frontal assault on Iranian nationalism has likely doubled Iran’s relative CEV. The most important variable in Dupuy’s Attrition model is the most difficult to substantiate. Suggestions are welcome.

         • Your ratings for units within a nation’s forces are reasonable, but for US vs. Iran, the Iranians never showed any military superiority over the Iraqis (THE IRAQIS), for whom the USA’s CEV was over 3.00 in 1991 and 2003. That was decades ago, but CEVs generally shift very slowly (the Portuguese seem to have had wide swings in competence from 1640 to 1918, but that’s an exception, and even then, probably not a multiplier/divisor of 2). So even if the Iranians have improved by a factor of 2 vis a vis the USA, I doubt that our CEV would be less than 1.50, so the difference between the GIs likely to fight in the Gulf vs. Iranian marines would be 1.75, and vs. most of the Basij, at least 2.62. That’s just rating competence. How long before factors like morale would be modifying that with a 0.9 or even a 0.67? Or logistics?

       • 1. I agree with your comment about slow changes in CEV, likely tied to the stability of institutional practices and for those cultures that are isolated.
         2. Please check out the book: “Iran-Iraq War in the Air 1980-1988”
         by Tom Cooper, which does not show that the Iranians are tactically competent, but it does show their logistical and technical innovativeness.
         3. ATC reflects at different stages, including combat, but also preparation time for operations, which culminates in a CEV of 2.5. Again, I’d pay the $10 and see what a TNDM turned into a one hour per turn simulation looks like, and explore how the equivalent of a CEV intervenes at different steps in the battle procedure.
         4. But in a face-to-face tactical operation like an amph landing, without opportunities to maneuver, those other technical CEV (dis)advantages disappear. At Borodino, Napoleon noted that the kill rate between his multi-national army and dug-in Russians was less than 2:1, far less than the battlefield. Same was true of infantry losses at Stalingrad in 1942.

         • To your point 4, any evidence that the German CEV superiority dropped noticeably at Stalingrad?

           As to Borodino, that had a lot more to do with Napoleon’s lack of imagination in 1812 than the fact that the Russian defenses involved a few redoubts. Also, tactical decision-making is a bit more de-centralized nowadays (think dispersion rates of 1 guy every 25 square meters vs. 1 every 4,000 meters). Our greatest edge in decision-making is at the squad, platoon and company levels (where there is still maneuver, even in an amphibious op), not brigade, division, and corps.

           VR,

           James D. Glick

4. This still leaves the fixed and mobile coastal anti-ship missile batteries and observation points positioned along Iran’s southern seaboard near ports like Bandar Abbas and Sirik. Also, there are the small gun boats in the Strait itself. The problem is not solved by this approach.

   BTW – this also leaves the nuclear issue – the main reason for the intervention in Iran – completely untouched. This issue seems to be getting forgotten.

5. 1. The current news reports are that the coastal missile batteries are degraded; what the Iranians are firing at ships are from the interior, and the U.S. does not see the value of expending the SEAD munitions needed to make that deep effort.
   2. Its not clear what the gunboats can do to a u.S. Amph fleet.
   3. The operation provides leverage by seizing terrain; the nuclear issue is for the diplomatics.

   • Whether the missiles come from the coast or inland does not matter. They are still a major threat to shipping. Also, the coastal batteries can be rebuilt, and Iran can substitute mobile missile batteries on the shore. The news reports are not a great source of authoritative information.
     The small ships may not attack US warships or tankers, but they can report their location as targets to the inland batteries even if the islands are captured.
     Capturing the islands does not stop missile attacks.
     The nuclear issue is the key one and it is not being addressed by capturing the islands.

