Wanat

[Clavicula_Nox]

Steve, I typed a really long reply, but my browser crashed and didnt' save it so here are the main points:

-Didn't read your post, was just commenting on BD6's and comments I remember being made by military leaders at the time. I agree with the idea that the Taliban isn't tactically superior.

-Agree that Wanat happened because of a combo of skill and luck + a good deal of American ineptitude

-10 German Supermen vs 10,000 Russian peasants will eventually die of fatigue

-Light Infantry != victory, but they can be devastating

-Israel's problems, in my opinion, are unwillingness to commit fully and being to conscious about the media.

-Karzai's Tehran connections probably don't hurt his cause...

-I don't intend to overrate the Taliban, just want to be sure to give them some credit because they seem to receive very little, in my opinion.

-Agree that the Taliban can't hurt ISAF tactically, but you and I both know they can and *are* hurting us in every other possible way.

-I think the administration is set to pull the rug out from under McChrystal and I believe Petraeus is slowly being moved aside. I don't know much about McChrystal, and I don't believe Petraeus = win, but I do believe they have a better idea than the guys in office.

-As you say, European resolve is low so I don't think they would require something as big as Tet or Dien Bien Phu. The incident which prompted the Italians to leave Iraq was extremely minor, and yet it still resulted in the retreat of a major European power in the face of an amorphous irregular force.

[Battlefront.com]

Steve, I typed a really long reply, but my browser crashed and didnt' save it so here are the main points:

heh... I had the misfortune of posting the second our server had a hiccup the other day. I feel your pain!

-Didn't read your post, was just commenting on BD6's and comments I remember being made by military leaders at the time. I agree with the idea that the Taliban isn't tactically superior.

We're in perfect agreement, I think. I also agree that the Taliban are underrated at individual and small units levels as were the Iraqi insurgents. How many times do we hear the forces on the ground complain about the enemy "melting away" before they can be engaged? That takes a lot of skill. If I were in uniform in Afghanistan now I'd be more concerned about the reality than perception. Reminds me of the Germans who were told the Russians were sub-humans and would be easily defeated. Not quite accurate, eh?

That being said, I don't see them being the sort of tactical masters that BigDuke6 seems to view them as. Compare the Taliban to Chechens, for example. Russia lost some serious face against a relatively small enclave, not to mention more troops than all of the Coalition forces in Iraq and ISAF have lost combined over a similar period of time. More lost over a longer period of time if the insurgency is looked at on the whole.

Therefore, if we accept that the individual Taliban are extremely good light infantry fighters the question is... why are they not doing as well tactically as other insurgencies? The two obvious answers are some combination of:

1. Tactically speaking they just haven't gotten their "stuff" together yet.

2. The ISAF military forces are proportionally better than the occupiers in other conflicts of recent note.

The tactical status quo is not all that bad from the ISAF perspective. From a tactical position a war of attrition will favor ISAF. The problem is that from a strategic perspective just about nothing is going right for ISAF. It could very well turn out that the ISAF will lose no major battles but still lose the war. Which is why primary focus should be on the Big Picture and not on the tactical one.

Obviously ISAF can do several thing at once, so it should fix whatever deficiencies it finds at the tactical level. But that's not where the war will be won or lost.

-I think the administration is set to pull the rug out from under McChrystal and I believe Petraeus is slowly being moved aside. I don't know much about McChrystal, and I don't believe Petraeus = win, but I do believe they have a better idea than the guys in office.

I generally agree. And let's not forget that for years the commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan called for more troops, but the political heads kept insisting that they weren't and all was fine. It was a big lie, of course, which is all out on the record now. So far the present administration has not gone that route. I doubt it will. After the meeting today it appears McCrystal will get most of what he is asking for. Having a debate about it BEFORE committing more force is not only prudent but also extremely responsible. The military didn't do such a hot job with Vietnam or the early stages of Iraq and Afghanistan, so it's never a bad idea to have someone questioning them. It's a bad idea for them to overrule them with no good reason, obviously. That's a prime reason for Afghanistan being in the state it is in.

-As you say, European resolve is low so I don't think they would require something as big as Tet or Dien Bien Phu. The incident which prompted the Italians to leave Iraq was extremely minor, and yet it still resulted in the retreat of a major European power in the face of an amorphous irregular force.

