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Hi there conflict fans! AKD posted an excellent article about a battle in the Strykers in the Media thread, and I think it would be fun to deconstruct the battle, point fingers, huff and puff, and generally grog about. Here's the article:

A "routine mission" in Iraq on Sept. 4, 2004, turned into a raging firefight for Stryker troops with the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, Scout Platoon, and B Company of the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, as they fought off heavy fire (including 60-mm mortars and RPGs) in a rescue mission launched after Iraqi insurgents shot down a Kiowa helicopter and swarmed to capture it and the two pilots. Kiowa Down has all the action and drama of Black Hawk Down, but with a happy ending. The soldiers of 5-20 said this mission was the most intense fight they had encountered since being deployed in December 2003. B Company killed 66 enemies, and the Scout Platoon killed 46. (There were also 17 wounded.) The number of Americans killed in action: zero. There were only five U.S. wounded, in addition to the two pilots.

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quote:

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They weren’t going to get this bird’

Kiowa down, pilots injured. Stryker troops resolve to rescue fliers and keep helo out of enemy hands

By Matthew Cox

Times staff writer

TALL AFAR, Iraq — The ramp drops and the infantry scouts sprint out the back of their Stryker vehicle, their gear rustling in the early-morning calm of the streets.

The only other sounds heard during the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment’s Oct. 13 sweep for insurgents are roosters crowing in the distance.

But the scene was dramatically different just five weeks earlier, when another routine sweep landed these soldiers in an all-out fight to recover a downed American helicopter and its crew.

No media were on hand to record the battle in this northern Iraq city of more than 300,000, but Army Times reconstructed the action through interviews with more than a dozen soldiers who were in the fight.

It was Sept. 4 at 8:50 a.m. operating about 1,500 meters apart, 5-20’s Scout Platoon and B Company had just completed searches for terrorist leaders in the eastern section of Tall Afar. The battalion is part of 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division (SBCT).

Two OH-58 Kiowa helicopters were buzzing overhead, providing overwatch for the 160 or so soldiers on the ground.

The calm routine changed in a flash as rocket-propelled grenades streaked toward the helos.

Scout Platoon leader 1st Lt. Rob McChrystal saw a round hit one of the Kiowas behind the engine.

“I saw it kind of burst into flames,” he said. “It started to spin and go toward the ground. The first thing that went through my mind was, ‘This is not a good situation. We need to get there before the enemy does,’” he recalled. “The [thing] that goes through your mind is them jumping on the Kiowa dancing around and executing the pilots. … We all loaded up. Guys came sprinting from all different directions.”

Lt. Col. Karl Reed, 5-20 commander, didn’t have a visual on the attack on the Kiowa, but he didn’t have to. What he heard from the tactical operation center inside his Stryker command vehicle told him there was big trouble outside.

“I could hear a barrage of fire open up,” Reed described in his official account of the battle. “The very next thing I heard on the net was, ‘Aircraft down! Aircraft down!’ I could see the hovering wingman in the area of the downed aircraft, but the terrain was dense.”

Pilots, stay put

Reed fought with the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. He now was going to lead men in what he described as “the most complex and potentially deadly firefight I have ever witnessed.”

It was 8:57 a.m.

Reed made radio contact with the downed aircraft from 3rd Squadron, 17th U.S. Cavalry, and told the Kiowa pilots to stay put.

He assured them that he could see their icon on his computer screen’s digitized map page and knew they were less than 1,000 meters from his position.

“A killed or captured pilot began to race through my mind, but we were lucky we were so close,” Reed said.

B Company commander Capt. Damien Mason was coordinating the medical evacuation of three Iraqi national guard soldiers who had been injured in a separate RPG attack.

That’s when he heard that the Kiowa went down. He soon regrouped his forces, anticipating the order to move to the scene.

The Scout Platoon’s four Strykers, also less than 1,000 meters from the shoot-down, arrived at the scene within five minutes. Soldiers dismounted about 75 meters from the Kiowa and quickly secured the crash site and set up a perimeter.

The engine was still smoldering. The tail boom had crushed a rock wall. The Kiowa was a total loss. The pilots were huddled nearby.

“They were very happy to see us when we showed up,” McChrystal said.

Both pilots were disoriented and had suffered back injuries. One could walk, but Scout Platoon soldiers carried the other on a litter to the Stryker medical evacuation vehicle.

Meanwhile, with the prize of a downed U.S. helo tempting them, dozens of enemy fighters surged to the area and opened fire.

McChrystal said he stopped counting the incoming blasts after the enemy hit his perimeter with 15 RPG rounds.

“We were definitely outnumbered,” McChrystal said, recalling he had about 20 soldiers with him. Unmanned aerial vehicle surveillance counted about 60 insurgents moving toward the crash site from different directions.

“I knew their resolve to get that Kiowa was high, based on the volume of fire,” he said.

“They hit us from the west — I could tell it was coordinated because they would back up and hit us from the south.”

Sgt. Charles Foster, a sniper team leader and another sniper set up on a rooftop on the southeast corner from the crash site.

They started to take heavy machine gun and small-arms fire, but answered with deadly accuracy. Foster said the sniper he was with shot 12 enemy with his M24 sniper rifle in the first 20 minutes.

Still, the enemy continued to try to close in on the disabled Kiowa.

“The enemy was moving on us in a matter of 10 minutes from the time the bird went down,” Reed said. “This was very unlike the enemy we had encountered before in Tall Afar — they were forming and attacking in our direction with courage and coordination.”

Mason remembers hearing the worry in McChrystal’s voice over the radio. “Hey, I need more forces to hold onto this aircraft,” Mason heard him say.

Bring in Bravo

At 9 a.m., Reed ordered Mason to bring in Bravo Company and secure the west side of the crash site. Though the downed Kiowa was only 1,500 meters away, a hostile urban jungle of blind alleyways and two- and three-story buildings separated them from their objective.

Meanwhile, heavy enemy fire prevented the Scout Platoon from clearing the surrounding buildings to gain the high ground in the urban terrain as Reed had directed. “We were losing initiative,” Reed recalled.

Determined to get a closer look, he dismounted from his Stryker command vehicle and headed toward the crash site with members of his staff on foot.

“As I look back now, I realize that we just did not have the bodies on the ground required to properly hold that particular piece of ground,” Reed said.

A section of A Troop, 1st Squadron, 14th Cavalry, was blocking avenues of approach to the rear and did not have the dismounts to help.

When Reed found Scout Platoon leader McCrystal, “he was clearly in need of more men. … I had gained a better understanding of the enemy situation against their small element by making the face-to-face link-up,” Reed said.

The two leaders quickly hashed out a plan to hold the position.

