Devil Dogs bite far worse than bark

[Vark]

Thought you might like this.

http://www.military.com/news/article/marine-corps-news/marine-makes-insurgents-pay-the-price.html

[Inkompetent]

Wow. 30 being ambushed by 250, winning the battle, and not even one single major injury for the Marines? Now that's impressive!

[Dietrich]

Evidently supports Clausewitz's assertion that defensive fighting is tougher than offensive fighting. And if the defenders are more aggressive, better trained, and well led(not to mention qualitatively better armed), the attackers' superior numbers and quantitatively superior firepower may well fail to be decisive.

[Bigduke6]

Er...since when is a Marine Corps press release the unvarnished truth?

It is of course a nice entertaining story that USMC Cpl. James M. Mercure wrote up there, but it is a long way from a solid news report or anything resembling dependable intelligence. The text as it is raises lots of red flags:

- It sure was neat that sniper killed an even 20 Taliban

- It sure was neat the Marine platoon killed an even 50 Taliban

- It sure was trusting of the Marines to decide they had been fighting 250 Taliban, because the residents of Shewan village said that's how many hard-core Taliban are in the vicinity. I mean, sometimes villagers lie, but apparently the USMC reporter was convinced the Shewan villagers were telling the truth.

- It sure was, well, interesting that 30 US Marines could remain under fire for eight hours from 250 Taliban armed with AKs, RPGs, and machine guns, and the only casualties the Marines take are in the initial ambush.

- It sure is curious that the only major news agency to pick up this report was Fox, and even they don't report it as fact, but just something some Marine colonel told them. You would think this would be huge news; 250 organized Taliban is the biggest Taliban operation since the Battle of Wanat in July, and the Taliban won that one. So you have to wonder, if the Marines won this huge victory, why is the only place in the Internet you can find the report is on rah rah we love the troops blogs?

- It sure is peculiar that the Marines managed to use fire and movement against 250 Taliban, killed 50 of them, and there is not a single mention of an enemy corpse or POW captured.

- It is also more than a little unprofessional that the article writer not only takes the claims of a sniper who refuses to identify himself at face value, but reports those claims as fact.

- You gotta wonder, if the platoon is pinned down and in trouble, why did it take eight friggen' hours to get air on station? The Marines have this great hoo hah about how their dedicated air supports them fast, well either it screwed up or the call for air came late into the firefight. And if a US platoon doesn't call in air in Afghanistan, it either is under little pressure or has no targets, or both; and if we believe the sniper there definately were targets. I find it incredible that a USMC platoon would wait eight hours to call in air on 250 Taliban. If there were actually 250 Taliban actually sighted somewhere in Afghanistan, I would think they could have Cobras overhead in a half hour, and fixed wing in less than an hour.

I don't doubt there was some kind of firefight, and maybe even the Marine platoon was in some kind of actual danger before they called in the close air. I believe an RPG was fired and that it hit a HUMMV and that some Marines were injured, and I believe that for a while the Marine platoon was pinned down.

But the size of the Taliban force, the casualties inflicted on the Taliban, that really smells like it was invented. I know this is cynical but we also have to consider the possibility the Marines are telling the rest of the world they fought and killed a bunch of Taliban, to distract from the fact one of their platoons drove into an ambush.

The firefight took place on the 18th, so logically if it went down like the Marines are telling it, we should get more details in a while. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it really was this incredible battle no one has heard of. But somehow, I don't think so.

[Battlefront.com]

Reminds me of a little battle the Marines participated in during the first Gulf War. Oh, you know, Khafji

Yup, quality vs. quantity works out fine as long as the gap between the two is rather huge. When it isn't, or the numbers of one side are so astonishingly high, quality will break down and yield to quantity. At least at higher levels if not lower ones.

Steve

[Apocal]

- You gotta wonder, if the platoon is pinned down and in trouble, why did it take eight friggen' hours to get air on station? The Marines have this great hoo hah about how their dedicated air supports them fast, well either it screwed up or the call for air came late into the firefight. And if a US platoon doesn't call in air in Afghanistan, it either is under little pressure or has no targets, or both; and if we believe the sniper there definately were targets. I find it incredible that a USMC platoon would wait eight hours to call in air on 250 Taliban. If there were actually 250 Taliban actually sighted somewhere in Afghanistan, I would think they could have Cobras overhead in a half hour, and fixed wing in less than an hour.

First off, it's possible that there are no Marine aircraft in Afghanistan. USAF controls all air through the ATO. Unless the Marines have the most aviation forces in a particular theater (and I don't believe this has ever happened), they don't have operational control of their aircraft. And waiting several hours for air support is not unheard of. If sorties aren't in the allocated in the ATO, you don't get to fly. Having permission denied until the area legal officer decides it's worth the damage you're going to inflict on the civilian infrastracture is another common thing.

All of which is why we still have mortars at the company and battalion level and there are very strong arguments for bringing them down into the platoon level. The platoon or company commander's own fire support, on tap, no need to ask permission, just beg forgiveness. Worst case scenario is something like 5 or 10 minutes, as opposed to the close to half-hour wait (at best) we managed during my last foray into the Gulf.

As for the numbers, I get the impression they had no idea exactly how many they were up against (this is common) and instead of being a sustained fight, there were lulls during which the Taliban stopped to get more ammo, get their buddies hanging out at the mosque, etc.

[Sergei]

BD, does it say that it took 8 hours to get air support? I don't notice any mention of that. But since there was air support, I'd think they saw the number of enemies quite well from the air. If it was just an ambushed platoon with no pre-battle intel, I'd be more sceptical of the figure.

But the account is vague on tactical setting. Does it even say what time the engagement took place? If it was after dark, that makes a world of difference between troops with night visions and troops that don't. Eight hours is also enough time for fighters within radius of miles alerted by the sounds to reach the place, so even if the 250 man figure is exact, it doesn't mean that they all were there initially.

[meade95]

Er...since when is a Marine Corps press release the unvarnished truth?

It is of course a nice entertaining story that USMC Cpl. James M. Mercure wrote up there, but it is a long way from a solid news report or anything resembling dependable intelligence. The text as it is raises lots of red flags:

- It sure was neat that sniper killed an even 20 Taliban

- It sure was neat the Marine platoon killed an even 50 Taliban

- It sure was trusting of the Marines to decide they had been fighting 250 Taliban, because the residents of Shewan village said that's how many hard-core Taliban are in the vicinity. I mean, sometimes villagers lie, but apparently the USMC reporter was convinced the Shewan villagers were telling the truth.

- It sure was, well, interesting that 30 US Marines could remain under fire for eight hours from 250 Taliban armed with AKs, RPGs, and machine guns, and the only casualties the Marines take are in the initial ambush.

