Supergun?

[Goet]

I received this via email, so I don't know the source. Supergun???:


American preparations for a major offensive against Iraq are
massive and continuous, set in place layer by layer -- but sources
say a seven-nation attack on Saddam Hussein is not likely before
mid- to late-February.

Military sources disclose that over the coming weekend, U.S.
fighter plane and bomber squadrons will be flying into three
air bases: Kuwait, Egypt’s Sinai Desert and the Israeli Negev.
Call-ups issued in early December have mobilized 10,000 U.S.
military personnel, air crews and Air Force intelligence officers
and technicians, who were ordered to report for duty after New
Year’s Day. Last month, the U.S. Third Army command, led by Lt.
Gen. Paul Mikolashek, transferred to Kuwait from its peacetime
headquarters in Fort McPherson.

When the attack comes, high on the coalition's agenda will be
targeting Iraq's newly discovered super-cannons, which now number
three or four, according to intelligence sources.

U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force might is being assembled in Israel.
In the central and southern regions, U.S. emergency stores of
armor, artillery, combat helicopters and military vehicles have
been opened up. Equipment has been readied for war, fitted with
sensitive electronic communications systems and loaded with ammunition.
>From early December, ships of the U.S. Sixth Fleet have been
entering the Israeli Mediterranean port of Haifa. They carry
large quantities of drugs to counter poison gas, chemical and
biological attacks, as well as protective equipment against nuclear
radiation for Israelis and for American personnel in Israel and
the Sinai.

The Third Army, now on the move toward the Middle East, numbers
nine divisions, among them the 82nd Airborne, 101st Air Assault,
24th Infantry (Mechanized), 1st Infantry (Mechanized), 1st Cavalry,
1st Armored and 3rd Armored. By early February, 75,000 U.S. troops
will be positioned on the Iraqi front.

This high concentration of military personnel means that Washington’s
concept of the Iraqi campaign is quite different from its approach
to the war in Afghanistan, where few U.S. servicemen were deployed
outside the Air Force. The Iraqi theater will be broad and multinational,
involving at least seven countries -- Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain,
Jordan, Israel, Lebanon and Turkey. The ultimate line-up will
be determined by political and military developments in the region.
But U.S. military planners are counting the armies of three nations
– Turkey, Israel and Jordan – as combatant alongside U.S. forces.


Military sources sketch the following preliminary blueprint for
the yet-to-be finalized U.S. assault plan. It will come in the
form of a simultaneous three-prong offensive:

Target One: Iraq’s political power centers and military headquarters
– most of which have already been moved to safe underground quarters
– will be hit from the air by bombs and missiles.

Target Two: Turkish armor and infantry, backed by local Kurdish
tribes, will lead off the ground campaign in northern Iraq. Negotiations
to co-opt the local Kurds are still going on.

Target Three: U.S., Israeli and Jordanian elite infantry and
Special Forces will raid army concentrations and convoys and
hit Iraqi warplanes and missile batteries in their bases in an
area stretching from central Iraq to the north, including the
Iraqi Western Desert. These essentially hit-and-run forays will
aim to destroy command centers, anti-aircraft systems, artillery
and tanks, without miring the troops in lengthy skirmishes.

This tactic was prompted by the latest intelligence reaching
U.S. military planners whereby Saddam Hussein was reported to
be taking a leaf out of the 1991 Gulf War manual and the Afghanistan
War guidelines, to institute a new strategy. He has ordered the
breakup of the large Republican Guard armored divisions, formerly
the backbone of Iraq’s main fighting force, into small mobile
units, capable of autonomous operation for long periods over
broad stretches of territory.

By this fragmentation of its military strength, Iraq hopes to:


1. Confound U.S., Israeli and Turkish air forces by compelling
them to chase fast, small, low-profile units that are hard to
find, attack and destroy.

2. Level the playing field by drawing them into pursuing units
that challenge U.S., Turkish, Israeli and Jordanian crack ground
forces and divert them from strategic Iraqi forces and facilities.


