A lot of attention has been paid to the threat IEDs and EFPs pose to Humvees in Iraq and Afghanistan. Heavier armor, jamming of cell phone signals, the CROWS weapons mount and “Rhino” countermeasures have all worked to make Humvees more survivable in an IED environment. Also, moving from Humvees to MRAPs for some missions has increased troop survivability.
Still, IEDs aren’t the only threat Humvees and similar vehicles face. One of the most common weapons on the battlefield is the RPG, or Rocket Propelled Grenade. An RPG is a pretty simple weapon. It’s basically a HEAT warhead with a rocket motor to push it along, all fired from a simple tube. Our guys use a similar weapon, the AT-4, which is a disposable, one shot weapon. The RPG is reloadable.
RPG-7
The RPG is a real threat to light vehicles like Humvees, MRAPs, and even Strykers and Bradleys. Its HEAT warhead can penetrate the armor of just about any armored vehicle short of a main battle tank like the M-1. An RPG hit on a Humvee will often result in death or injury to the entire crew and a catastrophic loss of the vehicle.
So how do you defend a vehicle like the Humvee from RPGs? They are too small to carry explosive reactive armor or an anti-RPG cage. You can’t keep adding additional armor. The chassis just won’t take that much weight.
Well, for a couple decades, the armies of the world have been exploring “active defense” against RPGs (and similar HEAT warheads). Using a radar sensor to detect an incoming round, the active defense would instantly and automatically react to fire a projectile to impact with the warhead. Two big problems have always existed with this. One, the sensors and controls just haven’t been practical until the recent improvements in electronics. Secondly, having a vehicle that routinely has troops (and innocent bystanders) nearby suddenly start shooting off explosives is kinda unsafe. Recently, Artis LLC, in conjunction with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) came up with a system called Iron Curtain that uses a combination of advanced sensors, downward firing countermeasures, and special explosives and projectiles to field a system that can defeat RPG rounds without posing a great risk to dismounted personnel.
The system probably won’t be ready for service for another year or so, but can potentially be a great aid in saving the lives of troops.
One of the things that makes me a lousy blogger is that I don’t like to post my thoughts immediately on issues of the day. I didn’t post my opinions within 5 minutes of the President’s address last night because I wanted to digest them a bit. I also wanted to see what others thought, as that almost always gives me a deeper insight into what I truly think, rather than my first emotional reaction.
Oddly, two of my favorite blogosphere sources are from retired Naval officers, CDR Salamander, and Neptunus Lex. And of course, Drew M. at Ace’s has some thoughts that illuminate. Why take the Navy guys take on what is primarily an Army operation? Well, CDR Salamander is dialed in on the operational and strategic implications of policy changes in Afghanistan (traditionally, I think the Navy has trained its officers to think at that level better than any other service). And Nep Lex has a wonderful clarity of thinking and such a terrific ability to write that you can hardly afford to not read him. As for Drew? Look, I read Ace’s all day every day.
My own thoughts…
1. Good on Obama for adding an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. There is clearly a need for more troops if we are to shift to a counterinsurgency approach there. I think that is the proper approach, vice a counterterrorism approach. And COIN warfare is inherently a manpower intensive approach.
2. Bad on Obama for only adding 30,000 additional troops. GEN McChrystal requested 40,000 troops. You can be sure he didn’t just pull that number out of a hat. He had a reason for requesting the number he did, tempered by what he believes can be logistically supported in theater, and by what the Army staff tells him can be generated for deployment. I’m certain he didn’t just request a number of troops, but rather a particular force structure that happened to add up to 40,000. The President has authorized only 30,000. Which troops and what units did he think that McChrystal didn’t need? Why did he think that? What justification has he given for not including those forces? Does he think the additional 10,000 troops will be forthcoming from our NATO allies (fat chance!)?