The thing is those forces were committed against the will of the people from the very start, despite the lofty title "Coalition of the Willing". So it doesn't take a genius to know how to manipulate that.

Steve

[Vanir Ausf B]

-I think the administration is set to pull the rug out from under McChrystal and I believe Petraeus is slowly being moved aside. I don't know much about McChrystal, and I don't believe Petraeus = win, but I do believe they have a better idea than the guys in office.

That would be surprising given that McChrystal is only there because the guys in office wanted him there.

BTW, Petraeus has been undergoing radiation treatment for prostate cancer since February, so I wouldn't read too much into his recent lower profile.

[Secondbrooks]

That being said, I don't see them being the sort of tactical masters that BigDuke6 seems to view them as. Compare the Taliban to Chechens, for example. Russia lost some serious face against a relatively small enclave, not to mention more troops than all of the Coalition forces in Iraq and ISAF have lost combined over a similar period of time. More lost over a longer period of time if the insurgency is looked at on the whole.

Therefore, if we accept that the individual Taliban are extremely good light infantry fighters the question is... why are they not doing as well tactically as other insurgencies? The two obvious answers are some combination of:

Aren't they doing good? Yes they aren't making much of fuzz out of them selves, but the way i see it Tet Offense and Diem Bien Phu both were major gambling for insurgencies. French had won previous battle similar few years earlier and goal of Diem Bien Phu was to lure Viet Mih into conventional battle and "wipe them out". But this time they didn't win.

Tet Offense was so succesful just because US pulled it's troops off. If it wouldn't have done that, then VC wouldn't been much of a fighter, but they got NVA watching their backs so they could afford to try.

Chechens won one major victory. Granted i don't know much how things went after that, but my impression is that they got chewed up by Russians pretty badly. How are Chechens doign now days? Seems that they are lying low if they aren't already finished.

I can just imagine that ISAF eagerly waits for resolving conventional battle to take place

Yes. That speaks for idea that Taleban indeed lacks power on tactical scale to even try to win their opponents. But i don't know does that tell us that they lack healthy tactical understandment. I don't know should they be called masters, but they/some-of-them seem to possess enough understandment to plan and execute textbook raid, which might end up as teaching material to some military academy. I think this was Bigduke6's point. And in what i (think i) follow Bigduke6's flow of mind is that i dont' think even all professional/regular military guys who have studied those textbooks could pull such action all the time, or even some of the times. And their pride is such that they can't think that if one haven't had official training for it, don't wear uniform and don't belong to some group (regular military, airborne, marines, ground forces) could do things even distantly like they can.

[Sergei]

I don't think it's possible to win Taliban unless you also win them on the Pakistani side. And that's not simple, as the Pashtun people are more loyal to them than either the non-Pashtun leaders in Afghanistan or in Pakistan. In Afghanistan there are 14 million Pashtuns, in Pakistan 28 million. Again, who's idea was to put the border in that place? Oh yeah, the Brits. Good job there.

Would it be a good time to resurrect the idea of Pashtunistan?

[Bigduke6]

MIG0441 - That is a terrific find, absolutely the best thing I have ever seen on Afghanistan. Thanks.

AKD - Well, the ANA with the US paratroopers were drinking local water, and they seemed to be ok. The report MIG0441 makes clear the US paratroopers expected water to be delivered by jingle truck, but the problem was the jingle trucks came from a different part of the country, and were (I think quite rightly) afraid to drive to Wanat without serious US escorts, and the US didn't have the escorts.

Given that, just to be irritating, I have to wonder why it is 173rd Airborne Brigade staff in the months it had to plan the move to Wanat, didn't think to load a couple of cases of iodine tablets with the contruction materials. Not much weight to helicopter in, and if you do it the soldiers are digging in 60 minutes an hour, rather than 10 minutes an hour. The standard excuse "Well some of our soldiers don't like iodine water" is lame, this is a war not a cafe.

Or alternatively, if there were no water purification tablets at least theoretically it would have been possible to boil water in ammo cans. Could have been done in the afternoon down time where digging was impossible, because it was too hot. This is really not a fair suggestion, of course, as the airborne soldiers for sure were so busy, and boiling water to drink is so Not The Army Way, that it's not reasonable to expect them to have thought of it when the water ran low.

