View Full Version : Less body armor might be the answer in Afghanistan
Interesting article considering it was the USMC who were always wearing their Flak Vests and helmets on ops when we were wearing jungle fatigues and soft caps. ;)
Richard's $.02 :munchin
Less body armor might be the answer in Afghanistan
AP, 10 Mar 2009
Heavy layers of body armor, a proven lifesaver of U.S. troops, also may be an impediment to winning the fight in Afghanistan, where 17,000 additional American forces are being sent to quell rising violence.
Weighing as much as 34 pounds each, the protective vests hinder American forces hunting down more agile insurgents who use the country's rugged peaks and valleys to their advantage, according to military officials.
The proper balance between troop safety and mobility will be examined this week during a series of oversight hearings by the House Appropriations defense subcommittee. Beginning Tuesday, senior Army and Marine Corps leaders are scheduled to testify on a wide range of subjects, including force protection, readiness levels and ergonomic injuries.
When body armor is added to the assault rifles, ammunition, water and other essential gear troops are required to carry, they can be lugging as much as 80 pounds into combat. Besides moving more slowly, overburdened troops tire more quickly and are prone to orthopedic injuries that can take them out of action, the officials say.
But convincing a war-weary public of a less-is-more approach won't be easy, they acknowledge. If a commander decides the gear shouldn't be used for a particular mission and a service member is killed, there could be a backlash, said Jean Malone, deputy director of experiment plans at the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab in Quantico, Va.
"We've got to have the internal fortitude to come back and say: 'We have the data. We made the right decision. We can't guarantee you that nobody will die in this war,'" he said.
Paring down the amount of armor could actually make troops safer on the battlefield, officials say. Speed and maneuverability give them the best chance of killing or capturing the Taliban and other militants before they can set roadside bombs or get in position for an ambush.
"Being able to maneuver and fight and chase down a fleeing enemy; that's actually where your protection is (versus) armoring up and being more static," said Brig. Gen. Tim Hanifen, deputy commanding general of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command at Quantico.
The loads carried by modern American troops are equivalent to those "the medieval knight wore into and out of battle back in the year 1000 until about the 16th century," he said.
Bomb-resistant vehicles that are light and nimble enough to handle Afghanistan's primitive roads are also needed, according to Hanifen. Trucks that worked well in Iraq, which has a comparatively sophisticated transportation network, may be less suitable in harsher terrains.
As troop levels are surging in Afghanistan, so are roadside bomb attacks, according to the Pentagon's Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization.
In January and February, 52 IED attacks in Afghanistan killed 32 coalition troops and wounded 96 more, according to preliminary figures from the organization. During the same two months in 2008, 21 IED attacks killed 10 troops and wounded 39.
Body armor has become a focus of Marine Corps efforts to lighten troop loads because it weighs so much more than the other gear. The standard kit consists of hardened composite plates inserted into a ballistic vest. The vest and plates protect the upper body from armor-piercing bullets and shrapnel.
Personal armor made of substantially lighter composite materials that are more effective than current models won't be available for several years. So the Marine Corps is looking for near-term solutions.
The Marine Corps is buying 65,000 vests called "scalable plate carriers" that weigh under 20 pounds. The carrier, which uses the same plates as the standard vest, doesn't cover as much of the torso. About 14,000 of the plate carriers have been fielded and the feedback has been positive, according to Marine Corps officials.
Over the next two weeks, the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab is conducting an experiment at Camp Pendleton, Calif., to assess the risks of using less armor. The results of the trials will help guide battlefield commanders who make the final call on what gear troops should use.
Seems like something to look into. It seemed like it would be almost impossible to chase down a Tban if we had to if he had any sort of head start, even if he didnt, it will break people off.
Climbing mountains with body armor can be a very big mistake if the troops arent conditioned- added to the weight of 240b's etc.
Changes need to be made in the weight of the armor. Taking it off is not the ideal solution- one US soldiers life is worth 1000 members of the taliban.
My last tour in Iraq I was with Small Craft Co. (USMC) we wore just he sappy plate and small carrier, then with a ammo carrier... The main reason was because we operated on the water most of the time and the quick release on the sappy plate vest was available if we happen to go in the water. But if was alot more maneuverable. I treated several wounded that both had the full flak and just the sappy plate & carrier and for the most part it did not seem to help or hinder either way. I'm sure everyone would welcome a lighter more maneuverable system that still keeps safety in mind. I'm interested in seeing what they come up with.
Dozer523
03-10-2009, 13:04
That's a very interesting line of thought. My early years were with Mech-Armor Teams and Task Forces. Speed and Safety were practically synonymous – Shoot, Move, Communicate. According to this article, body armor issue seems to have been Public Relations; more in response to soldiers buying their own and the public outrage that accompanied “you go to war with the army you have” (I think I quoted Sec Rumsfeld correctly – from memory). Support the troops does seem to be focused on getting us cool stuff. (I’m not complaining!)