3. Other than an arbitrarily imposed timeline that will enable the President to show a troop drawdown, why impose a 2011 timeline? Is this in there solely so Obama can show this drawdown during a presidential election cycle? One of the concerns I had about the surge in Iraq was that it was a “one-shot” deal. It simply had to work, because there was no way the Army could double down, and the ability to maintain that level of effort was time limited. They could surge additional troops, but only for about one deployment cycle, before real issues developed in maintaining readiness. That is potentially a problem here in Afghanistan, but it isn’t nearly the problem that the Army faced in 2007 in Iraq. But when President Bush announced the surge in Iraq, he did not announce that the surge was a limited time offer. In fact, the open ended nature of the commitment was a key component of its success. Those Iraqi factions that were beginning to consider aligning with us were convinced that we would still “respect them in the morning” and weren’t going to leave them hanging. In contrast, President Obama’s speech last night pretty explicitly told the Afghani people, “I’m love you, but I’m not in love with you.” If you were a tribal leader, and had to choose to align yourself and your tribe with either the US or the Taliban, who would you choose? That kind of undoes the whole point of a counterinsurgency strategy. The anti-coalition forces are pretty good at information operations. You can bet that this will be a major bullet point on their presentation.
4. The money thing. Look, no commander gets everything he wants. There are never unlimited resources. The Army understands that. But this sudden pennypinching impulse in an era of massive government expenditures for bailing out banks, and the Porkulus Stimulus spending that magically seems to fund every Democrat pet project of the last 20 years costs a heck of a lot more than funding the fight in Afghanistan. And you may rest assured that spending a ton of money to win a war is a lot cheaper than losing a war by trying to save money.
5. Dithering and deployments… What did the President say last night that justified the three months that it took for him to reach a decision? Nothing. So why did it take so long? And this three month delay is on top of the fact that back in March, the President announced his own new approach to the war and appointed his own commander for Afghanistan. Are we going to see quarterly revisions to strategy all the way through this administration? I understand that circumstances change, and that you have to adapt. But there has been no clear communication of our goals and how we intend to fulfill those goals by this administration (and this isn’t a problem exclusive to this administration. The Bush administration did a poor job in this respect as well).
The President has attempted to make up for his three month delay in reaching his decision by expediting the deployment schedule for those brigades that will be going. I was asked about this at The Hostages last night, and here was my response:
Brad, I’m thinking moving 2+ Divisions into inland and mountainous regions without ports and decent roads is going to take just a bit longer than the first few months of 2010.
Your thoughts?
Dave, the Army has a plan to move them (and more, don’t forget that McChrystal offered options of 80k, 40k, and 20k to Obama). It won’t be easy but it will be doable. The problem is that Obama is gonna “push” the deployment and get them in theatre faster than the original plan.
That will pose logistical problems, I’m sure, but the real assfuck will come in training. Brigades that see their deployment date moved up will have less time to integrate new troops, develop their training plans, implement individual, squad, platoon and company training, less time for cultural and language training, less time for Bn and Bde leadership to do leaders recons on the ground in A-stan and develop their campaign plan.
It’s impossible to quantify, but some troops will die because of these training deficiencies.
6. GEN McChrystal seems to be onboard with the President’s decision. He really has only two choices. Either say “Yes, Sir!” and try to do the best he can, or hand in his resignation. Given that the President has voiced support for his strategy and resourced most of it, GEN McChrystal really had no choice to but accept the challenge. If the President had instead provided only token increases, or none at all, he would have been sorely tempted to call it a day, I’m sure. Still, we as a nation have civilian control of our military, and at the end of the day, expect our officers to do what they are ordered to do by the President. For a theater commander to resign, he better have a damn good reason. And every commander that faces that choice also has to struggle with the issue that he could be abandoning his troops on the battlefield. That goes against the grain of every moral fiber in a soldier.
