Take no prisoners...

[Gatekeeper]

MtG, et al.:

I think I saw some video footage earlier today on CNN that showed glimpses of the "killing fields" where the bodies of Taliban and al-Qaida troops lay dead. It wasn't long — maybe 3 to 5 seconds or so — but, by God, those bodies were scorched and mangled.

The AP began moving some Defense Department supplied/AP Pool photos late Tuesday night of U.S. soldiers in action on the front lines. Mostly from Sunday and Monday.

And, Serb? Did the Soviet military make use of daisycutter-type weaponry when trying to pacify Afghanistan for its Communist rulers in Kabul, circa 1979-89? I ask because I've seen a smattering of stories moving over the past few months where American weaponry and tactics have, indeed, impressed some of those battle-hardened Afghanis. It was weapons like that which impressed them.

CYBERAmazon

[Roland]

Haven't seen this reported anywhere beyond CNN. So let's see:

"Meanwhile, commanders of the forces watched real-time images from an unmanned Predator drone that showed al Qaeda members capture and kill Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Neil C. Roberts, 32, officials said."

""We body slammed them today and killed hundreds of those guys," Hagenbeck said."

"There was an American, for whatever reason, [who] was left behind. And we don't leave Americans behind," said Brig Gen. John Rosa, deputy director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

Even without the body slam reference this sounds a plot from professional wrestling. And comes exactly when the US military has again relied on faulty intelligence and trusted the wrong people in the initial attack. How... convenient.

So why it may be true I'd recommend just a bit of scepticism before going gung-ho.

[Serb]

Originally posted by Dissident
Anyways, why should we fear the afghans? I'm tired about people going on and on about combat experience. These people aren't protecting their homeland like the vietnamese. They are protecting a pile of rocks. And for many of these people this country isn't their home nation.

I didn’t said that you should fear “the Taliban fighters”. (Btw, Afghans do not equel to Taliban.)
And I’m agreed that situation in Afghanistan is different than it was in Vietnam. I just want to said that the understimation of enemy is big mistake. As for me those words:

That and the dumbasses thought they could move in the open, and found out just what Apache gunships can do to exposed infantry.

- is understimation of enemy.

We saw how little will those people had to fight. Just because they are extremists doesn't mean they can fight better than americans.

What do you think they should done? They should shot B-2 with their old rifles?

And, Serb? Did the Soviet military make use of daisycutter-type weaponry when trying to pacify Afghanistan for its Communist rulers in Kabul, circa 1979-89? I ask because I've seen a smattering of stories moving over the past few months where American weaponry and tactics have, indeed, impressed some of those battle-hardened Afghanis. It was weapons like that which impressed them.

First of all what this daisycutter-type means? Explan the meaning of this word please.
And second: Could you imagine the world's reaction if Soviet army used the same tactics and weapons (I mean constant bombardments, and avoid of ground battles) in Afghanistan war? I think if we used the same tactic as you using now, USA will be the first country who started to say about genocide of Afghan people by soviet monsters.
P.S. One more thing. I am not bashing America for Afghanistan, you are doing right thing there.

[Dis]

I believe daisy-cutter is the name of the 15,000 pound bomb used by the U.S.

There is also a different type of bomb that actually has 2 separate explosions.

I should find info on these 2 bombs, but I'm too lazy.

[Dis]

funny pic of a bomb

and a little info of the 15,000 lb.

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/blu-82.htm

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Roland
Haven't seen this reported anywhere beyond CNN. So let's see:

"Meanwhile, commanders of the forces watched real-time images from an unmanned Predator drone that showed al Qaeda members capture and kill Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Neil C. Roberts, 32, officials said."

""We body slammed them today and killed hundreds of those guys," Hagenbeck said."

"There was an American, for whatever reason, [who] was left behind. And we don't leave Americans behind," said Brig Gen. John Rosa, deputy director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

Even without the body slam reference this sounds a plot from professional wrestling. And comes exactly when the US military has again relied on faulty intelligence and trusted the wrong people in the initial attack. How... convenient.

So why it may be true I'd recommend just a bit of scepticism before going gung-ho.

I agree that the release of the video showing enemy casualties and the chest thumping over how many we have killed is spin control to soothe public opinion over the recent American casualties. That said, we are achievieving our objective in bringing these guys to battle. It's worth some casualties to finish them in battle, especially when we are still keeping our kill ratio so high. Thus I can forgive the effort at spin control because it is conveying the impression that we are succeeding, which seems to be the truth.

The question of just how successful we are will only be answered when we find out how many can escape. The area of operations is still large, and the numbers of troops in the cordon is still fairly small, and the quality of these coalition forces is pretty variable. If we can destroy half the troops in this area while maintaining a kill ratio of better than 10 to 1 I would rate the operation a major success.