6. 1. The article suggests an operation to improve specific circumstances mentioned in the article: negotiating with Iran. It does not seek to resolve the nuclear issue, since Iran likely, and wisely, did not store all its uranium on the Gulf islands. It is not intended to resolve the problem of inland Iranian missiles. Your implication that political goals are indivisible: all or nothing, is not compatible with explanations of how countries behave in conflict. It is possible to win some objects in column A but fail to obtain objects in column B.
   2. Again, your dichotomous approach: “all news is good or all news is bad” is inconsistent with how decision-makers process information. It is possible to have incomplete information, which is the most common situation for those seeking information. News reports of impacts on ships near the Straits can be validly interpreted, biases compensated for, triangulated with other sources of information. Failure to be able to do this is often correlated with the inability to make accurate predictions.
   3. Capturing the islands almost certainly stops missile attacks from the islands, given how small the islands are. There is always a non-zero probability that someone can squirrel away a SCUD in the basement of their dry-cleaning business on the less interesting part of these islands, but we trust the Emirati garrison will figure this one out. The islands will no longer provide surveillance of the Straits, will no longer be basing fast attack boats, and will be useful for early warning for all sorts of attacks from the coast.

7. The approach you are proposing will just waste lives and play into Iran’s hands by making the fight over the Strait of Hormuz continue as the main game. It is a distraction from the real issue. The nuclear site(s) have to be hit and neutralised if Iran is to be denied nuclear weapons.

8. Well, if you are that eager to target Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, once we are done with the 11 MEU and 1st Bde of 82nd AB seizing the islands, I eagerly look forward to reviewing your plan to march on Natanz and Tehran University with these two brigades.

9. As I see it the Iranians are stalling to they can progress the projects to create nuclear weapons. The nuclear weapons are the main issue. The Straits of Hormuz issues help the IRGC stall and adding more “negotiation” activities to it will take attention even further away from the nuclear issue. If the IRGC get even one nuclear weapon they will use it. Probably on the US.

   I understand the US has bunker busting bombs that could be used to destroy the deep underground nuclear facilities. It is high time to drop them and then get right out of Iran. There is no need for Boots on the Ground to do this as far as I can see.

10. The Trump administration used bunker busters and damaged and delayed Iran’s nuclear program.
    The use of military force is expensive so you’d want to come up with a list of facilities, and then a list of available weapons (meaning those the Congress will pay for), and then use them, and do battle damage assessment to measure the delay. The problem is that the intelligence community is unsure about the BDA, and therefore you’d need to ascertain what the U.S. taxpayers are willing to spend in dollar terms per specific unit of delay time. I suspect the Trump administration is scanning for evidence of a nuclear program being physically started in Iran, and when they do they will strike. Either Iran is still not pursuing nuclear arms IAW with the fatwa against weapons of mass destruction, or it has changed its mind, incentivized by its current war with Israel and the U.S.

11. James,

    You appear to have an excellent understanding of CEV and I would be more than happy to discuss that with you. However, ATC has a different function for its equivalent factor. ATC was conceived as a land component for the Harpoon naval miniatures wargame. That never happened and I published the game elsewhere.

    Within the Harpoon system, aircrew were rated according to experience and the less experience a crew had, the less chance they had to hit the target. To be compatible, I used a similar system for ATC. The lower your Troop Quality rating, the less capable your force is, at just about everything. The first ding is that whatever your Combat Potential is, it is modified by your TQ, meaning only Elite troops can use their weapons to maximum advantage. But wait! There’s more! Virtually every thing you do is affected by TQ, even the time it takes to complete an evolution.

    As you know, Col. Dupuy’s system works as a multiplier to the combat power of a unit vis a vis an opponent. So, these numbers that are somewhat similar in concept are very different is execution. Within the ATC system, there are certain limitations to how forces can be differentiated (basically, between 0.1 and 10), whereas in Col. Dupuy’s system it is hypothetically open ended (1.0 to infinity). To be fair, Col. Dupuy did bend the curve asymptotically, so anything above a 3.0 loses its impact.

    Julian has suggested that I give you a complimentary copy of ATC. I would be more than happy to do so, just get me an email that I can send it to.

12. I read the linked article.
    And my reaction was somewhat more emphatic the John McEnroe, it was FFS, I F cannot F Believe you are F serious.

    Before I write any more, I am familiar with Col. Dupuys work since I first heard of his Desert Storm estimates shortly afterwards, have bought several of he books, and have been following this blog for many years, and have read most posts since 7 or 8 years ago.
    That said, I write anonymously for professional reasons, but it is certain Google and the 3letter agencies know who I am. I am not american,

    So here goes:

    The proposed operation hasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of success.

