Six Harriers destroyed, two badly damaged, two Marines killed, after enemy made it by all of our sensors and onto the flight line. (This image from neighboring Kandahar Airfield; the attack was in Helmand.)
In heavy vegetation, IED jammers are not useful because the enemy cannot see far enough to use command-detonated IEDs. As in Vietnam, IEDs will mostly be victim-operated, and in many places, nearly impossible to search for with anything other than your eyes and tactical experience.
High-hot conditions are a problem for UAVs and other aircraft in Afghanistan. These things can survive only in uncontested airspace, and will be of little help in jungle.
UAVs are useless in many circumstances with thick vegetation, and whereas we are blessed with mostly clear skies over Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan, jungles are often covered with clouds. Not that the clouds matter; the optics cannot see through vegetation.
As for helicopters, Kiowa Warriors and Apache gunships that provide so much cover in southern Afghanistan will be largely negated in jungles. In the mountainous regions, they have little stamina. They will not see the jungle floor under triple canopy or thick forests. Our Vietnam veterans can fill in the blanks on this. They already have in many of the books I have read.
In Afghanistan, we have worn out our less than 100 HH-60G helicopters used by Air Force “Pedro,” which at more than $40m per aircraft are strategic assets. We wore them out while they took up slack from Army Dustoff MEDEVAC, aircraft that cost about 1/4th the cost of an HH-60G. I have flown on missions with Pedro that amounted to little more than milk runs for patients who were in no danger, at bases that were secure. This would be like the Post Office delivering mail using Ferraris. The closer you look, the less sense it makes.
If the Post Office determined that it wants to raise stamp prices to $10 per letter, we would become suspicious of their spending wisdom because we know it can be done for less. But when the military does it, we cow down to their omniscience and right to our last drop of gold, and we write the check.
We send the Dustoff helicopters on MEDEVAC missions, often requiring Apache escort, simply because we refuse to remove the Red Crosses and put machine guns on the Dustoff birds. This causes MEDEVAC delays, and requires more fuel and helicopter support when we are perpetually short of helicopters in Afghanistan. Fuel can cost literally hundreds of dollars per gallon. At that price, how much does it cost to even start an Apache?
Our Army lies, claiming that it must wear the Red Crosses in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, when anyone who is tracking on the facts knows this is untrue, and in fact that we perpetually violate the GC in our method of use of the Red Cross. We are as guilty as the enemy for using ambulances to deliver military resupply. Don’t let anyone kid you on that. We go nuts when the enemy uses ground ambulances to deliver supplies during combat, yet we do the same with helicopters. If we simply remove the Red Crosses and add guns, all tactical, legal, and moral obligations would be met, and we would save lives and money.
UAV at Kandahar Airfield
Under jungle canopy, the satellites are not entirely useless: they can help predict the weather, and help with communications. But you still need a line-of-sight gap in jungle canopy, and it must align with a satellite or relay aircraft.
In jungles, tactical communications will be impaired. Even during broad daylight, a company commander can have a hard time controlling his platoons, and platoon leaders struggle to control their squads. The jungle can be so thick that just a short distance away, friendly forces will be invisible even in daylight.
Jungles abhor American gadget warfare, and strongly favor people who live there.
UAVs cannot spot or laser-designate targets that are under jungle canopy
In the open spaces of Afghanistan, highly trained snipers with whiz-bang stuff can kill enemy a mile away. Deep in the jungles, a far shot might be fifty meters.
Personal weapons: the lasers and gadgets stuck to rifle rails are deadweight with batteries. They get caught in endless wait-a-minute vines. It can be better to strip off the gadgetry, and to use iron sights, but many of our troops these days are no longer comfortable with iron sights.
In the jungle, many tactical firefights will be at close range, as they were in urban combat of Iraq, and as they were in Vietnam jungles. It will often be hard to see targets even in broad daylight. Gun gadgets offer serious advantages in Afghanistan, as they did in Iraq, but in jungle, surgical accuracy can be less important than reliability and power.
Stryker in Kandahar Province, 2010.
Who has the real advantage? The guys riding elephants, or the guys riding horses?
Most IEDs in Afghanistan are made using these ubiquitous yellow jugs.
Despite all our new gadgetry, Americans should be under no illusions about America’s ability to fight in the jungles and swamps of Africa, Asia or anywhere. If anything, we are less capable now than ever before.
While our young people are playing video games, their young counterparts in jungles and deserts around the globe can navigate using the stars, the sun, or the flight of birds. They can go for months without comfort and never notice, because they are comfortable. They look poor, and they may seem uneducated, but these people are part of the terrain. To underestimate them is to die.
We have heard the lies that we never lost a tactical engagement in Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan. This goes against all common sense, and simple experience for those who truly fought there. We lost tactical engagements every week—and in fact probably every day—when IEDs destroy elephant trucks and wound and kill troops and the enemy gets away cold.
We lost nearly an entire Marine squadron of Harriers, just weeks ago. The idea that we do not lose tactical engagements in Afghanistan is fantasy island. How did we lose an entire war, as in Vietnam, without losing a single battle? It’s all a lie.
But Americans in denial will say of Vietnam, “That was just a policing action.” Vietnam was a war that left about 60,000 Americans dead, along with perhaps a million others, and demonstrated fully that America could be defeated on the battlefield, which contributed to our current war in Afghanistan.
For our part, instead of using our gear to accentuate the use of basic tactics, we use it as a crutch to replace basics, and it is obviously not working.
After thousands of years, terrain remains the single most important factor in combat. We drifted away from the basics, bought into the wow factor, and are being beaten by farmers using tactics as old as war.
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