Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service March 27, 2003
March toward Baghdad again slowed by blistering sandstorms
By David McLemore
DALLAS _ It's an old enemy familiar to U.S. troops who fought in the first Gulf War. Coalition forces again must deal with sandstorms.
The fierce seasonal storms, known as shamals, rage across the Iraqi desert at speeds up to 85 mph, throwing up huge clouds of sand that gum up weapons and grind away at engine parts like sandpaper.
For a second day Wednesday, the U.S.-British advance toward Baghdad was slowed by the powder-fine sand that dims the military's stunning array of high-tech targeting devices and grounds flight operations.
"It gets into everything," said Matthew Baker, senior analyst at Stratfor.com, an Austin-based military strategy group. "It wears on engines, it wears on any moving part of any vehicle. It messes with your optics, it will affect laser targeting."
Military officials emphasize that the M1 Abrams tank and the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter, mainstays of the coalition forces in Iraq, proved themselves on the battlefield during the first Gulf War.
Technological advances since that war greatly enhance U.S. forces' ability to survive the limitations of sandstorms. Since 1991, the U.S. military has conducted annual military exercises in Kuwait to give combat units a chance to learn the terrain and acclimate to the weather.
"Sand might be a slight blessing," said Michael Rip, a professor of security studies at Michigan State University, assuming that the military has enough air filters and spare rotor blades on hand. "Unless the weather is something outrageous, this shouldn't be a problem."
The U.S. military learned invaluable lessons from fighting in a desert terrain during the first Gulf War.
In 1991, laser-guided "smart" bombs often proved useless in blowing sandstorms or the billowing clouds of smoke from burning Kuwaiti oil wells.
The new line of precision-guided bombs includes the Joint Direct Attack Munitions _ commonly known as JDAMs _ which are guided by global positioning satellites and not affected by severe weather and oil smoke.
The new variant of the Apache uses a millimeter radio wave radar, known as the Longbow, to guide up to 16 Hellfire missiles to enemy targets from more than five miles away.
New maintenance operations help resolve problems the Apache experienced during the first Gulf War, when sand sucked into the engines caused extensive downtime.
Technology has not removed the fog of war, however.
On Feb. 25, high winds contributed to the crash of a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter in Kuwait, killing all four soldiers aboard.
As the war began last week, eight British Royal Marines and four U.S. Marines died when their CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter crashed before dawn in southern Iraq. Blowing sand may have been a contributing factor.
A shamal is also a likely suspect in the downing of an Apache helicopter in Iraq that resulted in the capture of its two crew members.
The Apache, however, is now generally grounded during severe sandstorms because the sand quickly erodes its rotors.
The latest version of the Abrams, the military's main battle tank, is fitted with special filters to keep out sand. A special device is also fitted to blow compressed air through the engine to clean it.
According to GlobalSecurity.org, a military research organization in Alexandria, Va., the Abrams' sighting and targeting systems have performed well in haze, fog and swirling sand.
"Battlefield performance is the weightiest evaluation a weapon system can receive," GlobalSecurity.org wrote in its report on the Abrams. "On that score, the Abrams can be said to have performed very well."
Copyright © 2003, Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service