    Here is my rebuttal in detail:

    The Abu Musa Assault as Proposed Is A Certain Catastrophe.

    The article’s central claim — that seizing Abu Musa can be accomplished “in a few hours, and at minimal cost,” with a 2% loss rate and roughly 20 total casualties — does not survive scrutiny of the tactical problem, largely because the article understates what a “mixed battalion” defense actually consists of, misapplies both its attrition data and its own combat model, and proposes an operation the U.S. Army has not only not demonstrated capability to execute as described but has actively avoided because doctrinally unacceptable..

    1. The article’s threat model is incomplete, and its own attrition figure doesn’t match the force it describes.

    The piece assesses only MANPADs and ZSU-23 AAA against the heli-lift, rating the combined threat “Moderate” at 2% (0.5% with suppression). But it also states the defenders are a mixed IRGC/Basij battalion in fixed positions — and a real battalion-strength infantry defense of this kind would be expected to include ATGMs, HMGs/MMGs, RPGs, and massed rifle fire as a matter of course, none of which the article’s threat assessment accounts for. Those weapons are lethal to a low, slow rotary target on final approach without needing a MANPAD or AAA mount at all. Further, even restricted to the threats the article does name, the 2%/0.5% figure reads as a background rate averaged across dispersed operations over time, not a rate derived from a single, compressed, mass point-assault against a known, alerted, prepared position. Fire concentrated against a small number of fixed engagement points is a correlated-risk event, not an independent draw per aircraft — once the lead elements take fire, every subsequent wave faces a ranged, prioritized kill zone.

    2. There is no historical precedent for the operation as proposed, and the closest analogues cut against it.

    The U.S. Army has never conducted a battalion-scale helicopter assault against a prepared defense. Every battalion-and-above heliborne assault in U.S. practice has been conducted into landing zones assessed as undefended, at or near the objective, on the premise of surprise. Where U.S. forces have landed into a defended LZ at smaller scale, this has been the result of an intelligence failure — an LZ believed clear turning out not to be — not a planned assault against a known, prepared position. Abu Musa as described in the article is neither: the defense is known and assumed in the article’s own force estimate, and the assault is planned at battalion scale directly against it. This is a doctrine-free proposition. There is no body of U.S. institutional experience, training, or historical outcome data — successful or otherwise — for the specific thing being proposed, which makes the article’s confident, low casualty-count projection unsupportable on its own terms, independent of the modeling problems below.

    3. The TNDM/Dupuy-derived model is being applied outside its valid domain.

    The Dupuy-style methodology underlying TNDM derives its factors from a large corpus of historical engagements at company, battalion, and higher echelon, with widely varying individual outcomes averaged into aggregate coefficients. That averaging is precisely what gives the model utility at the scale it was built for — where idiosyncratic, engagement-specific variance washes out across many data points and many actors. Applying those same averaged factors deterministically to a single, specific battalion-level engagement — one specific island, one specific night, one specific defensive layout, and moreover one with no precedent in the underlying dataset — is a misuse of the tool: it presents the mean of a wide historical distribution as if it were a point forecast for one draw from that distribution, discarding exactly the variance that a single, small-N, high-stakes engagement is most sensitive to. This is compounded by point 2 above: the model has no comparable cases of opposed battalion-scale heliborne assault to draw its averages from in the first place.

    4. The force ratio does not support the assault as designed.

    A single reinforced battalion (2/504) against a defending mixed battalion in fixed, covered positions is rough numerical parity at best — well short of what opposed assault against a prepared defense conventionally requires, given that the attacker is exposed during insertion and the defender is not. The tactical problem requires no sophistication from the defending commander: no maneuver, simply orders to hold and fire from prepared positions, which neutralizes whatever command-and-control or training edge the attacking force otherwise holds.

    In WW2, the typical force ratio for an amphibious assault usually exceeded 10:1, though on a few occasions as low as 5:1, never less. Even the cloisterfock in Grenada against a dispersed unprepared defense had a force ratio of 3.6:1.

