Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
Obviously. Further and as you know, that rate is subject to numerous variables and to fudging. IIRC, that quoted Fire Force rate has been called by 'inflated' some who were present. I have no intention of debating that as it is, as I said, broadly irrelevant to this thread.
I would love to know who these "some" were.

There was no incentive to inflate the kills and in any event the Selous Scouts pseudo teams would have pretty accurate numbers on who fire force was called out on. They would say they have a group of 20 for us and we would respond. and at the end of the day there were 17/8 bodies that is what went into the SITREP. Quire simple.

These are Selous Scout figures that I only came across years later. On the ground we took each call-out as it happened, one at a time. Stats were not our game at the time. What we did realise was that we had one real chance to get that insurgent on that given day and we went for it as best we could.

As a matter of fact, unlike you, I do know. It is not broadly replicable in Afghanistan for several reasons -- even though variations on it are being conducted constantly and have been since 2001. There are many helicopter assaults and a number of small parachute assaults. Note also there is little in the news media about those operations...

Fire Force will not be broadly replicated in Afghanistan for two reasons. The US Army is too risk averse and the operational methodology has limited utility in the effort in Afghanistan as it is currently structured (that could change and the techniques can be used as needed as they are today -- but it is unlikely to change to include large scale use, there simply is no need). Both those reasons are driven by the fact that there is no overarching national interest in the war of choice, not existential, that is Afghanistan today.
Come on Ken. Clearly you know next to nothing about the fire force concept. The fire force concept is neither straight forward heli-borne assault nor is it merely a parachute drop. It took us years to figure out and then perfect.

By risk averse do you mean they don't want a helicopter shot down?

And yes the situation on any battlefield is fluid so yes things could change which may require a change of tactics. So maybe it was not correct to say the fire force concept "will not be broadly replicated in Afghanistan" but rather that it may at some future point be attempted to a larger or lesser degree.

But I tend to agree with you that as long as the desire to close with and kill the enemy is not allowed (ROE) or does not exist then correctly there is no point in introducing something which would lead to an increased kill rate with an associated higher risk of casualties.