another post for Bill

[winterbadger]

a firefight in Afghanistan

Is it just me, or does this read like a company-sized force walked into a valley in Afghanistan without securing the high ground around it, came under fire in what was effectively a kill sack, and then sat there for half an hour before withdrawing?

And people wonder why we take casualties...

Comments

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah, that's the simplest assessment. But the problem is that this wasn't supposed to be a combat operation. Of course you know that the local folks can turn hostile in situations like this, and that appears to be what happened, but it's the risk you take. The complicating factor, and the one I suspect responsible for people staying around so long instead of just getting out, was the confusion over ROE for the air support.

[winterbadger]

But how could someone treat visiting a village that even the SOVIETS didn't get into and for which you are already devoting 100+ troops and paramilitaries as anything other than a likely combat operation? They had been told they had air support and artillery on order. They sent out flank guard on the high terrain, but those seem to have been totally ineffective.

I understand that this wasn't an operation under US command, but rather an Afghan op with US advisors. But still...

And the point you raise about what I can't help but think of as Off-Board Artillery :-) is just what concerns me. Whoever was in charge of the op, their first reaction was "drop HE on it" not "maneuever, maneuver, maneuver". That strikes me as a very, very bad sign.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I think they were pretty much out of maneuver options from the git-go. (Not a situation I'd want to put my troops in, mind you, but there it is.)

My understanding of the way to approach a place like this is either (a) with overwhelming force, or (b) just one or two people. If the point is to show them that you're not hostile, then make it unmistakably clear that you're not hostile. Yeah, it's a hell of a risk to just go in without any troops, but that's the point. You have to be willing to risk yourself in order to convince them to risk trusting you.

So, yeah, kind of a massive fsck-up, but probably driven by decisions far above the level of anyone who was actually there.

[winterbadger]

Indeed. IIRC, it said something like "a plan devised by the Afghan forces and refined by the US".

Which just makes me think of Sir Humphrey in Yes, Minister, saying "If you're going to do this damn silly thing, don't do it in this damn silly way."

[winterbadger]

(a) Probably the only sensible option under the current circumstances.

(b) The sort of approach favoured by "political officers" in the days of the Raj, and ending up with either an adventure fit for The Boys Own Paper or a buff envelope to a family in Hertfordshire somewhere and a small black-bordered paragraph in The Army and Navy Gazette.

(c) Solomonically halfway in between (a) and (b) and thus the choice of all higher-ups who "don't want to get in trouble".