Thanks for those links Ken (post 9), I too had not seen some of them.
@JMA.
Further to Rex’s last post and repeated emphasis by Ken and others that both the terrain and the enemy in A-stan are very different from what you encountered in Rhodesia,
this article (Ken’s third link) is rather sobering indeed with regards to the relative, or should I say total, incompetence of your enemy.
This is by no means a criticism of the Rhodesian forces, which going by what I’ve read over the years I hold in high regard. However, an enemy as incompetent and almost docile as the one described in this article does paint a picture very different from what we are seeing in A-stan with the Taliban. They too may not be the most competent imaginable, and may by and large be crap shots, but they do appear to be actually
using their AKs, which may go a long way to explaining why they initiate most contacts as opposed to your experience in Rhodesia. Especially the way (as described in the article) that you would advance to contact in extended line and just clean them up as if you picking up rubbish off a lawn is not likely to work in A-stan, where the ‘rubbish’ will shoot before you do.
I wonder if even a technique like Drake Shooting would be as effective or even achievable with a more proactive and aggressive enemy.
Also, your ability to, over time, separate the terrs from the locals may not be so easily done in A-stan.
In Timor, we too had a QRF platoon with one or two Hueys on standby. But our ‘enemy’ was probably not far different from yours. Over the nearly four years there we lost two soldiers KIA (one Kiwi and one Nepalese), but overall we had little reason to fill our nappies.
I don’t know what the losses were for the Eagle Flights that Ken linked to, but if this sort of QRF actions were to become the norm than I should think that it will not take the Taliban long to come up with a suitable response which may give NATO a much larger KIA count then they currently experience with IEDs. And that of course, as we know by now, flies in the face of our current ‘safety first’ approach. The only good thing about that (tongue in cheek) would be that that would remove the IED issue out of the lime-light, since the percentages would swing the other way. And then we’d have people asking why NATO is so stupid and callous to use so many helicopters…
Using QRF as stand-off blocking forces to increase the likelihood of cold LZs may not work so well either, given the Taliban’s ability to melt into the population.
Now, I’m not saying that I disagree with you. I think QRFs are a good idea and are probably used in A-stan a lot more than we know anyway. But to make something like that THE tactic, as per Selous Scouts, is IMO likely to be much more difficult and painful than you seem to imply and believe. But then, I too am not on the ground….
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