Turkish Military Says Over 40 ISIS Terrorists Killed 100 Wounded In Clashes Near Al-Bab

I can’t agree with you on the name thing. Yes, it makes sense to have a different name when it includes 20% non-Kurds. The Assyrians and Arabs and Turkomen in SDF aren’t fighting ‘for’ the Kurds, they are fighting because they find something they agree with in the principals of Democratic Confederalism the Kurds subscribe to; while that particular flavour of Anarcho-Syndicalism was elucidated by a Kurd, there is nothing about it which requires one to be a Kurd. It should tell you something that more Syrian Turkomen fight for SDF than with FSA.

If the SDF defended Manbij with just the 5000 that took it from IS, the current Turkish force of 2 brigades+1 Commando battalion would be insufficient, even if all losses were fully replaced. Like in Al-Bab, they’d make some initial progress because of their firepower, but the AFV attrition rate (which would be higher than why you see now, SDF fight better than IS), would deplete their fighting power too quickly, and they’d be stuck within the first few days. Meanwhile, there are 40,000 SDF troops from Manbij to ar-Raqqa, and more in Afrin. The TAF have got at most 3 more Commando battalions available. The rest are already tied up with PKK, so they’d need to rely on their line grunts. You’d be looking at something like 20 brigades to go against the main SDF force in an urban defence scenario. Sure, the Turks have that available, but are they interested in committing it? They haven’t shown any eagerness to deploy large forces here. And you’d be looking at well over 1000 casualties, with several hundred dead, to say nothing of the equipment wastage. (Easily a couple billion worth of hardware and munitions.)How would the Turkish public feel about all that? For a city in Syria? Remember, Erdogan wants to get re-elected.

You obiviously didn’t see a real “war”. You must understand that this is just an “operation”. The firepower we are talking about here is just 2-3 jets, bombing here and there and 30 tanks or something? About SOF count, there are in total 800 SOF in Syria right now. Probably not even ALL of them are on the Al-Bab frontline. This is literally a chill out operation, which already succeded when you think about its aim; 1. Clear the border from ISIS 2. Prevent PKK linking up the kantons

Both succesful.

If Turkish Armed Forces(TSK) decides that its a real war(rather than a small scale operation). Believe me, it will take max. 15 days for Manbij to fall. That’s why south ossetia and abkhazia fall within days when Russia intervened for REAL, unlike in Syria. In Syria, they just bomb casually. It’s literally a casual operation for Russia.

South ossetia and Abkhazia were the real thing. Ukraine was the real thing and we saw the brutal result.

It will be the same for Manbij. I have no doubt for that.

Turkish public by the way, do know, YPG is PKK’s Syria branch. It is the public itself that pushed for this operation. It is the public itself pushing for Manbij.

I’ve counted the equipment that has gone into Syria. There are 2 armoured brigades, plus a Commando battalion. Even without the numbers, the mix of tanks alone identifies 3 separate armour battalions. Last I checked, TSK don’t mix tank types within a battalion, and we’ve seen Leopard 2A4s, Sabras and plain M60A3s go over the border. So more like 164 tanks (prior to losses, and assuming full strength when they rolled over the border) a like number of APCs and a a host of lesser vehicles like Cobras, along with 2 artillery regiments. With the Commandos, they’ve got maybe 2000 infantry. And yes, that is also ‘just an operation.’

Yes, I agree that this force proved more than sufficient to achieve aims 1 and 2, and that indeed, those were important Turkish aims. Comparing it to South Ossetia and Abkhazia, however, isn’t warranted. The Georgians counted on either non-intervention or the Roki Tunnel being blocked. Their PRI American merceneary general had assured them of such. The Georgians were not prepared for 58th Army. Georgians are also pretty terrible troops, and their best trained unit, and only one with field experience, was overseas at the time.

The SDF contain much better and more determined fighters than the Georgians. The SDF are likewise more efficient and motivated that the Ukrainians. You ought to expect that from, first. how much trouble PKK give the Turks, given that the PKK have no armour or air support and limited AT and AD weapons, and that the Turks are better than every regional army except the Israelis (though Erdogan is doing his best to screw that up). TSK’s got 22 of 26 Commando battalions and a big force of Gendarmie tied up against PKK, some 20,000 troops plus air support, and they haven’t crushed PKK by any means. Second SDF have performed better against IS than anybody else in this war, except maybe hidden operations by Russian contarctors and elite troops that we can’t really analyse. Take those two things into account, and it is obvious you aren’t looking at some demoralised, badly-led rabble like the Ukrainians or Georgians.

Furthermore, the Georgians were only able to put about 12-15,000 troops in the field. Their evidently useless reservists simply ran away when deployed in front of Tbilisi. The Ukrainians were caught and outmanoeuvred in a mobile encounter battle (so did not have the advanatges of the defence), never outnumbered the DPR/LPR/Russians by more than 50%, and had their command and control complety destroyed by Russian Radio-Electronic Combat units. The Russians also have probably the best artillery service around, and making very effective use of drone reconaissance and observation, did terrible things to Ukrainian troops. The Turks have guns, and know how to use them, but their artillery doctrine is simply not that sophisticated. The SDF are far more cautious, and you can expect them to make full use of the defensive advantages of terrain, deliberately give ground to draw advancing forces into ambushes, and so on. They also have 40,000 fighters deployed from Manbij to ar-Raqqa.

You are well aware the FSA are useless, and we agree they will contribute nothing useful. So, with all due respect to the TSK, they are going to need some 20 brigades just to get adeqaute infantry strength alone, and be prepared to replace losses if they would contest Manbij with the whole SDF.

As for Turkish public opinion, I’m not going to argue it. You presumably talk to other Turks a lot more than I do, so perhaps you know their mood here. AKP is the ruling party, so maybe Erdogan’s other policies like his adventures in Syria also have sufficient support. But will they still when a few hundred conscripts come home in bodybags? (And I make that estimate assuming they do in fact commit the 20 some brigades they need to be winning). That would be a serious political problem in other NATO nations. Maybe the Turkish are more resiliant to military losses. But remember, even if they were in past, it doesn’t automatically mean they are now.