Will Hamas tunnels in Gaza make a difference?

[Bigdog]

If you have a step by step procedure, the enemy will learn it, and figure out how to defeat it. The point is that both sides have human intelligence, and are working to advance their strategy.

The IDF is going in with an untested strategy, and untested technology, so it might go very well, or it might go very badly. Even if it goes very well, those strategies will start to be counteracted, and over time it will start going badly.

The worst part of all this is I do not see anyone willing to fill the void. There is no reasonable group willing to occupy Gaza, and provide civil services for Gaza.

This is a very bad situation.

Anti Tunnel warfare is well tested.

New techniques have reduced risk even if they fail and are eventually refined or abandoned. Israel has time.

Fortresses, even underground ones, do not have time on their side. That's why castle sieges have a high success rate.

 

[Nordberg]

The tunnels are being wire and boobytrapped. They have had lots of time to do it.

 

[Walt]

Anti Tunnel warfare is well tested.

The old strategies and technologies never worked well, and the new strategies and technologies are untested. In short, no one knows how this will go.

And over time, as tunnelers learn the new strategies and technologies it will go worse.

Can you tell me the last time a major army fought against a huge tunnel network in an urban environment where they did not occupy or control the surface? Or even the last time that any part of that happened? The closest I can think of is rural tunnels in Vietnam 50+ years ago(did not go well), and border tunnels for smuggling where the area is 100% under the control of the authorities(went better, but does not really apply).

New techniques have reduced risk even if they fail and are eventually refined or abandoned. Israel has time.

Usually in war you want a decisive victory to avoid being bogged down in a quagmire. When your strategy is to take your time, you are just inviting the enemy to either bog you down in a quagmire, or get its own decisive victory.

Fortresses, even underground ones, do not have time on their side. That's why castle sieges have a high success rate.

We have seen from the Ukrainian War that trench warfare still works.

 

[NiftyNiblick]

Will Hamas tunnels in Gaza make a difference? I don't think so.

Remember from history, the Maginot Line didn't make much of a difference in 1940. The German Ost Wall in 1944 was little more than a speed bump. The German Atlantic Wall lasted all of a day versus the Allied invasion...

It's pretty simple.
The effective of Hamas tunnels will only become determinable once we know what the toll revenue will be from them.

 

[ExpressLane]

Anti Tunnel warfare is well tested.

New techniques have reduced risk even if they fail and are eventually refined or abandoned. Israel has time.

Fortresses, even underground ones, do not have time on their side. That's why castle sieges have a high success rate.

When they run out of fuel they run out of lights.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

If the Germans had overrun the Maginot Line, the French would have retreated towards Paris, and like WWI, the Germans would not have been able to take Paris. The whole point of an hammer anvil strategy is not to move the anvil.

The French did retreat towards Paris. The problem was most of their first-line units were already gone. They, like the Aztecs, did switch tactics to try and fend off defeat but it was too little, too late. If it were me, the Israels would do what the US Army did with the Metz fortress system. You take the surface of the fort. You pump thousands of gallons of gasoline into the tunnel system and light it up. Any entrance is demolished with explosives then tons of earth are bulldozed on top of it. Those trapped can't escape...

Same thing the USMC used on the Japanese in the Pacific later in the war, like at Iwo Jima...

 

[T. A. Gardner]

If they do that, they will find hostages very quickly placed at the fore and dead when they return back in. each and every progression will come at the expense of hostages.

I think your other idea of RPV and drones will be key. Send drones first down the length of any tunnel, looking for secret gunner holes who can shoot 'fish in a barrel' once the soldiers enter the long runs. BE patient with the drones map everything with infra red and then allow the soldiers to progress.

I also think non lethal gas could be key. The Israelis will have good supply lines, and Hamas not so much. Make them use what they got (gas cartridges) and then hit them again.

My position would be the hostages have no value and are already dead. That means Hamas, assuming they have any brains at all, will realize that taking hostages in the future is a futile effort and those they have buy them nothing. Collapsing the tunnels as you go is a great strategy. No ability for the enemy to use them again, and rebuilding will be far more expensive than demolition was. Hell, with today's technology, sending explosive loaded drones down them to detonate at ambush points works for me. Even if the defenders shoot it down, you detonate the explosives...

Maybe add in some DN (vomiting agent). Non lethal but far more nasty than tear gas...

 

[serendipity]

Shhhh. Doctor Expert is telling us something.

He's telling you to stfu!

 

[Bigdog]

When they run out of fuel they run out of lights.

Definitely increases the misery index. And weakens morale and efficiency.

 

[ExpressLane]

Yup.

First time agreeing with you but this is correct.

If not for the hostages, they would flood them or just seal every entrance they found with everyone inside.

Now instead they will be forced to march almost single file for miles down unknown long tunnels where the enemy knows the ambush points. One man can beat a thousand men, if the thousand are forced to march single file towards him and he has good shielding and good weapons and the ones approaching have no where to go.

