LOSING SMALL WARS-British military failure in Iraq & Afghanistan

HellsAngel wrote: »

I remember a few months ago this embarrassing wiki leak:

UK troops were 'not up' to the task of securing Afghanistan's troubled Helmand province and the local governor pleaded for US reinforcements.
The claims were made by US diplomats, which were released by WikiLeaks in a new batch of cables.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/1203/wikileaks.html

3,000 infantrymen in an area the size of wales, what were they supposed to do ?

They were there for peace keeping, when things flared up 5 years ago they were under siege, some platoons in remote forward operating bases were under attack 24/7, cut off by road and supplied by air.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/afghanistan/article7146458.ece

They held on, but only just. The courage of 16 Air Assault Brigade’s defence of the “platoon houses” is now the stuff of military folklore.

But the first six months of the Helmand campaign were a disaster for a British mission beset from the start by poor planning and resourcing, weak intelligence, departmental infighting, charges of tactical recklessness, a dysfunctional command structure and an unforeseen Taleban resurgence.
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As British televisions broadcast the World Cup from Germany through the summer of 2006, 33 British servicemen were killed and about 100 more injured in the most intense period of fighting endured by British Forces in 50 years. While they were cut off in small bases, or platoon houses, there were extraordinary episodes of resistance and bravery. At Naw Zad, 40 Gurkhas held off 28 assaults in two weeksÍ at Sangin 100 paratroopers fought off 44 attacks in 25 daysÍ at Kajaki eight British soldiers and two dozen Afghans repelled 30 attacks in ten days.

HellsAngel wrote: »

"They held on, but only just." Only with the help of good old Uncle Sam yet again.

With American air support as well as RAF and other NATO air Forces. 25,000 US troops are now in the same area supported by 80 chinooks.

You sound as if you would have prefered they were wiped out.

16 Air Assaults bdes 2006 siege of Helmand is the stuff of legend. Maybe if other armies had shared their burden they would not have struggled so much, hey ?

You have to question this dumb Yank Generals take on the fact he seems to think they should have been out patrolling and winning the hearts and minds of locals in 2006 when they were under attack from thousands of insurgents, across Helmand in some cases with only a platoon or less supported by the Afghan army, cut off in remote FOBs.

In some FOBs they were so close to being over run they were told to destroy photographs and fix bayonets.

They were tested in a way most modern infantry are not nowadays and came up to scratch.

HellsAngel wrote: »

"16 Air Assaults bdes 2006 siege of Helmand is the stuff of legend." According to who ?? Let me guess...... according to 16 Air Assault Bde that's who !!! The Americans are the real deal, the place would fall apart without them. American helicopter support , that's the cutting factor.

It was the most intense fighting the Brits have experienced since Korea.

So your saying (as one example) a platoon of British infantry being cut off and holding out in 52 day siege (the longest the Brits have been involved with since WWII) in a remote FOB in Helmand before relief could get through not the stuff of military legend ?

No one is disputing the US militaries professionalism or logistical capabilty, the Brits get involved in such situations because they over stretch themselves, the fact they are sometimes under equipped and out numbered is what makes it more intresting.

Rorkes Drift, Helmand, Arnham, the Falklands to name a few. No one is disputing the Americans overwhelming firepower.

The history of the British army is one of Lions led by donkeys, nothing new there.

I dont dispute that the Brits sometimes get things wrong and f.....up, but your just trying to slag them them off where credit is due.


Siege of Musa Qala

By this time the Pathfinders had spent six weeks in the field, and they were beginning to show signs of exhaustion, while their equipment was becoming worn by constant use in difficult conditions. They were due to be relieved by the Danish Reconnaissance squadron, a 140-strong force equipped with MOWAG Eagle armoured vehicles. The Danish forces, accompanied by some British signals specialists, left Camp Bastion on July 21. As they approached Musa Qala from the West, the Pathfinders observed groups of Taliban regrouping to ambush them, and directed a Harrier GR7 against the insurgents, killing several.[21] The Taliban had blocked the road with barrels, and attacked the Danish column from three sides with machine guns and RPGs. The column halted when one Eagle was destroyed by a mine and its three crewmen were wounded, and, after having directed an airstrike from a B-1 bomber against Taliban positions, it withdrew into the desert, much to the dismay of the Pathfinders.[3] The garrison had now run out of food and water, and were reduced to drinking goats milk, while their ammunition was also running low, and they had no more batteries for their night vision devices. The Taliban chose December 24 to launch their largest attack against the district centre, in the form of a concerted assault by 300 militants against every side of the base. The attack opened with an RPG strike that destroyed one of the sangars, causing a Danish soldier to fall outside the compound. Private Mark Wilson of the Pathfinders used an old bedstead to climb the compound wall and help the injured Dane to safety under enemy fire, for which he was later awarded the Military Cross.[22] Air support took 90 minutes to arrive, during which the base was subjected to continuous fire, which would have been even heavier, if the Danish column hadn't intercepted Taliban reinforcements coming from Now Zad. On July 26, after coalition aircraft dropped six 1000-pound bombs on known Taliban positions, the relief force finally broke in to Musa Qala. There were no casualties, except for a Pathfinder sergeant who was accidentally shot by an ANP guard.[22]