- It sure is curious that the only major news agency to pick up this report was Fox, and even they don't report it as fact, but just something some Marine colonel told them. You would think this would be huge news; 250 organized Taliban is the biggest Taliban operation since the Battle of Wanat in July, and the Taliban won that one. So you have to wonder, if the Marines won this huge victory, why is the only place in the Internet you can find the report is on rah rah we love the troops blogs?

- It sure is peculiar that the Marines managed to use fire and movement against 250 Taliban, killed 50 of them, and there is not a single mention of an enemy corpse or POW captured.

- It is also more than a little unprofessional that the article writer not only takes the claims of a sniper who refuses to identify himself at face value, but reports those claims as fact.

- You gotta wonder, if the platoon is pinned down and in trouble, why did it take eight friggen' hours to get air on station? The Marines have this great hoo hah about how their dedicated air supports them fast, well either it screwed up or the call for air came late into the firefight. And if a US platoon doesn't call in air in Afghanistan, it either is under little pressure or has no targets, or both; and if we believe the sniper there definately were targets. I find it incredible that a USMC platoon would wait eight hours to call in air on 250 Taliban. If there were actually 250 Taliban actually sighted somewhere in Afghanistan, I would think they could have Cobras overhead in a half hour, and fixed wing in less than an hour.

I don't doubt there was some kind of firefight, and maybe even the Marine platoon was in some kind of actual danger before they called in the close air. I believe an RPG was fired and that it hit a HUMMV and that some Marines were injured, and I believe that for a while the Marine platoon was pinned down.

But the size of the Taliban force, the casualties inflicted on the Taliban, that really smells like it was invented. I know this is cynical but we also have to consider the possibility the Marines are telling the rest of the world they fought and killed a bunch of Taliban, to distract from the fact one of their platoons drove into an ambush.

The firefight took place on the 18th, so logically if it went down like the Marines are telling it, we should get more details in a while. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it really was this incredible battle no one has heard of. But somehow, I don't think so.

Reality being reality - The article never claims an "even 50" were killed - it clearly states "the Marines had reduced an enemy stronghold, killed more than 50 insurgents and wounded several more."

Furthermore, it doesn't say it took 8 hours for CAS (though, your notion of having CAS on target within an hour, throughout Stan isn't accurate).....but it seems to suggest CAS calls went on likley through the course of this engagement......

[Patrocles]

Er...since when is a Marine Corps press release the unvarnished truth?

It is of course a nice entertaining story that USMC Cpl. James M. Mercure wrote up there, but it is a long way from a solid news report or anything resembling dependable intelligence. The text as it is raises lots of red flags:

- It sure was neat that sniper killed an even 20 Taliban

- It sure was neat the Marine platoon killed an even 50 Taliban

- It sure was trusting of the Marines to decide they had been fighting 250 Taliban, because the residents of Shewan village said that's how many hard-core Taliban are in the vicinity. I mean, sometimes villagers lie, but apparently the USMC reporter was convinced the Shewan villagers were telling the truth.

- It sure was, well, interesting that 30 US Marines could remain under fire for eight hours from 250 Taliban armed with AKs, RPGs, and machine guns, and the only casualties the Marines take are in the initial ambush.

- It sure is curious that the only major news agency to pick up this report was Fox, and even they don't report it as fact, but just something some Marine colonel told them. You would think this would be huge news; 250 organized Taliban is the biggest Taliban operation since the Battle of Wanat in July, and the Taliban won that one. So you have to wonder, if the Marines won this huge victory, why is the only place in the Internet you can find the report is on rah rah we love the troops blogs?

- It sure is peculiar that the Marines managed to use fire and movement against 250 Taliban, killed 50 of them, and there is not a single mention of an enemy corpse or POW captured.

- It is also more than a little unprofessional that the article writer not only takes the claims of a sniper who refuses to identify himself at face value, but reports those claims as fact.

- You gotta wonder, if the platoon is pinned down and in trouble, why did it take eight friggen' hours to get air on station? The Marines have this great hoo hah about how their dedicated air supports them fast, well either it screwed up or the call for air came late into the firefight. And if a US platoon doesn't call in air in Afghanistan, it either is under little pressure or has no targets, or both; and if we believe the sniper there definately were targets. I find it incredible that a USMC platoon would wait eight hours to call in air on 250 Taliban. If there were actually 250 Taliban actually sighted somewhere in Afghanistan, I would think they could have Cobras overhead in a half hour, and fixed wing in less than an hour.

I don't doubt there was some kind of firefight, and maybe even the Marine platoon was in some kind of actual danger before they called in the close air. I believe an RPG was fired and that it hit a HUMMV and that some Marines were injured, and I believe that for a while the Marine platoon was pinned down.

But the size of the Taliban force, the casualties inflicted on the Taliban, that really smells like it was invented. I know this is cynical but we also have to consider the possibility the Marines are telling the rest of the world they fought and killed a bunch of Taliban, to distract from the fact one of their platoons drove into an ambush.

The firefight took place on the 18th, so logically if it went down like the Marines are telling it, we should get more details in a while. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it really was this incredible battle no one has heard of. But somehow, I don't think so.

good points!

[Battlefront.com]

It will be interesting to see if more details come out about this battle. However, one thing has been pretty clear from years of fighting in Afghanistan... the Taliban aren't very good at this scale of tactical fighting. The number of reports I've seen over the years where Taliban in the 100-300 fighter range are totally slaughtered by a fairly small force of Western troops is almost the norm. It's not surprising, either, given the major material and training advantages/disadvantages of both sides.

I guess what I'm saying is I don't really doubt the Marines' account of the battle because it's about what I'd expect from that sort of an engagement based on historical (especially relevant Afghan) examples. In a way it can be said that the Marines performed "average" in this situation. Now, a surprised platoon of Marines defeating 250 Iranian Quds Force soldiers would be a different story! Er... as well as another war that we shouldn't be involved in

Steve

[Dietrich]

Er...since when is a Marine Corps press release the unvarnished truth?

Okay, so it's effectively propaganda. I was tempted to say as much after reading the article but thought it more judicious not to.

- It sure was neat that sniper killed an even 20 Taliban

The suspicious "even"-ness of the number can be supposed to be the sniper (who is referred to in the article also as a "designated marksman", which is not the same thing as a sniper) simply rounding his actual kill count up or down.

- It sure was neat the Marine platoon killed an even 50 Taliban

Maybe the entire platoon rounded the body count up or down.

"During the battle, the designated marksman single handedly thwarted a company-sized enemy RPG and machinegun ambush by reportedly killing 20 enemy fighters with his devastatingly accurate precision fire."