    So now an assault is proposed against a defended fortified LZ with a force ratio at an unprecedently low 1:1?

    5. Insertion-phase losses translate into combat-ineffectiveness, not just lift attrition.

    Loss rates of 10–20% during approach and a further 20–60% during disembarkation — plausible once the fuller, more realistic weapons mix is factored in — do not leave a full-strength ground force facing a harder fight. They deliver a fragmented, already-degraded assault element against a defender that is still near full strength, having taken comparatively little damage from an air-to-ground engagement it was postured to survive.

    6. There is no reinforcement or extraction plan for a stalled or failed insertion.

    The UAE forces in the article’s order of battle are assigned to post-fight occupation and security only, not assault reinforcement. Any surviving lift assets attempting to withdraw face the same intact weapons systems, now with better firing solutions than on the approach. An attacking force that can be neither reinforced nor withdrawn, facing a defender at or near full strength, has two realistic outcomes: destruction or surrender — not seizure of the objective.

    7. The article’s drone-defense discussion targets the wrong phase.

    Its Hunter-Killer CAP concept addresses the post-landing, dispersed-defense phase. It does not address the far more dangerous window — helicopters at low altitude and airspeed on final approach — where a cheap, minimally modified interceptor or racing drone would be most effective and hardest to counter, since that threat contests only the last seconds over the LZ rather than the sky generally.

    Conclusion:

    The article proposes an operation with no doctrinal or historical precedent, supports it with a threat model that omits weapons its own force estimate implies, and validates the result with a combat model applied deterministically at a scale and against a case-type its underlying dataset does not contain. Once the weapons mix a real battalion defense would field, the correlated nature of losses in a single LZ, the absence of any precedent for opposed battalion-scale heli-borne assault, and the statistical limits of the model itself are accounted for, the operation’s likely outcome is not swift seizure at negligible cost, but the functional destruction of the assault element with no path to reinforce, extract, or otherwise recover the situation.

    It is too easy to be brave with others lives!

    • We appreciate the time you took to read the article and we give our responses to your criticisms.
      1a. The defender’s and attacker’s weapons models all of the factors you mention: slow rotary targets, ATGMs, HMGs – we model every weapon except the pistols and bayonets. Dupuy’s QJM formula are explained in his texts. We welcome recommended modifications to this formula.
      1b. Dupuy’s model’s dependent variable (outcome) can be used to derive an average. But the curve-fitting model he generated uses independent variables to make predictions, not the mean of the dependent variable.
      2a. U.S. helicopter landings over water obstacles were very common: such as the crossing of the Perfume River into hot LZs at the airfield in Hue, or the aircraft landings on the Georgetown airfield and elsewhere on Grenada. The defender’s advantage of a small island is reversed when the island is isolated and there is no rear area for support weapons or withdrawal.
      3a. To be clear, coefficient values are not the result of averaging, but of least-squares linear-fitting. I’d recommend against using metaphors like “washing out” that obscure the underlying math. With independent variables, you get variation, rather than “washing out.”
      3b. Dupuy’s model in the form of the TNDM is deterministic, but there are non-deterministic presentations of his models that therefore have significance tests (hypothesis test falsifying non-correlations). Dupuy’s model (not just dependent variables) even allows for Bayesian significance tests.
      3c. I agree that a sub-cohort dataset of heliborne assaults would be useful to compare with a non-heliborne assaults in the larger dataset. In our scenario, a large portion of the assault is also waterborne. However, just a bit of instruction: the Beta in OLS in regression comes from the calculus function of a partial r which allows for the controlling of all other variables except the one of interest: this means we can deduce the effects of different combinations of variables even if the event itself is unique and does not have those precise constellation of factors. It may sound like hocus pocus, but stats validated the gun-type nuclear warhead, which was never tested to full fissioning before being dropped. Nevertheless, a heli assault on an island dataset would provide added validity by increasing precision. There must have been hundreds of such landings on Mekong islets.
      4a. A close look at our model will show that the U.S. combat potential is heavily enhanced by air power and the means to guide it in accurately. The limitation actually becomes what the limits are on use of combat air support.
      5a. We of course agree: if you look at the formulae, the initial landing losses are calculated out of a unit’s overall combat potential. As mentioned above, all of the weapons you describe have already been included.
      6a. Of course, as mentioned in the article, the Emiratis have their own LSTs and a surprisingly large heliborne lift capability, so they won’t be relying on USMC resources.
      6b. It is a tautology to say that a defeated American force with burning transports cannot retreat with those transports. I think we all agree with the statement. What is the statement’s purpose though ?
      7a. Your description of the effectiveness of drones at downing helicopters has no battlefield experience data to support it. I’d recommending looking at “Game of Drones.” It is plausible drones can attrit helicopters, as they occasionally have in Ukraine, but its more likely quad copters will be salad in the chopper blades.
      8a. Wars and military operations are a sub-sample of possible operations, selected by political parameters and opportunities created by maneuver, geography, logistics and the enemy. Consequently every operation is “without precedent.” There are five Battles of Kawanakajima at Kawanakajima, every one different. See above for calculus “partial r.”
      8b. You did not specify what the statistical limits of the model were (hint: refer to sensitivity analysis results).

