…the US Marines follow:
Marines Sending in the Tanks
There has been some skepticism over the Marine Corps’ decision to send a company of M1 Abrams tanks to join the battle in southern Afghanistan, but the use of tanks in a counterinsurgency in general, and in Afghanistan in particular, is hardly new.
In Afghanistan, the Canadians and the Danes have used their tanks to great effect–and Canadian Army Maj. Trevor Cadieu has written a detailed account on how tanks became an integral part of the Canadian fight in Kandahar—the place U.S. Marines are fighting now [in fact they are mainly in neighbouring Helmand province]. In December 2006, the Canadians deployed a squadron of Leopard C2 tanks to Kandahar, and the major writes that “after deploying forward … the tank squadron and armoured engineers featured prominently in all major combat operations undertaken by the Canadian BG … Since May 2007, the tank squadron has fought almost constantly alongside Canadian and Afghan infantry in close combat with the Taliban.”
The Canadians say that they’ve found so much success in Afghanistan with the German-made Leopard tank that they completely revised plans for the structure of their ground forces…
The Danes have had much the same experience with the Leopard II in Afghanistan, claiming that the tank’s 120mm gun is so accurate that it minimizes civilian casualties, and the RAND team reports that the Danes “noted that tanks can respond very quickly when contact is made with insurgents, and that it was clear the Taliban respects tank firepower. Indeed, it was stated that Taliban activity drops considerably when tanks are operating in an area.” [The Danes, by the way, are staying fully in the fight.]
And this morning, Jason Fritz, an Army vet and consultant, has this to say about the use of tanks in a counterinsurgency fight in Afghanistan:
You know what scares the hell out of dismounted insurgents? 70 tons of badassery that will make them dead if they mess with it…
Canadian badassery (with some German help):
Mark
Ottawa
I remember a news story in 2002 where the reporter was quoting an Afghan resident about the western countries entry in that area.
The Aghan was stating how Afghans fought tanks. “You ride directly at it on horseback. The tank will only have time to get off a couple of shot before you are upon it”.
I was astonished at the stupidity that the reporter showed by even including this quote in the story. The quote was obviously BS and bluster by a braggart Afghan who was taking gleeful advantage of an ignorant westerner. Was this journalist’s bias against the Afghan invasion so great? Was their ignorance of military matters so immense? Was thier STUPIDITY and gullibility so incredible that they could not recognize complete bullshit when they saw it?
So…..Rambo 3 was a documentry was it?
Most of these asshole journalists get their knowledge of military matters from watching movies and TV. Add that to an anti-western pro Taliban bias and you get stories with quotes like the one above.
Armored, direct fire weapon with an accuracy measured in inches, stand-off of several miles, mobile at 40mph, yeah baby. There’s a lot to like there.
Couple of tanks, some semi-disposable spotter drones to call fire, two or three Coyote armored cars for splattering the guy charging the tanks on his horse… Maybe backed up by some long-loiter aircraft that can put hurt on the ground wholesale. I’m thinking Hawker Typhoon/Douglas Skyraider with a turbo prop, Warthogs, or even those f-in’ huge Hercules ground attack things with the Gatling guns hanging out the side windows. Or God forbid, helicopters.
That’s a basic mounted unit for hunting groups of guys on foot in broken terrain. If I can think of it off the top of my civilian head there’s a lot of highly trained and motivated Canadian Forces officers screaming for it.
We don’t have it, right? Because OUR army is not supposed to be effective, our army is supposed to be International Meals-On-wheels.
Who keeps it that way? the NDP, the Bloc and the Liberals, aided and abbetted by the press.
Same old story.
Tanks rarely travel alone and your infantry can shoot off any ” tankback ” riders of the tank.
So how many NATO tanks have been taken out by Afghan fighters ? If any, it might be having a track blown off by an IED, and if destroyed it would be to be a really big IED.
What you really want with the Taliban is hope they attack your tanks and or infantry as they are completely outclassed and usually get slaughtered, explaining why IEDs are their main tactic unless suicidal, deliberately or due to stupidity.
Also if they shoot at you they self Identify themselves as insurgents and one then knows who to shoot in a war where insurgents hide among the population and minimize the risk of collateral damage of innocents.
Finding ways to provoke attacks is a great way to ” take care ” of the insurgents with a high or small calibre solution !
Someone should mention to Saudi Arabia that there boys in Afghanistan need anti-tank rockets and missiles.
btw, I hope they shoot that Taliban cavalry hero in such a way as to NOT harm the innocent horse! Our Press would have a field day if Canadian troops killed an “innocent creature”.
Think of Layton,Ignatieff,and Pamela Anderson joined in the same cause!
Since the dawn of ‘land battleships’ in WW1 , co-axial machine guns have taken care of the old rider-attacking-the-tank scenario quite effectively.
Since then (as the Afghans well know) tanks have also incorporated pistol ports, smoke and grenade launchers, flame throwers and all sorts of other nasty anti-personnel devices to keep attacking infantry honest.
However, if the baddies choose to believe that attacking a modern battlefield tank will be a walk in the park, we should encourage their delusions.
My son is a U.S. Marine 0331 currently doing EMV at 29 Palms with his rifle company for deployment in January.
I am very encouraged to find that he will have M1A1s providing support for his rifle company!
Keeping in mind that the utiilty of the main gun decreases somewhat as targets in depth are obscured or obstructed by the outer belt of village / town structures etc. However as a long range sniper weapon it’s not half bad.
As for sniping:
http://unambig.com/rifle-and-camera-and-a-dead-deer/
Mark
Ottawa
anyone that thinks a lowly infantryman can’t take out a tank is twit.
[...] can hope. Meanwhile, further to this post on the US Marines sending tanks to Afstan, Where Canada and Denmark [...]