Battle Plan

The Washington Post says the ground assault is underway. How might it play out? Click on the (very much simplified) map to find out.

The dark blue line represents the possible line of advance for 3ID. The green is the combined USMC/UK forces. They not only present Iraq with a second attack to deal with, they also act as a blocking force in the unlikely event that the Iranians get frisky. The light blue dots are airborne and heliborne forces, dropped in ahead of the advance to secure crossing points on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, to protect the northern oil fields and Kurds, and to cut off Saddam’s power base at Tikrit.

Anyway, that’s how I played in this OpArt scenario.

Could I be wrong? Almost certainly — I played it pretty conservatively, and as last night’s gamble showed, Bush and Franks are playing a higher stakes game.

UPDATE: The first map I uploaded didn’t include the airborne forces. That’s been fixed. Click on the map again.

UPDATE: Who has the link to that story reporting two-thirds of the regular Iraqi Army is ready to surrender? Looks like I called it right two weeks ago:

Also, I’ve added a check [to the OpArt Iraq War scenario] on Turn 4. On that turn, each Iraqi regular army unit has a 60% chance of quitting the field. After 48 hours of bombing, the idea the 40% of the unmotivated regular army would still be fighting is, I think, pretty conservative.

Advantage: VodkaPundit? We’ll see.

UPDATE: Grant Henninger has the link to the surrender story.