      thank-you for your helpful comments !

13. Brilliant assessment! You are a one-man Red Team! The Dupuy Institute should employ you as such.

    Point 6 is very important. IMHO operations like the one proposed need to cover at least 3 phases. Our first move, then their reaction and then our counter response (like point 6). The original article seems to assume it will be a one phase walk over. No need for extraction. Far too optimistic resulting in heavy losses.

14. I first looked at modeling an MEU amphibious/air assault on Abu Musa almost 20 years ago when I began to develop a scenario for Tacops. RL intervened and I never completed it.

    Nevertheless, I surveyed Abu Musa on Google Maps (or Terraserver, whichever was available then) and saved the satellite image. Since then, it is clear that fortifications have been added to the beaches on the south and east coasts. There are undoubtedly concealed and camouflaged fighting positions overlooking the couple of very, very predictable LZs. There are also reports of tunnels, etc. The airport bisects the island. Given almost 20 years of preparation and fortification, it is inconceivable to me that they would not have an extensive tunnel network with tunnels connecting fighting positions and the southern part of the island to the barracks and urban area in the north to avoid having to cross the exposed airport surface. The urban area is also highly likely to be fortified. It’s not very large, but big enough that it could take several days to reduce a stubborn defense. Digging them out of the tunnels would not be easy.

    Abu Musa would not be merely a hot lz, it would be a heavily fortified, prepared lz. Not an ad-hoc prep such as may have happened in certain locations in VN. Grenada? Little or no prep by the defenders, so irrelevant, except that the force ratio was still far higher than your scenario. The only precedent I can think of for deliberately landing on a fortified defended objective is Eben Emal, but that had no anti-air or anti-paratrooper defenses because the concept was then unprecedented so surprise was achieved. Not unprecedented any more, but no one has attempted a repeat.

    You rate the IRGC and IMC as competent, trained but no combat experience, and rate the Basij very low. Two objections: the Iranians were heavily involved in the Syrian Civil War. Many thousands, probably a cumulative total in the 10’s of thousands served there. Therefore, there are many thousands of Iranian servicemen with counter-insurgency warfare experience of a type very similar to the type of war the US has fought in the past 25 years. It is inconceivable that the senior officers and NCO’s of the units defending such an important location would not be drawn from this pool of experienced servicemen. This should drive a change in your CEV rating.

    Second objection: The Basij: Quite separate from the state security units of the Basij, the rest of it span a huge range of capability. At the low end, they are part-timers only in it for a bit of extra cash. These are about as useful as mall cops. In fact, they are often hired as security for weddings and other functions, especially ones where men and women will not be segregated! At the high end, there are full time military units with training comparable to the Army or IRGC. I believe a unit stationed on Abu Musa would be drawn from these better trained forces rather than the mall cops. This should drive a re-evaluation of the CEV rating for the Basij.

