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Thread: The UK in Afghanistan

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    Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
    I'm pretty much stuck to see how deaths from IEDs can be more tragic than any form of KIA/WIA. I don't remember any IED hit in Ireland (including Warren Point) as being any more demoralising apart from the numbers involved.

    ...but the point is not "IEDs". The point is criminally small numbers of Support Helicopters and too few troops deployed. The lack of resources is the issue. The IED hits are just the one of the symptom...... and more helo is not going to save you from the bomb planted in the wall of an alley, command detonated by string.
    I did not say more tragic I used the words "exasperating" and "psychologically damaging'. All KIA are tragic and even 30 odd years after the fact I/we deal with parents/siblings who have never gotten over the deaths of their loved ones. The failure to demand more and make more use of helicopters and the failure to address the IED effectively is incompetence on a scale of the "Charge of the Light Brigade". Wasted lives, broken families... all due to senior military and political incompetence. Heads should roll... oh that's the French method... stretched then?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Infanteer View Post
    Although troops to task is a good factor in IEDs, I've seen insurgents get IEDs emplaced right under the noses of friendly forces. They are pretty crafty.
    Crafty yes, but just as likely to be because the friendly forces are "switched off" or just plain dumb, yes?

    I find the claim of support helicopters to be a bit of a red herring. IEDs aren't necessarily confined to highways where Coalition vehicles move - a large percentage of IEDs I witnessed (first or second hand) targeted dismounted patrols. Unless a Chinook is going to drop me off 800 meters from the COP to the village, I don't think it's going to make a huge dent in IED casualties.

    Veterans of Northern Ireland should be real familiar with this....
    Surely you must understand that if you reduce your use of roads by 70, 80, 90% then the rate based incidence of road based IEDs must reduce commensurately, yes?

    Why drop you off as far as 800m from the village? Use smaller choppers and get the troops right up close. Which will drop the off road IED risk by how much?

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    Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
    Well aware, but I submit that on route IEDs and all the personnel and efforts assigned to securing them, might be better used if 90% of tactical and administrative movement was done by helicopter. In the eyes of most of the men I talk to, lack of Support Helicopters is a very significant issue.
    Absolutely. We are on the same page on this.

    In South Armagh, in the 1980's 90% of tactical and administrative moves were done by Support Helicopter. Yes IEDs still threatened dismounted patrols, but it made the bad guys life very much harder.
    Again yes. And if the use of dismounted patrols is more intelligently planned then the risk reduces even more.

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    Council Member William F. Owen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
    The failure to demand more and make more use of helicopters and the failure to address the IED effectively is incompetence on a scale of the "Charge of the Light Brigade". Wasted lives, broken families... all due to senior military and political incompetence. Heads should roll... oh that's the French method... stretched then?
    I'll grant you that the failure to have enough helicopters is unforgivable, but what do you suggest on IEDs?

    a.) The UK is one of worlds most experienced Armies in IEDs. The devices faced in NI were many more times sophisticated than those seen in Helmand. I cannot see how they can do more than they can.

    b.) You are almost picking on the one area where the Army cannot be said to be at fault. Technology is cutting edge and there simply is no better trained force facing that threat. I was introduced to all the counter IED stuff back in 1980, during basic training. They've been doing it a very, very long time.

    ....and the Charge of the Light Brigade, was a very sound decision, "prevent the carrying away of the guns", brilliantly executed, but sadly into the wrong valley, as the man writing the orders did not know what the Cavalry could see - cos in those days Maps were Army level assets.
    Last edited by William F. Owen; 05-02-2010 at 12:49 PM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kiwigrunt View Post
    Just a thought. If there was to be a radical shift towards this 90% is it than not likely that the TB would react by dropping focus on IEDs, and RPG-ing the odd helicopter in a more target rich sky? Just the odd one (relative to a great number in the air) would possibly equal or exceed the casualty rate currently inflicted by IEDs. I think again of “Blackhawk Down” and the large number of helicopters lost in Vietnam. Those two Blackhawks were near enough empty; they could have had half a platoon on board. And the choppers in Nam were smaller than what we typically use today.

