Was out in the woods hunting today. Live in the northwoods-virtually all forest and considered the terrain here vs Afganistan. I came to a few conclusions:

1) Snipers. We will need a shit load. It may be the most effective weapon on both sides.

2) .308.  I believe that the M16 will turn out to be woefully inadequate for this type of warfare. At least in the mountainous portions of the country. The enemy knows the effective range of the M16 and will hide out in caves coming out to strike from longer ranges and then disappearing. I believe they relied primarily on the Lee Enfield rifles during the Soviet occupation and never used the AK-47 much, even though many were captured.

3)Don't know whether the libs got the gov to cut all of our M14s in half but they would be a good choice here. Particularly due to their reliability in cold weather. Winter is coming and it will be damn cold in those mountains. This may be part of the reason for choosing this time of year for the attack. By the time we get our men and equipment in place it will also be too late or too difficult to pull back. Consider the experiences of Napoleon and the Germans in attacking Russia and their winter campaigns.

4) On the other hand, some of our forces will be required to "bust" tunnels and caves. Here the SMG will be needed, probably with soft or hollow point ammo to prevent our own men from being killed by richocets. These caves and their approaches will be well booby-trapped as well.

5)The enemies knowledge of their caves and approaches gives them a tremendous tactical advantage. Are our satellites capable of mapping their cave networks which they will use to hide and maneuver? Anyone?

6) We will need a large number of infrared scopes,etc. The enemy is only likely to move into the open at night. Such would also allow our tunnel busters to see around corners without exposing themselves.

7)We will have to move along mountains, etc. It will be rough going but to move across exposed valleys would clearly be foolish. Maybe we could drop men on LZs near the top of some of these ranges and work our way down.

8) We need some people with experience in mountain fighting. This point has been made before, here. Our guys that fought on Mt. Surabachi at Iwo Jima could tell us alot but most are pretty old or dead.

9) Any books out there on mountain fighting tactics? Might be useful for our troops to read.

Why go into the tunnels and caves after them, when you can just blow the entrance and seal them inside?

Their will be interconected networks of caves and tunnels. Do that and they will just pop up at another locale and shoot your men in the back. One option would be to infiltate the area and wait them out but it will be a long wait. There are sure to be water cisterns within the mountains. They will not doubt have large food, weapon, and ammo caches as well.

drjarhead,

On a point by point basis of your post:

1) Agreed

2)Negative.  They used captured AK's and even locally produced handmade copies of it.  They also were impressed enough with the AK-74 and its performance to call it the "poison rifle" because of its lethality. They are still using huge stocks of AKs and, for longer ranges, Dragunovs.

3) All weapons become unreliable in sub-zero temps if they are improperly prepared, to include the M1 and all its descendants.  Read about GI's pissing on the frozen actions of their rifles in Korea for further info.  Furthermore, we might be better served to study the German/Russian mountain troops and their experiences in WWII, as well as the methods used by the Finns, Norwegians, etc.  We aren't going to be fighting on flatland, which is what Napolean and the Germans (mainly) did.

4) M4 will work just as well or better than any smg.

5)Satellites are of limited use in seeing underground.  Any massing of personnel or materiel is detectable during the transport phase if you have a bird overhead to catch it.

6) Agreed

7)Traversing mountainous terrain is not as easy as you seem to think.  Unless you want to turn it into "mountain climbing", you are restricted to a limited number of traversable avenues.  Hence, the military importance of such famous places as the Khyber Pass.  You don't have to hold the whole mountain range, only the useful passes.

8) There are still people who know mountain fighting available.  We just need to take advantage of them.

9) Histories of the German mountain troops of WWII are a good place to start.

Apart from the 172nd Brigade in Alaska, what troops do we have that have current mountain training.

If the Afgans fight with AK's we will kick the shit out of them. More likely as they will be on the defensive this time, like they were for the first several years of the war with the Soviets, they will pull the Lee Enfields out again, along with SVD's and RPKs. If they dont know already, they will soon learn that they will want to avoid close contact with our troops. The terrain is very condusive to long range rifle fire, there will be a big tactical advantage to the side who can demonstrate the longest effective range for rifle fire.

Golgo, never said they didn't use AKs but in general there were more long range battles than the russians or we expect. Don't claim advancing through mountainous terrain will be easy. The overall theme of my post was just the opposite, in fact. As for Napoleon and the germans against Russia my point is meant to highlight some of the difficulties we will face. We can expect cold and snow, making it difficult to maneuver and obtain logistical support. The M14 would provide a longer range weapon which we probably have available along with a more reliable weapon for winter fighting. The Seals use it for cold weather ops for this reason. I agree that an M4 is a viable alternative to SMG but I still hold that a shorter, FA capable weapon in pistol calibers would be more advantageous.
I do have major concerns about the M16 in this environment. In essentially every war, the weapons and tactics used from previous wars have to be changed in order to adapt to new environments and enemy tactics. This, as well, occurs throughout a conflict. I'm hoping that our military leadership has finally learned to anticipate this. Desert Storm was an exception in that when we finally engaged the enemy we probably could have defeated them with slingshots. Just kidding, Golgo, I really am.

