I'm not sure that that consideration, reasonable though it is, was a factor. I
suspect that the use of lighter AFVs was based on the assumption that the
invading forces would spend very little time in the country, that the
logistical effort could be kept to a minimum and you could fit more of the
lighter sort in the available air transport.
If only the politicians would pose the military a goal and let them get on with
the accomplishment (within the requisite limitations, of course).
Something similar happened with the Kosovo campaign: our benighted PM, Tony
Blair, wanted to help his US chums. He directed the RAF to use 8 Tornados to
provide that help, notwithstanding that there was not enough work for that many
aircraft, even with SACEUR's ridiculous target plan. Consequently we provided
the aircraft, they had to fit into a very tight targeting plan, and we flew 16
souls with their very expensive kit over a reasonably well defended landscape
to hit targets that made no difference to the prosecution of the campaign.
Indeed, the air campaign bombed empty targets unused by the other side,
reducing to rubble infrastructure that the occupying forces would have been
able to use to good effect.
Chris
On 31 Dec 2012, at 20:37, Chris Crawford <chris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> The answer is that the Iraq war was largely an urban war, and tracked APCs
> can damage paved roads in cities. Remember, we were supposed to be
> 'liberating' Iraq, not destroying its cities (though we did a lot of
> that). I wonder why the Army didn't have an armored version of the Humvee
> or some other APC more suited to urban warfare?
--
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