“If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.” — Winston Churchill
The following video is of several IAF strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead.
There are a number of things in this video to note that are of interest to anyone potentially involved in a combat zone in urban areas.
Immediately it should be noted that the “camouflaged” anti-aircraft gun on the rooftop (which is a flat rooftop) is not so camouflaged from the sensors and LL/IR TV of the aircraft/drone that the camera is mounted on. For camouflage to be effective, it must actually mask what one is trying to hide. In this case, it is obvious that Hamas does not understand that principle.
About 18 seconds into the video, the scene shows a mortar mounted on a rooftop. Typical with Middle Eastern houses, this roof has low (about waist to chest high) walls around it. I’m relatively certain the operators of the mortar forgot all about eyes in the sky, or they thought the walls would hide them sufficiently. Guess what? That only works IF your opponent doesn’t have airpower and virtually constant surveillance. Notice also that you can clearly see the mortar discharge, launching the shell.
30 seconds into the video the scene switches to a truck mounted AAA unit. Again, its not really clear the terrain around the truck, but sitting still and firing blithely away without regard to the ever-present opposition air force, is a sure recipe for getting sent out of this world. And, that is the predictable result as the missile approaches from the left at high speed, and slams into the truck.
Following is some pretty generic shots of mortars/missiles Hamas tried to hide between houses. However, I think Hamas really doesn’t get the fact that metal tubes full of solid propellant/explosives have a fundamentally different IR signature than your typical small shrub or trash can. One would have to be quite creative to actually hide such a thing.
56 seconds into the video is a tunnel strike. There are large secondary explosions indicating the presence of propellant/explosives in the tunnel. This does raise a question for anyone:
How is it Israel knows where the tunnels are?
There are a few ways I can think of, one of which is ground-penetrating radar. I’m pretty certain most of the tunnels are not more than 50 feet below the surface. This is certainly within reach of ground-penetrating radar. A tunnel will show up prominently on the display, even when “filled” with explosive. A second way is good ole HUMINT, which is boots on the ground actually locating the tunnel, through some social interaction. Third, unusual activity in and around the area. Generally the volume involved in smuggling significant quantities of anything will reveal that a passageway is present simply because of too many persons, with too much movement, in too regular a pattern.
There are a couple more tunnel strikes with impressive explosions.
2:08 into the video shows a rocket located immediately adjacent to a mosque building, and a subsequent rocket launch near the mosque. According to the Geneva Convention (which Hamas is not a signatory) you cannot do this. However, one must remember that in war, “rules” frequently are thrown down, if not thrown out altogether. In this case, Hamas is virtually “daring” Israel to strike the rocket launcher so Hamas can gain the propaganda advantage by accusing Israel of deliberately targeting a mosque.
The video ends with showing a rocket launcher and the IAF apparently in the process of striking the launcher.
From the point of view of studying how vulnerable ground targets are to airpower, this video gives good indication that not a whole lot is actually hidden from prying eyes. One of the things I frequently note on all IDF strike videos is the remarkable laxity in Hamas in attempting to effectively hide their movements from airspace threats.
Thus, one of the basic lessons to take from the video is: Ignore airpower at your peril.
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