The British SAS had no complaints about the performance of their M16's- complete with pencil barrels and the old ammo- in the Falklands where the ranges were just as long. But they are going to feel the need for the long barrel, .30cals are not absolutely necessacary.  Far more important is how seriously our ground forces have taken the task of developing individual marksmanship, and the issuing of optics to deal with the longer ranges.

One would think the M14 would be the better choice (over the M4 or M16). I would too.

I don't think the military is pushing individual marksmanship as much as it once did, however. Atleast in the general ranks.

My choice (if I were there and had the choice) would probably be the M14 with optics available.

Ground troops in Afghanistan would be a logistical nightmare no matter what they carried. Bad idea.

Many of our European "allies" have specialized mountain troops.  While I wouldn't count on any of them to follow us into combat, except possibly the Brits and their Commonwealth troops, I do think that they would be willing to provide us with advisors who could give the benefit of their specialized knowledge to our training cadre.  Right off the top of my head, I know that the Italians and Germans have such specialized troops, for example.

Most of the M-14's and spare parts that didn't go to Capt. Crunch went to Bosnia and the other Balkan states as foreign aid to arm thier new "police" forces. Thus the recent shortage of M-14 parts.

.300 Winchester Magnum is the way to go for those long, open desert shots !!!!!!!

[img]www.dennysguns.com/denny/images/gapr/guns/01.jpg[/img]

Few soldiers are even capable of hitting a man-sized target at 300 meters. The problem is marksmanship, not the weapons available.

If we do fight any kind of action in such terrain, what will happen and happen quickly is that those Mk 19s and M2 MGs that most support units pay little heed to will suddenly become important - just as NBC training suddenly became important before desert storm.

The combat arms guys already have plenty of machine guns, etc. for the longer range engagements, not to mention mortars organic to each battalion.

There is no reason to add a new small arm and add a new logistical headache. The army has a hard enough time supporting the systems it has now.


Adam

My choices
A10 Warthogs
155s
AH-1s

Lots of good ideas here. No doubt, we'll have plenty of guys with some kind of mountain experience.

I don't see any other way to get the job done besides ground troops. I'd be interested in other ideas. Cruise missiles will only make us look impotent and effect nothing. Airstrikes? At what? they've got little if any infrastructure that will effect a military outcome. I don't see how else you'll get at a bunch of guys holed up in the mountains with enough supplies to last a year or more(my assumption). Armor is not going to be very mobile in this kind of environment and will require infantry as well. Carpet bombing? Hope we've got 1000 bombs for each one of the enemy.  Mortars will be useful in about 1 out of 10 engagements at best in my opinion and you will have to lug the damn thing as well as shells all over the place until useful. Ideas?

Historically, the Soviets were mopping up the Mujahadeen pretty well with heavy attack helicopters like the Hind, until we tipped the balance back by supplying the Mujahadeen with ground-to-air missiles.  Our own attack choppers are far more sophisticated than the Hind, in terms of armament and electronics, but the number of shoulder launched anti-aircraft missiles the Taliban/bin Laden have at their disposal is still an important question. The choppers are going to play a critical role, but we had better be prepared to lose a fair number of them.  Perhaps we shouldn't be retiring all those Hueys and Cobras just yet.

Just how useful those heavy weapons will be remains to be seen as we have no ways to haul them other than humping them or carrying them in humvees.  Neither of which is a very good way to catch a Afgan tribesman.

maybe ive got this all wrong, but i think we want to kill 100-200 terrorists, not invade and occupy a country.

this is a job for intel, standoff weapons and specops to mop up, then we go home. patience is a virtue here, it may take years for bin laden and his crew to pop their heads up, but if we're properly positioned he'll trouble us no more.

there will always be terrorism, and we cant wipe it out completely, but we can de-head this particular snake.

The hunting will likely be the easy part. Securing our support areas, supply lines, and convoys while on the move - against trained terrorists - will be the hard part. It is also in these capacities where I would say range of small arms would be most critical. In these cases, we already have weapons that can reach out a good ways - no need for M14s.

These guys will likely avoid contact with our line units, preferring to stick with their expertise - the deep battle.


Adam

If it was me, and I wanted to hit something 500 yds away, i would rather have that Barrett .50 cal the SEAL teams carry.  bet that would knock those pricks right off their horses.  

During the Cold War, NATO expected that any Warsaw Pact invasion of Western Europe would involve operations along the Norwegian coast (to control the air and sea routes across the North Atlantic).  Marine Corps units trained to operate in this very cold, mountainous area.

The Soviets had problems, even with their giant heilos, with the hot and high conditions in the summer and the weather in the winter. Almost no part of Afganistan is lower than Denver and goes up to 20,000+ feet. That was before the Stingers appeared.  Our hilos were never designed for high altitude work, they were built to fight in Europe. Its not that Russian helicopters are better they are just different. If a Mi-17 tries to follow a Blackhawk in NOE it would smear itself on a hillside somewhere. On the other hand Indian Air Force Mi-17s frequently are used to rescue people off the sides of K2 and Everest. A Blackhawk with a load of combat equipped infantry cant even reach that high. Much less one of the Marines antique Sea Knights.

UH-60L Blackhawk Fact Page: [url]http://www.sikorsky.com/programs/blackhawk/uh-60l.html[/url]

Blackhawk performance:


Hopefully the DoD will hurry up acquisition of the V-22 Osprey which can handle these high altitudes.
Osprey Performance: