Mosul Battle will be finished in days?

By the way, in between all the other rather dramatic news, there is still a battle raging in Mosul. Now, the Iraqi’s are claiming it will be over in days (before 26 May): http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-39882257

The statement was made on the 10th, and it is now the 20th.

Just as a reminder, as it is been a while since we looked at the timeline, back around 18 October, they were claiming that it could take two months: https://dupuyinstitute.dreamhosters.com/2016/10/18/duration-estimate-for-mosul/

  1. They started the offensive around 15 October https://dupuyinstitute.dreamhosters.com/2016/10/16/its-started/
  2. Arrived to the outskirts of Mosul and started taking parts of Mosul in early November: https://dupuyinstitute.dreamhosters.com/2016/11/10/taking-mosul/
  3. Took the Eastern half of Mosul around 22 January: https://dupuyinstitute.dreamhosters.com/2017/01/23/east-mosul-taken/
  4. And then they started fighting for the western half of Mosul around 18 February: https://dupuyinstitute.dreamhosters.com/2017/02/19/offensive-to-re-take-western-mosul-has-started/

Not the fastest offensive we have seen. For example, the Germans arrived on the outskirts of Stalingrad in August 1942, had taken most of the city by the end of November, and were still there, surrounded and starving, in February 1943.

One final note, remember this prediction in early February: https://dupuyinstitute.dreamhosters.com/2017/02/09/timeline-for-mosul-and-raqqa/

It stated that U.S. commander in Iraq, U.S. Army Lt. General Stephan Townsend, said “within the next six months I think we’ll see both (the Mosul and Raqqa campaigns) conclude.”

So, are we still on track to take Raqqa by the end of July?

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Christopher A. Lawrence
Christopher A. Lawrence

Christopher A. Lawrence is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict. The Dupuy Institute provides independent, historically-based analyses of lessons learned from modern military experience.

Mr. Lawrence was the program manager for the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base, the Kursk Data Base, the Modern Insurgency Spread Sheets and for a number of other smaller combat data bases. He has participated in casualty estimation studies (including estimates for Bosnia and Iraq) and studies of air campaign modeling, enemy prisoner of war capture rates, medium weight armor, urban warfare, situational awareness, counterinsurgency and other subjects for the U.S. Army, the Defense Department, the Joint Staff and the U.S. Air Force. He has also directed a number of studies related to the military impact of banning antipersonnel mines for the Joint Staff, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation.

His published works include papers and monographs for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, in addition to over 40 articles written for limited-distribution newsletters and over 60 analytical reports prepared for the Defense Department. He is the author of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (Aberdeen Books, Sheridan, CO., 2015), America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia & Oxford, 2015), War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat (Potomac Books, Lincoln, NE., 2017) and The Battle of Prokhorovka (Stackpole Books, Guilford, CT., 2019)

Mr. Lawrence lives in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., with his wife and son.

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