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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: unclewest who wrote (21183)	3/12/2002 9:25:50 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I concur that "recon by fire" is a viable tactic and often necessary. But such a tactic, aimed at poking and prodding until you get a response, also should never be done without proper fire support capability to provide covering fires in case you find some "unexpected" resistance. Which is why I commend that company CO for having the brains to take his light mortar section, but question the other company commanders for not taking theirs. Personally, I would have requested 81mm tube support, and as a commander would have set up 120mm as a main fire support element to be ferried around where needed by chopper. And I hope that you're not under the impression that I'm questioning the capability of our troops, or our overall leadership. Mistakes get made.. I can accept that. But dumb mistakes, like sticking your nose into a potential hornet's nest without the immediate availability of close air support (until later on when you send out a Mayday), or relying upon Apaches which have a difficult time maintaining an out of ground effect hover at those altitudes carrying combat loads, are approaching the point of inexcusable. I'm a "pile on" kind of guy... Every major war we've fought in this century has been a victory of logistics and excessive firepower(an oxymoron?), over our enemies. Our troops are street smart, flexible, and able to think out of the box, but they're not bulletproof. In general, I'm a firm believer we give them the means to "reach out and touch" the enemy without endangering themselves unecessarily (unless time is of the essence in taking the objective). If they were performing a "recon by fire", they sure needed to bring more "fire". This looked more like a pure reconaissance/mopping up operation. I have a friend over at the Pentagon who's a former USMC fighter jock and works at "echelons above god" level.. He wouldn't say too much (that I'll discuss publicly here). But he did confirm the inter-service rivalry played a part in this operation, where the Army thought they could "go it alone" relying only on the Air Force as their back-up should things go bad. I could only shake my head when he told me that.. People's lives being put at unecessary risk just because a few generals have a rivalry or inability to coordinate. Btw, I learned something else last night as well from this conversation.. After the air campaign ended in Desert Storm and the ground battle began, apparently Army generals were unwilling to have Air Force pilots provide close air support to our advancing troops (allegedly out of fear of potential fratricide). So instead, they relied solely upon Apaches, which became responsible for the majority of "friendly fire" (another oxymoron) casualties. Air Force sorties were relegated to interdiction well away from the FLOT. Fortunately, our armor forces were more than up to the task of taking on the Republican Guards well beyond their ability to respond in kind. But kind of of silly to think of this rivalry that exists putting people's lives at risk. That's the kind of BS that I'll always criticize. Hawk