Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2003 18:07:10 -0500
From: danceswithcarp <dcombs-AT-bloomington.in.us>
Subject: Re: vietnam redux


At 05:58 AM 3/25/2003 -0800, roger wrote:
>rumsfeld is just mac-lite.

Emphasis on "lite."   I can't believe people, including Maximum Force 
Powell, bought into this goofy plan.

>when those two
>ah-64 battalions got chewed up, it just restates the fucking obvious.
>helocopters are not 60 ton tanks.  it they were they couldn't fly.  a
>little titanium armor is not the same thing as four or five inches of
>steel.

I saw two Longbows at a firepower demonstration a couple of years 
back.  They were awesome, but they also were targets.  I can not imagine 30 
of those fuckers coming in low. So Saddam take a line from Mogadishu loads 
the Republican Guard onto rooftops in Baghdad by the thousands, and uses 
simple gunnery and unguided RPGs and all thirty are hit.  Whoa.

This is the shit.

>if they expect heliocopters to stand up to sustained 23 mm
>anti-air fire, then they will be disappointed.  it looks like sunday's
>action may have got 15 or so iraqi tanks/apc's, but two battalions of
>ah-64 are out of action for at least a day or two.  apparantly, almost
>every copter took serious hits.  and 5% losses.


Low-tech beats high-tech.   Can anyone spell S-t-a-l-i-n-g-r-a-d?

>to push what amounts to a reinforced division over three hundred miles
>without securing it's logistical base, and then expecting it to fight
>at what could be 1 to 3 or even 1 to 5 odds is not just audacious,
>it's reckless.  i don't care how much air power you have.  these guys
>are absolutely nuts.  what they'll do when they get the two heavy
>divisions on the way, i can only fear.

They are follow-ons, due at the end of April for "occupation."   The 4th 
Infantry Division will be there in two weeks.  This is not the sure thing 
that asswipe Rumsfeld sold to the public.

Somebody ought to strap his ass to the front of a Bradley and drive that 
sucker right into Baghdad.



carp




>they'll have their blood up by
>then as well.  especially if the baghdad fight is bloody.
>
>and basra is a ball-buster.  either fight and secure the damn place or
>let a million people get cholora.  who's idea was this war?
>
>roger