Okay, I’m totally fired up about this ambush in Ganjgal that needlessly took the lives of three Marines, a Corpsman and nine Afghan security forces.
A huge thanks to Mike j who forwarded me Jonathan Landay’s audio report from the battle. It’s about 15 minutes long and I gotta say, it is a MUST listen. I had a visceral reaction to it.
The audio report fleshes out the earlier story (as does the accompanying Landay piece) on just what happened in the ambush and how the village was oriented. As usual, this sounded like a horseshoe valley running east-west with high hills on the north-south rims. From the story and audio, it sounds like a well-supplied enemy force with plenty of ammo and even some body armor and helmets — all conducting military-style flanking maneuvers while pressing the attack.
It looks like the force — which was not small by any means, comprising some 80 Afghan security forces and 12 trainers — came from FOB Joyce. Judging from pictures of the base available online and this video shot at the base, there was more than enough room for a COIN plane landing strip and the minimal logistics to handle the upkeep and arming of, say, a COIN configured Air Tractor.
This battle, like the Wanat COP battle in 2008, should be a wake up call for better support from CAS and arty.
Couple other things:
Pedestrian, please don’t tip me off to Danger Room posts…we’ve been talking COIN air forces before they jumped on the bandwagon. And I agree with Ed on the UAV logic…too small, not enough weapons and I want human eyeballs in that cockpit — preferrably two sets. The way I see it, if this force was so well supplied, a low, slow, prop plane could have caught the action in time to snuff it out. And “asdfg” — we reported at Military.com a few months ago that the Corps was looking to outfit their KC-130Js into Spectre “lites” in the coming year. I’ll look into updating that story for you…
I’m not letting this one go, folks.
– Christian
{ 44 comments… read them below or add one }
My question is whether the Key West agreements are even relevant anymore.The Air Force should retain the strategic forces, nuclear deterrent and strategic mobility issues, and the Army need to do what it knows best: killing people and breaking things on the ground.In one word,give the AF the SAC and the fighters and the rest of the forces to the Army.I know that a lot of people gonna said why you can’t do that.
Two sets of eyeballs is key to mission success.
Forget COIN, CAS, troops and equipment, I think we simply need more advisers to shore up this foreign contingency operation.
Christian!
Way to GO! Don’t let this get buried guy!
Christian-
Anytime, man. Glad someone’s looking into it.
We still have troops overseas? I thought they were all being immediately returned to the US once Obama took office. You know, that whole “give peace a chance” thing.
Well another nail in the coffin its call control the war via Washington DC and the politicos looks like marines, army, navy and Air Force personnel are expendable as long as the President has a smooth sailing waste of time, he sends a cripple commander with no real way to win only to lose and we will lose but how many will die for stupidity, time for Congress to get off it hands and take control tell the DOD to get the job done correctly screw politics kill the bad guys period
Before any “bandwagons” get going – seriously explain how this fight was hindered by a lack of a specific “type” aircraft, versus a lack of ANY available aicraft.
Their are benefits and drawbacks to investing in a low-capability COIN air component – that is a standalone issue. However, the issue in this particular example is far simpler and has been endemic to the Afghanistan fight since Rummy had his artificial troop caps in place…lack of assets. We are trying to do too much with too little, and occasionally it will bite us in the ass as it did at Ganjgal.
Lets be realistic – for the situation in Afghanistan, the B-1/B-52/JDAM/SDB combination is the most effective – best loiter time, best payload, best accuracy. We will never see every FOB owning its own pair of COIN fighters, so its fanstasy to say that is the solution. The solution is providing the warfighters with the manpower and assets they require to accomplish the mission given. Period.
This is not an equipment-type issue but a total quantity issue. Not enough troops for pre-movement recon, not enough UAVs for ground commanders, not enough helos (of every variety) for the troops in theater, etc….
I appreciate your site and your reporting, Christian, but on this issue I think you are far off the mark.