When I was issued body armor I didn’t attach any equipment to it. I was called “old school” by the “weebles”. I didn't like being an ammo pouch higher then I had to be, nor did I like that it felt like I was trying to ballance myself in the prone. (Don't stand when you can kneel, don't kneel when you can lay down.) I loved the Molle vest, when I got that. My thinking was, if I had to beat-feet, E&E, whatever, I don’t want to be weighed / slowed down but I still want to have all my bullets and personal equipment. If survival comes down to trusting how fast / far I could move and whether bullets might bounce off, I’d choose speed and endurance (and hope they are lousy shots). And there is the injury part of it, I’m not sure I want to survive if my injuries are catastrophic. BA is allowing soldiers to survive some pretty awful injuries. But, that is just thinking . . . never having been exposed to it. This one is a big “I don’t know”. But if I was alive but an invalid . . . I don’t know. I have DNR conditions spelled out for the civilian side of me but while deployed, I doubt the Medics and Docs are going to check.
Blitzzz (RIP)
03-10-2009, 13:09
Question...how much body armor was worn in SOG. No joke Light and fast when necessary is the way I would play.. The more body armor you wear the MORE you need. I am old style and feel I'd play on the same mobility levels as the guys I am chasing. Stay alert stay alive. Blitzzz
Dozer523
03-10-2009, 13:16
Question...how mush body armor was wore in SOG. No joke Light and fast when necessary is the way I would play.. The more body armor you wear the MORE you need. I am old style and feel I'd play on the same mobility levels as the guys I am chasing. Stay alert stay alive. Blitzzz
Like the old saying "Hard for the enemy to get in, means hard for us to get out"
But convincing a war-weary public of a less-is-more approach won't be easy, they acknowledge. If a commander decides the gear shouldn't be used for a particular mission and a service member is killed, there could be a backlash, said Jean Malone, deputy director of experiment plans at the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab in Quantico, Va.
"We've got to have the internal fortitude to come back and say: 'We have the data. We made the right decision. We can't guarantee you that nobody will die in this war,'" he said.
IMHO, the fact that public opinion would factor into the consideration of equipment speaks volumes into the dysfunctions in civil military relations on the civilian side of the equation.:confused:
I think we sheep need to let the sheepdogs and the shepherds do their jobs as they see fit in their judgment as professionals. This isn't to say we don't have a role to play in defining America's national interests or the formulation of grand strategy or insisting that civilian leaders provide a reasonable amount of oversight and ask tough questions when necessary, but on operational issues we need to trust the experts.
Next thing you know, patients will be second guessing their brain surgeons while an operation is in progress. "Doc, I did sleep in Holiday Inn Express last night and that's not the way I'd do it...."
This one is an easy fix. Let the soldier decide what he want's to wear. If something happens he still get's full benefit's, but in the end it was his decision.
That would never happen, too many officer's and NCO's like uniformity too much, but it would solve all the problems.
A co, 1st platoon 1-75 Rangers, scaling the mountain of Takhur Ghar to reach their brothers under fire, were so encumbered by their body armor that the SSG in charge of the element had his dudes ditch their plates. He told his guys, "That's the most expensive frisbee you'll ever throw.." when they tossed their plates down the mountain. Funny part of this story is when we got back to the US there was talk of hitting that guy up with a statement of charges for the plates...freaking amazing.
IMO we seem to have lost the ability to reason - to reasonably understand that MOUT or convoy operations have parameters that don't necessarily transfer to all other environments...and vice versa.
We wore kevlar vests with ceramic inserts for CQB - we never wore vests in the tropics or the mountains or the forests or the deserts. Our SOPs and training were environment specific and varied quite dramatically as far as equipment, tactics, weapons, uniform, etc. ;)
But times change - and now I wear slacks, a dress shirt and tie. Some days I think I'd almost rather wear the body armor. :p
Richard's $.02 :munchin
TOMAHAWK9521
03-11-2009, 10:40
I was never a fan of body armor. Started out in 2/75 back in the '80s where speed, violence of action and an unmerciful domination of the battlefield was the norm. I didn't get my first taste of body armor until A-Stan in 2001-02. My chassis was already due for a service overhaul for my fractured spine and chronically screwed-up knees. Frankly, I couldn't stand having to lumber around in all that "safety" crap. As for attempting hot pursuits of jackals in their man-dresses, unless you have legs like Tom Platz and the stamina of Lance Armstrong, you won't last long and the bugger will escape.