“I told him he would have to potentially hold for quite a while,” Reed said. “Everyone on the ground was painfully aware that this was going to be a fight until B Company effected link-up.”

Reed admitted he was surprised by the intensity of the fight.

“It was the first time in 10 months I had observed men returning to their Strykers for re-supply of ammunition,” he said.

Meanwhile, B Company had run into problems of its own as it struggled to maneuver to the 1,500 meters to the crash site.

Rolling down one stretch of road, it was bracketed by heavy fire. Staff Sgt. Scott Hoover, vehicle commander of a Stryker anti-tank system, was in the lead.

“They were shooting out of the doors and windows,” he said of the insurgents.

“They hit us with over 15 RPGs,” said Mason, who described how the enemy seemed unafraid to mount close attacks.

“A lot of them were on the ground around our Strykers,” Mason said. “There was one guy — he had a PKC machine gun. One of my guys nearly cut him in half. … It was a long, linear, near ambush.”

One RPG round blasted into one of the company’s lead Strykers, damaging the transmission.

“I felt something slam into us,” recalled Sgt. Bryan Dabel, mortar section leader, who was inside the Stryker when it got hit. “We knew we were in the middle of a kill zone.”

The Stryker managed to roll out of the area for a few hundred meters. Hoover’s Stryker backed up to secure the front of the disabled Stryker. “It was very hectic, you really didn’t have time to think,” Hoover said. “There was so many [anti-Iraqi forces] coming from everywhere, there was a lot of quick shooting.”

“We had seven RPGs shot directly at our vehicle. … Everything was happening so fast.”

Sept. 4 was a war-zone reality check for B Company. Until then, the unit had only heard of this kind of fighting in areas such as Fallujah and Najaf, said Staff Sgt. Joe Labrosse, platoon sergeant for 1st Platoon.

“It was our turn now,” he said. “We were out the hatches. Everyone in the vehicle was firing. If we were running out of ammo, everybody was handing magazines to each other.”

Insurgents fired machine guns and RPGs all along the main road that B Company advanced along. “It was a gantlet,” Mason recalled.

The situation looked bad.

“We had a static helicopter that wasn’t going anywhere; I had a static Stryker that wasn’t going anywhere, and we were taking fire from three different directions — from the south, north and west,” said Mason, who added that he began to wonder why they weren’t just blowing the bird in place and moving on.

“I thought to myself, you know, we are not the only guys hurting,” Mason said, thinking of the outnumbered Scout Platoon.

But with the column at a dead halt, he knew they weren’t going anywhere until his soldiers were able to hook up that disabled Stryker to another by a tow bar so it could be pulled out.

That’s what Dabel and his fellow soldiers had to accomplish under constant enemy fire.

“Jumping out in the middle of RPG fire was scary, but that had to be done, so you didn’t think about it,” Dabel said.

“It got a little nerve-wracking but everyone kept their head,” Dabel said.

Mason then ordered 3rd Platoon to break off and move to the crash site and assist Scout Platoon until the rest of B Company could get moving.

Gathering the defenses

By 9:30 a.m., B Company had consolidated near the crash site, but heavy enemy fire was preventing 3rd Platoon from securing the four buildings that formed an L-shaped high ground around the crash site.

A UAV flying overhead was monitoring a buildup of about 20 more insurgents linking up with several cars. They were taking RPGs and machine guns out of the trunks and moving east — straight into the alleyways that led to the Scout Platoon, Reed recalled.

Reed received word that two F-16s had come on station to provide close-air support, and the Sunday punch he needed now came in the form of a 2,000-pound Joint Direct Attack Munition.

The target was a burning wall at an intersection hit by RPG rounds earlier. The smoking structure was about 300 meters west of the 5-20 scouts and 300 meters due north of B Company.

The challenge was to drop the JDAM close to the enemy without harming friendly forces.

“Dropping a 2,000 pound bomb in the middle of a city close to maneuvering troops can get hairy,” said Reed, who was able to give his units a three-minute warning.

When Mason learned of the incoming JDAM, he saw his opening. “I said ‘OK, as soon as that bomb hits, I’m going to flank around and take those buildings.’”

Soon after, the JDAMs smashed into the battle zone with shocking force. The explosion drove a huge plume of smoke into the air.

“We moved under the concussion,” Mason said. “When that JDAM hit, they didn’t know what was going on.”

The blast stunned the enemy and B Company soldiers exploited the moment, rapidly dismounting and charging to clear buildings and secure an overwatch position.

It was now 9:57 a.m.

“The timing of their arrival was as good as I could have asked for,” Reed said.

Perhaps more than anyone, Scout Platoon leader McChrystal was also relieved.

“Right before B Company showed up … we are afraid we getting overrun here,” he said. “Once 3rd Platoon and the rest of B Company showed up, I knew we could defend this crash site. They weren’t going to get this bird.”

But Reed couldn’t enjoy the moment for long — he still had troops and a helo to safely get out of the area.

“C Company was on the way, and although I didn’t know how the hell we were going to get this twisted wreck out of there, I was depending on C Company to have thought through what they needed,” he said.

But it turned out that even JDAMs had not put an end to the attacks that day.

Reed’s interpreter told him over the radio that someone in the police department was directing locals to “protect the mosque from coalition forces.” It was right next to the crash site.

That call to arms sparked intense fire from three sides. The new action, after nearly two hours of combat, forced soldiers to leave covered positions for more ammunition.

“You could see soldiers running to get more ammo from their vehicles, passing cans of ammo and AT4s forward to dismounted positions over the tops of roofs and through windows,” Reed said.

Time for the TOWs

Troops aboard one Stryker pumped off two TOW “bunker-buster” missiles, helping slow the attack. The first missile hit a wall, blowing a cloud of debris into the roadway and hitting about five insurgents. The second missile hit a truck in which several enemy with RPGs were trying to hide.

Mason said the TOW shots finally signaled that they were going to put down the insurgent attacks in this operation.

“When I heard these TOWs go off, I realized we had fire superiority, we held the high ground and we had heavier weapons than anyone,” Mason said.

The enemy still got in some licks, however. Insurgents lobbed some 60mm mortar rounds, slinging shrapnel and injuring 5-20 soldiers and Iraqi national guard troops.

One round landed right next to the Stryker medical evacuation vehicle where the two injured pilots were being treated. The blast punctured several tires, Reed recalled.

Everyone repositioned, Reed recalled, and at 10:35 a.m., C Company arrived.

With the crash site still under heavy fire, C Company’s 1st Sgt. James Mapes and a little more than a platoon of men went to work on the OH-58, using large power saws to cut off the bird’s rotors, Reed said. They disconnected the rocket pods and hooked a HEMTT truck’s large crane and two tow ropes, attached to Strykers, to drag the fuselage aboard the flatbed truck.

