Squad uses Javelin in the field to take out insurgent vehicle

[Lee]

Just saw the video, pretty cool. What I can't figure out is why they were having so much trouble taking out a pickup truck with full auto weapons at close/medium range? And also, why weren't they firing more heavily? If I were a sergeant or lieutenant with those guys, I would have told the machine gunner to empty a belt into that thing, plus the other men to seriously light it up with their rifles. I mean, how hard can it be to take out a pickup truck? This is one of those situations when an MG42 would be perfect, a few bursts and that truck would have been swiss cheese.

On the other hand, they did shoot at it quite a bit, and it seemed from what I could tell they were putting rounds more or less on target, and yet it obviously wasn't stopping. And they aren't going to let terrorists get away so they can attack our soldiers later on, or go murder some more civilians, so they used what they had to stop it. And it was cool getting to see a Javelin fired in combat, but why is the video of such poor quality? If you're going to show something cool like that, at least give us some clear video of it. One thing is for sure, the terrorists in that truck got seriously owned.

[flamingknives]

Javelin is closer to 20kg all up and 15kg per round.

[Beastttt]

might have had improvised armor to protect it from small arms

going full auto is just going to waste ammo that they might need later

a light guided weapon seems to be needed

maybe laser guided on a SMAW sized round HE only

Originally posted by Lee:

Just saw the video, pretty cool. What I can't figure out is why they were having so much trouble taking out a pickup truck with full auto weapons at close/medium range? And also, why weren't they firing more heavily? If I were a sergeant or lieutenant with those guys, I would have told the machine gunner to empty a belt into that thing, plus the other men to seriously light it up with their rifles. I mean, how hard can it be to take out a pickup truck? This is one of those situations when an MG42 would be perfect, a few bursts and that truck would have been swiss cheese.

On the other hand, they did shoot at it quite a bit, and it seemed from what I could tell they were putting rounds more or less on target, and yet it obviously wasn't stopping. And they aren't going to let terrorists get away so they can attack our soldiers later on, or go murder some more civilians, so they used what they had to stop it. And it was cool getting to see a Javelin fired in combat, but why is the video of such poor quality? If you're going to show something cool like that, at least give us some clear video of it. One thing is for sure, the terrorists in that truck got seriously owned.

[Capt. Toleran]

Seems like an auto-nade launcher might work too if you could get the trajectory right fast enough.

[atacms]

Originally posted by Beastttt:

might have had improvised armor to protect it from small arms

going full auto is just going to waste ammo that they might need later

a light guided weapon seems to be needed

maybe laser guided on a SMAW sized round HE only

US Naval Warfare Center (I believe that's the name) developed exactly what you're proposing. It's called the Spike and it's tasked to destroying light armor or "technicals" with a guided round. It's built to be cheap too.

[Battlefront.com]

I'm glad Splinty posted. As I said earlier, there are already heavy restrictions on what soldiers can use and when, so the notion that they are allowed to use whatever they want whenever they want runs contrary to reality (as Splinty explained). I already mentioned the restrictions on tankers. So either these soldiers were operating under an authorized SOP or they are going to have to fill out a lot of paperwork after a major ass chewing. No way to tell which one.

Soldiers do not like to have restrictions at all, but unfortunately it is necessary. Especially in COIN ops. Using a sledgehammer, even when necessary, gets the locals upset. Using it when a screwdriver would have worked just as well gets the locals even more upset. Upset locals means more problems and no amount of hammering (well, at least for civilized forces) will counter that effect. The Israelis have gone back and forth learning and forgetting these lessons for decades and there is zero end in sight to their problems. There is no way we can stay in Iraq like this for decades. It runs contrary to our national interests.

Occupations generally don't turn out favorably for the force in occupation. We also know from Vietnam that a low tech insurgent force can not be beaten if it has an endless supply of warm bodies to fight with and cares not about how long the war lasts.

I have faith that Petraeus will do a MUCH better job than his predecessor. But he can only do so much, and has flat out said so. A political solution is necessary for a military success. Not the other way around. Because no amount of Javelins, JDAMs, M1A2s, etc. will put an end to the insurgency.