“Forget COIN, CAS, troops and equipment, I think we simply need more advisers to shore up this foreign contingency operation.”
bdwilcox, didn’t you just agree with Nidi on the previous blog that our focus should be protecting the troops and killing the enemy?
BINGO KragCulloden!
Life sucks without fire support, whether it be NFS for Ship-to-Objective Maneuver (STOM) & such operations or CAS or artillery support.
Just imagine how much WORSE it would be if the enemy had the ability to bring in fire support AGAINST our troops.
This is a GREAT example of the folly of the whole converting our armed forces to COIN operations which by definition tries to do too much with too little.
elgatoso,
Being an army officer I would agree that Key West is long overdue for a reissue, but unfortunately its still the law. Despite the fact that the air force hates supporting the army, nobody at the head-shed is willing to call them on the carpet to ask why.
It’s a capability gap clearly. Using B1s for this kind of mission is too expensive.
In regards to what we select, we waste a lot of time debating the ideal system. Quite frankly anything currently available would be just fine. The endless pursuit of perfection wastes time. The enemy of good is perfect. I’m pretty sure those Marines wouldn’t have given 2 @#$%’s what flew in and started putting rounds on target.
I still think since we are buying the Hawker plane as a trainer, it makes the most logistical and practical sense for the COIN mission, and we could have it the fastest. It’s what we teaching our pilots to fly with, seems like common sense to me. Whatever, as long as we field something quick. Quick doesn’t have to mean half ass, if we are using the Hawker for training I assume it is a good plane.
If we are going to fight, then lets fight. Lets do this right and start burying these bums in big #s.
Once the airforce had a plane, the A-37. Two crew, well armed it was the perfect replacement for both the A-1 and the B-26K, at least as far as Gen Secord was concerned.
Just as the navy retired all the small boats, then reinstated them for Iraq, the marines abandoned special operations then reinstated it, the army (and especially SF) cut back on internal defense to focus on sexier dierct action missions…now we have re-re-rediscovered that it is more cost and socially efficient to fight other peoples’ wars with other peoples’ soldiers. The aircraft to support other peoples’ wars do not need stealth, crazy radars, high speed interception ability, or other claptrap.
Anyone who wants to know how to win in afganistan, needs to study how the US could have won in south east asia. You do not need to carpet bomb, you need to make the bad guys afraid of signing up.
Good work, Christian!
Please Don’t let it go!
It’s far too important to let the legs in the Head Shed piss it away, again!
Remember just because someone is “School Trained” doesn’t mean much. Even a tough school will graduate an asshole if he’s “ruff and tuff and hard to bluff.” (Shinseki is a good example.)
So keep up the pressure, keep us informed, and we’ll write our Congressmen and help from our ends.
Again I don’t think several of the posters are being realistic, or have a clue how things are typically working already.
For Afghanistan, the B-1/B-52 and GPS munitions are the best option for continuous air coverage, period. This fantasy that every ground unit is going to get a COIN flight because “they are cheaper” is just stupid. No matter the aircraft, you still have to feed it POL, ammo, and parts. That means centralized basing or you have an even bigger headache in trying to feed the log burden for all these dispersed COIN airbases all over bufu afghanistan. Its not going to happen, quit wasting time on a pipe dream.
The heavy bombers have the legs and the payload to support multiple units across a wide area with *precision* effects. “Strategic Bombers” doesn’t mean what it used to mean. No one is talking arclight raids against hamlets. The heavy bombers now have the same spotting capability as tactical jets, and deliver the same ordnance with the same accuracy and precision. More importantly, they have the range and endurance to support multiple units for *hours* at a time.
As to issues of speed and the type-specifics of COIN fighters – we can do the same with helos and UAVs, the issue is having enough of them around to support the warfighters. Again, this particular instance was not a case of having the wrong assets on hand, it was not having ANY assets on hand. There is simply nothing magical about a turbo prop airplane with two crew that we can’t already accomplish with UAVs, recon teams, attack helos, etc….the issue is not the tech, its the availability of assets. Period.
RE: A COIN aircraft is more accurate, etc….
