Wanat

[snake_eye]

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

Steve

You are right Steve, that was no accidental, if they bugged off.

It seems in the AAR investigation that the Talibans knew about the change between the Apaches crews shifting from night to day duties. That change induced a necessary briefing and Apaches mechanical controls that had to be done before being able to respond to a call.

The Talibans knew that they had around 45 minutes from the start of the attack (set at a time taking in account the shift of the crews) before Air asset might come.

They seemed to know about the UAV being sent elsewhere (The question about UAV had been asked by an Afghan at the village, the day before the attack to a troop leader. Rather a strange question to be asked)

Cheers

[Vanir Ausf B]

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.

Yep. I have a hunch they were thinking if they could bag a chopper with a lucky RPG it would look real cool on YouTube. I recall the Apaches were doing gun runs something like 30m from the Evac choppers as they loaded wounded.

[Secondbrooks]

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

Yeah. This is "funny" part. You have Apaches circling around engaging targets pulling back now with loads of casulites, hence even pull back without any casualties, would be pretty much doomed attempt. How there aren't more casualties?

Yet. Us troops are saying that they are getting heavy incoming fire and that enemy is just 10 meters away.

And there's only few casualties which are found out.

Sound impossible if you have let youself got stucked into pitched battle with ground forces. Basically you got yourself into crossfire when Apaches arrives. Pulling back under those conditions sound like messy thing... Then again some units have pulled back on bare flat ice for hour or so while they are being shelled by some 200-300mm shells with little casualties. Even on massed batallion or two attacks they received one casualty from every 2nd or 3rd shell, which spreads it's fragments to 600 meters distance and FO's reported that on each impact you could see bodyparts flying in the air... Yet objective studies seems to suggest that really only 50-30% of shells actually did kill or wound severly something. So generally firepower seems to be more of an show. This is even more true with air.

Maybe these few casualties were all that heavy incomming fire from 10 meters. While rest of units had pulled back into village and fired from there? Ofcourse it's possible that US troops just thought that enemy is in 10 meters (having chaos everywhere around them). They get taken by surprise, no body really not having a clue on what is going on. But then again leaving few men behind into suicide mission to draw enemy attention isn't all that new thing.

Maybe there was covered routes, trees, small rocky valleys, which they could take so main assault force were safe from firepower. Maybe they had (wet) blankets? So air actually didn't see a thing, but had to engage blindly. So main part could stay longer and keep engaging US ground troops, after that evacuate casualties and pull back in good order.

What was exact composition of enemy raid? How many went to close range and how many remain behind to support by fire?

And there are probably dozens of "variables" which doesn't cross my mind. Heck. It's seems to be pointless to speculate of outcome, when i don't see that there's even general understandment of situation at hand. Not that i'd like to display myself as tactical master as lately CMSF has roughed me pretty badly.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

I think it's the difference between looking for bodies and finding bodies.

On the day itself US troops had bigger fish to fry and they left a day or two later, didn't they? So most likely any Taliban found dead inside the perimeter would get counted, but the Taliban splattered across the countryside 100m away may not have been high on their list of priorities.

[Chops]

Here is the link to weapons issues in Afghanistan including Wanat:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/11/weapons-failed-us-troops-_n_316660.html

[Apocal]

Odd it goes on to harp about the M4's deficiencies when in the first paragraph:

Staff Sgt. Erich Phillips' M4 carbine had quit firing as militant forces surrounded the base. The machine gun he grabbed after tossing the rifle aside didn't work either.

Wonder what kind of machine gun it was.

Cpl. Jason Bogar fired approximately 600 rounds from his M-249 before the weapon overheated and jammed the weapon.

Uh, yeah, that'll do it.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

I doubt weapon reliability was a major contributor to what happened at Wanat. Nor do I think the M4 is bad. However, it is a rather mediocre weapons system. There's much better available, bullpup or otherwise.

The US army could do worse then sell theirs stocks of M4 and buy replacements. Given the current firearms prices in the US, the replacement programme would fund itself.

