From: Steve Grammont (islander@midmaine.com)
Date: Sun Oct 05 2003 - 12:42:32 PDT
Hi Alan,
>1. Small arms attacks ARE still a problem in Iraq.
Sure, but when I hear about new fatalities and injuries, inevitably it is
remote detonated or tripped bombs that is the cause. That would appear
to indicate the problem most in need of a solution is figuring out how to
combat the bomb attacks. Small arms attacks mean the bad guys have to be
fairly close and expose themselves to counter fire, which even a soft
convoy is capable of putting out (perhaps not as much as it could).
In WWII the Germans had a lot of problems with Partisans blowing up
railroad track just as a train would come upon it. The results were, as
you would expect, catastrophic. Since they could not stop people from
boobytrapping the rails, or stop a blown rail from derailing a train,
they instead focused their energies on detecting the explosives before
they were detonated. I hope this is something our troops are spending
significant effort. I suspect they are.
>2. In operational areas such as Iraq, you do what you can. The effort here
>is to protect the men, not build a tank. Who gives a flying f about a fuel
>tank or batteries; if attacked by something big, the truck is toast anyway.
Agreed. If the truck breaks down due to enemy fire... big deal. We
control the area and can always get a new truck. It is the personnel
that are important.
>3. The protection afforded by an M-113 has proven itself all around the
>world. "Adding wheels" to this vehicle, when its an option available such as
>here, makes sense.
It makes sense vs. small arms. It is useless against RPGs and large,
well positioned explosives. That is not speculation but simple fact. It
is also a VERY expensive solution which requires a supply of dead M113s.
Therefore it might provide one or two useful vehicles (assuming it is
useful), but the scope of the problem requires something a lot more
practical and numberous.
>4. Its easy to sit back in your lazyboy at home and critize what is done in
>the field when you don't really have a clue what's involved. Limited
>resources, limited time, people getting hurt. Fix it.
You miss the point. The criticism, at least from me, is that this will
not fix a big part of the problem. And that problem is protecting the
thousands of personnel driving around each hour from here and there in
vehicles that can not withstand the tactics of the enemy. Building one
or two M113 type trucks won't do much to help out. Thankfully the enemy
has "limited" means and opportunity, otherwise we would be losing dozens
of people every day.
>5. People have a misconception about armor; it buys you time, little else.
>But often, thats all you need.
That works in a small arms firefight, but when a couple dozen pounds of
explosives goes off, armor doesn't buy you much more than sheetmetal if
the guys assembling, placing, and detonating the bomb know what they are
doing. And unfortunately, at least some of the bad guys do know what
they are doing.
>6. This concept worked quite well in Vietnam, against the exact same type of
>weapons.
I think it is very dangerous to compare Iraq to Vietnam without exploring
the differences. The two conflicts are very, very different which
inherently means all bets are off. That being said, driving around with
unarmored and unescorted soft convoys only invites trouble. We don't
need to look at Vietnam to see that obvious point.
Steve
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat May 07 2005 - 20:25:00 PDT