You do realize the year is 2009 right? Without going the gunship route, how do you plan to beat LGB, or even GPS accuracy with *gunfire* from an airplane? An airplane that is also going to be so cheap we can afford a couple thousand, and that will also have a minimal log tail that enables them to operate from dozens and dozens of rough fields/patrol bases in a country with nightmarish transportation and resupply issues.
You honestly think that gunfire from a non-gunship, in other words strafing runs, will be more accurate and more *effective* than JDAMs/SDBs/LGBs/Mavericks/Hellfires/DAGRs? That all the collective effort of decades of work to field accurate precision air delivered ordnance can be superceded by simply using gun runs from a dirt cheap turbo prop aircraft?
I suggest some of these folks talk to veterans that have been on the receiving end of this “accurate” strafing from pilots using nothing but eyeballs. There is a reason that the friendly fire incidents in OIF were either caused by A-10s without targeting pods, or by pilots that simply didn’t use the targeting pod and instead relied on the Mk1 Eyeball. Yet this is what some of you experts are now touting as the secret weapon for COIN?
We finally, finally, have accurate CAS that is not dependent on the type of plane providing the CAS, soley because of precision ordnance. We have the same ability with tube and rocket arty, finally.
The only thing we need is these existing assets IN PLACE when the warfighters need them.
KragCulloden-
About half of what you’re arguing about is words you put in someone else’s mouth. What you call CAS is just flying artillery. A few points:
-Light CAS planes fire PGMs and guns also, but the most important thing they do is communicate.
-Nobody’s taken a serious look that I’ve seen at forward basing, just floated the idea. It would be a logistical challenge, but the aircraft are supposedly capable of it.
-Fratricide has been an occasional problem. It doesn’t only happen to A-10 drivers (or whoever you were alluding to), some have been from precision-guided strikes. Poor communications and confused ground controllers often contributed. The fix (in part, at least) is to have pilots who specialize in the mission, briefed and on-station as soon as possible. They need to know the plan, see it develop, and give guidance. Close cooperation and understanding are vital.
-”Precision” is hitting the right target at the right time. That requires good situational awareness. A well trained crew in the right aircraft can provide that- they can see around corners and over hills- but they need to be there before the situation goes to hell and stick around for a while to have the best effect. They might be able to help avoid an unfavorable engagement entirely. A heavy bomber, by its nature, is always going to be called in after things have already gotten bad, and so it’s not the best platform.
Sorry if I embarrassed you in some way Christian :P. I just thought it was a timely subject covered by various military dedicated sites that hopped into the COIN topics. And yes, I know about the long history Defense Tech coverage of COIN, AC-27Js, A-10s, OV-10s, and discussions about bringing back F-20 for COIN as well.
everyone here is looking at this as being a technology issue. ITS NOT! this is 100% a breakdown in command. the Combatant Commander issued an order that caused paralysis in the decision making of his subordinates. GOOD MEN DIED because their was confusion regarding a mandate from upper echelon.
I don’t care if crop dusters, M777, B-52 or AC-130 are used to support the unit in the field. What I do care about is if the chain is able to provide support to a unit that is engaged in a timely manner.
I am completely in support of a COIN aircraft as I have seen in both archival footage and even the anecdotal evidence of their usefulness in computer simulations. (Yes I mean computer games but trust me the truth still holds to their uesfulness.)
Could a stop gap measure for this be just some guys flying a Cessna to provide overwatch for us? It seems to me that if simply there was some advanced notification to the guys on the ground they might not have gone into the village.
I know people will be yelling at me about the risk to the pilot but here’s an answer for that, fly over 10k and have some optics on the puddle jumper. Something like the predecessor to the OV-10. A UAV is a great piece of equipment but you can only see what the camera is seeing. You put 1 set of eyes and some optics in a plane, you now have the ability to view a much larger area and much faster than the camera can swivel and pan and zoom in.
Folks we need to stop thinking high tech on Afghanistan. They are beating us with the lowest of tech possible. We tried to out-tech the enemy in Iraq and it almost cost us the war. We need to hunker down and find what we already have that works and get it out there.