“I couldn’t believe how prepared they were to recover this aircraft,” Reed recalled. “It looked like they had rehearsed.”

Still, 60mm mortar rounds kept coming. That is, until an F-16 strafed the area. By 11:30 a.m., the Kiowa was loaded, and the Americans began moving out.

Troops with B Company had killed 66 enemies and the Scout Platoon killed 46, Reed said. There were also 17 enemy wounded.

The number of 5-20 troops killed: Zero. However, five soldiers were wounded, in addition to the two pilots.

the soldiers of 5-20 said the mission to recover the downed Kiowa and its two injured pilots was the most intense fight they had encountered since deploying to Iraq in December 2003.

Scout Platoon’s Sgt. 1st Class Michael Keyes, who jumped into Panama with the 75th Ranger Regiment in 1990, said he thought he’d seen it all, until this fight.

“I thought, well, I’ve seen more s--- in Panama in four days until we got up here to Tall Afar,” he said. “Tall Afar has been pretty intense.”

Mason agreed. “It was definitely the biggest fight — on the scale of numbers of RPGs involved, this was the biggest fight,” Mason said.

“I’m amazed at how few casualties we had.

The insurgents “were trying very hard to get to that helicopter … and turn it into a victory for themselves.

“We stayed and we fought and I’m glad we did.”

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Ok, now for comments. Cox according to the internet is a 38-year-old veteran of the 82nd Airborne Division, on his fourth assignment in Iraq for Army Times. He was injured by a suicide bomber on the Syrian border last August. So I would say he is pretty well qualified to present the U.S. side of the battle.

Still, I would say he is way out on a limb calling the battle of Tall Afar a "victory." He (or his editors) clearly describe the action as a successful Blackhawk Down.

This may be true, but it is also distortion. The main problem is the simplest journalistic error there is: the report is one-sided. Of course as an embedded reporter, he was not in a position to interview Iraqi combatants. However, he is in a position to interview independent analysts, and to expand his sources beyond the members of the U.S. scout platoon and task force involved in the action. Even if field conditions don't permit it, his editors ought to have made the phone calls. That did not happen.

As a result we have an account of a battle which, though exciting, is not really very useful in determining anything; and the point of having media embedded with the military of course is to give taxpayers information about the effectiveness of their military's war effort.

The hard facts seem to be these: A pair of Kiowa helicopters were flying around the Iraqi town/city of Tal Afar, and one of the Kiowas went down due to insurgent fire. The crew survived the crash, which took place next to one of Tal Afar's mosques. Two U.S. units, were in the vicinity, i.e., within a mile or so of the crash site. They were 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, Scout Platoon; and B Company of the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment. So in other words a reinforced company/team. There apparently were some Iraqis on the U.S. side as well, but how many and what they did is unclear.

The scout platoon leader and the 5-20 commander, apparently independently of each other, decide to send troops to the crash site. The scout platoons four Strykers show up at the crash site in five minutes, and receive no fire. They set up a perimeter.

After about ten minutes "dozens" of insurgents attack members of the scout platoon, using RPGs and small arms. The scout platoon has 20 men on site and its commander concludes his force is outnumbered. A UAV spots a total 60 Iraqis moving towards the crash site that are supposedly hostile.

Given the nature of the war in Iraq, U.S. intelligence error needs to be considered here as a possibility. Not every one walking around with a Kalashnikov intends to attack Americans, nor is it a sure thing to determine the intentions of an Iraqi man by looking at him with a UAV.

The scout platoon leader, based on incoming fire volume and perhaps information from the UAV, decides the insurgents' intention to capture the Kiowa crews was "high".

Me, I think the Iraqi's main intention could only have been to kill or otherwise remove all the infidels next to the mosque.

Anyway, the scout platoon leader determines the Iraqis coordinated their attacks by firing first from one direction, then from another. If however the UAV is to be believed, a more reasonable explaination - I think - would be that separate groups of insurgents made their way to the site of the firefight at different times

As time passes the Iraqis manage to set up "heavy machine guns." It is unclear whether these are in fact medium machine guns, or heavy machine guns, for if they were heavy machine guns, one wonders how the Strykers survived. Heavy machine guns will chew up the sides and rear of a Stryker, I believe.

The reporter then records the Americans returned fire "with deadly accuracy"; he knows because the Americans told him so. Among the most deadly, allegedly, was a sniper who shot 12 insurgents over 20 minutes, according to his account.

Insurgent return fire, despite the "deadly U.S. accuracy, is heavy enough to prevent scout platoon soldiers from moving to nearby building roofs. Effectively, the Americans are held to their perimeter, although, for the most part, not pinned down. It is clear the Iraq fire could have been heavier: The battalion commander reports he saw scout platoon members were able to walk to their vehicles to obtain more ammunition. You can't do that if fire is intense enough to pin you down.

The Iraqis may have captured or destroyed a Stryker, as their foot troops are reported to be clustered around one. However, there is no further reference.

In any case, the scout platoon leader decides he needs back-up. His request to the task force commander brings Bravo company into the action, after the battalion commader drives to the crash site.

B company is 1,500 meters away and its best route to the crash site is via tight streets through concrete buildings. The company takes small arms fire from some buildings en route. B company's lead Stryker is hit and damaged by an RPG.

Somewhere between 7 and 15, maybe more, RPGs are fired at the B company Strykers in an "ambush". However, B company was able to press on. The damaged Stryker was towed out of enemy fire, meaning the insurgents were unable to lay down intense small arms fire on the ambush site. This could have been do to poor marksmanship or limited shooters. My guess is both.

B company decides to send 1 platoon to the Kiowa crash site, while the remaining force dealt with the damaged Stryker and the ambush. By 9.30 a.m. - 40 minutes after the Kiowa went down - B company is at the Kiowa crash site.

3rd Platoon B company, arriving on the scene first, tries to do what the scout platoon could not: capture a block of tall buildings overlooking the crash site. They fail.

Meanwhile, the UAV has sighted about 20 more insurgent, some with technicals, making their way to the crash site.

Thus the insurgent force against the Americans comes out to:

The intial attackers, who according to the scout platoon outnumbered them.

The first batch of reinforcements, sighted by the UAV, supposedly 60 fighters.

A second batch of reinforcements, also sighted by the UAV, supposedly 20 fighters.

The fighters the Americans didn't see.

So my guess, there were between 150 - 300 Iraqis actually shooting at the Americans. 400 - 500 tops. That's my guess and I would be very interested in different interpetations. In my opinion, it is unlikely this was an action like Rourke's Drift, with a few dozen against thousands. In my opinion, the insurgents at best had a 3-1 numerical advantage, and probably not even that.