My point is, the insurgents' ability to scare truck drivers off the road to Wanat, had a direct effect on the level of US entrenchment at Wanat. And entrenchment could have been more, if the airborne had somehow managed to drink water from the river, like the ANA and the villagers. Kind of a mindset issue, it was possible but it wasn't SOP.

Vanir,

Well from what I have seen from the vids and pix and so on the region is really friggen steep mountains covered either with bush or trees higher up, and terraced for agriculture on the lower levels. UAVes and helicopters can see people moving in terrain like that pretty well, especially if the people are actually in motion. If there were hundreds of insurgents and dozens of casualties, how credible is it no US air recon asset anywhere saw any of them? It's like Steve said, "melting away" is not easy. So that to me argues maybe there were either fewer insurgents, or insurgent casualties, than the Americans estimated. But fair enough, I'm just guessing here.

Steve,

Of course if your definition of tactical capacity is: "Ability to kick as and take names on any given battlefield", then sure the insurgents are nowhere near the NATO forces.

But my point is, the insurgents seem lots of times able to dictate the terms of the battle. If they are able to initiate substantial engagements (i.e. platoon/company vs. singletons snipers or IEDes) under operational conditions that really favour the insurgents, then the NATO forces' tactical superiority in reality, is a good deal less than the theoretical.

Further, I think Wanat is a great example of how a battle has far more rammifications than just who held the ground, casualty and equipment counts, and who is better prepared to continue conventional military operations. Heck, NATO itself is saying this is a war that can't be won tactically, and the insurgents sure don't either, so what is the point of interpeting battle implications in narrow tactical terms? So what if the Taliban and their allies cannot, as you correctly point out, reach out and cause harm whenever and wherever they choose to? The Americans certainly can't either, after all, if they could all those insurgents that hit Wanat would be dead.

Obviously, each battle is a moment in time where whatever the sides bring to the fight, depends on decisions by both sides in the time line running up to the fight. The insurgents as you point out are doing much better on a loss/damage inflicted ratio when they use roadside bombs or hit supply convoys, but that's only part of an insurgency.

They have, at least sometimes, to demonstrate to the people that they are fighting the foreign invaders, and since these are Pathans that means in battle, this is a warrior and jihad culture. So the challenge for insurgent leaders is how to do that, without letting superior NATO firepower gut insurgent forces.

My point is, if the insurgency can fight the US forces on even vaguely equal terms from time to time, not often as every one understands the NATO firepower superiority, then the insurgency rep with the people goes way up. They are fighting a jihad, successfully, against a foreign invader. Sure, it's not success as you would define it. But in the minds of the Pathans - again, Islamic warrior culture - it is the very definition of success.

Just because the US military can suck up the casualties, doesn't make a successfully-defended patrol base a victory in the war. As far as that goes, I bet the Pathan nation is far more willing to contribute bodies to a holy war against the Christians, than the US and NATO is to contribute bodies in the name of Afghanistan security.

If at Wanat most of the attackers got away, and if a goodly number of foreign invaders are killed or wounded, in the face of the incredible NATO technical superiority, this is the first world vs. about the fifth world, in the minds of any reasonable Pathan David defeated Goliath.

You and I seem to disagree on whether the stacking occurred accidentally (your view) or because of conscious insurgent thinking (my view.) I'll troll through MIG0441's report, and put together a laundry list of all the stuff the insurgents did, to stack their odds their way at Wanat. My view right this moment, the US did some stuff wrong but it wasn't nearly as critical, as what the insurgents did right.

[snake_eye]

Just watched the video about "WANAT". The Apaches FLIR recording are incredible. From what was shown on the video, Wanat was in a narrow and winding valley surrounded by high peaks. The defense was on the edge of the village near the bottom. If my representation of the battle is good. If that is the case, I don't understand why they have decided to defend such a place (yet, they move a bit away and didn't consolidate enough the new site). They should have had early warning post on the high peaks surrounding the place and set there HMG and FO for mortars (set in the new site) to control the avenue of approach to the village. They were denied the drone early warning. It had been diverted away. The Apaches came an hour after being called and the worst had been already done, they were in contact. If they had been able to be warned about the incoming Talibans and keep them away from the defensive post, even being pinned down, the mortars and the air assets will have done a lot of damage. What happen could have been anticipated and then avoided. No matter what you have in term of superiority, when the enemy is on your door, it is a man to man struggle. Unfortunatelly for us the Talibans are good at it and luckily for us unable to use military tactics at higher level than a squad and in the better case platoon size. If that had been the case, there would have been no survivors. The poor grunts did the upmost and even if they would have been superhuman, that would not have changed a thing. The place stunk for its unwise tactical location. It's too bad it happen.