'Company-sized'? Would even an understrength company really be "thwarted" by losing 20 of its men, especially if they're fanatics? And wait a minute...there was an ambush after the ambush? (See, I can be cynical too. =P)

- It sure was, well, interesting that 30 US Marines could remain under fire for eight hours from 250 Taliban armed with AKs, RPGs, and machine guns, and the only casualties the Marines take are in the initial ambush.

After the initial ambush they would have taken cover, right? Once having taken cover, they would be all the more alert, right?

250-versus-30 is no doubt an oversimplification. If 250 AK-, RPG-, and MG-armed Taliban were shooting at the 30 Marines all at once...well, I don't right know how it would have gone, but the Marines would have definitely suffered more casualties.

However, the report says: "The vicious attack that left...several of the Marines pinned down in the kill zone sparked an intense eight-hour battle...." The report does not say that the Marines were 'under fire for eight hours from 250 Taliban'.

The report says that the Marines had arrived at Shewan when the ambushed was launched. Thus it stands to reason that there were buildings and/or walls or at least the Humvees which the Marines could have used for cover. Speaking of the Humvees, were any of them armed? Do not some Humvees have 50-cal M2 machine guns? Would not a 50-cal MG's bullets punch right through the walls of a typical Afghani house? (It stands to reason that the ambushers were firing from within buildings or behind walls, while there were evidently trenches in the area.)

In short, what the report does not say/include can be inferred to be not unimportant when correlated with what it does say.

- It sure was trusting of the Marines to decide they had been fighting 250 Taliban, because the residents of Shewan village said that's how many hard-core Taliban are in the vicinity. I mean, sometimes villagers lie, but apparently the USMC reporter was convinced the Shewan villagers were telling the truth.

Just because the USMC reporter said the villagers told the Marines there were 250 Taliban in the area doesn't that's what the Marines (the ones in the battle, that is) actually believed.

- It sure is peculiar that the Marines managed to use fire and movement against 250 Taliban, killed 50 of them, and there is not a single mention of an enemy corpse or POW captured.

Are not troops inclined to overestimate the strength and firepower of the opposing force, especially when said troops are (or so they believe at the time) fighting for their lives?

Mercure writes: "Reports indicate that more than 250 full time fighters reside in the city and in the surrounding villages." Is it plausible that the Marines took a head count of those shooting at them from and windows and doorways and over roof ledges? Or is it more plausible to figure that they took a hurried (and thus somewhat approximate) body count, compared that with what they had been told by the locals, then, in the flush of having survived an ambush, concluded that there must have been that many of 'em.

No doubt the Marines were trained to search enemy corpses for intel, so the absence of any mention of enemy dead might seem peculiar. But just because the report -- which is concerned with the supposed heroic-ness of the Marines in the battle itself -- doesn't mention enemy dead doesn't mean there weren't any.

The report claims that "many of [the enemy] dropped their weapons and fled the battlefield" when the Marines pushed forward. With their firepower reduced by casualties from Marine return fire as well as at least some of their number saying (in effect) "screw this, I'm getting outta here", the Taliban fighters' ability to keep the Marines pinned would, I reckon, by attritionally reduced.

After recovering the Marines trapped in the kill zone, another platoon sergeant personally led numerous attacks on enemy fortified positions while the platoon fought house to house and trench to trench in order to clear through the enemy ambush site.

Based on the limited information claimed in the report, I propose a chronological sketch of the battle:

1. Taliban launch ambush, immobilizing one Humvee and knocking one Marine unconscious.

2. Marines dismount and return fire, suppressing the enemy and causing a few casualties.

3. Individual Taliban flee the scene are pinned, reducing the Taliban combat strength.

4. Having gained some semblance of initiative, the Marines use fire-and-movement to push forward.

5. Taliban fall back, thrown onto the defensive by the Marines' counter-attack.

6. Over the next 7-1/2 hours or so, the Marines battle with the Taliban through the village, outmaneuvering them and driving them back in house-to-house fighting.

The Taliban probably were expecting to simply overwhelm the Marines and wipe them out. When their poor marksmanship preventing them from concentrating their firepower on the Marine and their vehicles, thus in effect allowing the Marines to gain the upper hand, they were probably thrown back on their heels, so to speak, which the Marines probably took advantage of and routed them.

- You gotta wonder, if the platoon is pinned down and in trouble, why did it take eight friggen' hours to get air on station?

What if the only actual casualty the platoon suffered was its radio? Or does each squad in a Marine infantry platoon typically have a radio? (If they were indeed on patrol, as the report claims, it stands to reason that they would have as close to plenty of radios as they could manage.) Perhaps part of those eight hours was spent fixing whichever radio(s) they had which had taken a hit.

The report claims that the battle lasted about eight hours. But it does not say when during those eight hours the called-for air support actually arrived. Thus it may in fact have been as you reckoned, Bigduke, that Cobras were overhead as soon as a half hour into the fight.

quality vs. quantity works out fine as long as the gap between the two is rather huge. When it isn't, or the numbers of one side are so astonishingly high, quality will break down and yield to quantity. At least at higher levels if not lower ones.

As I said, not only is "30 Marines fight 250 Taliban in an eight-hour battle and kill 50" an oversimplification, but it obscures many of the tactical aspects one can infer about the incident from even a propagandistic, one-sided report. (I'm not saying the report is even mostly accurate; I'm just trying to be neither gullible nor overly cynical.)

To provide a parallel example: "On July 10, 1943 near Psyolknee in southwestern Russia, Waffen-SS Tiger tank commander Franz Staudegger faced 50+ T-34s, knocking out over 17 in a two-hour battle." What that statement doesn't tell you is that Staudegger and his crew encountered the T-34s in several small groups at first, then ran into the bulk of them. So a one-sentence summation of combat can easily be misleading, even if it is are in and of itself not inaccurate.

A more relevant example, the Battle of Mogadishu: 160 Rangers and Delta Force troops (with limited attack helicopter support) versus 2,000-4,000 Somali militia (with limited mortar and 'technical' support), 18 killed versus an estimated 200 to 500 killed. What those facts fail to clarify is that the battle was a collection of smaller-scale combats, whereas face-to-face 2,000 would obviously overwhelm 160.

Is it not plausible that perhaps the 30 Marines were shooting at and/or receiving fire from, say, actually just 30 to 60 Taliban at any given time? With that Marines-to-Taliban ratio, would not the Marines' superior marksmanship and (qualitatively) superior firepower be decisive? Are not Taliban just the kind of scum-of-the-earth guys who count on either being within spitting distance of whoever they want to shoot or simply overwhelming the enemy with massed (though inaccurate) firepower? "Fighters" they may be, but I doubt any given Taliban guy has the even half the time spent on any sort of shooting range that a typical Marine has.