    We’ll probably never find out though, because those chopper will indeed not likely become available at those rates.
    Not quite. The current situation and unsustainable for Brit forces.

    Yes there is a risk to the choppers and one would assume that the air tactics
    would evolve to preempt any TB threat.

    In addition it would provide the opportunity to concentrate forces quickly in one place to up the kill rate per contact so that there is not as now a steady increase in the level of experience of the TB forces who are able to "shoot and skoot" and live to fight again.

    The use of support helicopters to replace road transport is one thing but I'm not sure the Brits will initiate an agressive use of helicopters in a combat roll despite having had a sniff of the potential in Sierra Leone. I'm afraid it will come down to a US unit commanded by a man of vision and flair who will start the ball rolling. What about the Mountain guys with choppers from some National Guard chopper unit... they might just have the ability to think out of the box.

    (PS: contact me and I'll put in touch with people now living in the US who have knowledge to advise on had to kick start this process... ;-)
    Last edited by JMA; 05-02-2010 at 01:00 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
    I'll grant you that the failure to have enough helicopters is unforgivable, but what do you suggest on IEDs?
    Avoid them.

    a.) The UK is one of worlds most experienced Armies in IEDs. The devices faced in NI were many more times sophisticated than those seen in Helmand. I cannot see how they can do more than they can.
    Well the question must be asked as to where this experience lies. I guess we should run a test of the knowledge the individual squaddie or Tom has in these matters rather than assume that all this experience from over the years has been effectively passed down to those likely to trigger this things or have them triggered when they pass by.

    b.) You are almost picking on the one area where the Army cannot be said to be at fault. Technology is cutting edge and there simply is no better trained force facing that threat. I was introduced to all the counter IED stuff back in 1980, during basic training. They've been doing it a very, very long time.
    Some of this answered above. I would be wary of passing all the blame to the politicians. As I have said the basic soldier deploying to Afghanistan should have more than an introduction if they are to be given a fighting chance of avoiding these IEDs. Formal training, regular refreshers etc etc. I'll wager it is not happening in the detail it is required.

    ....and the Charge of the Light Brigade, was a very sound decision, "prevent the carrying away of the guns", brilliantly executed, but sadly into the wrong valley, as the man writing the orders did not know what the Cavalry could see - cos in those days Maps were Army level assets.
    So like the current situation in Afghanistan where excellent troops with good training and infantry equipment are being thrown into battle using the wrong tactics and employment methods. Lambs to the slaughter.

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    Council Member William F. Owen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
    Avoid them.
    How? Really, give me specifics.
    Well the question must be asked as to where this experience lies. I guess we should run a test of the knowledge the individual squaddie or Tom has in these matters rather than assume that all this experience from over the years has been effectively passed down to those likely to trigger this things or have them triggered when they pass by.
    Sorry JMA, but what is it you know, that all collective OP Barma training, Op Klara, training doesn't cover?
    Formal training, regular refreshers etc etc. I'll wager it is not happening in the detail it is required.
    And you'd loose the wager badly. They get all that in spades. Most of it is rightly classified. Constant tech INT updates. Constant TTP reviews and equipment updates.
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    - The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
    - If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
    Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition

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    Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
    How? Really, give me specifics.
    If you reduce the use of road transport you reduce the the possible incidence of road located IEDs. Extend that to reducing the amount of aimless wandering around (which seems to pass for patrolling) and that will further reduce the exposure to IEDs. The all round benefit will be significant.

    Sorry JMA, but what is it you know, that all collective OP Barma training, Op Klara, training doesn't cover?
    The casualty statistics scream out that something is not working. The outcome informs the opinion of the training or lack thereof.