    The Iranians would fight, and I believe far harder and more effectively than your model calculates. In company and battalion scale engagements in particular, the character and leadership qualities of a commander can significantly affect the balance. And do not underestimate Iranian patriotism and determination to defend against an invader, for that is what the 82nd would, an invader, not a liberator. I can conceive an Iranian commander giving orders to his men comparable to Atataturk at Gallipoli. “I do not order you to fight. I order you to die.” Stiffen the Basij, if they need it, by mixing them up with IRGC and Marines. In Dublin in 1916, the practically wholly untrained and totally inexperienced Irish insurgents with obsolete small arms, almost exclusively single shot rifles and shotguns, and no machine guns or other heavy weapons held out for five days against the very experienced, very well trained and very well equipped and far more numerous British Army with all its heavy weapons and artillery and inflicted casualties on them at a rate of about 1:2.

    Force ratios: WW2 amphibious operations typically had 10:1 infantry force advantage plus massive BB and CA NGFS and air support that could far more explosives on target per hour than is currently possible with available air power. Current DDG NGFS are mere spud guns in comparison, some advantage in precision, but absolutely zero capacity to delivered massed firepower. If the Iranians have, as I suspect they have, an extensive tunnel network, even intense pre-assault “Arclight” strikes might have little effect beyond some earth-moving.

    Drones: You focus on FP quadcopters and dismiss them. I do not. Both Russia and Ukraine are making extensive use of interceptor drones. Were I the Iranian commander on Abu Musa, I would be screaming to get several hundred at least of these with a software upgrade to make them target helos on approach, head on. 500 of these versus the 50 or so helos of the 82nd Aviation? Even a 1% Pk means 5 helos hit. They would also cause disruption and potentially collisions or crashes due to evasive manouvers.

    In my opening, I mentioned Tacops. I presume you are familiar with it. Developed by a US Marine, it was used for a time by the USMC and Army as a training tool. It includes several scenarios that feature air assaults. Any time I have tried to directly air assault a defended objective, it was a slaughter. Every. Single. Time. I stopped trying pretty dm quickly, and landed a km or two away. That option does not exist on Abu Musa.

    I am an engineer. I have done some work on modeling and simulation. They can be useful. But “all models, mental or formal, are limited, simplified representations of the real world. They differ from
    reality in ways large and small, infinite in number.” [Sterman, Business Dynamics-Systems Thinking, p846, Wiley 2000]. I believe the inherent, inescapable limitations of the model in conjunction with erroneous estimations of Iranian preparations and capacities are producing a misleading result in this instance.

    You have not convinced me, not at all.

    • We agree with you on the significant fortification of Abu Musa and the rest of the islands: there are tunnels. I our sim we assessed it as a Prepared Position 1, which provides a hefty modifier. My judgment of the Basij as being at the lower end is informed by the large presence of non-Iranian visitors, principally Gulf Arabs, at all of the islands except Sirri, which we presume are there for paramilitary supervision. As for experience, the Irish had years of weapons training preparation (The film “Michael Collins” is a rare accurate historical film). The Iraqis, despite years of experience, were unable to implement it in either conflict with the U.S. Iran is less than 50% Persian as is its army: I have had students from Bam Iranian Baluchistan who are hostile to what they see as the Persian occupation. I struggle to find a fully competent Middle Eastern military, aside from the Turks (who have adolescent rituals and a culture of military service, which in Iran is a fragmented support for the revolution, not military service per se). Iran, like Pakistan, is a curiosity because they do perform very well in certain areas, like logistics and engineering, but have cultural information deficits (just like Pakistan) than hinder them in other ways. RE: air support, I’d recommend reading Dermot Rooney: air support is most effective for suppression than destruction, and impact of air support is measured by the time between the end of the bombardment and the beginning of the attacker’s maneuver: the USMC has cut this down to 5 minutes, which is what is needed to exploit the vulnerabilities of a defensive position. We agree on more of the empirics than we disagree. My issue with TacOps is the lack of transparency in the model. I’d recommend you buy the ATC rules for $10, and address the theoretical weaknesses therein. Your criticisms are very welcome and stimulating to the model and the case.