Please feel free to contest any of the points I make -- my assessment is merely my assessment.

[meade95]

Okay, so it's effectively propaganda. I was tempted to say as much after reading the article but thought it more judicious not to.

The suspicious "even"-ness of the number can be supposed to be the sniper (who is referred to in the article also as a "designated marksman", which is not the same thing as a sniper) simply rounding his actual kill count up or down.

Maybe the entire platoon rounded the body count up or down.

"During the battle, the designated marksman single handedly thwarted a company-sized enemy RPG and machinegun ambush by reportedly killing 20 enemy fighters with his devastatingly accurate precision fire."

'Company-sized'? Would even an understrength company really be "thwarted" by losing 20 of its men, especially if they're fanatics? And wait a minute...there was an ambush after the ambush? (See, I can be cynical too. =P)

After the initial ambush they would have taken cover, right? Once having taken cover, they would be all the more alert, right?

250-versus-30 is no doubt an oversimplification. If 250 AK-, RPG-, and MG-armed Taliban were shooting at the 30 Marines all at once...well, I don't right know how it would have gone, but the Marines would have definitely suffered more casualties.

However, the report says: "The vicious attack that left...several of the Marines pinned down in the kill zone sparked an intense eight-hour battle...." The report does not say that the Marines were 'under fire for eight hours from 250 Taliban'.

The report says that the Marines had arrived at Shewan when the ambushed was launched. Thus it stands to reason that there were buildings and/or walls or at least the Humvees which the Marines could have used for cover. Speaking of the Humvees, were any of them armed? Do not some Humvees have 50-cal M2 machine guns? Would not a 50-cal MG's bullets punch right through the walls of a typical Afghani house? (It stands to reason that the ambushers were firing from within buildings or behind walls, while there were evidently trenches in the area.)

In short, what the report does not say/include can be inferred to be not unimportant when correlated with what it does say.

Just because the USMC reporter said the villagers told the Marines there were 250 Taliban in the area doesn't that's what the Marines (the ones in the battle, that is) actually believed.

Are not troops inclined to overestimate the strength and firepower of the opposing force, especially when said troops are (or so they believe at the time) fighting for their lives?

Mercure writes: "Reports indicate that more than 250 full time fighters reside in the city and in the surrounding villages." Is it plausible that the Marines took a head count of those shooting at them from and windows and doorways and over roof ledges? Or is it more plausible to figure that they took a hurried (and thus somewhat approximate) body count, compared that with what they had been told by the locals, then, in the flush of having survived an ambush, concluded that there must have been that many of 'em.

No doubt the Marines were trained to search enemy corpses for intel, so the absence of any mention of enemy dead might seem peculiar. But just because the report -- which is concerned with the supposed heroic-ness of the Marines in the battle itself -- doesn't mention enemy dead doesn't mean there weren't any.

The report claims that "many of [the enemy] dropped their weapons and fled the battlefield" when the Marines pushed forward. With their firepower reduced by casualties from Marine return fire as well as at least some of their number saying (in effect) "screw this, I'm getting outta here", the Taliban fighters' ability to keep the Marines pinned would, I reckon, by attritionally reduced.

After recovering the Marines trapped in the kill zone, another platoon sergeant personally led numerous attacks on enemy fortified positions while the platoon fought house to house and trench to trench in order to clear through the enemy ambush site.

Based on the limited information claimed in the report, I propose a chronological sketch of the battle:

1. Taliban launch ambush, immobilizing one Humvee and knocking one Marine unconscious.

2. Marines dismount and return fire, suppressing the enemy and causing a few casualties.

3. Individual Taliban flee the scene are pinned, reducing the Taliban combat strength.

4. Having gained some semblance of initiative, the Marines use fire-and-movement to push forward.

5. Taliban fall back, thrown onto the defensive by the Marines' counter-attack.

6. Over the next 7-1/2 hours or so, the Marines battle with the Taliban through the village, outmaneuvering them and driving them back in house-to-house fighting.

The Taliban probably were expecting to simply overwhelm the Marines and wipe them out. When their poor marksmanship preventing them from concentrating their firepower on the Marine and their vehicles, thus in effect allowing the Marines to gain the upper hand, they were probably thrown back on their heels, so to speak, which the Marines probably took advantage of and routed them.

What if the only actual casualty the platoon suffered was its radio? Or does each squad in a Marine infantry platoon typically have a radio? (If they were indeed on patrol, as the report claims, it stands to reason that they would have as close to plenty of radios as they could manage.) Perhaps part of those eight hours was spent fixing whichever radio(s) they had which had taken a hit.

The report claims that the battle lasted about eight hours. But it does not say when during those eight hours the called-for air support actually arrived. Thus it may in fact have been as you reckoned, Bigduke, that Cobras were overhead as soon as a half hour into the fight.

As I said, not only is "30 Marines fight 250 Taliban in an eight-hour battle and kill 50" an oversimplification, but it obscures many of the tactical aspects one can infer about the incident from even a propagandistic, one-sided report. (I'm not saying the report is even mostly accurate; I'm just trying to be neither gullible nor overly cynical.)

To provide a parallel example: "On July 10, 1943 near Psyolknee in southwestern Russia, Waffen-SS Tiger tank commander Franz Staudegger faced 50+ T-34s, knocking out over 17 in a two-hour battle." What that statement doesn't tell you is that Staudegger and his crew encountered the T-34s in several small groups at first, then ran into the bulk of them. So a one-sentence summation of combat can easily be misleading, even if it is are in and of itself not inaccurate.

A more relevant example, the Battle of Mogadishu: 160 Rangers and Delta Force troops (with limited attack helicopter support) versus 2,000-4,000 Somali militia (with limited mortar and 'technical' support), 18 killed versus an estimated 200 to 500 killed. What those facts fail to clarify is that the battle was a collection of smaller-scale combats, whereas face-to-face 2,000 would obviously overwhelm 160.

Is it not plausible that perhaps the 30 Marines were shooting at and/or receiving fire from, say, actually just 30 to 60 Taliban at any given time? With that Marines-to-Taliban ratio, would not the Marines' superior marksmanship and (qualitatively) superior firepower be decisive? Are not Taliban just the kind of scum-of-the-earth guys who count on either being within spitting distance of whoever they want to shoot or simply overwhelming the enemy with massed (though inaccurate) firepower? "Fighters" they may be, but I doubt any given Taliban guy has the even half the time spent on any sort of shooting range that a typical Marine has.