Men are not meant to be M2 Bradleys on 2 legs. IMHO I believe a majority of the body armor is BS. Yeah, I'm sure if I had ever taken a shot and walked away, my opinion might be different, but I believe armor should only be worn for specific missions. In Afghanistan, we never wore armor and drove around in Toyota Tacomas. If we knew we were going to hit a house or whatever, we’d pack our armor with us, stop outside town to put it on, and then hit it. After that, we’d toss the armor in the back and continue on.
Safety-focused critics may point out that the war was different because IED’s weren’t around back then, and that armor gives you a much greater chance of survival with it than without. However, I had a junior 18E for about 6 weeks in Khandahar. He and 3 of our EOD brothers were blown to pieces while trying to destroy a cache of 107mm rockets that had been rigged with a command-detonated booby trap. The only thing body armor would have saved would have been his upper torso.
I agree with the article in that we have lost our capability of speed, flexibility and mobility on the battlefield due to the added on armor. Quick, decisive military action is pretty much a thing of the past. Now, the US military moves with the speed and dexterity of a glacier. IMHO the body armor is symbolic of America’s current attitude towards warfare and the will to win. All one has to do is look at these sprawling “cities” the military has established in the two theaters. They’re bloated and top-heavy with bottom-feeders: REMFs; civilian and military bureaucracies; more field-grade and general-grade officers than you can shake a stick at; contractors; and support units that, IMO, don’t do enough to justify being there. I realize I’m going to be beset upon as that annoying little voice obliterated by the ensuing hurricane of scorn, but we really don’t need half that crap over there. The modern military, in general, is slow, fat and too safety-conscious. Dining facilities that are the envy of the Mall of America, Pizza Hut or Starbucks doesn’t make you a better warrior, it just allows you to become comfortable and therefore complacent and uneager (aka chicken-shit) to go outside the wire, do the job you were trained for, face the threat, and destroy it. War isn’t supposed to be safe and comfy. If you take away all the unnecessary luxuries and distractions then perhaps there will less incentive to linger around over there and the military will be more eager to go home to a real Pizza Hut.
But I digress.
As touched on in the article, another consequence of wearing all this junk is the long-term health issues. After 22 years of RGR/SF I am being medically retired for spinal damage and cartilage ground off of my knees. Some might say that after that much time, what would one expect? I'm an old guy by army standards, right? However, I believe the newest batch of young studs who are currently scampering all over the place with this crap on, will suffer similar physical problems but in a significantly shorter time frame.
One must also consider what will happen when this conflict opens up in a tropical theater. Body armor is a no-go. You try making guys wear that in someplace like Thailand, Indonesia or Panama, they’ll be dead or combat ineffective before sundown.
Excellent post Tomahawk.
For conventional forces, I don't see it changing military wide.
Maybe a few Battalion/Brigade commanders will take the initiative to reduce all the armor, but I doubt the majority will.
In 2006 on a MEU deployment our company (helobourne) wouldn't give us the quick release FSBE flacks because battalion uniformity was more important.
They also didn't try the helo dunker in Interceptor vests.
Team Sergeant
03-11-2009, 11:22
one US soldiers life is worth 1000 members of the taliban.
I disagree, IMO one member of the US military is worth more than all the taliban.....;)
I believe we should return to carpet bombing and removing grid squares if there are taliban present.
I believe this and only this brutal method of war will change minds. I also believe it's time to remove the word "extremist" when referring to islamic individuals.
And I agree with Max Tab, let the individual (above the rank of SGT) decide if he wants to wear body armor or how much.
TS
"We have lost our capability of speed, flexibility and mobility on the battlefield due to the added on armor. Quick, decisive military action is pretty much a thing of the past. Now, the US military moves with the speed and dexterity of a glacier. IMHO the body armor is symbolic of America’s current attitude towards warfare and the will to win. All one has to do is look at these sprawling “cities” the military has established in the two theaters. They’re bloated and top-heavy with bottom-feeders: REMFs; civilian and military bureaucracies; more field-grade and general-grade officers than you can shake a stick at; contractors; and support units that, IMO, don’t do enough to justify being there. I realize I’m going to be beset upon as that annoying little voice obliterated by the ensuing hurricane of scorn, but we really don’t need half that crap over there. The modern military, in general, is slow, fat and too safety-conscious. Dining facilities that are the envy of the Mall of America, Pizza Hut or Starbucks doesn’t make you a better warrior, it just allows you to become comfortable and therefore complacent and uneager (aka chicken-shit) to go outside the wire, do the job you were trained for, face the threat, and destroy it. War isn’t supposed to be safe and comfy. If you take away all the unnecessary luxuries and distractions then perhaps there will less incentive to linger around over there and the military will be more eager to go home to a real Pizza Hut."
VERY VERY VERY nicely put. Could it be, that even our own conventional army has lost the stomach for a grit in your teeth war?