Steve

[ April 25, 2007, 11:07 AM: Message edited by: Battlefront.com ]

[Peter Cairns]

Sirocco,

but it makes no sense to me that we can't field a cost effective solution to mid range tactical targets after all this time in Afghanistan and Iraq

Isn't that the point of putting a 105mm on a stryker, to do exactly that with a $250 HE shell

Peter.

[Lee]

The lesson from Vietnam is that when you let stupid politicians force the military to fight a war with half measures (such as the idiotic restrictions on the bombing of north Vietnam most of the time), you're going to end up with lots of dead American soldiers that didn't have to die and a good chance of not winning the war.

That's why you should *never* fight a war that way, use overwhelming force or don't even bother. Sadly, we're doing a lot of that same stuff now, even after Sept. 11th. We have caught several Iranian soldiers in Iraq, including an Iranian commander/officer (Quds commander, I think) with papers on him that prove the Iranian military is in Iraq funding, training and equipping terrorists (both Al Qaeda terrorists and shiite terrorists, apparently they are willing to help Osama bin Laden and anyone else who's trying to kill U.S. soldiers or mass murder Iraqi civilians). Plus shipping in many IED bombs made in Iran to kill U.S. soldiers in armored vehicles. And yet the Iranian government, which is also working as fast as it can to put a nuclear bomb in the hands of the lunatic ayatollah's, is being allowed to do this; send Iranian soldiers and bombs into Iraq to kill U.S. soldiers from safety just across the border in Iran. Why?? This is just the type of weak indecisiveness that prolongs wars and gets U.S. soldiers killed needlessly. Either crush the enemy, all of them, not just the ones right in front of you on a street in Iraq, go right to the source/s and take them out, or leave. But don't do things half way and then wonder why the war is taking so long.

War by it's nature is brutal, breaking the physical ability and the will of the enemy to fight on. When one side forgets that and tries to fight "nice" (especially when fighting fanatical psycho's like these muslim terrorists and their supporters), they are going to pay needlessly with the blood of their own people and also greatly risk the outcome of the war itself.

[Matthias]

...i don't think that these "stupid politicians" are truly stupid enough to let the army use its full force, you didn't just lose vietnam just because you couldn't bomb north vietnam to hell...

[Sirocco]

Originally posted by Peter Cairns:

Sirocco,

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> but it makes no sense to me that we can't field a cost effective solution to mid range tactical targets after all this time in Afghanistan and Iraq

Isn't that the point of putting a 105mm on a stryker, to do exactly that with a $250 HE shell

Peter. </font>

[MikeyD]

"The lesson from Vietnam is that when you let stupid politicians force the military to fight a war with half measures..."

Not a single war has been 'started' by the military. Starting wars has exculsively been the privelige of our political masters (kings, princes, popes, presidents, whatever). 'Losing' Vietnam shouldn't be blamed on the politicians who succeeded in extricating us from that mess without committing further horrors, it was exclusively the fault of the politicians who pushed us in without sufficient forethought.

[Battlefront.com]

Vietnam was lost because it was unwinnable from the start. If someone doesn't want you on their turff, and they are numerically superior, they will win. End of story. Even ruthless oppression and slaughter won't change that fact. Ask the Russians how well their occupation of Chechniya is going. They've got some degree of a lid on it for now, but it won't be long before they lose control of it again.

So the lesson is... don't pick a fight you can't win militarily if all you can come up with are military solutions. That has been the problem with the war in Iraq since day one... it was a military adventure for fun and proffit. That's all the thought that was put into it. Sadly, 4 years later the thinking still is "get a bigger hammer". As the saying goes, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result each time.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

BTW Lee, there is a reason we aren't messing around with Iran. Unless we're going to use nukes on them we haven't a chance militarily of defeating them. We would only make them mad, and we know what happens when a terrorist state headed by religious fanatics does when they get mad. They get even (and then some). Attacking Iran is the fastest way to lose.

Instead, some REAL diplomacy should be put into effect by people that at least have enough brains to blow their own noses. Tell the American people what it is really going to cost to win against Islmaic wackos and do it. That means $10 a gallon for gas while we blockade Iran and deal with our so-called friends in the Middle East. Chavez can go sit and spin for a while too while we're at it. Iran would literally disintegrate within a few years since 60% of all their income comes from oil revenue. Of course we'd have to blockade shipments to the Chinese and our European friends, so we have to be prepared to say "sorry guys" to them while we do what needs to be done.