Please feel free to contest any of the points I make -- my assessment is merely my assessment.

+1 - Solid assessments made -

[Elmar Bijlsma]

though, your notion of having CAS on target within an hour, throughout Stan isn't accurate

I rather thought it was. Ever wondered what the B-1B is doing providing providing CAS? Because it can be on the spot within the hour. It was probably on the spot an hour before the battle!

As far as numbers I don't doubt it was a sizeable and successful engagement, but the numbers are probably inflated. Nothing nefarious, but the enemy numbers are almost always considerably over-estimated. It's not a new thing, unless you believe the ancient numbers on Xerxes' army.

[Lee]

Way to go, Marines, what a thrashing! Hmm, designated marksman, sounds like it might have been the deadly M14 so coveted by our troops in the field that was being used to own quite a few of those terrorists.

[purpheart23]

Ah yes the venerable Bone B, ever the interesting cas platform. I imagine it is fairly effective however.

[Lee]

Absolutely. If you can have a B-52 or a B-1B loitering nearby waiting to drop as many bombs on the bad guys as our men could possibly need, that's a *very* nice situation for our troops, and really really bad for the terrorists.

[purpheart23]

Careful when you use the word terrorist Mr. Lee. Don't want to get the sympathising, conspiracy theorist group riled, do we?

[Lee]

I couldn't care less what people like that think. Anyone who is so morally bankrupt that he would intentionally refer to osama bin laden and scum like him as "militants", as opposed to terrorists, is an imbecile.

[Flanker15]

I call them militants or insurgents, terrorist is a different profession. For instance you have to only attack civilian targets to be a terrorist.

But that's only my definition since the word is effectivly redundent now, everyone is a terrorist in some way.

[Battlefront.com]

Er... yeah, terrorists and militants are different animals. Sometimes they are both, but one is not necessarily the other. One of the main reasons the US has had so many problems with both Iraq and Afghanistan is the people who were (and unfortunately to some extent still are) in charge were ignorant of differences like this. Actually, ignorant is an understatement for some of them (hopelessly naive, blindly ideological, etc. also fit some). There is a good reason why all the military theorists who are worth a damned caution about being ignorant of your enemy. It tends to make one come up with the wrong solutions for the situations at hand.

For those who don't understand the simplistic wisdom of using labels correctly, would you like to go into a doctor's office and have him say "you have cancer" and then when you ask which type have him say "it's cancer, what difference does it make what type it is?". Anybody that thinks that all cancer is the same shouldn't be practicing medicine, making public health policy decisions, in any position of relevance in an insurance company, etc. Labels do matter.

Steve

[Bigduke6]

Dietrich,

I generally agree with your assessment, my main difference is that I assume the Marines will slant the truth in their favor. They are a fine fighting organization but morale has its prices, and one of them is loss of objectivity by its members. The reporter is a USMC corporal who is passing on what he was told - that is neither independant journalism nor even a reliable source.

Had a competent news editor or intelligence analyst been presented that report and asked to accept it at face value, in my opinion either would have refused.

I agree there is a chance things went down essentially as the report has it, i.e., USMC platoon hits ambush and by superior doctrine and tactics cuts a numerically superior enemy to bits with organic firepower.

But I frankly think several other options are more likely:

1. USMC platoon fought not 8 times its number but 1 - 2 times its number, and USMC is overcounting the enemy intentionally or by accident.

2. USMC platoon fought a force maybe even 8 times its number, but it was air support or indirect fires that put the enemy to flight, we just aren't being told that.

3. USMC contacted a force of indeterminate size, which triggered an ambush and then ran except for a smaller delaying party, which the USMC platoon quite properly overcame. That delaying party has in the retelling of the story metamorphized into 250 Taliban.

I'll point out it's not that I have it out for the Marines, if I did I would be theorizing the Taliban won and we are getting lied to even about friendly casualties - which happens in war but my instincts make me suspect didn't happen here.

Nor am I suggesting that the Marines are covering up a murder of civilians, which at least theoretically could be possible, the scenario would be a couple of militants ambush the HUMMV, then fire from local houses, and the Marines wade in and kill everything, and then afterwards designate men, women, and children the enemy. There have been incidents where Marines have gone off their leash against civilians in the past, and technically we can't rule it out here. But I do rule it out on grounds of reason; this just doesn't smell like a cover-up, it smells like a little contact inflated by Marine media into a big one.

As to your points in detail -

The suspicious "even"-ness of the number can be supposed to be the sniper (who is referred to in the article also as a "designated marksman", which is not the same thing as a sniper) simply rounding his actual kill count up or down. Maybe the entire platoon rounded the body count up or down.

That means the enemy killed are not confirmed, but estimated. Kill estimates are, for practical purposes, always inflated. I do not inherently trust a USMC press release to be particularly dedicated to the truth, I expect USMC press releases to place the reputation of the Corps first and foremost. This plays to the theory that there were not 250 Taliban, but a good deal less.

The dead count appears similarly estimated and unconfirmed, and so to my mind is similarly untrustworthy.

Are not troops inclined to overestimate the strength and firepower of the opposing force, especially when said troops are (or so they believe at the time) fighting for their lives?

My point exactly, and that's their right. But our concern is not to cheer the USMC, but rather to figure out how to get closer to the truth.

Mercure writes: "Reports indicate that more than 250 full time fighters reside in the city and in the surrounding villages." Is it plausible that the Marines took a head count of those shooting at them from and windows and doorways and over roof ledges? Or is it more plausible to figure that they took a hurried (and thus somewhat approximate) body count, compared that with what they had been told by the locals, then, in the flush of having survived an ambush, concluded that there must have been that many of 'em.

I suspect that's more or less what happened. They came under fire, returned it, and then via rumor mill from the village (almost certainly unreliable) and their own impressions of the volume of enemy fire (almost certainly unreliable) came up with a count of the enemy.

No doubt the Marines were trained to search enemy corpses for intel, so the absence of any mention of enemy dead might seem peculiar. But just because the report -- which is concerned with the supposed heroic-ness of the Marines in the battle itself -- doesn't mention enemy dead doesn't mean there weren't any.

No, but it is a broad hint to that effect.

Think about it. The USMC of all the branches is the one best at public relations. By their account, this platoon participated in a fight larger than any other Taliban engagement since about 2005. If the count of Taliban involved is correct, this is huge news never mind what the Marines did - the ability and decision of the Afghan insurgents to try a Marine force in a conventional fight, with 250 insurgents, is a major increase in Taliban capacity and will.