In any case, the scout platoon leader decides his organic fire, plus 3rd platoon B company, is insufficient to deal with this new Iraqi force, and so he calls down an F-16 strike within 300 meters of friendly trooper. The F-16 duely drops a 2,000 pound bomb. B company soldiers attack (again) immediately after the explosion and manage to climb to building roofs/top floors, so they too can fire down on the Kiowa crash site.

The 5-20 interpeter then informs the battalion commander that Iraqi police !!! are cooperating with the resistance, and are directing insurgents to move to the Kiowa crash site, as it is right next to a mosque.

Two more hourse of indecisive firefighting ensue. The Americans do not run out of ammunition, but do fire off their basic loads and are obliged to run to their Strykers to get more ammo. Again, the insurgent fire is not intense enough to prevent them from doing so.

The U.S. force fires two TOW missiles at buildings where insurgents had been firing RPGs from. This seems to stop the RPGs, assuming of course the RPG teams were still in the buildings and still had ammunition.

The insurgents retaliate by, or perhaps just finally manage to, firing 60mm mortars at the Americans. They hit some Americans and an unknown number of Iraqi national guard, and also puncture the tires of the ambulance Stryker.

I would be very interested to know how many Iraqi national guard were hit, how well they fought, and were they wearing body armor. That would givel me as a taxpayer a hint as to how well Iraqization is proceeding. Unfortunately the article doesn't tell me.

Firing continues and an hour later (10:35 a.m) C Company arrived. The Americans now have in excess of 200 soldiers on the site, probably something approaching 30 Strykers, and of course air on tap. Insurgent fire has abated to the point that a Hemmit is able to drag the Kiowa aboard.

Insurgent mortar fire continues until an F-16 makes a gun run on buildings.

The Americans left the vicinity by about 11:30. They then told the reporter they killed 112 insurgents and wounded 17 more. There were no captures. Five soldiers from 5-20 were wounded, at least some of them from mortar fire. And that was, therefore, a U.S. victory.

Well, I don't think so. In the first place, as we all well know, one sides estimates of "kills" on the other side are notoriously unreliable, pretty much throughout history. If the trend held true at Tall Afar, there were probably about 30 Iraqi teenagers and young men killed in the fight, and maybe twice that many injured.

For that price, the insurgency held the ground, successfully defended a mosque, destroyed a Kiowa, damaged two Strykers, injured five Americans and (far more importantly) an unidentified number of Iraqis fighting on the American side.

Every one of the Iraqi participants in the fight has relatives, meaning, maybe, 2-3000 Iraqis in the town of Tal Afar with a direct relative able to claim "we fought the Americans and beat them". If only 1 in 10 of those relatives were to join the insurgency as a result, the insurgency is well ahead on bodies; they lose about 100 at the firefight, but gain 2-300 recruits as a result of the survivors telling other about it.

But that's not all. The Americans fired two TOW missiles, dropped a 2,000 pound bomb, made an F-16 gun run, and fired up to two companies' worth of Stryker-mounted .50 caliber in a built-up area inhabited by civilian Iraqis. If even one woman or child was hit, that's dozens of recruits for the insurgency. Pretty much, in any family where a woman or child is harmed by the Americans, that's a family lost to the American side forever.

The property damage alone could well have added more peope to the insurgency side, than the Americans managed to wipe out during the firefight.

I think this battle is a classic example of using a very expensive hammer, when what you are trying to do is thread a needle. When the Kiowa crashed, what was really needed was not 20, then 150, then 250-300 Americans backed up by all the support weapons in the book at the crash site, but maybe ten times that number of infantrymen without the heavy support and vehicles, but able to take it to the insurgency with rifles and grenades, and to take the casualties.

What needed to happen in an ideal world was a 2 km. x 2 km. cordon to close of the sector and a house-to-house check by tough infantry able to take casualties - Chinese or Indians for instance - for any one with a fire arm. The Americans seem to believe the insurgency can be defeated with combined arms, this is stupid.

It also was senseless, as one of the participants points out, to fight so long and so hard for the wreck of a Kiowa. From a personnel point of view it was far more rational to just go in, blow the Kiowa, and get out with the pilots. Since the Americans took the decision to recover the Kiowa carcass, the firefight lasted a good two hours longer, and every minute is a minus for the Americans, and a plus for the insurgency, when it comes to deciding who gained more from the firefight.

Of course, the Americans avoided pictures of Iraqi insurgents standing on a smashed Kiowa, so that's a plus. I wonder whether the soldiers of 5-20 realize that their main victory was keeping that picture out of the press.

As to the insurgents, it seems to me they have learned the old lesson that, if an American aircraft crashes, American forces will move towards it like bears to honey, and their actions can be predicted.

Final note - this all took place a year ago, so who's to say what the situation is in Tal Afar right now. My guess, things haven't changed much, if another Kiowa were to crash there today, I'd bet we'd have the same story all over again.

Opinions?

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Interesting things from CMSF point of view.

There has been complaining about the thing that any opposition there might be will be destroyed quickly and painlesly by air support. Well, from that report it seems that this is not the case. It took about 30min for the air support to arrive, which means there is plenty of time to fight on the ground. Ofcourse things might be different when fighting the conventional part of the war.

Also, it seems that the ground forces had a pretty good idea when and where that strike was coming in, unfortunately it is not clear who targeted the attack. But there is one thing that would be really nice to have as a tool to help coordinating movements. To link barrages (or CAS) and troop movement, that is "as soon as that bomb hits, I’m going to flank around and take those buildings." I know this is a standard way of doing things in Finnish Army. Not with CAS (because we don't have any...) but with artillery barrages. Actually the one in charge of the attack knows the exact stopping moment of the barrage. Don't know how it is in US Army.

Next, there is the thing about ammo resupply, I am just wondering how will this be simulated. Maybe something like the "In Command" system in CMx1? If the unit is "In Contact" (shown with a line) with its Stryker, then it can resupply itself? And maybe they can resupply from any of the Strykers? Resupply is one thing that allows for much different tactics to be used, one doesn't have to worry too much about ammo. For me ammo has always been the hard part in CMx1. Along with having enough living soldiers, that is ;)

And last, the situation seemed to be that they had no idea whatsoever before the fight what their opposition might be, even if they had UAVs and all. But during the fight they were able to use their UAV to spot enemies.

How did they know how many enemies they killed? It seems that they left the place after they had control of the helicopter? Maybe the report just doesn't tell about what happened after 11:30.

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Originally posted by Bigduke6:

Ok, now for comments.

...

Me, I think the Iraqi's main intention could only have been to kill or otherwise remove all the infidels next to the mosque.