Those newly formed Iraqi units are designed to move out swiftly,
rendezvous, return to base or revert to their old configuration
as large armored divisions -- whatever is required by the exigencies
of battle. U.S. spy satellites have followed recent Iraqi exercises,
in which contingents were split up, scattered in new positions
within four hours of receiving their orders, then regrouped into
their former large mold less than six hours later.

These small units will be rendered self-sufficient by the hundreds
of underground fuel, ammunition and food stores dispersed around
the center and north of the country. The Iraqis have also formed
small mobile technical units for backup service.

Accepting that U.S., Turkish and Israeli warplanes will command
the skies, Iraqi military planners have equipped the new mobile
units with state of the art weaponry. According to military intelligence
sources, the Republican Guard units were recently handed out
the locally manufactured long-range, hand-held laser sidearm,
capable of inflicting severe burns and total blindness. This
space age system, fitted with a laser rangefinder, can damage
its target’s retina and other parts of his body, as well as causing
severe internal hemorrhaging. Iraqi forces have been spotted
by intelligence practice-firing these devices against low-flying
warplanes and helicopters. Their object is to incapacitate pilots
and cause enemy aircraft to crash.

Iraq used a primitive version of this laser weapon mounted on
tanks in its war against Iran in the late 1980s. Although inexperienced
in its operation at the time, Iraqi forces were able to inflict
more than 5,000 Iranian casualties, most permanently blinded
or victims of internal organ damage.

Additional intelligence information suggests the new Iraqi units
are also equipped with tactical chemical weapons, whose precise
nature and mode of operation are unknown. Iraq is thought to
have prepared large stocks of anti-tank missile tubes, converted
to the propulsion of small canisters of Sarin, Tabun and VX nerve
and mustard gases onto a battlefield, where they explode and
spread their deadly contents over a wide area.

Iraq’s tactical preparations for a major assault are likely to
cause delays in U.S. scheduling of its war offensive. The Americans,
Turks and Israelis may well need more time than they thought
at first to contend with Iraqi’s new unit structure and vicious
weaponry.

According to military sources, the Pentagon has picked northern
Iraq as its first ground target for good reason. Intelligence
information shows that Saddam and his immediate circle of Baath
party leaders have already moved their offices and families to
an underground city near the northern oil city of Kirkuk. It
is located between the three cities of Tepe Zardic north of Kirkuk,
Taq south of Koi Sanjaq, and Chwarta north of Sulmeniyeh. Several
intelligence reports place the secret city on the banks of the
Lesser Zab River, protected from the east -- the border with
Iran -- by the Dukan Dam and Iraq’s largest artificial lake.


According to sources, this subterranean complex was first built
as a storage facility for nuclear bombs and explosives. But since
1995, under Saddam’s direction, it has expanded into a network
of tunnels, roads, living quarters, offices, communications centers
and radio and television facilities, from which the Baath regime
expects to continue ruling the country under a U.S. attack.

Members of private Italian engineering firms who sold Iraq industrial
components for uranium enrichment in 1993 and 1994 are the only
foreigners known to have visited the buried city. After U.S.
Special Forces locate its whereabouts, U.S. military tacticians
plan to destroy it with the help of the same airborne missiles
and bunker-blasting bombs that were fired against Afghanistan’s
cave systems – especially the AGM-86 B cruise missile. Following
the aerial assault, ground forces will storm the tunnels leading
into the secret city.

Their hope is that the capture and fall of his underground metropolis
will suffice to bring Saddam’s regime crashing down. On the other
hand, the Iraqi leader will certainly have had the foresight
to build an extensive system of escape tunnels to take him in
safety to central and southern Iraq if his secret city comes
under attack.

Saddam’s super-cannon of pre-Gulf War fame is making a comeback.
In its newly adapted form, the fabled monster gun has been designed
to fire nuclear, chemical and biological shells at U.S. military
targets in the Gulf, Middle East, Red Sea and Mediterranean,
as well as targeting Kuwait, Bahrain, Turkey and Israel.





--cont--

[Goet]

In its original form, the gun was capable of firing a warhead
at Tehran or Tel Aviv, having a range of 1,500 miles or more,
if boosted by a rocket.