Every time we rolled in to Bagram or Phoenix every single one of us had it on our minds. "What the hell are most of these people doing here?" and "Must be nice to have ONE decent tasting main dish, none the less 8"
If some of the money and assets trickled down to some of the more remote fobs many of us would feel more supported. Ill bet you Bagram and Kandahar have rocket/mortar radar, and I will also bet you 4/5 most dangerous FOB's and COP's do not in addition to thousands of others amentities.
Also agree with you team sgt..we need to carpet bomb the afghan/pakistan border villages .
Dozer523
03-11-2009, 19:52
[QUOTE=Bechorg;Every time we rolled in to Bagram or Phoenix every single one of us had it on our minds. "What the hell are most of these people doing here?"
We went to Phoenix for the Orange Julius! :D At Eggers the majority of those assigned never saw any of Afghanistan EXCEPT for the drive from Bagram when they arrived and the drive back when they left. Most didn't know what the street on the other side of the wall looked like.:eek:
However, I believe the newest batch of young studs who are currently scampering all over the place with this crap on, will suffer similar physical problems but in a significantly shorter time frame.
In the long term, this will cost the USG even more $$$$$ in health care for veterans...:munchin
Stay safe.
Blitzzz (RIP)
03-11-2009, 22:41
Just to add to Team Sergeant's "carpet Bombing" I say yes with MOABs. Blitzzz
......Hey you, with the facial hair and trousers unbloused, what unit you with, hey get back here, Dont make me run!
I digress.
:D
As I say, don't call 'um out unless you can chase them down or at least know where they sleep.
Aaaannnd take a quick look down the front of your uniform just to make sure you don't have something on wrong or missing the camp commanders latest addition to the camp uniform.
Funny how thinking something didn't apply to them goes up as well as down. Sometimes it's fun to play with CSMs - but you better have your shit straight when you do.
Hey you, with the facial hair and trousers unbloused, what unit you with, hey get back here, Dont make me run!
Some things never change. I showed up at the C-Team for mail and medical supplies one day and the CSM caught me in relaxed standards - sent me off to the NCO Academy at Samae San to teach me a lesson - lived in luxury for a week with soft bed, clean linens, movies, rec center, beach, swimming pool, bowling alley, library, hot shower - pure punishment :rolleyes: - I came back Honor Grad and was glad to get back to camp - taught me that I had made the right decision to (1) stay away from the regular Army and (2) to avoid anybody above the B-Team level looking for something to do with themselves. ;)
Richard's $.02 :munchin
futureSoldier
03-17-2009, 11:49
To make matters worse for the conventional side... when we touch down in Afghanistan this summer we will be wearing Land Warrior with its 8lbs and very restrictive wires.
The Reaper
03-17-2009, 12:16
"War is hell and there is no point in trying to civilize it."
W.T. Sherman
This one is an easy fix. Let the soldier decide what he want's to wear. If something happens he still get's full benefit's, but in the end it was his decision.
That would never happen, too many officer's and NCO's like uniformity too much, but it would solve all the problems.
LOL,
You know that will never fly!!!!.
As touched on in the article, another consequence of wearing all this junk is the long-term health issues. After 22 years of RGR/SF I am being medically retired for spinal damage and cartilage ground off of my knees. Some might say that after that much time, what would one expect? I'm an old guy by army standards, right? However, I believe the newest batch of young studs who are currently scampering all over the place with this crap on, will suffer similar physical problems but in a significantly shorter time frame.
Great post.
Sorry to hear about you being medically retired.
Can I have your Thailand JCET? :D
Peregrino
03-17-2009, 18:49
Can I have your Thailand JCET? :D
Now that is just plain COLD!
TOMAHAWK9521
03-18-2009, 00:38
Great post.
Sorry to hear about you being medically retired.
Can I have your Thailand JCET? :D
Sure. Then again, I wasn't slated for that one. My team, which I have had to give up, is going to Czech Republic.
Dozer523
03-18-2009, 08:13
This one is an easy fix. Let the soldier decide what he want's to wear. If something happens he still get's full benefit's, but in the end it was his decision. That would never happen, too many officer's and NCO's like uniformity too much, but it would solve all the problems. All they have do is sign a libility waiver and bring a permission slip signed by NOK.
Dozer523
03-19-2009, 11:54
What effect would that have on his SGLI?
I guess it would depend on the mood of the Line Of Duty Investigating Officer.
I think we are stuck with Body Armor.
Dozer523
03-25-2009, 11:12
This off AKO this morning. "Wily, Mobile" sounds good for us too.McClatchy Newspapers (mcclatchydc.com)
March 23, 2009
U.S. Troops Confront Disciplined, Wily, Mobile Afghan Insurgents
By Philip Smucker, McClatchy Newspapers
ASMAR, Afghanistan — When the young American lieutenant and his 14 soldiers glanced up at the rock face, they thought that the major who'd planned the mission must have been kidding.
