Battle of Wanat, Afghanistan July 13, 2008

[walker 0]

Hi all

Here is an AAR of the Battle of Wannat, worth reading:

http://www.cgsc.edu/carl/download/csipubs/Wanat.pdf

Enough Said Walker

[celery 8]

Enough Said Walker

Wait, what? :confused:

[Zipper5 74]

My God... Did it change? :p

Nice find walker. Quite the interesting read.

[Tonci87 163]

Hi all

Enough Said Walker

Jesus :eek:

EDIT: Ok I have read it. It is very detailed and very intense to read. Unbelivable what situations the soldiers have to face there....

Edited November 18, 2010 by Tonci87

[walker 0]

Wait, what? :confused:

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. :)

Kind Regards walker

[Hans Ludwig 0]

tl;dr

[Heatseeker 0]

War is not a science but an art.

That makes the taleban fine artists then... the outposts were abandoned anyway.

Afaik valley of death is Taleban turf..

[Tonci87 163]

I wonder why those Taliban didn start tu run when the Apaches showed up, they must have know that they didn´t have a chance from that point on. Or don´t they know about the FLIR?

[HyperU2 11]

I wonder why those Taliban didn start tu run when the Apaches showed up, they must have know that they didn´t have a chance from that point on. Or don´t they know about the FLIR?

They trust Allah to aim their bullets and deflect ours.

[vilas 477]

not only trust god, but also have nothing to lose, also motivation is their own just meaning

west people lost some "just, moral" motivation in wars, they say about "profits, economical interests" and kill and die for money

people who fight for cause do not think about money, but about just, morality , cause, belief, freedom, tradition, home, relatives etc.

this is something which some people in west might not understand or think it is naive

[11aTony 0]

Or maybe they are not pussyes:).

[Baff1 0]

people who fight for cause do not think about money, but about just, morality , cause, belief, freedom, tradition, home, relatives etc.

this is something which some people in west might not understand or think it is naive

The Taliban pay their soldiers more than the Afghan government pay theirs.

Money is a factor in life.

[vilas 477]

The Taliban pay their soldiers more than the Afghan government pay theirs.

Money is a factor in life.

i thought they fight for "idea" only , do they really get paid ? those guys hiding in mountains are payed ?

[Heatseeker 0]

not only trust god, but also have nothing to lose, also motivation is their own just meaning

west people lost some "just, moral" motivation in wars, they say about "profits, economical interests" and kill and die for money

people who fight for cause do not think about money, but about just, morality , cause, belief, freedom, tradition, home, relatives etc.

this is something which some people in west might not understand or think it is naive

Perhaps you could specify wich economic interests in Afghanistan justify the billions the US have spent in reconstruction, aid and improving living conditions and local economy?

Stop posting nonsense.. justice and tradition :rolleyes: ..

Edit:

Read the AAR, its actually a worthy read.

[vilas 477]

Perhaps you could specify wich economic interests in Afghanistan justify the billions the US have spent in reconstruction, aid and improving living conditions and local economy?

speeding up own companies ?

cause economy rolls, buidling, war technology etc.

who build it ? local companies, Russian companies ? who has job and is it gift or credits for banks ?

Stop posting nonsense.. justice and tradition

for you it may be nonsense, for many people it is ONLY reason that justify violence

[Tonci87 163]

Vilas, read the AAR.

A big part of the insurgent fighters there consists of men who are payed by the taliban to fight because they have no other job. I would have thought that at least they start to run if shit is getting serious for them. Maybe the Taliban do it like the soviets in world war 2? Fighters with low morale together with some skilled Taliban who shoot everyone that want to run away....

[Perforator 10]

Thanks for posting the link walker.

[Daniel 0]

I would have thought that at least they start to run if shit is getting serious for them.

Drugs + religious indoctrination perhaps. Might explain how they continue to try to fight on despite taking direct fire from 30mm cannon.

[walker 0]

Hi all

Or you might take on board the explanations given in the AAR and then follow them up.

There was an incident in the same Waigal Valley preceding the battle that may have contributed to the motivation of the fighters.