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1531204/Troops-come-home-with-tales-of-heroism.html

The first troops to return from a summer of intense fighting in Afghanistan came home last night after some of the toughest battles the Army has seen in 50 years. The simple count of ammunition expended, 450,000 rounds of small arms fire, 4,300 artillery rounds and 1,000 grenades thrown – told its own story of the enormous gun battles.

A senior commander, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: "We went there to carry out reconstruction and we ended up fighting a war."

For the past four months the 3,500 troops of the Helmand Task Force, based around 3 Bn the Parachute Regiment, have been fighting with an intensity not seen since the Korean War. They lost 16 dead and 43 wounded.

For the first time in decades, artillery fired their guns over open sights, military policemen were turned into streetwise infantry fighters and Chinook pilots watched as rockets and bullets came within inches of downing their aircraft.



Some soldiers talked of frontline fighting akin to the First World War, others nonchalantly accepted "becoming accustomed" to incoming fire.

"If anybody tells me that the youth of today cannot hack it then that is complete bloody nonsense – they showed courage in spades out there and done us all proud," the senior commander said.

"These guys have faced an intensity of combat we have not faced for generations. It's been quite hairy but the guys pulled through."

A unit of the Para's elite Pathfinder platoon who had gone to the town of Musa Qala for a six-day operation ended up spending 52 days in the town, in combat for 26 of them.

The tactic of pushing out into Taliban-held towns in northern Helmand using platoon houses of 50 to 100 men to protect the areas had worked because it acted as a "breakwater" that kept the enemy away from more central areas.

Some patrols in the town of Sangin left their base knowing that there was a 90 per cent chance of contact with the enemy.

"It takes a special kind of courage for anybody to go out day after day to know what they are up against particularly when they have seen their friends killed on previous operations," the officer said. "RAF have also given us some of bravest flying I have ever seen or heard of.

"But I think more could have been done to prepare the public for the type of mission we were about to undertake."

The initial role of the Royal Military Police, carrying out routine investigation duties, changed into one of fighting pitched battles, standing shoulder to shoulder with Paras they would more normally have been separating in bar-room brawls.

With the severe lack of infantrymen, the RMPs were among several units called to fight. For the first time, the soldiers were asked to use heavy machine guns, mortars and grenades to fight off waves of Taliban attacks.


For the first time in almost 50 years the Royal Artillery fired over "open sights". In a tactic redolent of the Napoleonic era, the gunners of I Battery 7 Royal Horse fired their 105mm shells from close range at a Taliban machine gun nest during one engagement. Overall the battery of six light guns fired an extraordinary 4,300 rounds of mostly high explosive ordnance.

As desperate battles raged around the platoon houses with wave after wave of Taliban attacks, the infantry called in the bombardments with the artillery at times landing them "target close" – about 100 yards away from friendly positions.

Major Gary Wilkinson, 37, the battery commander, had to give up a troop of 30 men to become infantry. After one two-week operation, in which the unit had fired 10,000 rifle rounds, they had 20 hours to ready their cannons and return to duty as gunners.

HellsAngel wrote: »

Well at least you can admit the US militaries professionalism and logistical capabilty, their the real deal no doubt about it. But since your into history and " stuff of legends ". I'll tell you what stuff of legends is and give you some perspective -

Siege of Leningrad 8 September 1941 – 27 January 1944

Battle of Monte Cassino 17 January 1944 – 18 May 1944

Iwo Jima 19 February – 26 March 1945

Battle of Dien Bien Phu March 13 – May 7, 1954

As for lions led by donkeys, some lions at Dunkirk, Norway, Crete, Singapore, Gallipoli, Balaclava, Castlebar, Yorktown, Fontenoy etc not to mention a certain place called Afghanistan in 1842 Naturally in these battles against Britain, it's not because the opposition could just possibly have been better soldiers than the ' lions ' now could it !!!!

Yes mate easy to slag off from your arm chair, I wonder how you would have shaped up at any of those places.

I would never slag off those on the losing end of major military battles, leave it to armchair warriors like you.

constantg wrote: »

ANY chance at all we could stick to the thread?

I mean looking at Afghanistan it is worth noting that noone has ever succeeded in suppressing the tribes and conquering the area effectively. Like didn't Alexander the Great leave it be?

Also look at the Russians; THIS was their Vietnam! It's part of the Yanks second Vietnam (with Iraq).