Elijah Carlson, a strapping, blue-eyed Southern Californian and a self-proclaimed "gun nut," gripped the crumbling rock, tugged backward by 90-pounds of ammunition and gear. "If we fall back, we are dead!" he whispered to Lt. Jake Kerr, the platoon leader.
In seconds, a rock shot loose beneath one soldier's boot and dropped 20 feet onto another soldier below, sending him tumbling 15 feet to the base and cracking his bulletproof side plate.
What transpired over the next 16 hours was the kind of clash that's led Kerr's commanders in the Army's 10th Mountain Division, based at Fort Drum, N.Y., to conclude that there's no "victory" waiting around the next bend in Afghanistan, only a relentless struggle with a fleet-footed, clever enemy. For Kerr, a recent West Point graduate who specialized in counterinsurgency, it was the first face-off with an often-elusive opponent and a case study in the complex politics of rural Afghanistan.
Kunar, where Combat Company of the 1st Battalion of the 10th Mountain Division's 32nd Infantry Regiment is stationed, is one of the most violent provinces in Afghanistan. Asmar is just 10 miles from the border with Pakistan's Bajaur Tribal Agency, which has been a sanctuary for al Qaida and Afghan Taliban leaders.
The mission was to disrupt the men and weapons infiltrating from Pakistan and root out their staging bases in Afghanistan. The Americans had hoped first to confer with village elders, but after intelligence indicated that insurgents were in the area, they moved in with heavy machine guns.
Kerr's platoon moved for three hours in the darkness. Each time they thought they'd reached the peak, the land shot up farther. The unit came across enemy fighting positions, piled high with rocks and littered with food wrappers.
Afghan and American intelligence reports said these were "Bakt Ali's men," insurgents who lay claim to nearby villages in central Kunar. Ali is a senior Taliban guerrilla leader in Kunar who's thought to have direct ties to Abu Ikhlas al Masri, an Egyptian al Qaida leader in Pakistan. At each dug-in position, Kerr recorded the GPS coordinates of unmanned enemy positions, down to the 10th digit.
As dawn broke over the rocks, company commander Maj. Andy Knight, of Ann Arbor, Mich., set out on foot in the valley 700 feet below. Kerr would provide support from his eagles' nests as Knight attempted to clear two villages where, he said, residents had complained of insurgent intimidation. Accompanied by a reporter, Knight and a detachment of American and 14 Afghan soldiers stepped carefully along mud dikes, greeting Afghan children and their parents with a cordial "Sengay?" — "How are you?"
What Kerr, from Lake Placid, N.Y., heard from his perch above the valley was a surprise: Unseen men along the valley floor were shouting to one another like an oral tag team, passing the news that "the Americans have arrived."
Within minutes, three men, one in a white shalwar kamis — a loose pajama-like shirt and pants — another in a black one and a third in a brown shawl and gray pants, sprinted down the valley from the west with machine guns toward Knight's patrol, which was walking along a dry, rocky streambed about 1,000 feet away.
Kerr, 25, part of a new generation of American warriors schooled at West Point in the raw lessons of fighting counterinsurgencies in the Islamic world, spotted them instantly.
"They were running at Major Knight with AK-47s," Kerr said after the battle. "We opened up on them, and they began firing. But we had the three men outgunned, and they dove for cover in the streambed."
In the valley, the hiking party splashed through irrigation channels and dove for cover amid tall bushes that lined the stream. The chatter of machine guns fired from both sides echoed off the ridges and stone walls.
Knight, who played tight end on the Army football team, shot past in a blur to the front of the marching party. He didn't yet know that two of the insurgents had been hit. They were pulling themselves on their bellies through the rocks, desperate to reach a bend in the stream.
Within five minutes, two Apache attack helicopters buzzed the valley, scanning for enemy positions and listening to Kerr direct them to the target. "I was shooting tracers down at the two fighters crawling in the stream, and the other man in a brown shawl was shooting back," Kerr said.
Hidden behind a wooden shack, Knight's party could see the two Apaches sweep down, ripping up the stream bed. The insurgents had slipped just out of Kerr's sight, however, back up a bend in the stream and away from Knight's party. When the Apaches unleashed their Hellfire missiles, the men already had vanished.
"Dawg 1,6!" Knight snapped into his radio to Lt. David Poe, 24, of Buffalo, N.Y., a few hundred yards away, as he crouched in the rocks. "Are you near the woman in the green dress, tending to the animals? We are moving towards your location."
Almost all the males in the valley had gone missing, but Afghan women were trying to keep spooked cows and goats from fleeing. As Knight's party climbed into the rocks above the stream and dashed along the mountainside, a woman in a black shawl appeared, waving her arms and wailing, berating U.S. and Afghan forces as they passed. An Afghan soldier shouted back, incorrectly, "Back in your house, lady! They shot first!"