In the contents

The 4 July Attack on Bella ..................................................50

The 4 July Attack on Bella

While TF Rock prepared to evacuate COP Bella, the battalion’s intelligence officers expected an insurgent attack on the outpost. This belief seemed to be realized on 3 July when an insurgent mortar round severely wounded Specialist Gabriel Green at Bella. When the AAF launched yet another mortar attack the next day, Myer directed a team of two AH-64 Apache gunships to fire on a pair of pickup trucks believed to be fleeing from the AAF mortar firing position. The Apaches destroyed the trucks and the mortar fires on Bella, which had been increasing for several weeks, ceased. In the remaining four days of Bella’s occupation, the AAF initiated no further attacks on the closing outpost. Seemingly, the air strikes had broken the back of the pending enemy attack and, in fact, signals intelligence which was later confirmed by Schloesser, indicated that the insurgent leader in the Waygal District, Mullah Osman, had in fact, been wounded in the counterstrikes and several insurgents were killed. Thus the Apache attack disrupted the insurgent command and control at a critical time.111

Despite this, and predictably, AAF propaganda portrayed the Apache attack as yet another instance of a callous and indiscriminate American

51

attack on innocent civilians, since the attack had apparently killed and injured several civilians who were also in the targeted trucks. The insurgents claimed that the Apaches arbitrarily attacked the members of the staff of the Bella Medical Clinic, who were simply fleeing the area in response to a Coalition warning to evacuate in advance of the closure of the Bella COP. The insurgents were supported in their claims by both the Nuristani provincial governor, Tamin Nuristani, and the Waygal District Chief, Ziaul Rahman. When Nuristani appeared on the Al-Jazeera Arabic television network with his claims three days before the attack on Wanat, Afghan President Hamid Karzai summarily removed him as provincial governor.112

TF Rock and TF Bayonet officers unhesitatingly contend that UAV coverage clearly revealed that the engaged vehicles were fleeing from confirmed indirect fire attack sites that were actively harassing COP Bella. To support the assertion that enemy mortar crews had been inside the trucks, TF Rock noted a cessation of insurgent indirect fire attacks following the 4 July helicopter strike. Ostlund stated that forensic examinations conducted on some of those killed disclosed the presence of gunpowder, that weapons were found within the vehicles, and that TF Rock believed some of the dead to be known insurgents. However, because the vehicles allegedly contained at least one identified guard from the Bella Medical Clinic, the presence of gunpowder and weapons could be explained otherwise. Pry, the TF Rock Intelligence Officer, asserted that the pickup trucks initially contained civilians departing from Bella but that insurgents forced their way on board to provide them with “human shields†to facilitate their escape from the attack site and in effect launched their attack to lure the Americans into causing civilian casualties. The CJTF-101 commander recognized, however, that in striking at the insurgents in the pickup trucks, the helicopter gunships had killed civilians.113

The relationship of the 4 July incident to the later action at Wanat is a matter of some dispute. The AR 15-6 investigation conducted by TF Bayonet ultimately concluded that there was “insufficient evidence†to prove that there were non combatant civilians among the casualties in the pickup trucks but the investigation did keep Myer away from Wanat for several days.114

http://www.cgsc.edu/carl/download/csipubs/Wanat.pdf

As allways follow the link to the original text in full

An earlier draft of the document from another site reveals:

...An event that had significant ramifications on subsequent operations in the Waigal Valley occurred on July 4, 2008. On this date a pair of pickup trucks, deliberately fleeing from the vicinity of an indirect fire attack launched on COP Bella as coalition forces would attest, or simply departing from the Bella Medical Clinic in response to a coalition warning to evacuate the Bella vicinity as per Afghan reports, were engaged by a team of Apache AH-64 Attack Helicopters and destroyed. The pick-up trucks may or may not have actually contained militants, and a careful study by TF Bayonet was inconclusive. Among the seventeen dead were all of the health care providers from the Bella Health Clinic, one of the only medical facilities in the Waigal Valley. According to Afghan media sources (which have been widely repeated throughout numerous Afghan sources), the following were casualties:

Killed:

Dr. Nemetalluh, doctor of Bella village’s clinic

Kalam Massi, guard at clinic

Naeem Massi, clinic nurse employee

Sonkra, landowner near Bella

Rafiullah, son of Sonkra

Sonkra’s wife

Noorullah, son of Rafiullah

Sonkra’s grandchild, 8 mos old

Sulaiman Klorik, a shopkeeper

Hazrat Ali, a driver

Shoaib Sondi, a shopkeeper

Kafayatullah, a driver

Tabgul, a driver

Dr. Najeebullah, a doctor at Bella’s clinic

Sanaullah, a shopkeeper

(Two other civilians).

