The Weapons Cache Metric

In a comment to my post on Operation Emily Litella, Master Gunner takes issue with my characterization of the captured weapons cache as 'not all that much':

It doesn't sound like much to you, because you don't see the big picture.

300 Pieces of weaponry is incredibly significant. If you would have read your own source, they said rockets and mortars were captured, as well as IED making equipment.

I would assume you have never been rocketed, mortared, or been hit with an IED.

It's okay, I understand.

You should check out the MNF-I website. You would be amazed at exactly how successful an operation Swarmer really is/was.

It's a fair point--I am not by any stretch of the imagination a military expert, and my sense that it wasn't a big deal was more gut than anything else. So I thought I'd do a reality check.

The two basic measures of how big a success this was are a) how much did they get compared to other seizures, and b) has it really impaired the operational capability of the insurgents. I did a Google search and found tons of prior stories on weapons cache seizures; I've posted excerpts from the top hits, along with my conclusions, below the fold.

Fox News, 10/23/03:

Military officials are still tallying the cache but have retrieved at least 317 4-foot rockets and 220 anti-tank mines. Fox News had exclusive access to the military during the operation about 45 miles south of Baghdad.

Washington Times, 11/26/04:

The weapons cache, described by the U.S. military as the largest uncovered so far in Fallujah, was discovered Wednesday....Troops found small arms, artillery shells, heavy machine guns, and anti-tank mines inside the mosque, the U.S. military said.

U.S. forces also uncovered what may have been a mobile bomb-making factory as well as mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, launchers, and parts of surface-to-air weapons systems elsewhere in the mosque compound, the military added.

Defend America, 7/1/05:

“Finds like this are important,” said Air Force Staff Sgt. Michael Becker, 506th Air Expeditionary Group, Explosive Ordnance Detachment. “We've seen signs that terrorists are running low on ordnances to use on roadside improvised explosive devices and vehicle-borne improvised explosive device attacks. This [find] makes it harder for [the terrorist], especially when we take out a major weapons cache.”

Navy Times, 12/20/05:

Working on a tip from an informant, soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division on Tuesday dug up more than a thousand aging rockets and missiles wrapped in plastic, some of which had been buried as recently as two weeks ago, Army officials said.

MNF-Iraq, 2/1/06:

Explosive ordnance disposal teams from the ISF and 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, recovered 60 122-millimeter white rockets and four unidentified missiles.

So this one, in which they got 300 pieces of weaponry, looks like it's bigger than some and smaller than others--somewhat sizable but not really outstanding. It pales in comparison to, for example, the 380 tons of HMX and RDX that went missing right after the invasion. By that standard, then, it hasn't paid off the way it was initially hyped.

But surely this is a blow to the insurgency, right? Maybe. Same with all the prior seizures. On the other hand, it's only going to really matter if there's a weapons shortage, which doesn't appear to be the case; as I understand it, everything that was seized could be replaced without much difficulty. Given the continuing U. S. military casualties, that looks like exactly what happened after all the previous seizures. In the end, weapons cache seizures look like as false a metric as enemy body count.

So, with all due apologies to the cheerleaders, I remain distinctly unimpressed by Operation Emily Litella.

[That's all, folks]