7. Delivery. For a guy that has a wonderful reputation for oratory, it sure seemed like he was just phoning it in. Of course, I’ve yet to be impressed by his public speaking. I’m biased, of course. I didn’t vote for him, and tend to have an immediate distaste for whatever he’s pitching the moment he opens his mouth. But it seems to me that his best speaking comes when he is making campaign speeches, and his worst comes when he discusses policy. And, to me, he seemed to lack any enthusiasm for what he was selling last night. His handlers like to stage manage this sort of thing, putting him in front of the Corps of Cadets at the US Military Academy. That struck me as being a bit too smart for themselves. While the Commander-in-Chief is guaranteed to have a polite audience there, Barack Obama was unlikely to have an enthusiastic audience there. I still clearly remember when President George H.W. Bush announced the doubling of troop deployments for Operation Desert Shied/Desert Storm in November of 1990. He gave that speech from the Oval Office. It seemed presidential and had the proper gravitas. I didn’t get that impression last night.
Overall, I’m somewhat disappointed and less than fully optimistic for the campaign in Afghanistan. But I’ve not given up hope. I have a near boundless faith in the ability of the American Soldier (and Marine, Sailor and Airman) to persevere in the face of daunting challenge and to overcome. Time will tell the result of the President’s approach to his leadership in what he himself called a war of necessity.
Here’s the stupid thing- as a member of the Marine Mafia, he already was gonna get a leg up from any other Marines that he worked with. There’s a fraternity there that college Greek communities could only wish the had. Lying about it wasn’t going to get him additional acceptance in that community. It got him expelled.
Christmas? Yeah, that’s pretty cool. But more importantly, it comes with my favorite all time blogpost that doesn’t involve cool facts about Dick Cheney. Ladies and Gentlemen… The Crap Tree.
We’re actually of two minds about this weeks hottie. Sometimes, frankly, she looks like crap. But when she’s dialed in, she has a smokey allure that hearkens back to the heyday of Hollywood glamor. Sometimes, she’s nuttier than a fruitcake (see that whole marriage to Billy Bob). Other times, she seems down to earth and almost a normal person.
A quick look at her IMDB page shows she’s been in some movies that have entered the public conscious, but she’s made a lot of others that flew under the radar, or were critically panned. One film that wasn’t terribly commercially successful, Girl, Interupted, garnered her critical acclaim and an Oscar. Others, such as Lara Croft, Tomb Raider, were not critical darlings, but commercial successes. Are you still reading this or just here to look at the pictures?
I hope and pray that you have the opportunity to spend time with loved ones and friends, and reflect upon all the good things our Lord has bestowed upon you this year.
And eat a lot. Way too much in fact. As for me, I’m in charge of the gravy this year:
We aren’t really a “foodie” per se. Sure, we like to eat, but we have a taste more towards institutionally bland food, rather than “cuisine’.
Still, we’ve been known to come across the occasional cooking show. Now, Padma and Gaia are the usual hotties on cooking shows. But the first celebrity cook show host to trade on her good looks was Rachel Ray.
I just found out a bit of sad news (from Neptunus Lex of all places).
COL (USA, Ret) Lewis L. Millet, Medal of Honor, passed on November 14th, 2009. COL Millet, as a Captain, was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions on February 7, 1951 in Korea:
Capt. Millett, Company E, distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action. While personally leading his company in an attack against a strongly held position he noted that the 1st Platoon was pinned down by small-arms, automatic, and antitank fire. Capt. Millett ordered the 3d Platoon forward, placed himself at the head of the 2 platoons, and, with fixed bayonet, led the assault up the fire-swept hill. In the fierce charge Capt. Millett bayoneted 2 enemy soldiers and boldly continued on, throwing grenades, clubbing and bayoneting the enemy, while urging his men forward by shouting encouragement. Despite vicious opposing fire, the whirlwind hand-to-hand assault carried to the crest of the hill. His dauntless leadership and personal courage so inspired his men that they stormed into the hostile position and used their bayonets with such lethal effect that the enemy fled in wild disorder. During this fierce onslaught Capt. Millett was wounded by grenade fragments but refused evacuation until the objective was taken and firmly secured. The superb leadership, conspicuous courage, and consummate devotion to duty demonstrated by Capt. Millett were directly responsible for the successful accomplishment of a hazardous mission and reflect the highest credit on himself and the heroic traditions of the military service.