[Vanir Ausf B]

AKD - Well, the ANA with the US paratroopers were drinking local water, and they seemed to be ok.

Locals would have a tolerance built up. The fact the locals could drink the water ok doesn't mean it wouldn't make US troops sick untreated. Anyone who's been on vacation to Mexico would know that.

Vanir,

Well from what I have seen from the vids and pix and so on the region is really friggen steep mountains covered either with bush or trees higher up, and terraced for agriculture on the lower levels. UAVes and helicopters can see people moving in terrain like that pretty well, especially if the people are actually in motion. If there were hundreds of insurgents and dozens of casualties, how credible is it no US air recon asset anywhere saw any of them? It's like Steve said, "melting away" is not easy. So that to me argues maybe there were either fewer insurgents, or insurgent casualties, than the Americans estimated. But fair enough, I'm just guessing here.

Where do you get that they didn't see any of them? I don't believe that was stated anywhere except by you. The insurgents were using the village for cover both during the attack and during their retreat.

The estimated number of attackers is partially based on the size of the force that had been harassing the previous position, OP Bella. From the report rough draft:

"...the presence of a relatively large insurgent force of at least several score fighters operating in the vicinity of Bella was well documented."

[Vanir Ausf B]

Bigduke6:

After reviewing the AAR I think it's not difficult to see how the insurgents were able to evacuate dead and wounded.

First of all, it was clearly a large force. In addition to the size of the known force operating in the area there is the fact that the volume of sustained fire and the number of different positions from which fire was taken precludes the possibility of a small force.

Also, the insurgents never really vacated the area. They continued to probe the OP's defenses all day the 13th and the next day the 14th. The two Apaches and the one Predator drone appear to have been kept too busy near the front lines during their time on station to have been effectively monitoring egress routes from the area.

(btw, this also calls into question your earlier statement that the assault "was over from the insurgent side in about 15 - 20 minutes". They continued fighting hard for hours, even after the Apaches arrived. Also, the insurgents did not kill everyone in OP Topside. They did penetrate the perimeter and apparently attempted to capture the bodies of two US soldiers, but were thwarted.)

[stikkypixie]

Locals would have a tolerance built up. The fact the locals could drink the water ok doesn't mean it wouldn't make US troops sick untreated. Anyone who's been on vacation to Mexico would know that.

Where do you get that they didn't see any of them? I don't believe that was stated anywhere except by you. The insurgents were using the village for cover both during the attack and during their retreat.

The estimated number of attackers is partially based on the size of the force that had been harassing the previous position, OP Bella. From the report rough draft:

"...the presence of a relatively large insurgent force of at least several score fighters operating in the vicinity of Bella was well documented."

What's wrong with just boiling the water?

[Sergei]

I think by "local water" Vanir actually means tequila.

It's a common mistake.

[Vanir Ausf B]

What's wrong with just boiling the water?

I don't know. Maybe they don't typically boil water and so didn't have anything on hand to boil it in or on? I wasn't there, and I'm not saying it wasn't an oversight not to have more iodine since it clearly was.

[Vanir Ausf B]

I think by "local water" Vanir actually means tequila.

It's a common mistake.

No, the tequila is ok, lol

[Bigduke6]

Vanir,

You're right, I didn't think of that, if the air is doing gun runs and supporting the base, they can't be out hunting retreating bad guys. For the record my point about the air not seeing any insurgents, is the logic that if they had, there would have been a lot more insurgent bodies found.

One body we know where it was, on the wire next to OP Topside, the dude got hit by a claymore. Don't know about the second.

Yet all those gun runs, heck, there was a B1A1 dropping precision-guided munitions at one point, and somehow out from under all that, the insurgents got away, with their dead AND wounded.