Knight stopped to catch his breath. "Do we have maps of these villages?" he demanded of Lt. Eric Forcey, 23, of Lynchburg, Va., who was at his side.
"No, sir," Forcey replied. "For all intents and purposes, they do not exist."
"I think they've existed for a long time, Forcey; the mapmakers just have not found them," the major replied.
"Yes, sir."
WIth "shhh-thwamps, shhh-thwamps," two more Hellfire missiles crashed into the rocks.
With constant translations of the enemy radio chatter in Pashtu, picked up through electronic eavesdropping, and the major's narration of the battle, events appeared to turn. "I think one of them is badly injured," Knight speculated. "They will have to make a decision to drag him out or leave him."
The U.S. forces, augmented by the 14 Afghans, were deliberate, at times cumbersome. From above, Kerr's men heard radio traffic indicating that the insurgents had slipped into a larger village farther up the ravine.
Enemy radio chatter also indicated that the helicopter strikes were landing just in front of the house from which Bakt Ali's men apparently were talking.
Still, this was a shell game with no certainty about the targets' whereabouts, and Knight — who spent a year in Kunar in 2006 and 2007 — knew it. He refused to order an airstrike on the suspected hideout.
Instead, he took Kerr's plea over the radio that, "We can own this valley, sir!" He ordered two Humvees to rush up the stream bed and take up "support-by-fire" positions in front of a group of wooden houses and dispatched Dawg Company's Poe to oversee a group of Afghan commandos, who'd search the village on foot.
The choppers returned from refueling. Once in the village, the Afghan soldiers went house to house, room by room. A cluster of women and children stood on a rooftop. "This is a virtual ghost town, sir," came Poe's report. An Afghan interpreter sniped: "It almost always ends this way."
Kerr and his men were tired and frustrated. No one had found the fugitives' "blood trails," which he'd hoped to follow.
As his men packed in their heavy weapons and began to pull back down the mountain, the insurgents' radio traffic intensified.
"We could hear them actually counting our numbers, and they were saying that they would hit us. A commander told them to wait until we were grouped." The insurgents apparently wanted to target only the departing forces and to avoid destroying the village.
Kerr's team hiked back down the ridgeline, descended about 1,000 feet into the riverbed, linked up with Knight's fighters in U.S. jeeps and reached for water bottles.
Suddenly, an Afghan interpreter, monitoring radio traffic, heard Bakt Ali's commander order the attack. Kerr dove for cover. The pavement exploded with rocket blasts and fire from massive PK machine guns. Carlson, 23, from Torrance, Calif., dropped to his knees, curling into a fetal position under a dirt ledge with his machine gun trained on the crest of the mountain he'd scaled earlier. One U.S. soldier was hit in the groin as he leapt for cover.
Kerr's platoon's work was about to pay dividends, however.
With a rush of satisfaction, Kerr reached into his pocket and pulled out the GPS coordinates of the enemy positions he'd scribbled down that morning. From six miles away at their base in Asmar, a 10th Mountain artillery battery unleashed a torrent of 105 mm howitzer shells onto the enemy positions. In the twilight, .50-caliber machine guns blazed.
The day was over. No one was going back to hunt for the living or the dead. The insurgents had lost fighters, but they'd proved to be a wily, disciplined and mobile force.
The U.S. and Afghan forces had had a reality check. If they didn't already know it, they now understood why they'd been unable to have a peaceful discussion with the village elders. Bakt Ali's forces owned the villages, and until last Thursday, they more or less controlled the entire ravine. It would take more than better maps for the Afghan army and its U.S. allies to wrest control of them.
Smucker is a McClatchy special correspondent.
And then we have this...:mad:
And so it goes.
Richard's $.02 :munchin
Lightweight Armor Is Slow to Reach the War Zone
Thom shanker, NYT, 17 apr 2009
The Army has promised to lighten the soldier’s load, and nowhere more urgently than in eastern Afghanistan, where the unforgiving terrain tests the stamina of troops whose weapons, body armor, rucksacks and survival gear can weigh 130 pounds.
But an experiment to shave up to 20 pounds off a soldier’s burden — much of it by reducing the bulletproof plates that protect the chest and back — has stalled, leaving $3 million in new, lightweight equipment sitting in Virginia instead of being sent to the war zone where it was to have been tried out by a battalion-size group of 500 soldiers. The delay offers a new window into how Army rules have slowed the deployment of specialized gear that small units are seeking for harsh combat environments.
The new lightweight bulletproof plates, part of what is known as a Modular Body Armor Vest, are already in use by the military’s Special Operations Command, which includes the Army’s elite light-infantry troops, the Rangers.