At Mike J – Regarding blue on blue in OIF, do your homework. The incidents were either from A-10s without targeting pods, relying solely on eyeballs and occasionally binos, OR targeting-pod equipped jets in which the pilots did not verify the targets with the pod before engaging.
Again, there seems to be a disconnect between some of the posters opinions versus the reality.
Close air support is air-delivered ordnance targeted by ground forces. It differs from BAI in that the targeting is done by ground troops, not aircrew. So no I’m not defining CAS as flying arty, but using the actual definition of CAS – ordance delivered by aircraft, targeted by ground forces.
What cheap GPS guided muntions have enabled is to finally get accurate, precise CAS that doesn’t vary in precision with the delivering aircraft. That’s a first. That is why now the biggest issues are loiter time and payload, not speed and eyeball perception of the ground battle.
If case some of you are unaware, B-1s are routinely providing CAS in Afghanistan. They are the preferred platform, precisely because they can hang around until the battle is over, and seem to never run out of bombs. Those are two good things.
As to “communicating”, that is not a miracle of turboprops, and we have better solutions in battalion (and lower) organic UAVs controlled by the ground fighters themselves. The issue is having these assets on hand when they are needed. There is simply nothing unique or better that a turbo prop low and slow is going to accomplish that we don’t already have now – the issue is having it in theater and organic to the warfighters.
@Ed: “Could a stop gap measure for this be just some guys flying a Cessna to provide overwatch for us? It seems to me that if simply there was some advanced notification to the guys on the ground they might not have gone into the village.”
How is that better than having overwatch from a supercobra or Apache, or having a B-n on station scoping out the area from 20k with pods and radar, or having battalion or company level UAVs performing route and spot recon, or having recon teams infiltrate and observe prior to movement?
Again, the problem is not a lack of capability – its a lack of assets. Your two man cessna with a targeting pod is no better than the B-ns already deployed with targeting pods, or the UAVs, or the recon teams, or the attack helos…the issue is having enough of them to support the mission. We don’t need new tech or new gadgets or new aircraft – we just need more of what we know already works and works well.
@Freefallingbomb – RE: “That’s precisely why heavy bombers will NEVER be considered for close-in support”
They have been doing it for years now. The CEP on precision weaponry doesn’t magically detiorate because its dropped from a B-1 instead of a superhornet. The CEP doesn’t magically shrink because the ordnance is released from a turboprop. That’s the beauty of cheap guided ordnance.
To Krag;
The difference between what you mentioned are many. For starters they are not always available because both are in high deman every day as it is. Second they don’t have the ability to loiter in the area as long as a puddle jumper can.
A strategic bomber at 20k doesn’t work as well either. They must rely solely on their sensors and have to fly large race track patterns over a vast area to cover a small target like a village patrol.
Think of it this way, a puddle jumper going around 100-200 knots versus a B-1 going around 300+ knots. Also availablity is another issue. We only have so many strategic bombers and the crews are needed for other missions elsewhere since they can carry much heavier ordnance and more of it than a fighter loaded out for CAS.
The benefits of something like a cessna for this type of mission include the ability to remain close to the action and easily come back around. The usefulness of smaller aircraft was demonstrated on a history channel show called shadow force. These smaller planes also would require less training for their pilots, you could even have the Afghanis do this type of mission. They require less logistics than anything we have there.
There might also be an advantage of the enemy only hearing a prop plan as opposed to the sound of a chopper coming in. They might not be worried about a small single engine plane as a threat. A bomber for the most psart unless she comes in low to buzz the enemy, its about as benign in signature as a logistics flight overhead.
Low-tech works here.
Believe all this finger-pointing and belief that a light CAS plane would solve everything misses several key points.
1) This mission started out as a great example of coalition counterinsurgency cooperation between U.S. Army and Marines, Border Police, and ANA troops. They were attempting to do the correct thing. Duplicity may have been involved and foreign fighters from Pakistan may have been making one last major offensive prior to the winter.