[theFightingSeabee]

All M16 variants including the M4 are a pain. They are very accurate, but they do jam a lot. Way too much in my opinion. You have to constantly baby sit it, oiling and cleaning constantly. It would be good to have something a little more hardy, while keeping the accuracy.

[Bigduke6]

It might be worth noting, that the AK is supposed to be able to fire thousands (something like 10 or 100, I forget) of rounds on cyclic before it gets a problem. You tell a soldier in an AK-armed military there are weapons out there that can't manage a 1000 before it's assumed they'll jam, and he'll tell you that's substandard.

And of course if you are firing as fast as you can, you're either screwing around on a range or really, really need the weapon to keep functioning as the alternative option is really, really bad for your health.

AKes unquestionably aren't quite as accurate as the M16 series at 300 - 500 m., actually I can vouch for that one personally. But in the opinion Mr. Kalashnikov, the extra accuracy and better-maching of the US weapons isn't worth the loss of reliability.

Of course, if the US forces switched to a different weapon there would be all those sales of Break-Free fluid and gray toothbrushes to the Army that would become redundant, that's home front jobs we're talking about. And of course Colt is a pretty big employer too, and I bet they contribute to the political campaign here and there. So probably the boys are stuck with M4 for a while. It' s not a bad weapon, just it's design philosophy seems driven by firing ranges and computer modeling.

And wouldn't it be cool if CMSF modeled troops in intense contact going cyclic, AND then jams? Of course to do it right you'd have to get a little audio of the pixel trooper saying something like !@#$%, my !@#$% weapon won't !@#$% work!

[snake_eye]

I doubt weapon reliability was a major contributor to what happened at Wanat. Nor do I think the M4 is bad. However, it is a rather mediocre weapons system. There's much better available, bullpup or otherwise.

I think Elmar is right, weapon reliablity was not a major contributor to what happened at Wanat, as well as the lack of water at certain time.

I think that these facts are the ones to retain :

1/ There are no early warning of the Taliban closing in - No UAV around at the time -

2/ The mortar pit was out of commision in the first minutes of the attack (if I do not make a mistake) No more mortar support.

3/ They did not have sufficient high grounds position and good fields of fire with mutual support. The topography of the place was the worst to stand a defense, with no manned high ground covering them. The place was well known of the attackers, with locals among them.

4/ They came in close fight very quickly (Talibans threw stone at them to make them think it was grenades - just to show how close they were). the Talibans opened the irrigation water taps to cover their approach and crept among the village without being seen and heard.

5/ They did not have any back up prepared defensive position to fall back in. Assuming they could have fallen back, they should have had a certain amount of covering fire and that is not certain.

6/ They did not controllled their volume of fire or could not, due to the numbers of attackers. Some weapons jammed, overcooked or run out of ammo (that doesn't mean that the weapons are not reliable) and then some emplacement could not support neighbouring ones

7/ No Air Assets for the first hour.It is assumed from the AAR that the Talibans knew about the shift of the Apaches crews and of the earliest hour at which they could come to the rescue. It seems that the attackers started to fall back just before the Air assets came. Some however, were still in contact for a longer time.

8/ The fact that no so many bodies were found is normal in these areas. usaully a Taliban fighter is carrying its AK and just a few reloads. A younger one and or less experienced one is usually following behind with the ammo, the food and water for them. That way the fighter is travelling light and can better assault. The load bearer is the one replacing him if he is downed and or taking the wounded or the body away at the end of a rope , while near the defender. To bury the corpses is an upmost important thing for them. they do the upmost to get away with them.

Cheers

[Apocal]

It might be worth noting, that the AK is supposed to be able to fire thousands (something like 10 or 100, I forget) of rounds on cyclic before it gets a problem. You tell a soldier in an AK-armed military there are weapons out there that can't manage a 1000 before it's assumed they'll jam, and he'll tell you that's substandard.

There is quite a big difference between "supposed to" and "will."