Far cheaper to do that than to start up another war too. Plus, we have a chance of winning. Not a bad idea to fight to win, right?

Steve

[Bigduke6]

First a quick note to Steve - Iran was under a fairly efficient blockade for most of the 1980s, and involved in a bloody war to boot, and their governemnt held.

I know you are writing rhetorically and Devil's Advocate, but me, I suspect that even if the US embarked on the strategy you propose, it would still be underestimating Iranian nationalism.

The way forward in Iran is to tie them into the world and let the forward-thinking Iranians undermine the mullahs. Much of the country - the urban portions and the youth - is quite as sophisticated as a similar demographic slice in most parts of Europe.

For more than a quarter-century US attempts to isolate Iran have given the mullahs a wonderful external enemy to target, to demonize, and to rally the conservatives against.

Remove that enemy, and IMO Irarian shariah government is doomed, and if not doomed then at minimum drastically weakened. The students and middle class will protest their way to some form of moderate parliamentary democracy interested mostly in trade and peace in about three years, I would bet.

More importantly from the US strategy POV, a relatively democratic and internationally-engaged Iran, with lots of economic ties abroad and no major foreign enemies, has no reason to use nuclear weapons, when it gets them.

But no, the US policy is "Iran is bad!", "Listen to their nutso leader, he's a nut!", "Isolate the Persians!" and "They're about to give Bin Laden a suitcase nuke!" It's as if Washington believes that if they demonize Iran's government, the rest of the world is going to pretend Iranian civil society is as monolithic as North Korea's.

This is not only stupid thinking, it is arguably criminally dangerous foreign policy. If there is no way to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons short of war, and war once started cannot be won, what possible sense does it make to antagonize a future member of the nuclear club? Why in the world is the American public allowing its leaders to follow this potentially catastrophic strategy?

The US record in recent foreign conflicts is not encouraging.

Time after time, our leaders and so the society giving them the job have failed to understand the enemy, the tools needed to defeat him, and the long-term implications of getting involved in an unwinnable conflict nonetheless.

A key feature of that mistake is that every one involved - civilian leaders, military leaders, soldiers right up and down the chain of command, and the voters paying for it all - are apparently so badly educated, they are willing to buy into military actions with lunatic goals, using dumb military tactics, in often willful ignorance of the opponent.

The theory that drove the interventions of Afghanistan and Iraq was (and is) so divorced from reality, that it is almost mind-boggling so many people, civilian and uniformed, could go along with it so long.

I think that is a lot of why we keep hearing "Our troops are doing great" and "Six more months" and "We're really making progress" and "It's not patriotic to criticize our troops!" etc. Millions, no tens millions of Americans prefer to pretend the wars make sense, and pay in blood and treasure to continue the fiction, than to look the facts square in the face and admit they were wrong.

But wrong they were, and wrong they remain. The proposition was, a small high tech US military force with a massive amount of military infrastructure behind it can destroy the conventional forces of a fourth- or fifth-rate Middle Eastern state with few to none friendly losses, and then the inhabitants of that state will not only greet the Americans as liberators, but what's more ignore millenia of their own history, and stop fighting among themselves.

Vietnam was the same type of error, the Beltway strategists assumed that a high tech US military force could defend a state with little to no popular support, with little going for it but the traditional support of its colonial masters, against another state carrying the banners of nationalism, ethnic purity, and independence. And the patriotic masses went along with it, substituting patriotism for intelligent reflection.

The idiocy of the Afghanistan and Iraq expeditions become even more incredible, when one considers that even when US government and public managed to pretend the Vietnam War never took place, to buy into those two invasions they also had to ignore their own War of Independence: Where a rag-tag force of Colonials used patriotism and outside support to outlast the superpower of the time, Great Britain.

The essential error in Iraq and Afghanistan, simply put, is assuming superpowers don't lose wars. Wrong. Even a cursory reading of history, be it Middle Eastern, recent US, or US colonial, makes that assumption ludicrous on its face.