...

the insurgency held the ground, successfully defended a mosque, destroyed a Kiowa, damaged two Strykers, injured five Americans and (far more importantly) an unidentified number of Iraqis fighting on the American side.

...

The property damage alone could well have added more peope to the insurgency side, than the Americans managed to wipe out during the firefight.

...

It also was senseless, as one of the participants points out, to fight so long and so hard for the wreck of a Kiowa.

Opinions?

Nothing fit to print, no.
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Originally posted by Bigduke6:

Opinions?

it is good to see good critical thinking and sound analysis.

i think the battle is a good example of a case in which both sides most likely thought that they had won a decisive victory.

Final note - this all took place a year ago, so who's to say what the situation is in Tal Afar right now. My guess, things haven't changed much, if another Kiowa were to crash there today, I'd bet we'd have the same story all over again.

occupation forces got hold of the city around when the dicussed event took place, but insurgents took it back soon afterwards. the insurgents controlling the city were exceptionally brutal which didn't please the locals. occupation forces tried to take the city in summer 2005 but failed. a big operation followed in fall and managed to capture the city. i think there are now permanent troops in the city (following the so called ink spot strategy) and it has been largely pacified. Tal-Afar has potential for being a success story, so it is possible that you were correct only about the first year that followed.

EDIT: here's a quite good & recent article about Tal-Afar: linky

[ January 04, 2006, 03:37 AM: Message edited by: undead reindeer cavalry ]

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UDC,

Fair comment, time will tell. Peace right after the Americans have moved out is not the same as peace one year later. It isn't encouraging to see the police in Tal Afar now, according to your report, are Shia, while the town is mostly Sunni. The hard-core insurgents have moved on, clearly.

But I agree, the potential for a success story is there. It all depends on the Iraqi security forces.

Leutnant Hortlund,

I mean "defending the mosque, as far as the insurgents are concerned." I don't mean to imply the Americans attacked the mosque. But I do mean to say the insurgents very likely felt they were defending the mosque.

In Undead Reindeer's link there is a factoid that the resistance was holding up "The Lions of Tal Afar" as an example of how to defend Iraq against the infidel invaders. So I think my point about the insurgency scoring a morale victory against 5-20 is fairly valid.

On the other points where we disagree, I'd be very interested to hear your arguements.

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You guys can't possibly concieve of a U.S. victory in any way can you? A Kiowa got shot down, U.S. forces race in to rescue the crew and in the process kill or wound a large number of insurgents. End result, crew rescued some damage to U.S. equitment, insurgents routed. Sounds like a victory to me.

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I think it was a tactical victory, yes. Not a decisive one (though it did afford 5-20 with a stand up fight, which the US will almost always win).

I don't think the fight broke the back of the insurgency in Tall Afar which, IMHO, would have qualified it as a decisive victory. Any student of small wars and insurgencies will tell you that tactical victories mean squat.

I definately see the potential for a CMSF scenario in this puppy, however.

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Originally posted by Rollstoy:

I do not like the 'invincible Stryker' aspect of the story! 15 RPG hits without any damage?! Sounds like big fun, balancewise! :rolleyes:

Best regards,

Thomm

Nobody ever said that there were 15 RPG impacts on the Strykers. AFAIK there was only the one on the mortar team's vehicle. RPGs are suprisingly difficult to fire accurately, especially if there is even a light breeze.
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Splinty is correct. If Bigduke was to write up something about the battle for Kharkov I'm sure it would look like a Soviet victory, when just about anybody else would call it a crushing defeat for the Soviets. It is bad business when you start to confuse tactical, operational, and strategic issues when trying to assess victory or defeat.

There is no question that this was a victory for the US side. The obivous evidence? The helo was evacuated and the pilots rescued without any major damage/casualties for the US side, despite being out numbered, out gunned, and on the defensive for most of the engagement. The insurgent forces had the initiative and then lost it, leaving the battlefield without acheiving their goals (and even if it was defending the mosque, who said the US forces didn't go in there later in the afternoon unopposed, eh?).

The opposite of this would have been if the Stryker force was prevented from getting to the crash site in time, took significant casualties, and arrived only to find a looted copter and no pilots. Then they tune into Al Jazera to see them being tortured, pardaded around, or even executed. That would have been a clear defeat at the tactical level.

Now, let's look at how this one incident could be seen from a higher level. There is a wider war going on, so in that sense a single firefight like this isn't significant. There are firefights, IEDs, suicide bombers, etc, etc. very frequently all over the country each and every day. One more isn't likely to change anything in any significant way, all on its own. However, if the insurgency got itself a true tactical victory, such as captured pilots, then that would all change. It would likely be a humiliation for the US, yet another example of failed US policy in Iraq, and yet another blow to Iraqi confidence that the Americans are in control of things. But that DID NOT HAPPEN because 5-20 prevented it from happening.

Knowing what I know about the insurgency, I don't believe they would consider this a victory at all. They might not consider it a defeat per se, since they are long term insurgents, but there was nothing specific about this battle to get all excited about.

Nope, sorry. No matter how this is looked at it must be seen as a US victory. It might be meaningless in the long term, just as countless German victories in Normandy, Arnhem, the Bulge, etc. were, but it doesn't change the facts at the tactical level.

Steve

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FHF beat me to the punch about the RPGs. Even so, there are accounts of single Strykers taking multiple hits within the space of a few minutes and still being operational. There are three reasons for this:

1. Poor quality of RPG rounds. Many fail to go off or do not "work as advertised".

2. Many of the RPGs being fired are anti-personnel and not anti-armor. Therefore, even when a round hits and works as it should, that doesn't mean it is going to cause significant damage.

3. Stryker anti-RPG defenses are pretty good. The slat armor has been found capable of defeating 50% of the hits and reducing damage from some of the other 50%.

What this means in game terms is that for every RPG hit there is a % chance that the round is inherently incapble of doing much because it isn't anti-armor. After that there is a % chance that it doesn't work or doesn't work correctly. Then after that there is a 50% chance that it is outright defeated and a % chance that it is partially defeated to x degree. So even when an RPG scores a hit the chance of it seriously damaging a Stryker is probably fairly low per RPG hit, not to mention RPG fired.

The problem for Stryker crews is that probability means nothing if that one round coming at you is the one that accounts for the catastrophic kill statistic. So the above math is not really all that comforting to Stryker crews (or any crew for that matter) when dozens of RPG rounds are coming at them.

Steve

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Lets see:

102 insurgent dead, 17 insurgent wounded. (confirmed anyhow)

5 US Wounded, unspecified ING troops wounded.

1 Kiowa destroyed, 1 Stryker disabled/recovered

US Pilots safely recovered.

US Hardware safely recovered.

