September 25, 2014
ISIS’ path to prominence—from amassing large amounts of territory and taking on all challengers—lies in its choice of arms and tactics.
Editor’s Note: Please also see Five American Weapons of War ISIS Should Fear as well as Five Israeli Weapons of War ISIS Should Fear.
Over the past year, ISIS has scored a series of remarkable victories over Iraqi, Kurdish and Syrian forces. It has succeeded despite a lack of access to the heavy weaponry that its opponents regularly field. Indeed, the heavy weaponry that ISIS has acquired has come mostly from “battlefield appropriation,” picking up the leftover weapons of its defeated foes.
ISIS has won by exploiting the vulnerabilities of its enemies, which take the form of Western military organizations, while lacking their fighting and communications discipline. This allows ISIS to identify, in both tactical and operational terms, weak points that can cause an entire enemy position to cave in upon itself. In essence, ISIS has an operational form that allows decentralized commanders to use their experienced fighters against the weakest points of its foes. At the same time, the center retains enough operational control to conduct medium-to-long term planning on how to allocate forces, logistics, and reinforcements.
ISIS hasn’t been discriminating in its use of weapons; the group fights with whatever it can find. However, several systems have become common to ISIS fighting units. Typically, these are mobile, easy to use and easy to service. This article concentrates on five categories of weapons that have enabled ISIS’ path to prominence.
Technicals:
The rise of the technical gives lie to one of the enduring myths of maneuver warfare. In brief, this myth concentrates on the rise of the tank and the armored personnel carrier as innovations that restored maneuver to the battlefield after World War I. The myth leads to an over-emphasis on the characteristics of particular systems (tanks surely vary in quality, but generally not in war-winning ways), and a de-emphasis on the tactical and operational innovations, which make modern maneuver warfare possible.
In situations where the attackers can avoid assaulting the prepared defenses of enemy forces, in which they do not seek to create their own defensive hardpoints, and in which they don’t face a foe capable of concerted counter-offensive action, a Toyota pickup truck isn’t as good as a tank; it’s better.
The truck is easier to maintain, faster, and gets better fuel economy than the tank. It’s also expendable. Technicals have mounted heavy machine guns as well as artillery and light anti-aircraft weaponry, including AA missiles. This doesn’t mean that ISIS has completely eschewed the use of dedicated military vehicles. Rather, the group has found uses for them within its broader fighting ethos. For example, the initial penetration of an Iraqi military base recently seized by ISIS was reportedly by Humvees disguised as Iraqi Security Forces.
And ISIS has undoubtedly acquired some tanks. It reportedly operates several dozen T-55s, and well as about a dozen T-72, although airstrikes may have attrited that number somewhat. While ISIS has captured some M1A1 Abrams given to Iraqi forces from the United States, putting these vehicles into useful service will prove far more difficult, as requirements for spares and ammunition are more complicated.
Anti-tank weaponry:
The Syrian Army has used tanks extensively against both the Free Syrian Army and ISIS. Syrian regular forces have a long-term reputation for falling short in combined arms warfare, but just because a force is unskilled in offensive armored tactics doesn’t mean that it can’t put tanks to good use. Tanks are effective defensive weapons, especially against light infantry forces that lack heavy weapons. Such forces can surely kill tanks (“killing tanks is fun and easy,” as Marines are reputed to say) but armor nevertheless is a problem that they need to solve.
ISIS has reputedly used several different kinds of anti-tank weaponry, and has killed several varieties of tank. This includes Konkur and Komet anti-tank guided missiles (mainly seized from the Syrian Army), as well as the Chinese HJ-8 (taken in some cases from the Free Syrian Army), and Osa 90mm rockets. ISIS has also killed tanks through more traditional means, such as the use of RPGs, improvised explosive devices, and infantry placed charges. Targets include not only the old Soviet tanks (mainly T-55s and T-72s) operated by Syria, but also the much more modern M1A1 Abrams main battle tank.
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