While I was stationed in Hawaii, I was privileged to be assigned to the 1st Battalion, 27th US Infantry, The Wolfhounds. The Wolfhounds are a very proud unit, considering they have a relatively short history. The regiment was only formed in 1902, but quickly acquired a reputation as a “can-do” unit. In addition to service in Siberia immediately after the Russian Revolution, the Wolfhounds, as part of the 25th Division, served with great distinction during WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and now in Iraq.
Many units in the Army pay lip service to their heritage. The Wolfhounds live it. One program we had was making sure there was a real connection from the past to the present. Several times while I was in Hawaii, we hosted COL Millet to unit functions. There were some semi-formal events, dinners and such. But the real benefit was having “Lew” come out and just spend time with us as we went about our training. We tend to elevate our heroes up onto a pedestal. But by meeting and talking with Lew Millet, many young troops had chance to meet a real hero, and see that he was human. Each of us could, if not guarantee that we would perform to his level of valor and gallantry, at least aspire to it.
I hate to admit it, but I’d never heard of Stacey Keibler until she showed up on Dancing With The Stars. I gave up on watching wrestling sometime in the late 80’s, so I never saw any of the women wrestlers.
Now, I’m gonna hang onto my guy card a little longer, cuz I don’t really watch DWTS, I just like to skim the first episode of each season to see who’s on. And in this case, it was definitely worth watching.
While Stacey is famous for being a WCW Nitro Girl (and later with WWE), she’s had a surprisingly long career as a model and an actress, earning her SAG card at the ripe old age of 8.
Well. It looks like the first squadron deployment of MV-22B Ospreys to Afghanistan has begun.
I’m ambivalent about the whole Osprey program. I’m willing to stipulate that it is a very impressive aircraft. But is it the right aircraft for the Marines? What say you?
Our Dad missed WWII by about a year, but other family members fought the whole war through (one uncle was at Pearl Harbor) and as a history buff, you just can’t avoid being interested in the war. I’ve seen a goodly amount of the clips in the trailer, but over the course of 10 hours, there’s sure to be plenty of footage that is new to me.
For a guy that served in the Army as long as I did, I was a little unusual in that I only went on one deployment that lasted more than a month. These days, people in the Army can routinely spend half their enlistment on overseas deployments. And too be sure, that separation from families, friends and other loved ones is a real burden.
One of my favorite activities when I was a kid growing up in a Navy family was going to the Air Station to watch the squadrons returning from deployment. It was of course pretty cool watching the jets fly in, but it was really cool seeing the aircrews finally getting to hug and kiss their families after 6 months at sea.
And while many of you, my dear readers, will know that I’m the proud servant of Sox the Cat, you may not know that, at heart, I’m a dog person. I love me some puppies. And it’s a rule of nature that puppies like soldiers.
And if you follow that link to MentalFloss, you’ll see there’s even some kids that like soldiers.
We’ve long liked Andie McDowell. We’ve seen her in all sorts of stuff, but her three biggest roles were probably “Sex, Lies and Videotape” “Groundhog Day” and “Four Weddings and a Funeral”
I don’t usually think of the Air Force as a fierce band of bloodthirsty warriors. Hell, most of them don’t either. But even our blue suited cousins can recognize there’s a fine line between care for the well-being of Air Warriors and smothering them with preventative safety measures.
Go see what I mean. CDR Salamander has always had a good eye for sp0tting this kind of stuff.
It’s hard enough for the families of a soldier to cope with the stress of repeated deployments to a war zone. And it’s no cakewalk for the soldiers themselves. But the garrison environment is generally one of the safest communities around.
Army posts are small cities, with all the aspects you would find in almost any town, with residential neighborhoods, a shopping district, a business district, and industrial parks. But they have historically very low rates of crime.
In fact, this isn’t really a “crime” per se, but an act of terrorism, perpetrated by American soldiers, against American soldiers.