2) Mission delays of one day may have lost surprise and dedicated helicopter support more than any leader failings or lack of coalition capability. The fact that two U.S. helicopter pilots were wounded fighting another battle farther to the north, explains the slow response because otherwise those aircrews could have been dynamically re-tasked. This may have been a larger threat action that we don
Krag:
For everything you keep saying about the virtues of the B-1 dropped JDAMs for CAS, remember back in May it was a B-1 that dropped a JDAM on a group of Afghanis in support of a Marine unit in contact. They dropped it from above 10k feet without being asked for it. They looked through a sensor, saw a group of people they thought might be hostile, and took out a couple dozen civilians which prompted McChrystal to rethink the ROE.
Ciole,
Your equating the edict that Commanders in the field have the ability to lessen armor requirements of their Marines in comparison to the mishap in discussion totally misses the mark.
You state that its a calculated risk and the ROE should be ruled in the same light. WRONG! Having Infantrymen overloaded with armor more designed for vehicle crewmen or soldier in a static position is one thing…having them mobile enough to be able to move, shoot and communicate while engaging an elusive enemy is something else entirely. If you want your Soldiers and Marines to hunt down the enemy then this is a common sense solution.
But back to the ROE. It might seem politically correct but what we’re doing with these new ROE’s is setting up safe havens for our enemy. If I were a Taliban commander I would hunker down in villages secure in the knowledge that the coalition forces will not attack me in my sanctuary. Additionally, I would only instigate attacks when in range of villages so that the US forces would not be able to bring to bear its firepower. So much for protecting the CIVILIAN POPULATION HUH??? THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED.
McChrystal’s order has cost lives and I contend that its done something even more dangerous. Its causing coalition forces to fight halfheartedly. THIS IS UNHEARD OF! When do you deny support to a unit that is engaged with the enemy. YOU DON”T! That is the maddening thing about this. It doesn’t matter if a surge is instituted or not if we don’t have the proper strategy in place to win. Fog of war is to be expected….creating it is not.
Krag- re:”…blue on blue in OIF, do your homework.”
Why just OIF? Trying to limit the data to get the result you prefer? Read this:
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA422788&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf
I’ll stick with what I said.
About UAVs, the way they work today, they’re limiting. Better SA than if they weren’t there, but not as good as a manned aircraft. I can’t see troops under fire tying up people with joysticking an RC plane around. Someone else farther back is going to have to control them… look, why not just cut out the middleman? Put good crews in the plane, have good commanders and troops on the ground. Give them the overall commander’s intent, trust their judgment, and give them what they ask for. No more of this second-guessing up the chain.
I’m going to keep hitting this point about precision: It’s more than CEP. There’s a time element that’s missed waiting for a bomber to get overhead and drop. How do you quantify precision bombing that never happened, never had to, because the aircraft already overhead stopped a situation from developing?
The COIN aircraft has similar firepower to a helicopter gunship, but is about twice as fast, more range, and much more persistent. Even an unarmed COIN plane can benefit the ground force. 100 planes in the ~$10 million range, with costs/ flight hour under $3k, is a sound investment.
“bdwilcox, didn’t you just agree with Nidi on the previous blog that our focus should be protecting the troops and killing the enemy?”
-TB, my post was supposed to be dripping with sarcasm.
RE: “The benefits of something like a cessna for this type of mission include the ability to remain close to the action and easily come back around.”
Still not getting through here. Your Cessna can only remain close to the action if it was tasked ahead of time to that specific action, and was based nearby so it had the endurance to remain during the action – that requires large numbers of these aircraft scattered throughout afghanistan. That’s never going to happen for all the reasons previously mentioned. You’re confusing having dedicated support with some type-specific platform argument.
Dedicated support would be great, and would be ideal with actual existing military hardware, not civilan claptrap lawnmowers with wings.
In the absence of a huge buildup of tactical air and helos (which has problems of its own previously mentioned) the next best solution is the heavy bombers. They offer the closest thing possible to universal support that is minutes away. Be aware I’m saying all this good stuff about heavy bombers and I’m a Marine. I’m not an air power nutjub by ANY stretch of the imagination. But you have to admit when something works well, and the B-1s are doing fantastic work in Afghanistan.