    And you'd loose the wager badly. They get all that in spades. Most of it is rightly classified. Constant tech INT updates. Constant TTP reviews and equipment updates.
    You say they get all the training and refreshers in the required detail yet the results through the casualty rates inform us that there is either a problem with the training or with the soldiers themselves. Either/or or both.

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    Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
    The casualty statistics scream out that something is not working. The outcome informs the opinion of the training or lack thereof
    I can tell you what's not working: Peace. It's war, therefore the casualties.

    The qualitative, quantitative and material superiority of the Western forces is so great that the repertoire of their enemies is limited to almost nothing.
    The Western forces' losses are accordingly minimal.

    Let's recount the Taliban's repertoire:
    - remote controlled mines
    - inaccurate RPG fire
    - inaccurate small arms and machine gun fire
    - light/medium mortar shoot & scoot harrassment
    - light MRL shoot & scoot harrassment
    - violence against civilians
    - occasionally overwhelming small isolated ANP personnel

    That's almost no repertoire. It's far below the abilities of an average infantry battalion. Judging by feeling, I'd say their repertoire includes about 0.01% of the full modern warfare potential.
    A capable enemy would have destroyed dozens of outposts and convoys.

    There's a decreasing rate of return (a decreasing marginal rate) in effect. You can do more and more to limit the enemy's abilities (repertoire) to even less, but it's unlikely that you'll eliminate his repertoire completely and you'll get ever less effect for your effort.


    It's fine to think & discuss about better training, but let's set our expectations on a realistic level.
    There will always be troubles in war, and the TB as an enemy have almost been reduced to almost no combat capability in comparison to what's possible in war.
    A mere 500 WW2 snipers could have caused much more harm than the TB did.

    I doubt that fighting better would help much anyway. The problem is the identification of the enemy when he attempts to avoid detection (among the populace).
    The military isn't going to achieve much unless it makes progress in regard to the ID problem.


    Btw, it's a good thing that war without friendly casualties hasn't been invented yet (save for the Kosovo Air War). We'd have far too many warmongers ruining countries if we could wage and "win" wars with no friendly casualties.
    A few more casualties in a stupid war may actually save us from another stupid war with much, much more casualties.

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    Council Member Chris jM's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
    If you reduce the use of road transport you reduce the the possible incidence of road located IEDs. Extend that to reducing the amount of aimless wandering around (which seems to pass for patrolling) and that will further reduce the exposure to IEDs. The all round benefit will be significant.
    Claiming that ISAF is engaged in 'aimless wandering around' is a rather large accusation to be leveling. Where is the evidence of this, and how else do you propose ISAF forces secure the population in Afghanistan? Descending via helicopter for every Key Leader Engagement or info-gathering mission is neither possible nor desirable, and the nature of the insurgency is such that direct action ala Fireforce tactics is nigh on impossible given the tendency for the Tb to 'melt away' from sight when they don't want to be identified.

    I would dispute both the fact that current patrolling is 'aimless wandering around' and also the claim that we should conduct less ground patrols. IEDs are an evil, but if we start fighting the IED threat in isolation we won't be fighting the causation of the IEDs - the insurgency itself.
    Last edited by Chris jM; 05-03-2010 at 12:53 AM. Reason: edited for spelling
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    Council Member William F. Owen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
    The casualty statistics scream out that something is not working. The outcome informs the opinion of the training or lack thereof.
    So how do you explain the UK forces discover and recover far more IEDs than they trigger ( 75% + )?
    You say they get all the training and refreshers in the required detail yet the results through the casualty rates inform us that there is either a problem with the training or with the soldiers themselves. Either/or or both.
    Sorry, but you are seeing something in the casualty statistics that I am not.
    If you are trying to allege that the UK is poorly trained when it comes to dealing with IEDs, then you are plain wrong. Who is better trained?
    Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"

    - The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
    - If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
    Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition

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    Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
    Crafty yes, but just as likely to be because the friendly forces are "switched off" or just plain dumb, yes?
    Sure. Too bad you weren't out there to set them straight.