In 1985, in the closing days of the Iraq-Iran War, Saddam hired
the super gun’s inventor, Canadian astrophysicist Gerald Bull,
arguably the most prominent scientist in the missile and artillery
field in the 1970s and 1980s. Bull helped improve the accuracy
of Iraq’s self-propelled artillery and Scud missiles, but he
mainly dealt with constructing a 424 mm cannon that could fire
quarter-ton shells more than 1,700 miles.

Bull was murdered in Brussels in 1990. Newspaper reports said
Israel’s Mossad killed him to foil the super gun project. Another
theory said he fell victim to Iraqi intelligence assassins because
of Saddam’s suspicion that he was cooperating with Israel through
South African contacts. The real story is still unknown. After
Bull’s death, Iraq was left with the scientist’s plans but without
the manpower or technical know-how to complete the project.
But Saddam never gave up his grandiose plans for the super gun.
One was to blast into orbit the military satellites he was building
just before the 1991 Gulf War. In 1992 and 1995, experiments
were made to launch spacecraft that would collide with enemy
satellites making surveillance passes over Iraqi territory. On
impact, the spacecraft was to explode and spray the satellites
with an adhesive substance that would render their cameras and
surveillance equipment useless.

Touting his super gun, Saddam once boasted a missile could be
launched only once but a cannon could be used repeatedly to fire
projectiles.
According to sources, U.S. and Israeli intelligence were surprised
to discover not one but three or four super guns just turned
up in Iraq’s arsenal – weapons far more advanced and effective
than the cannon Bull developed. It comes in two versions.

The largest has a 1,000 mm diameter barrel, 260 meters (248 yards)
long and a maximum range of 2,000 miles. The barrel of the smaller
version is 350 mm in diameter and 30 meters (32 yards) long.
Its range is up to 250 miles. The Iraqis may have two of each,
hidden in Saddam’s underground city. They remained undiscovered
for so long because they were dismantled and concealed in segments
– the barrel of the biggest super gun is made up of 35 separate
pipes. It was only when the Iraqis started assembling the super
guns that U.S. and Israeli satellites spied them out.

Since most intelligence experts concede Iraq has been capable
of building radiological weapons since 1991, its super guns –
which can deliver a nuclear payload over great distances – will
be one of the first goals of the U.S.-led campaign. Killing the
super gun could be the boldest move in Washington’s global war
against terrorism.

[Gary H]

Sounds like DEBKA.

Three months ago, I was amazed by their reports. Since then, I discovered that they are not even good story tellers. They recently had an Israeli cruise missile able to travel 15,000 km. They reported in another post that B.L.'s group had cruise missiles capable of flying through branches. What is that about?

[C.R.Sam]

To be consumed with a grain of salt. Not to be ignored out of hand tho as there are a few parts of it that are historical.

Sam

[Tamara]

These folks' tether to planet Earth snapped quite some time back.

According to military intelligence sources, the Republican Guard units were recently handed out the locally manufactured long-range, hand-held laser sidearm, capable of inflicting severe burns and total blindness. This space age system, fitted with a laser rangefinder, can damage its target’s retina and other parts of his body, as well as causing severe internal hemorrhaging.

Tell me; why does a "laser sidearm" need a "laser rangefinder"? For that matter, why does a laser (a purely LOS weapon unaffected by gravity or wind and near instantaneous TOT) need a rangefinder at all? I mean, if you can bounce a ranging laser off the target, why not just bounce the main beam off it while you're at it?

Also, any time you see reference to a coalition of troops comprised of "The US, Turkey, Israel, and Jordan", something's fishy.

Lastly, why would the Turks be recruiting Kurdish guerillas? Seeing as how the Turks have been expending only slightly less effort than Saddam in hunting the Kurds down and exterminating them, the Turks hiring Kurdish guerillas is as likely as seeing a "Ben Gurion" division in the Waffen SS.

[Skorzeny]

Also, the US would never authorize use of Israeli forces in its war against Iraq.

If the "moderate" Arabs ever got a wind of that, the resulting fury would make, well, let's just leave it at that.

Somebody with some degree of historical knowledge is daydreaming again. It sounds very much like an Israeli fantasy (fighting side-to-side with Americans against the Arabs).

Skorzeny