      • Fair enough.
        We shall agree to disagree.
        But I will note a couple of new points of (minor) disagreement.
        The movie Michael Collins is a very good movie, accurate in broad brush terms, but in detail takes many “Hollywood” liberties with history presumably for “dramatic” effect, I would absolutely not depend on its depiction of history:
        For example:
        => The British barricades did not run down the centre of O’Connell (then Sackville) Street. Far too close the the GPO, no cover from snipers on the roof. They were further away in Talbot and other streets
        => Pearse and De Valera did not hide among the insurgents after the surrender. Even if he’d wanted to, Dev couldn’t, he was far too tall, 6’5″, literally head and shoulders taller than most Irish then. The actor Alan Rickman who played him was “only” 6’1″, taller than average but not by enough to stand out like a 6’5″ would.
        Each garrison marched out into the street with their commandants in the lead, formed up and laid their weapons down. Frankly, I believe had it been represented accurately in the movie it would have had a far greater dramatic effect.
        => “the Irish had years of weapons training”. Indeed, and for the vast majority of them it consisted of nothing more than marching around on weekends with hurley sticks rather than rifles. There were a few trained shooters, but most never fired a rifle before Easter 16.

        Movie anecdote:
        A friend of mine lives in Rathdrum, a town featured in the movie where Collins made a rare public speech. In retaliation, the British, praised by many and vaingloriously by themselves as lovers of democracy and defenders of the rights of self-determination for oppressed peoples, burnt the town down.
        So, in preparation for the movie, the film crew repainted the town as it would have been, and replaced all the shop and street signs. the place looked lovely. My friend proudly told me all about it while it was going on. “Great”, I said, “and are they going to burn the town afterwards?” :-))
        I could go on, but that’s enough.

        I lived in Iran, Bandar Abbas for over 5 years. I would not necessarily put a great deal of trust in accounts or anecdotes such as you report, they may simply be trying to curry favour.
        In my experience, minorities, Azeris, Kurds, etc., are well integrated. The only real qualification to this assessment would be the Arabs on the South coast. Persians have a very low opinion of Arabs, I have heard the “n” word used by a Persian in English in relation to them, they have other Farsi derogatory phrases for them. Saddam expected the Arabs of Khuzestan to greet him as a liberator but they fought him as hard as any Persian. The country does not have a significant undercurrent of widespread minority dissent or sense of oppression. Undoubtedly though, US intelligence agencies want to hear of such dissent, so can easily be duped by exaggerated tales telling them exactly what they want to hear. So, beware of attractive tales. Not saying it was a pleasant regime, just that they were non-discriminatory in their oppression and even minorities can be and usually are patriotic Iranians.
        Meanwhile, as often the only European in a room, you would be amazed at the things I heard long-time US resident US-naturalised Iranians say about the US, and the contempt they had for it. Did they truly believe those things, or did they say them only because they thought it was necessary? Hard to say, a mix of both, I think.

        Tacops: Fair points, agreed. But Holdridge’s extensive notes do provide much background explaining his reasons for design decisions: essential to make it a tough test, hence no morale checks, only suppression, no skill/competence settings for each side, both assumed to be equally competent, etc., and others.
        I tried to take these into account in my analysis.

        One further point. As part of my research, I checked out Sun Tzu.
        I believe he would classify Abu Musa with its limited points of entry as a narrow pass and initially as either contentious (which he recommends do not attack) or hemmed-in ground, but after disembarkation, for both sides it would certainly be difficult ground where destruction can only be averted by fighting without delay.

      • Fair enough.
        We shall agree to disagree.

        Re the movie Michael Collins. Very good movie, but accurate only in broad brush terms, in detail it takes many dubious liberties presumably for dramatic effect, I would not depend on it for historical truth:
        => During the Rising, the British barricades did not run down the centre of O’Connell (then Sackville) Street. This was too close to the GPO and would have offered no cover from snipers on its roof. The barricades were further away in Talbot and other streets. A pointless change in my view,
        => The movie depicts De Valera hiding among he rebels after the surrender. This did not happen. Could not happen. Dev was 6’5″, head and shoulders above everyone, too tall to hide. Alan Rickman who played him is “only” 6’1″, tall but not too tall to try to hide.
        In fact, the commandants led the rebels of the GPO and elsewhere under arms, they formed up and laid down their weapons under command. I believe an accurate depiction of the surrender would have been far more dramatic than how the movie did it.
        => “the Irish had years of weapons training”. Oh yeah? Only if you count marching around with hurley sticks as weapons training, The obsolete Mausers smuggled in at Howth, black powder single shot weapons, didn’t have enough ammunition for training. There were a few trained riflemen, but most never fired a shot before Easter 16.