A team of Army experts went to eastern Afghanistan in early March expecting to begin trial runs of the gear for regular Army soldiers, including a company assigned to the remote Korangal Valley, a harsh and primitive area of eastern Afghanistan where the insurgency has proved especially resilient, and where soldiers regularly set off on multiple-day patrols that require them to hike up and down steep valleys.
But the assessment team was ordered back to the United States late last month when its experiment was put on hold. The delays in the assessment were reported first by the Army Times.
According to Army officials familiar with the effort, senior Army leaders ordered further reviews of the lighter bulletproof plates to guarantee that soldiers would not be put at risk wearing them during the combat field tests; the leaders also wanted to expand the goals for the assessment. The officials who discussed the stalled study did so on ground rules of anonymity because of the senior-level review of the matter still under way.
The lighter set of plates and vest could reduce the load of conventional troops by about 20 pounds over the current Army-issue Improved Outer Tactical Vest.
The Special Operations Command prides itself on rapidly equipping its units with the latest in weaponry, body armor and war-fighting technology, and many of its innovations subsequently have been adopted by conventional forces. But some of its highly specialized gear carries with it a greater risk for the user, one that Special Operations commanders say is mitigated by the elite level of training given their forces.
All involved in the debate agree that the lighter plates and vest do not cover as much of the torso as the current Army body armor. But advocates of the lighter protection say that giving a soldier greater mobility contributes to survivability, and that the greatest threat to troops in eastern Afghanistan is from bullets, while the heavier vests were designed also to guard against shrapnel from roadside bombs.
Army officials say that the assessment, headed by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab in conjunction with the Army’s Asymmetric Warfare Group, will resume in about a month, and that the focus will be on the impact of the total soldier’s load and not on analyzing particular pieces of equipment, like the body armor alone.
“To preserve the validity of this assessment and evaluation on soldier performance, the Army decided to equip the unit with all types of lighter equipment simultaneously rather than in a piecemeal fashion,” an Army spokesman said.
The assessment is expected to resume “in the next month, pending a final decision from senior Army leadership,” the spokesman said.
Advocates of a more cautious assessment schedule cite the importance of getting the study right, saying it will guide decisions on equipping the entire force both to meet the challenges of combat in Afghanistan — where thousands of additional troops are being sent this year — and to lessen the physical strain that can lead to long-term injury.
But other officials counter that time has been wasted, and that the lighter gear is only one option to commanders whose troops are going out on patrol, because heavier body armor would remain at each base for use when more coverage of the upper body was needed.
Critics say the delays in testing the lighter body armor are another sign of Army inflexibility, even after years of efforts by the service to speed up its procurement process. The Army was also late to recognize the dangers posed by a reliance on soft-skinned Humvees for troops in Iraq, and then was slow in buying and building better-armored troop transports.
The Army has been driven to examine how to lighten the soldier’s load after years of adding heavier armor, night-vision goggles, rifle scopes, knives, water and food. A soldier on patrol carries, on average, 60 pounds of equipment, but in places like Afghanistan, where the terrain requires prolonged missions away from an operating base, the load can be doubled by the need for shelter, extra food, ammunition and other gear.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/18/world/18military.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Utah Bob
04-17-2009, 17:23
If conventional unit commanders eased up on body armor they might take more casualties. They might also be more combat effective but today apparently combat effectiveness is trumped by casualties.
Bushranger
08-16-2010, 08:47
TOMAHAWK9521, you said that all, I fully agree. BA is fine for short ops, urban ops, when driving around in vehicles etc., but not for foot patrols in rural mountaineous areas in A-stan. Then coalition forces end up carrying their heavy a.ses in vehicles and getting blown up by IEDs almost daily. And what is done to counter that?? Developing even more heavily armoured vehicles... so terrs just add couple kilos and we are where we were before.
Utah Bob
08-16-2010, 18:28
IMO we seem to have lost the ability to reason - to reasonably understand that MOUT or convoy operations have parameters that don't necessarily transfer to all other environments...and vice versa.
We wore kevlar vests with ceramic inserts for CQB - we never wore vests in the tropics or the mountains or the forests or the deserts. Our SOPs and training were environment specific and varied quite dramatically as far as equipment, tactics, weapons, uniform, etc. ;)
But times change - and now I wear slacks, a dress shirt and tie. Some days I think I'd almost rather wear the body armor. :p
Richard's $.02 :munchin
A tasteful four-in-hand is all the armor a true gentleman needs.;)
Dozer523
08-16-2010, 22:02
A tasteful four-in-hand is all the armor a true gentleman needs.;) Sharp Dressed Man
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-y33Uq6HGs&feature=related
Bushranger
10-19-2010, 16:51
Any LRS guys here? It seems impossible for me to do some serious dismounted reconnaissance or establish covert OP in the mountains and wore a body armour with K-pot... so I guess even the LRS dudes are stuck in the carts and we actually got NO long-range, long-term, covert human eyes on the ground?:confused:
Reaper411
10-19-2010, 21:35
There are pro's and con's to everything. The key to this is adaptability. Assess each mission, add/subtract gear (such as extra body armor) depending on the task, threat, distance, etc. It made a HUGE difference even though the "upper management" frowned upon it. The fancy side plates and arm protectors were great for road trips down IED alley, but on hikes in the middle of BFE for an LP/OP, simple vests made it much easier to maneuver and carry extra ammo/H20. As per always, situation dictates.