I can’t begin to tell you how my heart aches. Prayers for the families and loved ones of the fallen.
I’m still away from regular internet access, which makes blogging somewhat problematical. But I love you, my dear readers, enough to attempt to keep up with what is really important. You know, hot wimmens.
While we don’t have regular internet access, we do have access to television, and have seen more crappy TV than we like. We really aren’t a fan of Regis, but Kelly is welcome into our living room pretty much any time…
Here’s a pretty interesting article about using smartphones on the battlefield. We’re working on an epic post about communications, but wanted to tease you with this.
I can think of a number of handy uses that a smartphone might have, but I’m pretty analog in my thinking. I’d like to have all my checklists and reports on hand as a reminder, rather than having plastic reference cards for everything.
What would you like to use a smartphone for on a battlefield? Have you taken your phone to war?
An aside, we’re away from regular internet access, so apologize for lack of posts and pictures of hawt chicks.
Down in the comments of this post, commenter Kevin mentioned ACOGs. That naturally raises the question, “What’s an ACOG?”
ACOG is the acronym for Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight. Trijicon, Inc. has made a line of specialty gunsights for the M-16/M-4 family of weapons for years now. And last year, after using a variety of different products from different manufacturers, the Army settled on the ACOG as the primary sight for the M-4.
Back in the Stone Age, when I was a grunt, all small arms, with the exception of sniper weapons, only had “iron sights.” They were fairly accurate, but took quite a bit of training to master. Further, they were very difficult to use in low light, such as early in the morning and late in the evening. They were of course, next to useless at night.
Iron sights on the M16A2
Traditionally, the Army (and to a lesser extent, the Marines) have been leery of adopting optical gunsights, mostly because of their perceived fragility. The other big factor was that they cost money. Now, in an era when a jet can cost more than the GDP of many small countries, you’d think a few hundred bucks for a scope would not matter. But that’s not how the defense budget works. When the Army only has a limited amount of money to buy stuff, they tend to focus on the big ticket items. Small stuff, like small arms and their accessories, tends to get pushed aside.
One of the consequences of the Army going into Afghanistan and Iraq was that there was a sudden push to make sure our troops had what they really needed in terms of all their gear. That freed up a lot of money for things that otherwise just weren’t going to be bought. Grunts have been watching police and recreational shooters use combat optics on their rifles for nearly 30 years. Not surprisingly, there was a big push to update the Army with combat optics.
Now, a rifle scope is actually not what you really want in most firefights. A scope actually narrows your vision and can even make it harder to see the target. But combat optics use what are called “reflex sights” that are meant to be used with both eyes open. This greatly aids in target acquisition and generally keeping up ones situational awareness.
The first big batch of combat optics was the M68 Close Combat Optic, or CCO. Unlike the crosshairs of a traditional scope, the reticle of a CCO is illuminated, making it easier to see, and far more instinctive to use. There was just a simple red dot. Put the dot on the bad guy, pull the trigger, make the bad guy go away. The CCO didn’t even magnify. It just made it easier and faster to aim. About the only drawback to the CCO is that it takes batteries to illuminate the “death dot”, and grunts already have enough to carry, without having to worry about carrying extra batteries.
M68 CCO
Next up, and recently standardized is the M150 RCO (Rifle Combat Optic). This is the Army name for Trijicon’s Advanced Combat Optic Gunsight. The ACOG works along pretty much the same lines as the CCO, but provides some magnification (either 3.5X or 4X) and doesn’t need batteries. It uses radioactive tritium to provide the illumination for the reticle.
ACOG, or M150 RCO
Variations of the CCO and the ACOG are also mounted on the M249 SAW and the M240 medium machine gun.
via a blog I’d not seen before, Present Arms, a very interesting snapshot of a small unit action. An infantry platoon in the mountains of Afghanistan gets into a small scrape.
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Posted by xbradtc 
Posted by xbradtc 
Posted by xbradtc 