A person proposing a US war against Iran, in any form short of annihilation of at least a third and quite possible a half of the Iranian population including women and children - never mind the sacrifices the US society would need to make - is making his arguments from that very same flawed assumption.

[Battlefront.com]

BigDuke6

First a quick note to Steve - Iran was under a fairly efficient blockade for most of the 1980s, and involved in a bloody war to boot, and their governemnt held.

Wouldn't be the same today. Not by a long shot. The regime has lost a ton of credibility with the population and one of the only things that is keeping it from being toppled is the "bribes" it gives its people in the form of below direct cost fuel, social programs, etc. They would never make it and they know it. That's why there's a bunch of Brit Marines back in the UK instead of beheaded on the streets of Tehran.

Now, that doesn't mean that Iran would surrender and be friendly to the US. I doubt that. What I mean is the current regime would fall. And like all corrupt centers of power, that's the last thing they want to have happen. So a threat that could topple them by their own people is a threat they no doubt take seriously. It's why there is so much dissent in the ranks of the ruling elite about pushing the West on the nuke issue. It's very, very risky for them.

This is not only stupid thinking, it is arguably criminally dangerous foreign policy.

You'll get no argument from me on that. Only Neocons and the ignorant think that a conflict with Iran is in the US' national interests. When I first announced that CM:SF would be set in Syria I got a terse note from some guy in the US gov't intel community saying something to the effect "WHAT? Why Syria? Iran is our main enemy, every dope knows that!" To which I responded, "yeah, but we have a chance of winning a conventional war against Syria, no chance at all of winning one against Iran".

The US record in recent foreign conflicts is not encouraging.

I bet you had to search long and hard for that mild statement I'll not be as kind. I think every dead President from the 20th Century has rolled over in their graves so many times now that they are in danger of wearing out the lining in their coffins. Bush Sr. hasn't been heard from in years, quit the contrary to other ex Presidents. According to those close to the family the elder Bush is following the "if you don't have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all". Yup, 8 years of mistakes and incompetency (the pattern for the next 2 years is not bright) is going to take decades to fix as it is. A conventional war with Iran would extend that out to beyond the point of oil being a viable commercial product, which (when it comes) largely fixes the problems the West has with the Middle East and Islam

The essential error in Iraq and Afghanistan, simply put, is assuming superpowers don't lose wars. Wrong. Even a cursory reading of history, be it Middle Eastern, recent US, or US colonial, makes that assumption ludicrous on its face.

The dirty little secret is that the US has lost quite a few conflicts in the last 100 years. Vietnam is the only exception for the US in modern times of losing a BIG war. Small ones, though, it's track record is pretty bad. Few people know much about them, though. How many people here know the US Army was in Russia in 1918-1919 and failed to achieve anything but some casualties and a pissed off US populace wondering what on Earth our forces were doing over there? 'tis true.

A person proposing a US war against Iran, in any form short of annihilation of at least a third and quite possible a half of the Iranian population including women and children - never mind the sacrifices the US society would need to make - is making his arguments from that very same flawed assumption.

Another understatement

Now, although I favor diplomacy with Iran, that alone won't work. If I were President I'd give it a shot though. But not for long. Then I'd resort to the tried and true carrot and stick methodology. But an all out military conflict would have to be started by them. I'd advocate nuking the entire country rather than engage them in land war on their terms. In other words, if they want to fight THAT badly... fine, but Homey Don't Play that Asymmetric Game.... instead, Homey Gunna Drop Da Bomb! Sounds crazy, I know. But practically speaking, I think it would do less damage than another Iraq. I am a Realpolitik guy, after all. So if nukes get the job done when all avenues fail, then I'd advocate seeing if the trillions of Dollars we've spent on nukes was worth the investment.

Steve

[ April 28, 2007, 12:31 AM: Message edited by: Battlefront.com ]

[Capt. Toleran]

2 things:

1. Now, long after the fact, if you listen to interviews from NVA/VC vets and read about Vietnam's history, you'll see we could never win that thing (and I used to be one of the "We didn't try hard enough" bunch). Historically they are very used to fighting wars with 40 and 50-year cycles against occupiers. We just can't cope with that, especially given our limited interests there. What we were afraid of (massive Communist expansion) didn't happen, and now they are basically our allies and seem to have forgotten all about the war (at least from those I've talked to from there -- the expatriates are still pretty pissed off here in Little Saigon in CA). So lesson #1, long term insurgency will win, unless you want to use genocide, which defeats the whole point of us "helping" some country.