Is the effect of air overestimated? (I think we all know the answer to that one.) Or are the insurgents really that good at getting their people out from under overwhelming US air superiority? It was day, it was clear, and once there was distance from US troops it was gunships weapons free.

I agree the insurgent force was fairly large, but maybe another possibility is that they were not making an all out effort to kill Americans once they had blotted out OP Topside (prior to the Americans retaking it for a bit, of course). Rather, if one assumes the insurgents really really had their act together, you can make the case what happened was they hit OP Topside, kept on firing until the Apaches showed, and then just backed up slowly and let the Americans come to them.

A couple of agile guys with AKs and a knowledge of the cover, could really slow down a US pursuit, that sort of thing. Maybe that's how it went.

Of course, I can't say for sure the insurgents got away scot free, but considering their execution of the assault, I have trouble believing they had no plan to keep from getting carved up by the air.

Maybe it was as simple as knowing the beaten zone of Apache miniguns and knowing how far laterally to get out of the way, or what cover is good to hide from a minigun sweep.

I don't know, but I keep coming back to this huge US firepower edge, and how the insurgents somehow seem to ridden it out, and even managed to police up their dead and wounded in the process. How? I can't explain it, but it sure seems like those guys really knew what they were doing.

[Vanir Ausf B]

They knew what they were doing all right. But I am not so sure they were as successful as they had planned on. In addition to failing in their efforts to procure US corpses, an abandoned video camera was found in a house. Apparently they had intended to show their triumph on YouTube, but that didn't work out either.

They did succeed in killing an usually high number of US troops in a single engagement, and maybe that's all that matters. Although I don't think they won the battle from a military perspective, they certainly won the propaganda contest since nobody outside wargaming forums really care how many insurgents died. Only NATO casualties matter.

[Ron]

The recurring theme striking me from reading the historical analysis was the loss of local community support for the US forces involved - the deficiency of understanding the ethnic complexities involved to name one. I would think, no matter how inane or convoluted, that that support would have to be created and maintained and not pissed away indiscriminately through countless "kinetic engagements". (Maybe its my generation but I read that as the new euphemism for bodycount, the other parallel is obvious too.) Everything else, tactical prowess/ineptitude, number of dead etc, kind of seems besides the point imo. Excellent paper btw - one whole morning and pot of coffee later - thanks for the link.

[Clavicula_Nox]

That would be surprising given that McChrystal is only there because the guys in office wanted him there.

BTW, Petraeus has been undergoing radiation treatment for prostate cancer since February, so I wouldn't read too much into his recent lower profile.

I know McChrystal is Their Guy on the field. I haven't had time to read up on the meeting today, so I'm not up to date. McChrystal is a pretty smart guy, and a good unconventional warfighter, in my opinion so we'll see what happens.

I didn't know that about Petraeus. Thanks for telling me.

[Battlefront.com]

About the Taliban possible dead and seriously wounded. I'm seeing some rather odd arguments here BigDuke6, you are apparently saying that it's implausible that the Taliban were able to remove a high number of casualties because of all that heavy firepower. Well, if that were the case then isn't it logical that all that firepower was causing casualties? I mean, logic would say one of two situations happened:

1. They suffered significant casualties from the heavy firepower and were able to remove the casualties.

*or*

2. They didn't have to evacuate casualties because, despite all that heavy firepower, they didn't suffer casualties.

Based on empirical evidence from countless battles in both Iraq and Afghanistan, I think #2 is less likely than #1.

I'm sure the Taliban wanted to do more than they did. I'm sure they wanted to get some Americans alive or, at least, grab their bodies.

Looking at the glass as half empty one can say that the Taliban "won" that engagement simply because the Americans were made quite uncomfortable about losing a proportionally large number of lives in a short period of time. Or one can look at the glass as half full and say that despite minor and major flubs by the Americans, and a concentrated effort by the Taliban, the Taliban still didn't achieve what they set out to do. Kinda like they were shooting for Gold and had to settle for Bronze. Much better than not even qualifying, which is the norm, but still not what they hoped to get for the effort.

Again, I'm merely talking about the tactical situation here, not the larger issues of a COIN environment. Tactically speaking the Somali forces in what is known as Black Hawk Down employed almost no tactics worth mentioning. They died in huge numbers, but the end result was a total pull out of American forces. So tactics definitely don't necessarily have anything to do with overall operational success. But operational successes don't necessarily mean tactical proficiency.

