British destroy own C130 in Iraq

[Battlefront.com]

Hehe... and flamingknives thought I was being negative

But civdiv is correct. The south is not a happy little place, though by comparison it is better than many other spots. And its relative calmness is not for the reasons the Coallition wants, such as militias controlling things. It is clear, I think, that it will be an extension of Iran no matter what happens.

Steve

[Challenger 2]

I hardly say that the British military is on its death bed. The British commanders have said they can fight in Afganistan or Iraq but not both as they have nowhere near the numbers or budget of the American military and from a polictical point of view Afganistan is the better choice as we have a chance of winnning. Also 70% of class A drugs come to Britian from Afganistan.

[Sergei]

Originally posted by Challenger 2:

Also 70% of class A drugs come to Britian from Afganistan.

...so it's more economical to take the young men there instead? (There was a huge drug problem in the Red Army during the Afghanistan war when supply met demand right in the home market.)

[MikeyD]

Didn't Britain once fight a nasty little war with China to force them to open their ports to the Brit empire-controlled opium trade?

A comment from a Basra local i heard on the radio was along the line that since the Brits rarely left base anyway, and usually didn't interfer with whatever was happening right in front of them when they did patrol that withdrawal was being looked on by the locals as a bit of a non-event. Sorta like when the Japanese, Polish, and El Salvador (?) contingents withdrew.

[Battlefront.com]

Challenger 2,

The British commanders have said they can fight in Afganistan or Iraq but not both as they have nowhere near the numbers or budget of the American military and from a polictical point of view Afganistan is the better choice as we have a chance of winnning.

Right... that's the same thing for the US. We have a larger budget and military, but we also have a much larger share of the burdon. For example, the US has roughly 25 times the number of troops in Iraq as the Brits do *and* has more in Afghanistan than any other participant in Afghanistan.

Iraq is not more winable without British help, therefore it is now less winable with them on the way out. That's the bottom line reality that no politician can correct no matter how wonderful the words used.

Steve

[GSX]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

So... runway security was apparently not high up on the priority list? I know those Insurgents can be sneaky little buggers, but that's a pretty serious breach in security. But the again, Blair says everything is just ducky in the south and everybody can go home anyway. Well, not in that C-130 though

Steve

I believe it was in Maysan, there arent too many options to re-supply the Brit Battlegroup there as they no longer operate from fixed bases. Instead they operate continually in the field.

http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=184143

I'm sure that the improvised landing strips are secured beforehand but as in all conflicts both sides re-act and adapt, our turn to react and adapt I think.

[Bigduke6]

Problem is, if the insurgents are smart, they will be hip to things like foreign survey teams going to big flat open places that might take an airplane, and then doing things like making sure there is open space.

Heck, the insurgents wouldn't even have to know an airplane was coming in, just that a piece of ground was getting increased attention. It's not like the insurgency has a shortage of bombs and people willing to press the button to make them go off. Dig the bomb in and wait. When the foreigners show up in force, watch until several of them get near the bomb, and then blow it up.

If they find the bomb, and you are in the vicinity, you are just an Iraqi with a mobile phone. No law against that.

What's worse, what if the foreigner military security is compromised? Is every single Iraqi who might know about a C-130 landing somewhere, absolutely trustworthy? Every single contractor, supplier, salesman, and base worker?

The translators alone are a huge security threat. At the end of the day they have to live in Iraq when the foreigners leave. What better way to make sure you stay alive when that happens, than to feed information to the insurgency from time to time?

The same goes for members of the Iraqi government - down to every petty policeman and district chief - who has his family and his life to worry about, every time he keeps faith with the foreigners. They're going to leave, and unless he establishes bona fides of loyalty to some agency that can protect him when they do - be it clan, tribe, religion, or company - then he is potentially signing his and his family's death warrant. At this point, only an Iraqi fool would collaborate with the Americans and their allies.

Given that, keeping secret the planned movements of something as big and personnel-intensive as a C-130 movement probably is not so easy.

And all of this begs the question, how in the world is Iraq becoming a more stable place, if the foreign military is reduced to moving people and supplies around in C-130 sorties to unimproved strips, because they don't trust the road network.

[Challenger 2]

Steve don't get me wrong at all I understand that the American military has got ALOT more on its hands in the two countries hence the need for more troops

[Peter Cairns]

Bigduke6,

I am with you on that one.

I watched a news report on the US in Iraq a few weeks ago, it was filmed over three days.

It started with them on a roof top returning fire at people snipping at them, and complaining that the Iraqi troops with them wouldn't return fire.

Then they went to the area the snipers were in and challenged the Iraqi police their. They basically told them they didn't mind them being corrupt and taking bribes but if they allowed fire from their street again they would be arrested.

Next there was an attempted grenade attack from government offices next door to the joint US/Iraqi compound, which saw the US go in and hold everyone in the courtyard for two hours, including the members of the elected local council.

Finally on the last day there was another grenade attack on the US, but this time it came from the Iraqi part of their own compound.

Peter.

[MikeyD]

A blog/semi-news website I was reading suggested (based on what?) the planeside bomb might've been one of those self-forging warhead off-route mines. That would've reduced the need for crawling onto the runway, digging a hole, planting the mine, then covering it again. I also read that a U.S. patrol stumbled on an Iraqi machine shop with stacks of copper disks for making those off-route mines. So apparently the weapon isn't too complex to construct in-country after all. Someone said it was the type of weapon that was awfully difficult to design (the U.S. spent 20 years working out the glitches) but is simple to manufacture. The disk itself resembles nothing so much as a cast copper ash tray.

[GSX]

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

[QB] Problem is, if the insurgents are smart, they will be hip to things like foreign survey teams going to big flat open places that might take an airplane, and then doing things like making sure there is open space.

Agreed, its simply survival of the smartest. We kill off the stupid ones but the smart ones will adjust to our tactics, using the stupid ones as decoys. The gullible are the suicide bombers, the smart ones use the gullible. Nothing is safe, we have had suicide Donkeys, suicide cycles, remotely detonated suicide bombers who are activated by mobile phones so that they cant have last minute nerves and run for it. Its all about adapting.

Heck we have made this leap in technology by the insurgents by our very effectiveness in countering what went before. Its like some kind of Frankenstein's monster!