Also, much like Iraq, Vietnam had an ethnic majority dominated by an ethnic minority, in this case ethnic Vietnamese (who are a collection of various smaller ethnicities, and mostly Buddhist) versus the Chinese-Vietnamese (and mostly Catholic) minority, who were more affluent and controlled much of the fairly corrupt Southern government and economy. I'm not picking sides (because I am against the North) but once again, we rushed into a situation without knowing all the facts about the culture, or understanding the reasons why people there might be pissed off at the status quo.

2. Iran would be a waste of time. Steve's already mentioned the geographic/military obstacles, now let me mention some social/economic ones.

A huge majority of Iran's population is under 30, including 25% under 15: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:DemoIR.JPG

Now, given that a majority of these folks actually like us (they had multiple candlelight vigils for us in support the week after 9/11), and that this burgeoning wave of youth will soon displace the fundementalist government that is so desperately trying to hold on to power, it really works against our interests to piss them off with an attack and trigger a wave of nationalism (much like the anti-Sadaam Shiites are showing against us now in Iraq from just our mere presence). Wait 10 years, they'll be our buddies, that government is on its last legs.

Economically, the oil market is heavily dependent on Iranian oil. You can see what problems with the Iraqi pipeline have done to prices -- Imagine if Iran just decided to shut down their own flow. I've heard some people say that alone could trigger a world recession, and much like 2001, we are already in the midst of several economic bubbles bursting (such as the housing bubble here in the US). Much like 2001, all those bubbles need is another political/economic calamity to officially touch off the next recession.

Occupations only work when the enemy is totally destroyed already, such as us in Germany and Japan. They had already lost many able-bodied men (their own fault) to battle and to bombing, they were both tired wrecks of countries when we came to rebuild. And that's the other point, if you're going to occupy, you need to improve things fairly quickly if you want the populace on your side. Judging by how the early war days went in Iraq recently, we weren't and still are not prepared to do any serious rebuilding.

Btw, some of the public hospitals here in CA are being asked by the federal government to go without 200MM in funding this year, as part of 5 billion in cutbacks nation-wide on health. Seems like the money we are now wasting in Iraq would more than make up the shortfalls here. To quote Full Metal Jacket, but cleaned up to take out the racial slurs: "It seems like we took our freedom and gave it to the [iraqis]"

[ April 28, 2007, 09:30 AM: Message edited by: Capt. Toleran ]

[John Kettler]

Seems to me that some years ago the Israelis had an enhanced manportable semiguided antitank weapon in development. I say semiguided because while it had no seeker per se, it did use an onboard strapdown inertial reference platform to allow it to accurately hit at ranges normal shoulder fired unguided weapons simply couldn't. Something like that, had it been available, would've probably worked great in the instance under discussion. Having recently watched AT-4 firing videos, I doubt TOF would've been much of an issue, either.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Battlefront.com]

It is my humble observation that the Israelis have just about one of everything under development at any one time

A cheap, disposible, multi-purpose weapon is already in our hands - the M136 AT4. Add some type of primative self guidence and I think it would be "good enough" for all but a full up conventional head butting with a large enemy mechanized force. The SMAW is also a really good platform to play with. Probably better than the AT4.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

I don't know why the Neocons, the great followers of Reagan (supposedly), don't take a page from the best of his playbooks. Containment and patience, not outright military conflict. Iran is on the highway to ruin (not just the road) even if we do nothing. Cpt. Toleran has pointed out part of it, I've sorta pointed out the other part.

Iran has a huge population of young people that are, for the most part, pro-West. At the very least they are not pro-Radical Islam. They are largely unemployed and unhappy with the restrictions placed on them by the small ruling elite. Even if nothing else happens, those folks will one day take power even if it's just because the old guard died off. But it won't take that long.