    Surely you must understand that if you reduce your use of roads by 70, 80, 90% then the rate based incidence of road based IEDs must reduce commensurately, yes?
    Sure. All but 1 incident during my time in country that resulted in a KIA involved attacks against dismounted patrols. Helicopters and smaller AOs eliminate the need for longer road moves, but road moves can never be eliminated 100% and the enemy simply switches to targeting dismounts.

    Fact of the matter is that the enemy will use IEDs to target your TTPs, regardless of what they are. I've seen this firsthand. Your claim of ending or significantly curtailing the IED threat by simply getting more helicopters is, according to my experience, baseless. Most of my business was done without vehicles and IEDs still remained the primary threat to Coalition Forces.

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    Council Member William F. Owen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Infanteer View Post
    Your claim of ending or significantly curtailing the IED threat by simply getting more helicopters is, according to my experience, baseless. Most of my business was done without vehicles and IEDs still remained the primary threat to Coalition Forces.
    I think a distinction needs to be made here. The UK is/was critically short of helicopter lift.
    If you have more helicopters, you can significantly reduce military road traffic - as shown in South Armagh in the 1980's.
    For me personally, that is the limit of my conjecture. Helicopters are good housekeeping. They do not solve the IED problem, in and of themselves.
    Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"

    - The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
    - If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
    Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition

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    Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
    I can tell you what's not working: Peace. It's war, therefore the casualties.

    The qualitative, quantitative and material superiority of the Western forces is so great that the repertoire of their enemies is limited to almost nothing.
    The Western forces' losses are accordingly minimal.

    Let's recount the Taliban's repertoire:
    - remote controlled mines
    - inaccurate RPG fire
    - inaccurate small arms and machine gun fire
    - light/medium mortar shoot & scoot harrassment
    - light MRL shoot & scoot harrassment
    - violence against civilians
    - occasionally overwhelming small isolated ANP personnel
    Of the seven items in the Taliban's repertoire the first one, IEDs, is brutally effective. So much so that a disproportionate amount of time and resources are being spent on actions defending against this threat.

    That's almost no repertoire. It's far below the abilities of an average infantry battalion. Judging by feeling, I'd say their repertoire includes about 0.01% of the full modern warfare potential.
    A capable enemy would have destroyed dozens of outposts and convoys.

    There's a decreasing rate of return (a decreasing marginal rate) in effect. You can do more and more to limit the enemy's abilities (repertoire) to even less, but it's unlikely that you'll eliminate his repertoire completely and you'll get ever less effect for your effort.
    Its strange that such an ineffective force is able to tie down increasing numbers of coalition forces. Again we need to assess the need for evry convoy and the tactical necessity of every outpost.

    If the effectiveness of the IED tactic is severly curtailed they may well have to resort to greater use of the other options in their repertoire which will allow you to get them out into the open where you can engage them. They don't want that, that's why they concentrate on IEDs and they are for the moment calling the shots.

    (other stuff snipped)

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris jM View Post
    Claiming that ISAF is engaged in 'aimless wandering around' is a rather large accusation to be leveling. Where is the evidence of this, and how else do you propose ISAF forces secure the population in Afghanistan? Descending via helicopter for every Key Leader Engagement or info-gathering mission is neither possible nor desirable, and the nature of the insurgency is such that direct action ala Fireforce tactics is nigh on impossible given the tendency for the Tb to 'melt away' from sight when they don't want to be identified.

    I would dispute both the fact that current patrolling is 'aimless wandering around' and also the claim that we should conduct less ground patrols. IEDs are an evil, but if we start fighting the IED threat in isolation we won't be fighting the causation of the IEDs - the insurgency itself.
    The Brits have been using the patrol base strategy (as opposed to the ink blot) so when you put a company in a patrol base they are expected to patrol, yes?

    What type of patrols are carried out? Must be fighting patrols because they can't be anything else when platoons and companies go walk about. Are these patrols based on good intelligence (or any intelligence at all?) What are the chances that they will 'bump' into armed Taliban moving around in a group?