RE: “Why just OIF? Trying to limit the data to get the result you prefer?”
Because at the time I did the study OIF was the most recent conflict, with the latest tech, that also had reliable post-incident investigation papers publicly available. No cherry-picking involved.
The argument by some here is that nirvana comes from a slow moving platform with four eyes as its primary sensor system – that is a flawed concept as the OIF blue on blue incidents detail. Because the A-10s were not equipped with targeting pods during OIF, they had several incidents of miss-identified ground targets. The other incidents involved other tac air that did have pods, but the aircrew simply did not use the pods for target confirmation before engaging.
So its a good example to see how the latest tech works in combat – the results are very clear that latest generation pods provide far more situational awareness for aircrew, at safer altitudes, than is possible with just eyeballs alone from any altitude. The combination of safer altitude, enhanced optics and thermal/night optics gives the aircrew the best SA possible for supporting troops on the ground. That, combined with cheap precision ordnance, has enabled the reality of heavy bombers providing accurate and effective CAS.
Again, keep your terms in mind – a bomber finding and engaging targets on its own is not CAS. Even Type III CAS requires a ground controller giving the ok to engage even if he doesn’t have eyes on the bad guys.
RE: “It’s more than CEP. There’s a time element that’s missed waiting for a bomber to get overhead and drop.”
Again, this is confusing having dedicated support with some type-specific platform argument. For the record, yes, everyone agrees having dedicated support is better than on call support. That should be obvious to anyone.
Now, back to reality – which platform will deliver the best support in the on-call role, which is the reality we will deal with in THIS universe? The Cessna walking along at 120mph with short legs and miniscule warload, or the heavy bomber that’s been on station for six hours, has another many hours to go, has been monitoring the radio traffic and has a handle on whats going on in the area, has a metric buttload of ordnance on board, and can be overhead in minutes and stay there until the danger is over? Now of the two which one also contributes NOTHING to the log burden in country while still supporting the entire country with precision ordnance?
I know far less of this than many of the posters here but I’d like to put out two observations/questions.
1) KragC, i’ll accept your views on bomber accuracy and perf in Afghanistan (I’ve heard similar reports) but I wonder if in a situation where someone on the ground reports they saw fire coming from building X, which would be the preferable outcome if it turned out building X was filled with civilians.
A) Bomber drops a PGM through the roof (even a 250lb SDB would create carnage)
B) Low flying aircraft sprays building w/ 7.62 (or even 50cal) – it would be far less likely to result in a high profile incident and were the building full of bad guys, yes they would be in far better shape, but they’d still be forced to hit the floor thereby buying our guys time.
2)Can the Army/Marines trust the AF to be there?
Yes it does look like the B1 guys are doing a good job but it also seems the AF in the Pentagon is trying to get rid of the B1 so they’ll create a need for a fancy new program.
The service on the ground needs control of its overhead support (maybe they can force the AF to rotate senior guys through frontline army and marine units – bet the theater would see lot of A10s and other support).
Krag-
If you’re trying to hang these COIN planes with the argument that “eyeballs aren’t enough”, don’t worry. The requirement calls for integrated targeting pods. The OV-10X literature from Boeing even mentions radar. As a bonus, they’ve also got four eyeballs and can go slow enough to use those too. Bombers can’t do that.
You’re right that “CAS” has a specific meaning to the armed forces. What I’m talking about is cooperation between the air and ground, which makes both more effective.
Would I prefer the Cessna or the bomber… Actually I’d like both in a perfect world. The Cessna might see something coming that the ground forces can’t, and have the bomber smash it before it’s a problem. It also means less work for the bomber crew, if the spotter’s already got the table set. Anyway, if it’s either-or, then it depends. Again, if the Cessna with it’s minuscule warload sees an ambush setting up and vectors a convoy around it, that’s much better than the enemy springing the ambush and us needing to call the heavies in. If they’ve already got us pinned, sure, firepower wins. It’s a false choice, though. The light aircraft under consideration have more than enough firepower for fighting insurgents.