So I just have to wonder why we haven't heard even a peep about this from the Pentagon, the White House, the major media, the pundits. Could every one be ignoring the implications of this fight, assuming that the size of the enemy force is correct? Well yes, I guess that could be the case, maybe every one and their brother just missed this very important fact, stranger things have happened. But when I compare that possibility with the alternative - the Marine story is basically way out of whack with reality, and the non-Marines government and civilian don't trust it - I think the latter option is far more likely.

I also think that it is very surprising that the Taliban supposedly got the crap shot out of it, and ran dropping weapons, and we have nothing about enemy corpses or prisoners. You would think a PR-saavy organization like the USMC, if it had proof of how inferior the opposition allegedly is, would get that stuff up front.

By way of contrast, compare this fight to the Battle of Wanat in July, when the Taliban hit the 173rd Airborne and killed 9 and injured about 15 more. The reports are very clear: 2 enemy KIA found on the battlefield, between 20 and 40 estimated KIA but that's just an estimate. The Army goes out of its way to make sure it knows the difference between estimates and confirmed facts - which really helps with credibility. When they conducted an investigation, awarded medals, identified the unit and participating soldiers, responded tactically and operationally, took pictures, they made sure that got out into the open too.

The USMC report as far as I can tell is a single press release written by a Corporal. A week after the firefight took place, as nearly as I can tell there is next to no corroboration from higher command, no evidence offered to back up what the Corporal wrote, and the Corporal we need to remember is presenting the recollections of a platoon marksman, and USMC intelligence, as fact.

1. Taliban launch ambush, immobilizing one Humvee and knocking one Marine unconscious.

2. Marines dismount and return fire, suppressing the enemy and causing a few casualties.

3. Individual Taliban flee the scene are pinned, reducing the Taliban combat strength.

4. Having gained some semblance of initiative, the Marines use fire-and-movement to push forward.

5. Taliban fall back, thrown onto the defensive by the Marines' counter-attack.

6. Over the next 7-1/2 hours or so, the Marines battle with the Taliban through the village, outmaneuvering them and driving them back in house-to-house fighting.

I think that's more or less what happened, or at least, that's a very reasonable interpetation of events. But the key question is scale - that time line you did could apply to 250 suicide Taliban dying in their fighting positions, or 5 - 10 Taliban triggering an ambush and then running from one hidey spot to another for several hours and giggling, while the Marines go through an ungodly amount of ammunition and then call in air so they can beat their chests about what great warriors they are. We have no way of telling, but we do know the press release is written with some incomptence, so a suspicion of the "facts" in the press release makes sense.

The Taliban probably were expecting to simply overwhelm the Marines and wipe them out. When their poor marksmanship preventing them from concentrating their firepower on the Marine and their vehicles, thus in effect allowing the Marines to gain the upper hand, they were probably thrown back on their heels, so to speak, which the Marines probably took advantage of and routed them.

Sure, maybe. But like I said, if it was a big force making the ambush, I'm wondering where are the dead bodies and the other media picking up the story? And at the same time I have to wonder, is this maybe a case of a dinky ambush getting blown all out of proportion?

What if the only actual casualty the platoon suffered was its radio? Or does each squad in a Marine infantry platoon typically have a radio? (If they were indeed on patrol, as the report claims, it stands to reason that they would have as close to plenty of radios as they could manage.) Perhaps part of those eight hours was spent fixing whichever radio(s) they had which had taken a hit.

Maybe. But to me a USMC platoon eight hours out of contact with higher is about as probable as, oh I dunno, the USMC suddenly announcing Iwo Jima was a pushover, after all the Americans had a huge firepower advantage. There are squad radios, platoon radios, and it doesn't make sense that all were trashed in the initial ambush, or that they all suddenly stopped working the moment the platoon get hit. The Marines are competent, they make their stuff work, and if a platoon is going into a tough area in Afghanistan you know they are going to have back-up communications, and what's more higher is going to be watching their every move. I bet a platoon like that in a situation like that would have to check in about every 15 minutes, and probably more.

I assume that the moment the air showed up, the Taliban however many there were of them broke contact, that's what they do. So I have to wonder how it is the firefight lasted 7 - 8 hours.

I am not saying this is for sure what happened, but sometimes firefights last a long time because one side runs early, and the other side doesn't realize it for hours. Maybe the Marines spent several hours shooting up emtpy positions. Of course, if we had some confirmed dead enemy, we could rule out that scenario. But as nearly as I can tell, here nothing is confirmed, everything is estimated.

A more relevant example, the Battle of Mogadishu: 160 Rangers and Delta Force troops (with limited attack helicopter support) versus 2,000-4,000 Somali militia (with limited mortar and 'technical' support), 18 killed versus an estimated 200 to 500 killed. What those facts fail to clarify is that the battle was a collection of smaller-scale combats, whereas face-to-face 2,000 would obviously overwhelm 160.

Actually, I think that's a pretty good example of what I'm talking about. At Mogadishu the number of enemy is guesswork, the number of enemy dead is a combination of intelligence and guesswork; and yet this lopsided US kill ratio somehow is taken as confirmed fact. We don't know there were 2,000 militia actually trying to overrun the Americans, after all, who can answer the question: "Of all the Somali dudes with weapons in Mogadishu that day, how many actually managed to find Americans and then when they found them tried to kill them?" Not even the Somalis know, the battle was a conventional US force plopped down into something approximately a very bad neighborhood run by gangs but every one else male and above the age of 20 had a weapon too.

We can say with some confidence that the Americans held their ground, and that their regular army training gave them a serious advantage in the firefights that took place. But how many firefights, how many enemy, how long the actual shooting took place, how organized the bad guys were - all that stuff is a good distance from confirmed fact.

So me, I am personally not convinced the Battle of Mogadishu was a great vindication of the power of US individual infantry firepower. Maybe it was, but it depends on how many bad guys there were and how organized they were, and all we have to figure that out is what the good guys can recall. That is not enough for a proper judgement of the facts - and the point of course is that we have far more information of the Battle of Mogadishu, than this engagement the Marines were just in.

Is it not plausible that perhaps the 30 Marines were shooting at and/or receiving fire from, say, actually just 30 to 60 Taliban at any given time? With that Marines-to-Taliban ratio, would not the Marines' superior marksmanship and (qualitatively) superior firepower be decisive? Are not Taliban just the kind of scum-of-the-earth guys who count on either being within spitting distance of whoever they want to shoot or simply overwhelming the enemy with massed (though inaccurate) firepower? "Fighters" they may be, but I doubt any given Taliban guy has the even half the time spent on any sort of shooting range that a typical Marine has.

