The phrase "the fog of war" has become a cliché, but it remains as true as it's always been. It appears to have dominated Israel's initial response to the October 7, 2023 terrorist attacks. Ynet News has published an extended interview with the pilots of some of the attack helicopters who tried to respond effectively on that day. Here's an excerpt.
Do you even have a battle plan for an attack like this from the south?
Lt. Col. E.: “Yes. Since the 2014 Gaza War, we’ve been training for infiltration incidents in our territory, but we never imagined a reference scenario of this magnitude of a number of communities being infiltrated simultaneously.”
To be clear: There was an infiltration scenario and firing at terrorists in our territory does exist. It exists in our understanding, but it’s very extreme in our understanding. To get there, you must know that this is your only option, because in a battle plan where a soldier encounters a terrorist, it’s better to shoot him than firing mortars with a 100 square meter fall out range.
What do your pilots see at the Re’im gate?
“They see the battle going on there – people running back and forth between the gate and the trees. They construct a picture and realize that these are definitely neither civilians nor our forces. They shoot and hit a group of terrorists inside the trees next to the parking lot. They kill six or seven. Before finishing the battle, they’re sent to another incident taking priority, and they move south.”
The division doesn’t ask them to say and carry on firing at the terrorists?
“The division tell them to move, that there’s another incident taking higher priority. They transfer them to work with the Southern Brigade.”
But if the division command falls, response capabilities are damaged
“Everyone’s goal is protecting the communities. I don’t know of a commander in the army who would put the division, brigade or outpost above the community. I just don’t."
This modus operandi, transferring helicopters every few minutes from one place to another, carries on all morning. “Every five or six minutes, we were receiving call-outs to another incident,” says Lt. Col. E. “You can’t construct a picture as to where the more urgent thing is, so you go where they tell you.”
In hindsight, is this system of going from one spot to the next an effective method?
“If we’d have stayed in the same place the whole time with other forces - and there were cases like that - we might have prevented something from happening. But it affects the overall aggregate of what was going on at each separate battle at the same time. You can’t foresee what you’ll prevent at a given point.”
His colleague from the 190th Squadron, Lt. Col. A. says this question is hard to answer before investigations are completed. “There were places that helicopters finished off the incident in an hour, while in other places, helicopters operated for hours without bringing the incident to an end. Why? Perhaps there were fewer terrorists there, or maybe it was harder to get our forces in.”
There's much more at the link.
Those who've been "up the sharp end" will recognize much of what the pilots have to say. Another way of putting it is the old saying, "Order, counter-order, disorder". An individual command post has a problem, so it orders forces to deal with it, not realizing that there's a bigger problem a few miles away and the forces it needs have just been ordered (by a different command post) to deal with that one. The forces concerned can only do their best to deal with a hard-to-understand, fractured situation - and risk being court-martialed if they do it wrong, because most command posts (and individuals) are never going to blame themselves. They'll use the fighting forces as scapegoats.
It's a problem that's been with any and all armed forces since the first organized command structure was developed. It'll probably end with the heat death of the universe, but even that can't be guaranteed.
Peter
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