You are getting smarter!

 

[ExpressLane]

Definitely increases the misery index. And weakens morale and efficiency.

If you are sitting in the dark waiting for death it motivates you to give up.

 

[Bigdog]

The old strategies and technologies never worked well, and the new strategies and technologies are untested. In short, no one knows how this will go.

And over time, as tunnelers learn the new strategies and technologies it will go worse.

Can you tell me the last time a major army fought against a huge tunnel network in an urban environment where they did not occupy or control the surface? Or even the last time that any part of that happened? The closest I can think of is rural tunnels in Vietnam 50+ years ago(did not go well), and border tunnels for smuggling where the area is 100% under the control of the authorities(went better, but does not really apply).

Usually in war you want a decisive victory to avoid being bogged down in a quagmire. When your strategy is to take your time, you are just inviting the enemy to either bog you down in a quagmire, or get its own decisive victory.

We have seen from the Ukrainian War that trench warfare still works.

Anti Tunnel strategies do and did work.

Tunnels have never been abandoned as a war strategy. Tora Bora in rural Afghanistan is a newer example. As were the ISIS hideouts in urban areas. We can quibble about whether expanded caves or bunker complexes are tunnels, but it is all really the same. Just an underground fortress.

Of course, Israel is working at taking the surface first, Walt.

Israel is not trying to advance and hold a new frontline like the Russians in Ukraine.

There is no concern of getting bogged down with stretched supply lines. Israel has the time to be slow and methodical. Hit and run, wear them down, starve them out, exhaust their munitions.

 

[ExpressLane]

Just grease up some pigs and let them loose...

I'd let it be known that every terrorist that did not give up would be buried with a pig.

 

[ExpressLane]

Anti Tunnel strategies do and did work.

Tunnels have never been abandoned as a war strategy. Tora Bora in rural Afghanistan is a newer example. As were the ISIS hideouts in urban areas. We can quibble about whether expanded caves or bunker complexes are tunnels, but it is all really the same. Just an underground fortress.

Of course, Israel is working at taking the surface first, Walt.

Israel is not trying to advance and hold a new frontline like the Russians in Ukraine.

There is no concern of getting bogged down with stretched supply lines. Israel has the time to be slow and methodical. Hit and run, wear them down, starve them out, exhaust their ammunitions.

And their fuel. They are depending on generators now. Generators make carbon monoxide and have to be exhausted to the outside. They should find the exhausts and shut the generators down. They need to be put into the dark. Waiting to die in the dark will play tricks on them. Then put speakers on robots telling them if they give up they will live but if they don't their bodies will be fed to pigs. The problem with being in a tunnel is you are trapped if the exits are controlled. No Israeli soldier should set foot in an inch of tunnel without a robot weighing at least 150lb robot having first rolled into the space. They should have very sensitive microphones on the robots and stop and listen frequently. Tell them after they are eaten by pigs their bodies would be part of pig shit. The only way to avoid it is to give up. If Israel's war planners have not been rehearsing for this situation for years they would be remiss.

 

[Bigdog]

And their fuel. They are depending on generators now. Generators make carbon monoxide and have to be exhausted to the outside. They should find the exhausts and shut the generators down.

Yep, heat signatures easily visible from the surface.

I don't know if airborne LIDAR can be adapted to find tunnels. But ground penetrating radar is a new viable tech. And seismic detectors combined with vibrations from bombing can also yield viable underground intel.

 

[serendipity]

You are getting smarter!

It won't last his stupidity is baked in.

 

[Trumpet]

It won't last his stupidity is baked in.

OMG, just look who's calling others stupid.

 

[Bigdog]

OMG, just look who's calling others stupid.

Trumpette, you must have lived a very myopic, sheltered life to have such an uninformed perspective.

 

[Trumpet]

Trumpette, you must have lived a very myopic, sheltered life to have such an uninformed perspective.

Apparently you approve of calling others crude foolish insults, you being the intellectual invalid that you are.

 

[QP!]

My position would be the hostages have no value and are already dead. That means Hamas, assuming they have any brains at all, will realize that taking hostages in the future is a futile effort and those they have buy them nothing. Collapsing the tunnels as you go is a great strategy. No ability for the enemy to use them again, and rebuilding will be far more expensive than demolition was. Hell, with today's technology, sending explosive loaded drones down them to detonate at ambush points works for me. Even if the defenders shoot it down, you detonate the explosives...

Maybe add in some DN (vomiting agent). Non lethal but far more nasty than tear gas...

I believe Israel will proceed in exactly that way.

As if all hostages in tunnels are lost, with any saved being a bonus. But they will not compromise on the best way to clear the tunnels, with the least casualties to the army, because of the potential of hostage causalities as that would be an operational nightmare for the army.