Tabs up to a US victory to me.

Now, if you want to say "look, the insurgents were praised for defending a mosque, and held up as a shining example of driving out Americans" I would think the real answer would only be obtainable from asking the surviving insurgents. Chances are, you get hit that hard, you start having second thoughts about the Cause, no matter how your leaders dress it up.

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Steve,

No, you are wrong. I would rate the battle of Kharkov (ok the first two anyway) hands-down Soviet defeats. I suggest you search the CMBB forum for the expression "biggest/most disastrous/worst defeat in military history". You will find that, by far, that is me referring to the Kiev encirclement - where the Soviets lost. If you were being ironic and forgot the smiley then forget I said that.

Second, and I'm a bit surprised you do this, I think it's unfair of you to charge me with mixing tactical with strategical results, and then in the next breath you argue that among the victory conditions achieved by the Americans was the prevention of video tape of the two U.S. pilots being placed on Al Jazeera. That's a double standard. Why should I keep strategic effects out of my definitions of victory (I rail on about new insurgents), when you are allowed to keep them in yours? (You rail on about less juicy stuff for Al Jazeera to put on the air.)

You write that the fact that the U.S. forces were able to rescue the pilots and the Kiowa hulk "proves the U.S. was in control of things," and therefore, Tal Afar was a victory.

Au contraire, mon game-designing frere.

It may have been a victory, but your definition of control is, well, narrow. If the U.S. was really in control of things in Tal Afar, obviously, the Hemmit would have been able to drive to the crash site escorted by a single Iraqi guide, and they would have found an Iraqi civilian ambulance crew tending to the rotorjocks, and the crash site neatly cordoned off by the Iraqi police. That's control.

A country run by a U.S. military authority, but still able to produce a situation where a helicopter crash requires two companies of U.S. regulars to fight their way in just to rescue the crew, and even after doing so is unable to pacify the location, where the police are overtly working with the resistance, is anything but proof of "control". That's a situation out of control. You are deceiving yourself to call the battle of Tal Afar proof of U.S. control.

Yeah, it wasn't as bad as Mogadishu, I'll give you that. My point is of course, "not as bad as Mogadishu" is unlikely to win the war in Iraq.

You write that the U.S. force was out-gunned. I don't see it, mostly. Perhaps if you count numbers of rifle barrels, at the very beginning of the fight, but that's it - and that is far from everything that goes into a firefight. Small arms ammunition? Crew-served weapons? Armor? Vehicle-mounted weapons? Air? - All those firepower advantages were on the U.S. side.

This is not to discount from the performance of 5-20; if you look closely I do not even hint of poor tactical peformance by any U.S. forces in the action. I'm actually a little proud of them, I was in the U.S. infantry a long time ago meself. But firepower is firepower, and if you look at things honestly firepower advantage was heavily on the U.S. side. One would have expected the Americans to win the firefight, and they did.

You say you don't believe the insurgency considered Tal Afar a victory. Have you looked at the thread posted by udr? If that article is accurate, the insurgency considered the combatants of Tal Afar positive examples of how to resist U.S. forces.

So, in CMSF I would really like to see VPs beyond friendly/enemy killed, vehicles destroyed, and flags captured. As I've said before, I think casualties inflicted on the Syrians ought to, after a certain point, count against U.S. VPs. Ditto for Syrian capture of U.S. corpses, which I haven't mentioned before because I just thought of it. Also good VPs would be Syrian capture of destroyed U.S. equipment. And of course the media-related VPs, I doubt you'll implement them, but if you want to simulate the war right, you should.

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Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

(snip) If Bigduke was to write up something about the battle for Kharkov I'm sure it would look like a Soviet victory,

Steve

I am glad I am not the only one who sees thru his well-written bull****. I certainly got a chuckle when he claimed....

The main problem is the simplest journalistic error there is: the report is one-sided.

.

..Bigduke is one of the most biased posters to this website, a chip on his shoulder for all things American and an inferiority complex when it comes to being Russian. I don’t doubt he is a decent chap and he does write detailed combat science fiction, always using good grammar and excellent punctuation.

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Umm...I guaruntee that a single company and scout platoon were not tasked with subdueing or controlling Tal Afar in one day. You have two missions here on which to judge U.S. success or failure. You don't really have an insurgent mission to judge success or failure against, as they were simply reacting to U.S. forces. Even using the word "victory" is assigning a moral/political dimension that is beyond the scope of the described action.

But the scene was dramatically different just five weeks earlier, when another routine sweep landed these soldiers in an all-out fight to recover a downed American helicopter and its crew.

No media were on hand to record the battle in this northern Iraq city of more than 300,000, but Army Times reconstructed the action through interviews with more than a dozen soldiers who were in the fight.

It was Sept. 4 at 8:50 a.m. operating about 1,500 meters apart, 5-20’s Scout Platoon and B Company had just completed searches for terrorist leaders in the eastern section of Tall Afar. The battalion is part of 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division (SBCT).

Two OH-58 Kiowa helicopters were buzzing overhead, providing overwatch for the 160 or so soldiers on the ground.

The calm routine changed in a flash as rocket-propelled grenades streaked toward the helos.

Scout Platoon leader 1st Lt. Rob McChrystal saw a round hit one of the Kiowas behind the engine.

“I saw it kind of burst into flames,” he said. “It started to spin and go toward the ground. The first thing that went through my mind was, ‘This is not a good situation. We need to get there before the enemy does,’” he recalled. “The [thing] that goes through your mind is them jumping on the Kiowa dancing around and executing the pilots. … We all loaded up. Guys came sprinting from all different directions.”

Mission 1: Routine Sweep. Completed without loss. Success.

Mission 2: Prevent capture of U.S. personel by insurgents, recover or destroy equipment. Completed with minor losses. Success.

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People keep throwing around the word 'victory' without defining the term. According to Dictionary.com: "Victory refers especially to the final defeat of an enemy or opponent." Using that difinition the words seems a bit hyperbolical in this instance. There's got to be a word we're more likely to agree on. How about 'success' as a substitute.

From the sound of the battle both sides pretty much got what they hoped for. The insurgents wanted to give the U.S. military a good scare, rub their faces in the fact that they were deep in hostile 'injun' country. The U.S. for their part wanted to push their way in, get the job done, and push their way back out without significant U.S. casualties. Success on both sides, in a gruesome kinda way.

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It is said that the USA never lost a battle in Vietnam, jet they lost the war. Now according to bigdukes definition actually they lost most of the battles. Also we could claim that the Russians actually won most of the summer 41 battles and operations because they eventually won the war. And yes, it is in a way true. If they had lost even more quickly in the summer, the Germans might have won the war. But in reality claiming that the Russians won the summer 41 battles because they won the war is just silly.