Basically agree, although I personally give Afghan tribesmen more credit for competence with their weapons than the Marines do. The Pathan tradition that every man is a fighter is ancient, among other things it predates the Marines by about 20 centuries. It doesn't make sense to me that in a culture like that, the men wouldn't be able to shoot straight.

I think it's probable the Marines would be far more accurate in a firefight, but I think that would be a function of their training as a combat unit, rather than individual marksmanship. I bet that if you took 10 hard-core Taliban and 10 average Marines, you would have an interesting contest to see who would shoot better plinking at bottles or rocks or something. But that's immaterial, the point is that as an organized unit the Marines are far better practiced, and when the shooting starts they have factors more ammunition.

Since the Afghan tribesmen aren't stupid, they know that as well. Which leads me to the suspicion that after the initial ambush they broke contact. I can't prove that's what they did, and that suspicion contradicts the report. But I think the report is suspect as well.

Please feel free to contest any of the points I make -- my assessment is merely my assessment.

[Sergei]

It will be interesting to see if more details come out about this battle. However, one thing has been pretty clear from years of fighting in Afghanistan... the Taliban aren't very good at this scale of tactical fighting. The number of reports I've seen over the years where Taliban in the 100-300 fighter range are totally slaughtered by a fairly small force of Western troops is almost the norm. It's not surprising, either, given the major material and training advantages/disadvantages of both sides.

It sure is a relief that they don't have Latvian woman snipers on their side.

[Bigduke6]

Correction, it was the mayor of Vladikavkaz, north Ossetia, which of course is right next to Chechnya.

[Dietrich]

If you can have a B-52 or a B-1B loitering nearby waiting to drop as many bombs on the bad guys as our men could possibly need, that's a *very* nice situation for our troops, and really really bad for the terrorists.

Not so very. Operation Cobra opened on July 24, 1944, with carpet-bombing west of St.-Lo by 335 B-17s which dropped 685 tons of bombs, some of which landed on the US Army positions 1,200 to 1,400 yards from the bombardment area, resulting in at least 100 killed and over 500 wounded. The next day, the Eighth Air Force dropped over 3,000 tons of bombs on more or less the same area, but again a fair number of bombs fell short, again killed over 100 US troops and wounding almost 500. And sure, technology has improved the accuracy of even 'dumb' bombs at least somewhat, but if I was on the ground I wouldn't want any "strategic bomber" (i.e., a B-52) bombing within two miles of me.

my main difference is that I assume the Marines will slant the truth in their favor.

Is not that effectively true of any military force?

Nor am I suggesting that the Marines are covering up a murder of civilians, which at least theoretically could be possible, the scenario would be a couple of militants ambush the HUMMV, then fire from local houses, and the Marines wade in and kill everything, and then afterwards designate men, women, and children the enemy. There have been incidents where Marines have gone off their leash against civilians in the past, and technically we can't rule it out here. But I do rule it out on grounds of reason; this just doesn't smell like a cover-up, it smells like a little contact inflated by Marine media into a big one.

When I first read about the incident in Haditha (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haditha_killings), I was inclined to condemn the US troops. However, the research I have done into the psychology of combat and other aspects of how war affects the mind has given me insight into the situation which enables me to be less judgmental, if not more sympathetic. When you train a young man to be aggressive and to kill, give him an M16A4 and half a dozen grenades, then plunk him down in an area which is almost as different from his homeland as is possible and in which virtually any person not dressed like him is a potential insurgent, it's almost inevitable that incidents like what happened in Haditha will occur. (Of course, not that I think a professional soldier who kills civilians can go unpunished.)

But our concern is not to cheer the USMC, but rather to figure out how to get closer to the truth.

Agreed. My previous post was not with a view to arguing with you, Bigduke, but simply with a view to playing advocātus diabolī (devil's advocate). I believe cynicism must be tempered by a seeking for the truth.

The USMC report as far as I can tell is a single press release written by a Corporal. A week after the firefight took place, as nearly as I can tell there is next to no corroboration from higher command, no evidence offered to back up what the Corporal wrote, and the Corporal we need to remember is presenting the recollections of a platoon marksman, and USMC intelligence, as fact.

Have not military journalists traditionally been officers?

that's a very reasonable interpetation of events. But the key question is scale - that time line you did could apply to 250 suicide Taliban dying in their fighting positions, or 5 - 10 Taliban triggering an ambush and then running from one hidey spot to another for several hours and giggling, while the Marines go through an ungodly amount of ammunition

...

I am not saying this is for sure what happened, but sometimes firefights last a long time because one side runs early, and the other side doesn't realize it for hours.

...

At Mogadishu the number of enemy is guesswork, the number of enemy dead is a combination of intelligence and guesswork; and yet this lopsided US kill ratio somehow is taken as confirmed fact. We don't know there were 2,000 militia actually trying to overrun the Americans, after all, who can answer the question: "Of all the Somali dudes with weapons in Mogadishu that day, how many actually managed to find Americans and then when they found them tried to kill them?" Not even the Somalis know, the battle was a conventional US force plopped down into something approximately a very bad neighborhood run by gangs but every one else male and above the age of 20 had a weapon too.

We can say with some confidence that the Americans held their ground, and that their regular army training gave them a serious advantage in the firefights that took place. But how many firefights, how many enemy, how long the actual shooting took place, how organized the bad guys were - all that stuff is a good distance from confirmed fact.

I cited the Battle of Mogadishu not so as to provide an example of US infantry superiority over a numerically superior force; I cited it to provide an example of how simple statement of facts (in this case mere statistics) can lead whoever reads said statement to remain ignorant of the truth -- a more complete understanding of what actually happened.

Similarly, I'm inclined to reckon that troops who are even better trained and more veteran (i.e., actual Special Operations Forces) know that to fail to respect to your enemy is to be all the more vulnerable to him -- underestimating your foe can be disastrous.

Since the Afghan tribesmen aren't stupid, they know that as well. Which leads me to the suspicion that after the initial ambush they broke contact. I can't prove that's what they did, and that suspicion contradicts the report. But I think the report is suspect as well.

Please feel free to contest any of the points I make -- my assessment is merely my assessment.

[Dietrich]

(When writing the first version of this post, I accidentally hit "Submit Reply" instead of "Preview Post", and then I failed to finish editing the first version within the 30-minute time limit.)

If you can have a B-52 or a B-1B loitering nearby waiting to drop as many bombs on the bad guys as our men could possibly need, that's a *very* nice situation for our troops, and really really bad for the terrorists.