Cole…
Everything you said is true, but to be honest I hadn’t taken it that far. As far as I’m concerned it boils down to a promise. These trainers in Afghanistan, whether Army or Marine are separated from US units and the only saving grace for these men are the other Americans that they’re with and the idea that if they get into trouble the full force of the US military will have their back.
They were failed. We put them in a position with people they did not know. Away from others that they trained with (or had similar backgrounds, ethos and culture) and told them that you work with these people and although its dangerous WE WILL HAVE YOUR BACK!
When the time of testing came, some staff idiot told these men F*%# You –we have to protect the civilian population and you are expendable. That is not in the best traditions of the US Army or Marines. That goes against everything that is taught. From the SNCO Academy to the Staff Colleges its not done that way.
The only thing that is more infuriating is the silence coming from inside the Marine Corps. Maybe I’m not tapped in as well as I thought but the fact that the Commandant hasn’t spoken up publicly is disturbing to me. I guess I am more naive than I thought but again, this isn’t a tech issue–Artillery was available. I don’t know for sure but I really want to believe that Air Force Fighters, Bombers or crop dusters would have flown that way if allowed. Same of course goes for Navy, Marine and Army air. We have the resources they just weren’t deployed and that’s whats criminal.
Cole…let me add this. We are on the same page with this. I’m absolutely positive without having ever met you that you’re as disheartened about this incident as I am. I just think (as you indicated) that we might be looking at this from different perspectives. I just hope our leadership is doing something about this. I am beginning to have my doubts though…
To the poster “KragCulloden”:
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
You wrote: “The CEP on precision weaponry doesn’t magically detiorate because its dropped from a B-1 instead of a Super-Hornet. The CEP doesn’t magically shrink because the ordnance is released from a turboprop.”
I think you didn’t get my point, but I already sort of expected that, and I learned to be especially patient with U.S. American posters.
If a HAND GRENADE must be thrown as far as possible not to harm its user, and even 25mm rounds have minimal safety flight distances, how tiny – do you think – would “your” bomber-dropped precision-guided ammunitions have to be to safely interfere in skirmishes?
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
You wrote (in a post before) : “The heavy bombers now have the same spotting capability as tactical jets, and deliver the same ordnance with the same accuracy and precision”.
Is that your sincere motive to fly higher or… are “your” 21st Century fighter-bomber aces just too fearful of that half-blind Taliban peasant’s stray bullet, hence the new stratospheric weapons release altitude? Why not drop precision-guided ammunition straight away from the Space Shuttle? Hey, this beats even U.A.V.s: You wouldn’t even have to be on planet Earth to win any wars down here! And Pat Tillman and “Captain Matt Freeman” and Elmer Bayou and Billy Bob III would still be alive today!
To TEARY , distraught Christian at the redaction computer:
Get over it, most infantrymen in the World fight without any air support, it’s no big deal for us (not even for Vietnamese).
Now imagine IF WE HAD ( HAD ) ALWAYS air support… Next would be nuking our cities, correct?
How does one adequately explain fair fights to you spoiled, constantly cheating U.S. Americans? My friends, it’s been nice to know you, but you can’t rely always on unfair advantages in war, like top technology, superior logistics, C.A.S. etc. ! At some point you simply HAVE TO start dying, like your enemies too! YES , dying can be awfully sad and slow and painful and irreversible, but it could be worse: You could also return zombified, but still lucid enough to soak up that all your friends snuggle in your beds and in your WAGs! In your line of job, being unrecognizably maimed or killed is just a working accident! And you get paid for that, didn’t they tell you?
freefallingbomb
you stupid son of a bitch. get off this board.
At Mike J – You’re in kid-at-Christmas fantasy land. I’m trying to discuss realistic possibilities. The “gee I want both and this and this also” thing is cute from a 3 year old but exceedingly naive, and boring, from ages beyond that.