I stand by my comments. The Taliban aren't incompetent by any stretch of the imagination. They might even "win" the conflict. But so far I am unimpressed by their ability to engage ISAF forces in tactical combat. Bombings, carefully chosen ambushes of small patrols, exploiting domestic opposition to occupation, making money off of opium, etc. are a different matter. They also get points for not being wiped out but instead becoming a bigger threat. But I still don't think of them as being very good with conventional tactics.

Steve

[Vanir Ausf B]

I'm surprised the Taliban stuck around after air support arrived. Maybe that had to do with the fact they had the village (for a while) to use as cover, or maybe they needed to buy time to evac their dead and wounded. Or maybe they felt they had not achieved their goals. Highly speculative of course, but curious.

And they certainly did have more bodies to move than were found. I tallied 5 Taliban that US troops claim to have clearly seen get shot (other than the one hit by the claymore). In addition a fresh blood trail was found while clearing the village, and "a lot" of bloody BDUs were found in the village by the Afghan commandos. So no matter what the numbers were, no way did they get away unscathed.

In any case, US forces knew where the egress route from the area was. It was another village located 4 km to the East. There was some discussion about sending out a group of SF and Afghan commandos on foot to cut off the Taliban escape. The fact they were discussing this tells me they did not have the route policed from the air. Here, I'll just cut and paste:

Upon his arrival, Major Himes “…found the SF team leader and discussed the way ahead. His initial desire was to conduct an approach march to the northeast along the valley floor with a march objective of Qualay-e-gal (four kilometers to the east).” In other words, the Special Forces commander wanted to aggressively maneuver to seal off the major route of ACM ingress, supply and logistics, and egress that ran down the deep defile of the Wayskawdi Khwar by seizing the small village of Qualay-e-gal, which entirely commanded every route through the Wayskawdi Khwar valley. If adopted, this tactical approach would certainly have been risky, although the massive quantity of American firepower and ISR assets would have clearly mitigated such risks, and it had the potential of inflicting a significant (if not crushing) defeat upon the ACM. Major Himes instead felt that “My concern was that we did not have adequate forces securing our northern flank” and thus the large and skilled Afghan Commando force was piecemealed to providing local security to COP Kahler. The American SF and Aghan commandos retained forty men within Wanat to serve as a powerful QRF, and pushed out after dark in all directions to seize and secure high ground to the northwest, northeast and southeast. By now an AC-130 gunship was also on station, and with these measures any ACM efforts directed against Wanat were doomed to fail. However, the fleeting opportunity to cut off the ACM retreat and inflict a catastrophic defeat upon the insurgents slipped away as the sun set over the towering ridges around Wanat.

[TheVulture]

About the Taliban possible dead and seriously wounded. I'm seeing some rather odd arguments here BigDuke6, you are apparently saying that it's implausible that the Taliban were able to remove a high number of casualties because of all that heavy firepower. Well, if that were the case then isn't it logical that all that firepower was causing casualties? I mean, logic would say one of two situations happened:

1. They suffered significant casualties from the heavy firepower and were able to remove the casualties.

*or*

2. They didn't have to evacuate casualties because, despite all that heavy firepower, they didn't suffer casualties.

Based on empirical evidence from countless battles in both Iraq and Afghanistan, I think #2 is less likely than #1.

I think what BigDuke is suggesting is that the evidence is that the Taliban were gone before the heavy firepower arrived. The reasoning being that if they had been there when the airstrikes etc. were called in, they'd a) have taken casualties from the heavy firepower, and been unable to remove the wounded and dead from the battlefield because of the heavy firepower. Hence there would have been bodies and injured taliban around to be discovered.

[Vanir Ausf B]

That is not possible. The US forces on the ground continued to take heavy fire -- and several casualties -- for a couple of hours after the Apaches showed up. Even after that there was small skirmishing for the next 24 hours at least, as I noted above.

[Battlefront.com]

Vanir,

I'm surprised the Taliban stuck around after air support arrived. Maybe that had to do with the fact they had the village (for a while) to use as cover, or maybe they needed to buy time to evac their dead and wounded. Or maybe they felt they had not achieved their goals. Highly speculative of course, but curious.