So, to claim that the USA lost the battle because it might be that they are going to lose the war isn't correct. But there is a more valid claim, and that is that while winning the battle (which they did, like it or not) it might be that they caused too much damage to the city considering the overall cause. Ofcourse one has to take into consideration the amount of damage done to buildings and civilians vs the amount of damage done to the enemy. I could start another thread on this...

Another thing is that the insurgents could also claim that they won the battle. The thing is they didn't have any mission beforehand and after the battle they can claim that they succeded in defending the mosque. Only problem is that the mosque wasn't a target for the US side. BTW mixing the downing of the helo in the end results isn't fair. It was the reason there was a battle, not part of it.

Last thing: Of course the report was onesided and it is clear that it is. But it is not the same thing as saying it is false or that the meaning of it is to hide the real end result.

You are welcome to call me biased or anything, but one thing is sure: my punctuation and grammar isn't that good. :D

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Bigduke,

Second, and I'm a bit surprised you do this, I think it's unfair of you to charge me with mixing tactical with strategical results, and then in the next breath you argue that among the victory conditions achieved by the Americans was the prevention of video tape of the two U.S. pilots being placed on Al Jazeera. That's a double standard. Why should I keep strategic effects out of my definitions of victory (I rail on about new insurgents), when you are allowed to keep them in yours?
Because I CLEARLY separated the two from each other. I said it was a double "success" (I agree that is a better word than the loaded term "victory") in that not only did they succeed at the tactical level but they also succeeded in avoiding a higher level disaster. Two separate things. You disagree with both because overall the war in Iraq is not going as the US would like it to. That is bad logic.

In game terms then any battle the Germans play, in any of the three CM games, is a defeat. Using your logic this is because the Germans never had the war totally under their control and they for sure eventually lost (the jury is still out on Iraq, BTW, contrary to your belief). But you have a chip on your shoulder so you don't want to see it that way. Your choice.

You're arguments are also fundamentally flawed because you are saying things that I, and nobody here, has said. Point in fact:

You are deceiving yourself to call the battle of Tal Afar proof of U.S. control.
Who said anything about control of Tal Afar? How is that relevant to the tactical battle itself? It isn't. The success or failure of higher level conditions can not be judged by the actions of a single fire fight. Not unless policy makers decide to act on that one singluar event in some way (like pulling out of Somalia after the "Black Hawk Down" incident).

I'll say again, you are melting things together that should not be. A tactical action must be judged on its own and not confused with higher level issues. Whether the US has operational control over Tal Afar, Iraq, or the world is irrelevant when judging a tactical engagement. Period.

You write that the U.S. force was out-gunned. I don't see it, mostly. Perhaps if you count numbers of rifle barrels, at the very beginning of the fight, but that's it - and that is far from everything that goes into a firefight. Small arms ammunition? Crew-served weapons? Armor? Vehicle-mounted weapons? Air? - All those firepower advantages were on the U.S. side.
Did you read the same report that I read? I read a report that showed 20 men and 4 machines holding off a superior force, armed with light and heavy small arms, mortars, and RPGs, until reinforcements arrived. Sure, ultimately the weight of numbers came down on the US' side. That doesn't always happen in time, though. Things could have gone VERY badly for the US forces. In Ramadi nearly a dozen Marines were wiped out in a few minutes by a well executed ambush. That was an insurgent "success". This was not.

BTW, applying your skewed logic again the Allies had no "successes" towards the end of the war. They always outnumbered, always out gunned, the Germans and therefore because of that can't be judged well in a tactical engagement because they were predestined to win every time all the time.

One would have expected the Americans to win the firefight, and they did.
I've read enough about the conflict in Iraq to have made such a foolish assumption. At the tactical level the Americans have been defeated in the past and can be defeated again in the future. At least at the CM level's scope and timefame. An assured American success, with no KIAs and a few WIAs, is hogwash. Read up on Nassariyah, Ramadi, or Fallujah to see what I mean. There were also some pretty surprising tactical defeats for the US in Tal Afar region as well.

You say you don't believe the insurgency considered Tal Afar a victory. Have you looked at the thread posted by udr? If that article is accurate, the insurgency considered the combatants of Tal Afar positive examples of how to resist U.S. forces.
The insurgents feel that murdering Iraq civilians and collaborators is "victory". A single Humvee being blown up is "success". They have different standards because they aren't fighting a conventional war (something the West still needs to learn a LOT about). So in that sense, yes the simple fact that they were able to resist the Americans at all in that one, singular firefight was a sort of "success" for them. However, they didn't get what they were after, so I'm sure someone in the insurgency feels they missed a golden opportunity. And that is, by definition, not a success.

So, in CMSF I would really like to see VPs beyond friendly/enemy killed, vehicles destroyed, and flags captured. As I've said before, I think casualties inflicted on the Syrians ought to, after a certain point, count against U.S. VPs. Ditto for Syrian capture of U.S. corpses, which I haven't mentioned before because I just thought of it. Also good VPs would be Syrian capture of destroyed U.S. equipment. And of course the media-related VPs, I doubt you'll implement them, but if you want to simulate the war right, you should.
Victory conditions will not be like in CMx1, that much is for sure.

Steve

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The helo was evacuated and the pilots rescued without any major damage/casualties for the US side, despite being out numbered, out gunned, and on the defensive for most of the engagement.
“Outgunned” with what? Here’s with what according to BFC,
poor quality of RPG rounds. Many fail to go off or do not "work as advertised. Many of the RPGs being fired are anti-personnel and not anti-armor. Therefore, even when a round hits and works as it should, that doesn't mean it is going to cause significant damage
How anyone can claim that a non mechanized insurgency, with Paleolithic Russian armament, can outgun a US Stryker force with American gunnery, TOWs and state of the art communications is beyond me.

The insurgents didn’t have UAVs reporting enemy numbers, location and formation. They didn’t have the morale boosting knowledge that the cavalry and pulverizing air support were minutes away. Their only advantage? Mild surprise, modest numerical superiority, for they were on offense (after the helo), and a reckless willingness to die.

If one carefully reads the battle’s AAR, a US combatant expresses fear of overrun should reinforcements and air support be delayed much longer. The AAR clearly shows the tide only turned after F16s dropped precision ordinance, strafed insurgents’ positions and TOWs were introduced into the battle. Yet even with the F16s, here’s what was reported, “but it turned out that even JDAMs had not put an end to the attacks that day.”

Until debilitating air support arrived, the insurgents exceeded expectations mano a mano vs. Marines. So if put into perspective, you’ve the most trained, most equipped and mightiest army on the planet that can’t end an infantry battle without aerial bombardment and a prodigious supply of TOWs.