        I lived in Bandar Abbas Iran for over five years. In my experience, minorities Azeris, Kurds, etc., are well integrated. The only qualification (not exception) to this would be Arabs on the South coast. Persians look down on Arabs. I have heard a Persian speaking in English use the “n” word in relation to Arabs. In Farsi they have several common derogatory phrases for Arabs. There is not a significant undercurrent of minority dissent or desire for secession. Despite Persian disdain for Arabs, and contrary to Saddam’s expectation, the Arabs of Khuzestan did not greet Iraqi troops as liberators. Instead, they rallied to the flag and fought the invaders just as hard as their Persian compatriots did. So I would take stories such as your student’s with a very large grain of salt. This not to say it is a land of milk and honey with no discontents. Just that the regime is non-discriminatory and equally oppressive to all.
        Unfortunately, stories such as your student’s seem to find a gullible willingly receptive and insufficiently skeptical audience in US intelligence agencies and think-tanks, where this shite about minority dissent and desire for secession does not appear to receive adequate critical evaluation and is repeatedly discussed as if it were a big deal. Bollocks.
        Beware of awesomely attractive stories seemingly reinforcing desired beliefs.
        Meanwhile, while in Iran, I was often the only European in the room. It was an eye-opener to hear Iranian long term US residents, green card holders and US naturalised, speak of life in the US and their contempt for it. You may be quite certain they would speak differently in the US. How much of what they were saying was because it was what they thought they should say and how much of it was genuine feeling? These were not strangers. I worked with them, negotiated with them (Iranians are very charming but tough negotiators). On balance, I tend to believe they were more expressions of genuine feeling than playing a role.

        Tacops: I see your point. On the other hand in his notes, the designer explained his reasoning for many of his design decisions, though the actual mechanics of many matters such as spotting are not explained except in the most general term. Of particular relevance is that both forces are assumed to be of equal training and experience.While I referred to Tacops, I am familiar with the designer’s notes and took it into account.
        FYI, at the end of March I created a Tacops scenario with 31 MEU assaulting Kharg. Used a random number in Excel to reduce the (my estimate: reinforced battalion) IRGC garrison by 60% to represent pre-assault bombardment.
        6×155 artillery batteries to represent NGFS by 6 DDG, and then 24 aircraft on call for CAS. Every time I ran it, the Marines were wiped out, +90% casualties on completion of disembarkation.
        It just took a few ATGM teams to take out most of the ACVs, they are slow in the water, easy targets and take a looong time under fire to get to shore, Ospreys got hammered by manpads, the few surviving AAA, MGs and RPGs.
        Taking account of Tacops equivalence of forces and other issues, this was the basis for my estimates of potential losses during approach and disembarkation. My Abu Musa estimates were far more favourable for the US than Tacops would be,

        • 1. One method of comparing two models when one has a hidden algorithm is to run a parallel test on a well-detailed past historical case, and compare predictions. Given the battalion level scale, I’d recommend an engagement in the 1991 or 2003 Iraq-US conflict or later. Perhaps Khafji ?
          2. I agree with your comments about the Baloch integration and warnings about interpretations of minorities in Iran, especially from exile communities. I have not been to Iran but have seen that relationship with the Baloch on the Pakistani side. If the costs of independence were very low, certainly they would take it (despite the security risks of being independent). However, it does indicate a measure of risk to metropole governments in Tehran and the Punjab.
          3. With your experience in and with Iranians, you should write an Op Ed challenging the prevailing wisdom of the sociology of political decision-making there.

    • Insightful comment Ltexpat. I hope we hear more from you in the future.

      • Thank you.