I suspect the latter ("just one more minute and we have 'em!") or perhaps a simple miscalculation of how long it would take for the airpower to arrive. In the recent attack they appear to have bugged out BEFORE the airpower arrived on station. I'm thinking that is no accident.

I think what BigDuke is suggesting is that the evidence is that the Taliban were gone before the heavy firepower arrived.

Ah... I thought it was pretty clear that airpower was engaging actual targets and not just pumping rounds into the dirt just to have fun. And dropping ordinance from a B1 without knowing of a specific target... I doubt that too. The video linked to before had gun camera footage from that battle and they seemed to be engaging the enemy VERY close to friendly lines (one said 10m). In fact, that was specifically recorded on the cockpit voice recordings.

Therefore, if the notion is that the Taliban melted away before the airpower came in is behind BigDuke6's assumptions of no casualties, I can understand that. I can't understand how he thought they were gone before the airpower hit

Steve

[Thomm]

I think you guys will not come to any conclusion, because the facts simply do not add up. We saw the videos, we read the AAR, with dozens of houses blasted to bits and gun cam footage of fighters being engaged directly. And the Taliban are expected to carry all that guys away under the eyes of the Apaches?? Perhaps I do not understand modern warfare well enough, but it does not make any sense to me.

Best regards,

Thomm

[snake_eye]

If that link has not yet been given, it is worth to be read to comprehend what went wrong at WANAT.

http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/01/28/inside_an_afghan_battle_what_happened_at_wanat_last_july_i

Some details quoted from that links about the attack :

"The enemy had a battle plan ready before the Americans came on the scene. According to the military's internal investigation that I reviewed, the company commander was asked at dinner the night before the attack if there were UAVs operating in the area -- an interesting question to hear from an Afghan local.

As the Taliban began the attack, they turned on an irrigation ditch, so the sound of rushing water would cover the noise of their footsteps and whispers. Their attack was well-coordinated, "a lot of fire all at one time," according to the company commander's statement. They got close enough to locate in the dark Claymore mines meant to defend the American position, and gutsy enough to turn around the mines. When they attacked, they first concentrated on the heavy weapons -- a big mortar, a .50 caliber machine gun and an anti-tank rocket launcher -- that could do them the most damage. And they fought close, so that it was difficult for fixed-wing aircraft to fire at them. They seemed to know they had at least 30 to 45 minutes before attack helicopters would be on the scene.

The obvious lesson: Keep in mind that the enemy is also learning and adapting, especially in Afghanistan, where guerrilla warfare is the national sport. This takes us back to the previous lesson: you probably need more soldiers than you think.

A second lesson: Get surveillance assets overhead before moving in, especially if you've been warned of an impending attack. If the weather is too bad for those aircraft to fly, consider delaying the mission."

[snake_eye]

Other reports stating the failure to set OP on higher grounds, being quoted from the previous listed link :

"By this point, we've seen that the company commander, the platoon leader, and the platoon sergeant all had misgivings about the deadly Wanat mission in eastern Afghanistan last summer. They feared that the enemy had been tipped off, that the mission was inconsistent with counterinsurgency doctrine, that they didn't have enough people to execute it properly, that it was coming too near the end of their unit's deployment, and the commanders and staff above them were distracted by the turnover to the replacement unit.

This is from the sworn statement that the officer who was the best friend of Lt. Jonathan Brostrom, the platoon leader at Wanat, gave to an Army investigator:

He told me he did not like it. . . 1st Lt. Brostrom told me he wasn't sure why they were trying to do this mission so close to the end of the deployment . . . . [He] was surprised and disappointed at the same time that they were trying to push this mission. I asked who ‘they' was and he couldn't tell me if it was coming down from BDE [brigade], BN [battalion], or just his company commander, but he knew he wasn't fond of the idea and nor were his men. 1st LT Brostrom expressed concerns to me about the number of men he was taking with him for the mission. . . . and that he was also concerned about the terrain surrounding the area. When I asked him about the terrain he said it was like Bella [another outpost], but he would have no OPs [observation posts] up above him.

The lack of those higher observation posts would allow the enemy to creep to the edge of the new American outpost at Wanat during the night of July 12-13."