[ZoboZeWarrior]

That a soldier is KIA is logical. That a soldier was killed as a prisoner is a bad and a sad thing. But every nation have done that. and USA not the last. After all war is a serious business, a deadly struggle not a gentlemen sport. Such news fron CNN are pure propaganda.

Do you about the fate of Allied afghan fighter caught by Talibans ?
Surely not ...

Please spare us from such useless information.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
This strikes me as the kind of war where few prisoners are going to be taken by either side from now on.

Closest parallel would be the Pacific theatre in WWII. Australian and U.S. troops rarely took prisoners because of the way the Japs treated captured allied troops.

I don't think we can say that yet. The Americans have interest in taking prisoners alive. They need to interogate them to get info on the whereabouts of bin Laden.

This also might be a one-time incident in which case military discipline will likely stay intact.

Interesting to note that the US commanders claimed that al Qaeda members killed the American. How would they know? Do the al Qaeda wear big name badges?

While the Americans struck back hard with their helicopter force, the fight also shows the danger of using helicopters in this terrain. The reports suggest that simple RPGs were able to take down two copters. That puts to rest the notion that the Taliban would need Stingers to fight back.

On the other hand, two copters go down and no one is directly killed in the crashes. That says something about the durability of the aircraft and the pilots' skills.

[Sikander]

RPGs have been used against helicopters for about 40 years now. The threat is not a new one, and the newer helicopters are a lot tougher than the old Hueys to reflect the danger from small arms and sometimes even weapons as large as RPGs. The enemy is well prepared to fight helicopters in the current battle area, which is something we haven't seen yet in this war AFAIK. There are reports that most of the attack helicopters are coming back damaged by heavy machinegun fire. You are correct that the terrain is helpful against choppers, the air is thinner which reduces the loads that the ships can carry, and / or their agility.

[DanS]

I agree with Serb in many respects. Some of these al Qaeda are battle-hardened troops and shouldn't be underestimated.

However, I also agree with MtG. I doubt that they have seen this kind of focused firepower and to see or hear of hundreds of your troops being cut down by one or two Apache helos in a span of a few minutes and maybe at night probably had a very large psychological effect.

Overall, I disagree with Roland that the intelligence was bad. Some was bad, some was good, as seems to happen in most of these situations. We are attacking battle hardened troops in terrain that they know very well. This was probably the first real action that most of the American troops have ever seen, even if they are very well trained.

Because of these elements, some casualties are to be expected.

As for the videotape being propaganda, it might be. But if it happened, and you've got videotape, then you can do what you see fit with it.

"We have had them boxed in," Hagenbeck said. "Some local fundamentalists called a jihad against the Americans and their coalition forces. They have been funneling, infiltrating fighters into this area."

He said the fighters are coming in from the south and east in small groups of five and six. When asked how long he expected the fight to continue, Hagenbeck said that was up to the enemy.

"As long as they want to send 'em here, we'll kill 'em here," he said. "If they go somewhere else, we'll ... kill 'em wherever they go."

[Ming]

It kind of reminds me of a McDonell Douglas ad that ran during the Gulf War for the Apache...

Headline:
What's the best way to introduce yourself to an Apache...
Image:
A white flag

[DanS]

There were a lot of chilling images from the Gulf War involving Apaches. I can remember the one videoclip where the pilot is chasing down individual Iraqi Republican Guard troops. Also, I think the mile of death or whatever it was called, was due in large part to the Apaches...

[Andrew1999]

One odd thing I've noticed about this operation is all the talk about killing people. Usually the news reports will talk about attacks on enemy "targets" or "positions", as if there was no one there. I don't ever remember a commander on the news saying, "We killed a couple of hundred people today."

[loinburger]

Question for whoever: How does the Apache compare to the Russian Hind? I'd always had the impression that the Hind was considered to be sturdier/tougher/whatever. Just curious.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Serb

The biggest mistake a strategist could make is to understimate his enemy. Please remember about this. Your enemy are not the idiots, and they have a hundred times much more battle expirience than any American soldier.

It's really doing them a lot of good, isn't it?

Do you really think that your fireworks could amaze a people who fight during all their lives, a people who constanly fought during centuries?

Well, most of those people haven't "fought during centuries" (they haven't been alive that long) - they've fought sporadic, half-assed, intermittent wars with rarely anything bigger than uncontrolled and sporadic mortar fire. The think heavy firepower is an RPG, that's why they're so in love with the things.

Whenever and wherever they stand and fight, they get obliterated. And ask the Northern Alliance troops who barely hung on to static positions for years, then saw city after city fall within days or weeks what they think of B-52s and what they can do to fix entrenched positions.