Take no prisoners...

[MichaeltheGreat]

from CNN:

U.S. officials said that when the first helicopter was hit by the al Qaeda-launched RPG, it rapidly took off and landed a short distance away with hydraulic failure from the attack. The crew then discovered one of its men had apparently fallen out.

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 saw him on the Predator being dragged off by three al Qaeda men," Major Gen. Frank L. Hagenbeck, the operation commander, told a pool reporter.

He said the United States responded Tuesday with withering force, using Apache helicopters and Air Force fighters to strike the al Qaeda and Taliban fighters.

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

Good enough for the mother****ers. They want to fight to the death, to meet Allah - let's accomodate every last one of the sorry *****es.

[Dis]

that must have been terrible seeing the guy killed on camera like that. I just finished reading that at cnn.com

but I can't blame them for today's actions. hundreds of taliban and al queda killed they say.

[Gatekeeper]

MtG, et al.:

I heard that U.S. forces caught hundreds of Taliban and al-Quaida troops/fighters out in the open as they were trying to move in as reinforcements. I would imagine they are those hundreds who were slammed by U.S./allied troops and U.S. gunships.

CYBERAmazon

[MichaeltheGreat]

You can pretty much guarantee that word about that got out through the whole chain of command, so our guys weren't in the mood to **** around.

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

[Dis]

by the way what is the operational altitude limit of Apaches? I haven't heard an exact number

It's nice to see that chopper in action. very impressive. This seems to be the first time they have an opportunity to get extensive use.

[Alexander's Horse]

Oh great - now they're taking lines from Lawrence of Arabia

[MichaeltheGreat]

It depends on loadout, but without external ordnance, it can do something close to 20,000 feet - the hover out of ground effect limit is close to 13,000.

Half-loaded for combat, it should be able to do hovers out of ground effect in excess of 12,000 feet, and maintain full combat manueverability over 14,000 feet with translational lift, so the al Qaeda types really don't have a chance against it. Just sit and wait for the inevitable.

And damn, if they're wounded and happen to survive for a while, well, there ain't much that can be done for them, and it gets real cold at night.

[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.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Dissident
by the way what is the operational altitude limit of Apaches? I haven't heard an exact number

It's nice to see that chopper in action. very impressive. This seems to be the first time they have an opportunity to get extensive use.

Apaches did a job on the Iraqis in the gulf, but didn't get much credit.

With VII Corps units, the Apaches went out around our armor, and vertically encircled the Iraqis - hitting their HQ's and rear areas, refuelling and resupply and maintenance depots, and generally kicking them in the ass just as we folded up their recon screens. That's one reason the Iraqis just crumbled so fast against our heavy units.

[Dis]

that seems so long ago . yeah I remember seeing some video of that. most of what I remember is video from tanks and such.

I really do enjoy seeing them taken out. Not because I'm an evil man who likes killing. of course I am . but because the more undesirables that pose a future threat we eliminate the better. As long as we don't create more terrorists in the process. And this operation is unlikely to do that. Each of these people pose a threat, and I'm happy, yes you heard me right, I'm happy to see them eliminated.

[MichaeltheGreat]

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.

Nobody's going to go out of their way, that's for sure. You'll also probably see a lot more mass application of firepower like you did today - the trouble for the al Qaeda and Taleban remnants is that their main supplies are up in the mountains, not down in the towns - and the only place they can be relatively safe is down in the villages where they can more or less hide among the civilian populace.

Getting back and forth to their supply caches is going to be a bit of a problem however. The psychological effect should be pretty considerable for Afghanis on both sides - they've never really seen firepower applied like that, and for the Afghan army, the idea that they have this sort of mass support available will help morale a lot.

For al Qaeda - well, too bad.

[Dis]

This is a good thread to discuss this.

It seems that we could essentually lay seige to the remnant forces. Eventually they should run out of supplies and food (although worst case they could have months or years of food left ). And like you said they can't hide among the civilians up there. Any movement is most likely going to be by enemy forces- or a mountain goat .

Essentually they are cornered. The difficult terrain may pose problems, but where can they go? Their best shot is under cover of darkness try to slip accross the border to pakistan. I'm hoping they are watching for this.

[Seeker]

The mountains they are in do not seem to be terribly high altitude. 8 000-9000 ft?

The 10th Mtn. trains at higher elevations...heck, I've lived most of my life at higher elevations...(10 000-12 000)

[Serb]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
That and the dumbasses thought they could move in the open, and found out just what Apache gunships can do to exposed infantry. Especially when motivated.

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.

The psychological effect should be pretty considerable for Afghanis on both sides - they've never really seen firepower applied like that,

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

[Dis]

have you learned nothing of the american military.

The military doesn't underestimate enemy forces. They didn't do it 10 years ago, so don't expect them to now. We actually learn from our mistakes we made 30 odd years ago.

You sound exactly how people were talking 10 years ago. Battle experience can only take you so far when you are fighting with substandard weapson, supply, and manpower.

We saw how little will those people had to fight. Just because they are extremists doesn't mean they can fight better than americans. They are humans after all, bombs dropping on you day after day has its effects.

The Iraqis had probably a million times more combat experience than americans. Need I go further back? How about the Italians, Japanese, and Germans. Americans had no combat experience whatsoever. The only valid argument you could make is the Vietnamese. But we clearly won every major battle there as well (we only lost the war because of political reasons- it was a stalemate). Although you have to admit we took heavy air losses in Vietnam . Out pilot training suffered.

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.