[Bigduke6]

Apocal,

Well let me tell you a story. Way back when I was a young man I got hired by the Federal government to prevent the onslaught of Communist agression in Europe. The Army in its wisdom sent me to an infantry battalion, and one of my jobs was teaching our emigres from the block and the burbs, er, our young soldiers, about the Kalashnikov.

So every year I would run a firing range, draw either 8 or a dozen (Romanian) AKes from brigade, a bunch of 7.62 x 39mm ammo (I think Serbia) from Corps, and we would have a fine old time familiarization firing.

I ran that range four years in a row, we fired somthing like 15,000 rounds each time, and part of the training was not to clean or oil the weapons from firer to firer, the teaching points being that (a) you can pick it up and use it, it doesn't have to be zeroed to you and ( there is such a thing as an automatic rifle that can shoot without cleaning and oiling all the time.

In those four years, not a single jam. Not one. There usually were 1-2 rounds that didn't fire in a day, you just cleared them and kept right on shooting. Sure US Army armorer were maintaining them in the interims, but we were only one battalion of about a half dozen or so waiting in turns to use these weapons; they got used pretty much continuously.

As range officer, I got to play around with the extra ammunition. I learned:

- 20 mags, absolute automatic, as fast as you can, it still shoots fine. (That wasn't just me pulling the trigger, I got volunteers)

- Rain and temperatures have zero effect on the weapons performance. It just works all the time.

- You can drop it off the back of a truck, or on concrete, and it works.

- If you have 90 rounds and you're on semi taking your time you can put them all into a target the size of about an apple at 50 meters, easily.

Further, and I wasn't in charge for this, I have seen a loaded AK buried in about 3 feet of dirt, the dirt watered with a hose, the AK excavated, and it fired on automatic without a hitch.

I had less experience with the PKM but as I got on in life I met people who did, and unanimously the message is that the PKM is, if anything, more reliable than the AK.

I don't want to give the impression that I think the AK is a war winner, no rifle is, but if the advertisement is it will shoot thousands of rounds w/o a jam, I for one am a believer.

[Secondbrooks]

What guys at some armory tested with AK was to fire 10 mags in row and each magazine was finished with one trigger pull. 10th mag started to turn wooden hand guard black and would have probably started to burn eventually. Barrel was fine might have been slightly damaged. That blue-thingy gained by corrosion (i'm not familiar with english name) suffered mildly. Dunno how it handles ice and winter. If it handles sand, as it seems, then maybe it doesn't mind much if there's water which freezes to moving parts.

PKM (=pokemon) was capable to go thru over 1000 rounds at rate of fire which was close to theoretical maximum (including belt changes, not sure about barrel). It wasn't even close to it's maximum, weapon was 100% fine after that.

One practical joke i've heard of was that you need to roll belt in sand so that defects from factory gets rubbed off. After that you have great MG in you hands. Main defect in PKM probably is ammo and belt, it's pretty picky about how well rounds are placed in belt. For not too familiar guy with PKM that can cause surprises.

Overall all Soviet weapons they tested were pretty reliable and were cabable to withstand high rate-of-fires for long time without any problems. When looking at what western weapons generally are expected to handle and withstand Soviet weapons seems to be far more capable to go on working.

[Alex]

AK intensive shooting

http://rutube.ru/tracks/241160.html?v=b1617f85a598ade7bd11c9e9688db337

[jenrick]

M240B running cyclic for a full minute. Had one failure to fire, and most likely was a bad round as all the rest fired without a problem.

-Jenrick

[Secondbrooks]

Question i like to ask my self, and have been raised few times by instructors, is that how many failures are because of user and not because of weapon... Well if weapon isn't simple to use and guys unfamiliar with it operates it wrongly then it's flawed. Quite naturally. But anyways.

[Apocal]

snip

My own experience with our current enemies personal weapon of choice has left me less than totally impressed with the design. My civilian ownership did not endear me either.

[bodkin]

New Nuristan footage.

[Bigduke6]

Wow. Thanks Apocal.