As I said, nearly 2/3rds of Iran's GDP comes from oil sales. Yet their oil production is in major decline year over year, mostly because they lack the skill and desire to fix their infrastructure themselves. Foreign oil companies aren't going to go in there unless the regime does a 180, therefore oil production will continue to decline. This means as the general costs of running a government increases, the money coming in gets smaller and smaller each year. Worse yet, the bribe of below market fuel has made Iranians the most wasteful users of energy. Now what do you think is going to happen when more and more of their oil production goes to keep the locals from rioting (at a significant cost) and less goes out to get hard currency? It accelerates the problem.

I can't remember the figures but it was something like within 20 years the Iranian state, at the current rate things are going, will have 0% of its GDP coming from oil. That means a budget shortfall of 60% and no nearly free energy for the citizens. Oooo... I don't think that is a winning combo And the way things work in economics, it won't take 20 years for a complete meltdown to happen. Probably 5 or so. That would be my out-of-butt-prediction.

To put that into perspective, we've been in Iraq for 4 extremely expensive years already and there is no end in sight. So waiting for 5 years and not spending a dime or losing a life seems to be a much better plan than another Iraq situation.

Again... learn from what worked for the US and what didn't. Vietnam did not contain or defeat Communism. Time and patience did. Nature likes balance, and Iran has no balance. Step back and wait for nature to do the dirty work.

Steve

[PLM2]

If someone doesn't want you on their turff, and they are numerically superior, they will win. End of story. Even ruthless oppression and slaughter won't change that fact.

So the French could have just kicked the Germans out on their own?

Willingness of the occupying country doesnt matter? We can sit in Iraq forever like this if American people don't care no matter how much the arab population tries to knock us out. But that isnt the case they seem to enjoy killing each other just as much.

Letting the guy get away could cost more than getting him. Obviously they want to die, or at least they aren't very smart. They should be familiar with what will happen if they speed up to/past a checkpoint. The small arms I think would have gotten him eventually anyway however. Awesome firepower might serve as a detterrance in some way. Then there's also the experience gained by the Javelin team gaining confidence and experience in a weapon system.

May as well shoot the ****. Not like you're gonna run into a T-80 any time soon. You guys are seriously overstressing this. In the same way you can analyze and dissect dozens of gun camera footages of excessive force being used on targets that didnt pose an immediate threat or some other crud.

[ April 29, 2007, 06:06 PM: Message edited by: PLM2 ]

[MikeyD]

I just stumbled on some new factoids relating to this discussion:

Total number of missiles fired in iraq by U.S. Army as of January 2005:

TOW 2A - 846

TOW 2B - 3205 (!)

TOW BB (bunker-buster?) - 175

Javelin - 607

total 4,833

[flamingknives]

My dictionary has 'factoid' defined, roughly, as an unreliable fact percieved to be true due to the manner in which it are presented.

Was that the intended meaning, or was it supposed to be "small fact"

[MikeyD]

Hey I got this info off a DoD powerpoint slideshow posted to the internet. That's skirting mighty close to the definition of 'factoid'

[Battlefront.com]

PLM2,

So the French could have just kicked the Germans out on their own?

Yes, eventually. The Germans were massively over extended and were well on the way to losing control of large portions of occupied territory even without the invasion of France. Norway, Denmark, France, Italy, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Greece, and Romania were all extremely bad environments for the occupation forces. The "insurgents" in all of these areas were winning by the time the Germans were obligated to withdraw for one or more reasons. There was active and growing armed opposition in Belgium and the Netherlands too. They were on a growth path. Heck, even withinside Germany there was more and more opposition building, though it had a long ways to go.

In the East the Germans never fully controlled the territories they occupied. Warsaw rose up twice, but there were other problem areas for the Germans all over. Partisans in the occupied areas of the Soviet Union were a HUGE drain on German resources and they were able to do pretty much what they wanted to towards the end.

So yes... if the Western Allies had just sat on their hands in Britain and North Africa in 1943, and the Soviets signed a cease fire with the Germans, it wouldn't have been too long before the Germans lost control of the territory they occupied. How long? Impossible to say. Decades, perhaps, or maybe only a few years. Bad occupation policies would be the number one reason for this, BTW. The Nazis had, to put it mildly, some problems with their "people skills".

Steve