Bushranger
10-20-2010, 03:36
There are pro's and con's to everything. The key to this is adaptability. Assess each mission, add/subtract gear (such as extra body armor) depending on the task, threat, distance, etc. It made a HUGE difference even though the "upper management" frowned upon it. The fancy side plates and arm protectors were great for road trips down IED alley, but on hikes in the middle of BFE for an LP/OP, simple vests made it much easier to maneuver and carry extra ammo/H20. As per always, situation dictates.
Thanks for the info, but that´s well known to soldiers on the ground, but still you HAVE TO wear body armour EVERY TIME.
bravo22b
10-20-2010, 05:13
Any LRS guys here? It seems impossible for me to do some serious dismounted reconnaissance or establish covert OP in the mountains and wore a body armour with K-pot... so I guess even the LRS dudes are stuck in the carts and we actually got NO long-range, long-term, covert human eyes on the ground?:confused:
I don't claim to have knowledge of what every LRS unit is doing out there, but if I had to take an educated guess, I don't think there are that many doctrinal LRS missions being run in theatre, and I strongly suspect that most LRS guys are wearing body armor and helmets while conducting whatever missions they are on.
MOO, take it for what it's worth.
Reaper411
10-20-2010, 12:39
Thanks for the info, but that´s well known to soldiers on the ground, but still you HAVE TO wear body armour EVERY TIME.
I agree 100% and I should have been more specific. My point was to the amount of body armor worn, not whether it was optional. Wearing only a BP vest while as a cop made wearing a Kevlar vest with just front and back plates easy since I was used to it, which is why I felt it made the big difference. When I had on the IBA with all of its accessories, I felt protected, but my ability to maneuver was decreased.
Reaper411
Nightfall
10-20-2010, 13:32
I can't speak for being in the sandbox or actual combat, but my experience doing OPFOR with SOG's is protection is good to be worn as much as possible. My opinion will no doubt change after deployment, but I sort of learned my lesson the hard way. My inexperienced opinion only - I'm sure I'll be that FNG that the PL will come over to and start with the,"You don't need that, you don't need that, why in God's name are you carrying that, lose that...."
Sort of like those work gloves everyone has. You go out start a project, work gloves in your pocket, thinking you'll put them on when you get to the heavy stuff, then you cut yourself. Look down and realise you could have avoided the cut had you just worn the gloves you had in your pocket.
Doing OPFOR recently with some PJ's I had a full face mask in my ruck. I put on my safety glasses thinking to myself, "I've never been shot in the face doing this, and it's wicked hot... " After low crawling to about 10' from the PJ's, I waited for them to respond to fire coming from their left, I then fired upon them. I took three sim rounds to the face. Damn fine grouping... Blacked my eye and left a nice perfectly round hole in my nose. I have since worn full face protection anytime weapons are involved. :)
Funny - should have known something was amiss when the PJ looked at me after the fact and asked several times if I was sure I was okay, to which I replied it was just paint, then realised my face was covered in blood. "Think that will leave a mark?" "Uh, hehehe, yeah."
My recruiter had a fit.
greenberetTFS
10-20-2010, 14:12
Less body armor might be the answer in Afghanistan
Interesting article considering it was the USMC who were always wearing their Flak Vests and helmets on ops when we were wearing jungle fatigues and soft caps.
Richard's $.02
Never wore body armor, wasn't available.............I remember that part in the movie,To Hell and Back,when Audie Murphy was told by that tank guy as he jumped onto it that they only have 4"(?) of armor plate and he said something like,how thick do you think this armor is,as he rubbed his fatigue shirt............;)
Big Teddy :munchin
Richard - I was in AWG when they did that study. I will say that they did an extremely thorough job. They came up with some great kit; shaved a LOT of weight off the troops and ran the documentation with Johns Hopkins to validate the standards; establish a baseline and prove a marked improvement in freedom of movement and ability to manuever.
Top brass got ahold of the report and it went political. Stalled out. Meanwhile, our kids keep coming home in boxes. The top brass is extremely risk averse and no one wants to have anyone point a finger at them for a troops death. They'd rather have the mission fail before they'd consider allowing subordinate commanders to task-orient the kit, (my opinion).