100 Firefights, Three Weeks: Inside Afghanistan's Most Insane Fight "In its first three weeks in Afghanistan’s Sangin district, the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines got into more than 100 firefights and sustained 62 casualties. The insurgents managed to negate the Marines’ night-vision gear, and rendered their traditional close-combat tactics useless. Things got so bad, the 3/5’s superior officers even suggested pulling their troops back. That didn’t happen. Instead, the 3/5 went after the militants, hard. When the 3/5 came home, they told counterinsurgency historian Mark Moyar all about their deeply unconventional approach to what was already an unconventional war."
This is an excerpt in Wired of Moyar’s
74-page after action report.
(pdf) [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Jul 12, 2011 -
23 comments
Team Lioness is the name given to a group of female soliders, (and
the documentary about them) who were some of the
first women in modern American warfare to engage in frontline combat — something that is officially forbidden by the military. "
The female support soliders were assigned to the 1st Engineer Battalion and they were recruited to accompany Marine units during raids. Originally, the female soldiers were there to search and detain any women they came upon and to guard the unit's Arabic interpreter. Over time, however, as the situation in Ramadi deteriorated, the Marine units transitioned into a more offensive role, baiting insurgents into firefights in order to draw them out. Until officers higher up the chain got spooked over the possibility of a female soldier killed in combat and quietly disbanded the unit, members of Team Lioness were often right in the thick of things, including some of the fiercest urban firefights of the Iraq War."
posted by nooneyouknow
on Nov 14, 2008 -
22 comments
Above Enemy Lines (youtube
1,
2,
3,
4,
5) is a BBC Documentary about a
RAF Chinook crew on their tour of duty in Afghanistan. Part 4 and 5 of the film deal with the crew attempting to rescue a wounded 19 year-old soldier from a combat zone.
posted by krautland
on Sep 8, 2008 -
7 comments
Women are prohibited from being assigned to combat roles, but some still find themselves on the front lines. "Before this war, people only imagined how women would react in combat roles and thought that they couldn't handle it ... Now we see that women are bonding with the men and not going to pieces." Also, an
interview with Kayla Williams, author of
'Love My Rifle More Than You'.
posted by Alison
on Nov 21, 2005 -
40 comments
Go Rangers This is the tale of a young man who lost an eye to a suicide bomber in Iraq and THEN joined the U.S. Army Rangers. I don't think that he was busy calling his Mom.
posted by snsranch
on Oct 28, 2005 -
51 comments
Marines recall faulty body armor. In yet another blow to the struggle to supply soldiers with adequate armor, 5,277 defective vests were recalled today from troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. In response to the armor shortages,
new Oklahoma legislation would create "Patriot Plates," a $35 license plate of which $20 would go to supply body armor for Oklahoma soldiers.
Soldiers have been lacking this armor for months now. According to an April
GAO report: (PDF)
Because of the shortages, many individuals bought body armor with personal funds. The Congressional Budget Office estimated (1) that as many as 10,000 personnel purchased vests, (2) as many as 20,000 purchased plates with personal funds, and (3) the total cost to reimburse them would be $16 million in 2005. (P. 78)
Another continuing problem is a lack of adequately armored HMMWVs. "Current HMMWVs are protected only by canvas tops and have no additional armor protection." (P. 122) In this case, for protection from ambushes and roadside bombs, an add-on armor kit is required. However, "as of September 2004, the Army supplied 8,771 of the 13,872 Add-on Armor kits required by CENTCOM but still needed 5,101 additional kits to meet all requirements." (P. 121)
Attacks on vehicles have accounted for as many as 40 percent of the 1,037 deaths attributed to hostile action.
But at least we can sleep soundly knowing that manufacturers are seeing
record profits from all of this.
posted by ScottMorris
on May 10, 2005 -
31 comments
Front-line troops disproportionately white, not black. While blacks are 20% of the military -- compared with 12% of the U.S. population -- they make up a far smaller percentage of troops in combat jobs on the front line. In a host of high-risk slots -- from Army commandos to Navy and Air Force fighter pilots -- blacks constitute less than 5% of the force, statistics show. Blacks, especially in the enlisted ranks, tend to be disproportionately drawn to non-combat fields such as unit administration and communications. ''If anybody should be complaining about battlefield deaths, it is poor, rural whites,'' says Charles Moskos, a military sociologist at Northwestern University in Illinois.
posted by dagny
on Jan 22, 2003 -
48 comments
Hurah! It's Friday! Time to do some work! Well, actually, no. But this is a seriously good game that combines "pairs" with something of the "Street Fighter" genre. It's also written by a mate of mine who I went to uni and shared a house with. Anyone else got any 1 or 2 player games worth wasting the day with? 5 hours to go to beer and counting ...
posted by ralawrence
on Sep 27, 2002 -
10 comments
Amazing Photo of real hand to hand combat. The page is in Greek but the (600K) picture on top is, I think, worth your while. This is a photo taken by a British liaison officer to the partisans in the Greek island of Crete during WWII (named John Eberson or Emberson), as a group of guerillas confronts a German patrol. What is amazing is the fact that Emberson reached for his camera instead of his gun... This is the closest view of a combat situation
I've ever seen captured on film - does anyone know of anything similar on the web? Caption translation inside this thread's comments.
posted by talos
on May 25, 2001 -
11 comments
A Scourge of Small Arms "The root causes of ethnic, religious and sectarian conflicts around the world are of course complex and varied, typically involving historical grievances, economic deprivation, demagogic leadership and an absence of democratic process. Although small arms and light weapons are not themselves a cause of conflict, their ready accessibility and low cost can prolong combat, encourage a violent rather than a peaceful resolution of differences, and generate greater insecurity throughout society--which in turn leads to a spiraling demand for, and use of, such weapons."
posted by Calebos
on May 31, 2000 -
7 comments
