You have to control the air first, then the ground troops can control the ground.  Sort of like having a rifle, but no ammo; makes a good club, but a combination of the two works better.

Eddie

From the Soldier of Magazine [url]http://www.sofmag.com[/url] 12/01 "How the Soviets Won In Afghanistian" by Jack Wheeler page 24.  Between the Soviet airpower heliocopter gunships & jet fighters, and the Spetnaz(Soviet special forces), they were kicking the mujahideen's butt.  On Sept 26, '86 when the Regean promised Stinger missles appeared, the tide started to change when the "muj" started shooting down hundreds of Hinds and jet fighters.  According to Dr. Wheeler, the secret to successful campaign against the "muj" was the Spetsnaz.  They started to parachute the Spetsnaz into areas of encampments and relentlessly hunting them down and killing under the cover of darkness.

Yep! The read army could take there rags and wipe there a$$es with them if they really wanted to.
They just don't not want to play after we got ther.

DoubleFeed:  Actually this lesson was learned in WWII.  It was relearned in Vietnam.  Etc., etc.

They better get some A-10's and AH-1J's in there (don't really need AH-64's), after they allow some B-1'a & B-52's to carpet bomb the Taliban front lines at Begram AB & Mazif whatever Sharif. The Northern Alliance aren't very impressive & need all the help they can get.

My opinions of course.

Talyn

This war has been given to the politicians in the state dept, therefore it is no longer winnable.

a sad state of affairs, but true.

Wonder how "shocked" the public at large will be when they see some of the first Mujahadeen video tape of War and all of its raw reality (todays four letter word). You know the worthless sacks of shit at CNN will be the first to air it 24/7 and I'll bet that they will dig out every 60's ass clown to whine and cry about how much America sucks followed closely by jessy jerkoffson sueing for peace negotiations. I still don't believe the vocal minority in this country has the balls to do what it's going to take to win this thing.

Rant over, ECR out
Semper Fi

I am shocked at how badly the US Military officials have under estimated the Taliban forces.  Don't they do any research?  Do they think we can just go around dropping bombs to win a war?  Do they really think adding ground troops with air support will really work?  Did the air war work in Kosovo? No.  Did air and ground troops win in Vietnam?  No.  Is every single country in the alliance getting pissed at how longs it's taking, with no results and lots of civilian casualties?  Yes.

I think it was day 5 of the bombing, the military officials said they were shocked that there wasn't a large number of defections from the Taliban forces.  It's now been three weeks and there still haven't been any major defections and there hasn't really been any ground gained either.

I hope the US planners realize this soon and change their strategy, instead of doing what the Soviets did and try sending in ground troops with conventional air support, thinking that we will just walk all over the Taliban.

All allied countries are pissed?, looks like you are the only one smoking right now.

Of BLOODY course with will last long, proper planning and intel gathering takes time, so does political work to get Arab countrie to back up the actions against terrorists.

WTF you know about the U.S tactics, how have they underestimated the Taliban, looks to me they have done a good job of destroying military targets and utilizing special operations forces. Lot´s of civilian casualties, of yeah, the rubble they so on TV could be from 1986.

Of course there will be unfortunate casualties, you can´t fight a war with a 100% accuracy, but this sure as hell isn´t flying jets into civilian buildings.

[b]Think[/b] , before you make ASSumptions.

^BTT^

I have a vid clip of an execution of a Russian soldier by Chechen force. Chechnya is not Afghanistan, but your point about video is so right. This clip makes the Somali tape of USGI getting dragged look like a comedy movie. They filmed a closeup of a soldier sawing through the guy's throat with a combat knife and hacking off his head with a shovel. It is NOT for consumption by the fainthearted American public.

War is shit.

Actually, the Serbs [b]did[/b] withdraw from Kosovo, although the situation there differed in some important respects from the war in Afghanistan.