Combat Outpost Penetrated in Afghanistan, 9 dead
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25663321/
No one else seems to have brought this up yet.
It appears that this remote unit (not sure if PLT or CO) had the perimeter breached by Taliban before being repulsed by the defenders and aircraft.
I am suprised that "several hundred" Taliban were able to mass and do this kind of assault. Will be interesting to find out if the perimeter was inflitrated first and then assaulted externally (infiltration), or if the perimeter was overrun by attacking militants.
Not a good sign when the enemy is massed and organized enough to do this.
Are we in/headed for Phase III insurgency in Afghanistan? I haven't read about such pitched battles of this scale before in OEF. From reading "Bear Went Over the Mountain" I know this was common for the Russians.
Thoughts?
PPPPPPP. The seven Ps always are with us.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Rank amateur
CNN reported that an "observation platform" was overrun. The base itsself wasn't. Someone who knows what they're talking about can comment further, but it sounds to me like someone may have made a fatal mistake.
People will do that. Poor planning kills more than poor execution. Shame we're not all infallible but we aren't; errors will be made -- and more numbers of troops just mean more errors.
Quote:
...Sounds like the platform was set up so that the bad guys could generate an intense volume of fire on it from civilian buildings, but the good guys couldn't return fire en masse because of the civilians.
Possibly true; some of the pictures I've seen of the siting and construction of OPs leave me furious that such tactical incompetence is allowed; that and the tendency to bunch up or herd. ALL the western Armies are bad on both those points. That's why I keep ranting about better training and concentrating on the basics, it's the little things that get you killed and it is criminal to have to learn how to do it right while under fire when that just is not necessary.
Quote:
Details are still sketchy, but if the deceased were more worried about being amongst the population than ensuring they always had a firepower advantage, then B is very relevant. (Assuming my assumptions are correct of course, which they may not be.)
Not sure B is relevant even in that case. Gian wants High Intensity Conflict / warfare training and advocates greater application of force -- I presume the latter is that to which you refer while I was essentially referring to the former. I did that because the harsher application of force is not an option. Rightly or wrongly international consensus and current US Government guidance is to minimize civilian casualties even to the extent of increasing own casualties. This, if that is the case, will be just one more out of many in both theaters where our attempts to minimize civilian casualties has increased our own. Whether you, Gian or I -- or the Troops in contact -- agree or not is immaterial; that's the guidance and it is highly unlikely to change barring an existential war.
I suspect they were more worried about minimizing civilian casualties than they were about being among the population though the OP was established in that location in an effort to control the population. As I've said elsewhere, controlling the population isn't all that easy, may not be all that desirable and as I said above, it entails putting Platoons out where they become targets -- the option being to adopt a fortress mentality (which IMO is not at all a good idea). Counterinsurgency is not fun or nice, mostly due to that factor; if it's done correctly, the friendly casualty count is always going to go up (one reason why doing it right was deliberately avoided by many senior people in the early days in both Afghanistan and Iraq). The seven Ps? Piss Poor Prior Planning Promotes Poor Performance. They've been around even longer than I have... :D
High intensity ops in Afghanistan
The bad guys have massed before in Afghanistan. When I served there in 2006-7, the US border outposts were from time to time subjected to attacks that required the employment of claymores and final protective fires - that pretty much defines for me high-intensity, if only on a localized scale. We thought these were typically used to mask the infiltration of larger/high-value groups across the border. And in and around Helmand province there were Canadian-led assaults against large numbers of bad guys. They used the ruined irrigation system as ready-made entrenchments, covered obstacles with fire, and held-back reserves capable of rudimentary fire and maneuver. Eavesdropping reminded me of the NTC at times, with engineers being used to breach obstacles, danger-close air support, and integration of artillery with maneuver.
It's one reason the Canadians shipped tanks to Afghanistan.
US troops pull out of Afghan base after attack
Quote:
By AMIR SHAH
Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- U.S. and Afghan troops have abandoned a remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan where militants killed nine American soldiers this week, officials said Wednesday.
Compounding the military setback, insurgents quickly seized the village of Wanat in Nuristan province after driving out the handful of police left behind to defend government offices, Afghan officials said.
Some 50 officers were headed to the area to try to regain control, said Ghoolam Farouq, a senior provincial police official.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...MPLATE=DEFAULT
Sorry if this was posted elsewhere....is this true?