Wounded:

Wiaullah Muraluddin, a landowner near Bella

Dr. Zainab, female employee at Bella’s clinic

Asma, 8, daughter of Dr. Nematullah

Abdullah, son of Mira Jan, a shopkeeper in Bella

Rohullah, a worker in Waigal

Ansarullah, a shopkeeper...

http://www.battlefieldtourist.com/content/battle-of-wanat-historical-analysis-rough-draft-release/

As allways follow the link to the original text in full

It is interesting to read and compare the two versions of the document.

Kind Regards walker

Edited November 20, 2010 by walker

[Tonci87 163]

Yes it is. By the way did someone read the Thread where it says that the US want to deploy M1 Tanks in Afghanistan? What do you think, would a Vehicle like that changed the battle of Wanat if it would have been deployed there? How vulnerable are thos Tanks to RPGs?

[Heatseeker 0]

Yes it is. By the way did someone read the Thread where it says that the US want to deploy M1 Tanks in Afghanistan? What do you think, would a Vehicle like that changed the battle of Wanat if it would have been deployed there? How vulnerable are thos Tanks to RPGs?

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=35.051605,70.913014&spn=0.026314,0.055747&t=h&z=15&lci=org.wikipedia.en

The only way they got resupplied was by helicopter.. those guys were sitting in spread out death holes. Theres a few videos of them on YT too, enthusiastically atacking the mountains with heavy caliber machinegun fire, mortars and arty..

[eble 3]

Yes it is. By the way did someone read the Thread where it says that the US want to deploy M1 Tanks in Afghanistan? What do you think, would a Vehicle like that changed the battle of Wanat if it would have been deployed there? How vulnerable are thos Tanks to RPGs?

I've seen the Taliban with RPG 7's nothing to worry a tank, tho if the taliban get hold of those more modern RPG's like the used in Lebanon against the Isreali's then I would be very worried.

Most attacks againt tanks would be by IED, and I've yet to see a tank on top of a mountain so I'm not sure who they are for.

Plenty or use to be plenty of youtube footage of destroyed tanks in Iraq, even some showing IED attacks.

[The Hebrew Hammer 10]

There is footage of the battle of Wanat, wasn't it Chosen company that got hit? It's mentioned in Restrepo

[Baff1 0]

i thought they fight for "idea" only , do they really get paid ? those guys hiding in mountains are payed ?

Well paid by Afghan standards.

Everybody has to eat and soldiers need to feed their families too. Soldiers that don't get paid have an annoying habit of changing sides.

[walker 0]

i thought they fight for "idea" only , do they really get paid ? those guys hiding in mountains are payed ?

Hi all

As I said the AAR and its earlier drafts make clear the motivations of "Taliban" fighters as the various contributors, drafts, investigations, reports and news articles make clear the motivations are complex. I use the quotes because they were/are not all "Talliban".

Simplifying your enemy is a prime example of how to loose a war. If you recognise the enemies complexity you can target them more effectively. Which ones can you do a deal with? Which are the nutjobs? etc. Also if you are having to be dogmatic and using derogation, disparagement, depreciation to belittle your enemy it perhaps shows you are unsure of your own motives.

Me I am clear why we are fighting in Afghanistan of 9/11, 7/7 and other terrorist attacks which was caused by Al Qaeda and Bin Laden who were supported by the previous Taliban regime. We there implementing martial law in Afghanistan to make sure that Al Qaeda and Bin Laden cannot control Afghanistan and use it launch further attacks. Once Afghanistan can rule and protect itself we are out of there like a shot but we will still be after Al Qaeda and Bin Laden.

Kind Regards walker

Edited November 24, 2010 by walker