Quote Originally Posted by Rank amateur View Post
1) Do they have enough manpower to do what was suggested?
2) Why do you say "None of the marines in the video can see a target?" Reporter said they identified fire from 5 pairs of bad guys, hit several.
3) Village was cleared with no casualties. I'm not sure Obama was responsible, but it doesn't seem like a bad thing to be responsible for.
I'm always loathe to judge from my armchair far away, but the fire discipline didn't seem to be there relative to a unit w/500 engagements. Of course, this is a 3 min video covering an hour of combat. I was surprised to see the M4 "Pray and Spray" above the wall a few times. A lot of rapid semi-auto fire, which isn't good for accuracy. Fine if you have to suppress, and I couldn't judge the volume of incoming fire. I did think that SAW gunner was liberal with the whole 3-5 sec burst concept. When added to the other video posted a few weeks ago (ambush along a road), I am a little concerned that the mounted concept of OIF (always near vehicle, and on the roads) may teach bad habits for A-Stan regarding fire discipline, ammo conservation, and fire/maneuver.

As I pointed out to Bill though, there was a good NYT article a few months ago about a well executed deliberate ambush by our guys on the Taliban.

Again, hard to make sweeping judgments from short video clips.

Niel