Counter-Mobility is a HUGE issue over there. The guys were (and are) being bottled up in compounds, like an earlier poster referred to in detail (the siege; apologies, can't remember who you are offhand). The 21st century army is being beated by 19th century tactics!

All of the fancy trucks and patrolling vehicles are sticking to roads and as we all know predictability breeds complacency. They get hit up because there are a limited number of ways in and out.

Air supply is the only realistic option, but there aren't enough heli assets, so drops of resupply etc have to be scripted. Travel times for the attack assets (up to 90 mins for UK Apache from Kandahar and sometimes 2 hrs for a fast mover from the Indian Ocean via a carrier) means that there just aren't enough seriously hard hitting assets in theatre to strike back.

ROE (Rules of Engagement) mean that the soldiers are under HORRIFIC pressure to make sure they're lighting up the right guys. Verbal Warnings, Warning shots, paranoid Accuracy in fire (needing to avoid civillian casualties at all costs) are all things rarely seen in a CONVENTIONAL war! On the modern (theoretical) battlefield, doctrine suggests that noncoms (civillians) still present are in mortal danger and need to be encouraged to leave, so that combattants can have a greater degree of flexibility. At the moment NATO and ISAF are being hamstrung in the manner in which they can approach operations against an emeny who is hiding amongst the populace and using them as cover. Thus NATO/ISAF are unable to begin 'unrestricted' warfare against their enemy.

At the moment both sides are engaged in counter-insurgency cat-and-mouse, with little to show for it. The Taliban are still alive (which is the main goal of the insurgent in practical terms) after a decade of combat and the allied nations have invested a disproportionate amount of cash and lives into an ever changing mission. Added to this there's this concept of 'nation building'. You can't nation build where there's an active warzone.

Numbers is the biggest issue, even now with 25,000 US troops in Helmand, its a fraction of whats needed.

The Russians had 500,000 troops in Afghanistan.

timhorgan wrote: »

constantg:

Your summary above is about as succint and precise as it can get in describing how the war is being lost in Afghanistan. You make excellent points. The forward bases are very much like the old US cavalry forts in Indian territory. Even worse, it appears that most contacts - usually initiated by the Taliban- occur within a kilometer of the bases. The British Army in particular is floundering in Helmand.

Take one example- the British Warthog- a 2-pod unit where the Commander is separated from his troops and the only visibility from the troop-carrying pod is via a tv- what kind of situational awareness is that? Then when a contact is initiated the troops are weighed down with so much armour that they can barely make it to the nearest ditch. Top that with the costly and almost totally useless Bowman comms. system. ( In one contact the troop commander could not raise his base just 500m away).

And there is an ongoing cover-up on casualties- the actual casualty rate for units returning this year is 25% (ie. killed or seriously wounded).

Your post is a total fabrication, troop casualty rates are not 25 % this yr, there have been far fewer deaths and injuries this yr.

The commander sits up front with warthog like with all APCs and is seperated from his troops like with all APCs,but in communication, what are you on about ? What visibilty do troops have in any APC ?

You were proven wrong on another thread about the warthog, it has a great safety record with IEDs, 11 hits and only two serious injuries, this has already been pointed out to you.

We are now with Bowman BCIP 5 Tim keep up, the problems you talk of were on previous models and have been corrected.


Yet you persist with BS and lies.

Border-Rat wrote: »

Sorry to interrupt fantasy, but;



- - Bandit Country, Toby Harnden, p.401

This is from a different book in a different theatre, obviously. But the author of this book makes similar allegations.

Are you a former and/or current employee of the British military?

Mind your own business.

By 93 the conflict was all but over. Soldiers on guard duty being too lazy to log proper vehicle details, is hardly the same of what the
author is attepting to claim sounds to me like they kept a senior officer waiting while playing cards or something and got busted for it, checks were made and it was found they falsified vehicle details.

The British army was losing around 3 soldiers yr, to attempt to claim soldiers feared going out due to such an attrition rate is bs.

cruasder777 wrote: »

By 93 the conflict was all but over. Soldiers on guard duty being to lazy to log proper vehicle details due to laziness or playing cards etc not the same as what you claim.

Sorry to interrupt your fantasy again, but the context the author gave was they were in fear of the South Armagh Sniper.

The British army was losing around 3 soldiers yr, to attempt to claim soldiers feared going out due to such an attrition rate is bs.

Attacks in South Armagh, statistically were increasing in the 1990's. For example, by 1994 helicopters were ordered to travel in pairs because of the increase in anti-air attacks. This was not the case before 1990. These are the findings of a respected author in a well-researched book.

Its interesting that in the book of the OP, the author speaks about an ego so huge within the British military, that it just mentally blocks out its own shortcomings and that so determined are they in the belief of their own superiority, it actually becomes a fault.