    The wheel is being reinvented here. I and thousands (maybe millions) of soldiers like me spent days, weeks, months, years of our lives on walk abouts in the hope of a chance contact with the enemy. We wasted millions of man hours and it seems each new generation knows better and will do the same.

    What are the statistics for contact initiated by Brit patrols which lead to positive outcomes? Not talking about those initiated by small arms or IEDs by the Taliban. Like vehicle movement routine patrol patterns allow the TB to place IEDs for use with maximum effect.

    I have no opinion on whether Fire Force tactics would work or be suitable in the Afghanistan theater. I just don't know the situation there. And of course there are those who may not really understand the fire force concept to even know if it would work there.

    I'm not sure that given the shortage of helicopters available to Brit forces whether the potential use for helicopters has been fully explored.
    Last edited by JMA; 05-03-2010 at 08:55 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
    So how do you explain the UK forces discover and recover far more IEDs than they trigger ( 75% + )?
    That comparison is cold comfort to the soldiers killed, maimed and mutilated by the remaining 25%

    When it comes to life and death situation 75/100 is surely not a pass.

    Sorry, but you are seeing something in the casualty statistics that I am not.
    If you are trying to allege that the UK is poorly trained when it comes to dealing with IEDs, then you are plain wrong. Who is better trained?
    75% is just not good enough when the remainder result in death or terrible wounds.

    Who is better trained? I don't know, we are talking about the Brits. What are the US stats? I don't know but it really doesn't matter as we are talking about the Brits here.

    a 25% failure rate with the accompanying kill and wounded is not good eneough.

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    [QUOTE=Infanteer;97759]Sure. Too bad you weren't out there to set them straight.

    I had my own problems in my own time. I could have and probably should have done better. So it is out of experience that when I see or hear something like that that the lights start flashing and the alarm bells start ringing. I know that tired and/or bored troops tend to switch off (mine certainly did) I know that troops tend to find shortcuts for routine time consuming tasks. You do appreciate the difference between good soldiers who are switched off and those who know no better?

    Sure. All but 1 incident during my time in country that resulted in a KIA involved attacks against dismounted patrols. Helicopters and smaller AOs eliminate the need for longer road moves, but road moves can never be eliminated 100% and the enemy simply switches to targeting dismounts.
    Sever wounding of the enemy in war is often better than a clinical KIA. We are seeing that in the mounting alarm and horror in the UK as the maimed and mutilated amputees become more and more visual in society. We are not talking loading the medical facilities here we are talking about the mounting subliminal paranoia amongst serving troops of the IED threat.

    Fact of the matter is that the enemy will use IEDs to target your TTPs, regardless of what they are. I've seen this firsthand. Your claim of ending or significantly curtailing the IED threat by simply getting more helicopters is, according to my experience, baseless. Most of my business was done without vehicles and IEDs still remained the primary threat to Coalition Forces.
    Once we have gained agreement that only absolutely vital and necessary road movement is allowed on Afghanistan roads we can start to look towards applying the same principle to foot patrols.

    In Northern Ireland the Brits through using helicopters for troop transport largely neutralised the road based IED threat and prevented the scale of waste of manpower and resources trying to protect road movement as we see in Afghanistan.

    If you don't drive on roads you can't he hit by and IED... pretty simple logic.

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    Council Member Chris jM's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
    What type of patrols are carried out? Must be fighting patrols because they can't be anything else when platoons and companies go walk about. Are these patrols based on good intelligence (or any intelligence at all?) What are the chances that they will 'bump' into armed Taliban moving around in a group?