Not so very. Operation Cobra opened on July 24, 1944, with carpet-bombing west of St.-Lo by 335 B-17s which dropped 685 tons of bombs, some of which landed on the US Army positions 1,200 to 1,400 yards from the bombardment area, resulting in at least 100 killed and over 500 wounded. The next day, the Eighth Air Force dropped over 3,000 tons of bombs on more or less the same area, but again a fair number of bombs fell short, again killed over 100 US troops and wounding almost 500. And sure, technology has improved the accuracy of even 'dumb' bombs at least somewhat, but if I was on the ground I wouldn't want any "strategic bomber" (i.e., a B-52) bombing within two miles of me.

my main difference is that I assume the Marines will slant the truth in their favor.

Is it not, in effect, necessary that a military force slant the truth in its favor just a little bit, both because the public wouldn't really understand the truth and/or might lose confidence in said military force as a result? In other words, even state-of-the-art democracies produce propaganda.

Nor am I suggesting that the Marines are covering up a murder of civilians, which at least theoretically could be possible, the scenario would be a couple of militants ambush the HUMMV, then fire from local houses, and the Marines wade in and kill everything, and then afterwards designate men, women, and children the enemy. There have been incidents where Marines have gone off their leash against civilians in the past, and technically we can't rule it out here. But I do rule it out on grounds of reason; this just doesn't smell like a cover-up, it smells like a little contact inflated by Marine media into a big one.

When I first read about the incident in Haditha (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haditha_killings), I was inclined to condemn the US troops. involved However, the research I have done into the psychology of combat and other aspects of how war affects the mind in the couple years since I first read about that incident has given me insight into the situation which enables me to be less judgmental, if not more sympathetic. When you train a young man to be aggressive and to kill, give him an M16A4 and half a dozen grenades, then plunk him down in an area which is on the opposite side of the planet from his homeland and in which virtually any person not dressed like him is a potential insurgent who could open up with an AK or set off an IED, it's almost inevitable that incidents like what happened in Haditha will occur. (Of course, not that I think a professional soldier who kills civilians can go unpunished.)

But our concern is not to cheer the USMC, but rather to figure out how to get closer to the truth.

Agreed. My previous post was not with a view to arguing with you, Bigduke, but simply with a view to playing advocātus diabolī (devil's advocate). I believe cynicism must be tempered by a seeking for the truth.

The USMC report as far as I can tell is a single press release written by a Corporal. A week after the firefight took place, as nearly as I can tell there is next to no corroboration from higher command, no evidence offered to back up what the Corporal wrote, and the Corporal we need to remember is presenting the recollections of a platoon marksman, and USMC intelligence, as fact.

Have not military journalists traditionally been officers? I don't know the current term for it, but in the Second World War German Kriegsberichter (which basically means war correspondant, but they were military personnel) were typically junior officers, whereas US Army combat cameramen were generally NCOs or enlisted men.

It just occurred to me to wonder: Was the designated marksman of this Marine platoon the only person the corporal interviewed about the event or simply the only person he quoted? Did this corporal just happen upon the aftermath of the battle, think "Hey, I'm curious about this", then question the first soldier who would give him the time of day? If I was a military journalist (for lack of a more accurate and official term), I wouldn't just look over the scene, interview one person, then go off and write an article about it. I would want to interview the platoon sergeant who (according to the article) "personally led numerous attacks on enemy fortified positions while the platoon fought house to house and trench to trench in order to clear through the enemy ambush site." What he did (insofar as the article can be believed) was, I reckon, rather more dangerous than what the quoted designated marksman did, despite said DM's claimed kill count.

that's a very reasonable interpetation of events. But the key question is scale - that time line you did could apply to 250 suicide Taliban dying in their fighting positions, or 5 - 10 Taliban triggering an ambush and then running from one hidey spot to another for several hours and giggling, while the Marines go through an ungodly amount of ammunition

This ties back in with the troops-almost-always-overestimate-the-number-of-enemy-troops thing.

John Keegan, in The Face of Battle, described wasting ammunition as being "for decades the cardinal military sin", but I didn't think it could be called ungodly. =P

I am not saying this is for sure what happened, but sometimes firefights last a long time because one side runs early, and the other side doesn't realize it for hours.

It's easy for a war correspondent or some other sort of reporter to write something to the effect of: "During an eight-hour battle...." The vast majority of people who read that will in their relative and understandable ignorance suppose that during said eight hours there was near-continuous trading of fire between the opposing forces. But the reporter's statement of "fact" leaves out so many details which the "sum of the parts" (the tactical realities of the battle) is greater than the "whole" (statements like "during an eight-hour battle..."). Of course, a single battle can last even longer than eight hours, but during said eight-plus hours, there could be lulls in the actual fighting of anywhere from several seconds to almost an hour, during which there may be only a sporadic trading of aimed shots between opposing forces while men on both sides catch their breath, send for fresh ammo, etc.

I understand that this boiling-down of reality into readily processable facts is a given, since even accurate news reports can only be so long. I'm just always keen to gain a more complete understanding of a matter than can be gleaned from a single source.

I am personally not convinced the Battle of Mogadishu was a great vindication of the power of US individual infantry firepower. Maybe it was, but it depends on how many bad guys there were and how organized they were, and all we have to figure that out is what the good guys can recall. That is not enough for a proper judgement of the facts - and the point of course is that we have far more information of the Battle of Mogadishu, than this engagement the Marines were just in.

I cited the Battle of Mogadishu not so as to provide an example of US infantry superiority over a numerically superior force; I cited it to provide an example of how simple statement of facts (in this case mere statistics) can lead whoever reads said statement to remain ignorant of the truth -- a more complete understanding of what actually happened.

I personally give Afghan tribesmen more credit for competence with their weapons than the Marines do.

Similarly, I'm inclined to reckon that troops who are even better trained and more veteran (i.e., actual Special Operations Forces) know that to fail to respect to your enemy is to be all the more vulnerable to him -- underestimating your foe can be disastrous.

I think it's probable the Marines would be far more accurate in a firefight, but I think that would be a function of their training as a combat unit, rather than individual marksmanship. I bet that if you took 10 hard-core Taliban and 10 average Marines, you would have an interesting contest to see who would shoot better plinking at bottles or rocks or something. But that's immaterial, the point is that as an organized unit the Marines are far better practiced, and when the shooting starts they have factors more ammunition.

Plinking at bottles is one thing; popping out from cover just long enough to take actual aim and then shoot while bullets are flying all around is another. (Not that I've had much experience with either. =P)

It's taken as read that any given front-line infantryman is trained to hit his target out to, say, 200 meters (especially given the optics M4s and M16s are fitted with nowadays), but is not the value of even a sniper in typical tactical situations as much in suppressive capability (one guy gets hit, and all the others nearby dare not show themselves for fear of getting hit too) as in, say, scoring headshots?