Anti tank missles are weapons of choice for Hezzies

Jerusalem Post:

Lt. Ohad Shamir was commanding a surveillance team hiding in Maroun a-Ras. Their mission was to locate Hizbullah fighters still operating near the village after it had been captured by Golani and Paratroopers units. Shamir's men felt pretty safe - during the 10 days they spent in the village, not a shot had been fired at their building. But then an antitank missile hit the structure and Shamir was lightly wounded.

On Wednesday, he was being treated at Safed's Ziv Hospital for fragments in his back.

"They are small teams, three of four people, hiding in the undergrowth, firing out of nowhere. They're the biggest danger," he said of the Hizbullah gunmen.

The same story repeats itself time and again in the hospital wards where wounded solders are recovering and comparing experiences. No one has yet begun analyzing the causes of casualties in this war, but the indisputable fact is that the great majority of wounds and deaths were a result of antitank missiles - more than from gunfire, grenades and other explosive devices together.

The term "antitank" is misleading; the missiles were originally designed to be used against tanks, but the IDF's Merkava tanks and upgraded armored fighting vehicles are capable of withstanding most missiles in Hizbullah's arsenal. But Hizbullah isn't using them only against tanks. The range of these missiles - up to three kilometers - and the force of their explosive charges make them ideal for attacking groups of soldiers and IDF positions from afar.

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Over the last two weeks, the tactic used by many of the Hizbullah teams has been to avoid close-range combat, where IDF soldiers' high level of training gives them the upper hand. Instead, the Hizbullah men have been moving to positions high above villages and continuing to fire missiles at the IDF forces. Large stores of missiles were prepared in the hills in advance, for this eventuality.

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This is a tactic I noticed in the early days of the war in Iraq also. Many of the casualties in the major combat operations phase of the war were from RPG's and antitank weapons. I think there are several reason for this. First body armor has made the AK-47 a less effective weapon. Second the Islamist "fighters" are not very good in close combat, i.e. they get destroyed. Their response to these realities is to use the antitank weapons as antipersonel weapons in a stand off range, in small units. Dispersal like this makes it impossible for them to actually take and hold a position, but it does allow them to inflict casualties before retreating.