As heavy fighting in the insurgent stronghold of Marja carried into its third day, the number of Taliban fighters in the area has dropped by about half, American and Afghan commanders said Monday.
About a quarter of the 400 Taliban fighters estimated to be in Marja when the Afghan-American operation began early Saturday have been killed, officers said. A similar number of Taliban appear to have fled the area, including most of the leaders, and local Afghans were offering help ferreting out Taliban fighters and hidden bombs, they said.
But intense fighting on the ground through much of the day indicated that there were plenty of Taliban insurgents with fight left in them. In Marja itself, a broad agricultural area criss-crossed by irrigation canals, the fighting appears to be concentrated in two areas, at the northern end of the district and at the center. There, the combat on Monday continued at a furious pace.
Ok, where are the thermal imaging and targeting equiped aviation assets? Why is a protracted small arms battle being conducted? Where are the armor assets? Artillery? This sounds like our guys are fighting WW I all over again. Why are they not being allowed to use the tools available?
I think it is because the Taliban are mixed in with the population. In WWII, we would have bombed and shelled with abandon. Now, we have to be very, very careful. We risk our soldier’s lives to spare the lives of the (alleged) civilians.
My kids and I have were watching the Discovery channel when they had a show about some new weapon development. I commented that it all looked great, but we’d probably never use it in practice. Right now we are are at a point where it is very easy to kill people. But it is very hard to know *who* needs killing. The most powerful weapons we have don’t help solve that problem.
The rules of engagement in this operation are extraordinarily stringent. My admiration for our forces trying to operate under these conditions is boundless. This is very difficult stuff. Enemy sniper activity is apparently very sophisticated.
Thermal imaging would allow extremely precise identification of friend or foe. After a weapon is fired, it shines like a light saber in the night when viewed with a thermal scope. Put that in a turret with a .50 cal attached and you can see the weapon that just fired from a long long way away and return fire and kill the sniper. We have the tools. You can even “see” through some light walls and definitely through the brush. There is no hiding. Sheesh…you can see foot prints with thermal imaging for a few minutes after they were made. I have put my hand on a sign a hundred yards away and taken it off. The hand print was visible for over a minute. A gun barrel gets really hot when it is fired. You can see them, like long flourescent bulbs, “shining” with heat for a long time after they are fired. The more shots they fire, the hotter the barrel gets, the “brighter” the barrel becomes and the easier it gets to see the enemy that just fired at you. It would also make following the rules of engagement easier because you could fire directly at the guys that just fired at you and not shoot at anyone with cold guns.
Again, why aren’t we using this available technology? Why are we fighting like it’s WW I? We are fighting a largely illiterate and relativiely ill equiped force. We should be devastating them.
One armored vehicle might turn the tide in a small arms engagement. The RPGs would not do too well against the reactive armor or even slat armor. The tank/apc could advance toward the enemy with a squad or two behind it…firing at any resistance points and giving the infantry cover. This is OLD HAT! We have been doing this since the 1940s. We know how to do this. Why aren’t we?
Why do you conclude that we are not using this technology? As for heavy armor, I haven’t seen amy mention of its use in Afghanistan generally, It may be that it is vulnerable in the restricted roadways and terrain of that country. I agree that in this kind of operation, it would be useful in clearing operations. I’m not sure how much heavy armor is in country or how easy it is to transport it around.
[b]Why do you conclude that we are not using this technology?[/b]
1. There is no mention of its use in this article or any other I have read on this “major offensive”.
2. I have not seen this technology in any of the photographs of this battle.
3. The description of the “intensity” of the fighting does not lend itself to the use of this technoloy. If it were being used, the volume of fire from the enemy would diminish immediately.
4. The nature of use of snipers by our forces should be suppressing, imobilizing, and discouraging the enemy. The article states the opposite is happening: “But intense fighting on the ground through much of the day indicated that there were plenty of Taliban insurgents with fight left in them.”
4. They were forced to call a rocket attack on a building that they were taking small arms fire because they could not effectively deal with that threat on their own.
5. They were air inserted and are a light infantry unit and are not normally equipped with this equipment…but they could be if the commanders requested it.
6. Local Afghans were offering help ferreting out Taliban fighters, which means that the marines do not have the ability to “see” the enemy weapons that were just fired at them in the way that thermal imaging would allow them to if it were in use.
[b]As for heavy armor, I haven’t seen amy mention of its use in Afghanistan generally.[/b]
1. It wouldn’t take “heavy” armor. An M113A3, properly equiped could do the job. A Bradley Fighting Vehicle could do the job.
2. The Canadians had Leopard tanks in theater since 2006.
3. Tanks are suited to the terrain of this battle.
4. Canadians advised the US to “bring tanks”.
[blockquote]Lt.-Gen. Leslie gives his advice:
PANJWAII DISTRICT, Afghanistan — Three years of fighting in the dust-choked lanes and tangled grape fields of Panjwaii district have taught Canadian soldiers some hard, bloody lessons.
As the U.S. prepares this spring to surge 17,000 fresh troops into Afghanistan, they have two words of advice for their American colleagues: Bring tanks.
—————-
But since the landmark battle Operation Medusa in the late summer and early fall of 2006, the Leopards with their 120-millimetre cannon, have become a critical component of the army’s arsenal.
“You don’t need a lot of them,†Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie, the chief of land staff, said in a recent interview with The Canadian Press.
Canadians learned early when combat heated up that punching through the thick mud-walled compounds and grape huts, turned into redoubts by Taliban, was almost impossible with light weapons and required the heavy power of tanks.
It is an experience the troops — especially the country’s top soldier — are eager to pass along as American reinforcements arrive.
“Once you’ve got them and once you can see what they can do, it’s very difficult to convince yourself that they’re not absolutely essential,†Leslie said in an interview from Ottawa.
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/03/chief-of-land-staff-gen-us-needs-tanks.html [/blockquote]
5. The United States military is plagued with senior commanders that are all light infantry and/or airborne types that have too much confidence in their own hype being true and not enough confidence or understanding of the necessity of armored forces in real battles. For this very reason, the Delta Force and Rangers got their rear ends handed to them in Somalia. They did not coordinate with the 10th Mountain Division or with the 19th Pakistani Lancers for that engagement and instead counted on helicopter support and light wheeled vehicles. This criticism is not intended to detract from the bravery or toughness of these soldiers, only to point out the critical flaws in leadership that these brave men suffer under.
The US military leadership has a track record of waiting to be forced to use armor. The lesson of the effectiveness of armor in combat has had to be re-learned for each of our wars except Desert Storm and the initial phases of the Gulf War (both of which were characterized by incredible speed and ground taken nearly faster than follow on forces could arrive…enemy units surrendering to TV camera men, etc.)
It makes me angry and sick with disgust that our military leadership is so blinded my the mythos of light infantry that they will needlessly sacrifice troops time and time again on the alter of light infantry doctrine.
My nephew is a 19K Tanker in the US Army (my brother is a retired Master Gunner and veteran of the 11th ACR and I was both an Engineer (CMBT) (HVY) and later in Army Aviation) and when he got to Iraq they put his entire unit into…Humvees, light wheeled vehicles (jeeps) pressed into doing the work of armor because the senior military leadership refuses to be confused by facts or the actual wars we are fighting and remain committed to the dogma, developed in a Washington think tank, that the 21st Century Army should be made up of light strike forces and not have heavy units.
I would be happy to be proven wrong…I would be joyful to be proven wrong.