I’ll leave you to your dreaming and not intrude on it any further with that SOB called “reality”.
freefallingbomb – I mistakenly replied to you thinking you a serious individual. I see now you are the comic relief. Please, carry on. You are quite entertaining in a pathetic, envy-racked, angry-man sort of way. Carry on!
I realize freefallingbomb is trolling here, but I can’t help but respond.
The goal of a war isn’t to have a “fair fight”. This isn’t Europe in the 1700′s. Of course we want our military to do everything it can to have every advantage possible. I hardly call that being spoiled. I call it being smart.
“No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”
OK, let’s keep the back and forth. It’s kind of fun. I’ll choose to ignore your first part because it’s so far out there that it makes my head hurt. I can’t seriously debate against a paragraph that brings up moon-landing conspiracy theories.
The quote, first off, was from General Patton. You’re obviously not from the U.S., but I’m going to assume you know who he is. It’s a quote meant to convey that the whole “die for your country” mantra isn’t going to win a war.
That’s not to say that you can’t take casualties. But it should be the goal of any armed force to minimize your casualties while still winning the war. My response was that flying 20k feet up to prevent casualties while still effectively killing the enemy is not just logical, it is smart. What is the point of having planes shot out of the sky if you can do the same thing at no risk. The problem the U.S. exhibits, at times, is we do so much to prevent casualties that we forget the whole “win the war” part.
Now to your response…
Let’s take your examples, shall we?
“1) Rome lost practically every single battle against King Pyrrhus of Epirus, yet it won the whole campaign and retained its independence (hence the expression “Pyrrhic victory”).” Correct. You fail to mention WHY it’s called a Pyrrhic victory. King Pyrrhus lost so many of his own men in his “win” that he was unable to continue his campaign. The Romans dying didn’t win them the war, the killing of King Pyrrhus’ men did.
“2) The Soviets lost uncomparably more soldiers (and civilians) than the Nazis, yet they won too. It’s still their country now.”
Again, the Soviets sacrificed nearly 17 million civilians and soldiers in the war with the Nazi’s. The deaths of 17 million didn’t win them the war. Inflicting heavy casulties on the Nazi’s while losing those lives is what won them their part of the war. During the majority of those loses, the Soviets were, arguable, losing the war in a major way. It wasn’t until they started inflicting heavy Nazi loses (St. Petersburg, for example) that they started having any chance of winning.
You think if the Nazi’s had taken no loses that there would be a Russia today just because 17 million people died?
“3) The Vietnamese lost many more fighters (and civilians) than you U.S. Americans, yet they also won against you. They’re still in their own country today.”
Not sure how many ways to make the same point… the deaths didn’t win the war. The U.S. didn’t lose the will to continue due to the stacks of Viet Cong bodies piling up. It was war weariness along with mounting U.S. casualties. The same thing that’s going on in Afghanistan.
“4) The Lebanese lost many more fighters (and civilians) than the Jews in 2006, and the Gazans still do, but it is invariably the Jews who get a classy nutcheck. Now it’s Hezbollah, Syria and Iran all over the place.”
Not really sure what you’re talking about on this one… Israel took chunks of Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt and held it quite successfully. Israel giving back the Golan Heights and the Gaza Strip has nothing to do with dead Lebanese. It had more to do with international pressure. If it wasn’t for the U.S. and other countries trying for “peace in the middle east”, pressuring Israel to continuously compromise and give back Arab land, I doubt all the dead Lebanese or Palestinians in the world would have gotten Gaza back.
Krag-
That mischaracterizes what I said. In a perfect world, I’d like to have all the air I want.
In this world, a light recce aircraft, armed or not but overhead, could be worth far more than a fully loaded heavy 10 minutes out. And, again, it’s a false choice. The Light Attack/ Armed Reconnaissance aircraft is required to be well armed for fighting insurgents.
I haven’t seen you respond yet to the fact that the ROE got changed due to high collateral damage caused, in part, by your “best option” heavy bombers. That’s reality, too.