Ultimately, yes, the US had the day, but with what assets and against whom? With F16s against suicidal maniacs with Soviet trinkets. No wonder Rumsfeld no longer talks about North Korea.

I think, and I could very well be wrong, duke was unimpressed with the assets and doctrine employed to secure that bird. In this instance, Bigduke wins.

[ January 04, 2006, 03:29 PM: Message edited by: El_Operative ]

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Drusus,

Of course I agree with everything you said. I menat to include the Vietnam example in my post, but you had that all covered already :D Same could be said for most prolonged wars since there is usually tactical give and take, yet only one side can really win.

Another thing is that the insurgents could also claim that they won the battle. The thing is they didn't have any mission beforehand and after the battle they can claim that they succeded in defending the mosque.
This is a very good point. If I am defending a mosque and you are attacking a block of houses, and at the end of the battle I have the mosque, then in theory I have acheived "success". However, that is not tactically correct. Tactically the mosque was never attacked, nor even the target of the attack, and therefore was not a battle. The battle was for the block of buildings. That is where the judgement of success/failure needs to be made. At least at the tactical level.

If the operational "plan" was to draw the attack away from the Mosque then the operational plan was a success for the insurgents. However, if the Americans didn't give a flying fig about the mosque, then the US forces can't be seen as having failed because they didn't take something they never intended on taking in the first place.

This all gets into the issue of links between the various levels of combat. Using the above Tal Afar battle as a backdrop, I think it could be at least broken down like this, from smallest to largest:

1. Insurgent vs. Helo - mixed bag. One insurgent had success, many others failed. So one insurgent scored success and one helo failed. One other helo had success and a number of other insurgents failed.

2. Race to the crash site - US success, hands down. They got their first. End of story here.

3. Securing the crash site Part I - US success, hands down. Even after the insurgents arrived in force, the smaller and outgunned US force was able to keep their own forces, the helo crew, and the helo itself protected.

4. Reinforcing the crash site Part I - initially, an Insurgent success. The US wanted to get B Company to the crash site immediately. The tactics and bravado of the insurgents stopped that from happening. This allowed for the possibility of overrunning the small force at the crash site. That was the failure of the force surrounding the crash site, not the screening force.

5. Reinforcing the crash site Part II - ultimately an insurgent failure. They succeeded in delaying the arrival of B Company, but not long enough to make a difference (though that might not have been the problem anyway). Even damaging a Stryker made no difference since the insurgents were unable to prevent it from being extracted and that meant its firepower was still available short term and long term could be put back into the fight (or so it would seem).

6. Securing the crash site Part II - insurgent failure, again. Like the battle for Bastogne, the insurgents could not leverage their initial gains and advantages to get the prize they sought. Once the US forces were in place and coordinated with airpower, they were as defeated as the Wehrmacht was in the Bulge. The insurgents, in short, blew it.

7. Securing the Mosque - this was never a part of either insurgent or US's battle intentions, so it is irrelevant. It would be like the Germans in the middle of Arnhem deciding to "keep secure" a wine cellar full of choice wine on the outskirts of town. Yeah, they might not have lost it at the end of the battle, but how was it relevant to the fight? It wasn't, so there is no point in the Germans going around thumping their chests about it, now is there?

8. Wider sense of security in Tal Afar Part I - during the time of the battle the simple fact that the Americans lost a helo and couldn't maneuver as they saw fit, not to mention having to take a lot of enemy fire, clearly shows an insurgent success.

9. Wider sense of security in Tal Afar Part II - the area is now quiet and under US control in an acceptable sense of the term. It is therefore an insurgent failure and American success.

10. Wider sense of security in Tal Afar Part III - the insurgents have not been totally wiped out and popular support of them still exists, so the insurgents have chances to do something more in the future. Therefore, for now, the area is contested and that is a form of success for the insurgency, though not necessarily a long term failure for the US.

11. Much wider sense of the war in Iraq - total mixed bag here. The insurgency gets a lot of success points for staying fighting. But that is what they are designed to do, so it is not surprising. The US gets success points for staying in the fight too and not running away. The ultimate success or failure might take decades to determine, so anybody presuming to judge this larger aspect now must have the powers of Miss Cleo, since visions of the future are required to know where things will ultimately wind up. Plus, it has a lot to do with what your expectations are for a post conflict Iraq. If it is an American style Democracy, I doubt there will be success. But if it is to have a stable system of government that is as good as something like what the Turks have, then perhaps that is the best that could be acheived and since it is better than before it should be counted a success.

blah, blah, blah...

The point is that there is no one success/failure to draw from this one battle if you refuse to define what the battle is. If you wish to focus it on the crash site and the securing of it, then there can be no doubts that the Americans succeeded hands down. If you want to ignore the bounds of this single battle and extend it out in all directions, then things are more murkey. Since CM:SF is all about the tactical battles, I suggest not getting things all mixed up and mushed together. It isn't helpful.

Steve

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El_operative,

How anyone can claim that a non mechanized insurgency, with Paleolithic Russian armament, can outgun a US Stryker force with American gunnery, TOWs and state of the art communications is beyond me.
Because the insurgents did have the upper hand for the first part of the battle, both in terms of numbers of soldiers and in terms of total firepower. Yet they did not overrun the scout platoon nor did they even cause it casualties. That's a simple fact of this battle, and in fact many other battles just like it.

The insurgents have a small window of opportunity to overwhelm a small US force before the US get's its assets in gear and crushes the opposition. By and large the insurgents have proved unable to do this, though they have had some spectacular successes here and there. In more instances they have stalled and delayed what the Americans sought to acheive. In some cases causing the Americans to withdraw and come back in with more force (a short term success). But once the US gets things lined up and ready, they might as well melt away and fight another day. Many of them do, much to the frustration of US soldiers and commanders. But it would appear pride and stupidity cause a lot of fighters to stay and get killed instead. Darwin's laws apply to insurgents just as they do to other organisms.

In fact, the insurgency has become more difficult to deal over time. The fear is that the political process, and the training of Iraqi forces, is not going fast enough to cut the insurgency off before it acheives a certain level of professionalism and experience that will make it very tough to defeat. This is the story of the Germans in the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, France, Italy, and other places during WWII. It is also the story of European and US forces in SE Asia, as well as the UN in Somalia and countless other smaller nations over the years. The trick to defeating an insurgency is to cut it off before it gets to a certain level of expertise. Once it gets to that level then it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to stamp it out for decades. The Shining Path, Khmer Rouge, Tamil Tigers, and many others show that quite clearly. And usually the only way those insurgencies are put down is through some sort of political solution and not a military one.

But none of this has anything to do with judging a tactical battle :D

Steve

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