Heavy mistakes and high overclaiming in the Kosovo?

[rammjaeger]

Today a local paper in Dresden quotates a report of "U.S. News & World Report" about the results of the air strikes against the Serbs. The number of destroyed tanks found in the area were significant lower than the number of tnaks reported destroyed. The top-message: 448 gun batteries (?) were reported destroyed but only 8 found destroyed!

Any comments or ideas about these giant difference or the article in this magazine in general?
Is this article also published in the Internet?

[Richard_Schrader]

Hannes;
Considering who we have as President this does not surprise me. That is a war which goes back to 1389 in which we had no business getting into.

[mike_baram]

Considering the fact that we're now finding out that the government lied to us about events at Waco, any claims they make are suspect. Exaggerated claims about the operation in Kosovo would mitigate the fact that it was a waste of manpower and material, as well as giving an open door for revenge actions by the Kosovars. But we saw the same futility in Haiti and Somalia, so it's the same ol', same ol' deja vu.

Immediately after NATO entered Kosovo ther were a number of high level NATO "leaks' to the effect that the airwar claims were outrageously overstated. Several dozens of tanks (over a hundred?) were reported as destroyed, but when troops entered the areas where the wreckage should have been, they found nothing. The leaks also noted that the Serbs only had a couple tank recovery vehicles, so it was not a case of their having dragged all the "destroyed" tanks back home. The word "mistake" is not appropriate here. This was a staged and intentional misstatement of Serb casualties. At least one USAF type came out and said all the bombing had been done from relatively high altitude, unlike in Iraq, because of political concerns about the danger of heavy losses to SAM's,AAA, and small arms had they gone down to lower altitudes. If the Serbs had had ANY real savy about public relations, they'd have had dead babies and bombed daycare centers on US TV every night and Clinton would have pulled the plug as soon as his numbers dipped.

BTW, the attitude over here seems to be that this was driven by Slick Willie as a way to create some accomplishment for the history books other than his impeachment. My own feeling is that British PM Blair and the EC "internationalists" were the real driving force behind the Kosovo adventure. What is the European view?

[Barrett]

Any veteran Forumite is familiar with overclaiming, whether intentional or otherwise. It's just part of the "game" generated largely by von Clausewitz's classic "fog of war."
However, airpower zealots (I used to be one myownself--I now hope I'm something of a realist) typically have claimed more than was justified BEFORE a war, and sometimes after. The ETO strategic bombing campaign in WW II we now know was largely an enormously expensive gambit to draw the Luftwaffe to battle where it could be destroyed, clearing the way to air supremacy for D-Day. In other words, the bombers were used as live bait, and successfully so. Their other contribution was disrupting Germany's oil industry, but the seeming anomaly of increasing production coincident with increased allied bombing actually indicates that Germany didn't go on a fulltime war economy until late 43/early 44, not to mention Albert Speer's organizational genius.
In Vietnam the aircrews used to talk about the infamous Laotian Truck-Eating Monster that disposed of the thousands of commie vehicles allegedly destroyed on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Nothing new there--the claims were simply erroneous.
Actually, in D Storm we did most bombing from high altitude not much different than Kosovo. The F16 sorties were largely wasted but it was a few years before that became known. The potential threat of AAA/SAMs kept most bombers high--exactly the same in Kosovo.
Additionally, the Serbs reportedly made good use of dummies and decoys which accounts for SOME of the false claims for armor/arty destruction. But largely I think that the USAF/NATO/other alphabet zealots saw they could claim the world's first unilateral victory for airpower and that of course translates into bigger budgets, which actually is the name of the game. It remains to be seen if the west actually did win in Kosovo--decades will tell--but the victory was gained against virtually nil opposition, which in my book renders the whole thing irrelevant.

Barrett,bless you for your clear eye.Veritas spoken here(but only sometimes understood). VBR.

A little while ago we had a report published down under describing the confused and embarrassed faces of UN observers as they watched entire brigades of intact armour rumbling out of Kosovo.

The report mentioned that the Serb Generals admit to losing apprx 12 tanks,40 apc and technicals,30 odd artillery pieces and some 400 men.
This means that each T34 and T54/55s cost about 1/2 billion dollars to destroy.I bet Tito didnt expect his tanks to appreciate in value that much!!

I also understand that the war stocks of the USA are almost depleted of 'Smart weapons'since the "war".
Does this mean the USAAF/USN and assorted European airforces now have to get close enough to actually hit the enemy?? Im thinking that they would have been better off with P51 and B24s, at least they had a pretty good idea if they hit the targets cos they usually could see them!
Statistics might win elections and push up budgets for the services but they dont win wars or engender confidence in the personell within. They know the airforce is useless against any prepared and disciplined armed forces with a surplus of decent concealment.

[stephen]

MATT'S POST IS CRITICALLY IMPORTANT. Reread his first paragraph. I thought this was common knowledge among everyone now. NATO overclaimed on an industrial scale, which was predictable to anyone who kept an eye on the Clinton administration over the past 7 years. The typical method of political conquest was followed to perfection...

Step #1: Find a "terrible problem" somewhere, establish blame on its leaders, and proclaim it a horrid evil that plagues the world.

Step #2: Declare that you alone have the solution to the aforementioned apocalyptic problem, and tour the country selling your plan as the salvation of the people.

Step #3: Take some sort of action - doesn't really matter what, so long as its grandiose and gets media attention - drastically overestimate the benefits of that action, declare victory and claim that the problem no longer exists.

Welcome to the White House.

BTW, for 38 cents and a trip to Gasburg, Indiana... can you name the 1930's European dictator who also used these same tactics... and also killed innocent civilians to support them?

When Bill Clinton opted for a career in politics, it was viewed as a huge loss to the used car sales industry.

As far as over-claims go, it is notably difficult to do accurate BDA over heavily forested and hilly terrain. Eyeballs at 10k feet over a forest are useless and artificial detection devices can be adequately fooled by an adept opponent. I would be quite interested to see the USAF's evidence to back up their claims. I suspect that there is nothing more than a lot of optimistic extrapolation.

There may however have been valid "political" reasons for purposeful over-claiming. In war, as they say, truth is the first casualty. At the end of the day, for whatever mysterious reason, Milosevitch chose to pull out. Responsbility for ethnic cleansing has now been assumed by the other side.

If it were not for the human tragedy, Kosovo would almost be amusing. That somehow seems fitting as a Clintonian legacy.

BRgds / Byron

Hannes,
Big Bill probably had to have the overclaiming done to justify the waste of valuable money, through expenditure of ordnance and troops being sent to the area. The U.S. had no business getting involved in Kosovo, whereas they do have obligations that justify their getting involved in Timor. BTW... Clinton overclaiming is nothing new, he first overclaimed when he said he'd tried pot but never inhaled. But his most memorable overclaiming instance was when he avowed that he had not had sex with M. Lewinsky.
VBR,
JIm
What a joker!!!
VBR,
Jim