    The wheel is being reinvented here. I and thousands (maybe millions) of soldiers like me spent days, weeks, months, years of our lives on walk abouts in the hope of a chance contact with the enemy. We wasted millions of man hours and it seems each new generation knows better and will do the same.
    The purpose of patrolling as it was told to me was primarily to 'seize and retain the initiative'. Walking around for a 'chance contact' is what I hope we're not doing, and in my limited experience and exposure it isn't. Yes, everyone is ready for the chance encounter but by patrolling we are ensuring that the Taliban don't have freedom of movement to access the roads, plant IEDs and plan ambushes. On patrol ISAF members are talking to locals, checking on ANP activities, providing a security presence and gaining valuable intelligence we wouldn't get from any other means unless we were meeting face to face with the populace. COIN doctrine as it stands tells us that we are patrolling in order to secure the population from Taliban (or at the very least, denying and harassing the ability of Taliban to access, move amongst, threaten and conduct political activities within the population).

    If we follow your course of action and effectively leave the roads, limiting our patrolling to our distributed patrol bases supplied by an armada of helicopters, then what? I'd suggest that the Taliban would focus their strength on our weakness, as that's what I'd do. They'd harass civilian traffic, impose illegal VCPs, conduct intimidation activities and generally be all round bad, nasty, despicable and horrible human beings all along the roads where we are not. The ANP would suffer a huge set-back both in the eyes of the population and in their ability to police their country (that's putting it lightly - I would suggest they would collapse as a police force if they were regularly challenged along their lines of communication), and ANA would be forced to endure far more difficult tasks when they deploy - unless we helo them everywhere, too?

    That's hardly an end-state we want to be working too.
    Last edited by Chris jM; 05-03-2010 at 10:16 AM. Reason: expanded upon a sentence
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    Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
    What type of patrols are carried out? Must be fighting patrols because they can't be anything else when platoons and companies go walk about. Are these patrols based on good intelligence (or any intelligence at all?) What are the chances that they will 'bump' into armed Taliban moving around in a group?
    JMA,

    SWC has had a rather long discussion on patrolling in the thread entitled What is presence patrolling? If you take some time to review it, then you'll see that many of put serious thought and reflection into what our troops are doing.

    Yes, sometimes we are relearning lessons of the past and sometimes units have bad leaders, but it is a mistake to generalize that onto the entire military.

    On a side note, no one here is discounting the impact of casualties in war. Many of us are intimately familiar with it. So, you are amoung like-minded individuals. Through discussion and sometimes lively debate, we try as you are doing to find better solutions to seemingly intractable problems.

    v/r

    Mike

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    Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
    Its strange that such an ineffective force is able to tie down increasing numbers of coalition forces. Again we need to assess the need for evry convoy and the tactical necessity of every outpost.

    If the effectiveness of the IED tactic is severly curtailed they may well have to resort to greater use of the other options in their repertoire which will allow you to get them out into the open where you can engage them. They don't want that, that's why they concentrate on IEDs and they are for the moment calling the shots.
    That's the difference between the potential and the remaining repertoire. Sure, they could man lines, dig their own outposts, set up guns at valley entries, man permanent checkpoints, siege and storm cities - but all this has already been diminished due to their inferiority.

    The IED capability is also mitigated by about 50-95% by intelligence, detection, jamming, passive protection and medical services.

    What's left is an enemy with inferior numbers of fighters and a ridiculously small repertoire, incapable of doing (and getting away with doing) almost everything in the modern conventional war playbook.

    I'd like to stress that imposing further restrictions will most likely require ever larger effort for ever smaller gains. All cheap answers have most likely already been given.


    Let's say we get starship Enterprise-D in orbit and they detect and disarm every IED in Afghanistan.

    At that point, the TB would likely divert their efforts away from IEDs and either attempt to enlarge their repertoire or to spend more effort on other parts of their repertoire.
    They could buy and smuggle some 12.7 or 14.5mm rifles or produce some, add a cheap 4x optic (used PSO-1, for example) and let men with good eyesight snipe.

    They could also increase sabotage effort - or focus on actions against the civilian populace (which would mean that solving the IED problem would have been contrary to the ISAF mission of providing security).
    They could as well turn almost completely to politics and spend money on bribing instead of mercs.

    To squeeze the IED out of their repertoire would most likely not lead to mission success in itself.

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